Price hike or duty cut?
A crude dilemma for govt
New Delhi, January 3
In a bid to share the burden of high oil prices — crude touched $100 a barrel on Wednesday — the government is planning to cut duties on petrol and petroleum products. This cut will help the consumers get a small relief from the burden of rising prices.

Musharraf pleads innocence
Islamabad, January 3
Ruling out involvement of military and intelligence agencies in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said that he had warned her about threats to her life but she had ignored that.

World page: Scotland Yard probe won’t do: Zardari
Editorial: Dial Scotland Yard

Border Area Funds Scam
Punjab VB arrests whistle-blower
Did 2 ministers ask SDO to ‘take it easy’?
Mohali, January 3
It seems the Punjab vigilance bureau is penny wise and pound foolish. A sub-divisional officer (SDO) who blew the whistle on a scam worth crores was arrested by the bureau in an alleged graft case.

‘Punjab govt still in a slumber’
Chandigarh, January 3
“We feel let down and ignored,” lament Punjabis of Kenya, accusing the Punjab government of being apathetic towards lesser “affluent Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular.”

3 Indian students killed in Oz fire
Melbourne, January 3
Three Indian students were charred to death when a huge fire engulfed a house in western district of this city early on Thursday, police said. The three men aged 30, 24 and 22 were unable to escape from the front bedroom as the blaze spread quickly and there was little the fire fighters could do to save them, fire brigade authorities said here.

Six killed, 15 hurt in temple stampede Hyderabad, January 3
Tragedy struck at the Kanaka Durga temple in Vijayawada when six people, including four women and an eight-year-old boy, were killed and 15 others injured in a stampede in the early hours today.
District collector Navin Mittal and commissioner C.V. Anand inspect the spot at Kanakdurga temple in Vijayawada where six pilgrims were killed in a stampede in the early hours of Thursday. — PTI

SEZs
Centre may review cases in Goa
New Delhi, January 3
A big question mark hangs over the much-touted Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy of the Congress-led UPA government, with the Centre today bowing to the pressure of its own state government, indicating a review of all SEZs, including the notified ones, in Goa.

Goa CM’s stand contrary

Gurgaon Replay
Boy shoots down junior after scuffle in MP school
Satna, January 3
An eighth class student of a government school in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh was killed today when his senior schoolmate allegedly shot at him in the school premises in the second such crime in the country within the space of a month. In a replay of the Gurgaon school shooting last month, the police said the tenth-standard student gunned down the 15-year-old victim with a country-made revolver.

CM Chouhan calls on murder accused in Sabharwal case Indore, January 3 Already under attack over the way the case of Ujjain professor H.S. Sabharwal was investigated, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has landed in yet another controversy following his visit to a hospital where he met an accused in the murder case. During a surprise visit to the government-run M.Y. Hospital here yesterday, he met Vimal Tomar, one of the accused in the case, in the intensive care unit besides other patients, official sources said.