Breaking news on October 5

Terrorists fired at a civilian in Kokernag area of district Anantnag. Injured has been shifted to the hospital. The Police personnels are at the spot.

Congress leader P Chidambaram is being taken back to Tihar jail following a medical check-up at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after he complained of stomach ache.

Waryam Singh, Chairman of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, has also been detained by Mumbai Police and is being taken to Economic Offences Wing (EOW) headquarters. He will be arrested soon after formal procedures.

President Ram Nath Kovind addresses the 51st Foundation Day celebrations of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) in Delhi. He said: "Company Secretaries must foster responsible business and balance economic objectives with larger socio-economic goals."

Congress leader P Chidambaram has been referred to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for a medical check up after he complained of stomach ache. He has not been admitted yet.

President Ram Nath Kovind had met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday. 

National Conference (NC) leader Devender Rana in Jammu said: "Today, we've got the confirmation that a delegation will be allowed to meet Farooq Abdullah & Omar Abdullah. A 15-member delegation of NC leaders, all of them former legislators, are going to Srinagar tomorrow morning."

Jammu and Kashmir Government has allowed a delegation of National Conference from Jammu, to meet party president Farooq Abdullah and Vice President Omar Abdullah, who are currently under detention.

The police have arrested 29 protesters from Aarey and were sent to judicial custody by Borivali Court.

Ashok Tanwar said: "The people who are well established in the system, the way they exploit people, they sit in AC rooms, go for foreign trips&earn money for 5 years. But right before polls, they appear, as if they are Gods&Goddesses lekin karam devi-devta wale nahi hain, karam rakshasi hain."

Karnataka BJP Chief Nalin Kumar Kateel said: "Charges of slackness in flood relief work are baseless, malicious & politically motivated. State & Centre have taken meaningful steps."

"Over and above, another Rs. 1150 crores have been released exclusively for re-building of houses belonging to SC/STs. This targeted release of funds to ensure that it reaches the needy is undertaken by Yediyurappa government," he added. 

CPI (Marxist) releases 1st list of candidates for Maharashtra Assembly Polls; N Adam from Solapur Central, JP Gavit from Kalwan,DL Karad from Nashik (W), Vinod Nikole from Dahanu, J Mali from Shahada, S Khandare (W) from Partur, K Bhavar from Shahapur, K Narayanan from Andheri (W).

Hyderabad Police on Saturday arrested Ravi Prakash, former CEO of multilingual television news channel TV9, for alleged cheating by diverting company funds. The police also took former Chief Financial Officer M.K.V.N. Murthy into custody. They were taken to Banjara Hills police station where they were being questioned.

The arrests were made after two cases were registered against them on a complaint by Alanda Media & Entertainment Pvt Ltd, which owns TV9 group of channels. The management alleged in their complaint that Ravi Prakash and Murthy withdrew Rs 18.31 crore from the bank accounts of the company from September 2018 to May 2019.

Criminals from Delhi's neighbouring places of Moradabad, Bulandshahr, Aligarh and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, find the national capital a safe haven to operate as they have been found involved in a spate of snatching incidents. Delhi has been witnessing a spurt in crimes in the recent months and the incidents of snatching have particularly increased manifold.

A UN report has said that the deteriorated security situation across Afghanistan since 2015 has led to more than 14,000 "grave violations" against children. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned "the alarming level" of grave violations against children by all parties and said he was "deeply disturbed by the scale, severity and recurrence of grave violations endured by the children in Afghanistan", TOLO News reported.
 

As the Indian Army holds its biggest ever mountain combat exercise 'Him Vijay' in Arunachal Pradesh, the first-ever such drill in the northeastern state, it is reported to have irked China which considers large parts of Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. Three battle groups, each comprising 4,000 soldiers, are participating in the exercise at a height of 14,000 feet, -- 100 kms away from the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

It is being carried out in phases in the upper reaches of Arunachal Pradesh near Tawang, and will end on October 25. The exercises are being held at a time when Chinese President Xi Jinping is to visit India for the second informal meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, likely in Mahabalipuram.

The Durga puja festival have started in Cuttack with 'Bilwadhibasa'- invocation of the Goddess. The festivities that began on Friday will end with the
'Aparajita puja' on the occasion of 'Bijaya Dashami' on Tuesday. As per orders of the district administration, the immersion of idols of Goddess Durga will take place on Wednesday. The Binod Behary Puja Committee of the city, which determines the timings of different rituals during the festival, has fixed 'Netra Utsav' on Saturday afternoon and 'Sandhi Puja' on Sunday evening.
 

