Breaking News, September 18

The World Health Organisation has expressed fears about an impending second disaster of water-borne diseases in Pakistan in the wake of devastating floods that has wreaked havoc in several parts of the country.

A team of the Election Commission of India held a series of meetings with the Gujarat Director General of Police, Chief Secretary and other senior officials during its three-day visit to review the situation in the state for the forthcoming Assembly polls.

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were among thousands of mourners — from locals and tourists to world leaders — to pay their respects at Westminster Hall, where the queen is lying in state. The president made the sign of the cross and put his hand to his heart as he stood quietly near the casket in the ornate 900-year-old hall.

 Fresh COVID-19 infections continue to increase in Tamil Nadu as 492 people tested positive in the last 24 hours against 479 on Saturday, pushing the caseload to 35,76,814, said the Health Department.

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bodh Gaya organised a two-day 'International Conference on Sustainable Development Goals' in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. The two-day conference, which concluded on Saturday, received papers from 25 states of India, according to a statement issued by the IIM-Bodh Gaya on Sunday. 

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh Sunday ridiculed Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for BJD's political understanding with BJP and said the two parties work in tandem at the Centre in Delhi but indulge in "mock fights" in the state.

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Sunday stepped up his attack on the Left government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by accusing the latter of directing the police to not lodge a complaint when he was heckled at Kannur University in 2

More than a dozen JD(U) leaders from Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu formally joined the BJP here on Sunday as the saffron party continues to woo members from different units of its former ally. The JD(U) leaders and elected members in local bodies joined the BJP in the presence of its president JP Nadda here.

The Railway Protection Force have arrested 4 people in connection with blocking of a railway berth through e-ticket, sources in the railways said.

Two shanties collapsed in Maharashtra's Thane city on Sunday and no casualties were reported in the incident, a civic official said. The incident took place in the Lokmanya Nagar Pada area around 2 pm, said Avinash Sawant, chief of the regional disaster management Cell (RDMC).

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday termed as a systematic conspiracy the billboards against the BJP government that have allegedly come up in Telangana. 

An eight-foot-long python was rescued after it swallowed a whole goat in a village in Jharkhand’s Palamau Tiger Reserve (PTR), a forest official said on Sunday. The python has been spreading fear at Karwai, a village of about 400 families in Garu (East) forest range of the reserve, for the past four-five days. The villagers were scared as their goats and hens were going missing every morning, officials said.

Prosecutors in an area of Ukraine where Russian forces recently retreated in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive are accusing Russia of torturing civilians in one village that was recently freed. In an online statement, prosecutors in the Kharkiv region said they found a basement where Russian forces allegedly tortured prisoners in the village of Kozacha Lopan, near the border with Russia. In images they released, they showed a Russian military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and alligator clips attached to it.

A Dalit widow and her minor daughter were found murdered in their house in the Gajraula police station area of the district on Sunday morning, police said. According to the police, Dalit widow Manisha (32) was living with her daughter Isha (13) in Kankather under the Gajraula police station area. Her husband Pavan had died a few years ago, and her son Manvik was living at his maternal grandmother's place.

London's transport authority says it is preparing for around 1 million people to visit the British capital Monday for Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral. Transport for London chief Andy Byford said Sunday the capital has seen “huge numbers of additional passengers” since the queen died on Sept. 8. But he said demand will “reach a climax” on Monday.

Eight MLAs who recently switched over from the Congress to the ruling BJP in Goa will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Monday, a senior party leader said on Sunday. Six of them will leave for Delhi by flight on Sunday night, while MLAs Michael Lobo and Digambar Kamat, who are currently out of the station, will join them in the national capital, he said.

A leopard was found dead inside the Film City in Mumbai on Sunday morning, a forest official said. There was no injury mark on the carcass which was sent for an autopsy, he said.
 

Thieves attacked a man with a knife, killing him on the spot, police said on Sunday. Superintendent of Police (SP) Abhinandan said on Saturday night, unidentified thieves carried out a burglary at the house of a Gayatri Nagar resident of Baberu town named Munna Gupta. 

The European Union's executive branch recommended on Sunday that the bloc suspend around 7.5 billion euros (dollars) in funding to Hungary over concerns about democratic backsliding and the possible mismanagement of EU money.

