LIVE news updates: CRPF not to celebrate Holi as a mark of respect to its 40 jawans Killed in Pulwama attack

In more trouble for the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala, an Ayyappa devotees body on Tuesday said it will throw its weight behind the party which agrees to its demands, including protecting the age-old rituals of the Sabarimala temple.

Addressing a press conference here, Sabarimala Ayyappa Seva Samajam (SASS) General Secretary Erode Rajan said that they have been meeting various parties in the national capital with their 18-point charter of demands and whoever agrees to it will get its full support.

The CRPF will not officially celebrate Holi this year as a mark of respect to its 40 jawans killed last month in a suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir, where the force eliminated 210 terrorists in 2018, the force's chief said Tuesday.

During an event to the mark 80th raising day of the force at its group centre here, CRPF Director General (DG) R R Bhatnagar also said the influence of left-wing extremists or Naxals has reduced by 40 per cent and only a few areas in the country are now affected.

Paying tributes to the slain personnel, the DG said the force is creating a 'mobile app' in order to provide help to the families of jawans killed in action.

Non-gazetted employees of the Jammu and Kashmir Information Department went on a strike on Tuesday, demanding revocation of the suspension order of an assistant information officer in Kupwara district.

Bashir Ahmad, posted in north Kashmir's Kupwara, was Tuesday suspended by the district's Deputy Commissioner, officials said.

The employees are demanding revocation of Ahmad's suspension order, they said.

The Australian teenager, who threw egg at a far-right senator over his offensive comments about the Christchurch mosque attacks, has said he would donate most of the money raised for him towards the terror attacks' victims.

Seventeen-year-old Will Connolly aka "Egg Boy" had threw egg on Fraser Anning on Saturday after the politician triggered outrage by claiming the attacks at two mosques in which 50 people were killed were caused by Muslim immigration to the country.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 13 properties in Jammu and Kashmir belonging to seven Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in the ongoing terror financing case against the outfit's chief Syed Salahuddin, the agency said on Tuesday.

The ED attached the properties, worth Rs 1.22 crore, owned by Mohammad Shafi Shah and six others, under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenges PM Narendra Modi saying that “Puja does not only mean sporting a tilak, Amit babu and Modi babu come have a competition of mantras with me. Let's see who knows more Sanskrit mantras”

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Satyabrata Sinha passed away on Tuesday following age related ailments, family sources said.

Justice Sinha, 75, was appointed as a judge of the apex court on October 3, 2002 and he retired on August 8, 2009.

An under construction building collapses in Kumareshwar Nagar, Dharwad, Karnataka. According to police, 2 persons killed, 6 people are injured, 40 are feared to be trapped

As many as 148 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse relating to personnel in peacekeeping and special political missions of the United Nations and 111 relating to non-UN related entities were reported in 2018 against 138 in 2017 and 165 in 2016.

The UN Secretary-General's report on "Special Measures for the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse: Implementing a Zero-Tolerance Policy" was issued in New York on Monday.

It includes data on allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse relating to personnel in peacekeeping and special political missions, other UN entities, implementing partners and non-UN international forces.

The Madras High Court Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu government and the CBI to file their replies on a petition seeking a court-monitored probe into the Pollachi sexual harassment case.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani and Justice M Duraiswamy gave the direction when the petition by an advocate came up for hearing.

It then posted the petition to April 10 for further hearing.

Petitioner P Pugalenthi referred to the Tamil Nadu government order transferring the case to the CBI based on a recommendation by the state DGP.

A gang of four men had on February 12 allegedly tried to strip a 19-year-old woman inside a car near Pollachi in Coimbatore district, shot a video of the act and blackmailed her using the visuals.

Metro services will not be available till 2.30 pm on Thursday due to Holi, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said on Tuesday.

In addition, Metro feeder bus services will also not be available till 2pm and will run as per schedule thereafter, it said.

On the day of the 'Holi' festival (March 21), Metro services will start from 2.30 pm on all lines of Delhi Metro including Airport Express Line, the DMRC statement said.

Four staff members were injured on Tuesday when a student attacked them with a knife in a school in the Norwegian capital Oslo, police said.

The student was arrested but the motive was not immediately clear, The Independent daily reported.

The victims suffered bite marks and had been stabbed, Arve Røtterud, a police officer at the school, told a local newspaper.

Dutch prosecutors and police said they were "seriously" investigating a terrorist motive for the Utrecht tram attack because of evidence including a letter found in the main suspect's getaway car.

"So far, a terrorist motive is seriously being taken into account. This is based on a letter found in the getaway car among other things and the nature of the facts," they said in a joint statement.

