Mangaluru: Marking nine years of the Mangaluru plane crash tragedy, the administration on Wednesday paid tributes to the victims of the tragedy near Kolur bridge here.

 Jokha Alharthi has become the first Arabic author to win the Man Booker International prize for her novel "Celestial Bodies" which reveals her Omani homeland's post-colonial transformation.

Two militants were killed Wednesday in an encounter with security forces in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Acting on a credible input about presence of ultras in Gopalpora area of Kulgam, security forces launched a cordon and search operation, a police spokesman said.

Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections, in which over 8,000 candidates were in the fray for 542 seats, will begin at 8.00 am Thursday and results are expected only by late evening due to tallying of voter verified paper audit trail slips with EVM count for the first time.

A day before the counting of the votes polled in the Lok Sabha election, the Congress on Wednesday termed as "constitutional travesty" the EC's rejection of Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa's demand that dissent notes should be recorded and alleged that the poll watchdog wanted to set a new precedent of "dark secrets" and "secluded chambers" in performing its duties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday expressed concern over the "needless controversy" created by the Opposition over EVMs at a meeting of NDA leaders, even as the ruling alliance laid out its agenda for the next five years if it is elected to power again.

A medium intensity earthquake of magnitude 5.8 hit the Andaman and Nicobar islands on Wednesday morning. The quake, which had its epicentre in the Andaman islands, occurred at 6:09 am, the National Centre for Seismology said.

In a pre-dawn launch on Wednesday, Indian space agency ISRO scripted history by successfully launching earth observation satellite RISAT-2B that would enhance the country's surveillance capabilities among others.