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Leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc marched through central Delhi on Monday in a major show of protest against the Election Commission, with Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi heading the 'Chalo Delhi - March for Democracy' rally as it moved from the Barakhamba Road area toward the Supreme Court, demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Slogans Against the Poll Panel Bloc MPs converged at the Constitution Club of India, raising slogans against the CEC, before beginning the march through Connaught Place. Security personnel were deployed in strength across Janpath and nearby areas, and entry and exit at...

Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, has been named a Chevalier de l'Ordre national de la Légion d'Honneur — Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour — by French President Emmanuel Macron, in recognition of his work deepening economic ties between India and France. The announcement was made on Monday. Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Légion d'Honneur is the highest civilian distinction conferred by the French Republic. The insignia will be formally presented to Mittal at a ceremony at the Embassy of France in New Delhi on October 28, 2026. Three decades of India-France ties According to the announcement, the honour acknowledges Mittal's longstanding commitment to strengthening...

Who was sanctioned China on Monday placed sanctions on two Latin American ministers — Paraguay's Communications Minister Gustavo Villate and Belize's Foreign Minister Francis Fonseca — citing their countries' diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Beijing's foreign ministry announced the measures through two separate notices, and said they take effect from Monday. The sanctions bar the two ministers from obtaining entry visas to Hong Kong and Macau, freeze any assets they hold in China, and prohibit Chinese organisations and individuals from engaging in transactions, cooperation or other activities with them, according to the ministry. Beijing said it was acting to safeguard national sovereignty and security and to oppose what it described as...

Delhi Police on Sunday arrested four men claiming to be members of the right-wing Hindu Raksha Dal for allegedly assaulting students and pushing and hitting women on Delhi's DDU Marg during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 10. The arrests came a day after a purported video of the incident went viral on social media, showing the men assaulting young students and physically manhandling women on a stretch of DDU Marg under the jurisdiction of the Kamla Market police station. The footage also showed a police personnel present at the spot as the incident occurred, amid widespread detentions during the protest over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision...

A 55-year-old assistant sub-inspector of the Punjab Police's counter-intelligence wing was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants while returning home after duty late on Sunday evening, the latest in a string of attacks on police personnel in the state this year. Iqbal Singh, a resident of Naushera Pannuan near Tarn Taran, was gunned down between 6:15 pm and 6:30 pm on Louhka Road in Tarn Taran district. Tarn Taran SSP Surendra Lamba said the ASI was followed by the two assailants, who fired two to three bullets at him. Singh sustained at least two bullet injuries and died on the spot. The attackers fled and had not been identified, though police said they had some leads. Targeted killing suspected According to police, Singh...

Leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) met Delhi Police officials on Monday morning to seek permission for a new protest site, Times Now reported, as the group's agitation against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar entered a new phase. The meeting According to the Times Now live blog, CJP leaders held the meeting with Delhi Police on the morning of October 12. The party has been protesting against alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and demanding the CEC's resignation. On Sunday night, the party had said its leaders would visit the Parliament Street police station to seek a date for a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar, warning it would announce its own protest call if no date was given...

Three young workers were killed in the early hours of Sunday when a speeding Mini Cooper rammed their scooter from behind on the airport road at Nedumbassery, near Kochi. The 19-year-old driver has been arrested on a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the Indian Express and NDTV reported. The crash The accident occurred around 1.45 am on October 11 on the road leading to Cochin International Airport in Kerala's Ernakulam district. CCTV footage of the incident shows the Mini Cooper hurtling down the stretch before slamming into the scooter, throwing its three occupants onto the road. Police suspect the car was travelling at more than 120 kmph, based on witness accounts, the Times of India reported. Police identified...

Warsaw: Polish police have arrested a man suspected of plotting an attack on Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the interior ministry told AFP on Sunday. The suspect, a man in his 60s and a Polish citizen, was detained in the southwestern region of Lower Silesia, and searches were continuing at his home, ministry spokeswoman Karolina Galecka said. "Information about this man will of course then be verified by the police," she added. Tracked through online content Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said security services tracked the suspect down through a detailed analysis of content posted online, and that his contacts and internet activity were being examined. Police were alerted by the State...

Paris: French far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Sunday threw his support behind the nationwide high school protest movement that has shaken France, telling thousands of supporters at a campaign rally that he would lower the voting age to 16 and end selective admission to universities. The fiery anti-capitalist used the speech to kick his campaign into high gear ahead of next year's two-round presidential election in April and May. He also took aim at US President Donald Trump, NATO and the global financial system in a sweeping address, according to the Associated Press. A turning-point election President Emmanuel Macron is finishing his second term and cannot run again, making next year's vote a turning point for...

Washington, October 12: President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are weighing whether to remove Kimberly Guilfoyle as the United States ambassador to Greece, after a series of reports alleged improper and possibly illegal conduct during her tenure, a senior US official told the Associated Press on Sunday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said both Trump and Rubio were "extremely pissed off" by the conduct described in the reports, and that a decision could come this week, after Monday's Columbus Day holiday. The allegations, first reported by The Wall Street Journal beginning in late September, include claims that Guilfoyle threatened a Greek host-country official by suggesting she could undermine...

