India

Ranchi, Sep 18 (PTI) Eight days after the Jharkhand police dropped the murder charge against 11 accused in the mob lynching case of young Muslim man Tabrez Ansari, they brought back the same charge on the accused on Wednesday after obtaining a fresh medical report, an official said here.

Ansari was seen on national television being beaten up with rods while tied to a pole and forced to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' over alleged theft in June.

Balodabazar, Sep 18 (PTI) A 19-year-old man from Chhattisgarh has been arrested for allegedly raping a 20-year-old woman and extorting Rs 8 lakh from her in the last two years with the help of his family members including mother who had filmed the act in 2017, police said on Wednesday.

While the accused and his mother were arrested on September 15 and his minor sister detained, police are now looking for the brother-in-law of the accused.

New Delhi Sep 19 (PTI) The Government on Thursday issued an ordinance to ban e-cigarettes, making the production, import, export, transport, sale or advertisements of such "alternative" smoking devices a cognizable offence attracting jail term and fine.

First time violators will face a jail term of up to one year and a fine of Rs 1 lakh. For subsequent offences, a jail term of up to three years or a fine of Rs 5 lakh, or both according to the ordinance.

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 19 (PTI): In a big boost to Kerala, the Union Government has decided to extend the Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridor to Coimbatore and then to Kochi.

The decision in this regard was conveyed to the state government by the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT), a government release said.

It had been Kerala's plea for long to include the state in the corridor and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had made a strong pitch for the same.

Nashik, Sep 19 (PTI) Blaming the Congress for the plight of Kashmiris for decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for "hugging each Kashmiri and creating a "new paradise" in the valley.

Launching the BJP's poll campaign for the next month's Maharashtra Assembly elections, Modi said a lot of efforts are being made from across the border to foment violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

"We have to create a new paradise (in Kashmir)... hug each Kashmiri," he said.

New Delhi, Sep 19 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday told Union Home Minister Amit Shah that genuine Indians belonging to Bengali, Bihari, Gorkha and Assamese communities were excluded from the NRC in Assam and sought his intervention to ameliorate their miseries.

This was conveyed by Banerjee to Shah in her first meeting with the home minister, who assumed the office about three months ago.

New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who is lodged in Tihar Jail, on Wednesday said the idea that Hindi alone can unite the people of the country is a dangerous trend.

Chidambaram said while he supported the idea that all languages should be developed, he will never accept that Hindi can alone unite the country.

"I have asked my family to tweet on my behalf the following: A dangerous idea that Hindi alone can unite the people of this country has been floated," a tweet from Chidambaram's official Twitter handle said.

Kanpur: Two medical stores in front of the city' s Lala Lajpat Rai hospital were found to be selling fake medicine after samples checked at the government's laboratory in the state capital Lucknow. The Food Safety and Drug Administration department cancelled the license of both the stores. This action was taken following a raid by a team of drug inspectors formed under the assistant drug commissioner.

(Reuters) - The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 70 years of animosity since the partition of the British colony of India into the separate countries of Muslim Pakistan and majority Hindu India.

Here are some facts about the region:

KASHMIR DIVIDED

India rules the populous Kashmir Valley and the Hindu-dominated region around Jammu city, Pakistan controls a wedge of territory in the west, and China holds a thinly populated high-altitude area in the north.

Balasore (Odisha), Sep 17 (PTI) India on Tuesday successfully flight-tested its indigenously developed air-to-air missile Astra, off the coast of Odisha.

The state-of-the-art missile was launched from Sukhoi-30 MKI as a part of user trials by the Indian Air Force, an official statement said.

"The live aerial target was engaged accurately demonstrating the capability of first indigenous air-to-air missile," it said.