As the electoral battle lines get drawn in ever-sharpening lines in West Bengal, Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee declared on Sunday that nobody would buy the state government if it were auct

In a decision that is likely to have far-reaching implications for the country’s rape survivors, the Union health ministry has effected important changes in the format that doctors will be expected to follow while conducting their medical examination. The most significant one is the decision to have the intrusive “finger test” only if medically required.

The final seat-sharing matrix between the Trinamul Congress and the Congress for the coming West Bengal Assembly polls will only be decided after Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee and senior Congress l

The Trinamul Congress-Congress seat-sharing arrangement for the coming West Bengal assembly polls is likely to be formally announced on Tuesday with the leaders of the two parties holding hectic parleys on Monday night to reach some kind of consensus.

After avoiding filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court for several years enunciating its stand on the prickly and politically volatile issue of reservations for dalit Muslims and Christians, the government is likely to do so in the next few days. It’s being forced to do so after the apex court set a deadline for the government asking it to do so.

The Indian Railways may not be riding the gravy train given its own precarious financial position, but the people of West Bengal certainly were as Ms Mamata Banerjee presented her third and perhaps last Railway Budget in Parliament on Friday.

A day after skipping the meeting of the powerful Majlis-e-Shoora (governing council) of the Darul Uloom, Deoband of which he is a member, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, who leads the All-India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in Assam and is a Lok Sabha MP from Dhubri, on Thursday claimed that he did so as he was facing threats.

The recent developments in Deoband following newly-elected vice-chancellor Ghulam Moha-mmed Vastanvi’s praise of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi have now had a fall-out in distant Assam. The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JuH) faction led by Maulana Arshad Madani — who lost the race for the post of Deoband VC to Mr Vastanvi — on Tuesday decided to dissolve the Assam unit of the Jamiat. The Assam unit is headed by none other than Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) leader and a powerful player in the Deoband battle for supremacy, Badruddin Ajmal who is also a Vastanvi backer.

“You count, therefore we count”. With this pithy yet catchy motto, the largest-ever headcount exercise in the world kicks off across India on Wednesday, February 9 — the mammoth task of enumerating the population of a country that boasts of well over a billion people.

It’s been a season of discontent for thousands of people across the Arab world as they challenge authoritarian regimes in their respective countries.