At least 10 devotees, three of them minors, died after a tractor-trolley carrying idols of Goddess Durga for immersion on Vijayadashmi plunged into a lake in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday, police said.

With the situation limping back to normalcy after violent clashes on September 24 left four people dead in Leh, the authorities have ordered reopening of all schools up to Class 8 from Friday.

 Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is expected to visit India next week, in the first high-level trip from Kabul after the Taliban captured power following the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government over four years ago.

As many as 103 Naxalites, 49 of them carrying a collective bounty of more than Rs 1 crore, surrendered before authorities in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh on Thursday, a police official said.

RSS workers "trespassed" into the premises of a government school here on Thursday and they were detained and later released, police said.

AICC general secretary K C Venugopal on Thursday accused the Centre of political discrimination towards Kerala for not granting the amount sought for rehabilitation of disaster-hit Wayanad.

Claiming that there is a "wholesale attack on the democratic system" in India currently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said allowing different traditions to thrive is important for the country, as "we cannot do what China does, which is to suppress people and run an authoritarian system".

The clamour for a judicial inquiry into the recent violence here, which left four people dead and scores injured, grew louder on Thursday, with two powerful Buddhist religious bodies and the Kargil Bar Association pressing the demand.