Deepa Dasmunshi, Congress candidate and wife of ailing Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, and BJP candidate Chandra Kumar Bose, grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, also filed their nominations from the same constituency. Accompanied by a large number of supporters, the West Bengal Chief Minister came in a rally from Hazra to Alipore where she submitted her papers at the District Election Office. 

TMC workers, who assembled there carrying party flags, shouted slogans in support of the party supremo causing a traffic jam for sometime. A large posse of policemen was posted in the area to maintain security and to control crowd.

He urged priests around the world to be more accepting of gays and lesbians, divorced Catholics and other people living in what the church considers "irregular" situations.

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"...Dearness Allowance payable to central government employees shall be enhanced from existing rate of 119 per cent to 125 per cent from January 1,2016," according to a Finance Ministry office memorandum bringing into effect the DA hike announced last month. The decision to release an additional instalment of DA to central government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to Pensioners from January 1, 2016, was taken by Union Cabinet on March 23.

The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and Dearness Relief would be of Rs 6,796.50 crore per annum and Rs 7,929.24 crore respectively, in 2016-17 (for a period of 14 months from January, 2016 to February, 2017). The DA will benefit 50 lakh central government

More details are awaited.

A group of Maoists opened fire on jawans guarding the helipad in a restive pocket of Pamed police station area, located around 500 km away from the state capital Raipur, Bijapur Superintendent of Police KL Dhruv said. Security forces were tasked with ensuring security to the helipad ahead of the landing of a helicopter meant to transport ration for them. After dropping the consignment, the chopper returned and security forces began marching back to its base, he said. 

"Meanwhile, a group of Maoists opened indiscriminate firing on them from behind leaving two constables- Baburam Markam belonging to the district force and Dinesh Ogre of Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF)- injured.

The decision was taken by a three-judge bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra, V Gopala Gowda and Kurian Joseph.

The Mizoram governor sent his compliments after a visit last month to the institute situated in Dilshad Garden to see his younger brother, who is admitted there.

"I visited this hospital on March 22 to see my younger brother Dhukharan Sharma, who is admitted there as a cancer patient. "It was gratifying to see the overall cleanliness, maintenance and upkeep, which could be compared favourably with the best of private hospitals in Delhi-NCR," the governor said in his letter to Kejriwal.

The apex court accepted their consent letter while hearing the matter in chambers. Both of them had filed consents before the court for divorce. According to sources, now a family court in Mumbai will pass the formal decree of divorce.

He was earlier forced to resign as chief minister over graft allegations and quit the party to form his own outfit. Yeddyurappa, who is Lok Sabha member from Shimoga, returned to BJP ahead of 2014 general election. In Uttar Pradesh, the party decided to field an OBC face as the party gears up for the crucial polls next year. 

Maurya has been associated with RSS since early years. While Uttar Pradesh is slated to go to polls in early 2017, elections are due in Karnataka before May 2018.

The admission comes five days after the leak of millions of secret documents from a Panama-based law firm which revealed that the prime minister's father, Ian Cameron, who passed away in 2010, ran an offshore firm under the name Blairmore Holdings. 

After as many as four partial statements from Downing Street on the leak, Cameron confessed in a television interview last night that he did own shares in the Blairmore Investment Trust, which he sold for 31,500 pounds before he became Prime Minister. "I did own stocks and shares in the past, quite naturally because my father was a stockbroker," he told 'ITV News'. "I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become prime minister. I didn't want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests. Samantha (Cameron's wife) and I had a joint account. We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like 30,000 pounds," he said.

"Even if IPL is shifted from Maharashtra this season, we do not have any problem. No potable water will be provided for IPL this season," Fadnavis told reporters on sidelines of an event here. His comments came a day after the Bombay High Court refused to grant a stay on the first of the IPL cricket matches scheduled tomorrow here. The court had also sought to know from the state government and the municipal body whether the water supplied to the stadiums in tankers was potable or non-potable. 

A city-based NGO had petitioned the court challenging the use of over 60 lakh litres of water to maintain pitches and sought shifting of IPL matches out of the state given the second successive drought it is experiencing. Altogether 20 matches will be played in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur and all these cities are facing grim water crisis, said the petition.

