Isro early on Tuesday completed the critical trans-lunar injection (TLI), a slingshot that has now put Chandrayaan-3 on a five-day journey to Moon. Now, the 2145-kg propulsion module, on top of which sits the landing module comprising Vikram (the lander) and Pragyan (the rover), will travel in a straight path to reach the lunar orbit.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday attached one of the oldest and largest arms and physical training centres of the banned out Popular Front of India (PFI) in Kerala.
A 21-member delegation of the opposition alliance INDIA visited relief camps in the conflict-hit town of Churachandpur and other places in Manipur on Saturday, and accused the BJP-led central government of being asleep while the state was engulfed in unrest since May 3. The delegation assured the affected people that they were working towards bringing about positive change.
Christian priest Oswald Cardinal Gracias has said the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur is a tribal and it is not a religious clash.
The ASI assured the Allahabad HC through an affidavit on Wednesday that no damage would be caused to the structure due to methods used for the survey of the Gyanvapi complex as per the order of the Varanasi district judge. CJ Pritinker Diwaker, hearing a petition by AIM challenging the Varanasi court’s July 21 order for a scientific survey of the mosque premises, deferred the hearing till 3.30pm on Thursday, when it is likely to pronounce judgment, and asked the ASI not to carry out any survey.
On a day when the opposition’s no-confidence motion against the government was admitted, a confident PM Narendra Modi asserted that he was “guaranteeing” that the pace of development would accelerate during his “third term in office” and India would be among the top three economies.
Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal has retorted to vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar’s recent observation that disturbance has been weaponised in the temples of democracy and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not making a statement on Manipur.
The Manipur government asked Assam Rifles on Tuesday to repatriate 718 refugees from neighbouring Myanmar who are believed to have entered the state over the weekend and questioned lapses by the paramilitary force guarding the international border in preventing the entry of these foreigners.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hold a detailed hearing on a bunch of petitions seeking to bring political parties under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act but underlined obvious limitations. The apex court posted the hearing for August 1 but responded to the petitioners’ clamour for an expeditious adjudication of the long-pending issue by saying, “We do not think we can ask the political parties why they selected a particular candidate to contest from a constituency.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on the opposition for blocking the proceedings of Parliament and for branding their grouping as ‘INDIA’, and dismissed the move to bring a no-trust motion as “inconsequential”. “It has been the practice since the British rule to use ‘India’ as a camouflage for vested interests," the PM is learnt to have said at the closed-door meeting of BJP MPs.
Amid the mindless mayhem, there was a small relief for Manipur on Monday as it received its first-ever train, a goods train carrying food and other essential items, which is expected to ease the scarcity of commodities in the violence ravaged state. CM N Biren Singh, who was present at the newly built Khongsang railway station to receive the inaugural freight train, flagged off from Guwahati on Sunday, tweeted his delight at witnessing its “momentous arrival”.
Unruly scenes unfolded in the Rajasthan assembly on Monday as Congress legislator Rajendra Singh Gudha, who was recently dismissed as minister, demanded to speak about a mysterious “red diary” containing what he alleged were incriminating details that could send CM Ashok Gehlot “to prison”. However, the speaker refused, and BJP MLAs protested by rushing to the well of the House, shouting slogans and waving red diaries.
The Supreme Court on Monday stopped the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) till 5pm on Wednesday from conducting a scientific survey/excavation to determine whether a temple had existed on the site of the Gyanvapi mosque next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi to enable the Muslim side to appeal against the district court’s July 21 order allowing the archaeological examination.
The Manipur government’s order to reopen schools has faced significant challenges in violence-affected districts, the latest being miscreants setting fire to a school building near the border of Churachandpur and Bishnupur on Saturday evening amid reports of gunfights between two groups in the region. A woman was hit by a bullet during violence in Kwakta of Bishnupur district. She was rushed to a hospital in Imphal for treatment.
A freedom’s fighter’s 80-year-old widow was burnt alive in her home in Manipur on May 28, while an old video of a burnt woman reported in TOI and other media outlets resurfaced on social media, adding to the series of disturbing events unfolding in the strife-torn state. These reports followed the surfacing of a video on July 19, showing two women being stripped, molested and paraded naked by a mob on May 4, a day after ethnic violence erupted in the state.
Manipuri people, both Meiteis and Pangals (Manipuri Muslims), have started fleeing Mizoram after an organization of former insurgents of Mizoram, Peace Accord MNF Returnees’ Association (Pamra), asked the Meiteis residing there to leave the state for “their own safety” on Friday. Later on Saturday evening, Mizoram government’s home department issued a statement saying that Pamra representatives, while expressing regret that their statement on Friday was misconstrued, decided not to pursue it.
A fresh spell of rain in the hill states led to the release of huge volumes of water from the Hathnikund barrage into the Yamuna on Saturday, forcing the Delhi government to issue a warning to people who had moved back to their houses in the low-lying areas. The release rate had increased to 2.51 lakh cusecs on Saturday morning, an engineer said.
India signed five agreements with debt-ridden neighbour Sri Lanka and released a bilateral vision document for economic cooperation, even as PM Narendra Modi told visiting Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe that the security interests and development of the two countries were intertwined and it was essential for them to work together keeping in mind each other’s safety and sensitivities.
Two young tribal women from Manipur’s Kangpokpi working in an Imphal car wash were allegedly gang-raped at their workplace, dragged out and left to die by a mob rampaging through the capital city on May 4, coinciding with the strip-parade horror unfolding 40km away that very day.
