TOP NEWS

Getting into election mode, the Congress on Thursday said its candidates for the Lok Sabha polls will be decided "very soon" and asserted that it would take all necessary steps to make the INDIA bloc an effective bulwark against the BJP and its allies.

During a four-hour meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) here at the AICC headquarters, former party chief Rahul Gandhi was also requested to undertake Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0 from east to west and the proposal is being "considered with positive intent", a senior leader said.

After the suspension of 146 MPs from Parliament, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday that the INDIA alliance protest will happen everywhere on Friday in all the states.

"It's appropriate to protest and all of us will be at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The INDIA alliance protest will happen everywhere tomorrow (Friday) morning in all the states because we want to show the public that if they'd run Parliament like this and won't listen to the opposition then they are ruining the democracy," said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.  

Amid the brewing controversy over the mimicry incident, President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday expressed her dismay at the manner in which Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar was "humiliated" in the Parliament complex. She stressed that the elected representatives must be free to express themselves, but their expression should be within the “norms of dignity and courtesy.” The president's condemnation comes a day after Trinamool Congress leader Kalyan Banerjee mimicked Dhankhar, who is also the chairman of Rajya Sabha, during the opposition's protest on the stairs of Parliament against the suspension of some Members of Parliament (MPs).

Indian authorities are on alert amid the emergence of a new coronavirus subvariant JN.1, with the scientific community closely investigating the strain. A total of 21 Covid-19 cases of JN.1 sub-variant have been detected so far across the country, according to NITI Aayog member (health) Dr V K Paul, and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is working on genome sequencing.

Of the 21 cases, 19 have been detected in Goa and one each in Kerala and Maharashtra.

The Palestinian death toll in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has reached 20,000, according to a statement issued by the Hamas-run government media office. It also stated the victims included nearly 8,000 children and 6,200 women, while more than 52,000 people were injured and 6,700 others were missing. Israel says more than 130 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people in the country.