SP, Cong slug it out over UP officer
PM says rules will be followed
Mulayam backs son, says suspension final
New Delhi/Lucknow, August 5
A defiant Samajwadi Party on Monday hardened its stand on the suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, who led the crackdown on the sand mining mafia in her district, asserting that the Uttar Pradesh Government's decision was "correct and final" and taunted the Centre to withdraw all IAS officers from the state.

Intel report puts Akhilesh govt on sticky wicket
Edit page: UP IAS officer’s suspension
Protesting BJP workers carry an effigy of UP CM Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow. — PTI

Stormy start to monsoon session
LS, RS adjourned over Telangana
New Delhi, August 5
The monsoon session of Parliament got off to a stormy start today with Opposition members in both Houses creating ruckus over the creation of Telangana as a separate state and the Centre's ambitious food security ordinance, leading to  both Houses being adjourned for the day late in the afternoon.

TDP MPs protest on Day 1 of the monsoon session in New Delhi on Monday. Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal

Panipat-Jalandhar e-way
Rs 1,100-cr toll in 4 yrs, but highway reaches nowhere
Ludhiana, August 5
Commuters have so far paid Rs 1,100 crore as toll in the past four years on the 291.1-km expressway project on the National Highway-I (Panipat-Jalandhar), which is far from completion.

‘Send us anywhere, but we won’t go back to Mirchpur’
SC-appointed team meets displaced families, to submit report
Hisar, August 5
The Dalit families that fled Hisar’s Mirchpur village after caste violence in 2010 today told a Supreme Court-appointed team they would not return as they feared for their safety.
The SC team meets Mirchpur caste violence victims.

SC says CBI can drop death penalty charges in Abu Salem case
New Delhi, August 5
The Supreme Court today allowed the CBI to drop charges entailing award of death penalty to gangster Abu Salem, facing trial in several cases, including the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

Tarn Taran’s ‘gatka’ brothers set Guinness record Tarn Taran, August 5 Two brothers from the border town of Tarn Taran have set a Guinness World Record for breaking the maximum number of coconuts placed on the forehead with a baseball bat in one minute. Kawaljit Singh and Gurinder Singh show their Guinness certificate. A Tribune photograph