New Delhi, Jul 4 (PTI) Actor Aparshakti Khurana is set to foray into Tamil cinema with the upcoming high concept crime thriller "ROOT - Running Out of Time". Khurana, known for starring in "Stree" films and "Jubilee" series, will feature alongside actor Gautham Karthik in the Tamil movie. "Root - Running Out of Time", which is currently being shot in Chennai, is being directed by Sooriyaprathap S. The movie is backed by Verus Productions. According to the makers, the film is a "fresh attempt ...Read More
Thiruvananthapuram/Kottayam, Jul 4 (PTI) Kerala Cooperation Minister V N Vasavan on Friday rejected allegations that search and rescue operations at the collapsed portion of the Kottayam Medical College were delayed or stopped and termed such claims as "politically motivated". Speaking to reporters a day after one woman was killed and three others were injured in the incident, the minister said that his and state Health Minister Veena George's remarks about no one being there in the collapsed s...Read More
Mumbai, Jul 4 (PTI) Defence equipment manufacturer SMPP Ltd has bagged two orders worth Rs 300 crore from the Indian Army, the company said. Under the order, the company will supply bulletproof jackets and advanced ballistic helmets to the Indian Army under the emergency provision, SMPP said in a statement. "SMPP will supply 27,700 bulletproof jackets and 11,700 advanced ballistic helmets to the Indian army. The order is valued at over Rs 300 crore," the company said. The bulletproof jackets ...Read More
Shillong, Jul 4 (PTI) The Meghalaya High Court has appointed a senior advocate as a special officer to oversee the ongoing eviction of street vendors in Khyndailad area here, and ensure strict adherence to due process of law and maintain peace during the drive. Khyndailad, also known as Police Bazar, has a number of hotels, restaurants and a variety of shops. It is one of the popular hangout destinations in the state capital. The division bench of Chief Justice IP Mukerji and Justice W Diengdo...Read More
Mumbai, Jul 4 (PTI) Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty inched higher in opening trade on Friday amid buying in bank stocks and a rally in the US markets, but later turned flat as investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of India's upcoming trade deal with the US. The 30-share BSE Sensex went up by 67.34 points to 83,306.81 in opening trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty inched higher by 23.55 points to 25,428.85. Later, both the key indices faced volatile trends and were trading flat. The BSE benchmar...Read More
Guwahati, Jul 4 (PTI) Paying tribute to Swami Vivekananda on his death anniversary, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday that his teachings still resonate in the hearts of every Indian. "Swamiji's teachings still echo in the hearts of every Bharatiya and his lessons ignite the spirit of a strong nation led by youths with spiritual conscience," Sarma said ina post on X. "My obeisance to one of the greatest saints of Bharat," the chief minister added. Swami Vivekananda, known...Read More
Shillong, Jul 4 (PTI) A court in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district has extended the judicial custody of three hitmen, who hacked Indore businessman Raja Raghuvanshi at Sohra area in the northeastern state in May. The three - Akash Rajput, Vishal Singh Chauhan, and Anand Kurmi - were produced before the court on Thursday via video conferencing from the Shillong district jail where they have been lodged. "Their judicial custody was extended by 14 days by the court," Public Prosecutor Tushar ...Read More
Ranchi, Jul 4 (PTI) Union Women and Child Development Minister Annapurna Devi is scheduled to inaugurate a regional centre of Savitribai Phule National Institute of Women and Child Development (SPNIWCD) in Ranchi on Friday. The new regional centre will play an important role for four states - Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The minister said that the Ranchi centre would help implement central government schemes effectively in these four states. It will not only empower frontline fun...Read More
Port of Spain, Jul 4 (PTI) India will soon be among the top three economies of the world, and its missions on artificial intelligence, semiconductor and quantum computing are becoming the new engines of growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said. In an address at a gathering of the Indian diaspora on Thursday, Modi said India is a land of opportunities today, and the fruits of its growth and progress are reaching the "most needy". "For New India, even the sky is not the limit." Modi attende...Read More
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) The Environment Ministry has strongly rejected allegations by forest rights groups that it is attempting to "subvert" the Forest Rights Act (FRA), calling them a "gross misunderstanding of facts" and asserting that it remains committed to both environmental protection and the welfare of forest-dependent communities. In a recent letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, more than 90 forest rights organisations had accused the ministry of trying to undermine the FRA and deman...Read More
