Breaking News, October 28 | LIVE UPDATES

Two days after Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais said that that he sought a "second opinion" in the office-of-profit case involving Chief Minister Hemant Soren, the ruling JMM said that the state's constitutional head had been making "confusing statements" in the matter. 

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday hit out at the Election Commission, alleging that it did not follow rules regarding the voters' list in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls earlier this year. "Had the Election Commission followed rules regarding electoral roll in 2022 Assembly elections, thousands of voters would not have been deprived of voting," Yadav said during a meeting held to discuss preparations for the civic body polls here, according to a press statement.

A court here on Friday fixed November 30 as the next date of hearing in a matter involving a dispute between the Meena masjid and the Katra Keshav Dev temple as the hearing could not be held due to the respondents' absence. The petitioners have claimed that the mosque was built on a part of the temple land. 

A 32-year-old man was arrested for allegedly driving his car into three people in north Delhi's Alipur area and sending them to hospital, police said on Friday. According to police, the man's car had touched a bike which led to an argument between him and the other driver. When he saw locals gathering, he tried to flee from the spot and hit the victims. A purported video of the incident later circulated on social media.

The government on Friday notified rules under which it will set up appellate panels to redress grievances that users may have against decisions of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook on hosting contentious content. The three-member Grievance Appellate Committee(s) will be set in three months, a gazette notification issued by MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) said.

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Friday suspended the registration of Registrar to Issue and Share Transfer Agent (RTA) Satellite Corporate Services (SCS) for three months as it did not carry out its fiduciary responsibility to its client. "The Market Intermediaries Regulation and Supervision Department, Sebi, shall appoint an auditor. Before restoration of the noticee's (SCS) certificate of registration, and satisfy itself that SCS has fully complied with all relevant guidelines/circular to carry out its business in the best interest of the securities market," the regulator said.

Amid a row over Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's appeal for printing images of Hindu deities on currency notes, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in Gujarat on Friday criticised the Aam Aadmi Party for removing Mahatma Gandhi's photos from government offices in Punjab, where the AAP is in power. Attacking Kejriwal over his demand, Gujarat BJP president CR Paatil said people should remain cautious and make sure the AAP does not remove Mahatma Gandhi's photograph from currency notes like it did in government offices.

The government on Friday tweaked IT rules to pave way for setting up of grievance appellate panels, which will settle issues that users may have against the way social media platforms initially addressed their complaints regarding content and other matters. These committees will be able to review content moderation decisions by social media companies like Meta and Twitter. The 'Grievance Appellate Committees' will be set up within three months, according to a gazette notification on Friday.

The Enforcement Directorate has told the Supreme Court that M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and accused of gold smuggling, has been influencing other accused and using state machinery to fabricate false cases against it and the investigating officer. The Kerala government machinery turned against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after Sivasankar's role was detected in the smuggling case and false cases were registered against directorate officials to derail the probe and trial, the agency alleged.

Private sector lender Bandhan Bank on Friday reported a net profit of Rs 209. 30 crore in the quarter ended in September 2022 on the back of a fall in bad loans. The Kolkata-headquartered bank had posted a net loss of Rs 3,008. 60 crore in the same quarter a year ago due to higher provisioning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the expertise gained by India's steel industry in manufacturing high-grade version of the alloy helped the country make its first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant with domestic capability and technology. Modi said due to everyone's efforts in the last eight years, the Indian steel industry has become the second largest in the world and there is still immense potential for expansion of the key sector.
In his virtual address as the chief guest at the "bhoomi pujan" of expansion of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India)'s flagship plant at Hazira in Gujarat's Surat district, the PM said the PLI (production linked incentive) scheme has helped pave the way for expansion of the industry and given strength to the Centre's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' (self-reliant India) initiative.

Goa Minister Rohan Khaunte on Friday expressed hope the new government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the United Kingdom will restore the e-visa facility, the absence of which has severely affected tourism and allied businesses in the coastal state. The tourism season in Goa peaks with Christmas and New Year, attracting patrons from across the world. "Tourism and allied businesses are badly affected in both India and UK due to non-restoration of e-visas by UK. Hoping for an early resolution under the new Indian origin PM Rishi Sunak," state tourism minister Khaunte tweeted.

A dedicated freight corridor has given a boost to the modal (freight movement) shift from road to rail even as a host of factors, including the absence of a sector regulator, impeding this shift, a report said on Friday.   According to credit ratings agency CareEdge, container cargo transported through railways (rail volumes) grew by a healthy 17. 63 per cent year-on-year to 74. 38 million metric tonnes during the previous fiscal as compared to 12. 51 per cent growth in overall container cargo volumes.

