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Rahul Gandhi said serious concerns about transparency in the country's electoral process are being raised even as the Election Commission rejected the tampering claim.The poll panel said that EVM is a stand-alone device with ‘robust’ administrative safeguards to protect it from manipulation.The row erupted after Mid-Day newspaper published in its report that a relative of Ravindra Waikar, the winning Shiv Sena candidate from Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency was allegedly found using a mobile phone "connected" to an EVM during the counting of votes on June 4. Waikar won the election by 48 votes.The report claimed that Waikar’s brother-in-law Mangesh Pandilkar, had used a mobile phone to “unlock" an EVM when the votes were being counted.

economic news underlined the country's bumpy recovery, while political uncertainty in Europe soured risk appetites and kept the euro on the defensive. Chinese blue chips were off 0.2% after retail sales topped forecasts by rising 3.7% in May, but industrial output and fixed-asset investment both underwhelmed.

New Zealand defence force plane flying New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to Japan broke down on Sunday, forcing the Prime Minister to take a commercial flight, his office confirmed on Monday. Luxon is spending four days in Japan, where he is expected to meet with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and spend time promoting New Zealand business.

NEW DELHI : Private investments are taking off, and household consumption, which has crossed pre-pandemic levels, is growing, unlike in many countries, according to Sanjiv Puri, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and chairman and managing director of consumer goods conglomerate ITC Ltd. Puri added that with global trade expected to do much better in 2024-25, India’s consumption and growth story will get further impetus. Quoting data from the ministry of statistics, Puri said investments in fixed assets like plant and machinery in nominal terms was at 23.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022-23 compared to 22.4% in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20.

Li Qiang, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House on Monday to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China’s desire to invest in critical minerals. Li, China’s most senior leader after President Xu Jinping, arrived in the South Australian state capital of Adelaide on Saturday and the national capital of Canberra late Sunday in the first visit to the country by a Chinese premier in seven years.

Also Read: Bill Gates speaks on transformational impact of AI: 'Job of software engineers will…..'Bill Gates praised Indian software engineers working at Microsoft for their solid skills. ‘’We hired very smart IT graduates and brought them to Seattle.

DreamWorks movie, 'Trolls Band Together,' based on the classic toy franchise, will be available on Netflix US from July 2024, a What’s on Netflix report said. This follows its theatrical release in late 2023.

Kylian Mbappe and France have been to the last two World Cup finals but are on a mission as they begin their Euro 2024 campaign against Austria on Monday, having endured disappointment in recent editions of the continental championship. Les Bleus won the World Cup in Russia in 2018, when a teenage Mbappe announced himself on the global stage, and only lost the 2022 final on penalties after an epic battle with Argentina in Doha. They also won the UEFA Nations League in 2021, but the European Championship is the one title that has evaded the French since Didier Deschamps became coach in 2012.

APSEZ) has received the key environmental and coastal regulation zone approval from the Centre to more than double the capacity of its flagship port located at Mundra to 514 million tonnes with an investment of ₹45,000 crore. This could strengthen APSEZ's case while seeking a rollover from the Gujarat government on the concession period for the port when it ends in 2031 after a 30-year run. The port, located in Gujarat's Kutch district, currently has a design capacity and environmental and coastal regulation zone approval for handling 225 mt of cargo a year, including 9.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a standard measure used for containers.

Sri Lankan community in New York City probably gravitated to Staten Island, just below Manhattan because of cheaper rents, but there might be other reasons why the place feels familiar. One of the best ways to get a good meal in New York is to board the Staten Island ferry. It’s free, you pass the Statue of Liberty and at the other end are a bunch of great Sri Lankan restaurants. You can savour their curries with their distinctive deeply roasted spices and the underlying umami note from the grated dried tuna called Maldi fish, enjoy the hoppers (appams) and rich coconut rice and finish with one of the best desserts ever, thick yoghurt with kithul (fishtail palm syrup). And you can wonder why Staten Island has more Sri Lankan restaurants than all of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third swearing-in saw heads of neighbouring South Asian countries appear as guests. It might have been more meaningful without the one obvious omission, but it still seemed a gesture towards something that has almost vanished — the idea of South Asia beyond just how the countries affect each other on a political level. There are links of history, geography, cultural exchange, personal histories, environmental connections and, yes, food that also count in the South Asian space.

