NEW DELHI: As the ruling alliance stormed back into power in Bihar on Friday, a key takeaway from the Assembly elections is a significant political shift in the Seemanchal region in favour of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Of the 24 seats in the region, which has a sizeable Muslim population and has long been considered an Opposition stronghold, the NDA secured 15. The Congress managed to get three seats, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which once enjoyed solid Muslim support, was

NEW DELHI: Women voters have emerged a decisive factor behind the National Democratic Alliances landslide victory in Bihar, adding to Chief Minister Nitish Kumars long cultivated image as the champion of womens empowerment in the state. One of the game changer in the election is said to be the pre-festive announcement of a ten thousand rupee direct cash transfer for every womanbenefiting nearly twenty five lakh womenoffered immediate financial relief and expanded household liquidity. The Lakhpat

NEW DELHI: The announcement to establish a Makhana Board, along with substantial subsidies for its production, turned out to be a successful gamble for the NDA in the Bihar elections. By emphasising the benefits of this initiative, the NDA routed out the Opposition alliance INDIA in the Assembly seats of the makhana growing belt, which includes Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Supaul, Samastipur, Purnia, Saharsa, Khagaria, and Supaul districts. The region is home to over five lakh fa

NEW DELHI: The Bihar elections witnessed numerous family members and even bahubalis (strongmen) themselves contesting, but the results, dashed the hopes of many of them who were aspiring to enter the House as peoples representatives and lawmakers. The RJD had fielded the son of former Siwan MP Md Shahabuddin, Osama Shahab, from the Raghunathpur Assembly seat against JDUs Vikash Kumar Singh. He won the seat by 9,248 votes, defeating the JDU candidate. Similarly, another bahubali, Anant Singh wid

NEW DELHI: Ruling parties on Friday suffered defeats in four of the eight seats where Assembly bypolls were held on November 11, with the Congress bagging one seat in BJP-ruled Rajasthan and PDP handing the National Conference its first defeat in Budgam. The BJP won the Nagrota seat in J&K and Mizorams main Opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) retained Dampa seat with its candidate R Lalthangliana defeating Vanlalsailova of the Zoram Peoples Movement by 562 votes. In Nagrota, BJPs Devyani Rana d

NEW DELHI: A year-long plan, backed by discreet RSS groundwork and two prominent factorsfinancial women-centric schemes (F-2) and the widely fanned fear of the return of Jungle Raj under an RJD governmentmoved together strategically to benefit the BJP in Bihars 2025 Vidhan Sabha elections. Guided by the masterful electoral strategy of Amit Shah, the party, with NDA support, created a conducive electoral atmosphere that enabled it to emerge as the single-largest contender, despite not having a ch

PATNA: Union minister and LJP (RV) chief Chirag Paswan has emerged as the rising star in the 2025 assembly elections. In the previous assembly elections, Chirags party could win only one out of the 136 seats it contested. His party had no MLA in the 243-member Bihar assembly as its lone legislator joined JD(U) within months. In this election, Chirags party has won 19 seats out of the 29 it contested. By improving his partys performance compared to 2020, Chirag has consolidated his position withi

NEW DELHI: The Bihar Assembly poll results on Friday brought with it a harsh reality check for Prashant Kishors Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) which failed a secure a single seat. Political observers of Bihar politics believe that while Kishor may not be a viable political leader himself, he has proved to be a good political pundit who helped several parties with credible leaders in winning the elections. He has been credited with playing a crucial role in the successes of parties like Jagan Mohan Reddy

NEW DELHI: Amid mounting scrutiny of Al Falah University following revelations that the man who caused the car explosion near the Red Fort on November 10 was a junior doctor at the institution, students and representatives of medical fraternity have urged authorities to safeguard the academic future of its current batches. Students currently enrolled at the university say they have received no communication about what may happen next. A second-year MBBS student told this newspaper, This is a dif

PATNA: The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) scored a victory for ages in the Bihar Assembly election on Friday, securing a commanding three-fourths majority. While the NDA bagged 202 seats in the 243-member assembly, the RJDCongress combine was not even close, garnering a meagre 35 seats. The drubbing pushed the alliance to the periphery of Bihars political landscape. The BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 89 seats, while JD(U) won 85, LJP(RV) 19, HAM 5, and RLM 4. The opposit

