National news of the week

Saturday
New Delhi: India and Pakistan exchange the lists of their nuclear installations for the 20th consecutive year under an agreement which prohibits any kind of attack on such facilities.

Guwahati: ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa walks free from jail on bail and declares his readiness for an "unconditional" peace dialogue with the Assam Government, which hinted that the ban on the outfit may be lifted ahead of the talks.

New Delhi: Finding itself on the backfoot in the wake of a rash of scams, Government plans to come out with an Ordinance to put in place a mechanism to fight corruption among public servants including politicians.

Sunday
Kolkata: Pranab Mukherjee, the senior-most member of the Union Cabinet, causes a flutter in political circles by openly disagreeing with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's offer to appear before the PAC in the 2G spectrum scam but maintains that there are no differences between them on the issue.

Jaipur: Talks to end the 14-day-old impasse on the Gujjar quota issue fail to make much headway with the agitators unrelenting on their demand for five per cent reservation in government jobs.

Monday
Kochi: Former Supreme Court judge V R Krishna Iyer says a judge of the Kerala High Court, who has resigned, had requested him not to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue relating to family members of former CJI Justice K G Balakrishnan allegedly amassing wealth disproportionate to their sources of income.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court seeks response from the Centre on a plea seeking laying down of guidelines for tapping telephonic conversation by taking into account the right to privacy of citizens.

Tuesday
New Delhi: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram expresses surprise over the statement made by wife of jailed rights activist Binayak Sen that she did not feel safe in the country and said "those who respect law must also respect the processes of law."

New Delhi: A petition is filed in the Supreme Court seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against former Telecom Minister A Raja and advocate R K Chandramohan for allegedly trying to influence the then Madras High Court judge Justice S Reghupathi in a criminal case.

New Delhi: Commonwealth Games Organising Committee
chief Suresh Kalmadi is questioned for over eight hours by CBI officials here in connection with alleged financial irregularities in the conduct of the sports event.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may come within the purview of the proposed ombudsman Lokpal on which the government is understood to be planning to come out with an Ordinance as part of efforts to check corruption.

Thursday
New Delhi: Justice Srikrishna Committee recommends that keeping Andhra Pradesh united with Constitutional and Statutory measures for empowerment of the Telangana region "is the best way forward" while creating a separate state can be the "second best" option to tackle the statehood demand.

New Delhi: The CBI finds itself on a sticky wicket with a Delhi Court questioning its decision to drop the case against Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the over two-decade old Bofors pay-off scam, saying there were "certain malafide intentions".

Friday
Mumbai: India is "not satisfied" with the pace of progress in the Mumbai terror attack trial in Pakistan and would like the cases against the suspects "expedited", says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Ghaziabad: Overruling CBI's objection, a special Court directs it to give to Aarushi Talwar's parents a copy of the closure report which lists why the agency wants to end the investigation into the murder of their 14-year-old daughter and their domestic help, Hemraj in 2008.

New Delhi: In an unusually strident criticism of the government auditor, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal slams the CAG for its projection of Rs 1.76 lakh crore as presumptive loss on account of 2G spectrum allocation, terming its methodology as "utterly erroneous."