-PTI In a stern warning to those not paying taxes, the income tax department on Monday said it is sending letters to 35,170 PAN (permanent account number) holders in the first phase for not filing returns and will take appropriate follow up action. There are over 12 lakh PAN holders who had not filed income tax returns, the department said, adding it has set up a nodal cell to monitor such cases. "In...

-The Hindu The CBI, expanding its coalgate probe, has launched investigations against 300-odd companies and begun questioning officials of the Steel, Coal and Power departments, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited and the state-run Coal India Limited on allocation of coal blocks between 1993 and 2008. The CBI has laid hands on nearly 700 files from the Coal Ministry, running into 1,60,000 pages,...

-The Hindu In a record of sorts, two convicts have been executed in less than 3 months The execution of two convicts on charges of terror in less than three months — a record of sorts in recent times — has unwittingly put the spotlight on President Pranab Mukherjee, who took office last July. His quick rejection of the mercy petitions of Ajmal Kasab, the only survivor among the perpetrators of 26/11,...

-The Hindu The ground beneath Arundhati Roy’s seismic claims on the Parliament House attack, is shaky — to say the least “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions”, the American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan — among others — is credited with having said, “but not to his own facts.” Muhammad Afzal Guru’s execution on Saturday morning — a grim spectacle, where the Indian government disgraced itself by denying his family a last meeting,...

-The Hindu Wasn’t it? Yesterday I mean. Spring announced itself in Delhi. The sun was out, and the Law took its Course. Just before breakfast, Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament Attack was secretly hanged, and his body was interred in Tihar Jail. Was he buried next to Maqbool Butt? (The other Kashmiri who was hanged in Tihar in 1984. Kashmiris will mark that anniversary tomorrow.) Afzal’s wife and...