Five men arrested last week in Patiala on charges of planning a dacoity have confessed to carrying out at least four bombings Targeted at Muslims in Haryana in 2009 and 2010, police in Haryana and Punjab said today. The men allegedly belong to a Hindu extremist group called Azad Sangathan, headed by a Jind resident called Azad, also known as Sagar and Kala. Azad was arrested along with his comrades Praveen...

Nine moths after the thrashing it received in the Assembly elections, the CPM leadership has undertaken a purge within. It has dropped 13 of its veterans from the West Bengal state committee, three of them several-term MPs, from key posts on grounds of “anti-party activities” or age and health. Party insiders say the exercise was a reflection of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asserting himself with the party’s state unit. Such a drive had,...

Decoding the 'mystery' behind Maoists, the Centre has for the first time brought out in open many facts that have hitherto remained in official papers and urged aam aadmis to expose true colours of Red rebels in whatever ways they can, including use of social media like Facebook and twitter. In a document, brought out in the form of frequently asked questions (FAQs) last week, the Union home ministry has classified...

-The Telegraph A local court today directed the special investigation team probing the Gujarat riots to submit a complete report on the Gulbarg society massacre within a month but restricted its access to only the original complainant. Metropolitan magistrate M.S. Bhatt said Zakia Jafri — whose husband, former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, was among 69 people killed on February 28, 2002,— would be given a certified copy, but not the other petitioners,...

The government has asked states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar to set up grain procuring infrastructure to increase lifting from the farmers so that requirement for the proposed food security law could be met. The Food Corporation of India, chairman and managing director, Siraj Hussain said state-level procuring agencies can help in arranging sufficient credit facilities for carrying out grain purchase activities without depending on the Central...