 "The eighth session of sixteenth Lok Sabha will commence from April 25. Subject to exigencies of government business the session is likely to conclude on May 13," a Lok Sabha statement said. A Rajya Sabha bulletin stated that, "Members are informed that the 239th Session of the Rajya Sabha will commence on Monday, April 25, 2016." 

The budget session of Lok Sabha was prorogued in a rare development, in the middle of it to enable the government to issue an Ordinance for authorising expenditure beyond April one in the centrally-ruled Uttarakhand in view of the political crisis in the state.

The Uttarakhand Appropriation (Vote on Account) Ordinance, 2016 was promulgated by the President, after the Centre issued it to authorise expenditure from April 1 in Uttarakhand, which is under President's rule.

The Home minister was briefed about the internal security situation in the country and steps taken to reduce tension in NIT Srinagar, official sources said.  he situation has been tense at NIT Srinagar following clashes triggered by India's defeat at the hands of West Indies in the World Cup T20 last week.The high-level meeting also discussed the issue of Pakistan's denial of permission to an NIA team to visit the country in connection with the Pathankot airbase terror attack.Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had on Thursday said that the visit of a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team to India was not on "reciprocity", but more about extending cooperation.

India had expected that Pakistan would allow a team of NIA investigators to visit the country after their JIT's visit in New Delhi. Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, chiefs of different intelligence agencies and other senior officials attended the meeting.

A senior police officer said militants hurled a grenade at a passing security force vehicle on the Srinagar -Jammu national highway near Bejibehara."The grenade exploded on the road injuring two civilian bystanders.  

They were shifted to the local hospital for treatment," the officer said.Senior police officers rushed to the spot and the area was searched.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. 

"Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) will release the election manifesto on April 10," Stalin told reporters. DMK had earlier set up a panel under senior leader and former Union minister T R Baalu to prepare it. 

Speculation is rife that the party could offer freebies as it had done in the past like promising free colour TV sets in 2006 elections which it won.

Earlier today, dozens of male devotees broke barricades to enter the innermost area of the temple in violation of the trust's restrictions on both male and female devotees. 

The temple in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district has traditionally banned women from entering the shrine's sacred platform.Last week, the Bombay high court had ruled that it is the fundamental right of women to go into places of worship.

Facing third consecutive drought, the entire Bundelkhand region is facing severe heat wave conditions with temperature hovering between 40 and 42 degrees Celsius, five degrees above normal.

In the last few days, Khajuraho has emerged as the hottest in the state with temperature touching as high as 42.4 degrees Celsius last Saturday followed by Damoh and Khargone in western Madhya Pradesh, where the mercury hovered at around 42 degrees.

"With days passing by, more shocking revelations and allegations are coming up both from Rahul and Pratyusha's families, after the latter's suicide on April 1.

According to the 'Balika Vadhu' actress' lawyer, after postmortem report, they think that Pratyusha was hit as well, reports a leading web portal.

The 89-year-old was visiting a school in Havana named after his late sister in law Vilma Espin.Fidel Castro passed on power to his brother Raul Castro in 2008 after suffering serious illness. 

Raul Castro has said he plans to retire in two years time.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur junked the petition of NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation, which challenged the government's decision to allow the company to offer voice services on its 4G spectrum. The apex court, however, asked the government to look into the issue of spectrum usage charge but did not pass any order on this.

The PIL, filed in 2014 through advocate Prashant Bhushan, had sought quashing of the permission granted by the Government to Reliance for providing voice telephony on Broadband Wireless Access spectrum and pitched for a court-monitored CBI investigation in the alleged Rs 40,000 crore scam.

"It's very good that whatever we wanted to show to the world, we have shown that Pakistan civil society, the so-called elected government is a dummy government and it cannot keep its word and it will always find some excuses," Swamy told ANI.

The former boss of Italian aerospace and defence group Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi, was sentenced on Thursday by the Milan appeals court to 4.5 years in jail for false accounting and corruption over the sale of 12 luxury helicopters to India, Italian media reported.

Also handed a four-year jail term on the same charges was Bruno Spagnolini, former head of AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica.

  

The case against the two resulted from an investigation launched in 2012 into the sale of 12 luxury helicopters to India's government.

