Breaking News, July 18 | HIGHLIGHTS

Two persons including a suspected agent and recruiter of Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) were arrested in a joint operation of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), Maharashtra and its Uttar Pradesh counterpart, an official said on Tuesday. Acting on specific intelligence, the Juhu unit of the ATS along with an Uttar Pradesh ATS team raided a place in suburban Jogeshwari here on Sunday and apprehended the duo, he said. The accused were identified as Arman Sayyad (62) and Mohammed Salman Siddhiqui (24).

A six-year-old boy died after he was allegedly administered injections by a medicine shop owner in Odisha’s Jajpur district, police said on Tuesday. The incident occurred on Monday in Mugupada village under the Dasarathpur Police Station limits after the minor, who was suffering from diarrhoea, was administered the injections in the chemist shop, an officer said. The deceased was identified as Omm, the son of one Surendra Mallick of Mugupada, he said.

At least six persons were killed and as many injured after a speeding container truck collided with a passenger-carrying jeep in Maharashtra's Thane district on early Tuesday morning, police said. The jeep, carrying some students and other persons, was proceeding from Padgha to Khadavli railway station when the truck collided with it. The jeep got dragged for about 100 metres and overturned, an official from the police control room said.

DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday highlighted the opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and said the coming year will see the emergence of a "new India." While the maiden meeting of opposition parties, that met in Bihar capital Patna in June saw the participation of 16 political parties, it grew to 26 in the just concluded two-day Bengaluru conclave, he said. The DMK chief was addressing reporters upon his arrival from Bengaluru where he had attended the two-day event, which saw the participation of top national leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal.

Ghosi assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh has been declared vacant following the resignation of MLA Dara Singh Chauhan, who has switched to the BJP from the Samajwadi Party, according to an official. Chauhan had submitted his resignation to Speaker Satish Mahana, prompting the SP to term it a "breach of trust". "After acceptance of Singh's resignation, the Ghosi seat has been declared vacant from Jul 17," the official of UP Assembly said on Tuesday.

One more death due to heavy rains was reported in Haryana on Tuesday, taking the toll to 35, according to state government data. The state was lashed by heavy rains recently, leading to flooding in several districts. As many as 1,362 villages and 1.73 lakh hectares of crop area have been affected, the data updated at 5 pm stated. A total of 6,629 people have been evacuated from the affected areas, it stated.

Mumbai and its suburbs received moderate to heavy rainfall during the day and the weather department has issued an orange alert for the city for Wednesday predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall at some places, officials said. The weather bureau has issued a red alert for neighbouring Raigad and Palghar districts predicting heavy to very rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy rain at isolated places for Wednesday. An orange alert is sounded for Thane district.

Two labourers were killed and six others injured after a landslide hit an under-construction building in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur district on Tuesday, officials said. A group of labourers were busy in construction work at Kallar near vegetable market in Udhampur town when they came under the landslide around 11.45 am, a police official said. He said a rescue operation was launched immediately and six labourers were rescued in an injured condition and shifted to hospital.

A retired Customs officer who was living alone near Narasinge temple at Manipal in Udupi district was found dead in his house on Tuesday, police said. The deceased was identified as Perdoor Gopal Nayak (83). The body was found in a decomposed state, they said. Nayak had served as Assistant Commissioner of Customs in Karwar and Kochi. Nayak leaves behind wife and four children.

A 45-year-old Indian national was among two people arrested in Nepal for their alleged involvement in dealing with fake bank notes and duplicate gold pieces, police said on Tuesday. Binaya Kumar Singh, a resident of Lucknow, was arrested along with Durga Bahadur Chhetri, 48, a Nepali national, for their involvement in fake currency and yellow metal dealing, according to the Nepal Police news bulletin. The duo was arrested from the Basundhara area, on the outskirts of Kathmandu along with fake currency and gold-look-alike metal pieces.

A woman sarpanch belonging to the Dalit community was allegedly dragged in the mud and beaten up with shoes by three men in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district, police said on Tuesday. Based on a complaint lodged by the sarpanch of Pahadi village panchayat, an offence under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been registered against the three accused, Tendua police station in-charge Manish Jadon said. Efforts are on to arrest the accused, he said.

