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The voters of Madhya Pradesh will decide the fate of the BJP and the Congress in the crucial assembly election today. The two parties are engaged in a fierce battle for power in the state, where many prominent leaders are in the fray. The BJP has fielded its chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Budhni, where he faces actor Vikram Mastal, who played ‘Hanuman’ in a TV serial, as the Congress candidate.

The Congress has its state chief Kamal Nath contesting from Chhindwara, his home turf, against the BJP’s Vivek Bunty Sahu, whom he had defeated in a by-election in 2019. Kamal Nath’s government had fallen in March 2020 after a revolt by Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the BJP.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that UP had become a revenue-surplus state from a BIMARU state (a category of backward states) in the last six years and had now created a new environment for industrialisation.

He was speaking while inaugurating the UP Pavilion at the 42nd Indian International Trade Fair-2023 organized at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.

Adityanath, according to a government statement, said in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of Vocal for Local, ODOP of UP is establishing the entire state as an export hub, opening doors to jobs and employment for lakhs of youths.

The race against time to evacuate 40 workers trapped for nearly 90 hours in an under-construction tunnel in Silkyara, Uttarkashi, intensified on Wednesday as the multi-agency rescue operation faced another setback when a landslide further delayed the operation, coupled with the failure of the auger drill machine on Tuesday evening.

NHIDCL engineers, dissatisfied with the sluggish performance of the auger drill, turned to the Indian Air Force for assistance. A 25-ton high-performance drilling machine, the 'American Augers', was swiftly airlifted from New Delhi by Indian Airforce's C1-30 Hercules transport aircraft to the Chinyalisaur airstrip, from where it was transported to the tunnel, on Wednesday afternoon. Explaining the challenges faced by the rescue team, Anshu Manish Khalkho, director (A&F) at NHIDCL, said, "The nature of the rocks here is quite fragile, posing a significant challenge to the operation." The newly arrived drilling machine, with a penetration rate of 5-6 metres per hour, is set to expedite the rescue efforts, expected to begin on Wednesday evening.

At least 39 people died and 17 others were injured after a passenger bus veered off a mountain road and rolled 300 feet down a hill onto another road in the Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

The private bus — with 56 people, including the driver, on board — left Kishtwar around 8.20am for the five-hour and 200km long journey to Jammu, but around 11.50am, the driver of the bus lost control in Doda district’s Assar area, said the police.

Two unidentified terrorists were neutralised by security forces in India's Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (Nov 15) as police foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC), said officials in a statement.

The alert troops detected a movement near the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri sector after which an exchange of fire took place between the two sides, officials said.

So far, two militants have been killed in the operation, which they said lasted till the last reports came in.