  

Orsi was arrested in 2014 and resigned as chief executive of the aerospace group a short while later.

  

India cancelled the deal with AgustaWestland in January 2014 amid allegations that the company paid bribes to win the 556-million-euro contract.

  

The aborted deal was a severe setback for Finmeccanica, having already been hammered by the global financial crisis.

he Delhi government on Thursday said that app-based taxi operators will be restrained from levying 'peak time charges' when the second round of the odd-even scheme will be in force.

The scheme aims at cutting down on the number of vehicles plying on the city's roads. Taxis have been exempted under the road-rationing plan and are in demand when it is in force.

"Action will be taken if we receive complaints of app-based taxis charging exorbitant fares when the scheme is in force," Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai warned. 

"Commercial vehicles bearing yellow number plates, including CNG-run taxis, three-wheeler and four-wheeler tempos, autos and taxis will be allowed to ply under the scheme," said a senior government official.

The official said that commercial vehicles of other states running on CNG have also been exempted from the road-rationing experiment.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri became the latest world leader caught in the storm of the Panama Papers on Thursday as prosecutors opened an investigation into his offshore financial dealings.

Macri, the leading symbol of a budding right-wing resurgence in Latin America, joins Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping in the tempest unleashed by the leak of millions of offshore financial documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

But unlike Putin and Xi, who are only connected to the revelations via their inner circles, Macri is listed on the board of directors of two offshore firms -- one registered in the Bahamas and the other in Panama.

Macri did not list either company in his financial declarations when he became Buenos Aires mayor in 2007 or president last December.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists coordinated the investigation with more than 100 media groups around the world after the 11.5 million documents were obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Stirring a controversy, BJP leader and Chhattisgarh minister Brijmohan Agrawal has said his party workers are capable of "breaking jaws of anti-national elements" who raise slogans against the country and demanded

that those who are born in India chant 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'.

"Even after 69 years of independence, anti-India slogans are being raised in the country. If anyone raises anti-country slogans in front of our workers, they (BJP workers) should reply them with full power," the Agriculture and Water Resources Minister purportedly said at a function, marking the BJP's 36th foundation year at the party office in Raipur on Wednesday.

In a purported video clipping of the event, Agrawal said those who are born in India and consume the country's food and water should chant 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'.

In an apparent reference to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi over his visit to JNU in the wake of a row, he said, "It is unfortunate for the country that a leader of a big political party supported them. It is needed to tell those who raise anti-national slogans (that) we are capable of breaking their jaws."

British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted on Thursday that he had held a 30,000 stake in an offshore fund set up by his father, after days of pressure following publication of the so-called Panama Papers.

Cameron said he sold the stake in the Bahamas-based trust in 2010, four months before he became prime minister, in an interview with television channel ITV.

Downing Street have issued four statements on the affair this week following Sunday's publication of the leaked Panama Papers, which showed how Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca had helped firms and wealthy individuals set up offshore companies.

"We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like 30,000," Cameron said.

"I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become prime minister I didn't want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests."

Two police officials were on Thursday suspended for dereliction of duty in connection with the murder of National Investigation Agency officer Tanzil Ahmed, who was involved in the investigation of several high-profile cases including the attack on Pathankot airbase.

Sahaspur Chowki in-charge Surendra Singh and constable Budh Singh have been put under suspension, Superintendent of Police Subhash Singh Baghel said.

Tanzil Ahmed was shot dead on April 3 by two unidentified assailants when he was returning home from a wedding near Bijnor.

The US on Thursday asked both India and Pakistan to engage in "direct dialogue" aimed at reducing tensions, on a day when Islamabad announced suspension of the bilateral peace process with New Delhi.

"Our longstanding position is that we believe India and Pakistan stand to benefit from the normalisation of relations and practical cooperation. We encourage India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue aimed at reducing tensions," a State Department spokesman said.

The spokesman was responding to a question on the remarks of Pakistan's Ambassador to India Abdul Basit in New Delhi earlier wherein he had said that the talks between the two countries stand "suspended".

"The United States strongly supports all efforts between India and Pakistan that can contribute to a more stable, democratic, and prosperous region, but this is an issue that must be determined by the two sides," the spokesman said.