A special CBI court  has acquitted actor Sooraj Pancholi, accused of abetting the suicide of his then actor girlfriend Jiah Khan in 2013, citing lack of evidence against him.

Sooraj Pancholi (32), who is currently out on bail, was charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 306 (abetment of suicide).

Jiah Khan's mother Rabia Khan had been refuting the prosecution's case that this was a case of suicide and claimed that her daughter was killed.

Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court judge A S Sayyad on  Apr 28 said due to lack of evidence, the court holds Pancholi not guilty.

Sooraj, the son of actor couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, was present in the court with his mother at the time of the verdict.

Sooraj was arrested in the case in June 2013 and released on bail in July 2013.

Jiah (25), an American citizen, was found dead at her Juhu home here on June 3, 2013.

Police later arrested Sooraj on the basis of a six-page letter, purportedly written by the Bollywood starlet.

In a move to augment the operational capabilities along with the absorption of new technologies the Indian Army has decided to create a new wing to handle cyber operations and also plans to create structures to “test bed” the large number and variety of niche tech-enabled equipment being inducted into the Indian Army.

The decisions were taken by the top brass during the latest edition of Army Commanders Conference (ACC) which was organised for the first time in a hybrid model from 17-21 April 2023.

An eminent Indian-American community leader from Silicon Valley has urged US lawmakers to remove the prevailing seven per cent cap on green cards, observing that the country-specific limit on the most sought-after residency document has created extensive backlogs.

A Green Card is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing in the country permanently.

Speaking at the US-India summit held at the US Capitol, Ajay Jain Bhutoria, an entrepreneur and community leader, asked why there was a cap on the Green Card if not on an H-1 visa.

Immigration law provides for approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards to be issued each year.

However, only seven per cent of those green cards can go to individuals from a single country annually.

Making a detailed presentation, Bhutoria said that the number of students coming to the US from India on average is around 180-190 thousand per year.

There are 85,000 H-1B work visas issued every year and out of which nearly 60 per cent of H-1B visas are issued via a fair lottery system to tech workers from India, so around 51,000-60,000 H-1B visas.

The number of employment-based green cards issued to people from India is roughly around 7,000-8,000 per year due to the seven per cent country cap limit.

The US has sanctioned former senior Sri Lankan Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda for a gross violation of human rights during the brutal conflict with the LTTE, penalising a second senior defence official of the island nation in the last three years.

The 70-year-old Navy Commander from 2005-2009 became the second senior defence official to be sanctioned by the US for handling the final battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. He was later appointed Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Japan.

In 2020, the US State Department similarly sanctioned the current chief of defence staff Gen Shavendra Silva. He was a divisional head of the Army during the final battle and later became the Commander.

The US has sanctioned several other defence officers of Sri Lanka for their role in the island nation's war against the LTTE, however, most of the others were junior officers in designation.

Last year the US sanctioned the military officer Prabath Bulathwatte, former head of a clandestine Sri Lankan Army platoon known as the Tripoli Platoon.

When named, all the property and interests of individuals or entities in the US or under the control of the US are blocked, and they and their immediate family members are made ineligible for entry to the US.

In 2021, the US similarly listed two more Sri Lankan soldiers.

Chandana Hettiarachchi, a Navy officer and Sunil Ratnayake, a staff sergeant of the Sri Lanka Army were so sanctioned over accountability for gross violations of human rights.

As India’s smartphone exports doubled in 2022-23, three countries – UAE, US and Netherlands – accounted for 52% of the exports in value terms. The UAE was the largest buyer with $2.6 billion worth of smartphones shipped to the country followed by the US, which imported $2.2 billion worth of smartphones from India, and the Netherlands at $1 billion.

IT solutions company Coforge on Apr 27 announced that it would gift an Apple iPad to its 21,300 employees. This is to celebrate the company's strong performance.

It has earmarked Rs 80.3 crore for the purpose. The company has crossed the $1 billion revenue milestone. In the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2023, the company's revenue stood at Rs 2,170 crore. Its EBITDA margin for the quarter stood at 19.6%, sequentially up by 109 bps.

French automaker Citroen expects India to be its biggest growth driver outside Europe as it looks to have 30 per cent of its total sales coming from international markets outside the continent by 2025, its global CEO Thierry Koskas said.

The company, which unveiled its all-new mid-sized SUV C3 Aircross, will introduce another new product next year as it seeks to have a presence in the core segments of the Indian market.

At present, Citroen is exporting to some Asian and African countries.

Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra on Apr 28 extended his support to the protesting wrestlers and called for "quick action" from the authorities in order to ensure that justice is served.

Chopra expressed his disappointment a day after Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha came down heavily on the wrestlers for hitting the streets to resume their protests instead of approaching its athletes' commission to lodge their complaints against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

Ace javelin thrower Chopra, who scripted history by winning India's first-ever gold medal in athletics at the Olympics, said "it hurts" to see the wrestlers taking to the street in search of justice.