The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the stand of the Centre and Delhi government on a plea against the recent delimitation of municipal wards in the city. A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad issued notice to the two governments as well as the Delimitation Committee on the petition assailing the Centre's notification on October 17 notifying 250 wards within the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for being unconstitutional.

A 28-year-old man and his teenage nephew drowned in Ganga here while bathing on Friday, police said. According to police, One Sujit Giri, and his nephew Om Giri, 15, both residents of a village under Karanda Police Station, had gone to the nearby river bank to prepare it for Chhatt Puja. 
The two later got into the river to bathe but were swept away in the strong current.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday released its seventh list of 13 candidates for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections, taking the number of nominees whose names the party has declared so far to 86. The list was released by the party's state unit president Gopal Italia. Elections to the 182-member Gujarat Legislative Assembly are due by the end of this year. However, the poll schedule is yet to be announced. Ten out of these 13 seats are currently held by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while the opposition Congress holds three others. Two seats- Kadi and Kalavad- are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates, while three - Sankheda, Mandvi and Mahuva are reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, he said.

The government has formed a committee on cadre restructuring of Central Secretariat Service (CSS) mandated to suggest measures to enhance the effectiveness of the service and capacity building of its members. The CSS officers form the backbone of the central secretariat working. The committee will assess the present and future career progression of the CSS officers and suggest remedial measures, both short term and long term, so as to reduce promotion blocks and at the same time prevent gaps from building up, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.It will  also “suggest measures to enhance the effectiveness of the service and capacity building of its members”, it said.

In a major reshuffle in Rajasthan, 30 IAS officers including four district collectors were transferred on Friday, an official order stated. Apart from them, six IAS officers were also given additional charge, as per the order issued by the state department of personnel. Additional Chief Secretary (home and transport) Abhay Kumar was made ACS-Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, and food and civil supplies department, the order said. Anand Kumar, principal secretary-revenue, sainik kalyan and devsthan will be the principal secretary-home, it said.

Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai did not speak the truth about the date of the rollout of the ''Red Light On, Gaadi Off'' campaign, Lieutenant Governor office sources said on Friday, claiming that the AAP did so to coerce the LG into taking a decision. Setting the stage for a fresh confrontation with the Delhi Lieutenant Governor, the AAP government on Thursday had said it is postponing the launch of the campaign as the LG's office is yet to approve it. Addressing a press conference here, Rai had claimed that the file on the campaign was sent to Lt Governor V K Saxena on October 21.

A 45-year-old excise inspector allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in his room in a sugar mill at Khaikhedi in Purkazi police station limits, police said on Friday. The body of the deceased, identified as Ashok Kumar, has been sent for post mortem, Purkazi police station SHO Gyaneshwar Bodh said. Kumar, who hailed from Agra, had been posted at a sugar mill in Khaikheri since July, Bodh said, adding that the cause behind his suicide was not yet ascertained.

Haryana Police on Friday said it arrested a man for allegedly stealing mobile phones worth Rs 5 crore. The accused has been identified as Deepak, a native of Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh, a police spokesperson said. Deepak, along with his accomplices, had on May 27 looted mobile phones from a container truck of a firm located in Bawal town of Rewari district, he said. The accused first kidnapped the truck driver and then committed the crime, the spokesperson added. A case in this connection was registered at Kasola police station in Rewari on May 28, he said, adding Depak was absconding since then. He is already facing three criminal cases in Madhya Pradesh, the spokesperson said. 

Delhi Revenue Minister Kailash Gahlot on Friday visited Hathi Ghat on the banks of the Yamuna near ITO to take stock of the preparations ahead of Chhath Puja. Chhath Puja, which involves the offering of 'arghya' to the Sun god by fasting women in knee-deep water, will be celebrated on October 30 and 31. The festival is hugely popular among Purvanchalis- people belonging to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh- living in Delhi. Issuing directions to expedite remaining works, Gahlot checked the sanitation, lighting, water supply arrangements and the digging of temporary ponds, officials said.

The Jharkhand government Friday announced special training for teachers of model schools in the state to raise the standard of education on par with private schools, officials said. The training will be part of the government efforts to provide quality education to children of government schools, they said. "Through the ambitious Adarsh Vidyalaya Programme, the government is giving necessary impetus to the secondary and higher secondary levels of education and is all set to project teachers of these institutions as 'changemakers'. To help secure this the Azim Premji Foundation will provide training to headmasters and teachers of the model schools," a government release said.