Police arrested a man, who is accused of looting a petrol pump and had been on the run for over 18 years, from Jhajjar district in Haryana, officials said on Tuesday. The police team in charge of tracing him had to disguise themselves as warehouse workers and kanwar yatris to ascertain the actual identity of the accused, who was living under a fake name and running an eatery. Accused Chinni alias Kulvinder Singh (41), a resident Ferozabad in Haryana, had looted Rs 34,000 from a petrol pump under Sadar Police Station area in Bundi in January 2005 with 4-5 other accomplices. While the police had arrested all the other accused earlier, Singh remained absconding for 18 years.

Two youths were rescued as a hotel in a village on the Rishikesh-Kedarnath National Highway got washed away in a flash flood triggered by heavy rains, officials said. Hotel 'Kedar Vatika', located between Phata and Tarsali villages near Kedarnath, got swept away by flood waters in the morning, according to a statement issued by Rudraprayag police. A police team was clearing a road blocked due to a landslide in Tarsali when they saw the incident happen. They rushed to the spot and pulled out a youth from the debris, it said.

Traffic movement was affected in many areas of the city due to waterlogging following rainfall on Tuesday. The Delhi Traffic Police took to Twitter to alert commuters about the traffic congestion. "Traffic is affected in the carriageway from Rajghat towards Sarai Kale Khan due to waterlogging and breakdown of a bus near IP flyover. Kindly avoid the stretch," the traffic police said in a tweet. Vehicular movement was also affected from ISBT Kashmere Gate towards Shantivan due to waterlogging.

Three workers were killed when an oxygen cylinder exploded at a cement factory in Chhattisgarh's Balodabazar district on Tuesday, police said. The incident took place at UltraTech Cement's plant in Hirmi area, a senior police official said. Lakesh Kumar Gayakwad (21), Shatruhan Lal Verma (27) and Umesh Kumar Verma (26), all contractual workers, were killed in the explosion, he said. The exact cause of the explosion was yet to be ascertained and investigation was underway, the official said.

Mumbai police on Tuesday received a threat call, a second in two days, about a bomb planted in the city, officials said. A similar call received on Monday had been found to be a hoax. A First Information Report (FIR) has also been registered against unidentified persons regarding a message received last week, warning of a terror attack in the city if Pakistani woman Seema Haider did not return to her country. On Tuesday afternoon, the main control room of Mumbai police received a call about a bomb planted in the city, an official said, without disclosing more details. The crime branch was probing the case.

With the Yamuna's water receding from Delhi, the city government has decided to lift from Wednesday restrictions on the entry of heavy goods vehicles into the national capital. The government on July 13 banned the entry of heavy goods vehicles -- barring those carrying essential items -- from the four borders, including Singhu, as a precautionary measure in view of the rising level of the Yamuna's water. The government announced partial lifting of the restrictions on July 17. It announced on Tuesday that the curbs have been fully lifted.

An on-duty policeman died in a road accident in the outskirts of the city, taking the death toll during this year's Amarnath Yatra in the south Kashmir Himalayas to 31, officials said on Tuesday. Special Police Officer Zahoor Ahmad Khan was hit by a vehicle in the city's Maloora area late on Monday while he was on yatra duty, they said. Khan died due to his injuries, the officials added. More than 2.60 lakh pilgrims have visited the cave shrine to glimpse the natural ice lingam formation.

The opposition alliance that will take on the ruling NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and an 11-member committee will be set up for coordination, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced on Tuesday. Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said they have decided to prepare an action plan where they will talk about their ideology and programmes. "The fight is against the ideology of the BJP and their thinking, they are attacking the country, unemployment is rampant, and the country's wealth is being taken away from millions and handed over in the hands of a few," Gandhi said.

A Kanpur Dehat court has sentenced an aide of slain gangster Vikas Dubey to five years' rigorous imprisonment in a case related to the 2020 killing of eight policemen, an official said on Tuesday. Shyamu Bajpai has been convicted for firing at the police team that had come to arrest him, days after the killing of the eight cops in the district's Bikru village. Bajpai, accused of hiding weapons used in the Bikru killing, was booked under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

The opposition alliance that will take on the ruling NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and an 11-member committee will be set up for coordination, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced on Tuesday. Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country." "We have come together and discussed various points. With one voice, people supported the resolution adopted today," he said. "Our alliance will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)," Kharge said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address the annual high-level session of the UN General Assembly in September, according to a provisional list of speakers issued by the UN here. The high-level General Debate of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly will begin September 19, 2023, with Brazil as the traditional first speaker of the session, followed by the US. As per the provisional list of speakers for the high-level general debate of the 78th session of the General Assembly, India's "Head of Government" (HG) will address the session in the afternoon of September 22. The list is provisional and there is a possibility of changes in schedules and speakers over the next few weeks. The list will continue to be updated accordingly.

