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3 Killed After Blast In UP Cracker Factory: Cops

Three people have died and at least as many injured in an explosion, police said. (Representational)

Bareilly, UP:

At least three persons were killed and as many injured following a blast at a firecracker manufacturing unit in a village here on Wednesday, police said.

The explosion, which took place in the Sirauli police station area, also caused damage to some adjoining buildings, they added.

A senior police officer said Nasir allegedly had the licence for another place but the house where the incident took place belonged to his in-laws.

Climate Activist Sonam Wangchuk Released From Detention, Breaks Fast

A police officer confirmed that Mr Wangchuk and all other padayatris were released in the evening.

New Delhi:

Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk and several others from Ladakh paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at his memorial Rajghat on Wednesday evening and later said they have been released from police detention and ended their fast.

The group gave a memorandum to the government listing their demands, and have been assured of a meeting with top leadership soon, Mr Wangchuk said, adding they have ended their fast.

We have given a memorandum to the government to protect Ladakh under such constitutional provisions so that its ecology can be preserved, in this case it is the Sixth Schedule, which gives locals the right to govern and manage the resources, Mr Wangchuk told media after visiting Mahatma Gandhi s memorial.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk, Other Ladakhis Taken To Rajghat By Police

Sonam Wangchuk had begun his journey with 170 Ladakhis from Leh a month ago.

New Delhi:

Climate activist Soman Wangchuk and 170 Ladakhis under police detention for the past two days for violating prohibitory orders have been taken to Rajghat, an officer said on Wednesday.

Mr Wangchuk, who was leading Delhi Chalo Padyatra , had gone on an indefinite fast after he was detained by the Delhi Police on Monday.

The padyatra was organised by the Leh Apex Body, which along with the Kargil Democratic Alliance, has been spearheading an agitation for the last four years for statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

Nitin Gadkari s Click Pic Solution For Those Spitting Pan Masala

Nitin Gadkari emphasised on maintaining cleanliness to protect the ecology (File)

Nagpur:

Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday suggested photos of people spitting on roads after eating pan masala should be clicked and published in newspapers for the public to see.

Addressing a Swacch Bharat Abhiyan event organised by the Nagpur civic body, Nitin Gadkari recalled he used to throw away the chocolate wrapper outside his car in the past.

On the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Nitin Gadkari emphasised maintaining cleanliness to protect the ecology and pitched for an environment free of single-use plastic.

150 Seats Discussed, Some Announcements Soon: Congress On Maharashtra Polls

Leaders of the alliance met on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mumbai:

Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole said that the opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi will make an announcement on several constituencies for the Maharashtra Assembly elections before Dussehra and a discussion on more than 150 seats was held in a meeting on Wednesday.

Mr Patole said, We will soon finish this and will make announcements on several seats before Dussehra. A discussion on more than 150 seats has been done in today s (Wednesday s) meeting. We will decide based on merits. Soon there will be clarity on the seat discussion.

Maharashtra Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi asserted that the MVA alliance will fight strongly.

22 People Who Begged In Indore While Staying In Hotel Sent Back To Rajasthan

They were counselled before being sent back to their home state, the official said. (Representational)

Indore:

Authorities in Madhya Pradesh s Indore city have sent a group of 22 people including 11 children who begged in the city back to their native place in Rajasthan.

The group stayed in a hotel here, said an official of the Women and Child Development Department on Wednesday.

There were 11 children and as many women. They begged at different places in the city throughout the day and return to the hotel at night, he said.

Odisha Government Changes School Uniform Of Students Of Classes 9, 10

Currently, the school uniforms have a combination of green and white (Representational)

Bhubaneswar:

The newly formed BJP government has changed the colour of the school uniforms of students studying in classes 9 and 10 of government and aided schools.

According to a government order, the new uniforms will have a combination of light brown, chocolate and clay-baked yellow colours.

Currently, the school uniforms have a combination of green and white, which matches the colour code of BJD s party symbol.

