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New Delhi: Delhi Police has registered two first information reports over Monday's Opposition march to the Supreme Court against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, officials said on Tuesday. The FIRs were filed at the Barakhamba Road and Tilak Marg police stations, according to officials cited in multiple reports. According to the police, no permission had been granted for the march to the Supreme Court, and several Opposition leaders were allegedly seen breaking police barricades with the help of a mini-truck during the protest on Monday. The cases relate to alleged barricade-breaking and graffiti on roads during the demonstration. The 'March for Democracy' The protest, billed as a 'March for Democracy', saw several INDIA...

The Trump administration is planning to move three senior officials of its AI testing agency to the White House, technology news site The Information reported on Monday, citing a White House official. Leadership shift for the AI safety unit The officials come from the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (CAISSI), a Commerce Department unit that evaluates advanced AI models for safety and capabilities and plays a role in the administration's framework for testing frontier AI systems before deployment. According to the report, the three officials — whose names have not been disclosed — would report to Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Sean...

A United States federal judge on Monday ordered a 24-hour halt to tree-cutting at the East Potomac Golf Course in Washington, D.C., after hundreds of trees were felled over the holiday weekend despite the court's earlier demand for advance notice. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the temporary order following a three-hour emergency hearing at which she sharply criticised the Trump administration's handling of the project. The 106-year-old public course has been drawn into President Donald Trump's broader plans to remake the capital, including a renovation of its historic golf links. Weekend felling triggers emergency hearing The tree removal began on Friday afternoon and continued through Saturday. The National Park Service...

Panama: A fresh earthquake struck Panama on Monday, days after a powerful magnitude 7.7 tremor shook the country, as authorities reported more than 300 aftershocks and a national state of emergency remained in force. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre measured Monday's quake at magnitude 6 at a depth of 35 km. The US Geological Survey measured the same quake at magnitude 6.1 with a depth of 10 km, about 18 km west of Rio Grande, according to Times Now. Follows Friday's 7.7 and 6.6 quakes The new tremor follows Friday's magnitude 7.7 and 6.6 earthquakes, which collapsed buildings near the epicentre and triggered evacuations. Panama has recorded more than 300 aftershocks since Friday, according to Emergency Operations...

New Delhi: Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has invited INDIA bloc MPs, civil society members and student organisations for a high tea at his residence on Tuesday, as the opposition keeps up pressure over alleged irregularities in the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. A joint press conference of INDIA bloc leaders is scheduled for the afternoon, followed by tea at 4:00 p.m. at 5, Sunehri Bagh Road, New Delhi, according to PTI sources. Follows Monday's "March for Democracy" The invitation referred to the previous day's "March for Democracy," in which leaders of the INDIA bloc marched through central Delhi toward the Supreme Court to protest alleged irregularities in the voter-roll revision...

Leaders of the INDIA bloc marched through central Delhi on Monday evening toward the Supreme Court to protest alleged irregularities in the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, in a rally that Delhi Police stopped at barricaded Bhagwan Dass Road. The "Chalo Delhi - March for Democracy" rally, led by Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, began near the Constitution Club and moved toward the Supreme Court. Police halted the procession at Bhagwan Dass Road, where additional barricades had been put in place, and protesters were also seen climbing barricades near Barakhamba Road during the march. Petition filed by Rahul Gandhi and 10 Opposition leaders Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi and 10...

Canada's Foreign Minister Anita Anand will travel to India this week for talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on trade, energy security and defence cooperation, as Ottawa looks to deepen its diplomatic and economic partnership with New Delhi. The minister's itinerary, announced by Global Affairs Canada on Monday, covers India and the United Arab Emirates from October 13 to 16. During her India leg, Anand will meet Jaishankar to advance cooperation on priorities identified in the bilateral roadmap, including trade, energy, people-to-people ties, and security and defence. The meeting will be the 11th between the two foreign ministers since September 2025, reflecting the frequency of diplomatic contact between Ottawa and...

About 100 passengers of Flydubai flight FZ1073, on which an Omani co-pilot allegedly tried to crash the aircraft last month, are reportedly preparing a class-action lawsuit against the airline and the transportation ministries of the United Arab Emirates and Israel, seeking potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The suit, which is being readied, is poised to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for the incident in which the co-pilot, identified as Hamam al-Hammami, allegedly stabbed Indian Captain Smit Machchhar during the flight between Dubai and Tel Aviv on September 30, the Times of Israel reported, citing the Calcalist business news outlet. 100 of 174 passengers sign on About 100 of the 174 people...

Sri Lanka's former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was taken to a hospital on Monday for urgent medical care, his party said — though his spokesperson has dismissed the reports of hospitalisation as false, leaving conflicting accounts of the 80-year-old leader's condition. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) said Rajapaksa was admitted in the morning of October 12 and was under observation in the intensive care unit, according to a PTI report carried by The Hindu. Party officials said doctors were keeping him under observation but gave no further details of his condition. Spokesperson denies reports However, Rajapaksa's media spokesperson, Manoj Gamage, dismissed the hospitalisation reports as false, telling The Morning that the...

Federal agents searched the Washington-area home of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar early on Monday as part of an ongoing federal investigation into her immigration paperwork. Homeland Security Investigations agents conducted the pre-dawn raid at the Minnesota lawmaker's DC-area residence. The Department of Justice confirmed that HSI had "executed a judicially authorized search warrant" as "part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation," but provided no further details about the purpose of the search. The investigation reportedly centres on immigration documents filled out by Omar's late father when she arrived in the United States as a child refugee from Somalia. The Somali-born lawmaker, who represents Minnesota's 5th...

