The Group of Ministers (GoM), which submitted its report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, has made an observation claiming that Dow Chemicals, the US-based company, which bought the Union Carbide Corp in 2001, can not be made liable for “criminal” offences in the gas leakage tragedy, which took place 26 years ago in Bhopal.

The group of ministers (GoM) on the Bhopal gas tragedy, which met for a second consecutive day on Saturday, is trying to decide on whom responsibility should be fixed for the tragedy and its aftermath. The corporate affairs ministry has been asked to find out the details, sources disclosed.

The government is looking at the option of approaching the Supreme Court with a curative petition against the dilution of charges in the Bhopal gas leak case. The move is understood to have found wide support in the group of ministers set up to re-examine the tragedy and its aftermath and suggest remedial measures in the light of the country-wide outrage following the June 7 judgment of the Bhopal trial court sentencing all the accused to just two years in prison.

Taking a break from hectic political work, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi will be in London when he turns 40 on Saturday. While all the Youth Congress presidents at district levels across the country will be hosting community lunches at dalit hamlets, Mr Amit Jogi, son of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi, on Friday left for the restive Bastar region to launch his week-long “Dantewada peace march” to mark the occasion.

Political parties on Thursday staved off the scare of cross-voting in favour of Independents as their official candidates romped home comfortably in Rajya Sabha elections held across five states.

Eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani, 87, managed to get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan easily with 41 first preference votes despite a lot of speculation that he could face trouble from BJP MLAs said to be opposed to his candidature. Mr Jethmalani, who had been a minister in the NDA government and subsequently left the party, rejoined it only to jump into the electoral fray.

After Jaswant Singh, the saffron camp could see the return of expelled sanyasin, Ms Uma Bharati. The move being jointly engineered by senior BJP leader Mr L.K. Advani and party chief Mr Nitin Gadkari, is however, being opposed by some of the party heavyweights including leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Ms Sushma Swaraj and senior leader Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu.

Within a week after taking charge of the probe in the Gyaneswari Express sabotage, the CBI in a joint operation with the West Bengal police made its first arrest late on Monday night.

Former cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin’s last-minute withdrawal from the race to head the Badminton Association of India enabled incumbent V.K. Verma to be elected unopposed to a fourth consecutive term on Sunday, exceeding the 12-year limit set by Union sports minister M.S. Gill for heads of national sports bodies.

West Bengal governor M.K. Narayanan on Friday lost his cool during the closing ceremony of the Burdwan University’s Golden Jubilee celebrations on Friday when he found many students leaving the auditorium due to the oppressive heat.