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Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, currently embroiled in a controversy over his population control remark, courted another controversy on Thursday as he yelled at his former confidante, Jitan Ram Manjhi. In a fit of rage, Kumar said Manjhi became the chief minister of Bihar because of his "stupidity".

The outburst came after Manjhi questioned the state government's caste survey. Manjhi was a JDU leader and a close confidante of Nitish Kumar. He became the Bihar chief minister in 2014, but was forced to quit the post after a year. Miffed, he formed Hindustani Awam Morcha. His party is now with the BJP-led NDA

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and BJP MP Varun Gandhi, who are cousins, had a brief unexpected meeting at the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand on Tuesday. Both the leaders had gone to the hilltop temple for prayers.

Temple Committee President Ajayendra Ajay confirmed that they met inside the premises of the temple. They exchanged pleasantries, sources said.

The Army is slowly but steadily bolstering the strike, surveillance and airlift capabilities of its aviation corps, with plans under way to induct 126 light utility helicopters, 90 Prachand combat choppers, six heavy-duty Apache gunships and 25 more advanced light helicopters as well as satcom-enabled weaponized drones and air-launched Helina anti-tank guided missiles.

The Army Aviation Corps (AAC) is now planning to set up additional integrated aviation brigades after the first three came up during the ongoing over three-year-old military confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh, with two of them deployed along the Line of Actual Control and one on the western front with Pakistan, senior officers said on Tuesday.

At the Leadership Summit organised by a national daily on November 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there was a time when India used to seek global support after a major terror strike against Bharat but after 2014 it is the terrorist supporting country (Pakistan) that runs to global fora for support against Indian retaliation.

The Indian Space Researcher Organisation’s (ISRO) Aditya L1 solar probe mission has completed an important milestone—it captured its first high-energy solar flare in X-ray.

“During its first observation period from approximately 12:00 to 22:00 UT on October 29, 2023, the High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) on board Aditya-L1 has recorded the impulsive phase of solar flares. The recorded data is consistent with the X-ray light curves provided by NOAA's GOES,” said ISRO in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday.