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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday (March 27) claimed there is a conspiracy behind the Birbhum violence and demanded an impartial probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the incident. 

Addressing an event, Banerjee said, "We (TMC) were not involved in the Rampurhat incident. A Trinamool worker was murdered by another party worker. But the media only criticized TMC. We took several steps to find out the original cause of the incident."

On Tuesday, eight people were killed in the Rampurhat area of West Bengal's Birbhum after a mob allegedly set houses on fire following the killing of TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh. Sheikh, also a local deputy president of Rampurhat village, was killed on March 21 by bike-borne assailants. 

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar arrived here on Sunday to hold bilateral talks with Sri Lanka's top leadership and attend the seven-nation BIMSTEC summit.

This is his first visit to the island nation since India extended an economic relief package to bail Sri Lanka out of the current economic crisis.

"Arrived in Colombo for bilateral visit and BIMSTEC meeting. Look forward to my discussions over the next two days," he tweeted.

Jaishankar arrived here after concluding his visit to the Maldives during which he held discussions with the country's top leadership on wide ranging issues related to bilateral cooperation.

The whirlwind tour of China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and his mission for “united front” with India against the West remained elusive and his non-committal and evasive approach to Galwan skirmishes and aftermath received a cold-shoulder in New Delhi.

Multilateral cooperation is the main signal during this visit as bilateral ties are marred with several controversies or even enmity. Wang’s ostensible purpose of visiting India at a short notice is to prepare for the upcoming BRICS summit meeting later this year in China. While the previous meetings hosted by Russia and India were in a virtual mould, China intends to invite the BRICS leaders for an in-person meeting after it hosted recently the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Nevertheless, with 19 cities in China in various stages of lockdown due to the spread of the pandemic, doubts are expressed on whether China will be able to host such a meeting. Communist Party portals promoted “vulture journalism” in India during the virus-upsurge in April last year, not perhaps knowing that a similar situation could arise in China itself.

India pressed China for an early and complete disengagement of troops in the remaining areas along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, as foreign minister S Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi Friday, saying normalisation of the border situation is a prerequisite for normalisation of ties.

India and China agreed that restoring peace in border areas is in the common interest of the 2 countries. Differences remained though as Jaishankar conveyed to Wang India’s ``national sentiment’’ that friction arising from China’s deployments since April 2020 cannot be reconciled with a normal relationship and Wang called for a "long-term view" saying India and China, as ``mature’’ countries, should allow border issues to affect the overall development of ties.

The Russian army on Friday updated its losses in Ukraine to 1,351 soldiers, while saying that it had evacuated more than 400,000 civilians and condemning Western supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

At a Moscow briefing, senior military officials gave the first update on Russian deaths in weeks, adding that 3,825 soldiers had been wounded.

A senior defence ministry official, Mikhail Mizintsev, said 419,736 civilians had been evacuated to Russia from the separatist eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the rest of Ukraine.