Breaking News, September 28 | HIGHLIGHTS

A woman lost her life after accidentally falling into a 'nala' (drain) in the city following heavy rain Thursday evening, police said. The woman was said to have fallen into the drain while trying to cross it and she was washed away. She got stuck in the sludge, they said.

JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ on Thursday asserted that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was fully with the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ and would not realign with the BJP "even in seven lifetimes".

The National Museum in Delhi, home to a collection of rich ancient artefacts, is likely to be vacated by the end of this year as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project, sources said on Thursday. It is not clear whether the over 60-year-old building, one of the most iconic modern landmarks of the capital city, will be retained or razed after its objects and collections are shifted.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda on Thursday held discussions with the party's top leadership in Chhattisgarh in connection with upcoming Assembly polls.

Two BJP MLAs including opposition chief whip Mohan Majhi were suspended from the Odisha Assembly till the end of the current session for allegedly throwing 'daal' (pulses) at Speaker Pramila Mallik’s podium on Thursday.

Union minister L Murugan will lead an Indian delegation to the Tashkent International Film Festival in Uzbekistan this year.  Murugan, the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, will visit Tashkent from September 29 to October 1, an official statement said on Thursday.

The police in Mumbai have registered a case after a 34-year-old man alleged that he was assaulted by four persons for refusing to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’, an official said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a public meeting at Sanwaliyaji in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district on October 2, a senior BJP leader said on Thursday. Modi will also inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of various projects in the Chittorgarh Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP's state unit chief CP Joshi said.
 

An eight-year-old girl who was found dead at her neighbour's house was raped before being strangled, the post-mortem report has revealed, police said on Thursday. Two men have been arrested in connection with the case, they added. The minor's mutilated body stuffed in a gunny bag was recovered from the accused's house in the Kotwali police station area on Wednesday, officials had said.

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday summoned senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee again on October 3 for questioning in connection with the school jobs scam in Kolkata, which the party described as an attempt by the BJP to disrupt its planned rally in New Delhi on the same day. It also exposed the fear in the saffron camp, claimed Banerjee who is set to lead the protest rally in the national capital against the Centre's decision to withhold the state's dues under MGNREGA.

The National Green Tribunal has issued a notice to the MCD commissioner, seeking a report regarding the installation of a mobile tower in a Sarita Vihar park. The tribunal was hearing a petition by a local organisation, which said a mobile tower was erected in a park adjoining Sarita Vihar Pocket A. The tower is dangerous for the health of senior citizens and small children, it claimed.

Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) S Somanath on Thursday said the Pragyan rover of its moon mission Chandrayaan-3 has done what it was expected to do, and it would not be a problem even if it fails to `wake up' from the current sleep mode. The national space agency is now gearing up for XPoSat or X-ray Polarimeter Satellite launch which may take place in November or December, he said at a news conference here after visiting the famous Somnath temple in Gir Somnath district of Gujarat.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday visited the Kirti Nagar furniture market here and interacted with carpenters at work. This is Gandhi's third such reaching-out exercise in the national capital in the recent past. He met fruit and vegetable vendors in Azadpur Mandi here in August and more recently spoke to the porters at the Anand Vihar railway station.

Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) S Somanath on Thursday offered prayers at the famous Somnath temple in Gujarat and sought blessings for the future ISRO missions. He performed 'Someshwar Maha Puja' at the temple and also took part in a 'yajna', said a temple official.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday pledged to donate his organs as part of a pan-India initiative launched by Bharatiya Janata Party's medical cell. CM Sawant, in the presence of BJP's Goa medical cell convener Dr Shekhar Salkar and others, signed an online application pledging to donate his petition. He was immediately given a certificate for it.

A 15-year-old boy, kidnapped in Sikkim, was rescued from Bihar's Madhepura district, police said on Thursday. Three people, accused of kidnapping the boy, were also arrested from a house in Laualagan village in Chusa police station area where the boy was held hostage, they said.

The Delhi government on Thursday launched a mobile application to enhance the academic experience for students and teachers and empower them to raise school-related concerns, officials said. The DoE Nirikshan app has been designed to empower the students and the teachers to raise school-related concerns and ensure their prompt redress, they said.

Having decked up Delhi for the G20 Summit, the city government's public works department has begun work to beautify the remaining parts of the national capital. The department has floated a tender for installing three fountains and a statue in central Delhi. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 44.95 lakh.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Thursday claimed that the BJP does not want to hold any elections in Jammu and Kashmir as it knows that people will punish them through ballot.

Over 100 students of a private residential school in Jharkhand's Pakur district fell sick after having their meal, officials said on Thursday. After having dinner on Wednesday night, some students said they felt like puking and complained of head ache, alleging that a lizard was found in the food.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday congratulated India's 10m men's air pistol team for bagging the gold at the Asian Games and said they have made the country proud. He said, "Another Gold in Shooting by our remarkable 10m Air Pistol Men's team at the Asian Games! Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Singh Cheema and Shiva Narwal have made the entire nation proud with their precision and skill. I congratulate them and wish them the very best for their future endeavours."

