BREAKING NEWS I APRIL 25 I HIGHLIGHTS

Criminals in Uttar Pradesh would walk around with their heads held high but now they hang placards around their necks begging for their lives, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Tuesday while campaigning for the urban local body elections. Adityanath addressed elections rallies in Lucknow, Unnao and Rae Bareli ahead of the polls, scheduled to take place in two phases on May 4 and May 11. Addressing an election rally in Rae Bareli, Adityanath said, "BJP ki ek hi yukti, pradesh ko dilai mafia se mukti (The BJP has only one solution which has rid the sate of criminals)'. The mafia are begging for mercy to lead regular lives and earn livelihood by honest means due to zero tolerance against crime."
He also took a dig at the previous regimes, saying people associated with a particular party would brandish country-made pistols while the youths now are working on smartphones and tablets.

Parkash Singh Badal was not the one to give up easily, on life or on politics. Only last year, the Shiromani Akal Dal fielded the patriarch again from home turf Lambi in Punjab’s Muktsar district for the assembly elections. Her lost but entered the record books for being the oldest person to fight an election in the county. This was his 13th electoral battle in a long political career that began when he became the sarpanch of Badal village in Bathinda district. The five-time Punjab chief minister died at a private hospital in Mohali near Chandigarh on Tuesday, nine day after he was admitted there with breathing problems. He was 95.

Delhi on Tuesday reported 1,095 fresh COVID-19 cases and six fatalities while the positivity rate was recorded at 22.74 , according to data shared by the Health department here. The death toll from the virus in Delhi has risen to 26,606 The total case tally is at 20,35,156. Of the 7,975 Covid beds in the national capital, 318 are occupied, the data showed.

A 15-year-old schoolboy was injured after a bus ran over his leg as he fell while getting down from it in Kolkata's Kasba area, police said. Rishab Saha, a class 10 student of Delhi Public School in Ruby Park, slipped and fell while getting down from the 3C/1 bus, they said. "With serious injuries in his leg, he was taken to the hospital where he underwent surgery in the evening. He is fine now," a police officer said. The driver of the bus has been detained, he added.

A private medical college staffer was arrested in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday for an alleged objectionable social media post praising gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf who were killed earlier this month, a police officer said. Bithari Chainpur police station SHO Ashwani Kumar said the accused, identified as Rajik Ali, posted an objectionable post on social media praising Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf as "sher" (tiger).

An explosion at a suburban Chicago petroleum plant killed one person and injured a second Tuesday morning, authorities said. The Will County Sheriff's Office said that one person was confirmed dead and a second was transported to a hospital in Joliet following the explosion at Seneca Petroleum in Lemont, Illinois. The sheriff's office said fire and emergency crews were at the scene after the explosion and they had controlled a fire. The sheriff's office said the explosion brought down some power lines.

A court here is likely to deliver on Wednesday its order on the bail application of AAP leader Manish Sisodia in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.
Special Judge M K Nagpal had reserved the order after hearing arguments on Sisodia's application seeking relief claiming that his custody was no longer required for investigation. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had opposed the application, asserting the investigation was at a "crucial" stage and claiming the former Delhi deputy chief minister had planted fabricated e-mails to show there was public approval for the policy. 

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal was a son of the soil who remained connected to his roots, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday, condoling the death of the five-time Punjab chief minister. Badal, who was admitted to a private hospital in Mohali after he complained of uneasiness while breathing, died on Tuesday evening. He was 95. In a series of tweets, the defence minister said Badal played a significant role in Punjab's politics for decades and made several noteworthy contributions towards the welfare of farmers and other weaker sections of the society.

Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal passed away at 95 on Tuesday at a private hospital in Mohali. The former Chief Minister of Punjab was suffering from breathing-related issues and had been hospitalised for a few days.

Slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad's brother-in-law Akhlaq Ahmad, a government doctor posted in Meerut, was suspended on Tuesday by the Health Department, a senior official said.
Akhlaq Ahmad was arrested earlier this month for allegedly sheltering and providing money to the accused in the February 24 killing of Umesh Pal -- a key witness in the 2005 murder case of BSP MLA Raju Pal. Meerut Chief Medical Officer Dr Akhilesh Mohan told PTI that Akhlaq Ahmad has been suspended on the orders of the government. He said Akhlaq was posted as a paediatrician at the Bhavanpur Community Health Centre at Meerut.

