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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to India from October 19 to 22 for his second visit to the country in six months, but he will not stop in New Delhi. Instead, his itinerary takes him to Mumbai and Jamnagar, with energy and trade topping the agenda. The trip was announced by the US Department of State on October 14, and it follows a stop in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for a regional conference. The decision to bypass the national capital is unusual. Rubio is expected to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during the visit, and he will hold talks with senior government officials on strengthening the US-India strategic partnership, discussing regional and global developments, and exploring deeper energy cooperation...

European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day European Council summit, arriving with sharply differing views on the bloc's next long-term budget while facing decisions on continued support for Ukraine, energy prices and economic competitiveness. Net contributors push back Several leaders openly opposed the proposed multiannual financial framework for 2028–2034 as they arrived for the meeting. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called the Irish presidency's draft "not good enough," arguing it should be smaller and refocused on competitiveness, security and future welfare. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said a roughly 60 per cent increase in Sweden's net contribution was "simply not acceptable," calling it a no-go...

The Saudi-led military coalition said on Thursday that it had intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile over the Medina region, home to Islam's second-holiest city, in the latest escalation of its confrontation with Yemen's Houthis. The Houthis immediately denied carrying out any attack. Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Malki announced the interception in a post on X, with the statement also carried by Saudi state media. The announcement did not identify who launched the missile, its intended target, or report any casualties or damage. Houthis reject the claim Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree responded within hours, saying the group's forces had carried out no operation targeting Saudi territory that day and calling the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine will resume strikes on Russian oil refineries, openly defying a US-backed moratorium on energy-facility attacks. "The block is out. We're done," Zelensky told the Financial Times during a visit to London, according to the New York Post's report on the interview. Why now Zelensky said Ukraine had complied with the ceasefire for three days while Moscow continued to launch more than 100 attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the past week. He has long defended strikes on Russian oil facilities as a way to hamper Moscow's war funds and retaliate for strikes on Ukrainian power plants. President Donald Trump had called for a moratorium on strikes against energy...

Imphal: At least 84 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel posted in Manipur were admitted to hospital in Imphal on Thursday after a suspected case of mass food poisoning at breakfast, officials said. All are reported to be in stable condition. The personnel had arrived in the state from outside on Wednesday and were lodged at a construction site at Lamshang in Imphal West district. According to officials, they consumed puri and alu sabzi around 8.30 am on Thursday and began vomiting soon after. They were taken to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Imphal around 1 pm, where they received immediate treatment in the emergency department. Investigation under way RIMS Medical Superintendent in charge M. Rameshwar told...

India is working to bring home four Indian nationals from Punjab who were kidnapped in Ethiopia and rescued by Ethiopian law enforcement agencies earlier this month. All four are safe, the Embassy of India in Addis Ababa said in a statement reported on Thursday. The rescue The four were kidnapped on the night of September 25 and freed on October 1 in an operation by Ethiopian law enforcement. The embassy said it had remained in constant contact with local authorities to facilitate the rescue. After consular access was granted, embassy officers met the four on October 14 and provided Indian food and basic amenities. Arrangements for their repatriation to India are now underway, according to the Economic Times and IANS reports of the...

A two-storey building collapsed in the Paigambarpur area of Varanasi on Thursday after an explosion that police suspect was caused by an illegal firecracker manufacturing unit operating inside the house. Two people were injured and taken to hospital, while one woman is believed to be trapped under the debris. What happened Police said information about the collapse reached them around 5 p.m. The building falls under the Sarnath police station limits. Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Pandey told IANS that firecrackers were found scattered at the site, and the working theory is that the explosion came from the firecrackers and other highly inflammable materials stored on the premises. "The information about the incident was...

The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that the Houthis had attempted to attack dozens of Saudi airports, ports and oil facilities, as a week of missile and drone strikes on key Saudi sites intensified. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki told a press conference that the Iran-aligned group had launched 20 attacks on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport this month alone, which according to the coalition killed 17 people and wounded 333. Houthi attacks on Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia killed three people and wounded 28, the coalition said. Escalation and retaliation Maliki said the Houthis had acquired advanced military technology, including ballistic missiles, drones and explosive-laden fast...

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to restrain the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) from holding its protest at Connaught Place on October 16, recording the police's assurance that steps would be taken to regulate the gathering. The ruling, delivered Thursday evening, sets the stage for the next flashpoint in the weeks-long agitation over the Election Commission's electoral-roll revision. CJP co-convenor Abhijeet Dipke had called on Wednesday for a 'Lehra Do Tiranga' gathering at Connaught Place on Friday, and the party announced 'tiranga marches' across the country. The party has alleged that co-convenors Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were "jailed only for unfurling the tricolour" — the two were in fact sent to five-day...

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India has ordered a Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls in 17 states and Union Territories, setting January 1, 2027 as the qualifying date for new voters. The move comes amid a politically charged debate over the Commission's separate Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, which has faced protests and legal challenges. Under the schedule announced on Thursday, rationalisation of polling stations is to be completed by November 2, 2026. Draft integrated electoral rolls will be published on November 12, followed by a claims-and-objections window from November 12 to December 11. Final publication of the rolls is slated for January 4, 2027. Where the revision applies The 17 states...

