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The US Federal Government shutdown continuing into third day on October 3 over a short-term budget dispute unresolved in a broken Congress, seemed headed to drive the world’s super-power into a globally disastrous default, the first ever, by mid-October, when US Treasury runs out of cash to pay its bills.

New Delhi: Indian Air Force is ready to assist the Army in its operations against the heavily fortified infiltrators from Pakistan in the Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district saif the IAF chief Air Marshal NAK Browne.

New Delhi: Electricity to start flowing from India to Bangladesh from Saturday through high voltage direct current inter-connection lines lighting millions of houses.

New Delhi: Come October 8. Indian Air Force will celebrate its 81th anniversary with air display by various aircraft as part of the Air Force Day Parade-cum-Investiture Ceremony at Air Force Station at Hindan, few miles from Delhi.

The sentencing of the RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav by five years in prison by the Special CBI Court on Thursday marks a new phase in the political graph of this colourful Lok Sabha member from Bihar. At a time when the RJD was recovering the lost ground in the state, the conviction has come as a great set back to both the RJD and its leader. Lalu would have got away from losing his membership had Rahul Gandhi not put a spoke on the ordinance last week brought by the government to help him.

Conviction of Lalu Prasad Yadav in much talked about fodder scam case of Bihar is an important event not only having bearing on the politics at the provincial level, but also on national level. Lalu might have lost last four General Elections in Bihar after 2004, but he remained the most powerful politician of the state because of his solid MY (Muslim-Yadav) alliance. In the last Bihar Assembly elections, too, his RJD and ally LJP of Ramvilas Paswan had bagged 25 percent of votes polled. With his conviction and disqualification from contesting an election, his RJD is bound to lose its shine.

Explaining the disjunction between Rahul Gandhi’s views on the ordinance on convicted legislators and the government’s decision to come to their rescue, external affairs minister Salman Khurshid underlined the need for parties sometimes to choose between “pragmatism” and “principles”.

ON BOARD PM’S SPECIAL FLIGHT: Prime Minister Manmonhan Singh sidestepped the question of tendering his resignation in the light of Rahul Gandhi’s harsh remarks on the worthiness of the pending ordinance to protect tainted MPs and MLAs against the Supreme Court order which bars their reelection and said he would discuss the matter with the Congress vice-president on return and also with his cabinet colleagues and Congress core group again before he took the final call.

New Delhi: After the postponement of the proposed India-Bangladesh bonhomie at Petropole-Benapole border schedule on October 2, the Gandhi Jayanti Day, the Border Security Force (BSF) of India has planned an entertainment evening in the Capital on this historic day.

New Delhi: Indian higher educational institutions are likely to sign memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with their counterparts in Belgium and Turkey.