The deficit stood at 0.2% of the GDP in the January-March quarter, the RBI said, as compared to 1.6% of GDP in the previous quarter and the same level in March a year ago. The reduction in crude oil and commodity prices in international markets is believed to be the main reason behind the drop.

It is an interest-free loan to the sugar mills, intended to enable them to clear long-due arrears to sugarcane farmers. The arrears stand at Rs. 21,000 crore. Sugar mills will now prepare a list of such farmers who have to be compensated and banks will transfer the money directly in their accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yoajana.

However, the Indian Sugar Mills Association has said that this will not solve the basic problem of surplus sugar and depressed prices. This is the second time that the millers have received such help from the Union government. The government had given another interest-free loan in December 2013, worth Rs. 6,600 crore.

President Obama has decided to hike the numbers of army advisers in Iraq to help train local forces in combating the Islamic State. They will be deployed at the Taqaddum military base in Anbar province, whose capital Ramadi has been under IS control since May.

The White House said this was a response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi. The fresh deployment will take the number of US training camps in Iraq to five. Nearly 9,000 Iraqi troops have been trained at other camps like Al-Asad, Besmaya, Irbil and Taji.

The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) has found UN peacekeepers involved in 480 sexual exploitation and abuse cases between 2008 and 2013. A draft report says the troops bartered goods like cash, jewellery and mobile phones for sex with hundreds of impoverished women in Haiti and Liberia. UN peacekeepers comprise troops from many countries across the world and currently about 1,25,000 are deployed across the globe.

Weapons of the Indian army personnel killed during the 4 June attack in Manipur. (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

While media in India has been speculating on the body count Indian special forces left behind in Myanmar, the Director of Myanmar's presidential office, Zaw Htay, has said in a Facebook post that the Indian military operation was performed on the Indian side at India-Myanmar border.

Meanwhile India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has decided to visit Myanmar soon to discuss further 'joint action' against insurgents.

Six years after the daughter of Kalavati Bandurkar - the Vidharbha farmer that shot to fame after Rahul visited her and mentioned her plight in parliament - committed suicide sometime after the Congress vice-president's visit, a 60-year-old farmer in Punjab who had also met Gandhi has been reported to have killed himself. Surjit Singh (60) had taken a loan of Rs 10 lakh from a bank and other persons but could not repay, the family claimed.

A trial court in Mumbai on Wednesday has sent Audi accident accused corporate lawyer Janhavi Gadkar to police custody till 12 June. She is accused of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

AAP's Delhi Cantt MLA Surender Singh, who became famous in capital for being a part of Indian army's offensive against the terrorist attack on Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, is now feeling pressure himself after reports surfaced of him furnishing fake degrees. According to some reports, Singh claimed to have secured a BA from Sikkim University, which has rejected his claim.

Photo: Sushil Kumar/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Perhaps AAP's law ministry is cursed, or it's a crazy coincidence that both the law ministers in the two governments AAP has formed in Delhi have been forced to resign over serious accusations.

On Wednesday Somnath Bharti, law minister in AAP's previous government, was in for more trouble as his wife demanded complete separation from him alleging him to have mentally tortured and physically abused her. Delhi Commission for Women has served him notice. He is to appear before DCW on June26.

The Chinese government has denied that the PLA, or People's Liberation Army, had or has anything to do with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) - the group behind the 4 June attack - according to government think-tank officials quoted in the state-run newspaper Global Times.

This was in response to earlier reports in the Indian media in which a senior Indian official claimed that NSCN-K had cancelled its ceasefire with the Centre as per instructions from the Chinese PLA. Officially, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has not yet made a statement. But most experts have deemed this accusation as being 'absurd'.

One day after the Army allegedly carried out a first-of-its-kind raid in Myanmar against those behind the Manipur attacks on 4 June, the discussion seems to have shifted to whether or not India would or would be able to carry out similar anti-terror raids in Pakistan.

"The military's action against insurgents with assistance from the Myanmarese government speaks volumes about India's resolve to fight terror. This is a lesson and a message to all the terror groups that India will not hesitate in going beyond its geographical borders to eliminate terrorists," Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The Minister of State for Information Rajyavardhan Rathore also said that the strike in Myanmar was a message to all countries, including Pakistan, and that "we will strike at a place and at a time of our choosing."

Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan responded to this on Wednesday, and asserted that India should not mistake for Myanmar, and that its armed forced would give a befitting reply to any act of aggression from across the border.

Photo: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

Following Tomar's resignation over allegations of false educational documents, the Delhi AAP government has appointed Delhi Jal Board vice chairman Kapil Mishra to the seat of the law minister.

Mishra had been placed in the crucial Jal Board to help bring to fruition one of AAP's primary election promises - providing cheap water to Delhi. It's believed that his stellar performance at the Jal Board is what convinced Arvind Kejriwal to appoint him to the law ministry.