As controversy raged over the Uttar Pradesh government’s move to suspend Uttar Pradesh IAS officer Durga Sakthi Nagpal, who had taken on sand mafia in Gautam Budh Nagar, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said government officers must work under the ambit of the law and within the given charge even as he pitched for “freedom of the bureaucracy’’.

The killing of 52 -year old Paleram Chauhan from Noida, who dared to speak out against the nefarious sand mining mafia operating in the Yamuna and Hindon river belts, brings to the forefront just how blatant the activities of this underworld have become.

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Thursday, made it clear that his government was firm on the suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal and there was no question of reconsidering the same.

The headmistress of a government primary school in the hamlet of Doni Thanda in Gadag district has been carrying 18 litres of purified water over 22 kms to cook the mid-day meal and provide students with drinking water, bearing the entire cost from her own pocket as the high fluoride content in the village water makes it unfit for consumption.

Dishonest officers in Uttar Pradesh have never rankled the government and the political bosses but honest officers always have.

Three decades after the gas leak disaster, the abandoned Union Carbide plant still continues to pose a serious threat to the people of Bhopal as almost every study done so far to measure the impact of the toxic waste lying dumped both inside and outside the factory premises has established conclusively that there is large-scale contamination of soil and ground water in this area.

The Deoli-Bramhagram village of Uttarakhand that has come to be known as the “Village of Widows” after 54 men of the village went missing in the calamity that struck the region in June, will now be developed as a model village.

Amid the simmering tension between the top two Central agencies, the Intelligence Bureau and the CBI on the ongoing probe into Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde Thursday said there is no clarity yet on whether the Ishrat was indeed a terrorist.

Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra, who was chargsheeted by the Delhi police along with two editors of his television network, Sudhir Chaudhary, editor, Zee News and business head, as well as Samir Ahluwalia, editor, Zee Business and business head, for allegedly trying to extort `100 crore from Lok Sabha MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal’s firm Jindal Steel, could possibly face a sentence of three to 10 years if convicted.

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the go-ahead to the CBI to carry out its probe in the Aircel-Maxis deal, involving former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran, arising out of irregularities in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case. The top court said the agency need not wait for sanction which is necessary to obtain in case of a probe against an official holding high position.