Kochi, Mar 6 (PTI) Kerala BJP general secretary K Surendran Wednesday moved the high court seeking to withdraw his election petition challenging the victory of UDF nominee P B Abdul Razak from Majeshwaram constituency in the 2016 assembly polls by 86 votes.

If the court allows the plea, it will pave the way for a bypoll to the constituency as Razak died in October last year.

Mumbai, Mar 6 (PTI) Former Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) D D Padsalgikar has been appointed the new UpaLokayukta of the state.

Governor Vidyasagar Rao has approved the proposal of government to appoint the retired IPS officer as Upa Lokayukta (or deputy Lokayukta), a Raj Bhavan statement said Wednesday night.

Last week, Padsalgikar retired from the post of DGP.

LONDON, March 6 (Xinhua) -- The UK won't be ready to go cashless within the next 15 years as a sizable cash-dependent population risks being left behind, a report said on Wednesday.

Currently, cash is used to make three in ten transactions, down from six in ten a decade ago. But it could fall as low as one in ten in the coming 15 years, the latest report by the Access to Cash Review predicted.

Varanasi (UP), Mar 6 (PTI) A 21-year-old woman, who went missing nine years ago, was rescued from Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi district on Wednesday, police said.

A raid was conducted at a house in a red-light area of Maruadih town and the woman was rescued. Two men and half-a-dozen women have been detained, the police said.

The Varanasi crime branch and the local police jointly conducted the raid and freed the woman, who had gone missing at the age of 12 from her house in Chandauli district, a police officer said.

07 Mar 2019; AFP: Arizona Senator Martha McSally, the first woman to fly in combat for the US Air Force, said Wednesday that she had been raped by a superior officer while in the service.

McSally, 52, who spent 26 years in the Air Force and commanded a fighter squadron, revealed the attack in emotional remarks during a Senate subcommittee hearing on sexual assault in the military.

Thane, Mar 6 (PTI) A court in Thane district Wednesday awarded death sentence to a man for raping and murdering an 18-year-old woman in 2013.

Additional Sessions Judge at Kalyan, N M Waghmare, held Ashok Mukane, 37, guilty under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 302 (murder), and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him.

The prosecution told the court that Mukane, who hailed from Shahapur in Thane district, had committed the crime on September 5, 2013.

Jerusalem, Mar 5 (AFP) An Israeli spacecraft on its maiden mission to the moon has sent its first selfie back to Earth, mission chiefs said on Tuesday.

The image showing part of the Beresheet spacecraft with Earth in the background was beamed to mission control in Yehud, Israel -- 37,600 kilometres (23,360 miles) away, the project's lead partners said in a statement.

KANPUR: In the meeting of the National Green Tribunal monitoring Committee held at Circuit House here, the department officials concerned failed to answer properly the pertinent questions put up by the panel’s chairman Justice (Retd) Arun Tandon. Directing the officers of the Jal Nigam and Nagar Nigam, he asked them to first study five-hundred-page NGT orders within five days. It remained his strict instruction. He was quite at unease at complete ignorance of the tribunal directives in regard to Ganga cleaning issued on July 13, 2017.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has beefed up its legal team. Its political team is ready to distract and disparage. And President Donald Trump is venting against Democratic prying.

Trump’s plan for responding to the multiplying congressional probes into his campaign, White House and personal affairs is coming into focus as newly empowered Democrats intensify their efforts. Deploying a mix of legal legwork and political posturing, the administration is trying to minimize its exposure while casting the president as the victim of overzealous partisans.

BRUSSELS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will hold its first meeting in Vienna on Wednesday since the establishment of the European Union's (EU) so-called special purpose vehicle designed to facilitate trade with Iran, the EU said on Tuesday.

CARACAS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday called for mass demonstrations on Saturday to protest U.S. imperialism.

Maduro said he chose the date because on March 9, 2015, then U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order that labeled Venezuela as "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States and declared a "state of emergency."

"I have decreed it as the day of Venezuelan anti-imperialism and we are going into the streets," Maduro said, calling on supporters to take part in the demonstrations.

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China announced Tuesday that the country's new solid rocket booster, with 200-tonne thrust engine, completed hot firing tests, proving its readiness for commercial launches.

With a diameter of 2.65 meters, the booster engine is expected to be used on the modified version of the Long March-11 rocket.

The rocket is the only series in the Long March family that uses solid propellants, and it can be launched within 24 hours.