LIVE news updates: Security personnel use tear gas on lawyers of Howrah Court in West Bengal

Security personnel resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas on lawyers of Howrah Court and officials of Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) in West Bengal

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday stayed the recruitment process of teachers for two posts in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) under the economically weaker section (EWS) category following a plea alleging that the reservation was not meant for faculty.

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait sought response of the JNU on a plea by four aspirants challenging an advertisement issued by the varsity inviting applications for 97 positions of Assistant Professors, including 10 reserved under EWS quota.

Badminton Asian Championship: Indian stars Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and Sameer Verma registered victories in their first round matches to advance to the pre-quarterfinal. However, for Kidambi Srikanth saw an early exit.

A quake measuring 5.9 shook northeastern states in the early hours of Wednesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

There was no report of any loss of life or damage to property from anywhere due to the earthquake, authorities said.

The epicentre of the quake, which hit the region around 1:45 am, was about 40-km southeast of Along and 180-km southwest of Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, the IMD said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over phone and enquired about the impact and possible damages caused by the earthquake in the state and other parts of the region.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday ordered free re-verification of answer sheets of all the intermediate students who failed in the examinations.

The decision came amid a row over the goof-ups by the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TIBE) in declaring results, which allegedly led to suicide of 10 students since last week and triggered protests by parents and opposition parties.0

With two more students ending their lives and protests continuing on Wednesday, the Chief Minister reviewed the situation with senior officials.

Two more intermediate students in Telangana on Wednesday committed suicide, taking the number to 10 since the results were declared last week, even as protests continued over the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TBIE) goof-ups.

Depressed over failure in examinations, Chakali Raju hanged himself in his house in Chinna Shakarampet village of the Medak district. Another student Malothu Naveen of the Warangal Rural district ended his life by jumping before a train.

With these two suicides, the number of students who ended their lives increased to 10 since April 18 when the TBIE declared results for intermediate first and second year (11th and 12th standard) examinations

The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration Wednesday ordered a magisterial probe into the death of two construction workers at an upcoming housing society in Greater Noida reportedly due to the lack of safety gear.

Ajay Malik (32) and Kishore Kumar (23) died Tuesday after falling off a 13th floor-level scaffolding of the housing society by ATS group in Sector 150, while others, including an engineer at the site, were injured, police said.

District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh Wednesday ordered the formation of a four-member committee for an instant probe into the incident and cited a media report stating that the workers killed did not have adequate safety equipment.

The Madras High Court's Madurai Bench on Wednesday lifted the ban on video mobile application TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, subject to certain conditions.

Deciding the case filed by advocate Muthukumar, the bench vacated its interim order banning the app, subject to conditions that pornographic videos will not be uploaded on it, failing with the contempt of court proceedings would begin.

Early this month, the high court, on a petition filed by the advocate, issued an interim order to the Central government banning downloading of the app in India and restricted the media from telecasting videos taken using the app.

Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots Wednesday said the Supreme Court's "exemplary" direction to the state government to provide Rs 50 lakh compensation has reaffirmed her faith in judiciary and will give hope to other victims of rape and communal violence.

Bano however lamented that her family did not get any support from the state government during their 17-year-long fight for justice.

The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Gujarat government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and an accommodation to Bano. The top court also directed the state government to pay the compensation to Bano within two weeks.

Normal life was disrupted in Jammu after a thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds hit the city.

Strong winds uprooted trees and disrupted power supply in the city on late Tuesday night, officials said Wednesday.

Several autorickshaws and cars were damaged in storm-related incidents, they said.

In some areas, trees were uprooted leading to traffic congestion for several hours, the officials said.

Five persons, including three women, were killed and nine others injured, when a mini bus came under a boulder after a landslide hit a stretch of road in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district on Wednesday, officials said.

The mini bus was on its way to Gandoh from Thathri, when the boulder hit it at Piyakul belt late afternoon on Wednesday, they said.

Security forces on Wednesday presented a Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist before the media, saying he had been operating in Srinagar city for two years and was now trying to resurrect militancy in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district.

