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Counting of votes for the by-elections to one Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal’s Asansol and four assembly seats in Bengal’s Ballygunge, Khairagarh in Chhattisgarh, Bochahan in Bihar, and Kolhapur North in Maharashtra will begin on Saturday.

West Bengal: West Bengal’s Asansol and Ballygunge have emerged as a major prestige fight for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP. In Asansol, which has a Hindi-speaking population, the ruling TMC has fielded actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha. The BJP has fielded Asansol Dakshin MLA Agnimitra Paul. Mamata Banerjee’s party has fielded Babul Supriyo in Ballygunge where he is up against BJP’s Keya Ghosh and CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim. The Congress is also in the fray in both the seats. While Asansol recorded 64.03 percent polling, Ballygunge witnessed an even lower 41.10 percent till 5 pm.

Studies on various vaccines globally have shown that an additional dose provides extended protection against Covid-19. Now, a study from Israel has found that four doses offer greater protection against severe disease than three, but the protection against infection itself was brief. India has started rolling out a ‘precautionary’ (third) dose for the general population.

Israel began giving the fourth dose to citizens over age 60 on January 2 this year. The vaccine in use there, from Pfizer BioNTech, uses the mRNA platform (in India, the two main vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, use different platforms). The study, conducted between January 10 and March 10 when the Omicron variant was predominant, has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) cadres today are available to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to be instruments for the will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, former BJP minister and veteran journalist Arun Shourie has said.

Shourie — a former minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet who’s spent considerable time studying the RSS — said that the Sangh’s leadership has no authority today and is just a “mask” for a different agenda, and that the austere way of living the organisation was once known for is no longer followed.

Former economist, minister, and journalist Shourie has discussed his new book, The Commissioner for Lost Causes. A former editor of the Indian Express, Shourie in his book not only expounds on his journalistic career, but also shares nuggets about his interactions with Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express Group,  former Chief Justice of India P.N. Bhagwati — a pioneer of judicial activism — and former prime minister Chandra Shekhar.

India will talk about non-violence but will also carry the stick, as the world only understands power, according to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

Addressing a gathering of saints in Haridwar, Bhagwat said Swami Vivekananda and Maharshi Aurobindo's dream India will be realised in only 10 or 15 years.

“You spoke about 20-25 years, but if we increase our speed, I say 10-15 years. In that period, we will see...the India that Swami Vivekananda and Maharshi Aurobindo had imagined,” Bhagwat said at the event on Wednesday.

Russia said the crew of its Black Sea fleet flagship were evacuated on Thursday and measures were being taken to tow the stricken ship back to port, after an explosion of ammunition on board that Ukraine said was caused by a missile strike. Russia's defence ministry said the fire on the Soviet-era missile cruiser Moskva had been contained, but left the ship badly damaged. It did not acknowledge the ship, which had more than 500 sailors on board, had been attacked and said the cause of the fire was under investigation. Ukraine's southern military command said that it hit the warship with a Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile and that it had started to sink.