Saturday, July 14, 2007, Chandigarh, India
Updated at 3:00 am (IST)

Lax rain worries Punjab
Chandigarh, July 13
Erratic monsoon continues to cause worry to farmers and agriculture department officials in the region. Barring a few areas, rainfall has been scanty in the region, especially Punjab and Haryana. Though monsoon was expected to arrive on July 1 in the region, rainfall till today has been disappointing.

Power Mess
PSEB faces Rs 4,748-cr cut
Chandigarh, July 13
In what may spell trouble for the already tottering power sector in Punjab, the Punjab State Electricity Board and the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission have locked horns. The commission has decided to impose a financial cut of Rs 4,748 crore on the PSEB and has started fixing power tariffs on its own. The PSEB decided to protest this move yesterday.

Nitish threatens to quit to silence MLAs
Patna, July 13
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has reportedly threatened to quit after legislators of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) questioned his style of functioning and criticised his agenda of good governance.

India: The Tasks Ahead
SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
125TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS,
INAUGURAL SESSION

Prez Poll
Shekhawat camp warns against UNPA abstention
New Delhi, July 13
Even as the eight-party United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) or the so-called Third Front meets here tomorrow to decide its strategy for the July 19 Presidential poll, supporters of Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat believe that abstaining would be wrong and might invite action against political parties. Shekhawat is contesting as an independent backed by the NDA.

Nation page:
Shekhawat’s better half better off

Shekhawat’s move a political melodrama: Cong

Cross-voting talks do rounds in UP

No evidence found against Haneef
Melbourne, July 13
Prospects of the release of Muhammad Haneef brightened today after the Australian police dropped a request to extend the detention of the Indian doctor who is in custody for 11 days without charge in connection with the failed terror plot in the UK.

	Edit page: Invitation to disaster
Pakistani activists of the hardline six Islamic party alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), torch an effigy of President Pervez Musharraf with a US flag during an anti-Musharraf protest rally in Lahore on Friday against the military operation against Islamic students in Lal Masjid. — AFP photo

Post-Glasgow
IT Cos tighten hiring norms
Bangalore, July 13
Recruitment is emerging as the next nightmare for IT companies with most top managements deciding to have a re-look at the manner in which background checking is done following revelations that Kafeel Ahmed, alleged Glasgow bomber, was successful in getting a job in a high-profile company despite his radical background.

Letters of Gandhi auctioned
London, July 13
Handwritten drafts of a series of articles and autographed letters of Mahatma Gandhi went under the hammer here. Gandhi's manuscript and letters, written between the 1920s and the 1940s, were auctioned by auction house Sotheby's yesterday as part of its English Literature and History sale.

US Senate Interrupted Hindu prayer angers Christian activists Angry Christian activists briefly disrupted a historic Hindu prayer in the US Senate on Thursday. Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nevada, had been invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also of Nevada, to deliver the first Hindu invocation in the chamber of Congress. As Zed prepared to pray three persons in the visitors' gallery started shouting.