Decks have been cleared for the setting up of a Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) with the Union home ministry receiving the presidential assent to the GTA Bill on Wednesday. The home ministry has communicated the development to the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government which will now pave the way for the formation of a new hill council through a gazette notification.

With two days to go for the Assembly results, senior Congress leader and Union minister Beni Prasad Verma sprang a surprise on Sunday by pleading for a post-poll alliance with the BSP to check the Sam

Elections to the Assem-blies of five states, staggered across a little over a month, ended on Saturday with Uttar Pradesh and Goa joining Punjab and Uttarakhand in breaking previous records and mar-king their highest ever voter turnouts. Counting will take place March 6.

Uttar Pradesh recorded 60.1 per cent voter turnout in the sixth phase polls on Tuesday in western Uttar Pradesh spread over 13 districts covering 68 Assembly segments and having the largest concentration of jats and Muslims.
An election official in Delhi said, “The turnout shows an increase of around 29 per cent as compared to the previous Assembly polls in 2007.”

The 24-hour nationwide strike on Tuesday forced another holiday on West Bengal. Except some stray incidents, the day went off largely peacefully. The Left Front which extended its support to the strike called by the Central trade unions, claimed that the shutdown was total in the state.

Uttar Pradesh recorded a 59.2 per cent peaceful voter turnout in the fifth phase that went to polls on Thursday spread across 13 districts comprising Ferozabad, Kanshi Ram Nagar, Etah, Mainpuri, Aurraiya, Etawah, Kanpur, Jalaun, Ramabai Nagar, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Mahoba and Lalitpur, thereby maintaining a high percentage of voter turnout in every phase and that too in the absence of any major untoward incident.

India and Italy continued to tussle Wednesday over the two Italian marines who shot dead two Indian fishermen last week as Italy’s deputy foreign minister Steffan de Mistura met minister of state for external affairs Preneet Kaur, who reiterated New Delhi’s firm line on the law taking its course.

Amid speculation that a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) is considering lending money to cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines, the DGCA on Wednesday submitted a status report to the government on the airline. Kingfisher, meanwhile, submitted its revised plan schedule to the DGCA.

The DGCA said Sunday it hadn’t been informed by Kingfisher Airlines in adv-ance about cancellations and largescale disruption of flights, as these wreaked havoc at airports across the country on Sunda

Accusing the Centre of infringing on federal rights of the states, chief ministers of Uttarakhand and Tripura on Sunday also joined the bandwagon of states who are opposing the setting up of the Natio