Month: April 2025

[ad_1] A man walks past a police barricade on a highway leading to Pahalgam SILCHAR: Debasish Bhattacharya is well-versed in Islamic scripture. That knowledge helped the Hindu associate professor of Bengali in Silchar’s Assam University snatch life from the jaws of death during the terror strike in Pahalgam on Tuesday.With a gun held against his head by one of the terrorists, the 58-year-old Bengali Brahmin was asked to recite the first kalma if he wanted to live. “Overwhelmed by fear, I began to chant the first kalma loudly. After some time, I realised the gunman had retreated, and we scrambled to a fence behind us. We climbed over it and fled into a jungle,” Bhattacharya said.The professor had travelled to Kashmir for a vacation on April 21 with wife Madhumita Bhattacharya, a well-known danseuse, and their son, Drohadeep, a medic […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: India's decision to suspend Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) is one of the most stringent actions against Pakistan as the 1960 treaty had survived three wars - 1965, 1971 and Kargil - and multiple terror attacks, largely on humanitarian grounds despite the treaty being in focus as a key tool to punish Islamabad for its nefarious acts.The decision means water flow from the western rivers - Indus, Jhelum and Chenab and their tributaries - will be stopped immediately from wherever it is regulated through dams or whatever little structures India has on these rivers. Though the flow from natural channels will continue, India's move will impact irrigation and drinking water supply to some extent in two of the four provinces of Pakistan during the peak of summer when it needs water the most.Subsequently, India will have to increase […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday placed senior DMK neta V Senthil Balaji, who was reinstated by Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin as minister just two days after being granted bail by the top court in a cash-for-job scam case, between a rock and a hard place by giving him two options — either go to prison again as a minister or resign and enjoy freedom.A stern SC said it will recall its bail order if he continues to be minister as he may influence witnesses.A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and A G Masih said the court had granted bail to Balaji after he claimed to have resigned from govt to dispel concerns about influencing witnesses.You are making mockery of process, SC tells Balaji The bench noted that just two days after Senthil Balaji’s […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: Citing errors in four questions, Delhi HC on Wednesday directed the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to revise the marksheets and republish the final list of selected candidates for the 2025 Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for undergraduate courses within four weeks.A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela accepted certain objections raised by the candidates regarding awarding of marks for the four questions, while rejecting some of them, before disposing of the petitions flagging the errors and the appeal filed by the Consortium against a single bench order."Since the error occurred on the part of the Consortium itself, while publishing sets B, C & D of question papers, no fault can be found with the candidates for giving or not giving correct or incorrect answers," the HC noted. "All the […]

[ad_1] A coalition of 12 US states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in the US Court of International Trade in New York, seeking to overturn President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, which they say is unlawful and has disrupted the national economy. The legal challenge accuses Trump of abusing emergency powers under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to unilaterally impose tariffs without Congressional approval. The plaintiffs argue that only Congress has the authority to levy tariffs and that the president can only invoke IEEPA in response to “unusual and extraordinary threats” from abroad — not to enact sweeping changes to trade policy. “By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra sparked controversy by linking the terrorist attack in Pahalgam to the Muslim community being "mistreated" and "feeling unsafe" in the country, with BJP coming down hard on him for the "irresponsible, divisive and venomous" statement. "When this terrorist act took place, they (terrorists) were looking at IDs, people who were non-Muslims were attacked and messages were given to the prime minister. Why is this happening? Because they are feeling that Muslims are being mistreated in our country," Vadra said. "I see that the minorities are sidelined. When they are praying, they are not allowed to do so on their roofs. If they are in abundance praying on a Thursday or Friday and there is a spillover on the road, they are stopped... there are surveys of mosques," he further […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: The actual perpetrators of the "cowardly terrorist attack" in Pahalgam as well as the conspirators behind the scenes will soon get a "strong response" for their nefarious act on Indian soil, defence minister Rajnath Singh said Wednesday, in a clear indication that the govt is examining military options in addition to the fresh diplomatic ones announced against Pakistan."Yesterday in Pahalgam, terrorists cowardly targeted innocent civilians on the basis of faith. I would like to reiterate India's firm resolve on the zero-tolerance policy against terrorism... I assure our countrymen that in view of the incident, the govt will take every step that is necessary and appropriate," Singh said, delivering the annual Arjan Singh Memorial lecture here."We will not only trace those who perpetrated this incident, we will also reach those who, sitting behind the scenes, have conspired to […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: Constitutional courts fix deadlines for everyone, including the President, but no such limitation applies to them for pronouncing judgments. Four murder convicts moved Supreme Court on Wednesday alleging that Jharkhand HC has not delivered verdicts in their appeals even though decisions were reserved three years ago.Appearing for the four appellants incarcerated for 16 to 11 years, advocate Fauzia Shakil informed a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh that they had filed appeals, one in 2012, two in 2014 and one in 2018, and Jharkhand HC had reserved verdicts in their cases in the months of Jan, April, May and June of 2022. Despite lapse of three years, verdicts are yet to be pronounced, she said.The bench took serious view of the lapse and issued notice to Jharkhand HC registrar general, asking him to furnish […]

[ad_1] Soldiers return after searches around Baisaran meadow on Wednesday NEW DELHI: With parallels being drawn between the terrorist attack at the picnic spot in Pahalgam and the Oct 7 attack carried out by the terror outfit Hamas in Israel, intelligence sources have pointed to multiple visits by senior Hamas functionaries to Pakistan over the past year.A Hamas team recently visited Jaish-e-Muhammed’s headquarters in Bahawalpur besides a Pakistani Army facility, which houses their combat simulation centre, inaugurated by Army chief Asim Munir last month. The area hosts the Bahawalpur Corps, a Pakistani military formation tasked with border defence and rapid deployment due to its strategic proximity to Rajasthan.In Feb, top Lashkar-e-Taiba and JeM cadres gathered in Rawalakote, PoK, on ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ for a speech by senior Hamas functionaries, sources said. The gathering, organized under the banner of Al Aqsa […]