Travel Bookings Skyrocket As Fans Rush For Coldplay, Diljit Concerts: Report

Coldplay is scheduled to perform at Mumbai s DY Patil Stadium on January 18, 19 and 21 (File)

Mumbai:

Upcoming concerts of British band Coldplay in Mumbai and Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh in Chandigarh and other cities triggered a travel rush by fans, leading to over 300 per cent surge in flight bookings, online travel agency ixigo said in a report on Wednesday.

The Grammy award-winning band Coldplay is scheduled to perform at Mumbai s DY Patil Stadium during January 18-21 as part of its Music of the Spheres world tour.

Punjabi singing sensation Diljit Dosanjh will perform at a live concert in Chandigarh in December this year as part of his DIL-UMINATI India tour.

Men Assault 22-Year-Old, Urinate On Him, Record The Act: UP Cops

The police said they have lodged an FIR. (Representational)

Sonbhadra:

A group of men allegedly assaulted and urinated upon a 22-year-old man in eastern Uttar Pradesh s Sonbhadra, prompting the police to lodge an FIR in the matter.

A senior officer said on Wednesday that the main accused, who led the group of seven to eight people, has been taken into custody.

Additional Superintendent of Police Kalu Singh said the incident took place on September 26 evening when Pawan Kharwar was attacked by Ankit Bharti and his associates.

KTR Sends Legal Notice To Telangana Minister For Defamation Hyderabad:

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao sent a legal notice to Telangana s Forests and Environment Minister Konda Surekha on Wednesday for defamation after she alleged that he was responsible for the divorce of actors Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu.

KT Rama Rao s lawyer has asked the minister to withdraw the statement and tender an unconditional public apology to the BRS leader within 24 hours for tarnishing his reputation with a malicious and defamatory act .

Konda Surekha was also asked to refrain from engaging in any further malicious or frivolous defamatory acts.

Today, You Can t Get Votes Even By Doing Good Work : Minister Kiren Rijiju

The social system has deteriorated a lot, from political point of view as well, said Kiren Rijiju (File)

New Delhi:

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday expressed concern over deterioration in politics and said there used to be wonderful discussions in Parliament but today there is so much noise in the House. He also said that the people s mindset has changed over the years and asserted there are very few people who appreciate good work.

I have seen politics undergoing a change over the years. Today you can t get votes even by doing good work...Nobody even listens if you talk about something good, he added.

Kiren Rijiju was addressing an event, jointly organised by the Rashtriya Sewa Bharati and Sant Eshwer Foundation, to present awards to social workers for their outstanding service to the society.

Elect BJP To Protect Roti, Beti, Maati : PM Modi To People Of Jharkhand

PM Modi criticised the current Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand government

Hazaribagh, Jharkhand:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked the people of Jharkhand to bring the BJP to power in the state to protect their roti, beti, and maati (livelihood, daughters, and land).

Addressing the Parivartan Maharally in Hazaribagh, he termed the BJP s Parivartan Yatra not as a mere political campaign, but as a movement to safeguard the state s future, and promised security for Jharkhand s daughters, land, and livelihoods under a BJP-led government.

The BJP guarantees that the safety of these three will be ensured if the government is formed here. A new dawn will descend in Jharkhand with today s Parivartan Sabha, he said.

Man Stabs Bengaluru Bus Conductor After Being Told To Stand Away From Doors

Videos of Harsh Sinha attacking the conductor and threatening passengers have gone viral

Bengaluru:

A 23-year-old man has been arrested for stabbing a bus conductor in Bengaluru after he was asked to stand away from the automatic doors of the vehicle. The bus conductor, 45-year-old Yogesh, was hospitalised and is out of danger, the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has said.

Videos of the incident, in which Harsh Sinha is seen attacking Yogesh and threatening other passengers, have gone viral on social media. NDTV cannot verify the authenticity of the videos.

According to a PTI report, Harsh Sinha, originally from Jharkhand, was recently fired by a BPO firm and was jobless for about three weeks. He told police that he was frustrated over losing his job.

CCTV Footage Shows Bengaluru Man Stabbing Bus Conductor After Door Warning

A 25-year-old man was arrested in #Bengaluru for stabbing a #BMTC conductor after being asked to move away from the door. #cctv#bengalurucrime#knifepic.twitter.com/GccN6X66FW

— Madhuri Adnal (@madhuriadnal) October 2, 2024

Police have said that the incident occurred near ITPL bus stop last evening. Yogesh asked Harsh to stand away from the footboard as it was causing inconvenience for passengers boarding and deboarding the bus. This led to an altercation between the two. Harsh Sinha then pulled out a knife from his bag and stabbed the bus conductor.

