On a day when the Union Cabinet chose not to take a call on governor H.R. Bhardwaj’s recommendation for President’s Rule, Janata Dal(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not only to press for imposition of Central rule but also to assure him of requisite numbers to support the decision in the Rajya Sabha.

Alarmed by the declining child sex ratio (CSR) in the country, the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) has called a meeting of the concerned Central ministries on Friday to take stock of the situation. The meeting, to be chaired by the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr T.K.A.Nair, will discuss how this problem can be dealt with “on a war-footing” and the alarming trend arrested.

On a day when the Union Cabinet chose not to take a call on Governor Hans Raj Bhardwaj’s recommendation for President’s rule, Janata Dal(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh not only to press for imposition of Central rule but also to assure him of requisite numbers to support the decision in the Rajya Sabha.

Chief minister designate Mamata Banerjee sent her deputy Partha Chatterjee to personally invite former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to her swearing-in at the Raj Bhavan premises on Friday. By inviting her bête noire to her swearing-in, Ms Banerjee has tried to establish an image as a courteous and gracious leader trying to let go of past animosities. She already met former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to invite him to the ceremony.

The Supreme Court on Thursday called for the details of the two sets of charges framed against Sikkim high court chief justice P.D. Dinakaran in the impeachment process to examine whether the three-member inquiry committee probing the charges had overstepped its limit.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday carried forward the mood set by her son Rahul Gandhi a day earlier when she described Uttar Pradesh as “andher nagari” and said the atrocities on farmers in Greater Noida’s Bhatta-Parsaul had left the country ashamed.

In another embarrassing incident for India’s premier investigating agency CBI, its officers headed off to Copenhagen seeking the extradition of the main accused in the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, Kim Davy, carrying an expired warrant for his arrest. This fact came to light when the defence lawyer found the discrepancy in the government documents.

Another person named as a wanted terrorist on the list handed over to Pakistan by India has been traced to a high-security prison in Mumbai. The new revelation comes as an already embarrassed government was still struggling to control the damage done by the featuring of Thane resident Wazhul Khan on its list of “most wanted” fugitives.

Bihar’s embattled cooperative minister Ramadhar Singh of the BJP, who faces charges of being a proclaimed absconder for 16 years in a chargesheeted case, was out of the state Cabinet on Thursday after governor Devanand Konwar accepted his resignation that came recommended by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Quashing the charges of a shoe attack by a CRPF head constable on her senior, a sub-inspector, for allegedly making sexual advances towards her, a division bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait of the Delhi high court ordered her promotion to the next rank of assistant sub-inspector.