Hurriyat wants passports for full delegation
Caught in a cleft stick over the choice of an All- Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) team to visit Pakistan, its chairman, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, today said the Centre should give passports to all seven executive council members to make the dream of peace initiatives between India and Pakistan a reality.

PM reviews economic situation
The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, today started the process of informal consultations with senior colleagues in the Government and some alliance partners on the hard economic decisions that are likely to be taken to carry forward the reforms process. The meeting today was inconclusive; the next round is scheduled for January 17.

Samata headed for split
The Samata Party, a constituent of the ruling NDA Government, today tottered on the verge of a split over the move to take the Janata Dal (United) on board, with six MPs deciding to hold a parallel convention in Patna on Friday to elect a new party president.

Chhattisgarh BJP MLA quits
The controversy surrounding the BJP MLA, Mr. Ram Dayal Uikey, in Chhattisgarh, took a dramatic turn with the Speaker, Mr. Rajendra Prasad Shukla, announcing that the MLA had resigned from the House.

Qureshi hospitalised
Mr. Mohammed Hashim Qureshi, an accused in the 1971 Indian Airlines plane hijacking, was today shifted to an intensive care unit of the Deen Dayal Upadhayaya Hospital here after he complained of chest pain.

10 survive ship wreck
Ten Indians have survived in the two-day-old ship wreck tragedy in which a Georgian-flagged cargo vessel sank off the Turkish coast, sources in Ankara said.

Amartya Sen condemns stifling of religious rights
The Nobel laureate, Dr. Amartya Sen, today renewed his attack on Hindu fundamentalist forces, saying it was illogical to mix mythology with history to distort the past for ``small, sectarian gains''.