New Delhi, Jul 4 (PTI) City's Mughal-era Shalimar Bagh in its heydays was enclosed by a wall and had several elegant structures including a Sheesh Mahal, a hammam, water channels and pavilions, and during the colonial era, the site served as a "summer retreat" for the British Resident in Delhi. A team of conservation experts from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) with support from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has revamped its surviving old heritage buildings and adjoining areas ...Read More
Bhubaneswar, Jul 3 (PTI) Ruling BJP MLA Santosh Khatua on Thursday courted controversy after allegedly making 'derogatory' remarks against a prominent woman BJD leader, prompting a strong backlash and a demand for an apology from Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and the saffron party. BJD's senior general secretary and spokesperson Lekhashree Samantasinghar has also drawn the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by tagging a letter in her X post. Khatua, a lawmaker from Nilgiri assembly ...Read More
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) Four persons were booked for allegedly trying to transfer Rs 3.60 crore from BJP MLC Prasad Lad's local area development fund, a Mumbai police official said on Thursday. Lad informed Sion police here that the four tried to transfer the amount from Ratnagiri in the state's Konkan region to Beed in Marathwada, following which an FIR related to cyber fraud and other offences was registered, he said. The MLC has claimed the four accused used his fake letterhead, signature and v...Read More
Shimla, Jul 3 (PTI) The Shimla administration on Thursday announced that the recent collapse of the five-storey building on the outskirts of Shimla city will be investigated, and a report will also be prepared on the construction of the four-lane road that passes near the mishap site. The panel, headed by additional district magistrate (law and order), will investigate the reasons behind the building collapse and submit a report, Shimla Deputy Commissioner Anupam Kashyap said. He also stated t...Read More
Raipur, Jul 3 (PTI) The Chhattisgarh government plans to install more than 5,000 mobile towers, particularly in tribal dominated Surguja and Bastar regions, in a phased manner within a defined timeline, officials said on Thursday. Officials informed this during a high-level review meeting of the state's Electronics and Information Technology Department at Mantralaya Mahanadi Bhawan chaired by Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai. CM Sai directed officials to accelerate installation of mobile towers a...Read More
Mumbai, Jul 3 (PTI) The indefinite strike called by truck operators in Maharashtra against the e-challan system of fine recovery will intensify on Friday with more associations likely to join, one of their leaders said. Uday Barge, convener of the Vahatukdar Bachao Kruti Sanghatana, an action committee of transporters, told PTI on Thursday evening that as there was no response from the government to their demands, the strike would continue. Demanding relief from 'indiscriminate' issuance of e-...Read More
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) Amid a row over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday said the exercise will ensure that all eligible people are included in the voters' list. He also said the revision being undertaken after a gap of 22 years is running as per schedule with the active participation of all political parties. The CEC came out in defence of the intensive revision as several opposition parties claimed that the...Read More
Bhubaneswar, Jul 3 (PTI) Police on Thursday evening arrested BJP leader Jagannath Pradhan from Bhubaneswar in connection with the alleged assault on an on-duty Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) officer. Pradhan surrendered at the DCP office here, following which he was arrested after a medical examination, a police officer said. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo was allegedly dragged out of his office and attacked by a group of miscreants last wee...Read More
Hyderabad, Jul 3 (PTI) AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge will address a convention of over 40,000 party leaders from village level in Telangana on Friday. Kharge, who arrived here on Thursday evening, was received at the RGI airport by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, AICC incharge of party affairs in Telangana Meenakshi Natarajan, state Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud and other leaders. Gould told reporters that Kharge would attend meetings of the state Congress unit's Political Affairs...Read More
Mandi/Shimla (HP) Jul 3 (PTI) Mandi district suffered unprecedented loss of life and property in the devastating cloudbursts and flash floods on Monday and the Seraj Assembly constituency was the worst hit, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said on Thursday. Addressing a press conference in Mandi, the former chief minister and five-time MLA from Seraj lamented that the development which took place in the constituency during the past 27 years has been ruined and would take years to restore the...Read More
