Breaking News, September 25

Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan said on Sunday that his government had snapped trade ties with India after New Delhi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 and claimed that the Shehbaz Sharif-led government wanted to resume it.

West Bengal, Gujarat, Bihar and Tripura are among more than a dozen states where the school dropout rate at secondary level was higher than the national average of 14.6 per cent, according to official data.

Two men committed suicide over financial issues in separate incidents in Nagpur city in Maharashtra, police said on Sunday. Adeep Dhengre (45) consumed poison near a hotel in the Wadi area on Saturday evening. He was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him dead, an official said.

Pratap Singh Khachariyawas has raised slogans in the meeting that we are all one. Khachariyawas said on stage that we are all with Gehlot. During this 92 MLAs were present. If sources are to be believed, the resignations of all these MLAs have been signed. All of them are going to the Speaker's house. 

Puducherry Hindu Munnani president A V Sanil Kumar in a statement on Sunday said Raja had made "utterly objectionable and defamatory comments on Hindus".

A billowing column of dark smoke towered over Paris on Sunday from a warehouse blaze at a massive produce market that supplies the French capital and surrounding region with much of its fresh food and bills itself as the largest of its kind in the world. Firefighters urged people to stay away from the area in Paris' southern suburbs, as 100 officers and 30 fire engines battled the blaze at the Rungis International Market.

A criminal wanted in half-a-dozen criminal cases in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad was arrested following an encounter here, a police official said on Sunday. The criminal and a police constable sustained injuries in cross-firing.

Landslides triggered by incessant rains snapped road connectivity between Bhalukpong and Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday, a officials said.

A 54-year-old man was allegedly killed by his wife following a quarrel at their house in Maharashtra's Nashik city, police said on Sunday. Dilip Rangnath Kadam was found dead at his house in Wadalagaon area in Indiranagar late on Saturday night, an official said.

Union Home Minister and former BJP president Amit Shah has sounded the poll bugle in Bihar not only for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but also Assembly election in the state in 2025, and given the party mantra for poll victory. At a time when the ruling Mahgathbandhan is searching to field candidates for the poll battle, Shah, during his two-day visit to the state recently, has given the Bihar BJP mantra for win. Shah, who is disappointed with JD(U) chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for severing the alliance with the BJP, attacked him while addressing the 'Jan Bhavna Mahasabha'. Importance of Shah's Seemanchal visit can be gauged from the fact that all big leaders of the BJP attended the mahasabha.

The family of a 19-year-old woman receptionist who was killed in Uttarakhand allegedly by her employer refused on Sunday to conduct her last rites until they get the final postmortem details, even as a preliminary report said she died due to drowning. The draft report released by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, also said antemortem injuries (injuries before death) have been found on Ankita Bhandari's body, suggestive of a blunt force trauma. However, she died of drowning, said the preliminary report.

Sixteen urban local bodies from Telangana clinched awards in the Centre's Swachh Survekshan 2022, an official release from the state government has said. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the achievement is a reflection of the efforts put by the Telangana government for urban development, the release issued on Saturday night said. The latest rankings were announced by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Rao reminded that Telangana has also won 13 awards in various categories under the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin.

Pained by his ailing wife not being able to feed their differently-abled daughter, a daily wage worker in Goa having no technical knowledge has built a robot to help the girl have food without anyone's support. The Goa State Innovation Council has lauded Bipin Kadam for his innovation, which he has titled 'Maa Robot', and is providing him financial support to work on the machine further and explore its commercial viability.

Prices of natural gas, which is used to generate electricity, make fertiliser and is converted into CNG to run automobiles, is likely to rise to record levels at the rate review scheduled this week, sources said. The government-dictated price for natural gas produced in the country is to be revised on October 1. After factoring in the spike in energy prices witnessed in recent months, the rate paid for gas produced from old fields such as of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is likely to rise to USD 9 per million British thermal units from current USD 6.1. Simultaneously, difficult fields like the ones in Reliance Industries Ltd and its partner bp plc operated D6 block in KG basin, are likely to get around USD 12 mmBtu compared to the current rate of USD 9.92, two sources aware of the matter said.

The BJP-dominated Municipal Corporation here has decided to rechristen several city areas after right-wing ideologues and freedom fighters ahead of the civic body polls later this year, a move the Opposition described as politically motivated. However, Lucknow Mayor Sanyukta Bhatia says it aims at shrugging off the British legacy and honouring people who struggled for the country's freedom and progress. The new names were decided at a meeting of the MC's executive committee and have been sent to the government for approval, civic body officials said. According to the proposals, names of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee and VHP leader Ashok Singhal are among those suggested.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) will declare CUET-PG  results on September 26 (Monday) by 4:00 pm, required for post-graduate admissions in the participating universities, informed UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar. 

