Breaking News, August 29

West Bengal on Monday reported 100 fresh COVID-19 cases, 122 less than the previous day, pushing the tally to 21,06,624, a health department bulletin said. One more COVID-19 fatality pushed the death toll to 21,461, it said. The positivity rate for the day was 1.84 per cent as 100 infections were detected out of 5,432 samples tested.

The state now has 2,716 active COVID-19 cases while 20,82,447 people have recovered from the disease including 311 during the day, it said. The Covid recovery rate now is 98.85 per cent. Bengal had reported 222 new COVID-19 cases and three deaths on Sunday. A total of 2,62,70,281 samples have been tested for COVID-19 so far, it added.

Hours after the AAP announced a night-long protest at the Delhi Assembly premises, the BJP on Monday said its MLAs will also hold an overnight protest there to demand the sacking of ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain over alleged corruption.
In a BJP statement, Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said the party MLAs have been forced to sit on a dharna since they were not heard in the assembly.
All of the BJP's eight MLAs were not part of the proceedings of the Delhi Assembly's special session on Monday and Friday as they were marshalled out of the House on both days.
Earlier in the day, the AAP said its MLAs will camp overnight at the Vidhan Sabha premises demanding a probe against Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena for allegedly pressuring two of his employees to exchange demonetised currency notes worth Rs 1,400 crore during his term as the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) chairman in 2016.

A 70-year-old man died while his wife sustained injuries after being hit by a car while walking on the road in east Delhi's Shahdara, police said on Monday. The incident occurred in the Geeta colony area on Sunday. The elderly couple were rushed to a hospital, they said. According to a senior police officer, while Hira Lal had sustained a head injury and was declared brought dead, his wife Munni Devi (64) is undergoing treatment for leg injury.

Veteran Bengali actor Pradip Mukherjee, who immortalised the character of the protagonist in Satyajit Ray's 'Jana Aranya' (The Middleman), died on Monday at a hospital in Kolkata, his family said. Mukherjee, 76, left behind his wife, a son and a daughter. He was admitted to a private hospital three days back due to an infection in his lungs and shifted to a state-run hospital on Sunday, his family said.

Equity markets buckled under selling pressure on Monday as an intense sell-off emerged in IT, teck and banking stocks amid a bearish trend overseas following hawkish comments from the US Federal Reserve. A depreciating rupee and spurt in the global crude oil prices also dampened market sentiment, analysts said.

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday condemned the death of a 19-year-old woman who was allegedly burned alive in Jharkhand by a man for spurning him, and demanded that a special court be designated to try the case. It is "animalism" that a youth has burned the girl alive, he said. "I, not only condemn, but demand the Jharkhand government to deal with the case properly. If possible, a (special) court be designated there to try the case.

The Congress on Monday demanded a CBI probe into allegations of irregularities in recruitment in Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, the State Staff Selection Committees and other departments of the state government. Congress leader Devendra Yadav, along with the party's Uttarakhand unit chief Karan Mahra and deputy leader of the Congress legislature party Bhuwan Chander Kapri, said the central government should intervene as the "local leadership is involved in the scam".

A police inspector has been transferred after she was accused of mentally harassing a cop who is suspected to have died by suicide in Odisha's Kandhamal district, an officer said on Monday. Sub-inspector Swagatika Behera, was found hanging from a ceiling fan at her quarters in G Udayagiri police station, around 200km from here, on Saturday.

A 15-year-old girl was allegedly sexually harassed and duped of Rs 2.5 lakh by a man she befriended on social media, police said on Monday. The girl’s father, in his complaint, alleged that a man named Govind befriended his daughter on Instagram and told her that her father was involved in an affair and he has some objectionable pictures of him.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said the central agencies and "ill-gotten money of the BJP" are being used to dislodge elected state governments run by parties that are opposed to the saffron camp. She vowed to defeat the BJP in the next Lok Sabha polls.

Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Monday distanced his party from the statement of rebel Shiv Sena MLA and minister Bharat Gogawale that the disqualification case going on against them in the court will drag on till the term of this government ends. Queried on this statement, Bawankule told reporters in Nagpur that he did not have details of Gogawale's exact statement.

