Breaking News, July 16

A 48-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man were stabbed to death in two separate incidents in Malvani area of Mumbai, police said on Saturday. Vijaymala Balode was bludgeoned to death with a grinding stone allegedly by her husband at 11pm on Friday after she refused to sleep with him in their Malad Gate Number 8 residence, an official said.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu will meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs in Ahmedabad on Sunday during her visit to Gujarat, party's chief whip Pankaj Desai said. 

A man wanted in two cases of murder and attempt to murder, was arrested here, said police on Saturday. Three pistols and six live cartridges were also recovered from the accused, identified as Vishal Kumar, said Sartaj Singh Chahal, Senior Superintendent of Police, Hoshiarpur, in a statement.

Dealing with summons issued to a Delhi resident by the Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Delhi High Court noted that for the purposes of investigation, a police officer can require the attendance of a person situated within the limits of his own or adjoining police station but not beyond the territorial limits.

Gujarat on Saturday reported 777 fresh COVID-19 cases and one fatality, raising the tally to 12,42,087 and the death toll to 10,954, the state health department said. With 626 patients getting discharged during the day, the number of recoveries in Gujarat went up to 12,26,501, leaving the state with 4,632 active cases, the department said in a release.

Four people were arrested for allegedly thrashing a man following an argument in northwest Delhi's Sultanpuri area, police said on Saturday. The incident took place on Wednesday when Prem Singh (48), who operates a 'jhula' near Jama Masjid, was returning home along with his worker, a senior police officer said.

Four years, five months and four days after Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, his trial for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to reach a jury begins Monday with opening statements.

Four children, including two minor girls, drowned in a pit filled with rainwater in Rajasthan's Nagaur district on Saturday, police said. Ramlal, Lichma and Aarti, all aged three years, and Shimbu (4) were playing near the pit. They started taking bath in it and drowned.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday said around 51 lakh households in the state will receive zero electricity bills and asserted that the promise of 300 units of free power has been implemented from July 1.

Gunmen believed to be separatist rebels killed 10 traders and wounded two others in an attack Saturday in Indonesia's restive Papua province, police said. 

In a bizarre incident, a man allegedly hacked a youth to death at a temple in Madhya Pradesh as an offer to Goddess after his wife gave birth to a male child. The incident was reported in a village in Rewa district and the victim has been identified as a 19-year-old Divyansh Kol.

In a shocking incident, a madrasa student in Andhra Pradesh's Palnadu district died and 11 others were taken ill due to food poisoning on Saturday. The incident occurred at a madrasa at Gurzala town in the district. The students got ill after they ate lunch served at madarsa. They soon complained of vomiting and diarrhoea and were shifted to a hospital, where one of the students succumbed. Condition of four of four others is stated to be critical.

Unidentified gunmen killed four people, including three policemen, in separate attacks on security personnel in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on Saturday, police said.

A designated National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Saturday sent three Udaipur tailor murder case accused to judicial custody till August 1, according to a government lawyer. Riaz Akhtari, also known as Riyaz Attari, Ghouse Mohammad and Farhad Mohammad Sheikh were under NIA custody, and were produced in the court by a team of the anti-terror probe agency amid tight security.

Odisha recorded over 1,065 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single day spike in five months on Saturday pushing the caseload in the disease to 12,98,240, the state health department said. It was the second consecutive day that the state recorded over 1000 coronavirus cases, it said in a bulletin. The highest number of cases in the past five months was 1148 which was recorded on February 13, it said. On Friday Odisha had logged 1043 cases. The state's coronavirus toll remained 9,128 with no reports of any fresh fatality. A total 53 patients of the infection have died due to comorbidities so far.

Amid tight security, the 17th batch of over 5,800 Amarnath pilgrims left Jammu city on Saturday morning for the twin base camps of Pahalgam and Baltal in Kashmir, officials said. The annual pilgrimage, which was suspended from Jammu last Sunday due to bad weather resumed on Monday. A flash flood triggered by heavy rains near the cave shrine on Friday last week led to the death of at least 15 people. The 43-day-long pilgrimage to the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas commenced on June 30 from the twin tracks -- the traditional 48-km Nunwan-Pahalgam route in south Kashmir's Anantnag district and 14-km shorter Baltal in central Kashmir's Ganderbal district.