Five-month-old Siyang and three of her peers are all set to make Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Arunachal Pradesh their new home, having completed the acclimatisation process in the national park under the supervision of experts over the past few months. Siyang, an Asiatic black bear cub, was rescued by local environmentalists when it was just one month old. The tiny one was then brought to the Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) here, where it was nursed back to health, said one of its officials. The cub was found in a dehydrated condition on the Siang river bed, and was named after the river. At the centre, Siyang met three other rescued friends – two male cubs, Den and Itna, and another female Devi – and the four got along well quickly, the CRBC official said.

Russia made its case to the world Saturday for its war in Ukraine, repeating a series of grievances about its neighbor and the West to tell the U.N. General Assembly meeting of leaders that Moscow had “no choice” but to take military action. After days of denunciations of Russia at the prominent diplomatic gathering, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sought to shift the focus to Washington. His speech centered on a claim that the United States and its allies — not Russia, as the West maintains — are aggressively undermining the international system that the U.N. represents.

Days after JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar denied the possibility of contesting the 2024 general elections from Phulpur, the party's Uttar Pradesh unit remains hopeful that he will reconsider the decision to send a larger message of Opposition unity against the BJP. Some Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders also welcomed the idea. Dismissing speculation over his candidature in the Lok Sabha elections from the Phulpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh, Kumar said on September 20 that he is only interested in uniting opposition parties ahead of the parliamentary polls. The Bihar chief minister also asserted that his efforts should reap benefits for the younger generation, "for people like (his deputy) Tejashwi Yadav". Uttar Pradesh JD(U) president Anoop Singh Patel said the party state unit hopes that Kumar will reconsider his decision.

India really matters more in the current polarised world and the country is perceived very widely as the voice of the global South, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said. Jaishankar wrapped up the New York leg of his visit to the US as he addressed the high-level UN General Assembly session Saturday, concluding a hectic week of whirlwind diplomatic engagements during which he met over 100 of his counterparts from around the world and held several bilateral and multilateral meetings. "There's no question this UNGA reflects the state of the world, which is particularly polarised at this moment. What the state of the world actually reveals in a way is that India matters more. We are a bridge, we are a voice, we are a viewpoint, a channel," Jaishankar told a group of Indian reporters here as he highlighted some of the big takeaways of his week-long visit to the UN and the city. He will head to Washington DC Sunday for the second leg of his US visit.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked the Centre over the issues of price rise and unemployment, alleging that the BJP-led government is not for farmers, youth and women but for the five-six richest Indians. "PM often asks- '70 saal mein kya kiya?' We never gave India the highest-ever unemployment. We never gave India record price rise it faces today," Gandhi said in a tweet. "BJP govt is not a govt for farmers, youth & women. It's a govt for 5-6 richest Indians who are monopolising any business they want," he said. Gandhi and the Congress have been attacking the Centre over the issues of price rise and unemployment, alleging that the government's policies have worsened the economic situation of the country.

Underlining that India is prepared to take up greater responsibilities, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that negotiations for the much-needed UN Security Council reforms should not be blocked by procedural tactics and naysayers cannot hold the process "hostage in perpetuity.” India, currently a non-permanent member of the 15-nation UN Security Council, will complete its two-year tenure in December this year when it will preside over the Council.

South Korea's military says North Korea has fired at least one unidentified ballistic missile toward its eastern sea. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday did not immediately say what type of missile it was or how far it flew. The launch came a day after South Korean officials said they detected signs that North Korea was preparing to test a missile designed to be fired from submarines. North Korea has dialled up its testing activities to a record pace in 2022, testing more than 30 ballistic weapons, including its first intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as it continues to expand its military capabilities amid a prolonged stalemate in nuclear diplomacy. The launch came as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group arrived in South Korea for the two countries' joint military exercise to meant to show their strength against growing North Korean threats. The North Korean threat is also expected to be a key agenda when US Vice President Kamala Harris visits South Korea next week after attending the state funeral in Tokyo of slain former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

A woman has alleged that her clothes were torn and she was misbehaved by the bouncers of a club in Delhi's South Extension Part-1 area, police said on Saturday. According to police, the incident happened on September 18 at around 2:14 AM, when they got a call from the victim woman. Police reached the spot and found that the woman's clothes were messed up and disordered, and on enquiry, she alleged that her clothes were torn by two bouncers and the manager of the club, Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) Chandan Chowdhary said. She further alleged that she was misbehaved and hit by them, and they had also touched her inappropriately. The accused persons' identities were established and the victim was taken to AIIMS Trauma Centre for the treatment, police said.

Underlining that India is prepared to take up greater responsibilities, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that negotiations for the much-needed UN Security Council reforms should not be blocked by procedural tactics and naysayers cannot hold the process "hostage in perpetuity.” India, currently a non-permanent member of the 15-nation UN Security Council, will complete its two-year tenure in December this year when it will preside over the Council.