As many as 43 delegates from 23 countries, including representatives from five foreign missions, will be visiting Assam, Kerala and Puducherry to witness the Assembly elections up close. The delegates are part of the International Election Visitors’ Programme-2026, the Election Commission said. On Tuesday (April 7, 2026), the delegates were given a demonstration of the...

2 min readApr 9, 2026 06:17 AM IST First published on: Apr 9, 2026 at 06:17 AM IST There was a time when founding a nation required, at the very least, a war, a treaty or a group of men and women with intellectual and political capital. Now it appears to demand little more than...

The Maharashtra government has ordered a stricter, mandatory verification process for lakhs of gig and delivery workers across Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), amid a political row over alleged infiltration by undocumented migrants. Labour Minister Akash Fundkar issued the directive after a joint meeting with the Home Department at Mantralaya on April 7,...

CHENNAI: Ahead of the April 23 election for the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday replaced the state’s chief secretary, N Muruganandam, with senior bureaucrat M Sai Kumar and DGP (armed police, vigilance and anti-corruption) S Davidson Devasirvatham with Sandeep Mittal, a 1995-batch IPS officer, a decision that drew an...

Damage to the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi crude oil tanker, following a reported strike, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. File | Photo Credit: Reuters “It is as if there is a raging fire in the neighbourhood—close enough to feel the heat, yet not quite at your door.”  Swapnil Ghosh, an electronics and instrumentation engineer working on an onshore oil...

A 23-year-old student of Amity University who was allegedly out to celebrate the end of examinations with three friends drowned in a waterlogged construction pit close to the university’s campus in Noida on Wednesday afternoon. The tragedy occurred in Sector 94 off the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, less than three months after a software professional drowned...

The fate of nearly 4,000 voters in a village in West Bengal’s Malda hangs in the balance, with the voter list for the first phase already frozen, leaving them — like lakhs of others across the state — unable to cast their vote on April 23. Their future as voters now remains uncertain, as the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first briefing since the two-week ceasefire with US-Iran ceasefire, signalled that the truce remains fragile, asserting that it is “not the end” and that Israel retains the option to resume military action if its objectives are not met. Emphasising a cautious stance, Netanyahu said Israel has its “finger...

PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday flagged the issue of deterioration in women’s safety in Tamil Nadu during a campaign in Sholinghur. He said former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami brought in 7.5% reservation for government school students in NEET. He also passed a law for 10.5% reservation for Vanniyars in Most Backward Classes category,...

2 min readMumbaiApr 8, 2026 10:08 PM IST Contractors across nearly 20 districts in Maharashtra have decided to halt ongoing government works, citing pending dues of over Rs 96,000 crore and lack of response from the state government. According to the Maharashtra State Contractors Federation, the shutdown could stall construction of nearly 24,000 kilometres of...