India

Hyderabad, Jan 13 (PTI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Sunday called for return to the Indian traditions of healthy eating and living by giving up "west-oriented lifestyles".

He was speaking during the second anniversary function of the Swarna Bharat Trust's (SBT) branch here.

It was time Indians made changes to their lifestyle and returned to the traditional methods of healthy living, he said.

"We need to follow the customs and practises of our forefathers and abandon west-oriented lifestyles," he said.

New Delhi, Jan 13 (PTI) The government has re-promulgated the ordinance banning the practice of instant triple talaq.

Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2019, issued on Saturday, divorcing through instant triple talaq will be illegal, void and would attract a jail term of three years for the husband.

A Bill to convert the earlier ordinance, issued in September, 2018, was cleared by Lok Sabha in December and was pending in Rajya Sabha.

Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), Jan 13 (PTI) A girl has been raped by a person in a Hazaribagh forest, police said Sunday.

Seeing a girl alone in Hazaribagh on Friday, the person forcibly huddled her into his SUV, took her to a forest in Tati-Jharia area on Hazaribagh-Bagodar road (NH-100) and raped her, they said.

The girl, who came to Hazaribagh from Raj Dhanwar in neighbouring Giridih district to purchase medicine, was waiting for a bus to return home when the incident happened, police said.

Lucknow, Jan 13 (PTI) A day after it was virtually left out being part of an anti-BJP alliance formed by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, the Congress on Sunday declared it will contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats from the state on its own.

However, the grand old party of India has kept the doors of a possible alliance open saying if any secular party which is competent to fight the BJP and willing to go with it (Congress), then it will be accommodated.

New Delhi, Jan 13 (PTI) Amid a row over the removal of CBI director Alok Verma, Congress Sunday sought "immediate removal" of the chief vigilance commissioner, alleging that he had acted like a "puppet" in the hands of the government.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi at a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, said, the "CVC (central vigilance commissioner) should be sacked or tender his resignation", but the "CVC must go".

There was no immediate reaction from the Central Vigilance Commission or the government.

Dumka (Jharkhand), Jan 13 (PTI) A wanted naxalite, carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh, was killed by security forces in an encounter in Jharkhand's Dumka district on Sunday, police said.

Shahdeo Rai alias Talada was killed in an encounter in the jungles of Shikaripara in Dumka. He was the prime accused in the killing of the then Superintendent of Police, Pakur district, Amarjeet Balihar, in July 2013, Superintendent of Police, Y S Ramesh said.

Kochi, Jan 13 (PTI) India got its largest startup ecosystem Sunday when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated here a 1.8-lakh-square-feet facility housing incubation set-ups across a string of segments in modern technology.

Sonipat, Jan 13 (PTI) It is a "sin" to seek votes in the name of cows, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday even as he accused the BJP-led Haryana government of not allocating sufficient funds for cattle fodder.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief visited a cow shelter in Sonipat's village Saidpur.

"It is wrong to seek votes and play politics in the name of cows which is currently happening in the country," Kejriwal said, addressing a gathering in the village.

"I feel, maybe I am wrong, that it is a sin to seek votes in the name of cows," he said.

Hyderabad, Jan 13 (PTI) Three persons have been arrested for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl on multiple occasions over the last four years, the city police said Sunday.

A demonstration was held in the Kamatipura area here Sunday after the girl alleged that apart from the three arrested men, she was sexually exploited by eight others including a `panch' witness.

The police arrested three persons including a relative of the girl on December 31 after she filed a complaint against them.

Guwahati, Jan 13 (PTI) Protests continued unabated against the Citizenship Bill across the state on Sunday and over hundred agitators were picked up when they blocked the road to Kaziranga University, where Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal went for its convocation.

While Sonowal was in the 5th Convocation ceremony of the university at Jorhat, over 100 protesters from Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP) shouted slogans and showed black flags in front of the main gate.