Pakistan has assured the IMF that it would try to receive concessions from the Chinese investors participating in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) power plants in the shape of either reduction in the profit rates on investment or rescheduling the loan repayments, according to a media report on Saturday. The assurance to seek concessions from the Chinese investors was given by Pakistani authorities to remove one of the bottlenecks in the finalisation of a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund, government sources told The Express Tribune newspaper.

The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed a petition that sought the appointment of a commissioner to survey a mosque in Mangaluru before a local court heard the maintainability of a suit making the same demand. An original suit was filed by T A Dhananjaya and B A Manoj Kumar of Mangaluru stating that parts of a temple were discovered during the renovation of the Assayed Abdullahi Madani mosque in Malali, Thenka Ulipady village, near Mangaluru.
Before the Third Additional Civil Court in Mangaluru they had sought a survey of the mosque to verify this claim. The court was hearing arguments whether such a suit was maintainable.

Several places in west and east Rajasthan witnessed heavy to very heavy rainfall in the last 24 hours, according to the weather department. Makrana in Nagaur district recorded the highest rainfall at 13 cm in the last 24 hours- ending 8.30 am Saturday. It was followed by Ratangarh (Churu) which saw a rainfall of 8 cm and Sangaria in Hanumangarh which recorded 7 cm of rain. Banera (Bhilwara), Kherwada (Udaipur), Padampur, Sadulshahar (both in Ganganagar), and Nawa (Nagaur) recorded 6 cm each.

A 36-year-old man was shot at and wounded allegedly by a juvenile in northwest Delhi's Jahangirpuri area, police here said on Saturday. Four juveniles have been apprehended in connection with the incident, they said. On Friday around 5.15 pm, police had received information about a gunshot injury to one Javed at H-4 Block, Jahangirpuri. He was shifted to BJRM Hospital and later referred to another centre, a senior police officer said. The inquiry revealed that Javed had sustained a bullet injury in his right eye.

The charges levelled against late Congress leader Ahmed Patel are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for communal carnage" unleashed when the latter was Gujarat chief minister, the Congress alleged on Saturday. The Congress made this allegation in a statement issued by Jairam Ramesh, the party's general secretary in-charge of the communication department. The allegation comes a day after the Gujarat police opposed activist Teesta Setalvad's bail application. An affidavit filed by the police's Special Investigation Team before the sessions court on Friday said Setalvad was part of a "larger conspiracy" carried out at the behest of Ahmed Patel to dismiss the BJP government in the state after the 2002 riots. 

Fitness technology startup Portl aims to sell around 5,000 units of its smart mirror that comes with artificial intelligence and sensors to provide personalised training to users, a company official said. Portl co-founder Indraneel Gupta told PTI that the company has developed entire technology in-house and is manufacturing products at their facility in Hyderabad. "We started selling Portl from March and recorded 60 per cent month-on-month growth. Our aim is to sell around 5,000 units this fiscal," Gupta said. He was speaking on the sidelines of an event to announce a partnership with fitness and sports retail brand Lodhi Sports. Gupta said that AI and sensors in the smart mirror correct body postures and provide users personalised training.

Sri Lanka's Parliament met in a brief special session on Saturday to announce the vacancy in the presidency following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has fled the country after a popular uprising against him for mishandling the country's economic crisis. Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday and then landed in Singapore on Thursday, formally resigned on Friday, capping off a chaotic 72 hours in the crisis-hit nation that saw protesters storm many iconic buildings, including the President and the Prime Minister's residences. During the 13-minute special session, Dhammika Dassanayake, Secretary General of Parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president. Former president Rajapaksa's resignation letter was read during the session.

READ DETAILS:

The anganwadi workers’ union is slated to meet Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena on Saturday to demand the reinstatement of its workers, the body has said. The LG agreed to meet the Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union (DSAWHU), after workers whose services were terminated staged a protest outside his residence on Wednesday, the union officials said. Earlier, the members of the union had gathered at the Raj Niwas Marg with banners and raised slogans against the LG and the Delhi government, demanding a hike in their pay and reinstatement of terminated workers and helpers. DSAWHU has claimed that 884 Anganwadi workers have been issued termination notices and 11,942 given show-cause notices by the Delhi government for participating in a 39-day strike. 

