Breaking News, March 18

The Congress on Saturday asserted that the only way to comprehensively investigate the Adani issue is through a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) with appropriate powers as any other panel will be reduced to an "exercise in legitimation and exoneration".

British Muslim financial analyst influenced by extremist Islamist ideology has been found guilty of multiple terrorism related offences by a UK court after his laptop led police to dangerous bomb-making plans.

An aircraft with two trainee pilots on board crashed in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district on Saturday, police said. The charred body of a man was found in the mountains of Lanji and Kirnapur areas, about 40 km from the Balaghat district headquarters, near the crash site, Superintendent of Police Sameer Saurabh told PTI in the evening.

An amount of Rs 900 crore has been sanctioned by the Centre for holistic development of the agriculture sector in Jammu and Kashmir, a government official said, participating in a ‘Kisan Mela’ here.

Six people, including two minors, were swept away in a canal in a hilly area here after last night's heavy rains and hailstorm, police said on Saturday. Bodies of five of them have been recovered from the canal, they said.

Voters in Kazakhstan will cast ballots Sunday after a short but active campaign for seats in the lower house of parliament that is being reconfigured in the wake of deadly unrest that gripped the resource-rich Central Asian nation a year ago. The snap election comes on the third anniversary of the resignation as president of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since independence following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and who had established immense influence. His successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, was widely expected to continue Nazarbayev's authoritarian course and even renamed the capital as Nur-Sultan in his predecessor's honour.

Devotees will not be allowed to carry coconuts inside Mata Chintpurni temple here during the Navratri fair which will begin next week, a senior police officer said on Saturday.

A man and his daughter were killed when their scooter was hit from behind by a speeding truck at around noon on Saturday, police sources said.

Four people hailing from Bihar were killed and 28 injured when their bus overturned in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on Saturday, officials said. The incident took place on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway in the Barsoo area of the south Kashmir district, they added. Four passengers, all residents of Bihar, were killed in the accident, the officials said, adding that 28 passengers were injured, of whom 23 were rushed to various hospitals for treatment.

Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the party's first list of candidates for the Assembly polls, which is likely by May, will be announced on March 22, the day of Ugadi festival, which is observed as New Year by Kannadigas.

An offence has been registered against four persons for allegedly transporting cattle under inhumane conditions in a truck in Maharashtra's Thane district, police said on Saturday.

The State Investigation Agency (SIA) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police carried out raids at eight places on Saturday in a case related to collection of funds by Maulvi Sarjan Barkati, the face of "anti-national" protests in 2016, and using the same for personal gains, officials said.

The Andhra Pradesh government diverting borrowed funds raises questions as to how the state will develop in such a scenario, a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) politburo member said. TDP leader Yanamala Ramakrishnudu noted that the state stood only 19th in the country in terms of direct benefit transfers (DBT), even as the lion’s share of the 2023-'24 budget, more than Rs 54,000 crore, was declared to have been dedicated for welfare.

Aam Aadmi Party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's personal assistant (PA), Devender Sharma is likely to join the probe of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam case on Saturday. Sharma is likely to be at the probe agency office by around 11:00 am. There are possibilities that Sharma might be confronted with Sisodia. He was summoned on Friday (March 17) by the ED. The ED has already got five days more custody of Sisodia in the case. The ED had earlier told the court that during interrogation former Secretary C Arvind, Excise Secretary Arava Gopi Krishna and Sanjay Goyal were confronted together. The ED, while seeking more custodial remand of Sisodia, said that C Arvind had to be confronted again. Apart from him, the ED wants to confront witness Dinesh Arora and accused Amit Arora. The ED has said that they have recovered huge cloud data which they were looking into. Apart from this, the agency also had to get details about the cell phones of all the accused which went missing. The ED has as of now filed two charge sheets in the matter- a charge sheet and a supplementary charge sheet. They are all set to file a second supplementary charge sheet in the case.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said millets can help tackle challenges of food security as well as food habits and asked farm scientists to work towards increasing the share of nutri-cereals in the national food basket. Addressing the gathering after inaugurating the ‘Global Millets (Shri Anna) Conference’, he said it is a matter of great honour for the country that after India's proposal and efforts, the United Nations declared 2023 as 'International Year of Millets'. Modi said India is continuously working to promote millets or Shri Anna as a global movement.

An earthquake of magnitude 4.3 occurred 213 km east of Fayzabad, Afghanistan on Saturday at 06:51:03 IST, according to the National Centre for Seismology (NCS).

An earthquake of magnitude 5.0 on the Richter scale hit the Kermadec Islands region of New Zealand on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

Four people were killed and 28 injured on Saturday when the bus in which they were travelling turned turtle as the driver lost control of the vehicle in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

A man has been arrested here for allegedly duping people on the pretext of making investments in the medical sector, police said on Saturday. The accused has been identified as Kaptan, a resident of Badarpur, they added.

