India

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) There was no discussion on Kashmir in the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Japan recently and there is no question of any mediation on the issue, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday.

Making a statement in Lok Sabha, Singh said mediation on the Kashmir issue is ruled out as it is a question of national pride for India.

"There was no discussion on Kashmir during the meeting between the Prime Minister and US President Trump in June.

Mumbai, Jul 24 (PTI) The opposition Congress and NCP in Maharashtra have no dispute on nearly 150 out of the total 288 Assembly seats and would soon decide on sharing these for the state polls due later this year, a Congress leader said on Wednesday.

Senior leaders of the two parties met here on Tuesday evening to deliberate on the broad contours of seat-sharing arrangements for the forthcoming state Assembly polls.

Bhawanipatna, Jul 24 (PTI) A Maoist was gunned down in an exchange of fire with security personnel inside a forest in Odisha's Kalahandi district on Wednesday, a police officer said.

The encounter took place in the forest near Kotbundel village when Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel were conducting a combing operation, Kalahandi Superintendent of Police B Gangadhar said.

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) As many as 254 startups have received investment to the tune of over Rs 1,700 crore from the SEBI-registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) and the central government has also set up a Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) with corpus of Rs 10,000 crore, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.

Goyal said in Lok Sabha that the FFS with corpus of Rs 10,000 crore will meet the funding needs of startups.

New Delhi, July 24 (PTI) The Centre has "zero tolerance" towards incidents of communal violence and such incidents have shown a declining trend across the country, Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said on Wednesday.

Replying to a query during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, the minister said incidents of communal violence have declined to 708 in 2018 from 823 in 2013, he said.

"The incidents of communal violence show a declining trend", he said.

He said imposition of curfew used to be common earlier but now this is not the case.

Kanpur: Viral fever has taken the little children into the grip these days. That is why they are not attending school. After a week when one student studying at St.Joseph attended the class, he was a bit perplexed that his class teacher was also absent due to fever. 

"Why are you so tensed?" Asked quizzingly his sister in the afternoon on his return to the home, while continuing, "You have the perfect look of irritation on your face." He realised a little bit of oddness as this query was not good for him. He maintained silence.

H D Kumaraswamy led Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress coalition government in Karnatak has lost the confidence motion in the protracted trust vote proceedings on Tuesday evening. There were 99 votes for and 105 against and the government, with 20 legislators remaining absent in the 224-member House.

Guwahati, Jul 23 (PTI) The Japanese Encephalitis death toll in Assam since the beginning of this month rose to 110 with nine more casualties being reported in the last three days, according to a National Health Mission (NHM) bulletin here on Tuesday.

The nine Japanese Encephalitis (JE) deaths were reported from Goalpara, Sonitpur, Barpeta, Dhubri, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar districts.

Raipur, Jul 23; GANASHAKTI: A Naxal, carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, was killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district on Tuesday morning, police said.

The skirmish took place in a forest near Birabhatti village, located around 500 km from the state capital Raipur, when a District Reserve Guard team was out on a counter- insurgency exercise, Deputy Inspector General (anti-Naxal operations) Sundarraj P told PTI.

New Delhi, Jul 23; GANASHAKTI: Opposition parties, led by the Congress, on Tuesday demanded a clarification from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on US President Donald Trump's stunning claim that the Indian leader had requested him to mediate in the Kashmir dispute.

The Ministry of External Affairs has rejected Trump's remarks, made during his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, that Modi had asked him to mediate in resolving the Kashmir issue with Pakistan.