Indian Sub-continent

KABUL, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Taliban forces raided an area west of Kabul and captured four members of an Islamic State cell, the movement's main spokesman said on Wednesday.

The raid, in Paghman district just outside the Afghan capital, followed a bomb attack on a mosque on Sunday claimed by Islamic State, which has mounted a series of operations since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August.

As well as the four prisoners, the raid yielded quantities of weapons and documents, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a message on Twitter.

KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- More than 3.8 million Afghans received food assistance in September after aid agencies scaled up response to the rising food insecurity in the Asian country, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.

"In September, more than 3.8 million people received food assistance, 21,000 children aged 6-59 months and 10,000 women received treatment for acute malnutrition, 32,000 people received non-food items including blankets and warm clothes for winter," the agency said in a statement.

Kanpur: The festival of Diwali is approaching fast. Is there a ban on firecrackers in Uttar Pradesh? Of Course, it is not reportedly.

The Yogi Adityanath government has not announced the ban on the sale and use of firecrackers all over the state.

The bursting of fire crackers are supposed to carry pollution. That was why there was put a ban on its use in as many as 13 cities of Uttar Pradesh were not enabled in the year 2020.

However, this kind of ban has not been reported on the sale and use of firecrackers across the state for this year so far.

06 Oct 2021; MEMO: Afghanistan and Iran yesterday concluded "important" bilateral economic and trade agreements, a spokesman for the Taliban said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, who is also acting deputy minister of information and culture in the interim Afghan government, said in a statement that a meeting was held between Afghan and Iranian officials "with the aim of strengthening economic ties and providing necessary facilities for trade issues between the two countries".

Mumbai, Oct 5 (PTI) A Mumbai court on Tuesday granted bail to BJP leader Kirit Somaiya in two defamation cases filed against him by an NGO and a social worker for allegedly making false and defamatory remarks.

The complaints had been filed before a magistrate court here by the NGO Earth, and its founder and social worker Praveen Kalme in personal capacity.

The court last month issued summons to the BJP leader over Kalme's complaint.

Accordingly, Somaiya appeared before the magistrate's court at Sewree on Tuesday.

Muzaffarnagar, Oct 5 (PTI) A POCSO court here on Tuesday sentenced a man to seven years of imprisonment for abducting and raping a minor girl.

Special Court Judge Arti Faujdar also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on the Raju after holding him guilty under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 366 (abducting, inducing a woman to compel her for marriage) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Jaipur, Oct 5 (PTI) A Jaipur court on Tuesday sentenced a 25-year-old man to 20 years in jail for raping a 9-year-old girl, imposing the punishment within nine days of the commission of the crime.

Setting a benchmark mark on the swiftness of the delivery of the verdict that, experts say, also enhances the deterrence value of the punishment, the special POCSO, decided the case within five working days and convicted the accused.

The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 2 lakh on convict Kamlesh Meena.

Kanpur: The violence at Lakhimpur Kheri has political indications, as many political pundits see it as a major poll plank in the upcoming UP Assembly polls.

The farmers named the union minister's son as the prime accused in the deaths of four farmers. They demanded that Ashish be booked on murder charges.

This appeared in the background of beliefs that the state's Brahmins were walking away from the ruling party.

Political analysts point out that the party was doling out favours to the OBCs and Dalits at the cost of the Brahmin community.

Kanpur: The online classes seem to have been given lesser priority. Though it was announced that the online classes will continue to run parallel.

The message of the online link comes for joining the class but a few subject teachers are not taking the classes with the same interest as others are concerned, as has been viewed.

On most of the occasions, the periods after the halftime end without the teaching.

The students wait for the link for those periods and if it remains available the subject teacher is not found.

Bengaluru, Oct 5 (PTI) JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said the BJP governments at both the Centre and in Karnataka were functioning on the directions of the RSS, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was its "puppet".

"I'm observing the developments in national politics. Whether it is the central government or the government in our state, they are not the governments of elected representatives. These governments are functioning on the directions of the RSS," Kumaraswamy said.0