The joint press conference by the Army and the police was addressed by Lt Gen K.J.S. Dhillon, Corps Commander of the Army's Srinagar-headquartered 15 Corps, and Dilbag Singh, the Director General of Police (DGP).

A Pakistani national, Waqar Ahmed of Pakistani Punjab was arrested in Pattan area of Baramulla district a few days back.

A local court on Wednesday sentenced a man to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment (RI) for raping a girl in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha four years ago.

Additional district and sessions judge of Baripada, Dr V Sujata, passed the verdict after finding Bailochan Mohanta guilty of raping the girl.

Mohanta's two associates, Purusattam Mohanta and Bailochan Behera, were awarded three years' RI by the judge.

The three had forced the victim to accompany them to a forest on September 11, 2015 where Bailochan Mohanta raped her

Two people have been killed after a train ran over them in Rajasthan's Sikar district, officials said on Wednesday.

The deceased were identified as brick kiln workers Shankar Balai (22) and Deepak Regar (23), SHO Neem Ka Thana Rajendra Prasad said.

The Phulera-Rewari Passenger Train ran over them under Neem ka Thana area on Tuesday night, he said.

Afghan and foreign troops killed more civilians than insurgent groups in the war-ravaged Afghanistan in the first three months of 2019, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.

The quarterly report by the UN Assistance Mission (UNMA) in Afghanistan, however, noted that overall civilian casualties declined 23 per cent during the period compared with last year, attributing it to ongoing peace talks and a harsh winter.

According to the report, anti-government elements, including Taliban and the Islamic State militant group, were blamed for 54 per cent of the total civilian casualties up to March. These included 227 deaths and 736 injured, representing a 36 per cent decrease compared with the same period in 2018, Efe news reported.

Mortal remains of the seven Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) activists, who died in the Colombo blasts on Sunday, arrived here from Sri Lanka on Wednesday, an official said.

"The bodies were flown from Colombo in separate flights of SriLankan Airlines in coffins and taken to their homes to allow the public to pay homage before the last rites," state protocol Seputy Secretary Vijay Mahantesh said in a statement here.

The bodies were of K.G. Hanumantharayappa, K.M. Lakshminarayana, M. Rangappa, H. Shivakumar, A. Maregowda, H. Puttaraju and L.G. Ramesh.

A woman and her minor son suffered serious injuries in a gas cylinder explosion at Kandhla town of Shamli district on Wednesday, officials said.

The injured were identified as Sadiya, 30, and her five-year-old son Kunver, they said. SHO D K Tyagi said the cylinder exploded after a leakage in it.

The injured are being treated at a local hospital, he said.

A man who sedated and then stabbed to death his wife and their three children here after being jobless for three months has been arrested in Karnataka, police said on Wednesday.

Senior Superintendent of Police Upendra Agrawal said that Sumit Kumar was taken into custody from Udupi and had confessed that he committed the murders because he was under "great financial stress".

The gruesome killings took place on Sunday at Gyan Khand locality in Ghaziabad's Indirapuram where Kumar administered sleeping pills in liquid to his wife Anshu Bala (32), son Permesh (5) and twin children Akriti (4) and Aru (4).

Boeing reported lower first-quarter profits Wednesday as the global grounding of its 737 MAX plane following two crashes hit results.

The US aerospace giant reported USD 2.1 billion in profits, down 13.2 per cent from same period a year ago. Boeing also withdrew its full-year profit forecast due to uncertainty surrounding the 737 MAX.

At least three persons were killed and 11 injured when a mini-bus came under a huge boulder after a landslide hit a stretch of road in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir Wednesday, officials said.

The mini-bus was on its way to Gandoh from Thathri, when a big rock hit it at Piyakul belt in the afternoon, they said.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Gandoh Bhallesa, Nawaz Khanday confirmed the casualties.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to "go to war" with Canada if the latter fails to remove tonnes of garbage from the country that was shipped here by a Canada-based company in 2013 and has since remained in a landfill in the city of Tarlac.

