-The Times of India LUCKNOW: What the demolition of the disputed structure at Ram Janmabhoomi could not do in 1992, stray rumours did in Faizabad 20 years later on October 24 this year. It was Dussehra day and the processions carrying Durga idols for immersion were passing through the city at their usual pace. Then suddenly rumours of a stone being thrown at idols spread like wildfire. Within hours, it singed...

-The Hindu The comprehensive clean-up that the public sector oil marketing companies recently initiated in the liquefied petroleum gas distribution system is a commendable if long overdue effort to check what had evidently become a free-for-all game. Groaning under the “subsidy burden” in a market sector where consumption levels of the convenience fuel had skyrocketed over the decades, the companies first moved collectively to computerise data with regard to LPG consumers...

-Pratirodh Bureau Condemning the arrest of woman tribal-activist and journalist Dayamani Barla in Jharkhand, rights activists have demanded that the "false cases" against her be dropped and that she be immediately released.   The police have reopened an earlier case registered in 2006, when she spent fourteen days in Judicial Custody, after being charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.   She was arrested again this month, and when granted bail on 19th...

-The Telegraph Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh elections appear to have turned a straight fight between the induction cooker and “pricey” LPG. The Congress, led by five-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, was looking the clear favourite till incumbent Prem Kumar Dhumal unveiled a new voter sop in the final rounds of campaigning. The BJP chief minister offered free induction cookers to tide the people over the cooking gas price hike brought about by the...

-The Hindustan Times A 26-year-old blogger’s seemingly novel approach to understanding the hardships of an average rickshaw-puller’s life brought him in direct, and apparently unsolicited, confrontation with the law at Delhi UniverSITy’s North Campus on Friday. It was just another afternoon for Gaurav Jain, a Dwarka resident who works as a contractual rickshaw-puller as part of his research on their lives thrice a week, till he was intercepted and severely assaulted...