-The Times of India   The finance ministry has replaced S S Rana with Madhavan Nair as member investigation in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in a change that is seen to be linked to the income tax department's embarrassment over the failed "search-and-survey" operation against Gurdeep 'Ponty' Chadha, a politically-connected businessman. Apart from Rana, who was instrumental in the raids against Chadha a day before the Uttar Pradesh polls got...

-PTI The National Rural Health Mission scam in Uttar Pradesh has turned murkier with another health official being found murdered at his home — the fifth victim in the last one year after the alleged bungling of over Rs.10,000 crore of Central funds surfaced. The U.P. police found the body of Mahendra Sharma, an accountant, with severe injuries on his head and face, from the Pasgawan health centre area in Lakhimpur Kheri...

In the past week the media has been reporting that the SIT has filed a closure report that gives a “clean chit” to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on the grounds that there is no prosecutable evidence against him. However, Tehelka has now scooped amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran’s explosive confidential report that had told the Supreme Court that Modi should be chargesheeted and prosecuted for serious criminal offences like promoting religious...

SHEILA DEVI, 54, of Nangal Kalan village in Haryana’s Sonepat district cannot comprehend how Taneja Developers and Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) procured her two-acre plot in 2004, ‘signed’ with thumb impressions of her husband Narender Singh, who died in 2002 and his brother Bhupender, who went missing the next year. The documents are obviously forged. But how did a farmers’ family get cheated in Haryana, where the land acquisition policy formed in...

For a change, Mangal Bedia did not board a crammed bus today and travel 15km to withdraw his old-age pension from a bank. The 70-year-old from Dohakatu village in Ramgarh district, along with 100-odd fellow elders, became the first citizens to access old-age pension by using their Aadhaar numbers with handheld ATMs on the doorstep. The banking service reached their village, thanks to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Until today,...