Almost all major cities and towns of Kashmir Valley were placed under strict curfew overnight to hold back a “freedom rally” called by the separatists at Srinagar’s Idgah prayer grounds on Friday.

Technology will assist security personnel in keeping a hawk’s eye within and outside the Commonwealth Games venues. The Commonwealth Games Organising Committee is putting in place technology systems at each stadium for electronic surveillance.

Two commanders of the Dandakaranya division of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), Pandu and Eitu, had led the deadly ambush on the CRPF contingent at Dhorai in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on June 29, killing 27 jawans of the CRPF, highly placed police sources said here on Friday.

A victim of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Jagdish Kaur, who lost five family members including her husband, on Friday told the court of additional sessions judge (ASJ) Sunita Gupta that the police was allegedly hand in glove with rioters and remained a mute spectator to the ongoing massacre.
“Delhi police was with the killer rioters and I have no faith in them,” said Ms Kaur, deposing before the ASJ.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a meeting of the National Development Council on July 24, where the leaders, including the chief ministers of all the states, will discuss the issue of the left-wing extremism and will try and evolve consensus on tackling the menace.

Aiming to include the homeless in the 2011 Census and providing them facilities accordingly, chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday launched a survey for them with assistance from UN Development Programme.

Claiming that the party symbol lantern is safe, the RJD leaders on Friday petitioned the EC to be given time till re-election in Jharkhand before any decision is taken on the issue of de-recognition its national status.

Telecom companies and their industry body COAI have asked telecom regulator Trai to blacklist telemarketers, who violate ‘Do-Not-Call Registry’ and sent unsolicited SMSs or calls to subscribers.

India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has reportedly kept Major Nirvikar Singh, who worked as an ADC to former Punjab governor Gen. (retd) S.F. Rodrigues, away from sensitive assignments after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked him in a disproportionate assets case.

In a move to tame the inflationary pressures, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked the rate at which banks borrow from it (repo rate) and the rate at which it pays banks which parked their funds with it (reverse repo) by 0.25 per cent but these are unlikely to impact housing, personal and auto loans immediately.