-The Telegraph   Mamata Banerjee tonight used her strongest language yet to condemn “the Jungle Mahal mafia” and virtually warned of a rethink on the undeclared ceasefire in the Maoist zone after the leader of a local party was shot dead in West Midnapore. Although the chief minister sought to paint the killers as the mafia, not Maoists, she ripped into the rebels’ supporters in universities in Calcutta, reflecting the distance she has...

-PTI   What does BSP's Mayawati, Congress' Janardhan Dwivedi, BJP's Shahnawaz Husain and jailed Mohd Shahabuddin have in common? They are among the 750 MPs who have bought confiscated arms in the past 25 years, an RTI reply has revealed. While the Arminious and Erma revolvers were a hit among the VIPs during the early 1990s, Webly revolvers replaced them in the late 1990s. However, the last decade saw .22 bore revolvers and 7.65...

The Union home ministry has warned the state government on the Maoist threat, asking it not to go easy on the rebels who have been tightening their grip on strongholds in Jungle Mahal. A senior police officer said this was the ministry’s first warning to the new government on the Maoist menace since it took charge in May. “Over the past three months, we have had letters from the Union home ministry...

The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Director-General (Prisons) seeking his report, returnable in four weeks, on allegations of three Prisoners in Bhadoi sub-jail being mercilessly beaten. The Commission acted suo motu taking cognisance of the incident based on media reports. The alleged incident took place on August 20. The media said the Prisoners concerned, who tried to escape from the jail, was caught by the...

-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court has expressed disappointment over the Bengal government’s approach to its orders on rehabilitating sex workers, saying they needed skills to earn a livelihood instead of being sent to welfare homes. “They must be provided a marketable technical skill so they can earn their livelihood instead of selling their bodies. Merely sending them to homes is sending them to starvation. We were, therefore, disappointed by the approach of...