Visa apology

New Delhi: The ministry of external affairs has withdrawn an advisory sent to government departments to stop visits to France after Paris conveyed regrets for delays in granting visas.

Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said the French government has also regretted the inconvenience caused to Indian diplomatic and official passport holders.

RSS rebuttal

New Delhi: The RSS has said Uma Bharti’s attack on its general secretary Suresh Soni was akin to an attack on the Sangh. At the RSS’s national executive in Chitrakoot on Saturday, spokesman Ram Madhav said: “If there is an allegation against a Sangh functionary, it is construed as an allegation against the RSS as a whole.”

New Delhi (PTI): Senior IPS officer Kiran Bedi, whose NGO has been accused of sending “unauthorised” summons to a family indicted of domestic violence, appeared on Friday before a Delhi court which found nothing wrong in it except the language.

Gunbattle

Srinagar (PTI): A 30-hour encounter in Sopore ended on Saturday with the gutting of a building where a militant had taken shelter after security forces foiled a suicide attack on a municipal council complex. It is not clear whether the militant was killed.

Officer in net

Nagpur (PTI): CBI sleuths on Friday caught an assistant commissioner of provident fund allegedly accepting a Rs 1-lakh bribe. They found Rs 97,000 in his office, sources said. He had told a motel owner he would waive a Rs 8-lakh penalty for a bribe.