Civil audit report made public; commercial audit reports of govt agencies soon

"Gujarat should set up a separate internal audit department to strengthen its internal audit process," said Niranjan Pant, principal accountant general, Gujarat. After presented in the state assembly, the civil audit report of Gujarat government by CAG was made public on Thursday. Pant emphasised the need of making government departments more responsive. He also said that commercial audit report of government's several agencies will soon be sent to state government and eventually made public after being tabled in assembly.

Praful Patel says seat-sharing talks with Congress in final stage for LS polls

Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel has said that his party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), may enter into a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in Gujarat for the coming general elections. He was talking on the sidelines of laying a foundation stone of the new integrated terminal building at Vadodara airport on Thursday.

Patel said that his party will contest from three seats. Patel said that both the parties had an alliance in Gujarat assembly polls held in December 2007 and hoped it will continue.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s desperate bid to forge an anti-Left alliance with the Congress has come in for criticism from her own partymen.

At least four Trinamool leaders have openly asked Mamata to start poll preparations independently instead of waiting indefinitely for an alliance. Political observers too feel, that strictly going by statistics of last Lok Sabha elections, the alliance would help protect Mamata’s place in her traditional constituency rather than improving Trinamool’s poll prospects in the state.

In a major political development, Nava Telangana Party (NTP) headed by Andhra Pradesh ex-home minister T Devender Goud merged on Thursday with Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party (PRP).

NTP, founded in July 2008, is the second Telangana-specific political outfit next only to Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) headed by K Chandrasekhara Rao. “PRP has similar views on Telangana. This merger would only further our fight to achieve a separate state,” Goud said. Goud was appointed PRP vice-president after the merger.

PRP, which is still in its infancy as the elections are round the corner, has been looking for a stronghold in the Telangana region. Though it had tried for an alliance with TRS, the process did not go beyond initial talks.

Govt will revoke special powers act, says Omar

Armed forces may be divested of their special powers in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time since violence broke out in the Valley in early 1990s. Chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Thursday that the government was working towards revoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to troops.

Replying to a debate on AFSPA in the state assembly during his maiden address as the chief minister, Omar said: "We have started the process of revoking the AFSPA and Disturbed Area Act (DAA)."

Pak Prez joins hands with Mush's PML-Q

Even as Pakistan was plunged into fresh turmoil on Thursday with PML-N cadres protesting the Supreme Court order barring the Sharif brothers from contesting polls, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by president Asif Ali Zardari decided to join hands with the Pervez Musharraf-backed Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid) to form governments at the centre and in Punjab province.

Zardari's slain wife Benazir Bhutto had, in a letter, named PML-Q's parliamentary party leader Pervez Elahi as one of her "would be assassins".