A fire broke out in an underground gas pipeline in Parel area of Mumbai on Monday, a civic official said. The blaze was reported at 1.10 pm opposite the F-South Ward office after smoke was seen coming out of the ground, he said.

Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced a Rs 2 lakh crore investment in deploying fifth-generation or 5G telephony with rollout in metro cities by Diwali. Jio, the nation's largest telecom operator, has deployed standalone 5G stack rather than upgrading the existing 4G network, to offer ultra-high speed internet, he said at Reliance Industries' 45th AGM.

The bodies of three persons who went missing after bathing in a waterfall in Chhattisgarh's Korea district were fished out on Monday, taking the death toll in the incident to six, officials said. All the deceased were part of a group of 15 members of an extended family from Madhya Pradesh, who had on Sunday gone for a picnic at the Ramdaha waterfall under Kotadol police station limits, located more than 300 km from the state capital Raipur.

The Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on some of the petitioners for seeking adjournment of hearing on pleas challenging the Karnataka High Court verdict refusing to lift the ban on hijab in educational institutions of the state, saying it would not permit "this kind of forum shopping". The apex court, which issued notice to the Karnataka government on the pleas, observed that the petitioners in the matter had repeatedly sought early hearing and when these pleas have been listed, a letter has been circulated requesting for adjournment.

Five people, including a teenager, drowned in river Yamuna in Delhi after immersing an idol, police said on Monday. The incident took place on Sunday under the DND flyover, they said. Ankit Singh (20), Arpit (16), Virendra (23), Lalit (20) and Rituraj Srivastava (20), who were living in Salarpur village under Noida Sector 39 police station limits, died in the incident, Noida police said in a statement.

A 20-year-old student of pharmacy in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal city committed suicide by electrocuting himself after wrapping naked wires on his hands, police said on Monday. Kuldeep Verma electrocuted himself in his rented accommodation in Neelbad area on the outskirts of the city on Saturday, an official said.

At least two people died and three went missing after a landslide triggered by heavy rains hit their house at a village in this district in the wee hours of Monday, police said. The incident was reported from Kanjar village near Thodupuzha, police said.

A 37-year-old man stabbed his wife, daughter and mother-in-law over marital discord in east Delhi's Mayur Vihar, police said. Accused Siddharth is an engineer and he worked as a technical support associate in Gurugram. He has been arrested, a police officer said on Sunday.

The Trinamool Congress has demanded that Union Home Minister Amit Shah take responsibility for the gangrape of a woman allegedly by two BSF personnel in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district. After visiting the spot where the incident took place along with others on Sunday, senior TMC leader and minister Dr Shashi Panja also wondered why Shah has remained silent over it.

The highly pathogenic bird flu, avian influenza, has been detected in a duck farm in France's eastern department of Ain, causing a total of 10,600 ducks culled, French media reported.

The State services (departmental directorate for the protection of populations) of Ain have highlighted an outbreak of avian influenza due to a strain of the H5N1 virus in a duck farm located in Saint-Nizier-le-Desert, Le Figaro reported, citing the prefecture of the Ain department.

Hours after the twin towers in Noida were razed to the ground, BJP blamed the Samajwadi Party for allowing the project to come up.

The newly appointed Uttar Pradesh BJP president Bhupendra Chaudhary blamed the Samajwadi Party for allowing the 'towers of corruption' to come up in Noida.

In a late-night statement on Sunday, Chaudhary said, "Akhilesh Yadav and every authority of that time should answer upon such illegal construction and I am sure that all these illegal constructions have taken place are under the then government's protection."

Internet services across 27 districts of Assam were suspended for over four hours on Sunday for the second time this month to prevent possible malpractices during a written examination for recruitment in various state government departments.

After completion of the examination, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that fees of unsuccessful candidates will be sent to their bank accounts.

The authorities decided to go ahead with their decision to suspend internet services during exam hours, after the Gauhati High Court refused to stay it following a writ petition against the order.

A Pakistani journalist was booked for allegedly attributing "disrespectful" statements about Islam to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, according to local media.

Rawalpindi police have registered a case against journalist Waqar Satti at RA Bazar police station on Saturday, Dawn newspaper reported on Sunday.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal to move Confidence Motion in the Delhi Assembly today