News update

Over the past few months, athletes and coaches at the Delhi government-run Thyagraj Stadium have been complaining about being forced to wrap training earlier than usual, by 7 pm. The reason, according to them, is this: Delhi’s Principal Secretary (Revenue) Sanjeev Khirwar walks his dog at the facility about half-an-hour later. “We used to train till 8-8.30 pm under lights earlier. But now, we are asked to leave the ground by 7 pm so that the officer can walk his dog on the ground. Our training and practice routine has been disrupted,” said a coach. When contacted, Khirwar, a 1994-batch IAS officer, described the allegation as “absolutely incorrect”. He accepted that he “sometimes” takes his pet for a walk at the facility but denied that it disrupted the practice routine of athletes. the stadium on three evenings over the past seven days and saw the stadium guards walking towards the track at around 6.30 pm, blowing whistles and ensuring that the arena was cleared by 7 pm. Built for the...

In Telangana,   Prime Minister Narendra Modi   on Thursday praised Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath in his speech as he stepped up the attack on the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government and chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, popularly known as KCR. “I congratulate the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Yogi Adityanath ji, from this land of Telangana. Someone had told him that he should not go to a place, but Yogi ji said that he believed in science and he left. Today he has become the Chief Minister again.” “We have to protect Telangana from people who encourage superstition,” the prime minister said. PM Modi was targeting the Telangana chief minister, who has been accused of being superstitious in the past. Earlier, former MP K Vishweshwar Reddy had said that KCR ignored the religious sentiments of the people over his superstition. There had been buzz about KCR moving to a new home in 2016 over ‘Vastu’ concerns. Meanwhile, PM Modi’s UP reference was the ...

The court of district judge A K Vishevesh had on Tuesday decided to hear the mosque committee's plea first, which challenges the maintainability of a petition filed by five Hindu women. The five women have requested access to the Gyanvapi mosque complex, claiming there are idols of gods and goddesses inside the mosque.  The district judge had also directed the two sides to file objections to the report of court-mandated filming inside the mosque complex within a week. The mosque committee says that filming at the mosque violates a 1991 law that prevents the alteration of the character of any place of worship in the country. The Supreme Court on Friday said it was moving the Gyanvapi case to a "senior and experienced judge" in view of the "complexities" and "sensitivity" of the issue.  The Supreme Court also asked the district judge to decide on priority whether the survey at the Gyanvapi mosque and the petition that led to the inspection was 'maint...