As part of the ongoing 'Joy of Giving Week' organised by the Western Railway (WR), around 150 students of the Ryan Group of Institutions (RGI) planted more than 350 Ashoka tree saplings near the Jogeshwari station. The children were accompanied by a favourite cartoon character, Nicktoon 'Dora the Explorer' and child actor Abhishek Sharma in the event organised by the WR, Nickelodeon and RGI to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The Goa government on Saturday released Rs 60 crore for the super-speciality block being constructed at the Goa Medical College Hospital (GMCH) in Bambolim. The 500-bed super speciality facility, being built under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), will be inaugurated by the end of this year.

The state government on Saturday granted administrative and expenditure sanction of Rs 60 crore for the facility.

The Central Public Works Department has set up dedicated planning and design centres across the country. The move intends to cater to the need of design requirements of the regional units of the Centre's prime construction agency.

CPWD is the central government's largest construction agency which carries out several development projects.

The Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangha (BGP) and its youth organisation, the Bharatiya Gorkha Yuva Parisangha (BhaGoYuP), on Saturday jointly appealed to the tea garden owners in West Bengal's Darjeeling Hills to release 20 per cent bonus to two lakh tea garden workers in the region. Workers of all the 87 tea garden estates in Darjeeling observed a 12-hour strike on Friday demanding higher bonus payout.

This was the first shutdown of the Darjeeling Hills since the 104-day-long strike in 2017.

The Madhya Pradesh government has booked 31 persons over the last two-and-a-half months under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) for allegedly indulging in adulteration of food, milk and dairy products, an official said on Saturday. Apart from this, 87 cases have been registered against
other people for adulteration of food products, the official said.
 

Heeding to a long-standing demand of the Army, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has given in-principle approval to enhance monetary assistance to next of kin of battle casualties from existing Rs 2 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. They said the financial assistance will be granted under Army Battle Casualties Welfare Fund (ABCWF).

At present, financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh was given to battle casualties in case of death and also to those sustaining 60 per cent and above disability besides to several other categories.

The assistance is given in addition to liberalised family pension, financial assistance from Army group insurance, Army Welfare Fund and ex-gratia amount.

Terming the axing of trees in Aarey Colony as "shameful and disgusting", Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday tweeted that the Mumbai Metro 3 officials should be posted in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) to destroy terror camps rather than trees. In a series of tweets, he also said that several environmentalists and even local Shiv Sena members tried to stop the tree felling.

The Yuva Sena chief went on to say that with the increased police presence and deforestation, Mumbai Metro 3 is destroying everything that India had said at the United Nations (UN).

Joy Thomas, the suspended Managing Director of the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank sent to police custody till 17th October by Mumbai's Esplanade Court

At least 10 persons, including a traffic policeman, were injured in a grenade attack by terrorists outside the Deputy Commissioner's office in Anantnag township of south Kashmir on Saturday, a police official said.

This was the second grenade attack in the valley since the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5.
The terrorists hurled a grenade on a security patrol outside the heavily guarded DC office complex in Anantnag town, 55 km from here, around 11 am.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held wide-ranging talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina on further deepening overall ties between the two countries in diverse areas including defence and security, trade and connectivity.

Government sources said the focus of the talks was to significantly expand the areas of cooperation between the two countries.
Both sides want to boost ties in areas of defence, trade and connectivity, they said.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday called on visiting Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ahead of a bilateral meeting with her counterpart Narendra Modi later in the day during which the two sides were expected to ink major agreements, with a focus on connectivity. The two sides are likely to sign six to seven MoUs in the areas of connectivity, capacity-building and culture after the talks at the Hyderabad House.

"The bilateral relations have never been so close. Naturally, the focus of discussion will be on bilateral relationship. When I say bilateral relationship, we are talking about the next steps the two countries should take now to get the relationship in a different trajectory," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said at a briefing on Friday.

The opposition NCP and Congress in Maharashtra targeted the Shiv Sena and BJP on Saturday, saying the ruling parties have failed to save trees in Aarey Colony. In a veiled dig at Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, the Nationalist Congress Party asked where were the "fake environment lovers" when the hacking of trees began late Friday night.

"The Aarey tree felling is nothing but hitting Mumbaikars by first rendering them helpless. The @ShivSena bedeviled for the last 25 years. Now, it is holding common Mumbaikars to ransom in alliance with BJP," NCP chief spokesperson Nawab Malik tweeted.
 

"I have been forcibly evicted by the cops and I wasn’t even breaking the law! The cops in the car wont even tell me where I am being taken ... this is insane @MumbaiPolice," tweets Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi.

Delhi government on Saturday launched a mega exercise to free 1260 kms of roads managed by its Public Works Department (PWD) from potholes.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a series of tweets said it was first time that such a big scale road inspection was being done to free the PWD roads from potholes caused by rains and wear and tear.

Fifty ruling AAP legislators, each accompanied by an engineer will inspect 25 km of road stretch in their areas. An App will be used to locate and record the potholes and other damages, which will be repaired immediately, said the Chief Minister.
 

A school bus overturned in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer district after the driver lost control over the wheels Saturday morning, injuring 18 children and one teacher. The children from St. Xavier's Senior Secondary School of Jaipur were on an educational tour to the district, when the accident happened near Pokhran area.

