The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a PIL challenging the suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, sub-divisional magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, after she initiated a crackdown on illegal sand mining in the area. The Akhilesh Yadav government has, however, maintained that the reason for her suspension is that she had ordered demolition of a wall at an under-construction mosque which allegedly led to communal tension. A bench headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam listed the PIL for hearing on August 12 after the petitioner pleaded for an urgent hearing alleging that Ms Nagpal is suffering hardship.

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Rebels fire at police in Karbi Anglong, call for 12-day strike
MANOJ ANAND
Guwahati, Aug. 8

The situation in trouble-torn Karbi Anglong, which was limping back to normalcy, became tense once again with suspected Karbi People’s Liberation Tigers (KPLT) rebels attacking a police station and threatening residents of Diphu to observe bandh for 12 days.
Disclosing that heavily armed militants attacked Uttar Borbeel police outpost in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, security sources said that some armed rebels who came in civil dresses also threatened the shopkeepers and residents of the district to observe 12-day-long bandh called by KPLT.
Informing that shops and business establishments had started operating as usual on Thursday morning at Diphu and its nearby town areas, security sources said that soon after the threats of the armed rebels, it was closed.

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K’taka Opp. alliance likely
B. Aravinda Shetty
BENGALURU, AUG. 8

For the first time, Opposition parties in Karnataka are on the threshold of forging a grand alliance against the Congress ahead of the next year’s general elections with the Bharatiya Janata Party reaching out to Janata Dal(S) on one hand and Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) on the other in the run-up to bypolls to fill two vacancies in Lok Sabha and three in the Legislative Council.
A day after two Bharatiya Janata Party candidates withdrew Bengaluru (rural) and Mandya Lok Sabha seats to avoid a split in anti-Congress votes, the party struck a deal with the KJP for bypolls to the Upper House.

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Modi already a poster boy?
AGE CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Aug. 8

Amidst growing clamour within the BJP to announce the name of its PM candidate soon, some posters carrying Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and a new slogan “Nayi soch nayi umeed (new thinking, new hope)” emerged in parts of the capital. Mr Modi is considered the front-runner for the party’s PM candidate. However, the BJP maintained that the posters were “individual’s effort” and “not the official campaign theme” of the party.

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Ishrat case: SC rejects Pandey’s plea to protect from arrest
Ridhima Malhotra
New Delhi, August 8

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to grant interim protection for three days to senior IPS officer P.P. Pandey from being arrested by the CBI in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
The top court decided to hear on August 12 his application challenging a Gujarat high court order rejecting his anticipatory bail plea.
The counsel for Pandey urged a bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjana Desai to grant him protection till Monday but the bench turned down his request saying it will hear the matter on August 12. Pandey, who has been named as an accused in the CBI’s chargesheet in the fake encounter case, was earlier declared as an absconder by the high court.