"We'll declare war against them. Load the containers onto a ship, and I will advise Canada that your garbage is on the way. Prepare a grand reception. Eat it if you want to," Duterte was quoted as saying by the official Philippines News Agency (PNA).

"I'll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that thing out or I will set sail," he said.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it would examine the allegation that former sacked employees of the apex court have ganged up to target the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi by framing him in a false case of sexual harassment.

Lawyer Utsav Singh Bains has also alleged that there has been fixing of judgments, as well as of benches.

Directing further hearing of the matter at 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, the bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Deepak Gupta asked Bains to file an affidavit containing further information backing his allegations by Thursday morning.

A Delhi court on Wednesday adjourned Delhi Police's plea seeking cancellation of bail to a former Supreme Court staffer who has accused Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment.

The former staffer was arrested last month based on an FIR filed by a Naveen Kumar on March 3, accusing her of bribery and cheating. She has been out on bail since March 12. The investigation in the case was being probed by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police.

A couple and one of their children died and another child was injured Wednesday when their motorcycle was hit by a truck from behind in Shajapur district, police said.

The victims were on their way from Ujjain to Shajapur to attend a wedding when the accident took place on AB road, said C L Katare, Lal Ghati police station in-charge.

Om Prakash Sharma (35), his wife Babita (30) and son Akshat (12) died, while the couple's daughter Akshita (7) was injured. She was admitted to the district hospital here.

The family belonged to Ujjain.

Indian Army carries out operations against Jaish terrorist , killing over 69 terrorists and 12 have been apprehended this year. Post Pulwama 41 terrorists have been killed and out of them 25 belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, 13 of them were Pakistanis.

A senior Sri Lankan Muslim leader on Wednesday dismissed as "nonsense" the government's view that the deadly attacks on Easter Sunday on churches and luxury hotels may have been a retaliation for last month's massacre of Muslims in two mosques in New Zealand.

Addressing an emergency session of Parliament on Tuesday to discuss the country's worst terror attacks, state minister of defence Ruwan Wijewardene said the early findings of the ongoing probe found that the suicide bombings were in revenge for the March 15 killings at two mosques in Christchurch which left 50 people dead.

But Hilmy Ahamed, the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka's vice president, did not buy the government's version.

Workers renovating Notre-Dame flouted a ban on smoking at the monument, a contractor admitted on Wednesday, while denying any link with last week's devastating blaze that ripped through the cathedral.

"There were colleagues who from time to time broke the rules and we regret it," a spokesman for scaffolding company Le Bras Freres told AFP, before adding: "in no way could a cigarette butt be the cause of the fire at Notre-Dame".

Spokesman Marc Eskenazi said some workers "had admitted in front of the police that they did smoke from time to time," confirming a report in the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine.

Snapping its three-session losing streak, benchmark BSE Sensex rallied 490 points Wednesday as investors piled into index heavyweights Reliance Industries, HDFC duo, Infosys, ITC and ICICI Bank.

After starting on a positive note, the BSE bourse soared to a high of 39,095.35 at the fag-end of the session. It finally settled 489.80 points, or 1.27 per cent, higher at 39,054.68.

The broader NSE Nifty too climbed 150.20 points, or 1.30 per cent, to close at 11,726.15. It hit an intra-day high of 11,740.85.

The US has said that it did not provide Sri Lanka with advance intelligence prior to the Easter Sunday militant attacks that killed over 350 people.

This comes amidst what the Sri Lankan government minister Harsha de Silva said Monday that advance intelligence had been provided by "both India and the United States." "We had no prior knowledge of these attacks," US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz was quoted as saying by the CNN.

North Korea has removed Kim Yong Chol, leader Kim Jong Un’s right-hand man and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s counterpart, reported Reuters

The mortal remains of nine out of 10 Indians killed in the massive Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka have been sent to India, officials announced on Wednesday.

According to the authorities, 10 Indians have lost their lives in Sri Lanka's worst terror attack that killed at least 359 people.