Mumbai on Tuesday reported 191 new COVID-19 cases, a sharp rise from 59 infections recorded a day before, and one fatality, the city civic body said. With the new additions, the overall number of cases in the metropolis rose to 11,62,137 and the death toll to 19,762. A total of 11,41,140 patients have recovered from the infection in Mumbai so far, including 219 in the last 24 hours, leaving the city with 1,235 active cases, it stated.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the closing ceremony of the Saurashtra Tamil Sangamam on Wednesday via video conferencing, his office said. The genesis of the programme lies in the vision of the prime minister of promoting the spirit of "Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat" through initiatives which bring out and help rediscover the age-old links between people in different parts of the country, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

The Kaziranga National Park in Assam, famed for its one-horned rhinoceros, will remain closed for tourists from May, officials said on Tuesday. The park usually remains closed from May to October every year due to monsoon, which causes floods. The elephant safari will be closed from May 1, while the jeep safari will be closed from May 16, Eastern Assam Wildlife Divisional Forest Officer Ramesh Gogoi said.

Lioness 'Sundari' has given birth to three cubs in Indore-based Kamla Nehru Zoo, an official said on Tuesday. Zoo in-charge Uttam Yadav said the cubs were born on April 22 night in the cave of the enclosure for the lioness. Yadav said the zoo management came to know about the litter on Tuesday when the lioness was seen feeding them outside the cave in her enclosure. "After the birth of three cubs, the number of lions in the zoo has increased to seven. These include four adult animals including Sundari," he said.

US Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday urged Americans to come together to fight for democracy, continue to make progress, and make sure all Americans can get ahead and thrive, minutes after President Joe Biden announced his 2024 reelection bid and named her as his running mate. "This is a pivotal moment in our history," said Harris, who is the first woman and the first Indian American and first African American to be the vice president of the US. President Biden on Tuesday formally announced his 2024 reelection bid with Harris as his running mate.

Four workers were injured when a fire broke out in a section of Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) in Chhattisgarh's Durg district on Tuesday, an official said.
The incident took place around 3.15 pm, when the victims were working in steel melting shop (SMS) no. 2 at the plant in Bhilai town, a public relations officer of the plant said.

A 15-year-old boy was among two killed when their motorcycle was hit by a speeding car in the Sikhaida area of this Uttar Pradesh district, police said on Tuesday. Imran (20) and 15-year-old Gulshad were on their way to Jansath from Nirana village when their motorcycle was hit on the Khatima-Panipat highway, Sikhaida police station SHO Dharmendra Kumar said. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem and the car driver has been arrested, Kumar added.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday held a massive roadshow in Krishnarajanagara here waving at a large enthusiastic crowd along the route, seeking people's support ahead of the May 10 Assembly polls in Karnataka. Standing atop a specially-designed vehicle, she was greeted by the crowd gathered on the sides of the roads and on nearby buildings.

A local court on Tuesday granted bail to YSR Telangana Party president Y S Sharmila, a day after she was arrested by police here for allegedly assaulting police personnel following an altercation with them outside her residence in the city. Sharmila, sister of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, was produced before the court after her arrest on Monday which remanded her to judicial custody till May 8 and she was lodged in a jail here. Sharmila had also moved a bail petition which the court had posted for Tuesday after issuing notice to the police.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would hold an interactive meeting with 50 lakh BJP workers virtually in poll-bound Karnataka on April 27. Party workers from 58,112 booths would join the meeting, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shobha Karandlaje told reporters here on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Delhi government and others on a plea by seven women wrestlers seeking an FIR against WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, saying the allegations of sexual harassment levelled by them are "serious" and require its consideration. The top court was initially of the view that the plea may be listed for hearing on Friday. However, after hearing some arguments from senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who mentioned the matter, it decided to take up the case straightaway. A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha said normally, a remedy to approach police is available under Section 156 (police officers' power to investigate cognisable cases) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

A 49-year-old Bangladeshi man was arrested in northern West Bengal's Siliguri on Tuesday when he came to the registry office to register land that he illegally bought with fake Indian documents, police said. Acting on a tip-off that a Bangladeshi man crossed over to India to buy land, a trap was laid and when Dilip Sutradhar came to the Ashigarh registry office to get the land registered, he was arrested by police personnel who were waiting for him, they said.

Miscreants set fire to Kaliaganj police station in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district on Tuesday protesting the death of a teenage girl whose body was found in a canal last week. People allegedly from the Adivasi and Rajbangshi communities organised a "Thana gherao" programme on Tuesday afternoon protesting against alleged “police inaction” in the case and claiming that the girl had been raped and murdered.

At least 15 people, including women and children, were killed in two separate road accidents in Pakistan's Punjab province, authorities said on Tuesday. According to the Rescue 1122, eight members of a nomad's family, including women and children, were killed when a speeding oil tanker ran over their huts at Lodhran district, some 350 kms from Lahore, on Monday. It said that a good number of nomad families were asleep in their huts when the speeding oil tanker ploughed into them killing eight on the spot and leaving four injured.

Ajit Pawar, Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, on Tuesday demanded that the protests by locals against a refinery project in Ratnagiri district be handled with sensitivity and that the state government stop the survey work till there is a solution through peaceful means. Doubts should be cleared with the help of experts if the resistance is due to environmental concerns, he said.

