Moderate polling recorded in UP bypolls
Lucknow, May 28: Close to 25 per cent polling was registered in Uttar Pradesh's Kairana parliamentary and Noorpur assembly seats on Monday, a poll official said.
In the first five hours the voter turnout has been 23 per cent in the crucial Kairana seat, while that in Noorpur was 24.6 per cent since polling began at 7 a.m., the poll official said. Voting will continue amid tight security till 6 p.m.
Both the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have filed complaints alleging that over 100 voting machines were malfunctioning.
In a letter accessed by IANS, the BJP has written to the State Election Commission that a large number of the EVMs were out of order forcing hundreds of voters to remain standed outside polling booths in the scorching heat.
It also put the reason for the sluggish pace of voting on the EVM-malfunction and said that booth officers have refused to accept their complaints.
In Kairana, the main contest is between Mriganka Singh of the ruling BJP and the RLD candidate Tabassum Hasan.
Singh, daughter of the late BJP MP from Kairana, Hukum Singh is counting on the sympathy wave in the name of her father and the power of the Yogi Adityanath government to win the election, while Hasan is pinning her hopes on the opposition unity as the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nishad Party, Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have extended their support to her.
In all there are 16,09,628 voters in Kairana of which 8,73,120 men, 7,36,431 women and 77 of the third gender.
In Noorpur, BJP's Avni Singh is pitted against Naimul Hasan of the SP. There are 3,06,226 male voters, 1,41,924 women and 10 from the third gender.
The Election Commission official said there are 2,056 polling booths and 1,094 polling centres. To ensure free, fair and peaceful elections, it has deputed three general observers and two expenditure observers, besides 53 companies of the para-military forces and 10 companies of the provincial armed constabulary (PAC).
All the electronic voting machines (EVMs) being used in the two bypolls have VVPAT machines to enable the voter to see for whom he or she has voted.
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Pope urges 'all people of all nations' to silence arms and overcome divisions in Christmas address
Vatican City, Dec 25: Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message Wednesday urged “all people of all nations” to find courage during this Holy Year “to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions” plaguing the world, from the Middle East to Ukraine, Africa to Asia.
The pontiff's “Urbi et Orbi” — “To the City and the World” — address serves as a summary of the woes facing the world this year. As Christmas coincided with the start of the 2025 Holy Year celebration that he dedicated to hope, Francis called for broad reconciliation, “even (with) our enemies.”
"I invite every individual, and all people of all nations ... to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions,'' the pope said from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica to throngs of people below.
The pope invoked the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, which he opened on Christmas Eve to launch the 2025 Jubilee, as representing God's mercy, which “unties every knot; it tears down every wall of division; it dispels hatred and the spirit of revenge.”
He called for arms to be silenced in war-torn Ukraine and in the Middle East, singling out Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “particularly in Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,” as well as Lebanon and Syria “at this most delicate time.”
Francis repeated his calls for the release of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
He cited a deadly outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the suffering of the people of Myanmar, forced to flee their homes by “the ongoing clash of arms.” The pope likewise remembered children suffering from war and hunger, the elderly living in solitude, those fleeing their homelands, who have lost their jobs, and are persecuted for their faith.
Pilgrims were lined up on Christmas Day to walk through the great Holy Door at the entrance of St. Peter's Basilica, as the Jubilee is expected to bring some 32 million Catholic faithful to Rome.
Traversing the Holy Door is one way that the faithful can obtain indulgences, or forgiveness for sins during a Jubilee, a once-every-quarter-century tradition that dates from 1300.
Pilgrims submitted to security controls before entering the Holy Door, amid new security fears following a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany. Many paused to touch the door as they passed and made the sign of the cross upon entering the basilica dedicated to St. Peter, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.
“You feel so humble when you go through the door that once you go through is almost like a release, a release of emotions,'' said Blanca Martin, a pilgrim from San Diego. "... It's almost like a release of emotions, you feel like now you are able to let go and put everything in the hands of God. See I am getting emotional. It's just a beautiful experience.”
A Chrismukkah miracle as Hanukkah and Christmas coincide
Hanukkah, Judaism's eight-day Festival of Lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, which has only happened four times since 1900.
The calendar confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Hanukkah party hosted last week by several Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, bringing together members of the city's Latino and Jewish communities for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.
While Hanukkah is intended as an upbeat, celebratory holiday, rabbis note that it's taking place this year as wars rage in the Middle East and fears rise over widespread incidents of antisemitism. The holidays overlap infrequently because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and is not in sync with the Gregorian calendar, which sets Christmas on Dec. 25. The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Day was in 2005.
Iraqi Christians persist in their faith
Christians in Nineveh Plains attended Christmas Mass on Tuesday at the Mar Georgis church in the center of Telaskaf, Iraq, with security concerns about the future. “We feel that they will pull the rug out from under our feet at any time. Our fate is unknown here,” said Bayda Nadhim, a resident of Telaskaf.
Iraq's Christians, whose presence there goes back nearly to the time of Christ, belong to a number of rites and denominations. They once constituted a sizeable minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million.
But the community has steadily dwindled since the 2003 US-led invasion and further in 2014 when the Islamic State group swept through the area. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear, but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.
German celebrations muted by market attack
German celebrations were darkened by a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday that left five people dead, including a 9-year-old boy, and 200 people injured. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his recorded Christmas Day speech to address the attack, saying that “there is grief, pain, horror and incomprehension over what took place in Magdeburg.” He urged Germans to “stand together” and that “hate and violence must not have the last word.”
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who had practiced medicine in Germany since 2006 was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect's X account describes him as a former Muslim and is filled with anti-Islamic themes. He criticized authorities for failing to combat “the Islamification of Germany” and voiced support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