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to cancel the remainder of a taxpayer-funded television advertising campaign promoting the president's political agenda, even as the government insisted the ad blitz was already coming to an end. US District Judge Jennifer Rochon of the Southern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order on Sunday night, October 11, directing the administration to halt any further airings of the challenged ads as of 6:45 p.m. ET. The order, which runs for two weeks, also bars the government from entering into, renewing, or expanding any agreement covering the development, creation, or airing of similar advertisements. A $20 million campaign draws a legal challenge The campaign drew...

Hurricane Simon remained a powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday as it tracked parallel to Mexico's Pacific coast, with current forecasts indicating it will bypass a direct landfall while still posing a serious threat to coastal communities through torrential rain and huge waves. According to the latest forecasts, the storm will maintain a path approximately 15 kilometres off the coast of Jalisco state. Fabian Vazquez, director of Mexico's meteorological service, warned that coastal areas should prepare for exceptionally heavy rainfall, high winds and waves reaching up to nine metres. Slow movement raises flood risk With sustained winds recorded at 230 kilometres per hour, the hurricane is moving at only about 11 kilometres per hour...

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said it is "clear" that Russia interfered in the United Kingdom's 2016 Brexit referendum, becoming the first person to hold the office to acknowledge such interference publicly. Burnham made the claim in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast released on Sunday. He said that on arriving at Downing Street he had asked his advisers a direct question — whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 referendum — and received an unambiguous affirmative answer. He did not spell out how he believed Russia had interfered, nor did he provide details of the evidence behind the assessment. Warning to European voters The prime minister framed the disclosure as a warning to voters elsewhere in Europe. He...

India has told the United Nations General Assembly's First Committee that it will not bow to nuclear blackmail, laying down three red lines in a sharp Right of Reply to remarks made by Pakistan. Exercising India's Right of Reply at the committee, which deals with disarmament and international security, Anmol Sher Singh Bedi, Senior Adviser (Disarmament) at India's Permanent Mission to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, warned that nuclear weapons must not be treated as "routine instruments of statecraft". "Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India," Bedi said, rejecting Pakistan's claims over the region. He said India's military capabilities were defensive in nature and shaped by its security environment...

The Delhi government is preparing to launch the DURGA E-Auto Scheme, under which 1,300 pink electric autorickshaws will be allotted in the first phase. Of these, 1,170 are reserved for women and 130 for transgender persons, in a push to create self-employment opportunities and make last-mile travel safer. Transport Minister Pankaj Kumar Singh said on Sunday that the scheme — DURGA stands for Driving, Upliftment and Rozgar for Women and Transgender — aims to help women and transgender persons earn a steady livelihood and become financially independent, while also promoting electric transport and improving last-mile connectivity across the capital. The scheme has been approved by the Delhi Cabinet under Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. How...

Lede: YouTuber Dhruv Rathee has alleged that he was "kidnapped", not detained, from his Gurugram residence by around 20 people in plain clothes on Saturday morning, describing a roughly 22-hour ordeal in which he says he was moved between police stations without access to a lawyer or a phone. In a video posted on X on Sunday after his release, Rathee said the men entered his house around 7 am while he was sleeping and took him away before he could ask who they were. "I was not detained, I was kidnapped," he said, questioning the manner in which he was taken. He claimed he was not allowed to contact his lawyer or access a phone and that he sustained injuries while being taken out of his bedroom. Passport display and police version...

Lede: Jammu received 185.6 mm of rain in just three hours on Sunday, shattering a 71-year October rainfall record and triggering flash floods, landslides and widespread waterlogging that killed at least one person and left another feared swept away, officials said. Heavy rain that began around 8.30 am inundated roads and residential localities across Jammu, damaging vehicles and disrupting traffic, officials said. The previous October record of 160 mm was set in 1955. Deaths and rescue operations The body of a man suspected to have drowned in a flooded stream was recovered from the Domana area on Sunday evening, according to officials. His identity and the exact cause of death had not yet been established at the time of reporting...

Tehran: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said on Sunday that a third supertanker had struck a naval mine while using an "unauthorized" route in the Strait of Hormuz in two days, as strikes around the strategic waterway intensify. What the IRGC claims According to a statement published on the IRGC's official news outlet Sepah News, a crude oil supertanker attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz via an unauthorized route in the southern part of the waterway struck a naval mine, triggering a powerful explosion and a fire in its engine room. The vessel, the IRGC said, had switched off its navigation and positioning systems before the incident, and was burning in a massive fire visible to people living along the coast...

New Delhi/Pyongyang: North Korea marked the 81st founding anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea on October 10 with a deliberately subdued celebration — a stage performance at Pyongyang Indoor Stadium attended by leader Kim Jong-un, state media reported. There was no military parade, no weapons showcase, and no formal statement from the leader. A celebratory performance, not a parade The event featured patriotic songs, acrobatics, and dance, with the programme built around themes of loyalty to the party and its leader, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Kim, described by the agency as representing the "dignity and mightiness" of the country, waved to the audience as a token of congratulations and expressed...

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reach a settlement to end the war in Ukraine, while again accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of resisting compromise. Trump's account of the Putin call Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews after returning from a campaign rally in Tennessee, Trump recounted his October 9 telephone conversation with Putin. "I think that Russia would like to make a deal, and we've had it back and forth. But Russia would like to make a deal," he said. "President Putin would like to see a settlement strongly." He added that the conflict could have been resolved many times but, in his words, Zelensky "does not want to make a deal." Trump also...