PM Narendra Modi interacted with construction workers who built the NAMO Medical Education & Research Institute in Silvassa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated NaMo hospital complex at Silvassa.

A suspicious object found Tuesday in a paper bag inside a commercial building connected to the Hiroshima train station temporarily suspended the high-speed train service and prompted an evacuation of customers and employees, as the Japanese city steps up security ahead of the Group of Seven summit next month.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually address the Kashi Telugu Sangamam event, which will be held in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi, on April 29. The event will be held at a time when Telugu-speaking pilgrims are arriving in Varanasi in large numbers during the ongoing 12-day long Ganga Pushkar Alu, a religious congregation which is held after 12 years.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said his government has commenced a “large-scale” evacuation effort to help British nationals leave strife-torn Sudan from Tuesday.
UK military flights are due to depart from an airfield outside the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, supported by senior diplomats from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Flights will be open to those with British passports and priority will be given to family groups with children and/or the elderly or individuals with medical conditions.

 Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday inaugurated 180 new websites of 50 departments of the Delhi government and stressed on using artificial intelligence to make services more accessible to the common people.
Some of the departments whose websites were inaugurated include the transport and the public works departments. 
"The 180 websites of 50 departments have been integrated into one portal of the Delhi government. The old websites were driven by old technology and weren't tab friendly.

The body of an unidentified girl was recovered on Tuesday morning from an agricultural field in West Bengal’s Malda district, police said.
The development comes days after the body of another girl was found at Kaliaganj in Uttar Dinajpur district, around 115 km away from Malda's Kaliachak where the unidentified minor's body was recovered, a senior officer said.
According to the police, the body was found at Ujirpur village under the Akandaberia panchayat in Kaliachak.
Locals alleged that the girl was raped before being killed and dumped on the agricultural field in the village, a senior officer said.

Shops remained shut and police personnel were deployed in Morinda town on Tuesday as a group of people continued their protest against the sacrilege incident at a gurdwara.

Protests broke out on Monday after a man allegedly hit two Sikh priests and desecrated the Guru Granth Sahib at the gurdwara in Morinda.
Police arrested Jasvir Singh and booked him for hurting religious sentiments and attempting to murder.

The incident drew condemnation from Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and other leaders cutting across political parties as well as Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh and SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami.

 Bollywood star Sushmita Sen on Tuesday said she has restarted shooting for the third season of her acclaimed web series "Aarya" in Jaipur, almost two months after she suffered a heart attack.

In an Instagram post early March, the 47-year-old actor revealed she underwent angioplasty at a city-based hospital following a "big" heart attack.

Sen, who plays the title role in "Aarya", said the third chapter of the show will present her character in a new action-packed avatar as she takes control as a fearless mother, daughter and woman.

"Aarya stands for strength and her unabashed spirit is now an inevitable part of me.
With Aarya, I stepped into a whole new territory and channelled her fearless aura to navigate further into her character.

"Now that we've seen her ace the game, it's time to take things up a notch higher and try something we've never done before.
.

The Odisha government has made wearing face masks mandatory in all health facilities as the active COVID-19 caseload in the state crossed the 3,000 mark on Monday, an official said.

Odisha now has 3,086 coronavirus-infected patients, and 181 more were cured of the disease in the last 24 years, he said.

In a letter to all stakeholders, including chief district medical officers, the public health directorate said, “In view of the rising of COVID-19 cases both in the country and in Odisha and as part of adopting COVID appropriate behaviour in health institutions, it has been decided to enforce the use of masks in all the health institutions.

 At least two persons were killed and 10 others injured on Tuesday when a bus collided with a trailer on the National Highway 33 in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district, police said.

The accident took place early in the morning in Chutupalu area, around 50 km from the state capital Ranchi, when the collision occurred between the trailer and the passenger vehicle, Ramgarh Police Station officer-in-charge Rohit Kumar Mahto said.

"Two persons died on the spot and 10 others were injured in the accident on the Ranchi-Patna highway.
All the injured people were taken to the Ramgarh Sadar Hospital,” the officer said.

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has got the custody of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in connection with a case of cross-border smuggling of drugs, an official said on Tuesday.

A Delhi court on Monday granted the transit remand of Bishnoi, who is lodged in Tihar jail, to the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad.

The ATS wants to question the gangster about his possible links in connection with the seizure 40 kg of heroin worth more than Rs 200 crore from a Pakistani fishing boat in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast in September last year.

"We have got Bishnoi's custody and our teams are already on the way to Gujarat. He will be produced in a court in Kutch district by Tuesday evening," a senior ATS official said.

The national capital recorded a minimum temperature of 20.4 degrees Celsius on Tuesday with the weather department forecasting a partly cloudy sky towards the afternoon or in the evening.