PATNA: When the dust settles after Bihars high-voltage election, a singular truth will remain etched on the political map of the state: Nitish Kumar, the war veteran, still reigns supreme. At 74, the Janata Dal (United) chief is poised to take oath as chief minister for an unprecedented tenth time, steering the National Democratic Alliance to a gargantuan victory. Few leaders in modern India embody political survival like Nitish. Once taunted for shifting alliances at whim, Kumar has defied labe

SRINAGAR: An accidental explosion at the Nowgam police station in the outskirts of the city here late on Friday night injured at least eight personnel extracting samples from a massive cache of explosives recently seized in connection with the 'white-collar' terror module case, officials said. They said the blast occurred while personnel were handling the explosive material that had been brought from Haryana's Faridabad. The material, part of the 360 kilograms of explosives recovered from the re

Reacting to the results of the Bihar assembly elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, said, we could not achieve victory in an election that was not fair from the very beginning. He added that the results were truly surprising and the INDIA bloc will conduct an in-depth review of the poll results and make more effective efforts to save democracy. The NDA swept the Bihar assembly elections , leading in more than 200 of the 243 seats, while the BJP emerged as the single-largest pa

NEW DELHI: After NDA's victory in the Bihar assembly elections, Congress on Friday alleged that the election results reflected vote chori on a gigantic scale. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the party respect the decision of the people of Bihar and will continue to fight the forces that weaken democracy by misusing constitutional institutions. Without doubt, the election results in Bihar reflect vote chori on a gigantic scale - masterminded by the PM, the HM, and the Election Com

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed BJP workers at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Friday evening, celebrating the NDA's victory in the Bihar assembly elections. He said Bihar has given a new M-Y -- Mahila and Youth formula with the people destroying the communal M-Y formula of the jungle raj people. ...This election has further strengthened the public's trust in the Election Commission of India. The consistently high voter turnout over the past few years, the increased turn

SRINAGAR: Upset over the historic loss of his party in the Budgam Assembly bypolls, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday launched a sharp attack on party MP Aga Ruhullah, accusing him of committing political suicide for not campaigning for the NC candidate. Ruhullah responded with a pointed message on humility, describing arrogance as a recipe for disaster and citing a verse from the Holy Quran. Speaking to reporters in Jammu after the bypoll defeat, Omar said, Ruhullah wanted to convey a mess

NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Forces (IAF) frontline Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft will see enhanced capabilities as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) moves to acquire Aircraft Self Protection Jammer (ASPJ) pods. In addition, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a new generation of man-portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (MP-AUVs) for mine countermeasure missions. In a Request for Information (RFI), the MoD stated, The Ministry of Defence intends to procure 100 set

The Supreme Court on Friday transferred the commercial dispute pending before the Chennai bench of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to the principal bench in Delhi after a judicial member of the Chennai Bench alleged that he was approached by a retired High Court judge to favour one of the parties to the case. Taking note of the sensational claim, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India-designate Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi transferred the case in which the said judic

RANCHI: JMM candidate Somesh Chandra Soren has won the Ghatshila Assembly by-election, securing 1,04,794 votes and defeating the BJPs Babulal Soren by a decisive margin of 38,524 votes. The result has infused fresh enthusiasm into the JMM, reaffirming the partys strength in one of its traditional bastions. Counting began at 8 a.m. on Friday at Jamshedpur Co-operative College, and Somesh Soren took the lead from the very first round, opening with a margin of 3,246 votes. He maintained his lead th

Friday, November 14, Children's Day, was a day to forget for the Rashtriya Janata Dal and its founder Lalu Prasad Yadav. His older son, the mercurial Tej Pratap Yadav, expectedly had a forgettable day at the hustings. But the hurt that the electorate went on to inflict on younger son Tejashwi Yadav and the RJD would have been more keenly felt by Lalu. Many observers, in fact, blamed Lalu and his jungle raj during the 15 years RJD spent in power as having played a huge role in ensuring the defeat

