New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Saturday accused the government of appointing officers of the ranks of joint secretary, director and deputy secretary as "rath prabhari" and wondered how could officers be used to indulge in "political propaganda".

Koderma (PTI): About 50 children and women fell sick in Jharkhand's Koderma due to suspected food poisoning after eating 'gol gappa' from a roadside vendor, a health official said on Saturday.

The BJP on Saturday named 83 more candidates for the Rajasthan assembly polls, fielding former chief minister Vasundhara Raje from her traditional Jhalrapatan seat.

The Delhi High Court has sought the ED's stand on a petition by Hyderabad businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai challenging his arrest and remand in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam wherein he has claimed "third degree" methods were applied to obtain information.

Firing a fresh salvo at TMC MP Mahua Moitra, BJP's Lok Sabha member Nishikant Dubey on Saturday said she was in India when her parliamentary ID was used in Dubai and claimed that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has disclosed the information to probe agencies.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said the BJP-led Centre did not play any role in curbing Naxalism in the state as incidents of Naxal violence were on the rise under the party's "double engine" government between 2014 and 2018, and asserted that his dispensation's three-pronged strategy of development, trust and security resulted in pushing Maoists on backfoot.

The Supreme Court has set aside the conviction of a man facing death penalty for alleged rape and murder of a three-month-old girl and remitted the matter for a "de novo (new) trial", observing that the trial in the case was conducted in a "hurried manner" without giving him proper opportunity to defend himself.

A 28-year-old man was arrested for allegedly strangling his mother in Nagpur after she refused to give him money to buy a smartphone, a police official said on Friday.