An announcement in this regard was made by Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee after his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mohammad Qureshi, who is currently visiting India. Pranab also spoke about the threat posed by terrorism and said both the countries have to be 'unambiguous' in fighting the menace.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has fulfilled wish of his wife Rabri Devi by establishing a railway link between Phulwaria, his ancestral village with Salar Kalan, her village in Gopalganj district.
Their parleys, which staved off a breakdown between the Left and the ruling coalition for the time being, followed a series of meetings between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and top leaders of the party till late Thursday night.
Wednesday's critical United Progressive Alliance-Left meeting on the Indo-US nuclear deal ended with both sides agreeing to meet again soon. The date for the same is yet to be finalised
Among those attending the meeting from the government side were Defence Minister AK Anthony, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal. The Left parties were represented by the Communist Party of India's A B Bardhan and D Raja, and the CPI-M by Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri
Stressing that there is nothing secretive about the Indo-US nuclear deal, a senior Congress leader said the prime minister is ready to face Parliament before the deal is operationalised.
Buddhist monks have demanded the arrest of the former chief priest of the Bodh Gaya Mahabodhi temple, Buddhism's holiest shrine, after recovery of ornaments and jewelry donated by devotees from his room.
Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday declared that the United Progressive Alliance combination would return to power despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's claim that it was going to come to power. He blamed the media for creating differences between the Left parties and the UPA. He was addressing mediapersons on the eve of three day ministerial conference on rural development to be held in New Delhi beginning from Tuesday.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has withdrawn her party's support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre. Mayawati has accused the UPA of neglecting Uttar Pradesh and meting out step-motherly treatment to her party and the UP government.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continues to be unwell, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has postponed his visit to Australia by a day and Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat has warned that the Left will withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance government by Wednesday if the UPA continues to pursue the India-US nuclear deal.
The UPA government came under the mat for the 13-year-high in inflation with both its outside supporter Left and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party saying it was a "direct result" of hiking fuel prices steeply and "faulty" policies.
CPI-M has rejected all arguments of the government so far to sign the IAEA safeguards agreement. The party has firmly said that it believes once the IAEA phase is over, the deal will be on an 'auto-pilot' and even if India, a non-member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), does not approach the forum, the US would pressurise it to approve the deal.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vaundhara Raje -- who is expected to meet Gujjar leader Karori Singh Bainsla later today -- will reach an agreement over the community's demand for a Scheduled Tribe status, according to Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.
M Venkaiah Naidu launched a scathing attack on the Congress for calling statements of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi anti-national and saying he should be tried for treason. "What else can you expect from the Congress government but to launch treason proceedings against Modi and confer the Bharat Ratna on Mohammad Afzal Guru who was awarded death sentence for attacking Parliament in December 2001," he told rediff.com.
Thirty students of Bihar's Super 30 have passed the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) this year. It is first time that Super 30 achieved 100 percent result .The results were declared on Friday.
The Muzaffarpur court had on April 16 issued a notice to the Congress president on a petition alleging that that she had hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus by her alleged portrayal as 'Goddess Durga' in a poster at the party's Muradabad office in Uttar Pradesh.
A tiger which was seriously injured by poachers, died at Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve in Bihar's East Champaran district. A team of forest officials were informed by local villagers that a tiger was seriously injured in a trap laid by poachers. The tiger later died from its injuries. The tiger population is decreasing at an alarming rate in the Valmiki National Park, Bihar's only tiger project.
Four bank robbers were beaten to death and another seriously injured by local villagers when they were decamping with booty looted from a SBI branch at Chausa in Buxar on Friday afternoon. Police officials said the villagers overpowered them and beat them to death. The robbers had shot dead a security guard of the bank when they entered the bank.
Three dead branches of the sacred Bodhi tree at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar were pruned by a team of scientists of the Dehradun-based Forest Research Institute to keep the tree healthy. The FRI scientists have also suggested some fresh measures for healthy growth of the tree, considered to be about 150 to 200 years old. The FRI has been given the responsibility of maintaining the sacred Bodhi tree by the state government.