A 29-year-old militant belonging to the Kuki-Chin National Army (KCNA), a Bangladesh-based rebel outfit, was arrested by the Assam Rifles in Mizoram's Lawngtlai district, the paramilitary organisation said in a statement. The insurgent, identified as Faliansang Bawm, was allegedly staying at a house in Bungtlang village for some time, the statement said. Acting on a tip-off, Assam Rifles personnel raided the house and nabbed the militant on Friday, it said, adding he was handed over to the state police. Earlier on March 10, Assam Rifles had apprehended another KCNA militant in Hmunnuam village in the same district. Fleeing the Bangladesh Army's offensive against the KCNA, more than 500 people from the neighbouring country's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) have taken refuge in Lawngtlai district. The first batch of the Kuki-Chin refugees, who share ethnic ties with the Mizos, entered the northeastern state in February last year.

Delhiites on Saturday woke up to light rains, which brought some respite from the warm weather. The national capital recorded a minimum temperature of 18.2 degrees Celsius, two notches above normal, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The relative humidity at 8:30 am was 89 per cent. Several parts of the city received rain. More rain accompanied by thunderstorms is predicted during the day, the IMD said. Light to moderate intensity rain would occur in northeast, northwest, west and southwest Delhi (Burari, Kanjhawala, Rohini, Badli, Model Town, Azadpur, Pitampura, Delhi University, Mundka, Paschim Vihar, Punjabi Bagh, Rajouri Garden, Patel Nagar, Budha Jayanti Park, Jafarpur, Nazafgarh, Dwarka, Palam, IGI Airport) and in adjoining areas, it said.

Unseasonal rains and hailstorms this week killed five persons and damaged crops spread across nearly 4,950 hectares in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, the local administration said on Friday. According to a report prepared by the divisional commissioner's office, an average rainfall of 2.4 mm was recorded in the eight districts of the Marathwada region in central Maharashtra. The highest rainfall was recorded in Nanded (5.7 mm) on Friday, it said. Five persons – all from Parbhani district – lost their lives in different incidents related to unseasonal rains and hailstorms that occurred on Thursday (March 16) and Friday (March 17), while 23 other residents of the region were injured, said the report. The report said 22 large animals and five small ones also perished. The unseasonal rains and hailstorms also damaged crops across 4946.44 hectares. The highest loss was in Nanded district (4,794 hectares) followed by Aurangabad (152.44 hectares), it added.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday batted for communal harmony, saying that India would deliver to the world the message that "there is one God but different paths to attain Him". He further underlined the Vedas' acknowledgement of various paths undertaken by people to realise spiritual truth and asserted that the world needs this understanding at this time of conflicts. In his remarks after releasing the Hindi and Urdu translations of "Samveda" here, he said: "One should not fight over different means and this is the message which is relevant for all and is something that India has to offer to others."

Prosecutors in Mexico confirmed Friday that six women who went missing on March 7 were killed and their bodies burned by a gang of armed men. It was one of the largest collective killings of a group of women in recent years in Mexico. The women disappeared earlier this month on a road near the city of Celaya in the farming and industrial state of Guanajuato. Relatives had held out hope they might be found alive. But state prosecutor Carlos Zamarripa said Friday that experts had found skeletal remains "almost completely burned" in raids on several properties Thursday. The amount of bone fragments found — Zamarripa said they were "hundreds" — suggests the women's bodies were burned and the bones were ground up and scattered, a common drug cartel tactic. "They took the six women to Juventino Rosas, where they later killed them," Zamarripa said. He said the motive for the killings was still under investigation. DNA tests matched five of the missing women, and more tests were being conducted.

On the eve of the expiration of a deal enabling Ukraine to export grain, the United Nations' humanitarian chief on Friday called its extension crucial to ensuring global food supplies and keeping prices from spiralling as they did after Russia's invasion of its smaller neighbour. Russia's U.N. ambassador reiterated that Moscow is ready to extend the deal - but only for 60 days, just half the 120 days in the agreement. Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia's briefing to the U.N. Security Council, reiterating what a Russian delegation told senior U.N. officials at a meeting in Geneva on Monday, reinforced the Kremlin's insistence on reducing the duration of the deal to hold out for changes on how the package is working. The U.N. and Turkey brokered the deal between the warring countries last July that allows Ukraine - one of the world's key breadbaskets - to ship food and fertiliser from three of its Black Sea ports. A separate memorandum of understanding between the United Nations and Russia is aimed at overcoming obstacles to Moscow's shipments of fertiliser to global markets. The original 120-day agreement was renewed last November and expires Saturday. It would be automatically extended for another 120 days unless one of the parties objects - and Nebenzia said Russia has formally objected. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths opened the Security Council meeting saying the Black Sea grain initiative has seen global food prices continue to fall.

Former President Donald Trump will be holding the first rally of his 2024 campaign later this month in Waco, Texas. The rally will be held the evening of March 25 in a Republican state where he has a large following, increasing the chances of a packed house. Trump spent the first months of his campaign mostly confined to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, but has begun to make visits to early-voting states. On Monday, he took his first trip to Iowa, which will hold the Republican Party's first nominating contest. The rally plans come as Trump is facing a series of investigations, including one in New York that appears to be nearing its conclusion. Porn actor Stormy Daniels met Wednesday with Manhattan prosecutors who are investigating a USD 130,000 hush money payment she received on Trump's behalf — the same day Michael Cohen, a former Trump attorney who orchestrated the payment, delivered a second day of testimony before a New York grand jury. The payment was made in 2016, as Trump's first presidential campaign was in its final weeks and Daniels was negotiating to go on television to air her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the encounter and blasted the investigation as politically motivated.