Bengaluru(PTI): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has appealed to employers across the state to extend support to voters from Bihar to enable them to take part in the Assembly elections there.

In his message, which his office shared with media on Tuesday, Shivakumar noted that a large number of residents of Bihar are working in Bengaluru and various parts of Karnataka and wanted the workers to be given at least three days of paid leave for this purpose.

The Deputy CM, who is also the Congress state president, urged companies and business establishments to cooperate in ensuring the migrant workers' participation in the electoral process.

"I request all companies, commercial entrepreneurs, hotels, contractors, builders, shopkeepers and other industrialists to grant at least three days of paid leave to the voters of Bihar State so that they may be able to cast their vote in the Bihar State General Election, and to cooperate in enabling them to participate actively in the election process," Shivakumar said.

Two-phase polls are scheduled to on November 6 and November 11 for the 243-member Bihar assembly.

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New Delhi (PTI): Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday took a swipe at the "failed" US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan with an Urdu couplet, saying only god knows now what will happen.

"Ab kya hoga, ye rab jane; Na woh mane, na ye mane (only god knows what will happen now as both sides did not agree)," Tharoor said on X, tagging a post-talks video clip of US Vice President J D Vance, who led the American delegation at the negotiations in Islamabad.

The United States and Iran failed to reach a peace deal at their historic 21-hour talks in Pakistan, leaving the fate of a tenuous two-week ceasefire in doubt, with both sides attempting to hold each other responsible for the collapse of the negotiations.

Vance said the Iranian side did not accept Washington's terms for ending the war even as the US presented its "final and best offer".

Hours after the talks collapsed, US President Donald Trump said on social media that the negotiations with Tehran failed as "Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions".

Trump said the US Navy will actively interdict any vessel in international waters found to have paid tolls to Iran for transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route that handles roughly 20 per cent of global oil and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas).

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of the Iranian negotiation team, said it is for the US to decide whether it can "earn our trust or not".

The Iranian foreign ministry, without elaborating, said the US side resorted to "excessive" and "illegal demands".

The failure to reach an agreement has dimmed the prospect of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to stabilise the global energy marke