External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday took up with her Georgian counterpart Mikheil Janelidze the issue of Indian students being denied entry into that country despite having valid visas. Janelidze assured me that he would look into the matter personally and resolve it, Swaraj said in a tweet. ... Read More

The West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) moved both the Supreme Court and the Calcutta high court on Tuesday challenging a U-turn by the State Election Commission (SEC) , which overturned its own order to extend the deadline for filing of nominations for rural polls in the state by a day. The matter will be heard by the apex court on Wednesday. Responding to the BJP petition, a Calcutta high court single bench of justice Subrata Talukdar issued an interim stay on the SEC’s order on Tuesday morning that withdrew Monday’s decision to extend the deadline for the filing of nomi ... Read More

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday arrested Atul Singh Sengar, the brother of a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA accused of raping an 18-year-old woman (when she was a minor) in Unnao last year, for beating her father to death earlier this week. And with pressure building up on it to act, the state set up a special investigation team to look into the case. The woman has alleged that BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his aides raped her last June. She also said the police did not investigate her allegations and failed to name Sengar in an official document that recorded her complaint. ... Read More

As decided by the BJP’s parliamentary party on the last day of the Budget session last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with party president Amit Shah and all party MPs, will undertake a day-long fast on Thursday to protest against the impasse in Parliament. The Prime Minister will be in Delhi and will continue his daily official routine while fasting, and Mr. Shah will be leading a protest in Hubli-Dharwad in Karnataka, where the Assembly elections will be held on May 12. ... Read More

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, who proposed to the Rajya Sabha Chairman that MPs disrupting Parliament be expelled alleges that regional parties acted at the behest of the government to disrupt proceedings in the previous session. Excerpts from an interview: ... Read More

New Delhi: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday testified before the Congress and during his five-hour testimony, the lawmakers asked him tough questions on fake news, Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election and censorship of conservative media. ... Read More