National

KOLKATA: Tens of thousands of enthusiastic workers and supporters, including a man on a wheelchair, attended the mega anti-BJP rally at the historic Brigade Parade ground here on Saturday raising their voices against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

GANDHINAGAR:  Highlighting the Narendra Modi government's focus on Africa as a top priority in its foreign and economic policy, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said that strong India-Africa relations would redefine the contours of the international order on more egalitarian lines.

KERALA: The four nuns, who publicly protested last year demanding rape accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal's arrest, and were handed transfer orders three days back, on Saturday sought Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's intervention in the matter.

KOLKATA:  Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor feels his party is "on the march" and even if it bags lesser seats than the ruling BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, it can still form a UPA-III government with the help of its allies.

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee received a tumultuous welcome as she reached the Brigade Parade Ground for the opposition's mega anti-BJP rally on Saturday.

CHENNAI: The Central government has removed two Punjab National Bank (PNB) Executive Directors -- Sanjiv Sharan and K.Veera Brahmaji Rao -- for the lapses in the Rs 13,500 crore fraud allegedly perpetrated by absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi.

BENGALURU:  Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) legislators will return on Saturday from a private resort in Gurugram where they were lodged for the last few days, a party leader said.

MUMBAI:  Ahead of the upcoming general elections, the Centre has offered a bagful of bonanza for the eight million Mumbai commuters to be inaugurated here on Saturday, an official said.

NEW DELHI: A day after the Indian Railways announced a new bi-weekly Mumbai-Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express starting Saturday, all its tickets for the next maiden journey were sold out within five hours, officials said.

GURUGRAM:  Around 25 MLAs of the nearly 100 Karnataka BJP legislators put up here at the five star ITC Grand Bharat resort for the last few days have reportedly shifted to a nearby hotel on Friday.

NEW DELHI:  The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday announced a Young Scientists programme under which three school students will be selected from each state and union territory and will be given lectures on space and hands-on experience in building small satellites.

NEW DELHI:  Claiming that the Narendra Modi government's efforts during its remaining tenure cannot revive the "perilous condition" of the Indian economy, former Union Minister and Congress veteran P. Chidambaram on Friday said the Centre might not able to achieve its set fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent.

RANCHI: Jharkhand legislators on Friday demanded the formation of a Displacement Commission so that the grievances of the displaced people could be heard and resolved.

GANDHINAGAR:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that his government had made doing business in India easier, cheaper, faster and smarter with his term accounting for almost 45 per cent of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that the country received in the last 18 years.

CHENNAI:  The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Friday launched a start-up to prepare the workforce for the advent of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) age by training students at nominal costs.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday granted bail to alleged hawala dealer Muhammad Aslam Wani, who is accused of money-laundering.

PANAJI: Accusing ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar of avoiding meeting legislators from the Opposition, state Congress President Girish Chodankar on Friday said if Parrikar continues this, the Opposition party would raise a ruckus in the forthcoming state Assembly session.

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party, which has been giving mixed signals on the chances of an alliance with the Congress, on Friday finally ruled out any such possibility in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab, saying the Congress is not thinking for the nation.

RANCHI:  Opposition parties on Friday disrupted the proceedings in the Jharkhand Assembly as the House was running beyond the stipulated lunch time of 12.30 p.m.

PATNA:  A seven-year-old boy was beaten, his jaw was broken and six of his teeth were knocked out as punishment for plucking some plums from a tree in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, police said on Friday.