Congress General Secretary for UP East Priyanka Gandhi offers prayers at Vindhyavasini Devi temple in Mirzapur. Earlier today she also visited Sita Samahit Sthal in Bhadohi and Dargah of Khwaja Janab Ismail Chisti.

The stock market continued its winning run for a seventh consecutive session Tuesday with the BSE Sensex rising 268 points to close at over six-month high led by gains in index heavyweights like ITC, RIL and Infosys amid continuous foreign fund inflow.

The 30-share index started off on a strong footing at 38,218.59 points and touched a high of 38,396.06 before winding up at 38,363.47, recording a significant rise of 268.40, or 0.70%. Intra-day it also hit a low of 38,078.23.

The gauge had climbed over 1,420 points points in the previous six sessions.

The Supreme Court has sought to know from the relatives of miners, who were trapped in an illegal mine in Meghalaya three months ago, whether they wanted to recover the bodies which might have been "decomposed" by now.

15 miners were trapped on December 13 last year in an illegal coal mine at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, about 3.7 km deep inside a forest, when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it.

The Delhi High Court has stayed a Central Information Commission (CIC) order which held that electronic voting machines (EVMs) come within the definition of 'information' under the provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The court was hearing a plea on Monday filed by the Election Commission challenging a CIC order dated February 12 which held that EVMs are within the definition of "information" under Section 2 (f) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005.

Justice V. Kameswar Rao has sought a response from the CIC and RTI applicant Razaak K Haidar, who had sought access to information related to EVMs maintained by the poll panel.

The bodies of six of the Christchurch massacre victims have been released to their families, New Zealand police said on Tuesday, but they warned only a fraction of the 50 people killed had been fully identified, with the delay angering anguished relatives.

Muslims whose loved ones were gunned down by an Australian white supremacist at two mosques last Friday have had their grief compounded by the failure of the authorities to return bodies to families in time for a speedy burial, as required under Islamic custom.

Police in Christchurch said only 12 of the 50 victims had been identified, and appeared to warn next of kin to brace for further delays.

National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Tuesday demanded a time-bound investigation into the custodial death of a school teacher in Jammu and Kashmir and exemplary punishment to those responsible for the death.

"I had hoped custodial deaths were a thing of our dark past. This is an unacceptable development & must be investigated in a transparent, time bound manner. Exemplary punishment must be handed out to the killers of this young man," Abdullah tweeted.

Former Speaker of Goa legislative assembly and BJP MLA Pramod Sawant was sworn in as the 11th Chief Minister of Goa on Tuesday

Pakistan's Supreme Court was on Tuesday set to hear an appeal by country's jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif seeking bail on medical grounds.

Sharif, 69, is serving a seven-year imprisonment in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption case at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore since December 2018.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo has suffered four angina attacks last week, according to his daughter Maryam Nawaz .

The Sharif family is complaining that the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan is not providing health facilities to the former premier who has serious health complications.

Sharif filed an appeal on March 6 against a judgment by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) which on February 25 rejected his bail application on medical grounds in the Al-Azizia steel mills case.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday vowed that she will never mention the name of the lone gunman who carried out the March 15 Christchurch mosques massacre, in order to deprive him of the notoriety he was looking for.

"I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. You will never hear me mention his name. He is a terrorist, he is a criminal, he is an extremist, but he will, when I speak, be nameless," Efe news quoted Ardern as saying at Parliament in Wellington

Heavy firing exchanges took place between Indian and Pakistani troopers on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, a defence official said on Tuesday.

"The Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation in Rajouri's Sunderbani sector and Jammu's Akhnoor sector on Monday night," Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand told the media.

Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May's crisis over the Brexit in the UK Parliament has worsened as House of Commons Speaker John Bercow disallowed any attempt to hold a third vote on her withdrawal agreement with the EU which has already been voted down by MPs twice.

Bercow ruled that he would not allow another vote on the government motion if it remained "substantially the same" after it was defeated by a huge 230-vote margin in January and a smaller 149-vote margin last week.

Ten months after being kidnapped in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, one of the seven Indians has returned to India, the External Affairs Ministry said on Monday. It said India continued to work closely with the Afghan government for safe and early return of the remaining six Indian nationals.

The seven Indian engineers were kidnapped by Taliban militants in the restive northern Baghlan province on May 6 last year. India has been requesting the Afghan government to secure release of the Indians.

"One of the seven Indian nationals, who was kidnapped in Baghlan province of Afghanistan in May 2018, has safely returned to India," the MEA said. "We are grateful to the Government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national," it said.