Breaking News, April 28 | HIGHLIGHTS

A flight carrying 362 Indians who were stranded in strife-torn Sudan landed at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru today, a senior official said.

At least 4 hardcore Maoists surrendered before CRPF and Civil Police in Sukma, Chhattisgarh. According to the CRPF, all surrendered cadres are residents of Kistaram and were active for the last 4-5 years.

A district court in Indore in Madhya Pradesh on Friday sentenced six persons to life imprisonment for shooting dead a man over a dispute on collection of money from traders for loading and unloading goods, an official said.

BBC chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after a report found he broke the rules by failing to disclose the role he played in helping former British prime minister Boris Johnson secure an 800,000-pounds loan. The 67-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker, who has been the chairman of the UK taxpayer-funded licence fee-backed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), said the investigation found he had breached the governance code for public appointments. The independent review, led by barrister Adam Heppinstall, looked at Sharp’s appointment and his involvement in facilitating an 800,000-pound loan guarantee for Johnson - just weeks before the former prime minister appointed him.

A Delhi court on Friday dismissed the bail application of AAP leader Manish Sisodia in a money laundering case related to the alleged excise policy scam, saying the evidence prima facie "speaks volumes of his involvement in commission of the offence". Special Judge M K Nagpal denied the relief to Sisodia, saying that the prosecution was able to show a genuine and prima facie case for Sisodia's involvement in commission of the alleged offence of money laundering. The court denied the relief noting the "serious nature of allegations made and role played by Sisodia in the criminal conspiracy, his connection with the activities relating to generation or acquisition and use etc. of the proceeds of crime...and the oral and documentary evidence collected in support of the same."

Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine early on Friday, killing at least 19 people, almost all of them when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in the centre of the country, officials said. Three children were among the dead. The missile attacks included the first one against Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in nearly two months, although there were no reports of any targets hit. The city government said Ukraine's air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles over Kyiv.

The Delhi Commission For Women has issued a notice to city police in connection with a viral video of a man allegedly masturbating in a metro train, an official said on Friday. The video is being widely circulated on social media wherein the man can be seen indulging in the "obscene act" while sitting in the Delhi Metro, the panel said, adding, "This is a very serious matter," it said.

Japan's trade ministry on Friday said it has begun procedures to restore preferential trade status for South Korea, days after Seoul took a similar step for Tokyo and requested reciprocity, and more than three years after the countries downgraded each other during a bitter historical dispute. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said talks with South Korea this month showed that its controls over trade in sensitive materials with both civilian and military uses are now as effective as those used by Japan.

A farmer died while two others were seriously injured in a lightning strike in Chhani Ahir village of the Sirsa Police Station area here on Friday. Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Jalaun Suresh Kumar said lightning struck Vijay Dohre (45) while he was working in a field leading to his death. Two other farmers named Surendra Singh and Devendra Singh working nearby were injured due to the lightning.

A BJP delegation on Friday met the Election Commission and requested the poll panel to register a criminal case against Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and bar him from campaign in the Karnataka assembly polls over his "poisonous snake" barb at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union minister Bhupender Yadav, who led the BJP delegation, told reporters that Kharge's comment was not merely a slip of the tongue but part of the Congress' "hate politics".

Two days after Naxals blew up a vehicle causing the death of ten policemen in Chhattisgarh, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was found and defused by the security forces in the state's Bijapur district on Friday, an official said. The device, weighing three kg, was found near Reddy chowk on Gangalur-Bijapur road, 460 km south of state capital Raipur, the police official said. Naxals had planted the IED to target security personnel operating in the region, he added.

Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine early on Friday, killing at least 16 people, most of them when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in the centre of the country, officials said. Three children, including a toddler, were among the dead. The missile attacks included the first one against Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in nearly two months, although there were no reports of any targets hit. The city government said Ukraine's air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles over Kyiv.

Condemning the murder of his party office-bearer, BJP state unit president K Annamalai on Friday slammed the ruling DMK for being "inept" at maintaining law and order. Expressing shock over the killing of PPG Sankar, BJP treasurer of the State Scheduled Castes wing by anti-socials, Annamalai said daily crimes showed that "law and order is not under control," in the "inept DMK regime." Sankar, president of Valarpuram village panchayat in Kancheepuram district was hacked to death by unidentified men on April 27 near Poonamallee here.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held talks with his Russian counterpart, General Sergei Shoigu, on Friday, focusing on various aspects of the bilateral strategic ties amid a geo-political upheaval triggered by the Ukraine conflict. The meeting took place on the sidelines of a conclave of the defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that was hosted by India in the national capital.

At least 40 COVID 19-related deaths have been recorded in Delhi from April 19 to 27, with experts saying the infection is turning serious mostly in elderly patients and those with comorbidities. The medical experts also said though the number of daily cases in absolute numbers is still not low, the count needs to monitored over the next few days, before one can say if a downward trend has set in or not.
 

The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Friday welcomed the Calcutta High Court order for an NIA probe into the violence during Ram Navami in West Bengal, saying this makes it clear that attacks were "pre-planned". The Calcutta High Court on Thursday ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the violence at Shibpur in Howrah and Rishra in Hooghly district during and after the Ram Navami celebrations last month. Alleging West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is believed to have instigated the attacks on the Ram Navami procession, VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain demanded the NIA should also probe her and the TMC's role in the violence.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a two-day visit to poll-bound Karnataka on Saturday and Sunday where he will address six public meetings and hold two roadshows. According to his itinerary, Modi will fly from Delhi on Saturday morning by a special aircraft to Bidar airport from where he will take a helicopter to Humnabad in Bidar district to address a public meeting at 11 am. After the meeting, he will fly to Vijayapura where he will address a public gathering at 1 pm. He would then fly to Kudachi in Belagavi district where he will address people at about 2.45 pm. Later, Modi would fly to Bengaluru in the evening to hold a road show in Bengaluru North.

