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«Demand has improved across categories including the entry products and rural markets like UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar after a long time,» said Haier India president Satish NS. «These markets were earlier struggling to meet sales targets but now easily achieving them.» As per preliminary estimates by smartphone industry market tracker Counterpoint Research, the smartphone market grew by about 8% in the last quarter — one of the highest quarterly growths in recent times. In January-March 2023, the market had declined by 19% year-on-year. To be sure, the smartphone market growth rate in preceding October-December period was higher at 25% year-on-year but that was due to festive season shifting by a month and therefore a weak base period. But overall smartphone shipments in India had remained flat in calendar 2023.

Civil War" has attract eye balls through its plot and now spoilers are out. «Civil War» ending scene showed the events taking place at Oval Office in the White House. In the final scene of «Civil War,» tension reaches its peak as rebels confront the president in the Oval Office. Joel, a persistent journalist, seizes the opportunity to finally secure an interview with the elusive leader. With guns pointed at them, Joel frantically requests a quote, to which the president responds, pleading for his life. With dark humor, Joel accepts the chilling remark as his quote, insurgent shoot the commander in chief.

Donald Trump becomes the first US ex-president to go on criminal trial Monday — pushing the nation's legal and electoral systems to the limit less than seven months before Americans decide whether to return the scandal-plagued Republican to the White House. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels so as not to doom his 2016 election campaign.

Indian Sikh pilgrims arrived here in Pakistan's Punjab provincial capital on Saturday via the Wagah Border to participate in the annual Baisakhi festival, an official said. Sardar Ramash Singh Orara, the first Sikh Minister in Pakistan's Punjab province who is also Pakistan's Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee President, along with the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) additional secretary shrines Rana Shahid and other senior officers greeted the Indian pilgrims at the Wagah border. «As many as 2,400 Indian Sikh pilgrims arrived here today to attend Baisakhi festivities in Gurdwara Punja Sahib, Hassanabdal,» ETPB spokesperson Amir Hashmi told PTI. The ETPB looks after the holy places of the minority communities in Pakistan.

As the Middle-East braces for potential Iranian strike, commandos from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard today rappelled down from a helicopter onto an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz and seized the vessel. U.S. President Joe Biden had said on Friday he expected Iran to attack Israel «sooner, rather than later» and warned Tehran not to proceed. Israel did not claim responsibility for the airstrike on April 1. But Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Israel «must be punished and shall be» for an operation he said was equivalent to an attack on Iranian soil.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Saturday said both India and Pakistan should create conditions conducive to the resumption of dialogue. Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, slammed those saying India should use force to take back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and asserted that when push comes to shove, the final mile is always crossed through dialogue. «Let me put it this way, you will not get a solution to any problem through just the use of force. Ultimately, when push comes to shove, the final mile is always crossed through dialogue,» Abdullah told PTI in an interview. «That said, creating conditions for dialogue is the responsibility of both sides, not India alone,» he added.

AIADMK in Tamil Nadu for the April 19 Lok Sabha elections. AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said on 'X' that the «alliance would also continue for the Assembly elections» in Tamil Nadu, apparently referring to the 2026 state polls. «AIADMK has refused to ally with BJP and has committed to never allying with it in the future. It has also assured that it will oppose CAA, NPR & NRC. Therefore, AIMIM extends its support to AIADMK in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Our alliance will also continue for the Assembly elections,» Owaisi said. Incidentally, AIMIM had allied with TTV Dhinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) in Tamil Nadu for the 2021 Assembly polls and contested from three seats. The AIADMK was part of the BJP-led NDA then.

Congress on Saturday hit out at the Narendra Modi government on the issue of Chinese transgressions and said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's reported remark that «China has not occupied any of our land» is akin to giving another free pass to the neighbouring country. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the EAM's statement is a «copy-paste» of Modi's clean chit to China after the Galwan skirmish in 2020, when 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Kharge responded to the remark in a post on X, «Wearing '56-inch' long Chinese Blinkers, on the 'Laal Aankh,' Modi Government has given a free pass to the Chinese, twice in a week's time.» He added, «First, @narendramodi ji's interview in foreign press where he failed to put forth India's case strongly at the global stage. Now, his Foreign Minister, handing over another Clean Chit to expansionist China.»

ALSO READ: India slips to 6th rank on Maldives Tourism charts as President Mohamed Muizzu welcomes China "There is only one platform left. As the two countries have already signed, they [the remaining Indian military personnel] will also be recalled ahead of May 10. They will leave," President Muizzu was quoted by the report as saying.

Donald Trump might've relished before politics: a porn actress claiming they'd had sex. But on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Trump feared the story — which he says is false — would cost him votes. So, prosecutors say, he arranged to pay Stormy Daniels to keep quiet.

Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said if his party is voted to power at the Centre, it will immediately conduct a caste census in the country. Addressing an election rally at Bastar village Chhattisgarh's Bastar district, he described the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as a fight between two ideologies involving those seeking to protect the Constitution and those out to destroy it. He also attacked the Narendra Modi-led government and said President Droupadi Murmu was prevented from attending the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya as she is a tribal, and it reflects the Bharatiya Janata Party's mentality. The rally was held in support of Congress' candidate from Scheduled Tribe-reserved Bastar Lok Sabha seat Kawasi Lakhma.

Pipeline welder Lynn Bugsy Allen argues hes barely getting by after Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline. 

Ukraine's army chief said on Saturday the situation on the eastern front had deteriorated in recent days with Russia intensifying its armoured assaults and battles raging for control of a village west of the devastated city of Bakhmut. The statement by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi more than two years since Russia's invasion evoked the increasingly grim mood in Kyiv as vital U.S. military aid that Kyiv expected to receive months ago remains stuck in Congress. Syrskyi said he travelled to the embattled area to stabilise the front as Russian assault groups using tanks and armoured personnel carriers took advantage of a period of dry, warm weather that was making it easier for them to manoeuvre.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray on Saturday claimed that had Prime Minister Narendra Modi not been there, the Ayodhya Ram temple would not have been built despite the Supreme Court's ruling. Talking to reporters here, Thackeray, who has declared unconditional support to PM Modi for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, said MNS will prepare a list of leaders the 'Mahayuti' alliance can contact for poll coordination. Thackeray, however, parried questions on whether he will address rallies for the Mahayuti, Maharashtra's ruling alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP. Thackeray said he met his party men, office-bearers and frontal organisations, and asked them to canvass for Mahayuti-backed candidates, hoping that MNS leaders will get due respect.

Editor’s note (March 18th 2024): This article has been updated to take in the latest developments. Running for the American presidency is a full-time job. “There was essentially no day or night" from the first presidential debate in September 1976 to election day, griped James Fallows, now a journalist, who worked on Jimmy Carter’s campaign. Donald Trump, now sure of the Republican Party’s nomination for this year’s election, will have to combine that gruelling endeavour with his role as a defendant in four criminal trials.

Donald Trump on Monday will become the first former U.S. President, and the first leading presidential candidate, to be put on criminal trial. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will try to prove to a jury that Mr.

Purnea Lok Sabha seat, former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav asserted that he still considers himself «a soldier of the Congress» and will remain with the party till his last breath. According to a seat-sharing arrangement agreed upon by the opposition INDIA bloc constituents in the state, the RJD nominated JD(U) turncoat Bima Bharti from Purnea, denying the seat to the Congress. Yadav, who recently joined the grand old party, blamed RJD president Lalu Prasad for the apparent cracks in the opposition bloc in Purnea. «I am a soldier of the Congress and its leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. I will remain (ideologically) with the party till my last breath. The ideology of the Congress is in my blood. I had never wanted a situation to emerge in Purnea where the INDIA bloc's constituents could be seen fighting each other, like in West Bengal and Kerala,» Yadav said in an interview with PTI.

eastern front has deteriorated significantly in recent days" in the face of a heightened Russian offensive, Ukraine's commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said Saturday. Syrsky, who took over as commander-in-chief in February after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired his popular predecessor, Valery Zaluzhny, said Russians also had superior weapons. He spoke of «a significant intensification of the enemy's offensive after the presidential elections in Russia,» in the middle of March and added that decisions were being taken «to strengthen the most problematic defence areas with electronic warfare and air defence».

Philippines, the United States and Japan will change the dynamic in the South China Sea and the region, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Friday, while seeking to assure China it was not a target. «I think the trilateral agreement is extremely important,» Marcos told a press conference in Washington a day after meeting President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the nations' first trilateral summit. «It is going to change the dynamic, the dynamic that we see in the region, in ASEAN in Asia, around the South China Sea,» Marcos said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Trump turned to one of his favorite themes on Friday — the specter of immigrants improperly voting in federal elections. House Speaker Mike Johnson came to the former president's Florida compound to announce that he would introduce a bill to stop those who are not citizens from voting in elections. Trump has made baseless claims about this subject before, like in 2016, when he blamed his loss of the popular vote on voting by immigrants, and then appointed a commission to investigate the issue. It disbanded without identifying a single case of a noncitizen casting a vote. He and other Republicans have recently revved up their conspiratorial claims about the issue with the influx of migrants across the southern border under Biden, contending Democrats are letting them in to add them to the voter rolls.

Oil rose around 1% on Friday on geopolitical tensions in the Middle East but posted a weekly loss on a bearish world oil demand growth forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and worries about slower U.S. interest rate cuts. Brent crude futures settled up 71 cents at $90.45 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 64 cents to $85.66.