Breaking News, November 9 | Highlights

The monthly financial assistance being given to eligible women in Madhya Pradesh under the Ladli Bahna Yojana will gradually go up to Rs 5,000, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said on Saturday.

The state government currently transfers Rs 1,250 per month to bank accounts of women beneficiaries of this scheme, launched ahead of last year's assembly elections.

Reacting to the CM's announcement, the Congress termed it a corrupt practice and a gross violation of the model code in force for the upcoming bypolls for two assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh.

Three persons were killed and as many others seriously injured when a mini goods vehicle carrying them collided with another vehicle and overturned in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district on Saturday, police said.

The incident occurred late evening between Kinjoli and Rajnagar villages under the Bakawand police station area when some agricultural workers were returning home, a police official said.

The accident spot is around 30 km from Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Bastar district, he said.

Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi reviewed the prevailing security situation in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district on Saturday, officials said. The visit of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) to Kathua, bordering Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, comes amid stepped up anti-terrorist operations across Jammu region where two village defence guards were shot dead by the militants after their abduction in a latest attack in Kishtwar district on Thursday.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday that had the Congress given priority to rural India, farmers would not be dying by suicide and there would be less poverty in villages. Addressing a rally at Arvi in Wardha district ahead of the November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls, Gadkari said the BJP is neither a party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor himself but the workers who dedicated their lives to it. He also hailed the contribution of party workers in his political journey. The Nagpur MP recalled his days as a party worker when he would visit the neighbouring Wardha district, in the state’s Vidarbha region, on a scooter with a third pillion rider. The region elects 62 of Maharashtra’s 288 MLAs.

Two brothers died and two others got injured after their car rammed into a garbage dumper on Faridabad-Gurugram road here on Saturday, police said. The accident took place near Gurugram-Faridabad toll plaza at around 2.30 am when the car crashed into the stationary dumper, they said.

A two-day bird festival is being planned on February 1-2 during the Kumbh here next year to make people connect with nature at the world's largest religious gathering, an official said on Saturday. A proposal on the event aimed at providing information on the biodiversity of the wildlife sanctuaries in the state, is being sent to the government, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Arvind Kumar said. Mahakumbh will begin on January 13, 2025 on the occasion of Paush Poornima and end on February 26 on the occasion of Mahashivratri.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take immediate steps for bringing the 'remains' of the great freedom fighter from the Renoki temple in Japan to India before his birth anniversary on January 23 next year.

He said that it was a "great dishonour" to Netaji that his 'remains' are still lying at the Renkoji temple in Japan. Chandra Bose, who had made similar demands to Modi on past occasions the last being on August 17, also called for a memorial in Netaji's honour in the national capital. 

A Madrassa teacher was arrested for allegedly branding a student with an iron box in this north Kerala district, police said on Saturday. Umair Ashrafi, hailing from Tanur in neighbouring Malappuram district, was also accused of smearing chilli powder on the private parts of the boy, alleging disobedience, they said. As the student lodged a complaint with the police recently, the accused fled from the state and was staying in hideouts in various places in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea seeking to restrain the Delhi government from allowing felling of trees in the national capital without the apex court's permission. The application, which stated that five trees are felled in Delhi every hour, also sought to restrain the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change from permitting diversion of forests in Delhi without the top court's nod. The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A S Oka and A G Masih on Friday. The court asked the Delhi government and others to respond to the application by November 22.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that wherever a Congress government is formed, that state becomes the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) of the party’s ‘shashi parivar’. “We won’t let Maharashtra become the ATM of Congress,” Modi said, addressing a campaign rally in Akola for the November 20 state assembly elections. “I challenge the shahi parivar of Congress to prove if they ever visited Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s panchteerth,” Modi said. Modi has coined the term panchteerth to denote Amedbkar birthplace in Mhow, the place in London where he stayed while studying in the UK, Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur where he embraced Buddhism, his ‘Mahaparinirvan Sthal’ in Delhi, and ‘Chaitya Bhoomi’ in Mumbai.

A special court in Maharashtra's Thane district has acquitted four persons accused of preparation to commit dacoity and drug possession, citing that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against them. Special (NDPS) judge AS Bhagwat acquitted Sandeep Shankar Nangre (37), Suryakant Karmalkar (32), Shakir Asif Sayyed (32), and Umesh Bhoir (32) of charges under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

Former President Donald Trump won Nevada on Saturday, returning the state and its six electoral votes to Republicans for the first time since President George W Bush carried it in 2004. Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris made multiple campaign stops in the state this year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described industry doyen Ratan Tata, who died on this day last month, as the epitome of the finest traditions of Indian enterprise with a steadfast commitment to integrity, excellence and service.

A layer of smog covered the national capital Monday morning and the air quality was recorded in the "very poor" category with an average AQI of 358 at 9 am, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data. Data from the CPCB's Sameer App, which provides hourly AQI updates, showed that the air quality at Bawana and New Moti Bagh stations was in the severe category with readings of 409 at both.

Four people were killed after their car collided with a pickup goods vehicle near Maragutti cross in Kamalapura taluk here, during the early hours on Saturday, police said. The deceased were identified as Bhargav Krishna (55) from Hyderabad, his wife Sangeetha (45), and their son Uttam Raghavan (28), police said, adding that the identity of the deceased car driver has not yet been established.

Three coaches of the Secunderabad-Shalimar Superfast Express derailed near Howrah in West Bengal around 5.30 am on Saturday, South Eastern Railway officials said. "The weekly special train derailed at Nalpur, about 40 km from Kolkata. No casualties or injuries have been reported so far," they said.

The Andhra Pradesh government is working towards extending comprehensive Whatsapp governance to the people of the state by March end. IT Minister Nara Lokesh said this on Friday during a review of Real Time Governance Society (RTGS) by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

President-elect Donald Trump stitched together the broadest, most diverse coalition in modern history resulting in the Republican party taking control of the White House along with the US Congress, said a member of the Team Trump.

Asserting that "state-sponsored infiltration" was a serious threat to Jharkhand, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday said India was not a 'dharmshala' where anyone can come and settle.

A top official of the Army's White Knight Corps visited Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district on Friday to review the ongoing operations to track down terrorists responsible for the killings of two Village Defence Guards. The bodies of Nazir Ahmed and Kuldeep Kumar, the two Village Defence Guards (VDGs) killed by terrorists, were found near a rivulet during a massive search operation, officials said. The officials said the two VDGs were executed on Thursday after being abducted in the higher reaches of Kishtwar.