Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi took the political battle on the issue of illegal mining and alleged involvement of Reddy brothers to chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s home district, Shimoga, with some caustic remarks on Friday.

Even as the MCD on Friday launched public toilets that use innovative technology to reduce waste generation, its plans to construct more than 200 swanky toilet complexes and 1,000 waterless urinals in the capital before the Commonwealth Games-2010 hangs afire.

The Congress would stick to its original plan of “going solo” in Bihar as the party on Friday scotched all rumours of it having truck with any party, including the Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP.

Thick security blanket would be put in place around Red Fort and other areas of the capital for Independence Day celebrations. The Delhi traffic police has also announced traffic restrictions that would be in place during the celebrations on Sunday.

Five cases of robbery took place on Friday in three different locations of east, northeast and northwest Delhi. Police officers have so far stated that at least one such case was reported from the Gandhi Nagar area of east Delhi while one was reported from the Durgapuri Chowk in northeast Delhi and three cases were reported from north-west Delhi’s Chand cinema area in Kalyanpuri.

The Congress has demanded that the state government should declare the areas which have received inadequate rainfall as drought-hit within seven days’ time. After a meeting with the chief minister at the Writers’ Buildings on Friday, Mr Bhunia said, “We have urged the chief minister to announce drought in seven days through a gazette notification which would provide some benefit to the farmers in paying their bank loans.”

The Maoists intensified their movement in West Midnapore on Friday. Suspected Maoists killed a CPI(M) supporter and torched three vehicles in two different places across the West Midnapore district. A culvert, a few kilometres away from Lalgarh, was also blown off by suspected Maoists on Friday morning.

In a daring dacoity, Rs 39 lakh were looted by a gang in Kharagpur. The daylight robbery took place at around 12.30 pm in Malancha Road area of Kharagpur town.
The personnel of a private security agency were bringing the large sum from Big Bazar shopping mall to deposit in a private bank.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday launched a welfare scheme for the transport workers in the state. Under this scheme, every transport worker after attaining 60 years of age will get a monthly pension. Besides, the scheme will offer a series of other benefits to the transport workers. Nearly, 15 lakh unorganised transport workers in the state will get benefit of this scheme.

The final selection of the vendor for acquisition of the Rs 42,000 crore 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force (IAF) could be made on factors such as cost and political considerations in the national interest after examining the technical evaluation of the aircraft, top defence sources have indicated, even as the Indian Air Force (IAF) has submitted the flight trial report to the ministry of defence (MoD).