-The Telegraph Varanasi, Sept. 2: When the pain becomes excruciating, Lakhyi Pal smiles. No, it’s not age — she is 98 — that has dulled her senses. For her, such “thorns” are the “pathway to salvation”, and Shiva. Pain-relieving gel, or no gel. Abandoned widowhood, or dextrocardia. Prolonged complications from the congenital condition — where the heart is located on the right side of the thorax — has not dampened the spirits of...

-The Hindustan Times The coal-block allocation scandal is increasingly looking like a sequel to the 2G spectrum scam as far as the behaviour of the companies involved is concerned. As was with the telecom scam, many of the “coalgate” companies that cornered the government-allocated resource — like the spectrum — have used it to raise money from the market at hefty valuations. Promoters of more than 10 companies are believed to have...

-The Hindustan Times As news filtered in of extended life sentences for 31 persons for the brutal slaughter 10 years ago in Naroda Patiya, a working-class suburb of Ahmedabad, my eyes clouded over. I remembered my first meetings with the traumatised survivors of the massacre in the crowded relief camps in the city, a full decade earlier. I was heartsick and stunned by their stories of incredible cruelty. I wondered if...

-The Telegraph Ahmedabad, Sept. 2: Rajesh Shah, 32, is an engineering graduate and former stockbroker but claims he knew nothing about Adolf Hitler when he opened his latest menswear shop 10 days ago and named it “Hitler”, earning international notoriety. He says the store, which he co-owns, draws its name from the nickname “Hitler” by which his business partner’s late grandfather Dungromal Chandani, a very “strict” man, was known. Ask him about the...

-The Hindu A campaign launched by a community service institution to make selected villages in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan shed the below poverty line (BPL) tag has immensely benefited the poor families in the region and facilitated creation of new employment opportunities, small entrepreneurships and income-generating ventures. The youth and women are especially getting involved in new enterprises in large numbers. Kheria Purohit village in Deeg tehsil of Bharatpur district, where 15...