India

New Delhi, Jan 13 (PTI) Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday released the party's first list of 125 candidates, including 50 women, for the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

The party has also fielded Unnao rape victim's mother Asha Singh from the Unnao Assembly constituency.

Addressing a press conference, she said 40 per cent of the Congress candidates are women and another 40 percent are youth and by doing so the party is making a new and historic beginning.

New Delhi, Jan 12 (PTI) Eminent rocket scientist S Somanath has been appointed as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as well as the Space Secretary, a Personnel Ministry order issued on Wednesday said.

Somanath, who is at present Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), will succeed K Sivan who completes his extended tenure on Friday.

Rourkela, Jan 12 (PTI) In what seemed like a Bollywood conman movie replay, the Odisha Police on Wednesday arrested a man for allegedly impersonating as a police officer and duping a woman inspector in Sundargarh district of Rs 4.5 lakh.

Chittaranjan Tarai introduced himself to the woman as Deepak Panda, claiming to have been posted as a sub-inspector at the Baisinga police station in Mayurbhanj district, an official said.

Baripada (Odisha), Jan 12 (PTI) A court in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district on Wednesday sentenced a man to 10 years imprisonment for raping a minor girl five years ago.

POCSO judge Sumita Jena also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on the convict, 26-year-old Kalicharan Marandi.

On March 4, 2017, when the seven-year-old girl was going to a field in Tiring block, he lured her to a secluded spot and raped her.

The court also directed the state Legal Service Authority to pay Rs 3 lakh to the girl as compensation.

Firozabad (UP), Jan 13 (PTI) In a fresh jolt to the BJP, Dr Mukesh Verma, MLA from Shikohabad Assembly constituency here, on Thursday resigned from the primary membership of the party alleging 'lack of respect' by the government towards backward classes and Dalits.

Verma is the seventh legislator, including two ministers, to have resigned from the BJP over the last three days.

New Delhi, Jan 13, (PTI) The Shiv Sena is upset at being given a cold shoulder by the Congress over its proposal to repeat the Maharashtra coalition experiment in the Goa Assembly elections.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Thursday said the political situation it Goa is such that the Congress cannot go beyond single digit if it contests the assembly polls in the coastal state on its own.

Sehore, Jan 13 (PTI) Police have arrested four persons for allegedly trying to lure a man to convert to Christianity in Madhya Pradesh's Sehore district, an official said on Thursday.

The four accused approached Guradi village resident Manohar Bansal about four days back and told him that his children will be provided education free of cost if he embraces Christianity, he said.

Dehradun, Jan 13 (PTI) With the ruling BJP fiercely defending its throne and the opposition Congress desperate to avenge its 2017 humilation, a do-or-die battle is on the cards on February 14, when the two parties grapple with each other yet again in the Uttarakhand Assembly polls.

The largely bipolar politics of the state involving the two national parties, which have been alternately in power, has got a new twist this time with Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also in the fray, offering itself as an alternative to the Congress and the BJP.

Kanpur: Although Omicron spread is not as much dangerous as Covid's Delta version yet there is an urgent need for a face mask and distance from the crowd.

The restrictions have certainly been imposed on one and all.

What people are reacting upon wearing the mandatory face mask is that they have not necessarily been able to recognise the person coming across face to face suddenly.

One said that he did not recognise the middle-aged man wearing the face mask at sudden presence promptly

NEW DELHI, Jan 12(Reuters) - China has accelerated settlement-building along its disputed border with Bhutan, with more than 200 structures, including two-storey buildings, under construction in six locations, according to satellite image analysis conducted for Reuters.

The images and analysis supplied to Reuters by U.S. data analytics firm HawkEye 360, which uses satellites to gather intelligence on ground-level activities, and vetted by two other experts, provide a detailed look into China's recent construction along its frontier with Bhutan.