Bengaluru: DK ShivakumarHis long-awaited ambition came true on Wednesday when he took oath as the 24th Chief Minister of Karnataka at the Lok Bhavan, with his new cabinet bearing a distinct imprint of his predecessor but also reflecting a careful balance of caste and regional dynamics. Siddaramaiah. Prominent Dalit face G Parameshwar took oath as Deputy CM. Twelve other ministers were included in the initial phase, many of whom are close associates of Siddaramaiah. These include former CM’s son Yatindra Siddaramaiah. MLC BK Hariprasad found himself the center of attention during the function, with several party colleagues congratulating him amid heated discussion that he could be the next KPCC president, the official announcement of which came a few hours later.Free student pass, portal for private jobs, Rs 2 thousand crore for roadsSoon after assuming office, Shivakumar chaired his first cabinet meeting and announced several initiatives focused on youth welfare, infrastructure and employment, terming the new administration’s agenda as ‘Yuva Yug’ (Youth Era).These decisions include free bus passes for all students from school to post-graduation; establishment of a private employment office; Publication of government job vacancies calendar with recruitment timelines; Establishment of 10,000 Bharat Jodo youth clubs across the state; Rs 2,000 crore road repair programme; and relaxation in building norms for select residential constructions.The swearing-in ceremony was filled with religious symbolism and cultural traditions, with Shivakumar taking oath in the name of Veer Gangadhar Ajayya, a revered Shaiva saint from Tumakuru district, while holding a copy of the Constitution.The initial cabinet reflected a deliberate attempt at social engineering, but did not include any women. In terms of caste representation, three ministers each are drawn from the politically influential Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities as well as SCs. The Kuruba community got two seats, while the ST, Christian and Muslim communities got one seat each.With the state’s total sanctioned ministry strength being 34, the cabinet expansion is expected to take place after the June 18 Rajya Sabha elections.The event served as a major show of strength for the Congress, which was attended by top national leaders including AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi and the chief ministers of Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. The event was attended by a star-studded crowd from Bengaluru’s corporate, legal, cultural and sports worlds.

New Delhi: The Congress plans to intensify its agitation over the NEET-CBSE controversies in the next fortnight, directing party members to focus on issues related to students and youth without getting distracted by the schemes of the cockroach Janata Party.The CJP’s announcement of a physical protest in Delhi on June 6 has raised concerns in the Congress that this could be another “India against corruption” strategy by political rivals. Congress strategists and youth organizations have found CJP’s links with a rival and Congress has told its members that the organization’s actions should be done with caution. “We are cautious, not worried. The country has been misled once and cannot be misled again,” said a strategist.“With Rahul Gandhi leading the opposition’s charge on the NEET-CBSE controversies, the Youth Congress has taken to the streets in cities that are believed to have resonance over both the issues.YC chief Uday Bhanu Chib launched a nationwide protest in Goa on May 29, and it will cover Maharashtra, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, MP, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Punjab and will end in Tamil Nadu on June 20. The party’s student organization NSUI is also protesting in the cities. When CJP protests on June 6, YC will take to the streets in Haryana.The Congress is still haunted by the memories of Anna Hazare’s movement during the UPA which led to the formation of AAP. “The idea of ​​others is to publicize the ‘Gen Z movement’ and then project them in alliance with their political party. NEET is just incidental for them,” said a Congress member.“

Srinagar: Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of the first model border village at Chumur, located at an altitude of 16,700 feet on the India-China border.Officials said the project, the first of its kind in the region, will focus on infrastructure development, employment and livelihood generation, all-weather connectivity and comprehensive civil-defense integration. The initiative aims to facilitate the transition from a largely nomadic lifestyle to secure and permanent settlement in remote frontier areas.Chumur has 24 households with a population of 91 people, all of whom are engaged in goat rearing and its production for pashmina.Under the programme, families in these villages will be provided with climate-resilient, south-facing passive solar houses, designed to maximize solar heat gains and protect them from harsh winters when temperatures drop to -35 degrees, a statement from the Ladakh government said.Each household will receive a residential unit with an attached bathroom, an additional room suitable for homestay activities, kitchen garden space, livestock shed and dedicated fodder storage facilities. Depending on weather conditions, these houses are expected to be completed by September this year.To strengthen food security and livelihoods, a 90 x 27 feet commercial greenhouse will be set up in collaboration with the Defense Institute of High-Altitude Research (DIHAR) for year-round vegetable cultivation, officials said. He said the product will meet local needs and supply to nearby defense establishments, including the Army and ITBP, thereby creating a sustainable market for villagers, as well as promoting stronger civil-defence cooperation. “A central service core comprising a school, primary health center (PHC), community hall, park, community café and tourist interpretation center (TIC) will provide essential services and strengthen social and economic life in the village,” he said.A total of 10 such border villages will be developed in the first phase of the Vibrant Village Programme.Addressing the people on the occasion, Saxena said, “Due to its strategic location on the India-China border, Chumur has been selected as the first model border village of Ladakh under the Vibrant Village Programme, a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has consistently emphasized that border villages are not the “last villages” but the “first villages” of India.

