-The Telegraph At least 50 people have died in rain-triggered landslides, house collapses and flash floods in the north, mostly in Uttarakhand that has halted the popular Badrinath pilgrimage with around 30,000 pilgrims, many from Bengal, stranded. Three days of incessant rain have sent into spate Uttarakhand rivers that have burst banks and washed away houses - one of them a four-storey structure that had been vacated, apart from a temple. At least...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Riding on strong easterlies, monsoon made a grand entry today in the national capital even as seasonal rains covered the entire country one month in advance. South-west monsoon, which kept its June 1 date with Kerala, made rapid progress across the country bringing bountiful showers all along and giving relief to most drought- hit regions. The monsoon onset in Delhi today was also a fortnight in advance as the normal...

-The Times of India New Delhi: The capital's growth in the last decade has overwhelmingly come from the city swallowing up rural areas, newly released census data shows. The number of census towns-essentially newly urbanized villages in the laldora areas-nearly doubled over the last decade, taking the proportion of Delhi's residents who live in these areas to an unprecedented third of the population. Varsha Joshi, director of census operations for Delhi, released...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Union home minister SushilkumarShinde on Tuesday said the government was considering the demand of various states, including Jammu & Kashmir, for withdrawal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and a final decision would, however, be taken only after talking to all stakeholders. Shinde said, "We have to consider all the stakeholders' opinion. The AFSPA is not only in Kashmir. It is in many...

-PTI New Delhi: The sex ratio in Delhi has shown an improvement with the female population being grown by 24.9 per cent while the male population grew at a lesser rate of 18.1 per cent. According to the Primary Census Abstract 2011 released here on Tuesday, of the overall 21.2 per cent population growth registered during 2001-2011, female population grew by 24.9 per cent while male population grew at 18.1 per...