US President Donald Trump has said that people involved in leaking information linked to the American military's plan to strike Iran's nuclear facilities "should be shot dead," delivering the remark at a campaign rally in Arizona. The remark Trump was angered by a leak to journalists about the timing of US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to the live coverage of his Arizona appearance. The Republican leader's comment marks some of his sharpest rhetoric yet around operational security as Washington weighs action against Tehran's nuclear programme. The backdrop The remark comes amid a rapidly escalating confrontation between the United States and Iran, with the wider Middle East conflict widening by the day. Yemen's...

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday declared that Naxalism has come to an end in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, pointing to an assistive-devices distribution drive that reached more than 3,600 persons with disabilities, many of them victims of decades of Left-Wing Extremist violence. Addressing the ceremony through video conference, Shah said the initiative, held in Jagdalpur between October 5 and 7 under the 'Seva Sankalp Abhiyan', had benefited over 3,600 persons with disabilities, including more than 1,570 beneficiaries in Bastar alone. Five decades of suffering, Shah says The Home Minister said the large number of beneficiaries reflected the human cost of five decades of Naxalism in the region. "How five decades of...

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a person who converts from Hinduism to another religion cannot claim reservation benefits merely on the basis of the social backwardness associated with their pre-conversion caste or community status. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar dismissed the Tamil Nadu government's appeal against a Madras High Court order, holding that it called for no interference. What the court decided The ruling upholds the Madras High Court's decision to quash a March 9, 2024 government order that allowed persons from backward classes, most backward classes, denotified communities and Scheduled Castes to be treated as backward class Muslims — across seven notified sects —...

New Delhi: The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to move faster on eliminating lead exposure, which the agency estimates causes more than 3.5 million deaths around the world each year and affects hundreds of millions of children. The call came on Thursday, days before the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, which runs from October 18 to 26. A preventable crisis Although lead exposure is entirely preventable, fewer than half of countries have confirmed legally binding controls on lead in paint, according to the agency's latest global assessment. WHO said lead can contaminate people through paint, cookware, cosmetics, spices, informal recycling and industrial sources — and that there is no known safe level of...

Germany warned on Thursday against efforts to bring Russia back onto the international stage, as finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 economies met in Bangkok amid deepening divisions over Ukraine and sanctions. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov attended the meeting in Bangkok, just over a month after the United States hosted his first in-person G20 appearance since Russia invaded Ukraine, at a gathering in Asheville, North Carolina. Klingbeil's rebuke "I do notice attempts, particularly from the United States ... to bring Russia back onto the international stage," German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told reporters. "There will be no pretending that Russia is now returning as a normal member of the G20...

A school roof collapse in Peshawar on Thursday killed at least 33 people, including 32 students and a female teacher, in one of the deadliest building collapses Pakistan has seen this year. The roof of Al-Khair School in the city's Afridi Abad locality gave way while students were in their classrooms, crumpling the two-storey structure and trapping dozens beneath the debris, officials said. Lady Reading Hospital spokesperson Muhammad Asim told Dawn that the death toll had risen to 33 from an earlier figure of 28, with the students aged between seven and 14. Twenty injured children were brought to the hospital; most have since been discharged, though three with serious head injuries remained under treatment. Rescue operation concluded...

Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar and Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan have tendered unconditional and unqualified apologies to the Supreme Court in the contempt case over restrictions imposed in the national capital during the October 10 protest. A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is scheduled to take up the matter on Thursday. The two affidavits The Home Secretary filed a short affidavit late on Wednesday night tendering his "unconditional and unqualified apology", while the Police Commissioner submitted a separate affidavit with the same apology. The contempt case concerns the alleged violation of the court's direction that there be no "complete prohibition" on Metro and train services in Delhi in view of the...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday inaugurated five development projects worth about Rs 3,350 crore in Ladakh through video conferencing, spanning aviation, strategic road connectivity, hydropower, heritage conservation and water security in the Union Territory. Leh's new airport terminal The centrepiece of the package is the new passenger terminal building at Leh's Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, constructed at a cost of Rs 640 crore. Spread over 23,800 square metres, the terminal raises the airport's annual passenger capacity from 10 lakh to 35 lakh. The Prime Minister said the building uses geothermal heating technology alongside solar energy to cope with Ladakh's harsh climate, making it the first airport terminal in India...

Mumbai: Indian authorities have asked Bollywood actor Imran Khan to leave the country by October 28, after he joined a protest in Mumbai demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, local media reported on Thursday. The Foreigners Regional Registration Office, the federal agency responsible for tracking foreign nationals, sent Khan a notice to leave based on a complaint filed at a Mumbai police station, according to the Indian Express and the Times of India, as reported by Reuters. What triggered the notice Khan, 43, participated in a rally at August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai on October 10, organised in support of the Cockroach Janta Party's agitation seeking the CEC's resignation over voter list revisions...

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday took up a cluster of petitions arising out of the October 10 anti-election commission protests in Delhi, issuing notices to the Election Commission of India, the Delhi government and opposition leaders while directing police to preserve all CCTV footage of the protests. A bench hearing petitions against the crackdown, including mass detentions, the shutdown of metro stations, an internet suspension in central Delhi and the de-notification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site, also began hearing the opposition's challenge to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Notices across the board The court issued notice to the Election Commission, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and...