The famous ski-resort of Gulmarg and other higher reaches in the Kashmir Valley received fresh snowfall while the plains were lashed by rains, officials said on Friday. Gulmarg, in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, received about four inches of snowfall, they said. The officials said there are reports of snowfall in other areas in the upper reaches of the valley, including at Zojilla Pass on the Srinagar-Leh national highway, forcing its closure for traffic.

Former JD(U) leader Ajay Alok, a regular on TV debates, joined the BJP on Friday in the presence of Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Joining the BJP is like coming to a family, Alok said, vowing to contribute to the "Modi mission". The country is today moving in the same direction as the prime minister, he told reporters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated 91 FM transmitters spread across 18 states and two union territories, in a move that will boost FM radio connectivity in the border regions and aspirational districts. With these new transmitters set up in 84 districts, the coverage will further increase by about 35,000 sq km area, benefitting an additional two crore people who did not have access to the medium so far. "These FM transmitters will play a key role in a range of services be it timely dissemination of information, weather forecast for agriculture or connecting the women self-help groups with new markets," Modi said. He said the tech revolution in the country helped radio emerge in a new avatar and brought new listeners to the medium. The prime minister said the government is constantly working for the democratisation of technology.

The BJP and the Congress separately demanded that the Biju Janata Dal government in Odisha open the 'Ratna Bhandar' of the Lord Jagannath Temple in Puri, and make public the report of a judicial commission formed to probe into the issue of missing keys of the 12th-century shrine's treasury. The demands were raised on Thursday, two days after the Orissa High Court asked the state government to file its response by July 10 on a petition praying for making public the report of Justice Raghubir Das Commission of Inquiry on the missing Ratna Bhandar keys. "The judicial panel submitted its report to the state government in November 2018, about five years ago. The government has not taken any action on it and kept it in cold storage," BJP spokesperson Pitamber Acharya said.

The second day of the Kochi Water Metro, a first in the country, on Thursday witnessed a ridership of over 7,000 passengers on its two operational routes here. The ambitious project of the Kerala government was inaugurated on April 25 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On April 26, when Kochi Water Metro began commercial operations on a single route -- from Kerala High Court to Vypin -- it received an "overwhelming" response with 6,559 passengers travelling on it. On the next day, it began operations on a second route -- from Vytilla to Kakkanad.

China's military flew 38 fighter jets and other warplanes near Taiwan, the Taiwanese defence ministry said Friday, in the largest such flight display since the large military exercise in which it simulated sealing off the island earlier in the month. Six navy vessels were also spotted in the area from 6 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday as part of China's long-running campaign of intimidation against the self-ruled island democracy that Beijing claims as part of its territory. Nineteen of the aircraft flew across the midline in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, the ministry said. It said they included five SU-30 and two J-16 aircraft. One drone, a TB-001, circled the island, according to a diagram from the Defence Ministry.

A 55-year-old property dealer here in south Delhi's Neb Sarai area allegedly hacked his wife to death with an axe and tried to kill his two children, injuring them both in the neck, police said on Thursday. Vijay Veer, the accused, often used to have a row with his 50-year-old wife over dowry, and after one such fight Thursday, he attacked her with an axe while she was asleep, they said. According to police, another reason for frequent fights between the couple was Veer's extramarital affairs and his wife's confronting him about it. He also didn't like the fact that his wife was supported by their son and daughter, both aged 28 and 30, a senior police officer said. The matter was reported Thursday around 6.30am by the daughter, a law graduate, who said her mother was attacked with an axe by her father.

A speedboat carrying at least 78 people sank in western Indonesia, and rescuers were searching for nine people still missing in the rough seas early Friday. Rescuers have retrieved 11 bodies, mostly women and children, and rescued 58 people so far, many of them unconscious after drifting in choppy waters for hours, said Nyoman Sidhakarya, the Pekanbaru Search and Rescue Agency chief.

Telegram's CEO said Thursday that the social media company will appeal a Brazilian judge's decision to block access to its platform in Brazil for failing to hand over data on neo-Nazi activity. He claimed compliance was “technologically impossible.” In a statement posted to his Telegram account, Pavel Durov said that when local laws or unfeasible requirements counter his company's mission — “to preserve privacy and freedom of speech around the world” — it sometimes has to quit markets. Telegram has been blocked in the past by governments, including Iran, China and Russia, while in the latter country. Kremlin partisans have employed it as a digital weapon in President Vladimir Putin's war of conquest in Ukraine. Durov said the Brazilian federal judge who ordered the suspension Wednesday “requested data that is technologically impossible for us to obtain.”

Two U.S. army helicopters crashed Thursday in Alaska returning from a training flight, the second accident involving military helicopters in the state this year. Each helicopter carried two people, said John Pennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Alaska. Pennell said he did not immediately have any other information he could share about the condition of those involved. First responders were on scene at the crash site, near Healy, Alaska, a statement from the U.S. Army Alaska said. The AH-64 Apache helicopters were from Fort Wainwright, based near Fairbanks.