petrol prices above Rs 100 a litre and diesel to Rs 89, but rates are lower than neighbouring Andhra Pradesh which has the costliest fuel in the country, oil industry data showed. The Karnataka government on June 15 hiked local VAT (value added tax) from 25.92 per cent to 29.84 per cent on petrol and from 14.3 per cent to 18.4 per cent on diesel. This led to petrol price now costing Rs 102.86 per litre in Bengaluru and diesel coming for Rs 88.94 a litre. But the rates in Karnataka are still lower than neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Saudi Arabia, authorities from their countries said on Sunday, as temperatures soar in the kingdom. «Fourteen Jordanian pilgrims died and 17 others were missing» during the performance of hajj rituals, Jordan's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Delhi: India on Sunday refrained from associating itself with any communique emerging from a Ukraine summit for peace hosted by Switzerland and asserted that it will remain engaged with all stakeholders to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. Pavan Kapoor, Secretary(West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, represented India at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine that was held at a resort near Lucerne in Switzerland on June 15 and 16. The summit concluded with dozens of countries throwing their support to Ukraine's "territorial integrity" and calling for talks among all parties to find a lasting solution to the conflict. «The Indian delegation attended the Opening and Closing Plenary Sessions of the Summit. India did not associate itself with any communique/document emerging from this Summit,» the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to hold pre-budget consultations with industry chambers on June 20, sources said. The budget for 2024-25 fiscal is likely to be presented in Parliament in the second half of July. Industry sources said the pre-budget consultation with Sitharaman would be preceded by a meeting with Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra on June 18. The 2024-25 Budget is likely to lay out Modi 3.0 government's economic agenda.

Jitendra Singh on Sunday said India is set to become the sixth country to have its own deep-sea mission. Chairing a meeting to discuss the ministry's 100-day action plan, Singh expressed pride and happiness on the progress of the deep-sea mission and India being among the very few nations to achieve this feat. He asked institutes to focus on achieving a resilient blue economy to empower people dependent on the ocean and its energy for livelihood. Singh said the deep-sea mission is not limited to mineral exploration but development of ocean sciences and exploration of flora and fauna and conservation of marine biodiversity.

Since February, Kathy Xiang and her entire family has been under siege.

It would seem bizarre that anyone would welcome new taxes, especially those that have to pay them. And I am guessing I am in the top one per cent of Canadian taxpayers. So, is what you are about to read an endorsement of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s increase in the capital gains tax? Yes and no. The “no” is easy: We are all against new taxes. But it’s not that simple. And that’s the problem — no one is attempting to provide the whole picture, the understanding of which would help assess the merits of this particular tax initiative.

tempo traveller accident in Uttarakhand's Rudraprayag succumbed to his injuries, taking the toll to 15, while the condition of four of the 11 injured is still critical, officials said on Sunday. A person who was brought to AIIMS, Rishikesh by air ambulance after the accident on Saturday died late at night, trauma surgeon Ruby Kataria said. A tempo traveller carrying tourists skidded off the Badrinath national highway, rolled 200 metres down a gorge and fell into Alaknanda river, killing or injuring all 26 people present in it. Ten people died on the spot near Raitoli village, about four kilometres from Rudraprayag district headquarters. Kataria said the patient was brought to the hospital in a «brain dead» condition after which he was put on life support but he could not be saved.

territorial integrity" of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end Russia's two-year war, though some key developing nations at a Swiss conference did not join in. The joint communique capped a two-day conference at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland marked by the absence of Russia, which was not invited, but that many attendees hoped could join in on a roadmap to peace. About 100 delegations, mostly Western countries but also some key developing nations, were on hand for the conference — and experts were on watch to see how and if at all they might line up behind the outcome document. Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates — which were represented by foreign ministers or lower-level envoys — were among those that did not sign onto the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.

fighter jets carried out complex missions along with F-16 and F-15 combat aircraft at a multi-nation mega military exercise in Alaska in the US. The key takeaways from participating in the Red Flag exercise for the IAF included insight on interoperability with international partners and a collaborative understanding of missions in a multinational environment, the defence ministry said on Sunday. The IAF contingent participated in the exercise from June 4 to 14. Besides the Indian Air Force (IAF), the exercise witnessed the participation of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF), the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF), the German Luftwaffe, and the US Air Force (USAF).