Police rescued the children with the help of villagers. All the children are being treated at the district hospital, but the teacher has been referred to a Jodhpur hospital for better care.

The death toll in the boat capsize in Mahananda river bordering West Bengal and Bihar rose to eight on Saturday after four more bodies were
recovered by rescue teams. The bodies of four men were fished out from the river at Chanchal area in Malda district of West Bengal on Saturday
morning. Four bodies had been fished out from the river bordering Katihar district in Bihar and Malda district in West Bengal since Thursday.

Uttarakhand: Polling for the first phase of Panchayat elections in the state underway in Haldwani

Cyber Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a man from Rajasthan responsible for sending threatening and derogatory emails to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has to find the fate of its Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram on the moon and if "it would be able to talk again", a US space expert has said. "It is for the ISRO scientists to find out if Vikram will be able to talk to them or Chandrayaan's orbiter to restore the link," said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's spacecraft system engineering manager Ann Devereaux at an event, held to mark the World Space Week of the UN General Assembly.

It was a cool, pleasant Saturday morning in the city, with the minimum temperature settling one notch below the season's average at 21 degrees Celsius.
The MeT department has forecast generally cloudy skies with possibility of thunder or lightening later in the day. The maximum temperature would be around 33 degrees Celsius.
 

The US unemployment index fell from 3.7 per cent to 3.5 per cent in September, a month when 1,36,000 new jobs were created, the US Department of Labor reported this Friday. The unemployment volume is at its lowest since the month of December 1969, no less than 50 years ago, the Efe news reported.

Accessibility to Durga puja pandals will no longer be a problem for the differently abled as a number of organisers in the city have set up ramps to
facilitate their movement. As part its efforts to create a sense of all-inclusiveness, Samajsebi Sangha, one of the big-ticket pujas in south Kolkata, said plywood ramps have been set up at both entry and exit points.
 

A diamond containing another, free-moving gem inside unearthed from a mine in Siberia is the first stone of its kind in recorded history, Russian state mining company Alrosa PJSC said Friday. The diamond may be more than 800 million years old, Alrosa said in a statement.

Dubbed the Matryoshka diamond in reference to the Russian nesting dolls of that name, the stone weighs 0.62 carats, while the internal gem weighs 0.02 carats, the Efe news reported.

A murder accused on the run allegedly attacked two policemen with a sword on Thursday evening in Maharashtra's Nagpur district. Hemraj Gajanan Babulkar, on being cornered by a police team in his Narkhed residence at around 5:30 pm, threw chilli powder in the eyes of two policemen and attacked them with a sword, said Inspector (Crime) Anil Jittawar.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday evening helped a tourist who had met with an accident on Zuari Bridge. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media later. It showed Sawant, an Ayurveda doctor, getting down from his car and attending to the woman who had fallen off a
two-wheeler.

The woman was later taken to Goa Medical College and Hospital in Bambolim, some 6 kilometres from the spot. 

AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will hold closed-door district-level meetings with booth workers from October 16 to analyse the situation on the ground ahead of the assembly polls early next year, senior leader Gopal Rai said.

Each Zila Sammelan will see participation from around 1000-1500 booth workers. Rai said that from October 16 to 23, Kejriwal will address closed door meetings of booth-level party workers in all 14 districts.
 

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde and NCP leader Ajit Pawar were among 3,754 candidates who filed nominations for the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly polls on Friday, the last day for submiting the papers. In all, 5,534 candidates have filed nominations across
Maharashtra for the election.

According to the Election Commission, the highest number of candidates -- 135 -- filed nominations in Bhokar Assembly seat in Nanded district.

The Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam on Friday freed a major chunk of its land from encroachers in Hindon Vihar colony. One Devendra Tyagi had illegally grabbed the government land and had rented it out to scrap dealers Shamshudin and Umar for Rs on 5,000 and Rs 2,500 per month respectively.

They had built scrap godowns on the land and were using it for hoarding plastic waste.
 

Five persons, including three children, were killed when they got buried under the debris of a wall when it collapsed on them at Ambala cantonment late Friday night. As per preliminary information, the deceased were said to be labourers and their children.

Police said the victims were sleeping when the wall all of a sudden collapsed.

Union minister Giriraj Singh on Friday came down heavily on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Deputy Sushil Kumar Modi on water logging in Patna caused by last week's incessant rains, saying Kumar should take responsibility for the problems being faced by the people.

"Definitely...Tali Sardar ko to Gali Sardar ko (If a leader takes credit, he must also accept criticism)," he replied when asked whether Nitish Kumar, who has been the chief minister for past 15 years, should take responsibility for the situation in Patna and elsewhere in Bihar. 

PM Modi is likely to visit Saudi Arabia soon. He is expected to hold bilateral meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.