Breaking News, September 28

Police on Wednesday detained a woman after a suspected IED was recovered in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, officials said. On a reliable input, police, along with other security agencies, recovered an IED- like substance in Poonch, they said.

A 30-year-old farm labourer allegedly killed his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter by throwing her into a farm pond in a fit of rage following an argument with his wife in Maharashtra's Jalna district on Wednesday, police said. The incident occurred at Nidhina village in Jalna tehsil in the morning, they said.

In an attempt to retain buoyancy in real estate, the West Bengal government has extended the rebate on stamp duty and circle rate till March 2023, an official said on Wednesday. The decision was welcomed by the industry as a puja gift.

Twenty-one people were arrested with eight luxury cars for allegedly celebrating a birthday party on an elevated road and creating a ruckus, Indirapuram Police here said on Wednesday. The accused were said to be celebrating the birthday of one Ansh Kohli, 21, a resident of Jagat Puri in east Delhi, Tuesday midnight, they said.

The Social Democratic Party of India, perceived as the political arm of the now-banned Popular Front of India, received contributions of over Rs 11 crore since 2018-19, according to data available with the Election Commission. An unrecognised political party registered in Delhi, the SDPI was formed in June 2009 and registered with the poll panel in April 2010.

Five men were killed after their car collided with a bus on the Delhi-Jaipur highway in the district on Wednesday, police said. Eleven others were also injured in the accident near Salawas cut here. The injured persons, passengers of the Haryana Roadways bus, were taken to the trauma centre for treatment, they said.

Two labourers were killed after the roof of an old building collapsed on them on Wednesday. The incident occurred in Shahzadpur village in Nangal police station limits.

RJD president Lalu Prasad on Wednesday called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh a "Hindu extremist organisation" that deserved to be banned. Prasad made the remark replying to queries from journalists about the Union Home Ministry's ban on Popular Front of India and several of its associates under a stringent anti-terror law. "They keep raising the bogey of PFI. It is the RSS, which is all about Hindu extremism (‘kattarpanth’), which deserves to be banned first,” said the septuagenarian with characteristic candor.

A restaurant fire killed 17 people on Wednesday in the city of Changchun in northeastern China, authorities said. The fire was reported about 12:40 pm in a high-tech section of the Changchun New Area industrial zone, according to a social media post by the zone's management committee. Three other people were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment, the post said. The cause of the fire was under investigation. Changchun is an auto manufacturing centre and the capital of Jilin province. (AP) GRS

Four children were killed after their dilapidated house collapsed in Rajasthan’s Dholpur district, police said on Wednesday. The mother and her five children were asleep inside their rented accommodation in Mania town when the incident happened on Tuesday night, Station House Officer Lakhan Singh said. While the four children- three girls (aged between two and five years) and a four-month-old boy- died, the mother and a girl sustained injuries and were admitted to a state-run hospital, he said. The father was not at home when the incident happened, he said.

Typhoon Noru weakened into a tropical storm over central Vietnam on Wednesday, causing blackouts and blowing off roofs and billboards with strong winds and putting Thailand on alert for more floods and downpours. There were no immediate reports of casualties after Noru made landfall south of Da Nang and quickly moved inland. Although losing strength, Noru dumped heavy rains, flooding villages while wind gusts caused damage to homes 

A senior police officer was on Wednesday transferred and attached with police headquarters, a step that followed an outcry over halting of fruit-laden trucks from Kashmir valley to outside markets. The transfer order of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), traffic national highway Shabir Ahmad Malik was issued by the home department, this morning. In the order issued by Financial commissioner-cum-additional chief secretary Raj Kumar Goyal said, "In the interest of administration, Shabir Ahmad Malik, SSP Traffic NHW, is hereby transferred and attached with police headquarters, J-K, with immediate effect." Superintendent of Police, Ramban, Mohita Sharma was given the additional charge of the post till further orders, the order read.

A 25-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping and impregnating a girl in Sullia taluk of Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district, police said on Wednesday. The man, a resident of Ubaradka Mittur village in the taluk, has been charged under Section 176 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, police said. The accused was produced before a local court and remanded to judicial custody. The victim's father, in his complaint to the police, said his daughter and the accused got in touch through a WhatsApp group. They began talking to each other later and the man asked her to come to Sullia on June 30. The accused then took her on his two-wheeler to his friend's place and allegedly raped her there. When the girl complained about stomach ache later, the parents took her to a doctor, who confirmed that she was pregnant, the complaint said. Further investigation is in progress, police said. 

Jawaharlal Nehru University on Wednesday began the registration process for admission to its undergraduate programmes through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). Candidates can apply for undergraduate programmes at the university through the official website of JNUEE. Upon visiting the website, one needs to click on the link about applications for BA programmes. That will open a portal where candidates can log in with their CUET-UG application number and date of birth as password, a JNU official said. The registration fee for candidates belonging to the general category, economically weaker section and OBC is Rs 250 and Rs 100 for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Persons with Disabilities. Foreign nationals will have to pay Rs 2,392 for registration.

