BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh from Maharashtra has resigned from the state legislative assembly and from the primary membership of the party.

He is meeting Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, and may join the party.

Deshmukh accused the BJP-led state government of being ‘anti-farmer’ and indulging in divisive vote bank politics.

New Delhi, Oct 2 (PTI) Farmers marching towards Delhi as part of the Bharatiya Kisan Union's (BKU) protest call over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices,

were stopped at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border Tuesday with police using water cannons to disperse them.

The farmers, riding tractors and trolleys, broke barricades of the UP Police and then started proceeding towards the barricades put up by the Delhi Police, a senior police officer said.

Ghaziabad, Oct 2 (PTI) Thousands of farmers Tuesday marched towards Delhi over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices, blocking traffic movement on arterial roads leading to the national capital.

National Highways leading to the national capital were swamped with farmers who came in from places as far as Gonda, Basti and Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh as well as the sugarcane belt of western Uttar Pradesh.

Congress Working Committee (CWC) met at Sevagram Ashram’s Mahadev Bhavan in the Wardha district of Maharashtra to celebrating 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, called for a “second freedom struggle” against BJP government.

Party asked public for “Second Freedom Struggle” to combat the ideology of “hate and violence” of BJP, and spoke of the “blatant hypocrisy” of the RSS which vilified Gandhi and his thoughts, but now proclaim to be his champion.

Washington, Oct 2; PTI:  Former chief justice of Bangladesh Surendra Kumar Sinha, who has sought political asylum in the US, has urged India to support the rule of law and democracy in his country, saying the Indian government should not ignore the will of people by backing the "autocratic" Awami League-led government.

Sinha, 67, the first Hindu Chief Justice of Bangladesh, alleged that he was forced to resign because he opposed the "undemocratic" and "authoritarian" regime.

Kolkata, Oct 2 (PTI) Five people, including a woman and a child, were injured in an explosion in front of a multi-storey building in the Nagerbazar area in Kolkata's northern suburbs on Tuesday, police said.

The explosion was reported outside a fruit shop on the ground floor of the building in the congested Kazipara area under the jurisdiction of Dum Dum Police Station around 9 am, a police officer said.

The injured have been rushed to the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, he said.

JAKARTA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Monday that a total of 191,000 people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance after multiple quakes and an ensuing tsunami devastated Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province.

A total of 56 percent of the figure were classified as rural population and the rest are urban population, the relief agency said.

Among the assistance desperately needed were foods, clean water and shelters, it added.

MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. Russia is looking at building a lunar station jointly with Chinese partners, CEO of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said.

"China is a serious partner. I don’t rule out that as soon as we agree the outlines of our lunar program with the Americans, it is our manned lunar program, the formation of a research station on Moon’s surface is likely to be carried out with our Chinese partners. They can be equal partners already in the coming years," he told Russia’s TV Channel One.

Islamabad, Oct 2 (PTI) Pakistan has slashed the Chinese investment in railways by USD 2 billion citing a huge burden of loans, giving credence to reports that the new government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan may scrutinise the multi-billion dollar CPEC, a media report said Tuesday.

Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said that the share of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the railways has been reduced from USD 8.2 billion to USD 6.2 billion.

JERUSALEM, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- One of Israeli most powerful tycoons started to serve three-year prison sentence on Tuesday for security fraud, Israel's Prison Service said in a statement.

Nochi Dankner, 63, arrived in the morning at the Maasiyahu Prison in central Israel accompanied by his son-in-law and lawyer.

"This is a difficult day for me and my family," Dankner told reporters at the entrance of the prison.

"I have fought for my innocence......I trust the justice and legal system and love the State of Israel very much," he added.

2 Oct 2018; DW: Some 200 police officers have raided the headquarters of a Shiite Islamic association near the port city of Dunkirk. Meanwhile, France has frozen Iranian state assets after a June bomb plot.

French authorities raided the headquarters of an Islamic Shiite association and the homes of its leaders near the northern city of Dunkirk during the early hours of Tuesday morning.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — It has been a year since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and a woman set to talk at a sunrise ceremony commemorating the lives lost says that although hearts are still healing, she hopes people can move forward from the enormous tragedy with “love and light.”

Among survivors, victims’ family members, first-responders and elected officials offering prayers, songs and speeches on Monday, Mynda Smith will remember her sister.