KOLKATA, 05 May 2021 (TON): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will take oath for the third time today on 5 May 2021. The ceremony will be held at 1045 hours at Raj Bhawan and West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar will preside over the ceremony in which Mamata Banerjee will be sworn in as the Chief Minister. 

In the 294-seat state assembly, Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress won 213 seats while Bharatiya Janata Party got 77 seats. However, elections for two seats in Murshidabad are postponed due to the demise of candidates due to COVID.

The oath-taking ceremony will be held on low profile keeping the pandemic in mind with limited audience.

KATHMANDU, 05 May 2021 (TON): Nepali Ambassador to Australia, Mahesh Raj Dahal has been withdraw from Australia due to alledged links with CPN Maoist. The statement issued from Kathmandu said, the government has decided to call back the Ambassador Mahesh Raj Dahal with immediate effect.

A Cabinet meeting two days back decided to call back Dahal, who was sent to the Canberra mission in November 2019 after incumbent Lucky Sherpa was drawn into a controversy related to a human trafficking charge in early 2019.

It is alledged that reason benind his removal is Dahal’s close contacts with the CPN-Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. It is alledged that his political belief was the reason for being called back.

It is not immediately clear who will replace Dahal in an important diplomatic position.

SRINAGAR, 04 May 2021 (TON): Jagmohan Malothra who remained Governor of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir State from 1984 to 1989, passed away after a brief illness in Delhi at the age of 94 on Monday.

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday announced three days state mourning over the his demise as he was also senior BJP leader. During his tenure he tried to crush Muslim Kashmiris with iron hand which resulted in all out revolt. The killing of Hindu Pandits and their evacuation from their houses and lands is in the credit of Jagmohan Singh as he tried to give impression to the international community that Kashmiri Mujahideen were behind the heinous act.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed deep sorrow and termed it as a monumental loss. Indian top leader Mamata Banerjee, who after landslide victory in West Bengal and emergard as a national leader also expressed his grief and sorrow, despite BJP’s arch rival.

NEW DELHI, 04 May 2021 (TON): The Indian authorities in New Delhi have called for help from the Indian Army as the city grapples with a brutal wave of Covid-19 cases due to mismanagement of Indian health officials. Hospitals in the city are in crisis, with intensive care beds full and an acute shortage of medical oxygen.

Delhi's government wants the Army to run Covid care facilities and intensive care units as general public have taken law and order in their hands and protesting against Indian failure to handle the situation. Across India, case numbers since the start of the outbreak are closing in on 20 million and hundreds and thousands have to the streets to protest Indian authorities inefficiencies.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that with healthcare "overwhelmed... it will be a timely help to the people of Delhi if the Ministry of Defence, with the considerable resources at its command, is tasked with the responsibility to provide and man the additional Covid health facilities". He also asked for "urgent" help transporting much-needed oxygen.

WASHINGTON, 04 May 2021, (TON): Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have filed papers for the divorce. Analysts say it is a strategic move.

Launched in 2000, the nonprofit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation one of the largest private philanthropic foundation in the United States with net assets of $43.3 billion (2019), would, however, remain intact.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become one of the most powerful and influential forces in global public health, spending more than $50 billion over the past two decades to bring a business approach to combating poverty and disease.

The Gates have backed widely praised programs in malaria and polio eradication, child nutrition and vaccines. The foundation last year committed some $1.75 billion to COVID-19 relief.

In a joint petition for dissolution of marriage, the couple asserted their legal union was "irretrievably broken," but said they had reached agreement on how to divide their marital assets. No details of that accord were disclosed in the filing in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

Bill Gates, 65, who co-founded Microsoft Corp, and his spouse, Melinda French Gates, 56, met after she joined the software giant as a product manager, and they dated for a few years before marrying in January 1994 in Hawaii. The divorce petition, which states that the couple have no minor children, comes after the youngest of their three offspring recently turned 18. The official statement from the Gates Foundation said the couple would remain as co-chairs and trustees of the organization.