The Kerala Legislative Assembly on Monday passed a resolution seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, in what is believed to be the first time a state assembly in the country has taken such a step. The resolution, moved by Chief Minister V D Satheesan under Rule 118, centred on alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and questions over the Election Commission's impartiality. It set out three demands: the urgent restoration of voting rights to eligible voters said to have been wrongly excluded from the rolls, the initiation of proceedings to remove Kumar, and a reconstitution of the committee that selects the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners...

Warsaw/Kyiv: Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Russia had already violated the "energy ceasefire" Donald Trump announced between Moscow and Kyiv, accusing Russian forces of striking energy infrastructure within hours of the declaration. Trump posted on social media on Sunday morning that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire, effective immediately, giving no details on duration, enforcement or the sites covered. Zelenskyy later told Axios that the deal was "news to him" — Kyiv had not been told of it in advance. The alleged violations Speaking via video link at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, Zelenskyy said that shortly after Trump's announcement, Russia launched a targeted strike on a power plant in...

New Delhi: India will host the first-ever BIMSTEC Home Ministers' Meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday, October 13, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced on Monday. Shah will chair the meeting, which brings together the home ministers and delegations of the seven-member regional grouping for the first time. Announcing the meeting in a post on X, Shah welcomed the visiting delegations and said the session would focus on deepening regional cooperation against some of the most pressing security threats facing the region. Terror, drugs and cyber threats on the agenda The meeting's agenda covers cooperation against terrorism, transnational organised crime, narcotics, radicalisation, human trafficking, illicit financial flows and cyber...

The Supreme Court has questioned why the Centre's 30 per cent trade-margin cap on drugs is limited to cancer medicines, urging broader controls on medicines and medical devices in view of steep mark-ups in maximum retail prices. The court's concern Business Standard reported on October 12 that the court cited sharp differences between manufacturing costs and retail prices of medicines as it pressed the Centre on why price controls should not extend beyond the cancer-drug category. The bench urged the government to consider wider controls for medicines and devices. The government, on its part, warned of possible supply risks if price caps are extended too broadly, cautioning that manufacturers could withdraw from the market. What...

President Droupadi Murmu has appointed new governors for six states, according to a press communique issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan on October 12, 2026. The appointments Under the new arrangement, Om Prakash Mathur, who has been serving as the Governor of Sikkim, will take over as the Governor of Kerala. Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, who has been serving as the Governor of Kerala, will move to Tamil Nadu as its new governor. Braj Mohan Ram has been appointed as the Governor of Odisha, while Sudha Yadav has been named the new Governor of Karnataka. Dhal Singh Bisen will assume office as the Governor of Uttarakhand, and Dushyant Gautam has been appointed as the Governor of Sikkim. The appointments will take effect from the dates on which...

North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea's military said, marking Pyongyang's fourth launch in a month and following Seoul's recent test of a hypersonic missile. The ballistic missiles, which appeared to be of different types, were fired at around 9:20 a.m. local time from near Pyongyang, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. One type flew more than 900 km (559 miles). Earlier, Japan's coast guard said North Korea had fired two unidentified projectiles, believed to be ballistic missiles, adding that both appeared to have already fallen. Emergency meeting in Seoul South Korea's National Security Office convened an emergency meeting, where it condemned the...

The European Union has approved nearly 1,600 new sanctions listings aimed at Russia's military-industrial complex, in what the bloc's foreign policy chief described as the largest single expansion of its sanctions list since Russia's war against Ukraine began. EU foreign ministers adopted the package on Monday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced on October 12. The ministers ratified an agreement that EU envoys had reached the previous Wednesday, completing the two-step approval process. Ballistic-missile supply chains in the crosshairs More than half of the newly listed individuals and entities are connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles, according to Kallas. Figures previously reported by Euronews put the...

Australian engineer Robert Pether has left Iraq after more than five years of detention and travel restrictions, and was reunited with his family at Dublin Airport on Monday, Ireland's RTE reported. An ordeal that began in 2021 Pether, 50, was arrested in April 2021 and jailed in August that year alongside his Egyptian colleague Khaled Radwan. Both men were each sentenced to five years in prison and fined $12 million after a contract dispute between their employer, Dubai-based CME Consulting, and the authorities in Baghdad. Pether had been working as a mechanical engineer on the rebuild of the Central Bank of Iraq's headquarters. UN called the detention illegal The case drew international criticism. The United Nations said Pether's...

India and the United Kingdom on Monday held the 16th meeting of their Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) in New Delhi — the first since the bilateral free trade agreement took effect — with British companies announcing fresh commercial deals worth more than £1 billion. The meeting was co-chaired by Union Minister Piyush Goyal and UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Jonathan Reynolds. In a statement issued on Monday, the British High Commission in India said communities in both countries "are set to benefit from over £1 billion in new deals," timed with the arrival of a major UK business delegation aimed at maximising gains from the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the landmark...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said she feels "deep concern" over a United States push for Japan to join sanctions against the International Criminal Court, widening a rare public rift between the two allies. Takaichi wrote on X on October 10 that Japan has consistently valued the rule of law in the international community and supports the ICC, which she said plays a key role in upholding it. "This measure is incompatible with Japan's consistent position, and I express deep concern," she said, according to the Asahi Shimbun and other Japanese media. Washington blacklists the entire court Her remarks followed the US State Department's announcement on October 9 placing the entire ICC on the Treasury Department's Specially...