The relative humidity was recorded at 48 per cent at 8:30 am.
The maximum temperature is likely to hover around 36 degrees Celsius.

A fire broke out at Sarojini Nagar market in south Delhi early on Tuesday and was doused within an hour, officials said.
Fire department officials received information about the fire around 2.20 am.
Five fire tenders were rushed to the spot and doused the flames in an hour-long effort. Around 15 to 20 roadside stalls and four shops were damaged by fire but there was no casualty, officials added.

Taking exception to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's comments that reservations for Muslims will be scrapped if the BJP comes to power in Telangana, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has said quota is being given to backward castes among Muslims in the state and not on the basis of religion.
Referring to media reports earlier that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked the partymen to reach out to 'pasmanda' (backward) Muslims, he claimed there is no truth in what the BJP and Modi had said.
"The reservation that is available in Telangana in BC(E) category, is available to the castes among Muslims," he told reporters here on Monday.

 India tore into Pakistan after it raised the issue of Jammu and Kashmir at a Security Council meeting here, prompting India’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations Ruchira Kamboj to assert that she would not waste the Council’s time by responding to such “mischievous” remarks.

Kamboj’s stern response to Pakistan came in her remarks at the UN Security Council open debate on “Maintenance of international peace and security: Effective multilateralism through the defence of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations” chaired by Russia, President of the Council for the month of April.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov presiding over the debate, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative at the UN Munir Akram referred to Jammu and Kashmir in his statement.
“Lastly, this august forum has today heard some mischievous remarks by a permanent representative arising purely out of ignorance and lack of an understanding on the basic facts of decolonisation,” Kamboj said on Monday. “I will not be wasting the time of this Council in responding to those remarks. Our advice to that delegation is please refer to our numerous rights of reply that we have expressed in the past,” she added.

The United Nations chief urged the immediate deployment of an international armed force in Haiti to stem escalating gang violence and the country's worst human rights crisis in decades, warning in a new report that insecurity in the capital “has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued an urgent appeal for a specialized armed force to stop the crisis in Latin America's poorest country last October at the request of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the country's Council of Ministers.

Former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik has said that it was "wrong" to state that he was raising questions over the 2019 Pulwama terror attack only after demitting office.
His remark came on Monday in response to a question on Union Home Minister Amit Shah's recent statement that he was "levelling allegations after parting ways with us".
"It is wrong to state that I raised this issue when I was out of power," he told reporters in Sikar in Rajasthan, adding that he had raised it on the day of the attack.
Forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in the terrorist attack on a convoy of security vehicles in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in February 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a medical college in Silvassa town and launch various projects worth more than Rs 4,800 crore in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu during his visit on Tuesday, government officials said.

Later in the evening, the PM is scheduled to hold a 16-kilometre-long roadshow in Daman town of the Union Territory, they said.
As per the schedule released by the officials, Modi will reach Silvassa, the capital of Dadra and Nagar Haveli district, on Tuesday to inaugurate the centrally-funded 'NAMO Medical Education & Research Institute' and other allied buildings on the campus which were built at a cost of Rs 203 crore.

This only medical college in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu has become a beacon of hope and a symbol of growing aspirations of the region's people, around 40 per cent of whom are tribals.
Its infrastructure features state-of-the-art amenities such as a multi-storey library, academic block with four lecture halls and an auditorium, club house, residential accommodation for faculty and hostel for students, and provision for outdoor and indoor games.

 Amid a tussle over leadership with his former deputy Sachin Pilot, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has said media should not make people fight.
Interacting with reporters here on Monday, he asserted the Congress' election campaign in the state would focus on the schemes and programmes launched by his government. The veteran Congress leader also exuded confidence that his party would return to power based on the work done in the last five years.

Gehlot's comments come in the backdrop of an ongoing tussle with Pilot. The duo has been at loggerheads over the chief minister's post ever since the Congress formed the government in Rajasthan in December 2018.
Recently, Pilot opened another front against Gehlot by holding a day-long fast while alleging that the state government did not take action against the alleged corruption during the tenure of the BJP regime led by Vasundhara Raje, as promised before the 2018 assembly polls.

Gehlot, however, has not offered any direct reaction to Pilot's attack. On Monday, he said the media should not make people fight.

"The media should stick to the truth and facts… The media should not make us fight with each other. They (media persons) should fulfil their duty and it is in the public interest... The media should support the government in reiterating the truth," he said.

"I do not say 'present false figures or praise us falsely' but I would like the media to run based on truth. The media is under the pressure of the central government but they should see the interest of the public," Gehlot told reporters here.

About his government's schemes and the upcoming assembly elections, the Congress leader said the party's campaign would focus on the schemes of his dispensation.