“No reports of any injury from the side of the rebels are yet available. However, there was no casualty from our side as the assault plan was quite meticulously executed,” Orissa director-general of police Prakash Mishra said, after at least 14 Maoists were killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel in Orissa’s Malkangiri district late on Friday night, the police said on Saturday.

Disappointed at the BJP eventually nominating Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, Bihar chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar on Saturday described the move as potentially destructive for the saffron party and said India’s people would not tolerate a “divisive” leader.

Following the drama over the anointment of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, the party’s national president Rajnath Singh on Saturday admitted that Mr Advani is currently unhappy, but said that it was an internal matter of the party.

In what can be seen as a move to assess election preparedness in Maharashtra for the upcoming Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Nagpur and Pune in the last week of this month.

In a bid to take on the spot assessment of the communal riots, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. The area witnessed deadly communal riots about a week ago in which a number of people have lost their lives.

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is expected to visit the riot-hit areas in Muzaffarnagar district on Sunday.
This will be the first time that the chief minister is visiting the riot-affected areas in western UP.

Tension gripped Atrauli area in Aligarh district, UP, on Saturday after a girl was allegedly harassed by three youth belonging to another community.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the Centre plans to construct over 15 lakh houses for the urban poor. Inaugurating a `2,400-crore housing project for slum-dwellers on the outskirts of the city, he said he hopes Chandigarh would soon become India’s “first slum-free city”, as he handed over keys to newly-built flats to slum-dwellers.

The four-day Uttar Pradesh Assembly session, beginning on Monday will give a gruelling time to the Samajwadi government in general and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, in particular.

After having staged more than 600 concerts in over 10 countries, singer-songwriter from Bengaluru, Raghu Dixit has stopped counting, for he goes anywhere music takes him.