India News Today

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday challenged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to seek a special session of Parliament on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Speaking at a BJP Loktantra Bachao rally in Karnal, Haryana, Shah said the government was ready for debate if Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also asked Gandhi to account for his recent Vietnam visit, includ…

The Union Cabinet has overhauled the Agnipath scheme. Chief of Defence Staff General N S Raja Subramani said Agniveers who finish their four-year tenure will still see the top twenty-five percent retained on merit. The remaining seventy-five percent will now be offered a two-year second engagement, with a path to join the armed forces as regular soldiers if they meet objective selection criteria. …

Cyclone Murasu has made landfall on India's east coast. The India Meteorological Department says the severe cyclonic storm crossed near Ongole in Andhra Pradesh's Prakasam district early Tuesday, with winds of one hundred to one hundred and ten kilometres an hour, gusting to one hundred and twenty. By afternoon it had weakened into a cyclonic storm. Officials report hundreds of trees uprooted, ele…

A severe cyclone is bearing down on India's east coast tonight. The India Meteorological Department says Cyclone Murasu is expected to cross the south Andhra Pradesh coast between Nellore and Narsapur, close to Ongole, between eleven thirty Monday night and four on Tuesday morning, local time. Winds could reach one hundred and ten kilometres an hour, gusting to one hundred and twenty, with a storm…

India's opposition took its fight with the Election Commission to the streets of Delhi on Sunday. The INDIA bloc held a "Chalo Dilli" rally at Ramlila Maidan, a day after its symbolic public impeachment of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Akhilesh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee were among the leaders who addressed the crowd over alleged irregula…

India's opposition held what it called a public impeachment of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday. The symbolic event, postponed a day by rain, took place at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's home in New Delhi, with former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar presiding. Kharge moved a resolution listing six charges, including the deletion of thirteen point two crore voters during…

A helicopter crashed in Uttarakhand on Friday afternoon, killing all six people on board, including the pilot. The Trans Bharat Aviation helicopter was flying from Badrinath to Dehradun when it went down near Joshimath in Chamoli district amid rain and heavy cloud. Officials say it lost contact shortly after takeoff.

The Supreme Court says banks and financial institutions must compensate victims of digital fraud if an investigation finds lapses in due diligence. The court said lenders need safeguards to flag suspicious transactions before money leaves an account, and should alert nearby police stations about unusual activity. The bench also said it would examine the Reserve Bank of India's proposed new know-yo…

Cyclone Arnab has crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast and is now weakening. The India Meteorological Department says the very severe cyclonic storm made landfall near Narsapur in West Godavari district early Wednesday, with winds gusting to one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, before weakening into a severe cyclonic storm over land. The Hindu reports five people have been killed in the state. Ch…

Cyclone Arnab is closing in on India's east coast. The India Meteorological Department says the very severe cyclonic storm was about one hundred and forty kilometers from Kakinada on Tuesday afternoon, and is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast just south of Yanam by Wednesday forenoon, with winds gusting to one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour. A storm surge of one to two meters could …

Cyclone Arnab is bearing down on India's east coast. The India Meteorological Department says it will strengthen into a very severe cyclonic storm and cross the coast near Yanam or Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh around noon on Wednesday, October twenty-eighth, with winds gusting to one hundred and forty kilometers an hour. Andhra Pradesh has identified about five hundred and seventy thousand vulnerabl…

India's east coast is bracing for a powerful storm. The India Meteorological Department says a depression over the Bay of Bengal is likely to intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm and cross the Andhra Pradesh coast between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam on October twenty-eighth. Winds could reach one hundred and twenty-five kilometers an hour, gusting to one hundred and forty. Extremely heavy rai…

The fight over India's voter rolls widened on Friday. Punjab's Assembly unanimously passed a resolution seeking an independent inquiry into alleged electoral irregularities and the functioning of the Election Commission under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann blamed the B J P for what he called vote loot, and demanded that the special intensive revision of ele…

India's foreign ministry says tension on the border with China flares up from time to time when Chinese forces depart from established patrolling patterns. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal spoke on Friday, a day after the chief of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Shatrujeet Kapur, said face-offs with Chinese troops had taken place at several locations in Arunachal Pradesh in recent days, and were still…

An Indian national was killed and two others were injured in an attack on Dammam airport in Saudi Arabia, officials said on Thursday. It came a day after another Indian was hurt in a drone attack on the kingdom's Shaybah oilfield, amid a wave of strikes by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saudi infrastructure. The Indian Embassy has urged Indians in Saudi Arabia to stay alert, follow local instructions, a…

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jamnagar, Gujarat, on Wednesday, touring Reliance's refinery complex. Rubio said India is one of the few places in the world that can refine Venezuela's heavy crude, and called energy diversification a shared goal. In an interview with The Indian Express, he said a trade deal is weeks, not months, away, with ninety-nine percent of the work done. Presiden…

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says India and the United States are very, very close to a trade deal. Speaking in Mumbai after talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Rubio said the two sides are about as close as you can be without an executed agreement, with a small number of items left to wrap up. He also welcomed what he called substantial progress by India in diversifying its…

Police have arrested three men accused of firing at Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff's car in Mumbai. The shooting happened at about seven on Sunday evening, as Shroff was leaving a football club in Juhu. The actor escaped without gunshot wounds, but his driver was hit in the hand. Mumbai's Crime Branch tracked the suspects to a train headed for Jaipur, and Rajasthan police detained all three at Kota …

Kolkata police have arrested seven people, including the secretary and vice president of the organizing committee, after a stampede at a Durga Puja pandal killed nineteen people and injured twenty-five. The crush happened on Saturday evening at the Chorbagan pandal in north Kolkata, when rain drove crowds inside and an announcement allegedly warned that the structure could collapse. Most of the de…

Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani is in intensive care at Apollo Hospital in Delhi with a chest infection. The ninety-eight-year-old B.J.P. veteran was admitted on Friday evening. In a statement on Saturday, the hospital said his condition is stable and that he remains under close medical observation. Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda visited him on Saturday.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging an all-party meeting on the Centre's delimitation proposals, and warning against any attempt to push through a far-reaching Constitutional Amendment Bill without wider consultation. In his letter, Kharge flagged what he called an unprecedented sixty-four-day delay in proroguing Parliament after the Monsoon…

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices on a series of petitions challenging the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls, and on the mass detentions of protesters and journalists in Delhi last week. Delhi Police told the court the detentions were preventive and lasted two to six hours. Separately, the Delhi High Court refused to stop the Cockroach Janta Party from hold…

Opposition protests over India's voter roll revision continued in Delhi on Wednesday. Student groups marched toward Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, while the Cockroach Janta Party called for a Tiranga march at Connaught Place on October sixteenth. Delhi Police have registered FIRs over Monday's INDIA bloc protest march, citing lack of permissio…

Opposition leaders have taken their fight over India's voter rolls to the Supreme Court. Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and other INDIA bloc leaders filed a joint petition challenging the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. They are asking the court to make the Commission publish, booth by booth, the…