It was a story of leaders showing their men the way on the opening day of the Champions League T20 qualifiers here on Tuesday. Shikhar Dhawan helped see the Sunrisers Hyderabad home in a testing chase after Kandurata Maroons skipper Lahiru Thirimanne too had sparkled with the bat.

In an attempt to cash in on the anger against the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh over the communal riots, the BJP is planning a series of rallies of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from next month in the run-up to the general polls.

BJP patriarch L.K. Advani, who had been sulking over Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s elevation as the party’s prime ministerial candidate for the general polls, wished the Gujarat chief minister on Tuesday on his 63rd birthday.

With the Assembly elections due in five states in the coming months, the Centre is expected to deploy nearly 60,000 paramilitary personnel, in addition to police forces, for the smooth conduct of the polls.

The BJP in Bihar on Tuesday celebrated Narendra Modi’s birthday with excitement by organising a yajna and cutting several cakes even as chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar refrained from wishing his Gujarat counterpart.

Water Initiative Orissa (WIO), a leading environment body working for conservation of natural waterbodies, on Tuesday gave a call to vote for candidates who care for rivers and waterbodies in the coming urban local body elections.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi termed healthcare as the biggest reason of poverty and indicated that the free medicine scheme introduced by the Congress government in Rajasthan will be implemented across the country.

Minister of state for khadi and rural industries (independent in charge of dairy) Babulal Nagar landed in trouble when a local court in Jaipur directed the police to register a case of sexual assault and rape against him. The court passed the order on Tuesday while hearing a complaint filed by a woman.

Both the presiding officers of two Houses of Parliament are visiting Tripura within a span of one week that will begin with the arrival of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Wednesday to attend a seminar to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tripura Assembly while the chairman of Rajya Sabha and vice-president Hamid Ansari will visit the state on September 25 to inaugurate the newly build state museum.

The CBI, which was probing the case of suicide by senior IPS officer Rahul Sharma on March 12, 2012, has reportedly rejected the abetment angel in the incident, giving a clean chit to a police officer and a judge of Bilashpur high court, named in the deceased’s suicide note.