The Supreme Court has refused to pass directions to prohibit the slaughter of cow progeny, saying this is for the competent legislature to decide and the court cannot compel them to come out with a particular law. While disposing of an appeal, it said as far as the prayer for taking steps to save and conserve critically endangered indigenous species of livestock is concerned, it will be open for the appellant to make a representation to the state governments concerned. A bench of justices A S Oka and Sanjay Karol passed the order while hearing an appeal against the August 2018 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had considered the common stand taken by the Centre and the states regarding the protection of indigenous cows, and said no further directions were required.

Three persons travelling in a car fell into a nala and died after a stretch of the road they were on caved in near Sharan Dhank in Nankneri area here on Tuesday. A stretch of the Neerath-Nankheri-Pandadhar link road in Nankneri area caved in pulling the car down with it into the nala below. Other commuters in the area saw the car plunging into the nala and informed the police. Rescue operations were carried out by the police, fire and locals and three bodies were recovered, police said.

The BJP in Bihar on Tuesday accused the Congress of putting up posters in Bengaluru defaming Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The Congress hit back saying it was the BJP which indulged in "posterbaazi" and claimed that the saffron party, which had secured a brute majority in last Lok Sabha polls despite a small vote share, was in a state of “desperation” over opposition unity. The posters, which described Kumar as an "unstable PM contender" and blamed his government squarely for a recent bridge collapse, were put up in the vicinity of the venue of the opposition meet.

The government has convened an all-party meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on a host of issues related to Parliament's monsoon session, which will begin from July 20. It's a customary get-together on the eve of a session's start as various parties put across their issues at the meeting attended by senior government ministers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also participated in many such meetings.

Launching a scathing attack on the opposition parties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday alleged that their mantra is "of, by and for the family". Modi, in an apparent reaction to the opposition conclave being held in Bengaluru, said this while virtually inaugurating the new integrated terminal building of the Veer Savarkar Airport here. Taking a dig at the opposition meeting, he said, "People are saying that this gathering is to promote 'bhrashtachar' (corruption)."

Six labourers were rescued while one was missing after a landslide hit an under-construction building in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, officials said. Additional Deputy Commissioner, Udhampur, Joginder Singh Jasrotia said a rescue operation is on to locate the missing person, who is believed to be trapped under the debris of the landslide.

India registered 34 new COVID-19 infections in a day while active cases increased to 1,453 from 1,441 a day ago, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.

About 30 children were shifted to safety after a fire broke out at JK Lon Hospital here, officials said on Tuesday. The hospital staff noticed smoke emanating from the AC duct line of two wards where the children were admitted Monday night, they said.

Police have registered a case against three persons for allegedly beating to death a 49-year-old man after a dispute in Maharashtra's Thane district, an official said on Tuesday. The incident took place at around 1 am on Monday when the victim while walking accidentally pushed the accused in Vitthalwadi locality of Ulhasnagar, he said.

Nearly 17 years after a murder case convict jumped bail in Uttar Pradesh and went missing, a Special Task Force (STF) has arrested him in Jharkhand's Hazaribag, an official said. Following a tip-off, an STF team from Lucknow, with the help of the local police, raided a hotel in Hazaribag town and arrested 50-year-old Ved Prakash Pandey, who was carrying a bounty of Rs 50,000 on his head, on Sunday.

A leopard has been spotted moving on the sets of a studio at the Film City in Mumbai and a partially eaten carcass of a dog has also been found, creating panic among workers and staff around, a Maharashtra forest department official said.

A joint team of the chief minister's flying squad and the food and civil supplies department of Haryana on Monday raided a roadside dhaba here and arrested a truck driver on charges of stealing petrol and mixing thinner with the fuel, officials said.

The licence of a restaurant where fire-fighters rescued 10 people who got stuck inside the elevator of a building in South Extension here has been suspended by the Delhi Fire Service, officials said on Monday. The people got trapped inside the elevator around 12.45 am on Sunday while trying to go to the ground floor of the building after coming out from a club on the third floor.

Five people were killed and eight others were injured Monday when a Cessna 208 plane crashed into a hangar at a sky diving centre during bad weather, authorities said.

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) With the receding Yamuna levels, the Delhi government has decided to partially lift restrictions on the entry of heavy goods vehicles in the national capital.

Senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy, who served as chief minister of Kerala twice, died in Bengaluru in the early hours of Tuesday, his family said. He was 79.