Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal failed to get any relief from the Supreme Court, with a two-judge bench rising without pronouncing an order on granting him interim bail to enable him to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which reserved its order on grant of interim bail earlier during the day and said it will be pronounced at 2 p.m., rose without delivering its verdict.
Supreme Court stayed the Calcutta High Court order invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff made by the state's School Service Commission (SSC) in state-run and state-aided schools. The top court, however, asked the CBI not to take any precipitate action like arresting a suspect during the investigation.
Two terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district, officials said. The house in which the terrorists were hiding caught fire during the exchange of fire between the two sides, they said.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced that the Agniveer scheme would be abolished if the INDIA bloc is voted to power, alleging that it was initiated by PM Narendra Modi and not by the Army. "INDIA bloc will scrap the Agniveer scheme, a scheme brought by Modi and not by the Army. We do not want to differentiate between martyrs. Anyone sacrificing for the nation should be attributed martyr status, should be given pension," he said at an election rally in Jharkhand's Gumla.
JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy has claimed that 25,000 pen drives with videos of women being sexually abused allegedly by his nephew, Lok Sabha election candidate Prajwal Revanna, were distributed before polls, and accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar of a conspiracy. It is not a Special Investigation Team but "Siddaramaiah Investigation Team" and "Shivakumar Investigation Team", the JD(S) second-in-command, who is the son of party supremo and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, said.
Twelve people, including five in Purba Bardhaman district, died due to thunderstorms, lightning strikes and wall collapse during heavy rain that lashed various districts of West Bengal on Monday night, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said. "Profoundly sad to know that 9 persons died due to thunderstorms and lightning last night (5 in Purba Burdwan, 2 each in Paschim Medinipur and Purulia), while 2 more persons died due to wall collapse in Nadia and 1 more due to tree collapse in South 24 Parganas," Banerjee wrote on her X handle.
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File ImageEnforcement Directorate arrested Jharkhand minister Alamgir Alam's personal secretary Sanjiv Lal and the latter's domestic help following a recovery of over Rs 32 crore cash from them, official sources said. Jharkhand Minister Alamgir Alam's secretary collected commission on tenders on behalf of "some influential people", the Enforcement Directorate told a court, also claiming that officials of his rural development department, from "top to bottom", were involved in an alleged illegal cash payment nexus.
Mumbai crime branch has arrested a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang from Rajasthan for allegedly providing financial help to the shooters involved in firing outside Bollywood superstar Salman Khan's house, officials said. He is the fifth person to be arrested in the firing case.
Former Congress leader Radhika Khera and actor Shekhar Suman joined the BJP amid the ongoing Lok Sabha election. In her resignation letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Khera also said she was facing opposition in the party for her visit to the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was called off for at least 24 hours over a technical glitch with the Atlas V rocket that was being readied to launch the new astronaut capsule to orbit on Monday night. It comes two years after the gumdrop-shaped capsule completed its first test flight to the orbital laboratory without humans aboard.