Powerful typhoon Nanmadol approaching southwestern Japan is disrupting transportation services across wide areas of the country. Weather officials have issued an emergency warning for violent winds, high waves and storm surges for Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan, reported NHK. They said that a powerful typhoon could trigger the kind of disaster that is seen only once in a few decades.

A Jharkhand Maoist leader carrying a reward of Rs 15 lakh on his head was apprehended by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad from Palghar district on Sunday, an ATS official said. Karu Hulas Yadav (45) was a regional committee member of the banned CPI(Maoist) in Jharkhand.

A bus overturned on an expressway in southwestern China on Sunday, leaving 27 people dead and injuring 20 others, police said. The early morning accident was in Sandu county, which is southeast of the city of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, a brief police statement said.

The popularity of electric vehicles is gaining momentum in Rajasthan, where the number of such vehicles has jumped six times in three years, as people are increasingly adapting to the emerging mobility model. Looking at the comfort and easy mobility in city life, the sale of two-wheelers is the highest, while the sale of four-wheelers is the lowest, as consumers are still apprehensive about the charging infrastructure, particularly on highways and in the outskirts.

A massive search operation was carried out by the police and CRPF in several forward villages along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district following information about a suspected drone activity, a senior police official said on Sunday. However, nothing objectionable was found during the operation which started around 7:30 pm on Saturday and concluded at 9 am on Sunday, Deputy Superintendent of Police, operations, Garu Ram Bhardwaj told PTI.

Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have described his life as one that is dedicated to public service as they celebrated his 72nd birthday in the US city of Los Angeles. Prime Minister Modi turned 72 on Saturday. "In his eight years of rule, Modi has transformed India. Transformational changes undertaken by this government have laid the foundation for India to be a world leader," said Aman Sinha, BJP spokesperson at an event organised by the Overseas Friends of BJP in Los Angeles.

It was a pleasant morning in the national capital on Sunday with the minimum temperature settling at 23.8 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season's average, the weather department said. The relative humidity at 8:30 am was 88 per cent. The weather department has predicted a partly cloudy sky during the day and the maximum temperature is expected to settle at 34 degrees Celsius.

As many as 57 new cases of coronavirus have been detected in Maharashtra's Thane district, taking its infection tally to 7,44,380, a health official said on Sunday. With the addition of the latest numbers on Saturday, the district currently has 873 active COVID-19 cases, he said.

A fast track court here has sentenced a 55-year-old man to five years in prison for sexually assaulting a minor girl last year in Mannarkkad area of Palakkad district. Pattambi Fast Track Special Court judge Satish Kumar convicted the man and sentenced him to five years for the offence of aggravated sexual assault of a girl below 12 years of age under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Two Chinese astronauts went on a spacewalk Saturday from a new space station that is due to be completed later this year. Cai Xuzhe and Chen Dong installed pumps, a handle to open the hatch door from outside in an emergency, and a foot-stop to fix an astronaut's feet to a robotic arm, state media said.

Chinese authorities said Saturday that 14 people had died and one remained missing after a flood at an iron mine earlier this month. The search and rescue operation has ended and an investigation into the cause of the September 2 flood is underway, the Tangshan city government said in a brief statement.

As many as 126 cattle have died and 25 districts have been after being infected by the Lumpy virus in Maharashtra, informed the state's animal husbandry department on Saturday. "A total of 126 infected animals have died including 47 in Jalgaon district, 21 in Ahmednagar District, 2 in Dhule, 18 in Akola, 14 in Pune, two in Latur, six in Satara, five in Buldhana, seven in Amravati, one in Sangli, one in Washim, one in Jalna and one in Nagpur District," the release stated.

The Central Burea of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday, along with forensic experts visited the Leoney Grand Resort in Goa, where late BJP leader Sonali Phogat stayed before her death with her aides. As per information, the CBI officers investigating the case were inside the resort for over 10 hours.

Pushing ahead on the agenda to take Indo-Israel cooperation in the field of agriculture to the "next level", a third major delegation of 19 agricultural officers drawn from seven different states in India have concluded a two weeks training programme on horticulture management. The programme "Horticulture Management: The Israeli Value Chain" was organised by Mashav Agricultural Training Centre (MATC) in Shefayim and the course focussed on the possibility of replicating the "Israeli value chain".