NEW DELHI - Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa will meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Nitin Gadkari here today to plead against his removal over allegations of land scams.

A landslide victory in last month's local elections has heightened the United Democratic Front's (UDF) hopes of returning to power in Kerala in next year's assembly elections but the Congress, which heads the alliance, may be exulting too soon. Its position is not as rosy as it imagines.

BANGALORE - The southern Indian state of Karnataka is a land of contradictions - a leader in education, banking, science and technology but backward-looking in politics dominated by caste equations.