Supreme Court asks court to proceed with Jaya case: The Supreme Court has directed a Chennai special court to proceed with the Tansi land-scam case in which the AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha is involved.

Tisco's stamp-charged coke-oven battery opened: Tata Steel's fourth stamp-charged coke oven battery number eight was formally inaugurated by its managing director JJ Irani in Jamshedpur on Friday. The battery, set up at a cost of Rs 430.11 crore, has a production capacity of 0.5 million tonne per annum of blast-furnacecoke.

Andhra to develop four minor ports: The Andhra Pradesh government will develop four minor ports at Kakinada, Krishnapatnam, Gangavaram and Vodarevu, state minister for minor ports SV Subba Rao has said. The minister said an agreement was reached to construct the Krishnapatnam port with an estimated cost of Rs 1,500 crore, and it would be completed in three to four years.

Gujarat may lift fixed price on groundnut oil: In a bid to tide over groundnut-oil shortage, the Gujarat government has hinted at lifting of the fix-price restriction on the oil. The state civil supplies minister Jaspal Singh, who took up the issue with traders and millers in the state capital Gandhinagar on Friday, urged the traders to import the product and maintain its availability in the market.

Laden warns US of retaliation: In his first public reaction since Thursday's American air strikes on alleged terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan, Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden has warned the United States ofstrong retaliation as the Taliban militia vowed it would never hand him over to Washington. Jaswant-Talbott talks on Monday: Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's special emissary Jaswant Singh will meet the US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott in Washington on Monday for the crucial fourth-round talks on adhering to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and other nuclear issues. Singh's visit comes in the backdrop of Vajpayee's statement in parliament that India remained committed to a dialogue with key interlocutors with a view to arriving at a decision regarding adherence to CTBT.

Chidambaram wants cut in government holding in banks: Former finance minister P Chidamabaram said on Saturday in Hyderabad that the government should reduce its holding to below 51 per cent in all banks. He said government ownership was a strong deterrent to professionalism, managerial freedom and entrepreneurial behaviour. He also said the recent RBI measures to arrest the rupee slide would only checkspeculation, but could not control ``negative sentiments.''

Manmohan Singh terms subsidies `national shame': Former finance minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday in New Delhi that the huge central and state subsidies in power and agro sectors were a `national shame'. He called for policy initiatives to shore up capital expenditure and to usher in a gross domestic product growth higher than 5 per cent.