Prashant Kishor Launches Party Before Bihar Polls, Vows To End Liquor Ban Patna:

Former election strategist Prashant Kishor s long-pending entry into electoral politics came today with the formal launch of his Jan Suraj group as a political party. The Jan Suraj Party is expected to contest in all seats of Bihar in the next assembly election. The party will be headed by Manoj BHarti, a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service. Mr Kishor has said if elected, the party would end prohibition of liquor in the state and use the earnings to improve the education sector.

Mr Kishor, who talks of changing the paradigm for voting -- shifting it from caste and electoral sops to a vision for the future -- had said who heads the party will be a decision of the people who worked for the group over the last two years.

For more than two years, Mr Kishor has been travelling across the state, raising awareness about what he says ought to be election agenda.

Blog: Not Today: Grief On The Other End Of India s Suicide Crisis Lines

Not too many can claim that how well they do their job is the immediate difference between whether someone lives or dies. Doctors, yes. Firefighters, yes. Lifeguards, yes. Twenty-four-year-old Aliah Rupawalla was none of these. And yet, an evening, she found herself being the only witness as one 50-something Ashwin tottered on the edge of the terrace of one of the thousands of high-rises that make up Mumbai and its abiding loneliness. All she was armed with to stop him from taking the plunge was a phone, a tiny desk in a cramped room populated by at least four other people, a crude instruction manual, and a few days of training in a tiny corridor. It isn t much, but that s all one usually gets when they re working at one of India s numerous cash-strapped suicide prevention centres. That, and the burden of dealing with a grave responsibility all by themselves. This is what Aditya Kripalani, an independent filmmaker, set out to spotlight in his award-winning film Not Today.

Every Call Matters, But Few Get Through

As many as 14% of the suicide deaths that the world sees happen in India. In 2021, India s suicide rate was 12 per one lakh population. Despite such staggering numbers, the Centre s allocation of Rs 1,199 crore towards mental health makes up just 1% of the total health budget for India. How much of that goes to India s suicide prevention helplines will remain anybody s guess in the absence of consolidated data. Ultimately though, this poverty of resources, manpower and political will ends up taking insidious forms in a suicide prevention centre room.

In 2022, FactChecker, an India-based fact-check initiative, decided to find out how equipped the state-funded 24x7 helpline KIRAN was. The group of researchers called KIRAN over 40 times across five days. They got through to an actual person only thrice, and after an average waiting time of over a minute and a half. The eight other non-governmental hotlines they tried did work, but those, too, threw up challenges. We are not psychologists, but rehabilitation officers. We are assigned by the government to work as helpline officers as additional duty alongside our regular work. We find it most challenging to attend calls during the night and early morning hours, a volunteer told researchers. Another explained how he would take calls even while driving and travelling. Perhaps because the failure to receive even one could mean tragedy. Perhaps it is why Aliah, seized by her own trauma of the past, goes out of her way to comfort Ashwin, defying her supervisor Mamata madam s instructions not to share any personal information. Perhaps it is also why Mamata madam advises Aliah to block prank calls instantly. What if one caller s joke stops a genuine caller from reaching us? Every call matters when it s death you are racing against.

Guilt, Frustration, Burnout

A lot has been and is still being written about India s suicide epidemic. But we haven t even begun to scratch the surface of what those at the forefront of this fight have to contend with: nagging guilt, a sense of powerlessness, frustration, emotional fatigue, burnout. And I recently had a conversation with a girl, a woman in her early 20s, who lost her whole family. It stayed with me and it was also the first time I was actually crying during the chat, recalled a Dutch volunteer who was part of a 2021 study published in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being. Another reflected, Sunday night, I had a lady on the phone, who was really depressed. Yes, you can come up with anything, but I just know that it won t help. I find that so difficult.

