The armed forces of India will be wise to remember that its public interface needs to be tempered with discretion, maturity and example, keeping in mind the nation's multi-cultural and multi-religious fabric which is its greatest strength but which can also become its biggest fault-line, asserts Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd).
A controversy has erupted in Chhattisgarh after a video surfaced showing spiritual preacher Dhirendra Shastri arriving in a government aircraft and a police officer touching his feet. The Congress party has alleged misuse of public funds, while the BJP defends the officer's actions as personal faith.
The Delhi Police on Wednesday took self-styled godman Chaitanyanand Saraswati, accused of sexually harassing 17 students of a private institute in New Delhi, to the campus for the second time and seized 'pornographic' material, a senior officer of the force, who is privy to the investigation, said.
A devastating flashflood in the Kheer Ganga river on August 5 demolished nearly half of Dharali -- the key stopover en route to Gangotri with many hotels and homestays, and neighbouring Harsil, where an Army camp bore the brunt of the flood fury, barely giving time to the victims to run to safety.
A landslide on the Kedarnath route in Uttarakhand killed two pilgrims and injured six, while heavy rain led to the temporary suspension of the Char Dham and Hemkund Sahib pilgrimages.
A cloudburst in the high altitude villages of Dharali in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand led to flash floods, causing damage to houses and sweeping away structures. Several people are feared buried under debris.
Six members of a family were found dead inside a car parked in Haryana's Panchkula, while one more died on the way to a hospital, police said on Tuesday, suspecting a suicide pact. Police are investigating the incident from all angles.
Kuldeep Yadav paid a visit to the Bageshwar Dham temple in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, before departing for the ODI series against Sri Lanka.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his monthly 'Mann Ki Baat' radio broadcast, urged people to reduce their oil intake by 10% as a step towards fighting obesity. He highlighted the rising obesity rates in India and globally, emphasizing the need for healthier lifestyles. Modi also shared messages from Olympic medalist Neeraj Chopra and boxer Nikhat Zareen, who urged people to adopt healthy habits and avoid fried food. Cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty highlighted the medical seriousness of obesity and linked it to excessive carbohydrate intake and oil consumption. Modi concluded by challenging 10 people to reduce their oil intake and pass the challenge on to 10 others.
'While suppression of information is acceptable for the government, the Opposition's efforts at pinning the government and its leaders is labeled anti-national,' points out Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Forty-one Border Road Organisation labourers working to clear snow near the high altitude border village of Mana in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district were trapped under an avalanche on Friday.
Many Dharmagurus attended the Shubh Ashirwad ceremony.
Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri, Auli, Munsiyari received fresh snowfall on Monday, October 16, 2023.
Voting for by-elections to seven assembly constituencies of six states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, started on Tuesday at 7 am.
The party has fielded Parvati Das for the by-election to the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Lijinlal G for the Puthuppally assembly seat in Kerala.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
Senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Kamal Nath on Tuesday asked whether it is needed to say separately that India is a 'Hindu Rashtra' given the fact that 82 per cent of Hindus live in the country.
Efforts have also intensified to extinguish the raging forest fires in the state, especially in the worst-affected areas of Nainital, Haldwani and Ramnagar forest divisions, forest officials here said on Sunday.
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
'A co-passenger started molesting me. I resisted his attempts and told him to stay away. I also bit him on his hand in a bid to resist. The man, aged around 30 years, later threw me out of the moving train near Rajnagar'
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
The weather office has forecast intense spells of rain at isolated places in Nainital, Champawat, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Dehradun, Tehri and Pauri districts on Sunday.
RJD-JD-U leaders believe Dhirendra Krishna Shastri's visit is part of the BJP's 2024 poll strategy.
Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.
'At no point did Kamal Nath and Digvijaya indicate that the Opposition bloc was formed only to fight the Lok Sabha polls.'
As per Joint Chief Electoral Officer Pratap Singh Shah, around 95 candidates from 70 assembly seats withdrew their names on the last date for withdrawal of nomination which was Monday.
'I must have done a lot of good deeds because of which I was getting the chance to talk to such a mahapurush.'
The final voter turnout figures in the state were released by the EC on Wednesday after addition of data from the polling parties deployed in remote areas of the hill state.
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj, arrested over alleged derogatory remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, was on Friday sent in judicial custody by a court in Chhattisgarh's Raipur district.
A court in the Chhattisgarh capital Raipur granted transit remand of controversial Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj, who was arrested by the state police for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi at a conclave, to the Maharashtra police on Tuesday.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
Dhapola's feat did not miss the attention of the BCCI secretary Jay Shah who termed it as one of the finest bowling performances of the tournament.
A video had gone viral on Thursday showing Rawat extolling the curative powers of the cow at a function in Dehradun.
Acting on a specific input, the Raipur police apprehended the seer from a rented room near Bageshwar Dham, located around 25 km from Khajuraho town in MP, Raipur Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal said.
Chhattisgarh Police arrested Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh on Thursday over his alleged derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi, following which a court here sent him to police remand for two days, an official said.
So far, 28 deaths have been reported from Uttarkashi district alone, while three were killed in Chamoli district of Garhwal region after heavy floods devastated the region on
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