Prayagraj (UP), Jul 3 (PTI) Rejecting the bail plea of a person accused of posting objectionable content on social media against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian armed forces, the Allahabad High Court has observed that it has become a "fashion among certain groups of people" to misuse social media in the garb of freedom of speech. Rejecting the bail application of one Ashraf Khan on Wednesday, Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal observed that the freedom of speech guaranteed under the C...Read More
Bengaluru, Jul 3 (PTI) Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Thursday opposed Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's remarks linking covid-19 vaccines with a spate of heart attack deaths in the state's Hassan district, saying such claims are "'factually incorrect" and "misleading". Siddaramaiah has suggested that the recent heart attack deaths in Hassan district may be linked to the vaccination drive. He had also claimed the vaccines were 'hastily' approved. In a social media post, Shaw said ...Read More
New Delhi, July 3 (PTI) Reliance Retail is transferring its consumer goods business to a new entity, New Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (New RCPL), under its internal restructuring of the business. According to the scheme filed before the NCLT, Reliance is transfering and vesting the FMCG brands business from Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) to a new entity named New Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (New RCPL). The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on June 25 asked to convene a m...Read More
Bengaluru, Jul 3 (PTI) The state Congress on Thursday complained against BJP MLC N Ravikumar to Legislative Council Chairperson Basavaraj Horatti for allegedly making derogatory remarks on Karnataka Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh. It also lodged a complaint against him at the Vidhana Soudha police station. The Karnataka IAS Officers' Association also condemned the derogatory remarks made by the MLC. During a protest at Vidhana Soudha recently, Ravikumar, who is the opposition BJP's chief wh...Read More
New Delhi, Jul 3 (PTI) The AAP on Thursday claimed that public pressure forced the BJP-led Delhi government to withdraw the controversial ban on refuelling overage vehicles, calling it a "victory of the people". In a video message on X, Delhi AAP chief Saurabh Bharadwaj said,"Congratulations to the people of Delhi. The draconian order to seize old vehicles had to be withdrawn by Delhi's BJP government. The BJP was merely using the court's order as an excuse. When people united and raised their ...Read More
Kolkata, Jul 3 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant on Thursday wrote to his Odisha counterpart, urging him to put an end to "harassment" of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in certain parts of the neighbouring state. Pant, in the letter, said the migrant workers are "targeted because they speak Bengali, which is their mother tongue" and "unjustly labelled as Bangladeshis". The labourers include daily-wage earners, rickshaw-pullers and domestic workers. "We are receiving reports of su...Read More
Lucknow/Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 3 (PTI) It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh to interact with India's first astronaut to reach the International Space Station, Shubhanshu Shukla, and see him floating in space playing with a ball in zero gravity. They relished it. "I was so excited and happy. We had so many questions for him, and he answered many of them in detail and showed us how they float inside the ISS," Sanghavi, a Class 10 standard student from ...Read More
Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 3 (PTI) A team of aviation engineers from the UK is expected to arrive in Thiruvananthapuram on July 5 to repair an F-35B Lightning jet of Britain's Royal Navy, as the aircraft remains stranded following an emergency landing last month. Sources said a 40-member aviation team is expected to arrive in the Kerala capital on a special flight and attempt to fix the technical issue affecting the aircraft, which is part of the HMS Prince of Wales Carrier Strike Group of the UK'...Read More
Sangareddy (Telangana), Jul 3 (PTI) Efforts were on to trace nine people missing after the June 30 explosion at the Sigachi Industries' pharma plant in Pashamylaram that claimed at least 38 lives and left 35 injured, district Superintendent of Police (SP), Paritosh Pankaj said on Thursday. Meanwhile, the expert committee appointed by the state government to ascertain the causes and establish the sequence of events that led to the explosion visited the site on Thursday, the official said. A sta...Read More
Cuttack, Jul 3 (PTI) Rejecting a writ appeal of the state government, a Division Bench of Orissa High Court here has recently upheld a three-year-old judgment passed by a single-judge Bench stating that maternity leave and associated benefits cannot be denied to a woman employed by the state on contractual basis. In a recent ruling, the Division Bench of Justices Dixit Krishna Shripad and Mruganka Sekhar Sahoo affirmed the August 2022 decision of a single-judge Bench, which had ruled in favour ...Read More