-The Telegraph Several states today proposed user charges on rural households for the piped water provided to them but Bengal avoided taking a stand. The Centre supported the idea, proposed by states such as Gujarat, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana at a conference of ministers for water supply and sanitation. Most urban households in the country now pay water charges but water has always been a free commodity in the villages....

-The Telegraph Question Time Didi, organised by CNN-IBN at the Town Hall on Friday evening, was meant to be a platform for Mamata Banerjee to field questions from a cross-section of Calcuttans on the eve of her completing one year as chief minister. But less than 12 minutes and five questions into the event, Mamata stormed off, accusing some students of being “maoists and CPM cadres”. Taniya Bhardwaj, a Presidency University student...

-PTI Jan Myrdal, son of the celebrated Nobel laureate couple--Gunnar and Alva Myrdal--is banned from visiting India because the government believes he is a maoist supporter. The government of India is contemplating a ban on the future visits of 85-year-old Jan Myrdal, whose parents were close friends of former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, for his alleged backing of pro-maoist ideology. The home ministry has found that the Sweden-based author had attended...

-PTI West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday lost her cool and stormed out of an interactive TV session here when members of audience asked her about the arrest of a professor for forwarding a cartoon lampooning her. "It is not a cartoon. We love the cartoon. Cartoon is a different thing. He is a CPI (M) man, He misused the e-mail of his society people without their consent. He forwarded...

CRPF top brass on Wednesday distanced itself from a senior officer's demand that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) cover be extended to the paramilitary force to tackle the maoist scourge. D K Pandey, a CRPF inspector-general (IG) posted in Ranchi and in-charge of anti-maoist operations for the central force in Jharkhand, had made the pitch, which is seen to be his personal view. Speaking to TOI, CRPF director-general K Vijay...