Bihar education minister P.K. Sahi, under fire for the death of 23 schoolchildren soon after they ate a contaminated midday meal, on Thursday refused to resign even as calls for his dismissal grew and autopsy reports confirmed the presence of an insecticide in the children’s meals.

The Congress on Thursday disapproved of the Bihar government’s conspiracy theory into the midday meal tragedy and reminded states of their responsibilities as more such cases came to light.

After the midday meal tragedy in Bihar, the Uttar Pradesh government has now decided to scrutinise food being served to students in schools here.

The Union government on Thursday decided to constitute a monitoring committee to check the quality of food supplied under the mid-day meal scheme.

Even though the IRCTC has not yet fully addressed issues in online train ticket booking, it has forayed into the lucrative online shopping to tap the rail passengers who visit its website in a big number daily. The IRCTC on Thursday said that the online shopping through its Web portal would commence in two months time for which it’s partnering with a number of existing players in the sector.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday held a high-level meeting to review infrastructure projects in Northeastern states and decided to earmark `600 crores for development of railway network in the region.
In the meeting it was also decided to set up an empowered group to ensure speedy upgradation of overall infrastructure in states across the region.

In a first official estimate of the CPI(Maoist) “extortion” industry, the Centre has pegged the Maoists income at not less than `140 crore running up to `250 crore annually.

Mahi Singh was excited about her friend’s wedding. But as the day neared her excitement turned into anxiety. She had two functions to attend and she could not zero in on even one costume.

Bollywood has often inspired fashion trends. Costumes flaunted by actors onscreen have had their copies sold as street fashion and found a way into wardrobes of many.

There was a time when singer-composer Lesle Lewis was famous as a ‘remix man’.