India

NEW DELHI (AP) — An Indian court on Thursday dismissed opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea to stay his conviction in a criminal defamation case that resulted in his expulsion from Parliament.

Gandhi, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his main challenger in 2024 polls, was ousted after a court last month sentenced him to two years in prison for defamation for mocking Modi’s surname in a 2019 election speech.

A court in Modi’s home state of Gujarat suspended the prison sentence earlier in April for the duration of the appeal process.

MUMBAI, April 19 (Reuters) - Indian buyers have opted to cancel 75,000 tonnes of palm oil purchases for the first time in many years and switch to rival soft oils, such as sunflower oil and soyoil, five industry officials told Reuters.

Palm oil usually trades at a discount to soft oils, but import restrictions by top producer Indonesia have helped to push palm oil to a premium, making sun oil and soyoil more attractive to buyers.

NEW DELHI, April 19 (Reuters) - India is on its way to becoming the world’s most populous nation, overtaking China with almost 3 million more people in the middle of this year, data released on Wednesday by the United Nations showed.

India’s population is estimated at 1,428.6 million, or 1.4286 billion, against 1.4257 billion for China in the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) "State of World Population Report" this year.

New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) A Delhi court on Tuesday sent gangster Lawrence Bishnoi to the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for a week for interrogation in a case related to alleged terror funding to pro-Khalistan outfits, a source said.

Special Judge Shailendra Malik passed the order in an 'in-chamber proceeding' on an application moved by the NIA, the court source said.

Hyderabad, Apr 18 (PTI) The Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed YSR Congress Party Lok Sabha member Y S Avinash Reddy to appear before the CBI everyday for examination in the case pertaining to the murder of former Andhra Pradesh Minister Y S Vivekananda Reddy, and granted him protection from arrest till April 25.

In an interim order on the anticipatory bail plea of Avinash Reddy, the court asked him to cooperate with the Central agency and appear before it daily till April 25.

New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) The very notion of a man and a woman is not “an absolute based on genitals”, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while discussing the ambit of gender and whether it expanded beyond the biological sex of a person.

New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an order of the Gauhati High Court which had set aside the discharge of independent Assam MLA Akhil Gogoi in connection with a case related to anti-CAA protests and suspected Maoist links.

Allowing an appeal filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the high court had remanded the matter back to the trial court to conduct a fresh hearing on the question of framing of charge against all the four accused persons including Gogoi.

New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) The Delhi government has approved a project to lay a 25.5-km-long sewer line in 11 unauthorised colonies of Sangam Vihar.

The project will provide relief to around 3 lakh people suffering from sewage problems.

According to Water Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, the colonies of Ambedkar Nagar and Deoli Assembly in Sangam Vihar will be connected with the sewer line so that treated water can flow into the Yamuna.

Sambalpur (Odisha), Apr 18 (PTI) With a high-level BJP delegation being prevented from entering violence-hit Sambalpur, senior party leader and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan Tuesday urged Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to maintain “raj dharma” and act in a neutral manner.

Pradhan’s statement came hours after the Odisha Police detained members of the delegation comprising, among others, Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti and Tribal Affairs Bisheswar Tudu, Sundergarh MP Jual Oram and BJP state president Manmohan Samal.

Delhi; 19 April 2023 (UMMN): A letter by former MP and MLA Atiq Ahmad (60) with instructions to send it to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and Uttar Pradesh chief minister in case of his death is being dispatched to them, Atiq’s lawyer Vijay Mishra said on Tuesday.