MUMBAI: The BJP and its alliance's massive victory in the Bihar Assembly polls will serve as a big boost to the BJP-led Mahayuti ahead of the local body elections in Maharashtra. The local body polls' voting and counting have been announced to be held on December 2 and 3 of this year, respectively, in Maharashtra. Describing the BJP's victory in Bihar, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the NDA mandate is 'massive' and in favour of CM Nitish Kumar-ledclean and efficient gover

NEW DELHI: Lending credence to the consistent and credible evidence of the child's (victims) parents, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a man found guilty of committing aggravated sexual assault on a four-year-old girl, noting that these factors were sufficient to sustain the conviction despite the lack of medical evidence and eyewitness statement. It is well settled that the medical evidence will take a backseat and even if [it does] not corroborate with the ocular evidence

DEHRADUN: An local agent linked to an international human trafficking and cybercrime syndicate that lured young men from Uttarakhand with promises of lucrative jobs abroad, only to force them into illegal online operations in Myanmar, has been arrested by the Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF). The arrested individual has been identified as Sunil, a resident of Jaspur in Udham Singh Nagar district. The STF is currently pursuing other members of the gang based on information extracted from Suni

NEW DELHI: The Left parties in Bihar failed on Friday to repeat their striking performance from the 2020 Assembly elections, delivering one of its weakest showings in recent times. Along with the other constituents of the Mahagathbandhan or the grand alliance, which forms the broader opposition front, the Left parties struggled to hold ground as early trends against them solidified into decisive setbacks. The Communist Party of India Marxist Marxist-Leninist Liberation (CPIML) managed to secure

A new generation of man-portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (MP-AUVs) has been successfully developed by the Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), Visakhapatnam, under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), for mine countermeasure missions. Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO, Dr Samir V Kamat, said, The MP-AUV offers rapid response capability with reduced operational risk and logistic footprint for naval mine warfare applications. The syste

JAIPUR: In a major setback for the ruling BJP in Rajasthan, the Anta Assembly by-election delivered a decisive victory to veteran Congress leader Pramod Jain Bhaya, who has now entered the Assembly for the fourth time. Bhaya secured 69,462 votes, defeating BJP candidate Morpal Suman, who received 53,868 votes. Independent candidate Naresh Meena finished a close third with 53,740 votes. The result is being widely viewed as a morale booster for the Congress as the party looks ahead to the 2028 Ass

AHMEDABAD: A night of horror unfolded in Gujarats Navsari district when a woman in Bilimora allegedly strangled her two sleeping kids, Harsh (7), and Ved (4), claiming to have heard a voice in her dream to kill them. She then attacked her father-in-law, Inderpal Sharma, who narrowly escaped. At 2:30 am, a police convoy reached the spot, broke open the door, and found the accused sitting beside the lifeless bodies of her children. Officers immediately detained her, sent the bodies for post-mortem

NEW DELHI: Bihar poll results show that there is nothing grand about the Grand Alliance or Mahagathbandhan. The near-rout of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led front by the JD (U)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) makes it imperative for the Opposition to re-invent itself before the next year's assembly elections. Put simply, it is soul-searching time for Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders. After the completion of several rounds of counting, the grand old party, the Congress is stari

AHMEDABAD: A 52-year-old Canadian madrasa cleric has been arrested in Gujarats Ankleshwar for allegedly drugging, raping, and threatening a woman in the village over forceful conversion. The arrest came following the survivors complaint, prompting police to launch a wider probe. The crime in the AnkleshwarSurat fringe has jolted Gujarats law-and-order machinery. Every detail that surfaced dragged the investigation deeper, pushing the police to widen scrutiny beyond a single assault. The case beg

GUWAHATI: The Adani Group has announced that it will invest 63,000 crore in Assam for two major energy projects, marking the largest private sector investment in the Northeast. Two portfolio companies of the group have allegedly received Letters of Award from the Assam government for what the company described as two transformative projects, a state-of-the-art thermal power plant and a pioneering pumped storage facility. Adani Power Ltd, Indias largest private-sector power generator, will invest

LUCKNOW: With the NDA poised to form the next government in Bihar , as indicated by the poll results on Friday, celebrations broke out in the BJP camp in Lucknow. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, in his first reaction to the National Democratic Alliances victory, attributed the outcome, and the Mahagathbandhans rout to the pre-election special intensive revision (SIR), an exercise carried out by the Election Commission to clean up the electoral rolls. He also called the ruling BJ