Too Much Emotion Can Kill

At the other end of this spectrum is absolute depersonalisation, where every call becomes routine and every caller a subject, to be dealt with strictly by the book. Somewhere at the beginning of Kripalani s film, Aliah is told by Mamata madam, You have great scope, but too much emotion will not only kill the caller but also you. Ironically, it s Aliah s emotional solicitude that pulls Ashwin back from the brink. One wonders then, how much is too much in the world of suicide prevention? What to do when mere sympathy leads one to something more personal? At what point does one caller become less or more important than others? Could we avoid making this choice if we simply were more equipped to listen to each caller? To provide supportbefore a grief-stricken person is pushed to the edge and finds herself dialling a suicide helpline?

It s these uneasy complexities that Not Today so piercingly questions. Barely any work in cinema or modern literature has attempted to explore the world of suicide prevention so delicately; most wouldn t dare, it doesn t make for a masala script, after all. But Kripalani has, and it is why his film deserves all the praise.

Court Asks CBI To Probe Alleged Police Attack On Rape Survivor s Parents Chennai:

The Madras High Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged assault and harassment of a minor rape survivor s parents by a woman police inspector in Chennai.

The court took suo motu cognizance of the alleged incident that took place in August, following media reports.

Reports said the survivor s mother was summoned to the police station, detained beyond 1 am, and assaulted.

Court Asks CBI To Probe Alleged Police Attack On Rape Survivor s Parents Chennai:

The Madras High Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged assault and harassment of a minor rape survivor s parents by a woman police inspector in Chennai.

The court took suo motu cognizance of the alleged incident that took place in August, following media reports.

Reports said the survivor s mother was summoned to the police station, detained beyond 1 am, and assaulted.

Tensions Will Continue Until Chinese Forward Deployments Addressed: Minister

India and China have been in a territorial face-off since 2020.

Washington:

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that the tensions between India and China will continue until there are forward deployments of militaries on the border. He noted that China violated agreements on how to keep the border peaceful and tranquil in 2020.

He made these remarks at an event hosted by Carnegie Endowment in the US. India and China have been in a territorial face-off since 2020 after the Chinese Army transgressed into multiple areas from the Galwan Valley to the Finger area along the Pangong Lake.

Speaking about ties between India and China, he said, In terms of our relationship with China, I think it s a long story, but the short version is that we have agreements on how to keep the border peaceful and tranquil, and those agreements were violated by China in 2020. And some of the...because we have forward deployments of our militaries, there are resultant tensions. And until those forward deployments are addressed the tensions would continue. If the tensions continue, it casts a natural shadow over the rest of the relationship. So our relationship hasn t been built for the last four years.

7 Children Injured In Explosion Near Garbage Dump In Bihar s Bhagalpur

A Special Investigation Team has been constituted to further investigate the matter. (Representational)

Bhagalpur:

Seven children were injured, three of them seriously, in an explosion near a garbage dump in Bihar s Bhagalpur district on Tuesday, a senior police officer said.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Bhagalpur, Anand Kumar told PTI that the blast took place in Khilafat Nagar locality, under the jurisdiction of Habibpur police station, of the town and the children appeared to have inadvertently fiddled with an explosive substance.

Seven children, three of them seriously, were injured in the incident. All of them have been admitted to the nearest government hospital, he said.

Ram Rahim Parole Breaking News... : Congress Red Flag Before Haryana Poll New Delhi:

The Congress Haryana unit has red-flagged rumours rape convict and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is supposed to be serving a 20-year jail sentence, will be granted parole - for the 10th time in the past two years - days before an Assembly election in the state.

The Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee has written to the Chief Election Commissioner over breaking news (that) parole will be granted , and to urge the top poll body that his release from jail at this time would constitute a violation of the Model Code of Conduct in place during elections.

Rahim s release has also been red-flagged by the son of a journalist who was murdered - for which he and three others were convicted. The son said freeing Rahim now violates democratic values and fair elections , since he could influence voting by sending messages to benefit a particular party.

Letter by Haryana Congress to Election Commission on Ram Rahim parole rumours.

He is known to have a mass following in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Haryana, which is ruled by the BJP and votes Saturday in an election seen as being a close fight with the Congress.