Nuclear Deal 
We can pull the plug: CPI
New Delhi, March 7
The CPI has threatened to withdraw support if the government pushes the Indo-US nuclear deal. In a letter faxed today to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan said: “Should the government decide to push ahead with the deal, we will not and cannot be a party to go along with it. We will then be left with no option than to withdraw our support to the government.”

Sensex dips below 16K
Mumbai, March 7
Inflation racing past the crucial 5 per cent, lingering fears of recession catching up with the US, and Left parties’ fresh threat to the UPA government - all these factors put together offered a perfect recipe today for Sensex to come crashing down and end below 16,000 level.

Left retakes Tripura, Meghalaya hung
Guwahati, March 7
The ruling Left Front led by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has retained power in Tripura for the fourth time in a row with a facile win over the Congress-led alliance while voters in Meghalaya have given a hung verdict with the ruling Congress emerging as the single largest party.

Dhumal Proposes no New Taxes in 2008-09 State Budget
5 pc interim relief for staff, pensioners
Shimla, March 7
Preferring the soft option of borrowings to mobilisation of additional resources Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal today proposed no fresh taxes in the budget for 2008-09 and left the whopping resource gap amounting to 25 per cent of the total expenditure to be met through loans.
(Details on Himachal page)

Graft case against Badal, Sukhbir
SC moved to transfer case out of Punjab
New Delhi, March 7
Five Congress MLAs belonging to the Captain Amarinder Singh camp today moved a petition in the Supreme Court for transfer of the corruption case against Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh out of the state claiming that a “free and fair” trial in the present circumstances was not possible there.

Nation page: SC takes up PIL against Badal

Cong faces reality check
New Delhi, March 7
After the euphoria, it is time for a reality check for the Congress. The Congress had barely started celebrating this year’s “please-all budget” when its crushing defeat and the CPM’s resounding victory in Tripura has pushed the party on the backfoot once again.

Efforts to free prisoners only on paper: Kashmir Singh Chandigarh, March 7 Kashmir Singh’s struggle against bleakness in the dungeons of despair in Pakistani jails was reciprocated by his wife’s equally hard tussle against circumstances in her native Nangal Choran village in Hoshiarpur district. Kashmir Singh and his wife Paramjit Kaur at the Chandigarh Press Club on Friday. — Tribune photo by Pradeep Tewari Punjab page: Allowance for Kashmir, wife; son gets job