India

Lucknow, August 17: The Samajwadi Party (SP) government rode to power earlier this year in March after winning elections on the issue of corruption in previous Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regime. However, contrary to the repeated assurances that it would weed out corruption and take strict action against the accused, the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government seems to be protecting those named in various

New Delhi, August 17: Three key CAG reports were tabled in Parliament on Friday indicting the government of causing a combined loss of crores of rupees to the national exchequer. The much-awaited CAG report on coal block allotment said private firms are likely to gain Rs 1.86 lakh crore from coal blocks that were allocated to them on nomination basis instead of competitive bidding. The audit

New Delhi, August 17: The government's auditor shared with parliament today a report that says that thousands of crores have been lost in the way in which coal mines were allocated to private players; another report finds fault with how the Delhi international airport was privatised. The government has prepped a detailed defense for both sectors; it will argue that the auditor's calculations are

New Delhi, August 17: Indian government took an extreme step of banning bulk SMS and MMS for next 15 days, an announcement confirmed the news on Friday. The decision of banning bulk SMS and MMS has been taken following the rumours that social media and other sources of technology have been used to threat people from North-East India. Earlier, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil and Samajwadi Party

Kochi, August 17: Former Kerala chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan said Friday that the ongoing vigilance case against him for alleged misuse of office to transfer land in Kasargode district to a relative is baseless. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said the case was foisted on him by the Oommen Chandy government. "This case is a non-issue. It was not me who gave the land; the

New Delhi, August 17: In an unprecedented whistleblowing act, former Indian Airlines chief Sunil Arora wrote to the then cabinet secretary B K Chaturvedi in May 2005 complaining that he and the IA board were being pressured by then civil aviation minister Praful Patel and his OSD to take financially damaging and commercially unviable decisions. In his May 28, 2005, letter, Arora listed the

Lucknow, August 17: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Thursday hosted an Iftar at his official residence in Lucknow. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Governor B.L. Joshi were also present on the occasion. Among others present at the party included senior politicians, ministers, police officials, bureaucrats and Muslim clerics.

New Delhi, August 17: Fearing reprisals over the violence against Muslims in Assam, people from the northeast continued to flee from cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Mumbai, even as ethnic clashes between Bodos and Muslims that began in July spread to Baksa, Nalbari and Kamrup districts on Thursday. More than 3,000 labourers from the northeast living in Chennai thronged the station to

New Delhi, August 16: With people from north east in panic following rumours of attacks, Union Home Secretary R K Singh today said there was no threat to anyone from the region living anywhere in the country and termed the reports of violence as rumours. "There is no threat to the people of the north east in any part of the country," Singh told PTI here reacting to reports that people from the

Ahmedabad, August 16: Taking a dig at the Congress, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the main Opposition party will take the state to the 18th century if it is voted to power. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart claimed the Gujarat Congress leaders were making remarks which were at variance with the Independence Day address made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. While