The BJP is likely to finalise its candidate for the vice presidential post on Saturday in its parliamentary board meet scheduled to be held later in the day, sources said. Its parliamentary board comprises party president J P Nadda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others. BJP, the leading partner in the ruling NDA alliance, will also convey the name to its allies, sources said. It may also reach out to different parties to seek a consensus over the choice, amid indications that the opposition will also field its candidate to force a contest, as it has for the presidential poll. The last date for filing of nomination papers for the poll is July 19 and the election is scheduled for August 6. The electoral college for picking the next Vice President of the country, who is also the Rajya Sabha chairperson, consists of members of both houses of the Parliament -- the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. 

READ FULL DETAILS HERE

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will hold an all party meeting on Saturday, two days ahead of the start of the Monsoon session of the Parliament. The meeting is scheduled to be held at Parliament in the evening and is expected to be attended by floor leaders of several political parties. During the meeting discussions will be held on the issues to be taken up during the session and allocation of time for discussion on different bills. Issues, such as the recently issued list of unparliamentary words, may also come up for discussion in the meeting. The Speaker holds this customary all-party meeting before the start of every parliament session. The Monsoon session of the Parliament will begin from July 18. 

At least five people have died after a pileup Friday evening on Interstate 90 in Montana, authorities said. At least 20 vehicles crashed in what authorities are calling a "mass casualty incident." Governor Greg Gianforte said on Twitter: "I'm deeply saddened by the news of a mass casualty crash near Hardin. Please join me in prayer to lift up the victims and their loved ones. We're grateful to our first responders for their service." KTVA reports that the incident happened 5 kilometers west of Hardin. Montana Highway Patrol Sgt. Jay Nelson told MTN News that the incident was reported around 4.30 pm and first responders were still arriving to the scene 90 minutes later. Nelson and other highway patrol spokespeople did not immediately return AP's requests for comment. Motorists should expect delays in the area. Authorities are expected to be at the scene for several hours. 

Hitting out at Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav for supporting opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha in the July 18 presidential election, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak sought his response on Friday over an old statement of Sinha calling SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav an ISI agent. On the other hand, the SP described both the deputy chief ministers as "pracharjeevi" (propagandist) and asked them about the role of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leaders during the country's freedom movement.

Sri Lanka's opposition leader, who is seeking the presidency next week, vowed Friday to "listen to the people" who are struggling through the island nation's worst economic crisis and to hold accountable the president who fled under pressure from protesters. In an interview with The Associated Press from his office in the capital, Sajith Premadasa said that if he wins the election in parliament, he would ensure that "an elective dictatorship never, ever occurs" in Sri Lanka. "That's what we should do. That is our function — catching those who looted Sri Lanka. That should be done through proper constitutional, legal, democratic procedures," Premadasa said.

Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district ordered an inquiry on Friday into a June 19 encounter between terrorists and security forces in which four ultras, including one who was arrested earlier, were killed. The encounter broke out at Chandigam in the Lolab area of the north Kashmir district. The Lolab sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) has been appointed as the inquiry officer to conduct a magisterial enquiry under section 176 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc) into the anti-terrorism operation at Chandigam, according to an official spokesperson.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri on Friday claimed the Delhi Jal Board has substantially raised water and sewer connection charges in the city.  "The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has made a huge increase in both water and sewer charges, naming the development charges as infrastructure charges," he said in a statement. "Earlier, only Rs 20,000 had to be paid as development fee for domestic water connection on a 200 square metre plot, but now about Rs 3.80 lakh will have to be paid for it. In case of a water connection on a commercial plot of 200 square metres, about Rs 7 lakh will have to be spent in the name of development fee," he alleged.

Adequate arrangements have been made for a smooth and fair conduct of the Haryana Civil Services and other Allied Services examination to be held on July 24, according to an official statement issued here on Friday. A total of 1,48,262 candidates will write the examination at 524 centres in 10 districts. A meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal with deputy commissioners and superintendents of police through video-conferencing regarding the conduct of the examination.

Former diplomats and academics have shared their views on Sri Lanka's former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa's private visit to Singapore who boarded a flight to the city state after fleeing Colombo to Male. Although Rajapaksa has not requested asylum, it is within his rights as a passport holder to visit Singapore, the TODAY newspaper reported on Saturday. Bilahari Kausikan, a former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), said many nationalities are able to enter Singapore for various periods of time, depending on the conditions of their visa.