India

New Delhi, October 3: The election commission on Wednesday announced the dates for the crucial assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The Gujarat elections will be held in two phases in the month of December, chief election commissioner VS Sampath announced. The dates for polling in Gujarat are December 13 and December 17. The EC announced one-phase poll in Himachal Pradesh on

New Delhi, October 3: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the centre and state governments to provide basic infrastructure, including drinking water and toilets, in all schools within six months. A bench headed by Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan fixed the time limit and asked the governments to take steps to provide the basic facilities in schools across the country. The bench said that all its

New Delhi, October 3: Union coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Tuesday apologised for the derogatory comments he had made on women, but said he had been quoted out of context. "I apologise if people are upset, but my comments were taken out of context," Jaiswal, also a Congress Lok Sabha member, told reporters. He was reacting to criticism of his comments made during a poetry meet at K K Girls

Ahmedabad, October 3: A Vadodara-based RTI activist on Tuesday asked the state's BJP government to provide information about travelling expenses incurred by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet colleagues for attending a series of conference in 2007. Trupti Shah has sent a letter to Modi saying information about his and his Ministers' travel-related expenses during 'women

Mumbai, October 3: In Pakistan, oil companies slashed petrol prices by Rs 6 a litre effective Monday. Will their Indian counterparts follow suit? Consumers can only hope so, even though the fall in global crude prices and the rupee's rise against the dollar means that state-owned oil marketing companies are now earning profits on petrol. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that oil firms

New Delhi, October 2: After splitting with Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday launched his political party without giving out its name, promising change in the system and not just faces in Parliament. From the dais with an imposing poster of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri in the backdrop, Mr. Kejriwal said the name of the party would be announced on November 26, the day on which the

New Delhi, October 2: More than 1.35 lakh people committed suicide in the country in 2011 of which the highest number were reported in West Bengal followed by Tamil Nadu. Family Problems and illness, accounting for 24.3 per cent and 19.6 per cent respectively, were the major causes of suicides while poverty was to be blamed in 1.7 per cent of the cases, according to government data. Love affairs

New Delhi, October 2: Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday hit out Narendra Modi over his allegation on Sonia Gandhi's foreign trips, saying he has been trained well by RSS in the "Nazi tradition" of false propaganda and BJP's "cheap intentions" have been proved by trying to politicise a health issue. Comparing the Gujarat chief minister with Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi government in

Mumbai: Vasant Tarte, a police constable in his early 40's has a grueling schedule. But in spite of that he makes time to visit the Memon couple every single morning. The Memons are senior citizens in their late 70s, living alone in Mumbai. Mr Tarte, a father of two has adopted the couple and pledged to take care of them. It's not by way of adoption under the Hindu law but as part of a drive

New Delhi, October 2: Kingfisher Airlines Ltd has declared a partial lockout and cancelled all of its flights through Thursday, as labour unrest exacerbates troubles for the debt-laden company. On Monday, Kingfisher was forced to cancel all of its flights in the latest blow for the carrier as it scrambles to find an investor, sending its stock down by its maximum daily limit. "Following a series