NEWS

New Delhi: Lone Bahujan Samaj Party legislator N Mahesh in Karnataka Assembly has resigned due to personal reasons. He is also the primary and secondary education minister in the nearly four-month-old coalition government in Karnataka led by H D Kumaraswamy.

The BSP and the Janata Dal (Secular) had formed a pre-poll alliance before the assembly elections in May. Subsequently, when the JD(S) decided to ally with the Congress after the polls threw up a hung verdict, Mahesh was inducted into the state cabinet, making him the first BSP minister in any state outside Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi: While denouncing the action as ‘unimaginable’ and ‘unpardonable’, the head of an NDMC-run school in north Delhi’s Wazirabad has been placed under suspension for ‘segregating students’ into Hindu and Muslim sections.

“I was apprised of the allegations of students being segregated by our officials. We decided to probe the accusations, and unfortunately they were found to be true. We have suspended the head of the school with immediate effect and initiated major penalty charge sheet against him,” North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) Commissioner MadhupVyas said.

The Commissioner said the conduct of the official was “bizarre” and “unpardonable” and “goes against the grain of our pluralistic society”.

New Delhi: Kerala High Court dismissed a petition by a right-wing Hindu organisation seeking entry of Muslim women in mosques even as a Muslim reformist outfit announced its plan to move the apex court on the issue.

A division bench of Chief Justice Rishikesh Roy and Justice AK Jayakrishnan Nambiar rejected the plea by Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha state president Swamy Sai Swaroopnath, saying he has failed to produce enough evidence to show Muslim women were being denied entry in mosques.

New Delhi: The overall voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir has been recorded at 31.3 per cent in the second phase of the urban local bodies election with Jammu division recording over 78 per cent voting. The Kashmir Valley recorded only an average of three per cent.

Polling was held in 11 districts — six in Jammu region and five in Kashmir — for 263 municipal wards in the second of the four phase elections amid tight security arrangements. Over 1,000 candidates, including nearly 900 in Jammu region, were in the fray.

Chief electoral officer ShaleenKabra said that overall 31.3 per cent polling was witnessed in the second phase. Cumulative polling percentage till date is 47.2 per cent with 67.7 per cent voting recorded in Jammu division and 8.3 per cent in Kashmir division in the first phase on October 8 and second phase Wednesday.