The Supreme Court on Thursday referred the challenge to the constitutional validity of the May 19 Delhi services ordinance to a five-judge bench but refused to stay the Centre's order, which substantially negated the SC’s May 11 judgment giving legislative and executive control over the bureaucracy to the Delhi government.
The prime accused and three other suspects from the Manipur mob that paraded two women naked and allegedly gang-raped one of them on May 4 were arrested on Thursday, 63 days after a zero FIR was registered and within 10 hours of a video emerging of the horrific assault that one of the survivors — a Kargil War veteran’s wife — recounted to TOI as akin to being attacked by “wild animals”.
From today (Friday), rail passengers can plan their journey better and book their tickets easily even if they don’t know the exact name of the stations close to their origin or destinations as railways has introduced a new feature of linking popular areas with station names.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted regular bail to activist Teesta Setalvad in a case of alleged forging of documents and tutoring witnesses to implicate high functionaries of the Gujarat government in post-Godhra riots cases, after terming the high court order denying her relief as “totally perverse”.
Sixteen people, including a sub-inspector and three home guard personnel, were electrocuted on Wednesday morning at the site of a sewage treatment plant (STP) of the Namami Gange project on the Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district.
Security forces thwarted a major infiltration attempt along the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K for the second consecutive day, killing two terrorists in Machil sector of the northern Kupwara district on Wednesday morning, while terrorists shot dead a forest department employee in Pulwama.
The 26-member opposition bloc gathered in Bengaluru to give shape to the anti-BJP coalition named itself INDIA – standing for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance – to set the stage for a Lok Sabha battle next year that couldbe as much about acronyms as acrimony.
Suspected terrorists shot at and wounded two migrant workers in south Kashmir's Anantnag district late Tuesday. Both are in hospital and stable, police said. Kashmir Zone Police tweeted that the area where the duo was attacked had been cordoned off for a search of the assailants.
The Supreme Court on Monday frowned upon advocates of the Delhi high court abstaining from work to protest the transfer of Justice Gaurang Kanth to the Calcutta HC, and asked the Bar Council of India (BCI) to furnish details of strikes called by lawyers’ bodies in the last one year across the country and action taken against their office-bearers.
Security forces early Monday thwarted an infiltration attempt and killed two terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district. A huge cache of war-like stores was recovered from the gun battle site along with the body of one of the slain terrorists.
Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday told the 2022 batch trainees of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) that as foot soldiers, they will be brand ambassadors of the country.
Fortifying further its plans for the 2024 contest, BJP-led NDA roped in a new constituent on Sunday as part of its OBC outreach in UP — estranged Samajwadi Party ally Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) — while eyeing a deal with three strong potential allies down south.
The Yamuna receded further to marginally above the danger mark on Sunday, giving respite to the government and the affected people. While flood waters receded in Civil Lines in the north and several areas in the southeast, there was not much respite in Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar in northwest Delhi.
A day after marking its opposition to the Delhi ordinance, Congress on Sunday made it clear that the party would oppose it in Parliament, prompting AAP to welcome the announcement as “a positive development” and declare that it would take part in the two-day opposition meet, to be held in Bengaluru from Monday to chalk out joint strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
BJP on Saturday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of undermining India’s “strategic and geopolitical interests” by seeking foreign intervention in internal matters after he tweeted on Saturday morning, “Manipur burns. EU Parliament discusses India’s internal matter. PM hasn’t said a word on either!”
Delhi may be slowly coming out of the deep waters it has been floundering in. The volume of water released from Haryana’s Hathnikund barrage is reducing gradually but steadily. As a result, the Yamuna level at the old railway bridge has started falling.After staying above the unprecedented mark 208 metres for over 48 hours, the water level dropped to 207.98m at 11pm on Friday.
India and France on Friday announced a raft of "ground-breaking" defence cooperation projects, including the joint development of jet and helicopter engines and the construction of three Scorpene submarines for the Indian Navy, following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Continuous water discharge from the Hathnikund barrage in Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana on Thursday led to the worst flooding in the capital in 45 years. The water began flowing into some of Delhi’s main arteries like Ring Road and GT Karnal Road and inundated the residential area of Civil Lines and transport hub ISBT at Kashmere Gate besides the low-lying areas near Kalindi Kunj.
Bengal’s violence-marred rural vote gave Trinamool Congress a massive, morale-boosting mandate on Wednesday, going into next year’s big Lok Sabha battle — all 20 zilla parishads, 317 of the 341 panchayat samitis, and 2,644 of the 3,317 gram panchayats at stake.Second-placed BJP’s tally of six panchayat samitis and 220 gram panchayats accentuated TMC’s dominance in the three-tier elections, which appeared a foregone conclusion as results and trends emerged on the first day of counting.
Bahanaga station master S B Mohanty was among seven railway employees suspended by the South Eastern Railway (SER) on Wednesday in connection with the June 2 triple-train accident in Odisha’s Balasore district that left 294 people dead.
Al-Issa, an important voice for moderation and a key figure for reforms of family laws and relaxation of curbs on women— from compulsory veiling to ban on driving ban—in Saudi Arabia, emphasised the need for "communication between cultures in order to address the negative trends in the world” and called for strengthening of common values.
Uttarakhand was swamped Tuesday by the twin storms of monsoon and western disturbance that caused heavy rain and widespread destruction as falling boulders and landslides killed eight people, including three Gangotri pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh, in the state.Top opposition figures, including Congress's Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar and Le...
