-The Times of India   Police have arrested four persons on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in the murder of Dyurdhan Swain, a construction company worker, during a clash at the proposedPosco project site near Dhinkia in Jagatsinghpur district last week, said OIC (Kujang police station) Gupteswar Bhoi. The accused were identified as Lalita Bhujabala, Sanatan Mohanty, Loknath Swain and Chandrasekhar Patanaik of Paradip. They were reportedly aides of Bapi Sarkhel, the controversial...

-The Hindu   Members of various trade unions in the private and public sectors, affiliated to 11 major central trade unions, will stage a countrywide strike on February 28, 2012 against the ‘anti-labour' policies of the UPA-II government. The Railways will be exempted from the protest. G. Sanjeeva Reddy, president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), affiliated to the Congress, told journalists here on Tuesday that despite various demonstrations by the...

—PTI The Cabinet on Sunday approved a Rs. 2,350-crore package for crisis-ridden handloom weavers, mostly concentrated in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The package is part of a Rs. 6,234-crore scheme for handloom weavers announced last month by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma at Varanasi following an advice from AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who is extensively touring U.P. in the run-up to Assembly elections. The package comprised Rs. 3,880 crore for the loan...

The NHRC has looked into 45 such cases in the last 4 months The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the Punjab Government to pay a relief of Rs.5 lakh to the family of murder convict Sukhchain Singh who died of injuries sustained due to beating by a warder of Amritsar jail on July 2, 2009. He had been lodged in the prison since September 22, 2004. The NHRC intervened upon...

-The Hindu   The Union Cabinet is likely to meet either on December 18 or 19 after the return of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Russia to take a call on the contentious issues related to the Lokpal Bill on the basis of inputs given by the Parliamentary Standing Committee and the all-party meet on Wednesday night. According to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, the government intends to move the Bill in...