Parliament was informed on Friday that India has conveyed its concerns to the US over reported monitoring of Internet traffic from the country and is working on enhancing capacity to protect data and information flow.

With Bihar witnessing a spurt in crimes against dalits and the minority tribals in recent years, the Nitish Kumar government is readying to set up special courts in five districts to ensure speedy hearing and disposal of cases related to the SC and ST communities.

There has been a rising trend in the number of reported cases of complications and failure following sterilisation.
The recent data by the health ministry paints a grim picture.

Just months after an explosion created havoc at the refinery of state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), 18 km from the city in Malkapuram, a major fire broke out on Friday killing two workers and injuring around 37 others.

Implementation of the decision to create a Telangana state continues to trouble UPA-2, with the Congress and the Telugu Desam apparently divided on regional lines.

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not in favour of taking up the much-talked-about Direct Taxes Code Bill at this juncture, which aims to “rationalise” the tax structure and levy a higher income tax rate of 35 per cent on the “super-rich” (defined as those earning Rs 10 crores or more a year), the matter was not taken up at Thursday’s meeting of the Union Cabinet.

The five Indian Army soldiers killed in an ambush in Poonch on August 6 by Pakistani troops may have been sleeping when they were shot dead at point-blank range, television reports claimed Thursday. The Army refused to comment, saying it its “investigation is still on”.

In the face of unrelenting pressure from the Opposition, that has stalled Parliament over the missing files on coal allocations, the government told Parliament on Thursday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will intervene when the matter is debated on the floor.

The appointment of former Union law minister Ashwani Kumar as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy to visit Japan with the rank of a Cabinet minister for seven days has raised eyebrows in South Block.

While the US Federal Reserve’s hints about moderating its multi-billion-dollar asset purchase programme hammered down the rupee to a record low on Thursday, upbeat manufacturing data from China and the Eurozone region triggered a strong rally in metal sector stocks, that helped equity markets snap their four-day losing streak.