Fugitive Diamantaire Mehul Choksi approaches Bombay High Court against non-consideration of plea regarding his inability to return due to persisting health problems and denial of right to cross examination

The National Film Awards will be declared after the Lok Sabha elections when the poll code seizes to be in force to ensure that the power of the media is not used in a manner which affects the level playing field during the election process, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry said on Wednesday.

The selections for the National Film Awards are made by an independent and impartial jury consisting of eminent film makers and film personalities and declared in the month of April every year, the ministry said.

A Delhi court on Wednesday sent JKLF chief Yasin Malik, arrested in a case related to funding of separatists and terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir, to judicial custody till May 24.

Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Syal also sought reply from the defence counsel on a plea of Tihar jail authorities seeking to produce Malik through video conference due to security concerns.

A Delhi court on Wednesday sent JKLF chief Yasin Malik, arrested in a case related to funding of separatists and terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir, to judicial custody till May 24.

Morocco shared sensitive intelligence with Sri Lanka that helped Colombo identify the nine bombers and their handlers in the Islamic State, informed sources have indicated. The information was also shared with India as New Delhi and Morocco have a strong counter-terror cooperation.

At least 10 militants, who had crossed over to Pakistan, set up businesses across the border with the active aid of ISI and were involved in the recently suspended cross LoC trade to provide funds to terrorists and separatists in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

These Jammu and Kashmir natives are either based in Islamabad and Rawalpindi in Pakistan or Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and operate businesses ranging from almonds, dry dates, dry fruits to mangoes as part of the modus operandi to send money to fuel unrest in Jammu and Kashmir on behalf of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, they said.

Sri Lanka minister and former army chief say Easter Sunday attacks must have been planned for at least 7-8 years

Sri Lanka’s deputy defense minister says death toll from Easter Sunday bombings reaches 359, including 39 foreigners; one of nine bombers was a woman

Sri Lanka police say investigations confirm there were nine suicide bombers, of which eight have been identified, reported Reuters

Delhi Police crime branch arrests Apoorva Shukla, wife of Rohit Shekhar Tiwari on the charges of murder of her husband.

Afghan civilians are for the first time being killed in greater numbers by US and pro-government forces than by the Taliban and other insurgent groups, a UN report released Wednesday revealed.

The bloody milestone comes as the US steps up its air campaign in Afghanistan while pushing for a peace deal with the Taliban, who now control or influence more parts of the country than at any time since they were ousted in 2001.

The rupee on Wednesday declined 23 paise to 69.85 against the US dollar in early trade due to higher demand for the greenback from importers amid foreign fund outflows.

A strengthening US dollar against major global currencies also affected rupee's trading pattern, forex dealers said.

However, lower crude prices and a higher opening of the domestic equity markets restricted fall of the domestic currency to some extent, they added.

The death toll in Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday bomb attacks has risen to 359, police said Wednesday.

Extensive search operations were carried out and several people arrested in connection with the attacks on Tuesday, Police spokesman Ruwan Guansekera said.

"The number of death now is 359," Guansekera said.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday, April 24 that her government was not aware of any intelligence suggesting that a devastating attack on Easter Sunday in Colombo, Sri Lanka was in retaliation for deadly shootings on a mosques in Christchurch.

“We haven’t received anything officially nor have we received any intelligence reports that corroborate what has been said in Sri Lanka,” Ardern told reporters at a press conference in Auckland.

A 61-year-old Indian has been jailed in the US for five years for smuggling foreigners, including a majority of Indians, into America, the Department of Justice has said.

Yadvinder Singh Sandhu pleaded guilty early this year, saying he personally assisted around 400 aliens to unlawfully enter the US between 2013 and 2015, according to the Department of Justice statement.

The human smuggling carried out by him resulted in at least one death and endangered the lives of many, it said.

A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh early on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said.

The epicenter of the shallow quake was about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Along, and 180 kilometres southwest of the state capital Itanagar. It struck at 1.45 am (2015 GMT Tuesday).

Arunachal Pradesh is India's least densely populated state, but is still home to more than 1.2 million people, according to the state government's website.