A Meghalaya police personnel was arrested by Delhi police for opening fire outside the Uzbekistan embassy in the high-security Chanakyapuri area of the city on Wednesday evening.

Intensifying the demand for the ouster of the beleaguered Delhi urban development minister Raj Kumar Chouhan, the BJP has said that the party would raise the issue in Parliament. The party said that the Congress should take the Supreme Court decision on quashing the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner as a warning and it should not protect the “corrupt” minister.

In a gruesome incident, agitated employees of a steel plant on Thursday burnt alive deputy general manager Radheshyam Ray at Titlagarh town.
“Ray had received 90 per cent burn injury. Despite our serious efforts, we could not save his life. He breathed his last at 5.20 pm,” Dr Usharani Das of the Bolangir district headquarters hospital, said.

The Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, on Friday held consultations in the wake of the Supreme Court quashing P.J. Thomas’s appointment as CVC that has come as a major embarrassment to the government.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has said that the onus of giving the right information about a person to be recruited at a high-level was on the state departments. The DoPT said this while replying to an RTI plea filed on the basis of news reports, which said that rules were bent to accommodate Mr P.J. Thomas as the CVC.

Welcoming the Supreme Court’s judgment quashing Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) P.J. Thomas’s appointment to the post, the main Opposition BJP asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to “introspect” whether he was “misled or allowed himself to be misled” on Mr Thomas’ appointment.

While quashing the appointment of P.J. Thomas as CVC, the Supreme Court has laid seven-point guidelines for the Union government for future appointment of the country’s watchdog against corruption to avid recurrence of any other episode like this.

The government on Thursday cleared a path-breaking draft legislation dealing with sexual offences against children. The bill envisages a jail term up to seven years and a fine of `50,000 for such crimes.

Even as government on Thursday maintained a brave face claiming that the process of appointing a new CVC will be initiated as soon as possible, it is likely that the top corruption watchdog body may remain without a chief for quite some time. They have been forced to undertake a fresh exercise in the wake of the Supreme Court decision invalidating the appointment of the CVC, P.J. Thomas.

With the Supreme Court striking down the appointment of the incumbent Central Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas on charges of corruption there’s a strong possibility of former state director-general and inspector general of police, R. Srikumar, taking over the top seat on the national anti-corruption watchdog.