New Delhi, Dec 2 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh will meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders here this evening in the wake of his offer to resign following the Mumbai terror attacks.

According to sources, discussions on the issue of Desmukh’s successor will gain momentum after his arrival.

Besides meeting Sonia Gandhi, Deshmukh will also meet Defence Minister A K Antony, who is in-charge of party affairs in Maharashtra and also Sonia Gandhi''s political secretary Ahmed Patel.

New Delhi, Dec 2 : Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta today said the Coast Guards had intelligence inputs about the use of the sea route by terror outfits to attack India’s financial capital, Mumbai.

The fishing trawler in which terrorists came to Mumbai was intercepted by the Coast Guard, but was let off by them as all papers were in place, Admiral Mehta told reporters at his annual press conference ahead of Navy Day.

New Delhi, Dec. 2 : This is probably one of the last crises that U. S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has been tasked to handle, and it is a fruitless task.

She brings little to the table and she can take back nothing. Rice will ask India to practice restraint and believe Islamabad when it says that it will cooperate on terror.

And exercising restraint is something that the Congress coalition can ill afford to do, seeing the public sentiment. Dr Singh''s government has to be seen to be taking action, not just acting. And, action not in providing aircraft to the NSG and a few more boats to the coast guard.

New Delhi, Dec 2 : Arab League General Secretary General Amre Moussa met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh here today.

Moussa''s three-day visit to India is aimed at for pushing bilateral cooperation in various fields.

Moussa, who is the Secretary General of a 22-nation body, is also expected to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee later in the day where both sides are expected to explore ways to enhance cooperation in energy, trade and investment sectors.

He is also expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at setting up an Arab-India Relations Forum, which would act as joint mechanism boosting cooperation on both sides.

"PAKISTAN" seems to be one issue which India has just not been able to get out of its way. After the Mumbai attacks the issue of "how to handle Pakistan" has been haunting the UPA government like never before.

The politicians might not have claimed any political casualty but the Mumbai attacks definitely did, the first being Home Minister Shivraj Patil who submitted his resignation. His position is being taken over by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will now be handling the finance portfolio for the moment along with the three others he already holds- coal, environment and forests and information and broadcasting.