Breaking News, October 8

Four persons, including three children, died in a gas cylinder explosion here, police said on Saturday. Sixteen others injured in the accident are undergoing treatment at MGH Hospital. District Collector Himanshu Gupta has ordered a probe into the matter and assured that anyone found responsible would be prosecuted as per law.

A massive fire broke out in a residential building in Chembur's New Tilak Nagar area on Saturday. Several residents were seen hanging on to balconies in an effort to save their lives. READ MORE 

Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians on Saturday in an exchange of fire that erupted during a military raid in the West Bank, according to Israeli and Palestinian accounts, in the latest confrontation that has made 2022 the deadliest year of violence in the occupied territory since 2015. The raid occurred in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the site of repeated clashes between Israeli forces and local gunmen and residents. The camp is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants and the army often operates there.

The Enforcement Directorate has seized about Rs 1 crore in cash after raids conducted in connection with a money laundering investigation into the alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, official sources said Saturday. The searches were launched on Friday at about 35 locations in Delhi-NCR, Punjab and Telangana's capital Hyderabad. About a crore cash has been seized from a location during the raids conducted against liquor businessmen, distribution companies and linked entities, sources said.

Two dental colleges that approached the Karnataka High Court seeking admission for some students to dental courses have been fined Rs 1 lakh each. The court said the colleges cannot make pleas on behalf of the students. “If the petitioner-students were really deprived of the seats to which they were eligible, they would have approached the Court independently. The colleges cannot step into the shoes of students and file the writ petitions,” the court said.

Russian state-backed media reported on Saturday that a fire broke out on the bridge linking mainland Russia with the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula, hours after powerful blasts rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. RIA-Novosti and the Tass news agency quoted local Russian official Oleg Kryuchkov as saying an object thought to be a fuel storage tank caught fire and that traffic has been stopped on the bridge. Images shared on social media purported to show fire and damage to the span. The authenticity of the reports and images couldn't be immediately verified. The crossing is a pair of road and rail bridges that Russia built after it seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in violation of international law in 2014. The fire occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early on Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the centre of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city's medical institutions and a nonresidential building. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Delhi hospitals are seeing an uptick in patients coming to OPDs with upper respiratory tract infections, typhoid, and gastroenteritis due to the unseasonal rains and weather changes. According to doctors, the number of such cases has nearly doubled owing to an increased awareness about such infections necessitated by the pandemic. "These days, we are getting more than 20 patients every day in the OPD with complaints of upper respiratory tract infections, undiagnosed prolonged fever, typhoid, cases of swine flu, allergies, pneumonia and dengue,” said Dr Bhagwan Mantri, consultant pulmonologist and critical care specialist at Moolchand Hospital.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday greeted air warriors and their families on the Air Force Day. Modi said the Indian Air Force has shown exceptional dexterity for decades, has secured the nation, and has shown remarkable human spirit during disasters. He tweeted, "On Air Force Day, my greetings to the courageous air warriors and their families. In line with the motto of 'Nabhah Sprisham Deeptam' the Indian Air Force has shown exceptional dexterity for decades. They have secured the nation and also shown remarkable human spirit during disasters." 'Nabhah Sprisham Deeptam' is a Sanskrit phrase that translates to 'touching the sky with glory.' 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has asked the Assam government to devise a long-term plan to protect the northeastern state from flood so that more development can take place. Almost every year, three to four waves of flood ravage Assam. The average annual loss due to the disaster is to the tune of Rs 200 crore, according to a state government website. "Protection from flood is a key requirement for the development of the state and attracting significant private investment. The state government must go beyond short-term plans and come up with a long-term plan, which would provide protection from flood for decades to come," Shah said chairing a meeting on Friday. The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers with more than 50 tributaries feeding them, cause devastation in the monsoon each year.

A United Nations human rights expert urged Japan's government on Friday to provide evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster with more support, including housing, jobs and other needs, regardless of whether they fled forcibly or not. Wrapping up an investigation of the evacuees' human rights conditions, Cecilia Jimenez-Damary said Japan has adequate laws to protect internally displaced people. They include a nuclear disaster compensation law that requires the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, to cover damages, and other government-led revitalization and reconstruction programs. But she said they have not been effectively used to address the vulnerability of the evacuees. “Those laws should not remain just laws on the books, but they should be implemented,” she said.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann will begin their two-day visit to poll-bound Gujarat from Saturday. Both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders will jointly address a public meeting at Dahod town in tribal-dominated Dahod district on Saturday, the party's state general secretary Manoj Sorathiya said. Later in the day, they will participate in a 'Tiranga Yatra' in Vadodara city, he said. On Sunday, they will address a public meeting at Dharampur in tribal-dominated Valsad district, and then at Kadodara in Surat district. During these two days, Kejriwal, who is AAP's national convener, and Mann will hold an important meeting with social and other leaders in the state to chalk out plans for the upcoming elections, Sorathiya added. Assembly elections in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state are scheduled by the year-end. 

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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to attend the Indian Air Force Day celebrations in Chandigarh today.

A superyacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov has anchored in Hong Kong this week amid moves by Western governments to seize yachts connected to sanctioned Russian businessmen. The megayacht Nord, worth over USD 500 million, arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon after travelling for over a week from Vladivostok, Russia, its last port of call. Mordashov is one of Russia's richest billionaires, with an estimated wealth of over USD 18 billion according to an estimate by Bloomberg. He is the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russia's largest steel and mining company. He was sanctioned by the US, the United Kingdom and the European Union in February after Russia invaded Ukraine. Mordashov has since attempted to challenge the sanctions against him in European courts.

The X-ray spectrometer 'CLASS' on the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter has mapped an abundance of sodium on the moon for the first time, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (C1XS) detected sodium from its characteristic line in X-rays which opened up the possibility of mapping the amount of sodium on the Moon, it said. In a recent work published in 'The Astrophysical Journal Letters', Chandrayaan-2 mapped the abundance of sodium on the Moon for the very first time using CLASS (Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer), the national space agency said in a statement on Friday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday submitted a 35-page chargesheet in a CBI court in Asansol against Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal, who was arrested by the agency in connection with a cattle smuggling case. Mondal, currently in judicial remand, is lodged in Asansol correctional home. The central agency submitted the chargesheet before special vacation judge Ratna Roy Biswas in the CBI court at Asansol. The TMC's Birbhum district president was arrested on August 11 from his residence at Bolpur by a team of CBI sleuths for allegedly not cooperating in its investigation into the cattle smuggling case. Mondal had skipped appearing before the CBI officers at its Nizam Palace office in Kolkata for questioning on several occasions prior to the arrest.

A fire broke out in a factory here, with relief measures continuing overnight, officials said early Saturday.  The fire broke out around 11 pm in the multi-storey factory located in the city's industrial Sector 63, the officials said. No individual was injured in the incident in the factory where rubber-based conveyor belts are manufactured, Chief Fire Officer Arun Kumar Singh said. "When alerted about the blaze, around a dozen water tenders along with firefighters were rushed to the site. Fire has been controlled in a lot of area while efforts are on to douse it completely," Singh, overseeing the relief operation, said around 1.30 am. The cause of the fire and damage to the property will be assessed once the blaze is completely brought under control, he added.  Earlier on Friday, a major fire had ripped through a plastic-related manufacturing factory in Sector 3 of the city amid slight drizzle during the day. 

A series of explosions rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions. There were no immediate reports of casualties The blasts came hours after Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city's medical institutions and a nonresidential building.