Even as a lot of hullabaloo is being raised over the “delay” in decision on the mercy petition of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru which was made in 2006, at least 16 out of the 29 such petitions pending with the President’s secretariat were last submitted in 2005. While a couple of them are under consideration of the state governments, many of these have been re-submitted twice. A few others have been re-submitted thrice.

More than 500 persons aboard two planes had a narrow escape at Mumbai airport on Friday after a Kingfisher aircraft was cleared to land on a runway where a SpiceJet plane was stalled due to a technical snag. Luckily, the error was discovered in time by the ATC, which instructed the plane to perform a go-around. The pilots of both aircraft followed the instructions of the ATC.

Two weeks later the mercy petition plea file of the 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru moved again, with Delhi’s Lt. Governor, Tejendra Khanna, on Thursday night sending the file along with his notings to the Union home ministry, which had sought the opinion of the city government four years ago on the merits of the plea.

The government on Friday made a minimum of 25 per cent public shareholding mandatory for companies listed on the stock exchange.
This step could allow the companies to raise around Rs 2 lakh crores from the market, according to a study by Crisil Equities.

Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray has been nominated to the National Integration Council (NIC) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Shiv Sena, which has 11 members in the Lok Sabha and four in the Rajya Sabha, made the entry into the prestigious panel for the first time.

Widening the definition of domestic violence, the Delhi high court on Friday said the mother-in-law too can be charged under the Domestic Violence Act even if the act was specifically made to protect the woman from domestic abuse.

A large section within the Madhya Pradesh unit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has expressed resentment over the party’s decision to announce Mr Chandan Mitra’s candidature for the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh as he is considered an outsider in the state.

Former Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore will spend another sweltering month in jail consequent to the Punjab and Haryana high court deciding to defer a decision on his bail petition until June 29 without interim relief.

The Congress on Friday announced the candidature of Union minister Ambika Soni from Punjab and senior AICC general secretary Mohsina Kidwai from Chhattisgarh for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha but there was no word yet on Union minister Anand Sharma.

In yet another instance of honour killing in central UP, a brother chopped-off his sister’s head with a sickle on Tuesday and then buried the body in the courtyard.
The mother, who was away at the time of the incident, returned home on Wednesday and found the daughter missing. The freshly dug earth in the courtyard made her s