NEW DELHI, 04 May 2021 (TON): Pakistan has closed land crossings with India as well as Iran and Afghanistan for travellers and slashed international flights as the government warned of a ‘critical few weeks ahead in the battle against the coronavirus (Covid-19).

Meanwhile due to India mismanagement of Coronavirus and treatment of cases with ineffective vaccine the situation is taking a negative turn. Earlier Indian nationals in Iran and Afghanistan as well as other countries were badly affected by COVID-19. Iranian maritime guards also seized an Indian ship carrying COVID-19 cases in the Persian Gulf waters.

Pakistani officials have anxiously watched the coronavirus crisis unfolding in neighbouring India and termed the mismanagement by Indian authorities as dangerous for not only Indian nationals but neigbouring counties too.

NEW DELHI, 04 May 2021 (TON): The governor of the Iranian Jasak, Hormozgan Province, said Monday that Iranian maritime guards seized an Indian ship carrying COVID-19 cases in the Persian Gulf waters.

The Jask governor said that the Iranian maritime guards seized an Indian ship suspected of carrying COVID-19 cases in the Persian Gulf waters in the Jasak, in the Southern Province of Homozgan.

Test samples of the Indian nationals have been sent to Bandar Abbas and Tehran to identify the variant of the Coronavirus. It is believed that at least 19 Indian crew of Indian ship were COVID positive.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Indian External Affairs Ministry is likely to formally lodge protest note by summoning Iranian Ambassador in New Delhi. Indian External Affairs Ministry sources said,”We are ascertaining further details on the incident. Our Embassy is in touch with the Government of Iran to secure the early release and repatriation of Indian nationals.”

ISLAMABAD, 3 May, 2021 (TON): On Sunday, the PM of Pakistan Imran Khan visited different areas in the capital Islamabad without any security and protocol, said the PM office.

He inspected business activities, implementation of Covid-19 standard operating procedures and development works during the visit.

Prime Minister Imran drove himself to different areas and talked to people, according to the pictures and videos shared by the Prime Minister's Office and lawmakers.

However, Prime Minister Imran was accompanied on the tour by PTI Senator Faisal Javed Khan and Capital Development Authority Chairman Amer Ahmed Ali.

GUWAHATI, 3 May, 2021 (TON): On Sunday, the election officials said that the ruling BJP-led NDA returned to power in Assam for the second consecutive term.

The commission stated that the "Mitrajot" secured 68 seats in the 126-member assembly.

According to the latest tally of the Election Commission results late on Sunday night, of the total of 126 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has so far won 53 seats, and leading in six seats while its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won nine seats and the United People's Party Liberal (UPPL) won six seats.

The Congress has won 23 seats and leading in seven seats. Other partners of the Congress led "Mahajot" (grand alliance) the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) won 13 seats and leading in three seats, Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF) and Communist Party of India-Marxist won four and one seat respectively.

Raijor Dal (RD) President and jailed leader Akhil Gogoi, who is contesting from Sibasagar constituency as an independent candidate, also won the seat by defeating the BJP candidate Surabhi Rajkonwari by a marjin of 11, 875 votes.

However, in the 2016 elections, BJP had won 60 seats during while its ally AGP had managed 14 seats and the Congress had secured 26 seats and one seat went to the independent candidate.

MALE, 3 May, 2021 (TON): Police officers are under investigation for excessive use of force that are involved in dispersing protesters demonstrating against sexual harassment in the workplace in the capital on Saturday have been suspended from their duties in frontline policing.

On Saturday night, the police used force to dismantle the protest, pepper-spraying protesters at close range. Videos of protesters getting injured have gone viral, sparking condemnation.

The use of force by police to dismantle Saturday’s protest is being investigated by Professional Standard Command and Use of Force Review Committee as a matter of high priority.

On Sunday, Commissioner of Police Mohamed Hameed said that an inquiry has been opened to investigate the actions of the police.

According to the statement issued by the police, complaints over the actions of police in controlling police will be investigated in accordance with standard procedure, and that any irregularity will be taken action against.