National News

Days after the controversy over Sachin Tendulkar's remarks on Mumbai, the state government has decided to felicitate him for his achievements saying he has brought glory and pride to India and Maharashtra.

Turning the heat on the government over its new sugarcane pricing policy, Opposition parties said on Thursday that it will not allow Parliament to function till the Centre withdraws the ordinance, which they termed as a "black law".

In yet another legal setback to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected her plea for quashing a PIL filed against her in the Taj Corridor scandal.

David Coleman Headley, the alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba operative held in the US by the FBI for planning terror attacks in India and Denmark, lived in an apartment in south Mumbai's Breach Candy area with an elderly Sindhi couple who were "charmed" by the pleasant and accommodating behaviour of their paying guest.

Shiv Sena's latest attempt to raise the pitch on the 'Mumbai for Maharashtrians' issue in the wake of its Assembly poll debacle boomeranged today with chief Bal Thackeray drawing nationwide flak for criticising Sachin Tendulkar over his remarks that Mumbai belonged to all Indians.

This is the English translation of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's open letter to Sachin Tendulkar in 'Saamna' on Monday Dear Sachin, You have played like a king on the playground.

What polls say The results of by-polls to 31 Assembly seats and one parliamentary seat across seven states served up some significant signals.

In successive elections in West Bengal at all levels — from village panchayats to the Lok Sabha and most recently in the by-polls for the state Assembly — the groundswell of support for Mamata Banerjee has been established beyond doubt.

Even as flood waters receded from villages in north Karnataka, the political crisis that erupted in the state BJP government, caused a setback to relief work.

Continuing its agitation for the cause of sons of soil, Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has written a letter to State Bank of India (SBI) for considering locals for the new jobs.

For a 35-year-old man who does not seem to be sure of himself and more often than not fumbles while talking, accumulation of so much ill-gotten wealth, as is being alleged, in a space of a mere two to three years, is an unusual feat worth a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

Sending out signals that the Trinamool Congress is all set to carry its fight with the Left in West Bengal to Parliament, an all-party meeting convened by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday saw Mamata Banerjee and CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharya enter into a verbal duel on the matter of a discussion on Naxalism in the Lok Sabha.

In her first interview after she resigned as the leader of Opposition in Rajasthan, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje spoke to Apurva about the future of the BJP in the state.

The BJP has wrested the post of 'leader of the Opposition' in the Maharashtra Assembly from its ally Shiv Sena on Wednesday after a gap of 18 years, but politics on the ground in the state indicates that the saffron partners are likely to fight each other for political space.

The BSP's good showing in the Assembly by-elections, coming almost at the halfway mark of her party's government in Uttar Pradesh, may lay down the agenda for the second half of chief minister Mayawati's tenure.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) may have clashed with the Raj Thackeray-led MNS over SP MLA Abu Asim Azmi taking oath in Hindi instead of Marathi, but SP MLA from Bhiwandi-West, Abdul Rashid Tahir Momin, feels that Marathi must be made compulsory in all schools across the state.

The nation-wide raids in connection with the Madhu Koda scam included a search of the Lucknow premises of the director of IVRCL-Infrastructures and Projects Ltd, DK Srivastava, from where Rs 50,000 in cash and jewellery worth Rs 15-20 lakh were recovered.

While Rahul Gandhi was widely feted on Tuesday for the Congress win in the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat by-poll, what came as a rude jolt to the party leadership was that the AICC general secretary had failed to deliver in the high-stakes Bundelkhand region, despite a high-voltage campaign for 'development'.

While the recent political crisis in Karnataka, that threatened to tear apart the first BJP government in the south, was being played out, senior Karnataka BJP leader and current Speaker in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar is said to have quipped in private, "What I did not get when I wanted it is now seeking me out".

At A time when the BJP is grappling with many internal problems, not the least of which is the struggle to find a new party president, Tuesday's by-poll results have come as a further blow.