Twenty-five-year-old folk singer and BJP candidate Maithili Thakur has emerged as a giant slayer in the 2025 Bihar elections. Contesting from Alinagar in Darbhanga, she maintained a steady lead over RJD heavyweight Binod Mishra from the moment counting began on Friday morning. Thakur is poised to become the youngest member of the new Bihar Assembly. Hailing from Benipatti in the neighbouring Madhubani district, about 35 km from the Mithila region, Thakur is trained in Indian classical and devoti

CHANDIGARH: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party has retained the Tarn Taran assembly seat in Punjab, with its candidate Harmeet Singh Sandhu defeating his nearest rival and Shiromani Akali Dal nominee Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa by 12,091 votes. An independent candidate supported by the rebel Akali faction finished in third position, while the Congress and BJP trailed in the fourth and fifth positions respectively. Sandhu secured 42,649 votes against Randhawa's 30,558 after the completion of all 16 rounds o

CHANDIGARH: A woman Sikh devotee has gone missing in Pakistan after travelling as part of the 1,932-member Indian Sikh jatha that crossed into the neighbouring country via AttariWagah on 4 November to attend the 556th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. Sources said the group of Sikh devotees returned to India yesterday, with 1,922 pilgrims accounted for, as eight members of the jatha, including Akal Takht officiating Jathedar Kuldip Singh Gargaj, had returned earlier on 9 November. However, Sarbji

SRINAGAR: In a setback for the National Conference and Omar Abdullah government, the opposition PDP has wrested the Budgam seat from the ruling party. This is the first time that NC has lost an election from the Budgam seat. The BJP, meanwhile, retained the Nagrota seat in the bypolls in J&K. PDPs Aga Muntazir, riding on the anti-incumbency against the Omar Abdullah government, won the Budgam Assembly bypolls by defeating NCs Aga Mahmood. 17 candidates were in fray from the Budgam seat, which fe

NEW DELHI: The JD(U)-led NDA has had a cakewalk in the 2025 Assembly polls. Several factors contributed to the sweeping victory, among them Amit Shah's electoral strategy. Entrusted with steering the NDA to success, Shah camped in the state for 19 days, engaging closely with party workers and formulating as well as executing the ground strategy that helped position the BJP as the single largest party in Bihar. Ensuring the implementation of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi the NDAs national po

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday said he was not invited to campaign in the Bihar election, while noting that the Congress would examine the reasons for its defeat. Speaking to reporters in the wake of the Bihar poll outcome, Tharoor said the party has a responsibility to study in detail the causes behind the setback. Remember, we were not the senior partner in the alliance and the RJD also has to look carefully at its own performance, he sai

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's elder son and Janshakti Janta Dal chief Tej Pratap was in the third slot in Mahua seat after the 13th round of counting, according to trends available on the Election Commission website on Friday. Yadav, who recently floated his political outfit after being expelled from the RJD by his father, had been in the fourth spot after the eighth round. He was trailing by 37643 votes from Sanjay Kumar Singh of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), who is leading there. Yadav polled 2

RJD leader and INDIA blocs chief ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav was trailing BJP candidate Satish Kumar by 4,829 votes in Bihars Raghopur assembly seat on Friday, which witnessed a tense, neck-and-neck contest throughout the day, according to Election Commission data. After 11 rounds of counting, Yadav had secured 40,100 votes, while Kumar had received 44,929 votes. Jan Suraaj Party candidate Chanchal Kumar was placed third with 1,392 votes. Yadav has held the Raghopur seat for the past decade

Nitish Kumar is set to return as Bihars chief minister for a record tenth term as counting continues, with trends pointing to a sweeping victory for the JD(U)-led NDA. The 74-year-old has been at the centre of Bihar politics for more than two decades, building a reputation as a reformer and earning the nickname Sushasan Babu against the backdrop of the RJDs so-called jungle raj. Over the years, he has repeatedly reinvented himself while retaining strong support among EBCs and women voters. Many