A day after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan claimed that the state government had taken action against those involved in the Karuvannur bank scam case, the Congress-led UDF opposition on Thursday reiterated its allegation that he was protecting the culprits behind the fraud. Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the assembly V D Satheesan alleged that the chief minister was defending and protecting those who looted over Rs 500 crore from cooperative banks in Thrissur.

A teenager was found dead with bullet injuries in a field near his house in Pisawa locality here, police said on Thursday. Ritik (18) went missing on September 25 and his body was found on Wednesday evening. According to the victim's family, Ritik was in his house when two people living in his neighbourhood asked him to come out. He went out for a walk with them but did not return.

The Health, Revenue and Police departments of the Lakshadweep administration carried out joint raids at commercial establishments across the island archipelago a day ago to check on the sale of expired products, the government said on Thursday. In the raids carried out at 100 establishments on the 10 inhabited islands of Lakshadweep, expired products were found on sale in more than 30 of them, a release issued by the island administration said.

Steel prices in India are registering an upward trend due to "rapidly" increasing rates of key input material coking coal, industry executive Bimlendra Jha said. Coking coal and iron ore are the two main raw materials used to manufacture steel. While iron ore is available in substantial quantity in India, steel players are bound to meet 90 per cent of their coking coal requirement through imports from countries like Australia and South Africa.

As many as six infrastructure projects of roads and railways worth Rs 52,000 crore have been recommended for approval under the PM Gati Shakti initiative, an official statement said on Thursday. This takes the total number of projects assessed by NPG to 112 with a total value of about Rs 11.53 lakh crore, since the launch of PM Gati Shakti, it said. These six projects were assessed in the 56th Network Planning Group (NPG) meeting on September 27.

A government doctor was suspended in Manipur for allegedly making an "inappropriate comment" on social media, a notification said. He was a medical officer posted at the Tamenglong district, it said. The doctor was suspended with immediate effect for "posting/ sharing inappropriate comment on social media which is conduct unbecoming of a government servant", it added.

Indian-American Republican presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy has infuriated his Republican primary rivals when he said that he will not back Ukraine in its war against Russia, aligning himself with former president Donald Trump who wants to abandon critical support of Kyiv. “We have to level with the American people on this issue,” the 38-year-old multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur said.

The Tripura government has allocated a plot of 2.36 acre to the National School of Drama (NSD) to set up a campus in the state, officials said on Thursday. The campus will be set up at Ranirbazar in West Tripura district, and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed regarding it, they said.

SSP of Srinagar Rakesh Balwal has been transferred to his parent cadre Manipur where the situation has been tense over the past few months. According to an order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Balwal has been prematurely transferred from the AGMUT cadre to his parent state. 

 A Naxalite wanted in several cases was arrested in Jharkhand's Hazaribag district, police said on Thursday. Nitesh Kumar Mehta, a member of the Tritiya Prastuti Committee, was arrested from the Barkagaon police station area, they said. He was a "terror" in Chatra and Hazaribag districts, and was on the run for the last three years, they added.

Three women were killed after lightning struck them at a village in Chhattisgarh's Balod district, police said on Thursday. The incident took place late Wednesday afternoon when the victims were working in a paddy field in Kisna village under Devri Bangla police station area, a police official said.

Four police personnel, including a woman sub-inspector, were arrested from the Beur area of Patna for allegedly extorting money from people during night patrolling, officials said on Thursday. Besides the sub-inspector, there were a constable, a home guard and a police driver among those arrested. The station house officer (SHO) of the Beur police station was also sent to the police lines, they said. 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda held night-long discussions with the party's Rajasthan leadership here on a range of issues about the upcoming assembly elections. The meeting began at a hotel late on Wednesday evening and continued till 2 am, party sources said. The discussions were held amid a buzz that two central ministers might be asked to contest the upcoming polls. The speculation follows the BJP's decision to name three Union ministers and four MPs in its second list of candidates for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the various injuries she has received during her long political career of protests often surface, but she never allows "the pain to come in the way of work". Banerjee, who made a pre-recorded speech at the 'TV9 Bangla Nakshatra Samman' here on Wednesday, said the recipients of the award have made the state proud with their achievements.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an exponential increase in production of nuclear weapons and for his country to play a larger role in a coalition of nations confronting the United States in a “new Cold War,” state media said Thursday. The Korean Central News Agency said Kim made the comments during a two-day session of the country's rubber-stamp parliament which amended the constitution to include his policy of expanding the country's nuclear weapons programme.

As his Republican rivals prepared to gather onstage in California for their second primary debate, Donald Trump was in battleground Michigan Wednesday night working to win over blue-collar voters by lambasting President Joe Biden and his push for electric cars in the midst of an autoworkers' strike. “A vote for President Trump means the future of the automobile will be made in America,” Trump said at Drake Enterprises, a non-unionized auto parts supplier in Clinton Township, about a half-hour outside Detroit.

An Indian national has been convicted by a federal jury in Michigan for orchestrating a USD 2.8 million healthcare fraud and engaging in money laundering. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Yogesh Pancholi, 43, owned and operated Shring Home Care Inc, a home health company based in the US state of Michigan. 

A fire breaks out at a scrap godown in Mumbai's Kurla area. According to the Mumbai Fire Brigade, at least 10 fire tenders arrived on the spot to douse the flame.