Breaking News: October 6, 2020 | Highlights

An earthquake of magnitude 3.5 on the Ritcher scale occurred today at 9.33 pm in Palghar, Maharashtra, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) has informed. 

Just 72 hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the world's longest highway tunnel—Atal Rohtang Tunnel in Himachal, hundreds of tourists and motorists have taken to over-speeding and racing in the newly opened tunnel which resulted in three accidents. Read More here.

An encounter broke out between security forces and militants in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Due to the ongoing work of Delhi Jal Board, vehicular movement from Ashram Chowk towards Bhogal on Mathura Road will be affected for three days starting from Tuesday night, the Delhi Traffic Police said.

Taking to Twitter, they alerted commuters about the necessary traffic diversion which will be in effect from October 6 to October 8.

According to them, due to ongoing work of the Delhi Jal Board, traffic will not be allowed from Ashram Chowk towards Bhogal on Mathura Road from 10 pm to 6.30 am.

Besides, commercial vehicles and buses will be diverted from CRRI onto the Modi Mill flyover. They will take a U turn from below Kalkaji flyover, take the Capt Gaur Marg, Ring Road to cross the Ashram flyover.

The Congress on Tuesday released the list of four candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, fielding Rakesh Mawai from Morena, Hemant Katare from Mehgaon, Ram Siya Bharati from Malhara and Kamal Patel from Badnawar.

Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar registered 247 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the district's infection tally to 14,163, official data showed.

Hurricane Delta rapidly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph (175 kmh) winds Tuesday on a course to hammer southeastern Mexico and then grow to a potentially catastrophic Category 4 on approach to the U.S. Gulf coast this week.

Moderate thunderstorm with lightning at isolated places very likely over East Madhya Pradesh, East Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam & Meghalaya and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura during next 12 hrs, says India Meteorological Dept (IMD)

A special court for SC/ST cases sentenced four accused in the Thanagaazi gang rape case to life imprisonment on Tuesday while the fifth accused, who made the rape video viral, was awarded 5 years rigorous imprisonment. The sentences were pronounced by a special court for hearing cases under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The Thanagaazi rape case in Rajasthan was reported on April 26, 2019 and grabbed nationwide attention as the men raped the woman in front of her husband, filmed the act and made the video viral.

A case was registered after the video went viral on May 2, six days after the crime. When the couple had earlier gone to lodge an FIR, they were reportedly sent back citing the busy schedule of the police due to the Lok Sabha polls.

A two-year-old girl was charred to death and over 10 people were injured as a fire gutted 300 shanties in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district, police said on Tuesday.

Twelve fire tenders took three hours to douse the blaze that broke out at Sihani village on Monday evening. Almost all the people living in the slum were ragpickers, police said.

Many small gas cylinders exploded due to the blaze. Some warehouses, used for storing polythene and other inflammable material, also caught fire, according to the police.

Ahead of the festive season, state-run Bank of Baroda (BOB) on Tuesday said it has rolled out offers for home and car loan borrowers. The lender said it is offering a waiver of 0.25 per cent in the existing applicable rates for Baroda Home Loans (under take over cases only) and Baroda Car Loans.

“With the introduction of these retail loan offers for this festive season, we intend to gift the existing loyal customers and also offer new-to-bank customers an attractive proposition for availing car loans or shifting their home loans who will be benefited from lower rates and waiver of processing fee on offer,” the bank's head and general manager (mortgage and other assets) H T Solanki said in a release.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the national capital is past the peak of the second wave of coronavirus and the situation has been controlled to a large extent. Kejriwal said the Delhi government increased the testing exponentially to detect the infection.

"Delhi hit the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 on September 17 when 4,500 cases were reported across the city. The situation has been controlled to a large extent," he said.

"I hope the second wave will slowly pass," Kejriwal said. Testing in Delhi hit the 60,000 a day mark in September compared to 20,000 tests per day in August.

A Dalit girl was allegedly raped by a man in Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh following which the accused was arrested, police said on Tuesday. The incident took place on Sunday when the 17-year-old girl was sleeping in her house and the accused, identified as Chandrakesh Verma, entered her room through the terrace and raped her, they said.

According to police, the girl was alone in the house at the time of the incident. An FIR was registered under relevant sections of the IPC on the basis of a complaint lodged by the girl's mother on Monday and Verma was arrested, they said.

Arunachal Pradesh's COVID-19 tally rose to 10,783 on Tuesday as 235 more people, including nine security personnel, tested positive for the infection,
while one fresh fatality pushed the northeastern state's coronavirus death toll to 19, a health official said. A 55-year-old man with comorbidity died at a dedicated COVID-19 hospital at Chimpu near Itanagar on Monday

A Delhi court on Tuesday convicted a former union minister of the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, Dilip Ray, in a coal block allocation case.

Special Judge Bharat Parashar of Rouse Avenue Court found Ray, Minister of State (MoS) for Coal during Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, guilty of criminal conspiracy in a case related to irregularities in allocation of Brahmadiha coal block in Jharkhand in allocation to Castron Technologies Limited in 1999.

Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Kerala CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, on Tuesday deposed before the Enforcement Directorate here over charges of his links with an accused in the drug seizure case.

The ED had served a notice directing him to appear before them on Tuesday in connection with his alleged links with one of the accused arrested in the drugs case by the Narcotics Control Bureau.

Six farm labourers were killed and 24 others injured when their van was hit by a speeding tanker in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district in the early hours of
Tuesday, an official said. Out of the 24 injured persons, the condition of nine was serious, Dhar additional collector Shailendra Solanki said. 

The accident took place on Indore-Ahmedabad road near Chiklya Fata under Tirla police station limits, located about eight km from here, at around 3 am when the labourers were returning to Tanda village after working in an agricultural field.

Odisha on Monday reported below 3,000 new COVID-19 cases after a gap of 34 days, even as the states coronavirus caseload went up to 2,35,330 with 2,617 new infections, an official said. The state also registered 17 fresh fatalities pushing the death toll due to the disease to 924.

Odisha had reported 2,602 new positive cases on August 31, and from the next day onwards, it continued to detect more than 3,000 cases daily till October 4, he said. On Monday, 2,617 people tested positive for COVID-19.

At least five people were killed and one other injured in a road accident in Uttar Pradesh's Deoria, police said. The accident occurred on Monday night on the Salempur-Laar road. According to Station Officer T.J. Singh, a scooty, motorcycle and an SUV were found in damaged condition at the accident site.

"Six people were found lying nearby and when they were taken to the hospital, five of them were declared dead while one has been admitted with serious injuries," he said.

Among the deceased, three have been identified as Rajan Singh, Pramod Yadav and Prince Tiwari. The identities of the remaining two are yet to be ascertained.

The bodies have been sent for post-mortem.

The COVID-19 toll in West Bengal rose to 5,255 on Monday after 61 more people succumbed to the virus, the health department said in a bulletin. At least 3,348 fresh infections were reported in the state, which pushed the tally to 2,73,679. The metropolis accounted for 16 fatalities, while nine deaths were reported from neighbouring North 24 Parganas district

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Tokyo on Tuesday, the State Department said. Pompeo and Jaishankar are in Tokyo to attend the second QUAD ministerial involving their counterparts from Australia and Japan.

While Pompeo and Jaishankar talk over the phone at frequent intervals, this is their first meeting after the recent border incursions by China in India. According to the State Department, Pompeo is scheduled to meet new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi.