Mumbai: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has reportedly filed a defamation suit of five billion rupees against a YouTuber who brought up his name while spreading fake news.

Bihar education minister Mewa Lal Chaudhary, whose appointment to the post had triggered a controversy on account of a corruption taint, on Thursday tendered his resignation, barely three days after being sworn in as a member of the Nitish Kumar cabinet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said it is time for tech solutions that are designed in India but deployed for the world, and declared that the country is uniquely positioned to leap ahead in the information era.

Noting that it is natural to prioritise COVID-19 vaccine distribution, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said healthcare workers and people aged above 65 will be early recipients when a vaccine becomes available.

 The judge hearing former union minister M J Akbar's defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani has been transferred to another court by the Delhi High court.

 Four suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway on the outskirts of Jammu city early on Thursday, officials said.

A report by the United Nations has cited efforts by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to leverage its geospatial tools in assisting the central and state governments towards containing the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting sustainable development projects in the country.

Poet-activist Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has been shifted from Taloja jail in Raigad district to Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital following a directive by the Bombay High Court, a jail official said on Thursday. Rao was shifted to the private hospital late Wednesday night, the official said.