Indian-origin Kamala Harris secures Democratic Party's nomination for US vice-president
Washington: Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris was nominated the Democratic Party's candidate for the US vice-president, becoming the first-ever American of Indian and African descent to be selected by a major party for the top post.
Harris, 55, is the first Indian-American to be selected for the second-highest elected office of the United States after that of the president.
She is also the first-ever Black and first-ever African American to be nominated as a vice-presidential candidate by a major political party.
If elected in the November 3 presidential elections, Harris, whose mother is from India and father from Jamaica, would be the first-ever women vice president of the United States. I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States of America, she said.
She was nominated as the vice presidential candidate on Wednesday at the virtual Democratic National Convention.
Former vice president Joe Biden scripted history by nominating Harris as his running mate.
Harris has had a stellar career beginning as a public prosecutor in California.
The daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, she has known many firsts. She has been a county district attorney; the district attorney for San Francisco the first woman and first African-American elected to the position.
She was also the first female African-American to become California's attorney general. In 2017, she became the second African-American woman to join the Senate, winning the California seat vacated by Senator Barbara Boxer.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 10 with recovery of one more body; 3 tourists still missing
Jabalpur (PTI): The body of a child was retrieved on Saturday evening from Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy that took place two days ago to ten, while search continued for three missing tourists.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening with some of the survivors alleging negligence and safety lapses such as life jackets not being distributed in time.
The body recovered on Saturday evening was possibly that of six-year-old Viraj Soni, said Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra.
"The identity will be confirmed after family members identify the body," he told PTI.
Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria, his five-year-old son Tamil, and another child Mayuram (5) who had come from southern India were still missing.
Authorities have arranged equipment to search deep waters of the dam and are getting a generator to facilitate diving operations, Mishra added.
Divers and disaster response teams have expanded the search radius to five km, he said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the ill-fated vessel, 28 were rescued, police said.
More than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, joined the search operation that resumed at 5 on Saturday morning. The operation, involving the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, was briefly affected at around 9 am due to strong winds, officials said.
Post-mortem examinations of nine deceased persons have been completed, Mishra said.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will also register a First Information Report in the case soon," he said.
Police said CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat while the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the tragedy and dismissed three crew members. It also banned operation of similar vessels in the state.
