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The Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board has rolled back its move toward uniform Friday sermons in mosques across the Union Territory, saying on Tuesday that no such order had been issued and that sermon themes would remain the preachers' call, not the politicians'. Board chairperson Darakhshan Andrabi told reporters the Board had issued "no order" making common sermon themes compulsory and that such decisions "will be taken by preachers and not politicians", according to The Hindu. The clarification came two days after an Executive Magistrate of the Board informed preachers that "only one topic will be highlighted" in Friday sermons. Backlash from across the political and religious spectrum The magistrate's directive had drawn sharp...

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on Tuesday met his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu in Vijayawada and requested the release of additional Krishna river water for Chennai under the Telugu Ganga project. Water sharing tops the agenda Vijay's request was made during talks at Naidu's camp office in Amaravati. Naidu assured him that the request would be examined based on water availability and Chennai's requirements. He said Andhra Pradesh had already released 4.08 TMC of water to Chennai this year and reiterated the state's commitment to meeting the neighbouring city's drinking water needs. Naidu, however, pointed out that Andhra Pradesh was itself facing water scarcity this year due to reduced Krishna river...

At least 11 people, most of them minors, died after a boat overturned in the Ganga river in Bihar's Vaishali district on Tuesday evening, officials said. Several more passengers were reported missing, and search and rescue operations continued through the night. Tragedy strikes during a festive journey The accident took place near Rampur Shyamchand village in the Raghopur Diara area when the boat, ferrying passengers between two riverside villages, lost its balance and capsized midstream. Most of those on board were headed to attend a feast in a nearby village as part of post-funeral rituals, according to officials. The exact number of people aboard remains unclear. While initial reports suggested 25 to 30 people were on the vessel...

The Mamata Banerjee camp of the Trinamool Congress has alleged that a woman tried to attack former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with a knife outside her residence in Kolkata's Kalighat on Tuesday evening, and has filed a police complaint over the incident. Party general secretary Dola Sen sent a written complaint to the officer-in-charge of the Kalighat police station, stating that the incident took place around 6 pm. According to the complaint, the woman — identified in the complaint as Tannishtha Saha and described as a civic volunteer and a drug addict — came in a violent, intoxicated manner, claimed to be Banerjee's niece, hurled abuses and tried to violently approach the former chief minister. Banerjee had stepped...

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said India-China relations are moving towards normalcy as the situation along the border has settled to a great extent since 2024. He made the remarks in a conversation with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on Tuesday. Jaishankar said India had made it clear to China that a stable boundary was the precondition for a normal relationship. "If you want a normal relationship, the boundary has to be stable. We need peace and tranquillity in the border areas," he said, adding that as the border areas settled down after 2024, the relationship was "commensurately moving towards normalcy". Four years of negotiations The minister recalled...

A protester wearing a shirt reading "Release the Epstein Files" was punched in the face by a rallygoer at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday, October 12, 2026 — an incident that drew national attention the following day. Videos from the Covelli Center show nearby rallygoers grabbing the woman after she stood up and began shouting. A man in a black polo shirt pulled her to the ground by the hair and punched her face at least once, still holding a handful of hair as he struck, according to the footage. Police then intervened and escorted the protester out of the stands. She was seen giving the crowd the middle finger as she was removed, to boos and chants of "USA." Trump's response Trump responded from the...

A court in eastern China sentenced three members of a criminal gang to death on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, for running a network of scam centers in Myanmar's Kokang region along the China border. The Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court in southeastern Fujian province handed down the sentences to Wei Huairen, Chen Dawei and Liao Jingfang for their involvement in what it called the "Wei family criminal gang." Wei Huairen was identified as one of the group's leaders and was found guilty of several crimes, including murder. A syndicate built on fraud and violence According to the court's findings, the gang operated 14 "large-scale" scam compounds in Kokang and lured thousands of Chinese nationals to Myanmar with false promises of high...

Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh flew his last fighter sortie aboard the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft during the closing days of Exercise Tarang Shakti at the Jodhpur Air Force Station, ahead of his retirement on October 31. Announcing the flight in a post on X on Monday, the IAF said the sortie reflected "the spirit of a fighter pilot who has always believed in leading from the front". The force shared a video of the sortie and photographs showing Singh flying alongside aircraft from friendly foreign countries and the Suryakiran Aerobatic Team during the multinational exercise. "Once a fighter pilot. Always a fighter pilot" "A FINAL FIGHTER SORTIE. A LIFETIME OF PASSION. At the controls of the indigenous...

Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs L. Murugan announced his resignation from the Union Council of Ministers and his membership of the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, saying he wanted to return to "grassroots" work and dedicate himself full-time to strengthening the BJP in Tamil Nadu ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. Murugan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting to be relieved of his duties. Announcing the decision in a post on X, he said it had been "the greatest honour of my life to serve Bharat Mata and Tamil Nadu" under the Prime Minister's leadership, adding: "From the son of daily wage labourers to serving in the Union Council of Ministers ... has been the greatest privilege...

Three people have been killed and 16 wounded in Ukrainian attacks on Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, the region's governor said on Tuesday. The updated toll folds in casualties from strikes over the past several days, as both sides trade some of the heaviest cross-border blows in weeks. According to the governor, Alexander Shuvaev, two people were killed in an overnight attack, while another man died following an attack that took place on Friday. Reuters, which carried the governor's statement, said it could not independently verify the casualty figures. None of the victims has been publicly identified. A weekend of heavy strikes The Belgorod toll caps a grim stretch of long-range attacks. On Friday, Russian strikes...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre and the Election Commission of India to respond to a public interest plea that challenges the legal immunity enjoyed by the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners. The court was hearing an appeal filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms against a provision of the 2023 law governing the poll panel. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, issued notices to the Union government and the poll panel and sought their replies. According to the case status on the apex court's website, the matter is tentatively listed for further hearing on November 2. What the plea targets The challenge is aimed at Section...

