India

Sambhal (UP), Nov 2 (PTI) Om Prakash Rajbhar, a BJP ally and member of the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, Friday termed the Ram temple debate an "election drama" played every time the polls are near.

Amid a push from Hindutva groups for legislation which allows the building of a Ram temple on the disputed Ram Janmabhoombi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, Rajbhar's remarks seemed to challenge Adityanath.

"Whenever elections are near, the issue of the Ram temple crops up, said the Syheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief.

Bhubaneswar, Nov 2 (PTI) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday accused the BJP of not keeping its promises made to the people in Odisha on according special category status to the state.

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in response said such provision no more existed after 14th Finance Commission.

"According special category status for Odisha was the first agenda in BJP's 2014 poll manifesto. However, the party simply forgot it after assuming power," Patnaik said while addressing a function here on the occasion of ruling BJD's 'Jan Sampark Padayatra'.

Lucknow, Nov 2 (PTI) District judge N K Jauhri on Friday rejected the bail plea of Nishant Agrawal, a senior system engineer of BrahMos Aerospace in Nagpur, arrested for allegedly providing technical information to Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

Turning down his plea, the court said that it is a serious matter relating to the safety and security of the country and since investigation in the case is still going on, he is not entitled to bail as of now.

Srinagar, Nov 3 (PTI) A mentally disabled man was allegedly shot dead by an Army sentry in the early hours of Saturday when he ignored his warnings and walked towards an Army camp in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

A security guard at the Army camp shot at Rayees Ahmad Wani at 3 am, they said.

Police said they have taken cognisance of the killing and a probe into the matter is underway.

Army and defence officials said they were ascertaining the circumstances which led to Wani's death.

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday formally launched the volunteers mobile medical service by flagging off a mobile medical van at his residence.

The mobile medical van will be a key component of this initiative and will be integrated with medical camps that will target communities within 10-15 km radius of Alshifa Multispeciality Hospital, Okhla.

Berhampur (Odisha), Nov 3 (PTI) Odisha Police on Saturday recovered a banner allegedly written by Maoists, threatening to kill two MLAs and several police informers in two districts of the state.

The handwritten banner did not mention names of the two MLAs but said they are from Ganjam and Kandhamal districts, police said.

The unnamed police informers on the hit list also belong to these two districts.

Mumbai, Nov 3 (PTI) Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh chief Prakash Ambedkar on Saturday demanded a referendum on the issue of construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Talking to reporters here, Ambedkar said issuance of ordinance and acquisition of disputed land for the temple construction were not feasible options.

"Conduct a referendum on construction of Ram temple," he said.

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) The Congress Saturday released its first list of candidates, 155 in total, for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, and the nominees included Ajay Singh, the leader of opposition in the state, and former Union minister Suresh Pachouri.

The party has also fielded former chief minister Digvijay Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh and brother Lashman Singh from Raghogarh and Chachoura seats respectively.

Ajay Singh, son of former chief minister late Arjun Singh, will fight from Chruhat.

Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), Nov 3(PTI) A 16-year-old schoolboy was lynched in in Hazaribagh district allegedly by family members a girl of her class with whom he reportedly had an affair, the police said Saturday.

Family members of the girl, a student of class 10, did not like the affair and allegedly abducted the boy on Friday.

They confined the teenager at a house in Kashiket village under Chouparan police station area and beat him up with lathis, police said.

Srinagar/Shimla/Dehradun, Nov 3 (PTI) Heavy rain and snowfall lashed Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttarakhand on Saturday due to Western Disturbance, bringing down the mercury in the hill states.

Surface and air links between the Kashmir Valley and rest of the country were snapped while Srinagar witnessed snowfall in November for the first time since 2009.