India

Muzaffarnagar (UP), Apr 7 (PTI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Priyamvada Tomar resigned from the party on Wednesday in support of the farmers agitation.

She also resigned as member of the Uttar Pradesh Women Commission ahead of the panchayat polls in the state.

Pune, Apr 7 (PTI) A 49-year-old journalist of a local weekly was allegedly kidnapped and killed in Rahuri town of Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, police said on Wednesday.

Rohidas Datir was allegedly abducted from the College Road area where he was travelling on his two-wheeler on Tuesday afternoon and his body bearing multiple injury marks was found in the same locality late at night, sub-inspector Ganesh Shelke of Rahuri police station said.

The victim used to run a weekly in Rahuri and was also an RTI activist, the official said.

NEW DELHI, Apr 6 (NNN-PTI) – The Delhi government decided, today, to impose a night time curfew, in a bid to curb the rise of COVID-19 cases.

The dusk-to-dawn curfew will begin from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time, and it will last till the end of the month.

Over the past couple of days, the Delhi state government has been taking measures to contain the COVID-19 surge. Yesterday, it decided to keep one-third of all vaccination sites in government hospitals open, round-the-clock.

NEW DELHI, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived here on Monday for a two-day official visit to India, confirmed Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Lavrov is scheduled to meet his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar on Tuesday, after which the two will hold a joint press conference, said the ministry.

Ballia (UP), Apr 6 (PTI) A teenage girl was allegedly raped by a youth in a village in Garwar area here, police said on Tuesday.

The 16-year-old girl was raped on Sunday by a 24-year-old man and an FIR was registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on Monday, Garwar police station SHO Rajiv Kumar Singh said.

The FIR stated that she was raped while returning from her field. Police is on the lookout to arrest the absconding accused.

New Delhi, Apr 6 (PTI) With polling taking place for assembly elections in four states and a Union Territory, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday urged people to cast their vote, saying "India is counting on you".

Polling is taking place for 31 seats in the third of the eight-phase West Bengal assembly elections, while 40 seats are at stake in the final and third phase of the assembly elections in Assam.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are voting on Tuesday in single-phase assembly elections.

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 6 (PTI) Polling began at 7 am on Tuesday in Kerala for the 140 seats single phase election to the state assembly, amidheavy security.

'Metroman' E Sreedharan, who is the BJP-NDA candidate from Palakkad constituency was among the early voters in the state.

"I have cast my vote, have good expectations", he told reporters after excercising his franchise at a polling booth in Ponnani.

Long queues were seen in several polling stations much before the polling began.

Chunchura (WB), Apr 5 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday asserted that she would win the ongoing state polls despite injury and eventually aim for power in Delhi.

Training her guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, Banerjee who is seeking a third term in office said that West Bengal will be ruled by its own people.

Terming herself as a Royal Bengal Tiger, the TMC chief said, West Bengal will not be ruled by anyone from Gujarat.

Kolkata, Apr 5 (PTI) Hailing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a fighter who is single-handedly battling against all atrocities, veteran actor and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan on Monday took a swipe at the BJP, saying no one has ever succeeded by "intimidating" Bengalis.

The wife of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan said she is in Bengal to campaign for the TMC as per instructions of her party president Akhilesh Yadav, who has extended support to Mamata Banerjee in the polls.

Kolkata, April 5 (PTI) The BJP on Monday cancelled both the rallies of party president J P Nadda in Hooghly district after he had to rush back to New Delhi for an "urgent meeting".

The BJP party chief's meeting at Sreerampur in the morning was cancelled due to unknown reasons.

Nadda, however, participated in a roadshow in the afternoon to canvass for Union minister Babul Supriyo and actress Payal Sarkar, a poll debutant, who are contesting from Tollygunge and Behala Purba assembly constituencies respectively.