The Twitter handle of the Mumbai Government Railway Police (GRP) has been hacked, its top official said on Friday. The GRP is responsible for ensuring safety and security of passengers travelling on the Mumbai suburban railway network. "Dear Mumbaikars, it has come to our notice that the @GRPMumbai handle seems to have been hacked. We request you to not pay heed to any fresh tweets till we update," Quaiser Khalid, Commissioner of GRP Mumbai, said in a tweet. The concerned agencies are working on regaining access, he said.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who created a political flutter with his appeal to incorporate images of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha on currency notes, has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushing forward the demand. Claiming that the Indian economy was not in good shape, Kejriwal had on Wednesday said the country needed a lot of effort to get the economy back on track along with the "blessings of our gods and goddesses". It's a wish of 130 crore Indians that there should a picture of Mahatma Gandhi on one side of currency notes and the photos of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Lakshmi on the other side, he wrote in the letter on Thursday.

Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn't during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national mid-term elections when they already hold the White House. Of course, he's more popular than he was back then, and now it's President Joe Biden, Obama's former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke. Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states on Friday in Georgia, and he will travel on Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

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The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has come under fire following the Centre's announcement that Tata-Airbus C-295 transport aircraft project would be set up in Gujarat, with the opposition seeking to know why the project that was supposed to come up in Maharashtra went to the neighbouring state. Former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday accused the Shinde government of not being serious about the state's progress and criticised it for "failing to protect the state's interests".

The Meghalaya government is considering shifting the state secretariat and other administrative offices to New Shillong Township in a bid to decongest the capital, officials said. Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma along with Urban Affairs Minister S Dhar and top officials of the state government visited several sites in the new township, being developed around 12 km away from Shillong, on Thursday. "We have come here to visit Mawdiangdiang, Mawpat and Mawkasiang to see the possibility of shifting the entire secretariat and the government departments here," Sangma told reporters. "We are examining the possibility, and contemplating which is going to be a better option for the state and its people," he added.

The Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra resumed from Yeligandla in Narayanpet district of Telangana on Friday and is expected to cover a distance of 23.3 km, Congress party sources said. The yatra will halt at Mahabubnagar tonight. This is the third day of the yatra in the state. The yatra kicked off at around 6.10 am with former union minister Jairam Ramesh, AICC leader KC Venugopal and Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy and a number of party leaders joining Gandhi. Gandhi called two school girl students who were waiting for him on the roadside during the yatra and walked with them for some distance. The Gandhi scion-led yatra completed 26.7 km on Thursday, before halting for the day at Sri Balaji Factory, Makthal for the night, according to party sources.

Residents of a town in north-central Mexico were stunned to see a dog running down the street with a human head in its mouth. Officials in the violence-plagued state of Zacatecas confirmed the incident and said Thursday that police eventually managed to wrest the head away from the dog. A law enforcement official who was not authorised to be quoted by name said the head and other body parts had been left in an automatic teller booth in the town of Monte Escobedo late Wednesday. The human remains were left with a message referring to a drug cartel. But before police could act, a stray dog made off with the corpse's head.

The sentencing of a former United Nations communications specialist to 15 years in prison Thursday was punctuated by the tears and eloquence of some of his 13 sexual assault victims who said being drugged and raped by a man who first won their trust left them shattered and hopeful that justice might help them heal. When they were finished speaking, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald told Karim Elkorany that it was particularly heinous that he engaged in the “raping of women who believed he was their friend” as she sentenced him to the maximum he could face after he pleaded guilty to three charges in May. She said many rapes from 2002 through 2019 occurred in the Middle East, but she noted that prosecution of his crimes in some U.S. jurisdictions might have resulted in life in prison.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Segal ‘have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning’, reports US media. 

The third quarter GDP report on the US economy points to an economic recovery and quells fears of an impending recession, President Joe Biden’s key economic adviser has said. The US economy grew at a better-than-expected 2.6 per cent annual rate from July through September, snapping two straight quarters of economic contraction and overcoming high inflation and interest rates. Thursday's estimate released by the Commerce Department revealed that the country’s GDP grew in the third quarter after having shrunk in the first half of 2022.

Ukrainian forces attacked Russia's hold on the southern city of Kherson on Thursday while fighting intensified in the country's east. The battles came amid reports that Moscow-appointed authorities have abandoned the city, joining tens of thousands of residents who fled to other Russia-held areas. Ukrainian forces were surrounding Kherson from the west and attacking Russia's foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper River, which divides the region and the country. As the battles unfolded, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow has no intention to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, despite issuing repeated warnings in the past that he was prepared to use all available means to defend Russia, including its nuclear arsenal.