As the BJP appears poised for a sweeping victory for NDA in Bihar , projected to secure well over a two-thirds majority in the high-stakes assembly election, the party has intensified its offensive against the Opposition, particularly Congress leader Rahul Gandh, branding him a symbol of repeated electoral losses. Rahul Gandhi, who undertook a 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra across 20 districts ahead of the polls, had centred his campaign on allegations of vote chori, accusing the Election Commission

JAIPUR: Accusing the Election Commission of colluding with the ruling party in Bihar, senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Friday claimed that cash and benefits -- including Rs 10,000 to women -- were distributed to voters despite the model code of conduct being in force in the then poll-bound state. The former chief minister of Rajasthan termed the trends of the Bihar assembly election results disappointing and said pension payments and cash transfers continued unabated during the campaign pe

RANCHI: Security forces in Jharkhand have paid a heavy price in the 25-year-long fight against Maoists, with 555 personnel, 147 from central forces and 408 from state forces, killed during this period. Civilian casualties were even higher, with 1,925 deaths, peaking at 175 in 2007. Despite these losses, the state is now nearing the final phase of its anti-Maoist operations. A total of 999 Maoists have been killed so far, including 235 eliminated in 1,343 gunbattles with security forces. The rema

NEW DELHI: Emerging trends in Bihars assembly election results point to a landslide for the NDA, with Nitish Kumar the states longest-serving chief minister set to return for another record term. For Nitishs JD(U), this represents a clear rebound from its 2020 performance, aided in part by a record turnout of women voters, while alliance partner BJP is on track to emerge as the single largest party, consolidating its position in the state. The NDAs united front before the electorate, along wit

NEW DELHI: The emerging trends in the Bihar Assembly election results indicate a landslide victory for NDA, with BJP emerging as the largest party. The JD(U) initially led but later slipped to the second position. The election campaigns led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar managed to garner votes, from women voters in particular, and the wider electorate in general. The NDA alleged that incidents of crime and extortion would rise if the RJD comes back to power. The

NEW DELHI: Emerging trends in the Bihar Assembly election results suggest no significant traction for Prashant Kishor-led Jan Suraaj party (JSP). The JD(U) workers in Bihar are targeting Kishor who failed to garner enough votes, if the initial trends are anything to go by. Prashant Kishor had declared that the JDU would never cross the mark of 25 seats in fact, that it would remain below 25 and that if it crossed this mark, he would resign. These claims energised JDU supporters, making them vo

GANGTOK: Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, who was undergoing treatment at a hospital following nose bleeding and high blood pressure, was stable on Friday morning, a bulletin issued by the health facility said. Tamang was brought to the Central Referral Hospital on Thursday, following a minor episode of nose bleeding and elevated blood pressure, the bulletin said. He received immediate medical attention and his condition was promptly stabilised, it said. The chief minister is currently u

SRINAGAR: As the Jammu and Kashmir Police, along with teams from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and central intelligence agencies, intensify their probe into an inter-state white-collar militant network allegedly involving medical professionals and linked to the recent Delhi blast , Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has urged the public to take a firm stand against terror sympathisers in the Union Territory. Addressing a special convocation ceremony at the University of Jammu on Thursday, Lt Governor Sin

Early trends from bypolls across seven states on Friday pointed to tight contests, heavy security deployment and brisk counting across multiple Assembly seats. Jubilee Hills bypoll Over in Telanganas Jubilee Hills, after completion of four rounds of counting, Congress candidate Naveen Kumar Yadav is leading by 9,147 votes over BRS Maganti Sunitha. With 48.49% turnout, counting is spread across 10 rounds, while BJPs Lankala Deepak Reddy trails far behind. Nuapada bypoll In Nuapada, counting began

Early trends from bypolls across seven states on Friday pointed to tight contests, heavy security deployment and brisk counting across multiple Assembly seats. Jubilee Hills bypoll Over in Telanganas Jubilee Hills, after completion of four rounds of counting, Congress candidate Naveen Kumar Yadav is leading by 9,147 votes over BRS Maganti Sunitha. With 48.49% turnout, counting is spread across 10 rounds, while BJPs Lankala Deepak Reddy trails far behind. Nuapada bypoll In Nuapada, counting began