India

NEW DELHI, May 17 (NNN-PTI) – At least seven people were killed and five others injured, some of them critically, yesterday, from a firecracker factory blast, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, police said.

The blast took place in Egra area of East Medinipur district, about 130 km south of Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal.

According to police, the factory was being illegally run, in a residential building, and the injured were immediately removed to the nearest health facility.

Police said, the building completely collapsed in the blast.

Kanpur: In a dispute over an e-rickshaw in Cantonment's Badlipurwa locality here on Tuesday morning, the infuriated uncle poured petrol on his nephew and set him on fire reportedly.

Seeing this scene, two women including his wife got burnt while saving the young man. After the incident, the accused fled from the spot reportedly.

The police on getting the information teacher the spot and admitted all four burnt people to the Burn ward of Ursala Hospital here.

Ramkumar (40), a resident of Badlipurwa in Cantt, lives with his wife Sapna (35).

NEW DELHI, May 16 (NNN-PTI) – Students of a school in New Delhi were evacuated today, after the school administration received an email about a bomb threat, police said.

The evacuation took place at Amrita School, in New Delhi’s Pushp Vihar locality. The school received the threatening email at around 6:35 a.m. local time today, according to the officials.

The email from the unknown sender sent a tizzy among the school administration, who alerted the police.

Mumbai, May 12 (PTI) A special PMLA court here on Friday granted bail to businessman Haroun Yusuf, arrested in 2019 in connection with a money laundering case also involving late gangster and drug smuggler Iqbal Mirchi, holding he had no knowledge regarding the latter's source of money.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the case, has claimed Yusuf had assisted Mirchi in buying properties in India using money earned through illegal activities.

Lucknow, May 14 (PTI) A day after results of the urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh were announced, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati Sunday accused the ruling BJP of misusing government machinery, and said her party will not sit silently over it.

The BJP on Saturday swept the mayoral elections, winning the posts in all the 17 municipal corporations in Varanasi, Lucknow, Ayodhya, Jhansi, Bareilly, Mathura-Vrindavan, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Firozabad and Meerut.

Lucknow, May 14 (PTI) Children of labourers and those orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uttar Pradesh will soon get access to state-of-the-art educational facilities, with the state government starting the admission process for the maiden session of the Atal Residential Schools.  The residential schools named after BJP stalwart and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will provide free education to children from classes 6 to 12. Students will also get full residential facilities.

NEW DELHI, May 13 (Reuters) - Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s streaming platform JioCinema announced premium pricing of 999 Indian rupees ($12) a year, its first step to move away from a free content model to fight global rivals such as Netflix and Disney in the country.

The move comes weeks after a Reliance's Viacom18 struck a content deal with Warner Bros (WBD.O), that will make available popular HBO and Warner titles such as "Succession" and those featuring the character Harry Potter on the JioCinema platform.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party was set to lose Karnataka, the only southern India state it governs, according to an early vote count Saturday that showed opposition Congress party leading in the crucial state polls.

With vote counting continuing, India’s Election Commission said the Congress was leading in 135 out of the 224 seats in the state assembly. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was leading in 63 constituencies, while another regional party, the Janata Dal (Secular), was ahead in 21 seats.

NEW DELHI, May 12 (Reuters) - India has been placed on a watchlist with a negative outlook by a global aviation leasing watchdog which said it had failed to comply with international aircraft repossession norms after airline Go First was granted bankruptcy protection.

The move by the Aviation Working Group (AWG), a UK-based entity that monitors leasing and financing laws on behalf of planemakers and lessors, could raise leasing costs for Indian airlines and further hurt lessors' confidence in the world's third-largest domestic aviation market.

NEW DELHI, May 9 (NNN-PTI) – 20 people died and more than 25 others were injured, when a private bus fell off from a bridge, in India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh, today, a local lawmaker said.

The incident occurred in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh. The passenger bus, which was moving from Khargone towards the state’s Indore city, fell off from an estimated height of 50 feet onto the dry riverbed.