-The Times of India   Ambedkar Village Development minister Ratan Lal Aheerwar has resigned after being indicted by UP Lokayukta of corruption. He was found prima facie guilty of land grabbing and misuse of MLA fund and Bundelkhand development fund. Aheerwal is the fifth UP minister who had to resign after being indicted by Lokayukta in last one year. Panchayati Raj minister and BSP state president Swami Prasad Maurya has been handed over...

Four deadly cobras among 40 snakes unleashed by farmers in latest anti-corruption protest in northern India Two farmers fed up with bribery demands have dumped three sacks filled with snakes on the floor of a busy tax office in northern India. The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to...

-The Indian Express   The breakthrough that the joint anti-Naxal operations achieved in West Bengal last week, in the Kishenji encounter, was preceded by a visible regress in the battle against the Maoists in the state. This step back was the result of a hesitation on the part of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to pursue the police and paramilitary operations which had begun to yield gains in the last days...

-The Telegraph   Stress strikes the pupils of a Murshidabad school every day not because of impenetrable syllabus or unsparing teachers but because they fear the Padma river can rise up and engulf them any minute. All it took for a wave of panic to crash in today was the rattle of tin cans on a truck and an exclamation from a teacher, which triggered a stampede in which 20 children were injured. The...

Minority welfare schemes should target not districts but smaller units like hamlets and urban wards so that nobody passes under the radar, Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council has told the Centre. The Centre’s 15-point programme for minorities, based on Sachar Committee recommendations, aims at multi-sector development in 90 districts with large minority populations. But the council believes this approach misses many who most need help while many non-minority residents reap indirect...