India

Lucknow, Mar 6 (PTI) Voting for the seventh and final phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections covering 54 seats, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency Varanasi, will be held on Monday to decide the phase of 613 candidates.

Polling will start at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm in Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Bhadohi and Sonbhadra districts.

New Delhi, Mar 5 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has asked advocates, litigants and staff members to strictly refrain from feeding monkeys inside the court premises.

In a circular issued by its administrative branch on Friday, the high court also requested all concerned persons to ensure that the windows of court buildings and all blocks are not left open or unattended.

New Delhi, Mar 5 (PTI) Against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has said foreign medical graduates with incomplete internships due to situations beyond their control like COVID-19 or war can finish the same in India.

In a circular, the NMC said the same may be processed by the state medical councils, provided the candidates have cleared the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination before applying for completion of internship in India.

Srinagar, Mar 4 (PTI) Congregational prayers were held at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar's old city area on Friday for the first time in 31 weeks as the number of Covid cases in Jammu and Kashmir showed a rapid decline.

Hundreds assembled at the mosque in the morning for the weekly Friday prayers after over seven months, officials said.

Jaipur, Mar 4 (PTI) A 15-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur district, police said on Friday.

The victim lodged a complaint at Malarna Dungar police station on Friday, they said.

Station House Officer (SHO) Dhanraj said an FIR has been registered against accused Ramnaresh, Dinesh and Indraj and others under Section 376D (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Varanasi (UP), Mar 4 (PTI) Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav conducted a road show here late Friday evening, a little after the conclusion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign, ahead of the March 7 polling.

Standing atop his Samajwadi Rath', Yadav began his roadshow from the Rath Yatra roundabout in the pilgrim city and moved around in the areas covering the three Assembly seats -- Cantonment, Varanasi North and Varanasi South. He campaigned on the route different than the one taken by Modi earlier.

Mirzapur (UP), Mar 5 (PTI) The contest for the five assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur appears to be challenging for the BJP even though it had swept the district, neighbouring the prime minister's Varanasi parliamentary constituency, last time riding the Modi wave .

The five seats of Mirzapur Chunar, Mariyan, Mirzapur Nagar, Majhawan and Chhanbey will vote in the last phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, and are poised for a strong contest between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party.

New Delhi, Mar 3 (PTI) The Supreme Court Thursday asked Attorney General K K Venugopal to use his office in helping evacuate some Indian medical students stranded in war-ravaged Ukraine near the Romania border.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana took note of the submissions of a lawyer that several students are stuck near the Romanian border in freezing cold and the government is not running flights from Romania.

Mumbai, Mar 3 (PTI) A special court here on Thursday extended the ED custody of Maharashtra Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik till March 7 in a money-laundering probe linked to the activities of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his aides.

Malik was arrested on February 23 after being questioned for about five hours at the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) office in south Mumbai.

He was produced before special court judge RN Rokade at the end of his initial remand on Thursday.

New Delhi, Mar 3 (PTI) State Bank of India, the nation's largest lender, has stopped processing transactions of Russian entities that have been sanctioned by the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, sources said.

To effect this, SBI has issued a circular as it fears that any transaction with entities or sectors under sanction will invite sanction on it as well, sources said.