A local court in Rampur has sentenced 24 security personnel including two from the CRPF to 10 years of imprisonment for supplying arms and ammunition to criminals, Naxalites and terrorists in 2010.

All 24 have been ordered to pay a fine of Rs 10,000.

The main accused, Yashodanand, a retired sub-inspector of UP Police in Allahabad (Prayagraj), had died during the trial.

Vinod Paswan and Vinesh Kumar, both hawaldars in the Central Reserve Police Force, are among those convicted.

The other convicts were Nathiram, a constable, who was posted at Police Training College, Moradabad, constables Ram Kishan Shukla, Ramkripal, Sushil Kumar Mishra, Jitendra Kumar Singh, Rajesh Shahi, Amar Singh, Vansh Lal, Akhilesh Kumar Pandey, Amresh Mishra, Rajesh Kumar, Manish Rai, Vinod Kumar Singh, Om Prakash Singh, Rajya Pal Singh, Loknath, Banwari Lal, Akash, and Dileep Rai.

Three civilians, Dileep Rai, Akash, and Muralidhar Sharma, are among the convicts. Fourteen of the accused persons were serving the UP Police and Provincial Armed Constabulary.

In a significant decision, the Bihar cabinet  gave approval to the reservation in promotions for government employees which was on hold owing to a stay by the Supreme Court.

Cabinet secretariat principal secretary S Siddharth said the state government has created a formula for bringing reservations in 83 per cent posts in every cadre and beneficiaries among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be studied and if their count comes out to be less than 17 and 1 per cent, the state will take a decision over it.

Reservation in promotion will be effective from 2016. In case, the top court gives a verdict against the reservation, promoted employees from the reserved category will be demoted but the state government will not recover the pay difference and extra allowances paid to them during the period, Siddharth said.

Nearly, five lakh government servants will benefit from the decision of the Bihar government. Recently, the Bihar government released the data of the caste census which it conducted in the state. 

In a setback to the BJP, several leaders including former ministers Raj Kumar Verka, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Gurpreet Singh Kangar, who had quit Congress last year to join the saffron party, rejoined their parent party

Sidhu, a former three-time MLA from Mohali, was the health minister in the Congress government, while Kangar, a former three-time MLA from Rampura Phul, was the revenue minister. Verka, a prominent Dalit leader from the Majha region, who was also a former three-time legislator from Amritsar (West), was the minister for social justice and empowerment and minorities in the previous government.

Sidhu and Gurpreet Kangar were dropped from the state cabinet after the Congress replaced Capt Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi as the chief minister last year. Others who rejoined Congress were Jeet, Mahinder Singh Sidhu, Hans Raj Joshan, Mohinder Kumar Rinwa, Kamaljit Singh Dhillon and Karanveer Singh. The party called the rejoining “ghar wapsi” (homecoming).

An umbrella body of mosques in India, All India Rabta-e-Masjid, has proposed to name the mosque to be built in Dhannipur village of Ayodhya district as “Mohammed Bin Abdullah Masjid”, after the Prophet.

The decision was taken in the presence of around 1,000 clerics of various Muslim sects in Mumbai, who gathered to finalise the design of the proposed mosque.

As per the sources, the mosque will be built by Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation Trust (IICFT) on land allotted to UP Sunni Central Waqf Board in Dhannipur village, 22-km away from Ram Janmabhoomi premises, in compliance with the Supreme Court order delivered in connection with the vexed issue of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid on November 9, 2019.

The United Nations has suspended and detained eight peacekeepers in eastern Congo over allegations of sexual exploitation.

According to a UN official, the eight peacekeepers are from South Africa and they were detained in the city of Beni in North Kivu province after being caught with prostitutes at an unauthorized bar after curfew.

Conflict has been simmering in eastern Congo for decades where more than 120 armed groups are fighting in the region, mostly for land and control of mines with valuable minerals, while some groups  are trying to protect their communities.

More than 12,000 UN peacekeepers operate in the country. Their mission is to protect civilians, deter armed groups, and build the capacity of state institutions and services.

Despite the presence of peacekeepers in Congo for decades, the conflict has continued and is increasing.

Scores of civilians, including women and children, have been killed by the M23 rebels in the east.

Conservative former businessman Christopher Luxon will be New Zealand’s next prime minister after winning a decisive election victory  Oct 14.

People voted for change after six years of a liberal government led for most of that time by Jacinda Ardern.

The exact makeup of Luxon’s government is still to be determined as ballots continue to be counted.

Outgoing Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who spent just nine months in the top job after taking over from Ardern in January, told supporters  he had called Luxon to concede.

With most of the vote counted, Luxon’s National Party had about 40% of the vote. Under New Zealand’s proportional voting system, Luxon, 53, is expected to form an alliance with the libertarian ACT Party.

The war between Israel and Hamas has cast a shadow over the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Morocco, with warnings  on  Oct 12 that it has darkened the outlook for an already sluggish global economy.

The global lenders are holding their gathering, which brings together finance ministers and central bankers from around the world, in an Arab country for the first time in 20 years.

The conflict, which erupted when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a bloody attack on Israel from Gaza , has raised concerns about its potential impact on the world economy.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Oct 13  said it has arrested three persons under money laundering act for the alleged irregularities in Taksheel Solutions public issue (IPO). ED said it has arrested Nirmal Kotecha, Pavan Kuchana and Kishore Tapadia under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and were placed under judicial custody till October 25 by the Metropolitan Sessions Court at Nampally, Hyderabad on Thursday.

They are accused of formulating a carefully planned strategy to inflate the revenue of Taksheel Solutions for issuing IPO and for subsequently diverting and siphoning off the issue proceeds. Further investigation is under progress.