-PTI   Congress leader and Union minister Sachin Pilot was on Sunday arrested and then released by Uttar Pradesh Police while he was on his way to violence-hit Bhatta-Parsaul to meet families of farmers injured in the recent agitation on land acquisition. Union minister of state for information technology Pilot, along with around 100 supporters, first went to Dasna jail to meet farmers from Bhatta and Parsaul villages lodged there since the...

The curiosum of a ‘red regime’ with a knack to get re-elected term after term for over more than three decades within the ambit of a full-fledged multi-party democracy has finally disappeared. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of. Its vote share has come down from close to 50 per cent...

The passport office in Hyderabad reported the highest number of passport applications recorded in Indian history (at least 450,000) and it expects an increase of 15-20% this year Jamuna Kunta sits stiffly in a plush red chair at the Hyderabad press club, holding her head proudly erect as she quietly recounts the events leading to her husband’s suicide in Dubai. A farmer from Karimnagar, a rural district in Andhra Pradesh, her husband...

Gary Singh’s abduction ordeal illustrates the dangers faced by those who rely on smugglers to make their way overseas One day in 2006, 18-year-old Gubachan “Gary” Singh, an illegal immigrant in Manila, Philippines, was on his way to work when he was approached by four stocky Filipinos. One pulled out a gun, pressing the barrel into the small of his back, while another blindfolded him and shoved him into a van....

-The Business Standard   The Orissa government may defer its plan to resume land acquisition for South Korean steel company Posco’s $12-billion project near Paradip on May 18, by a week due to non-cooperation of United Action Committee (UAC) members, unavailability of temporary shed for police forces and severe heat wave. Priyabrata Patnaik, managing director of state-owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation and nodal officer for the project, had earlier said the land...