The ED on Wednesday morning arrested liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru in connection with its money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, official sources said. Mahendru is the managing director of a company called Indospirits. Sources said he was taken into custody under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after he was put through a night-long questioning session. He is expected to be produced before a local court where the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will seek his further remand.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a former deputy registrar of companies in Kolkata and three others in connection with its probe into a chit fund scam, an official of the agency said. Among those arrested are a founding director and two territory managers of private companies, he said. The CBI had registered the case in compliance of orders of the Supreme Court in 2014 against the then managing director of a private company and others, and took over the investigation in the matter which had been registere

The Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra began its 18th day of march in Kerala on Wednesday with hundreds of party workers and followers accompanying Rahul Gandhi set to enter his Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency during the day. The march started from Pandikkad School Padi here and is scheduled to halt for a break at Wandoor junction around 10.30 am. It will enter the Wayanad constituency during the day, AICC general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said.

A woman who said she was left to give birth to her baby alone on the dirty, concrete floor of her jail cell in Maryland filed a federal lawsuit alleging that jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for help for six hours. Jazmin Valentine alleges some nurses working for the jail's contracted medical provider, Pennsylvania-based PrimeCare Medical, Inc., said she was withdrawing from drugs, not in labour, and some jail staffers and medical staff laughed at her, saying she was just trying to get out of her cell late at night in July 2021 at the Washington County jail in Hagerstown. Valentine claims she punched the walls of her solitary confinement cell, which did not have blankets or sheets, during her most painful contractions and removed what she believed was her baby's amniotic sac and slid it under her cell door to prove she was about to have a baby.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday paid tributes to iconic singer Lata Mangeshkar on her birth anniversary. He said a chowk in Ayodhya will be named after her on Wednesday, which he added will be a fitting tribute to her. He tweeted, "Remembering Lata Didi on her birth anniversary. There is so much that I recall… the innumerable interactions in which she would shower so much affection. I am glad that today, a Chowk in Ayodhya will be named after her. It is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest Indian icons." Born in 1929, Mangeshkar ruled the playback singing for decades. She died in February this year. 

The government has imposed a ban on the Popular Front of India (PFI) for its alleged terror activities. In a notification issued late Tuesday night, the Union Home Ministry said the central government is of the opinion that the PFI and its affiliates have been involved in subversive activities, thereby disturbing public order and undermining constitutional set up of the country and encouraging and enforcing a terror-based regressive regime. It continues "propagating anti-national sentiments and radicalising a particular section of society" with the intention to create disaffection against the country, it said. "And whereas, the central government for the above-mentioned reasons is firmly of the opinion that having regard to the activities of the PFI, it is necessary to declare the PFI and its associates or affiliates or fronts to be unlawful association with immediate effect," the home ministry notification read. 

For the first time in a decade, Americans will pay less next year on monthly premiums for Medicare's Part B plan, which covers routine doctors' visits and other outpatient care. The rare 3 per cent decrease in monthly premiums is likely to be coupled with a historically high cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefits — perhaps 9 per cent or 10 per cent — putting hundreds of dollars directly into the pockets of millions of people.

Pro-Moscow officials said Tuesday that residents in one of the four occupied areas of Ukraine voted to join Russia in a Kremlin-orchestrated vote that has been dismissed by the U.S. and its Western allies as illegitimate. According to Russia-installed election officials in Zaporizhzhia region, 93.11% of the ballots case in the vote were in support of the annexation. Results from three other Ukrainian regions were expected to follow shortly.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday kept the nation's cap on refugee admissions at 125,000 for the 2023 budget year, despite pressure from advocates to raise it even higher to meet the need after falling far short of that target this year. Refugees advocates have been pushing the Biden administration to do more to restore the US Refugee Admissions Program. The programme suffered deep cuts under the Trump administration, which slashed admissions to a record low.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday expressed happiness that the state has been selected for its superlative performance in the 'quantity' parameter under the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission scheme. She said the feat bears testimony to the pro-people approach of her government. “I am pleased to announce that West Bengal has been selected for felicitation for exemplary performance in the 'Quantity' parameter under Jal Jeevan Mission,” Banerjee said in a Twitter post.

A 23-year-old man was allegedly buried alive by his uncle and his three aides at Tajpur village in the Bangarmau area, police said on Tuesday. It was done in an attempt to attract people to the place during Navratras and earn money through donations. Police said Shubham Goswami, a devout, was recused by them on Sunday night. They have arrested his uncle Munna Lal Pandey and three others, identified as Prabhashankar Shukla and Satish Chandra and Shivkesh Dixit.

Having played a key role in shaping the India-US ties over the past few decades, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said he is very bullish about this bilateral relationship. "So very frankly, that's a long way of saying that I'm very bullish about that relationship," Jaishankar told reporters at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he responded to a question on his overall sense of the trajectory of the relationship. "The big change that I have seen in my four decades as a diplomat was actually in the transformation of India-US relations," he said.