The Goa government has launched the Griha Aadhar scheme by which it will provide Rs.1000 per month as financial assistance to housewives from the middle, lower-middle and poor sections of the community.

The scheme is meant for married women living in Goa for the last 15 years and whose gross family income, does not exceed Rs.300,000 per annum. Married women includes widows and divorcees whose gross income does not exceed Rs.1.5 lakhs per annum.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said he is fulfilling an election promise, and the government has made provision of Rs.150 crore for the current financial year as India's food inflation is expected to remain high. Distributions will commence later in October.

Goa's senior citizens will also soon be able to withdraw cash from their bank accounts at the doorstep through young people who will be hired on a commission basis to provide the service.

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Organised by an NGO called Ekta Parishad, tens of thousands of India's landless poor have begun a march from Gwalior city to Delhi, a distance of some 217 miles, that will end at the end of October.

The government sent the Rural Development Minister and the Commerce Minister to meet the organisers and persuade them to accept the government's promise that a draft national land reform policy will be prepared in six months.

However the protesters, mostly tribes people and landless labourers insist that each of them must be given a piece of land that they say is the only sustainable livelihood generation that can achieve real poverty reduction and lift tens of millions out of poverty.

Land has became a major political issue in India where the government needs land for industry or infrastructure projects, but farmers and tribals say that cannot happen at their expense.

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Lt. General Kuldeep Singh Brar was stabbed in an attack by four men recently but survived the attack. London police say the attack was attempted murder, as the 78-year-old General is thought still to be a target for extremist Sikhs.

Brar who is himself a Sikh was one of the architects of the operation that was aimed at removing armed Sikh militants fighting for an independent homeland of Khalistan from the Golden Temple in 1984.

Brar is reported to have sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries. He was attacked while returning to his hotel in Oxford Circus, London after a diner date with his wife. One man held his wife to the ground and two others tried to push him to the ground too while the other pulled out a dagger. The General put up a strong struggle. A few passers-by arrived and the attackers ran away.

No arrests have been made yet.

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Activist and one time Team Anna participant has announced the establishment of a political party to fight corruption and the culture of "bribe taking" and will contest the next general elections due in 2014.

Anna Hazare parted ways with Mr Kejriwal over plans to enter politics, saying he preferred "sacred' agitation over politics. Kejriwal reiterated that there is no rift between them.

Kejriwal, 44, called his party 'a party of the people' and whether they win or lose if he did not fight today his children will accuse him of wasting an opportunity. Kejriwal is a former bureaucrat who won the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2006 for social work and initiatives to fight corruption. He continues his demand for Jan Lokpal

Kejriwal and his erstwhile Team Anna colleagues including Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Manish Sisodia said they would announce the name of their party on November 26.

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India did not make it to the World Twenty20 semi-finals despite beating South Africa by one run in at the final Super Eight Group Two match.

India's total of 152 for six was not enough because in the 17th over eliminated South Africa passed the target of 121 runs that ensured Australia and Pakistan would move into the last four.

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