Muzaffarnagar, Jan 31 (PTI) A case has been registered against 24 people for allegedly evicting students and teachers of a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh to keep stray cows, officials said Thursday.

It has been alleged that villagers in Kudana brought the cows inside the school on Wednesday and closed it, Shamli District Magistrate Akhilesh Kumar said.

In December, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had directed officials to make immediate arrangements for proper care of stray cows within a week.

BJP contestant Krishan Middha has won Jind bypoll by 12,935 votes in the high-stakes election in Haryana.

His total vote tally was 49,229. Trailing BJP was JJP’s Digvijai Chautala with 37,681 votes.

Congress Randeep Singh Surjevala got 21692 votes, and Loktantra Suraksha Party settled with 13,582 votes.

Ranchi, Jan 29; PTI: At least five ultras of the banned Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI) were killed and two others injured in an encounter with security forces Tuesday in neighbouring Khunti district, a senior police officer said.

The PLFI is a splinter group of the CPI (Maoist).

"According to primary information, five ultras of the PLFI outfit were killed and two others injured. The injured have been shifted to a hospital," Inspector General of Police (Operation) Ashish Batra said here.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Democrats’ gains in state legislatures didn’t end with last November’s elections.

Over the past two months, as lawmakers were sworn in and this year’s statehouse sessions got underway, Republicans in California, Kansas and New Jersey switched their party affiliations to become Democrats.

They cited various reasons, but the party-switchers have one thing in common: They say the GOP under President Donald Trump has become too extreme.

30 Jan 2019; AFP: Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba said Wednesday that net profit increased 37 percent in the latest quarter as growth in cloud computing and other business lines helped offset a slowing expansion in core online retail.

The company's net profit grew to 33.0 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) in the October-December third quarter, compared to 24.1 billion yuan over the same period in 2017.

Jaipur, Jan 31 (PTI) The Congress candidate for the Ramgarh assembly election in Rajasthan is leading with a margin of over 5,000 votes, officials said Thursday.

In five out of the total 20 rounds of counting for the polls, Congress's Zubair secured 24,107 votes while BJP's Sukhwant Singh has got 18,616 votes, they said.

BSP's Jagat singh is trailing at third position.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. land managers will move forward in March with the sale of oil and gas leases that include land near Chaco Culture National Historical Park and other sites sacred to Native American tribes.

The sale comes as Democratic members of Congress, tribal leaders and environmentalists have criticized the federal Bureau of Land Management for pushing ahead with drilling permit reviews and preparations for energy leases despite the recent government shutdown.

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Opposition parties are likely to meet on Friday to discuss their future course of action on the EVM tampering issue.

Sources said the Congress has asked opposition leaders to meet on Friday to discuss a joint strategy on the issue of EVMs, as some parties have questioned the efficacy of EVMs and demanded that the Election Commission revert to the old system of ballot paper.

SANAA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Visiting UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the handover of seven captured Yemeni Houthi rebels by Saudi-led coalition (SLC) to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"The SE (special envoy) welcomes the SLC's decision to release 7 Ansar Allah (Houthi group) prisoners. The ICRC transferred the prisoners from Riyadh to Sanaa today (Wednesday)," Griffiths said in Twitter, just a day after the rebels released a sick Saudi soldier.

New Delhi; 30 Jan 2019; GANASHAKTI: Home Minister Rajnath Singh and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had an "angry exchange" during a telephonic conversation over violence at a town near Kolkata after a rally by BJP chief Amit Shah.

Sources told CNN-News18 that when Singh called up Banerjee on Tuesday to express concern over the reports of arson, a "cross trading of charges" ensued between the two.

KHARTOUM; 31 Jan 2019; AA: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday announced that his country’s eastern border with neighboring Eritrea would reopen after one year of closure, according to Sudanese state television.

“I announce here, from Kassala, that we are opening the border with Eritrea because they are our brothers and our people,” he said.

Jind (Har), Jan 31 (PTI) The candidate of the month-old Jannayak Janata Party, Digvijay Singh Chautala, was leading over his nearest BJP rival Krishan Middha, as per early trends available for the high-stakes Jind bypoll in Haryana.

As per early trends available after counting of votes at the end of third of the total 13 rounds, Chautala was leading over Middha by margin of nearly 1,900 votes.