A two-judge Supreme Court bench said on Friday that it found "no justification" for quashing criminal proceedings against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in the case filed against them by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. However, the bench said, given the position the Gandhis occupy, it will not be necessary for them to appear before the Delhi magistrate in person. Swamy had charged Sonia and Rahul Gandhi with cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and misappropriation of funds in an issue relating to property owned by the National Herald group of newspapers in Lucknow.

Addressing an audience at India International Centre, Delhi, on Friday, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said that "The problem is not that Indians have been intolerant, it is that we have been much too tolerant of intolerance." He continued: "And so I am arguing that this has to end.... We must be more intolerant of intolerance. That is not happening adequately right now, or even earlier. We should no longer tolerate an intolerance that undermines democracy and allows a culture of impunity and tormentors." Sen had been invited to deliver the Rajendra Mathur Memorial lecture organised by the Editors' Guild of India.

In his first interview since he stepped down as India's prime minister in 2014, Manmohan Singh told the magazine India Today that Prime Minister Modi needs to improve his relations with the Congress party to break the logjam over the GST bill, reports the Hindustan Times. Singh said: "I have had the opportunity to talk to the PM once or twice and I have told him that he has to reach out to the Opposition much more effectively than has been the case. There has been no serious discussion with the Congress, whether it is on foreign policy or domestic policy, and even on the GST."

Just as they did during the general elections of 2014, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal will clash in Varanasi on 22 February this year when the two of them attend the celebrations of the birth anniversary of Dalit saint Ravidas, reports The Economic Times. The issue this time is just as political: Delhi chief minister Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is contesting the 2017 Punjab assembly polls as, of course, is the BJP. And the celebrations around the saint will see the attendance of more than five lakh followers, most of whom are from Punjab.

Bhojpur leader and vice president of the BJP Bihar unit Visheshwar Ojha, 53, was shot dead on Friday at 6.30 pm at Sonbarsha village in Ara, reports The Indian Express. His assailants opened fire as Ojha entered his car after meeting a relative at a marketplace. The state police said he had faced "more than a dozen bullets from sophisticated weapons". Outraged, the BJP called the murder a "political killing" and threatened a statewide stir if Ojha's assailants were not arrested within 72 hours. Nand Kishore Yadav, former BJP opposition leader in the assembly, said "political killings had increased under the Grand Alliance government".

A Supreme Court bench said on Friday that it would decide the issue of allowing women of menstrual age to worship at the Sabarimala temple in Kerala on the basis of constitutional parameters that mandate the court to balance two fundamental rights: the right to practice any religion with the right to equality, reports The Economic Times. Though the bench refused to stay the high court order that allows the temple to keep out women, it admonished the state government for changing its earlier stand that women should be allowed in the temple, and wondered whether women were discriminated against under Hindu Dharma.

Former Army officers have reportedly threatened to return their JNU degrees citing 'anti-national activities' on university campus. This, of course, includes the celebration of Afzal Guru day.

They apparently "find it difficult" to be associated with an institution that has become a "hub of anti-national activities", ANI reports. In a letter addressed to JNU's vice-chancellor Jagdeesh Kumar, the ex-armymen wrote, "We would be constrained to return our degrees if such activities are allowed to be conducted inside the university."

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Saturday has warned of major attacks in Europe, terming them a high possibility. He was speaking at the Munich Security Conference alongside Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"We must be fully conscious of the threat, and react with a very great force and great lucidity. There will be attacks. Large-scale attacks. It's a certainty. This hyper-terrorism is here to stay," Valls said.

France faced a major terror attack in November 2015 that claimed 130 lives.