In a move to clip the wings of senior JD(U) leader Shivanand Tiwari, the party on Tuesday dropped him from the posts of spokesperson and general secretary. Mr Tiwari in the past had put the party in soup over his controversial remarks on various issues.

Leaving behind a fledgling acting career in Bollywood movies that hovered below his high expectations, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag on Tuesday made his formal entry into the choppy but promising waters of Bihar politics by being appointed chairman of the party’s parliamentary board.

In a bid to get rid of factionalism and indiscipline, the Congress high command adopted a tough posture against the disgruntled leaders and ministers. AICC general secretary in-charge Gurudas Kamat warned the disgruntled leaders saying that there was no dearth of leaders.

BJP parliamentary party chief L.K. Advani on Tuesday appeared to counter Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed’s view that Indian Mujahideen was formed as a reaction to the 2002 Gujarat riots by citing a book which states that US President Barack Obama now believes jihadi terrorists are not poor, hopeless or ignorant but ones having political and religious grievances.

Replying to questions about the BJP’s strong criticism of AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed’s remarks on IM, AICC spokesperson Meem Afzal said, “What does terrorism mean other than killing the innocents and harming them.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi here on Tuesday created a fresh controversy by saying that he had given free hand to one of his ministers but now he was not going to allow him to take such advantage.

In what is being termed as a major breakthrough against Islamist militants, the Army and Jammu and Kashmir police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) on Tuesday killed the “operation chief” of Jaish-e-Muhammad group in a joint operation carried out in a remote village of the state’s Lolab valley close to the Line of Control (LoC).

Bihar’s school meal tragedy, in which 23 young schoolchildren died last week after consuming poisoned mid-day meals, became further embroiled in politics on Tuesday after a report by the ruling JD(U)’s fact-finding team supported the conspiracy theory put forward by chief minister Nitish Kumar and education minister P.K. Shahi.

Investigations into the Bodh Gaya serial blasts have revealed that the timers used to trigger explosions in the temple town were brought from a shop in Guwahati and were manufactured in Gujarat.

Seven years after the launch of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) during which SUV riding village headmen arrived on the political scene, the Centre is now moving to end monopoly of panchayats in implementation of the rural job flagship scheme. The Centre will now ask states for alternative means to register job demands under the MGNREGA apart from Panchayats.