-The Indian Express Ranchi: Over 15 districts spread across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa saw Durga Puja with a difference this festival season. Instead of the goddess slaying Mahishasur, the usual story of the Puja, this year, tribals and people belonging to Scheduled Castes and backward classes in these districts are celebrating the "demon king" as a non-Aryan inhabitant and a just king of the land, with Durga...

-The Times of India ALLAHABAD: The Allahabad high court has banned with immediate effect the immersion of idols in the Ganga and Yamuna at Allahabad. While the order is applicable to Vijaya Dashmi on October 14 this year, the court has directed the state government to ensure its implementation across UP from next year. The court directed the Allahabad district administration to identify and develop other places for immersions. It also asked...

-AFP KOLKATA: Sex workers are being trained to identify counterfeit currency to prevent punters from conning them in the dimly-lit brothels of one of Asia's biggest red light districts. Prostitution is illegal in India, meaning the country's estimated three million sex workers cannot complain to police if they are paid with fake notes. But a campaign group known as the Committee for Indomitable Women has now begun a training programme in Kolkata's notorious...

-The Hindu Heads turned at Terminal 3 in Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport as a group of 50-odd elderly women entered the lobby to board a flight to Kolkata. Heads turned at Terminal 3 in Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport as a group of 50-odd elderly women entered the lobby to board a flight to Kolkata. Even as personnel and passengers wondered who these women - most of them dressed in crisp white...

-The Hindu Sequence of attacks on “well-known business units” suggests violence was not spontaneous Last week’s violence in Faizabad district during the Durga Puja procession which left two persons dead, several injured and dozens of shops razed, was executed in a planned manner and the targets had been selected, according to a fact-finding team and accounts by victims and eyewitnesses. The fact-finding team of human rights organisation Rihai Manch said the sequence of...