The outgoing Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje has accepted the mandate of the people. She had promised to work as a "constructive opposition". "I respect the mandate of the five-and-a-half crore people of the state. We will play the role of a constructive opposition and will not allow any hurdles in the development of Rajasthan," she said following the poll results in Jaipur on Monday.

"The people's choice is final. They think well before deciding. I respect that," Raje, who was born to a royal family of Madhya Pradesh, said.

Indian Railways has raised transportation charges for cement, coal and coking coal by up to 8 per cent. The Railway’s move would increase the input cost of housing, power and steel sectors that have been identified for special focus by the government. 

The cement industry said that this could lead to, on average, around Rs one per bag increase in transportation cost of the construction material, thinning the relief to consumers that could have resulted from yesterday's 4 per cent excise duty cut.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram visited the headquarters of the Intelligence Bureau on Monday.

There he had a meeting with top officials to have an in-depth idea about information gathering network.

The hour-long meeting was attended by IB chief P C Halder and others.

Chidambaram was briefed about various wings of IB, their functioning and the chain of informants.

The new Home Minister's visit to the IB headquarters assumes significance as it reflected his seriousness in strengthening the intelligence gathering mechanism at the Centre and the state levels.

Recently, Prof Piers Steel, a Canadian academic came up with a mathematical equation to explain why people procrastinate.

The man has spent 10 years of his life studying why people put off until tomorrow what they could do today. Through his findings, he has arrived at the conclusion, that long held notions such as procrastinators are either perfectionists or just lazy, is entirely false. According to him, procrastinators actually suffer from a vice of their own - impulsiveness.  

Haryana deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, who had been absconding for nearly a month, resurfaced at Jaipur on Sunday. As it turned out, he had married Anuradha Bali, the 35-year-old divorcee, secretly and had also converted to Islam. Bali is a former law officer from Haryana.

Talking over television from hiding, Chander Mohan confessed that he had taken a second wife, for which he had to change his religion. “My new name is Chand Mohammad and my wife’s name is Fiza,” he said. “I was attracted towards Islam since childhood. I have known her (Anuradha Bali) for a long time and now we are happily married.”

After his confession Chander Mohan was sacked by the state’s Congress government today.