Amid controversy over the recommendation of an HRD Ministry panel to teach Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states, a revised draft education policy was issued on Monday that did not have a mention of the language being compulsory.

Smriti Irani Monday took charge as the Union Women and Child Development Minister. She was welcomed by senior officials of the ministry and Minister of State in the WCD Ministry Debashree Chaudhuri. Soon after assuming charge, Irani held a meeting with all senior officials of the ministry.

A Delhi court Monday allowed Robert Vadra, accused in a money laundering case, to travel abroad for six weeks. Special Judge Arvind Kumar allowed him to travel to USA and the Netherlands for six weeks and asked him to submit his travel schedule.

The Supreme Court Monday granted three months time to the CBI to complete its probe, including into the murder aspect, in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case.

A 23-year-old college student, admitted to a private hospital in Kochi, is suspected to have been infected with the Nipah virus but a final confirmation is awaited from the National Institute of Virology in Pune, the Kerala government Monday said.

The following is an attempt to visualize discrepancies in the numbers of votes reported as polled and the number of votes counted from EVMs.

 AHMEDABAD: A video of Naroda BJP MLA Balram Thawani kicking a woman — a ward-in-charge of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — after she had fallen on the ground went viral on Sunday. Thawani and his aides are seen beating the woman, Nitu Tejwani, during a scuffle. Apparently, the woman had gone to Thawani’s office in Kubernagar area and threatened to sit on dharna outside his office if two days time was not given to some affected residences and offices before their water supply line was cut. The local BJP councillor, Balaram’s brother Kishor Thawani had last week gone to supervise the disconnection of an allegedly illegal water connection near Maya Cinema, from where the dispute had started. Allegedly, Kishor had heckled a person who was shooting a video of his actions.

Two persons were Monday killed in a brief shootout with Army in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

The Army had laid a checkpoint at Moolu Chitragam in Shopian in the early hours. A private vehicle jumped the checkpoint. Militants got out of it and opened fire, they said.