India

Lucknow/New Delhi: In a massive jolt to the BJP and Yogi Adityanath just before the Uttar Pradesh election, a minister and three MLAs quit and joined the party's main challenger, Akhilesh Yadav. Swami Prasad Maurya, a top minister and backward caste leader in the Yogi Adityanath government, posted his resignation letter on Twitter. Soon after he went public, three more MLAs, Roshan Lal Verma

New Delhi, Jan 11: The new rules for international passengers travelling to India come into effect from Tuesday, January 11. As per new rules, foreign travellers will have to undergo mandatory quarantine for seven days in view of the Covid-19 situation in the country. All travellers who need to undertake testing on arrival have been advised to pre-book a self-paid Covid-19 test online on Air

New Delhi, Jan 8: The country was put on election mode on Saturday, one of the crucial sets before the next Lok Sabha polls, with the Election Commission on Saturday announcing the voting schedule for Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa between February 10 and March 7. >> Uttar Pradesh will have seven-phase polls – February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7 >> Manipur will have two

New Delhi: In an open letter, a group of students and faculty members from the Indian Institute of Management requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak up against hate speech and caste-based violence in the country. The signatories said that the PM's silence on these issues was emboldening the hate-filled voices. "Your silence, Honourable Prime Minister, emboldens the hate-filled voices and

Haunted by the spectre of last year's crisis, India is bracing for a deluge of Covid-19 cases, with authorities of various megacities bringing in restrictions in a bid to keep infections in check. Case numbers have yet to match the enormous figures seen last spring, when thousands died each day and the Hindu holy city of Varanasi maintained round-the-clock funeral pyres for the mass cremation of

New Delhi, Jan 2: With Covid-19 cases starting to mount in the country, the chief of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, said that there was no need for people without comorbidities to panic and urged them not to block hospital beds. Dr Randeep Guleria, the AIIMS chief, said that the Omicron variant mainly affects the upper respiratory tract and airways, rather than the

At least 12 people were killed and 20 others injured in a stampede at the famous Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir triggered by a heavy rush of devotees, officials said on Saturday. The stampede occurred outside the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine atop Trikuta hills. The stampede was triggered by a heavy rush of devotees who have come to pay their obeisance to mark the beginning of the

New Delhi, Dec 30: Six terrorists, including two Pakistani nationals, were killed in two separate encounters in Kashmir, officials said on Thursday. All the six terrorists belong to the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group, said the police. Giving more details, the Jammu and Kashmir Police quoting Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar tweeted: "Six terrorists of proscribed terror outfit JeM killed in

Panaji, Dec 29: The Goa government will make it mandatory for people to be fully vaccinated or carry a Covid-19 negative report to attend parties or enter restaurants in the coastal state, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters, Sawant said district administrations will issue a notification to this effect by Wednesday evening. He said organisers of various events in

Mumbai, Dec 28: A witness in the 2008 Malegoan blast case, whose statement had been recorded by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, today took a U-turn and claimed in a court that the ATS had threatened him to take the names of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and four other RSS leaders. Notably, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, currently facing multiple cases of