French students staged a fifth round of nationwide protests on Tuesday over education funding, controversial admissions policies and the Parcoursup university admissions platform, even as official figures showed participation continuing to fall. The Interior Ministry recorded 30,000 demonstrators at 360 gatherings outside schools — down from 256,000 on October 6 and 71,500 on October 8. The Higher Education Ministry said 35 per cent of institutions saw disruptions including blockades and administrative closures, though student unions put the figure at 90 per cent. Education Minister Edouard Geffray told France Inter that around 200 establishments were closed — fewer than the previous week — while nearly 1,000 contract teachers were...

The Madras High Court on Tuesday upheld the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker's decision to accept the resignations of six AIADMK MLAs who had cross-voted in favour of the TVK government during a confidence motion earlier this year. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan ruled that the resignations of S. Jayakumar, Maragatham Kumaravel, P. Sathyabama, Esakki Subbaya, C. Vijaya Bhaskar and M.R. Vijayabhaskar — tendered between May 26 and June 29, 2026 — were genuine and voluntary. The six legislators had voted for Chief Minister Joseph Vijay's TVK government during the May 2026 confidence motion and later joined the TVK. AIADMK whip Agri Krishnamurthy had petitioned the court challenging...

The International Monetary Fund says the steep tariffs imposed by the United States and China have sharply reduced trade between the two countries, but businesses on both sides have largely cushioned the blow by redirecting exports to other markets. The findings appear in the Fund's October 2026 World Economic Outlook, released on Tuesday. Chinese exports to the United States fell 22 per cent between February 2025 and January 2026, while American exports to China declined 25 per cent over the same period, according to the report. The decline shaved 3.3 percentage points off China's total export growth and 1.7 percentage points off America's. Asia absorbs the redirected trade The IMF found that both countries expanded shipments to...

New Delhi: India on Tuesday firmly rejected China's objections to the official naming of 28 geographical features in Ladakh, with the Ministry of External Affairs reiterating that the Union Territory is an "integral and inalienable part" of the country. Responding to comments from the Chinese side, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "The UT of Ladakh is an integral and inalienable part of India. No amount of denial by the Chinese side can change this established fact." He added that the Ministry of Home Affairs' press release announcing the naming exercise was "self-explanatory". What China objected to On October 2, the Union home ministry announced that 28 places and geographical features in Ladakh had been formally identified...

TEL AVIV: A Delta Air Lines flight from New York was evacuated after landing at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday following a bomb threat, Israeli media reported. Security officials moved passengers off the aircraft and searched it thoroughly. No suspicious items were found, according to the reports. What is known The threat was reported on an Israel-bound Delta service that arrived from New York on Tuesday. Airport security personnel carried out standard bomb-threat protocols, evacuating the plane and inspecting the aircraft and its baggage before declaring it clear. Authorities have not publicly identified the source of the threat or said whether any arrests were made. Bomb scares on flights to Israel are treated with the...

MULTAN: A Karachi-bound passenger train derailed in Pakistan's Punjab province early on Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead and 35 injured, police and Pakistan Railways officials said, in one of the deadliest rail accidents in the country this year. The Rehman Baba Express was travelling from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the northwest when several coaches came off the tracks at around 5:15 am near Sher Shah Bridge in Sher Shah city, Multan district. The derailment scattered coaches across the railway line and triggered a large-scale rescue operation involving police, railway staff and local volunteers. Conflicting early casualty reports Casualty figures differed in early official accounts. Police, quoted by Geo News in...

The BJP on Tuesday swept the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) polls, winning 38 of the 44 seats, and retained power in the Thara and Okha municipalities in Gujarat, according to results declared by the State Election Commission. Gandhinagar verdict The Congress finished second in Gandhinagar with five seats, while an independent candidate took one seat. The Aam Aadmi Party, which had won one seat in the previous GMC elections, failed to open its account this time. The corporation last went to polls in October 2021, when the BJP had won 41 of the 44 seats, the Congress two and the AAP one. The Congress's best showing came in Ward 6, where it won all four seats. Elections were held across 11 wards with 130 candidates in the...

Indian Railways recorded a 6.14 per cent year-on-year increase in freight loading in September 2026, the Railway Board said on Tuesday, moving 135.35 million tonnes of goods compared with 127.52 million tonnes in the same month last year. Coal and foodgrain shipments drive the numbers Coal loading, the backbone of the railway's freight business, grew 9 per cent during the month. The ministry said the transporter stepped up domestic coal supply to power houses, with the average number of coal rakes supplied daily rising to 443, up from 397 in September 2025 — an increase of 11.6 per cent. Foodgrain loading posted the strongest performance among major commodities, rising 25 per cent year-on-year. Clinker was up 20 per cent, domestic...

Air India and IndiGo have cancelled all flights to Saudi Arabia until October 17, 2026, as Houthi missile attacks on the kingdom intensify and Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport remains shut after a deadly strike on Saturday. IndiGo said in a travel advisory on Tuesday that all flights to and from Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Madinah stand cancelled until October 17, urging passengers to check flight status on its website before leaving for the airport. The airline said safety remained its top priority and that it was in constant coordination with the relevant authorities. Air India separately announced that all flights to and from Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah would remain suspended through October 17, offering affected passengers...