Citing lack of evidence, Jharkhand High Court today acquitted four alleged Maoists, sentenced to death for opening fire on spectators of a football match in Giridih in October 2007 and killing Babulal Marandi’s son and 18 others. A division bench of Justices R.K. Merathia and P.P. Bhatt heard the appeals filed by accused Jeetan Marandi, Manoj Rajwar, Anil Ram and Chhatrapti Mandal and gave them the “benefit of doubt” after citing...

-Associated Press   Bootleg liquor containing toxic methanol killed 143 people and sickened dozens more who drank the cheap, illicit brew bought at small shops in West Bengal, officials said Thursday. Police arrested 10 suspected bootleggers. Emergency medical teams rushed to the village outside Kolkata, and thousands of relatives, many of them wailing in grief, gathered outside the packed hospital. Inside, dead bodies lay on the floor covered in quilts, while the ill...

-The Indian Express Shanti Bhushan — Supreme Court advocate, Team Anna member, self-appointed representative of civil society and self-anointed crusader against corruption — stares at the prospect of having to speak for himself, and his son Jayant, again. An Uttar Pradesh government audit has resurrected the controversial Noida farmhouse scheme, whereby the Bhushans, along with others, had been allotted farmhouse plots at reportedly a fraction of the market rate. The audit...

The Opposition on Tuesday prevented Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal from moving the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, in the Rajya Sabha, claiming it had a “conflict of interest”. As the Opposition members continued to press their “point of order”, quoting rules to prevent the Minister from tabling the Bill, the House was adjourned twice during the day. Even before the Minister could move the Bill, Janata Dal (United) leader Shivanand...

Dumps trickle into the rivers and occasionally collapse, flooding homes and fields with muddy water The reddish hills dot large tracts of the Goan landscape—mounds of waste soil and other debris that have been left behind after iron ore was dug out from some 95 mines. Accumulating since the 1960s, the dumps, as they are known, are estimated at 750 million tonnes (mt) and consist of top soil, mud and iron...