Pooja Gujjar is the consummate politician. She’s quick-witted and outspoken, and, as her every-ready, dimpled smile suggests, always up for a challenge. She has, admittedly, a girlish streak. The first time she stood for election she chose as her symbol a flower. And although she lost, to a boy, she’s proud that all the girls voted for her. Pooja is the deputy “sarpanch” – Hindi for leader – of her school’s...

-The Hindu In a fresh move to resolve the deadlock over the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNNP), Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly on Saturday that the State government will constitute a panel of experts immediately to go into the safety system of the proposed plant and “perceptions and apprehensions” of the local population. The panel would submit its report to the government at the earliest, on the basis of which...

It seeks statement fromthe Special Task Force chief The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to answer certain questions relating to the 2000 Pathribal encounter case in Jammu and Kashmir initiated by it. The CBI has initiated a case against five Army officers involved in an alleged fake encounter since the Army did not take any action under the Army Act and also did not allow the criminal...

Autobiographical volume later released at publisher's stall in Kolkata Fair; supporters protest Before the storm over the absence of Salman Rushdie at the Jaipur Literature Festival abated, another controversy has broken out, this time at the 36th Kolkata International Book Fair. On Wednesday, the publishers of a book written by Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen were not allowed to release it as per schedule. Even as Kolkata police officers said they had received...

-The Telegraph Income tax officials today searched the house and two dozen properties of a liquor baron said to be close to Mayawati, the simultaneous raids apparently throwing up a chest that needed gas-cutters to prise open. TV reports claimed the chest — found in the basement of a Noida mall said to be owned by Gurdeep Singh Chadha — could be stashed with notes worth over Rs 100 crore, but late...