London/Kolkata: Anisha Chakraborty messaged her brother Raktim in the US from Birmingham last Friday, saying she had good news to share. The 28-year-old student from Mukundpur, Kolkata, was looking for a job after completing her master’s degree with distinction from Aston University and had recently reached the final round of interviews.Raktim, who lives in Arkansas, replied to his sister on Saturday morning. Lesson not delivered. She later learned that just after 2am local time, Anisha had been hit by a black Audi RSQ8, a short distance from her residence, on Dartmouth Middleway in Birmingham city centre.Anisha had gone to a pub with former university friends on Friday night. She and a friend of hers went back together before splitting up midway. She was alone and almost home when the car hit her.Four days later, Anisha’s Indian-origin boss at the restaurant where she was working part-time is running a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to cover the cost of sending her body back to Kolkata. As of late Wednesday night, crowdfunding contributions totaled a little over £16,000 (Rs 20.5 lakh).In Kolkata, Anisha and Raktim’s father Ramakrishna Prasad Chakraborty, who is the principal of KK Das College in Patuli on the south-eastern outskirts, said every moment of waiting for his daughter’s body to arrive was agonizing. “She was very excited about the job. She was looking forward to a new phase in her life,” he said. “My wife has not spoken to anyone since the news broke.”West Midlands Ambulance Service in the UK said it received multiple 999 calls at 2.17am on Saturday reporting a collision between a car and a pedestrian. Two ambulances, two paramedic officers and a merit trauma team responded. By then Anisha had died.A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and causing death by driving under the influence of drugs. Police told TOI on Wednesday that he has been granted conditional bail pending the investigation.Till Friday evening the Chakraborty family was in constant touch with Anisha. Her father said, “There was no contact after that. On Saturday morning, one of her friends informed us that she had met with an accident.”Raktim told TOI that he has not only lost a younger sister but also someone whom he considered like a daughter despite being eight years older than him. “We had planned a video call during the weekend which never happened,” Raktim said. “She wanted to do something on her own. I told her to come to the US but she wanted to go to the UK because she had researched all the universities there and decided that this master’s degree would help her career.”Anisha studied at Sakhawat Memorial Government Girls School and graduated from Gokhale Memorial Girls College, Kolkata. She moved to the UK in September 2024 to pursue a master’s degree in international business. In July 2025, he began working at Jimmy’s Spices, a global buffet restaurant on Broad Street in Birmingham. After receiving her graduate visa, she started working in a downstairs café so she could focus on applying for full-time jobs in marketing and content writing.Shefali Karulkar, general manager of Jimmy Spices, described how Anisha “always had her laptop on in the café”.“Whenever I talked to her, she always told me she was looking for a job. She was a lovely person, very positive and kind.”

New Delhi: As the TMC faces its biggest crisis in West Bengal, with speculation rife over the future of its MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, developments in Bengal will have an impact on the stature of the second-largest opposition party within the Indian bloc and its overall impact on the opposition’s ability to take on the government, especially as the Mamata Banerjee-led party has been the most vocal critic of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.How the split within the TMC in West Bengal pans out at the national level following its defeat in the state elections will be keenly watched in the coming days. It is noteworthy that after a long gap, India Block meeting is going to be held on June 8. According to party sources, Mamata Banerjee And Abhishek Banerjee For now, plan to attend the meeting and garner support from the opposition camp amid the latest developments.On the day the TMC split for the first time in its 28-year history, there was a lot of talk in Delhi circles about whether the former CM would be able to keep all her MPs together and not witness what happened in West Bengal.Most of the senior MPs TOI either chose not to respond to or maintained silence about the situation. However, a senior leader stressed that at this time it is important for party MPs to remain united in Parliament and beyond. TMC has 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 13 in the Rajya Sabha.Refusing to comment on whether party members consider the rebellion in the state a reflection on the TMC leadership, a senior leader hit out at the BJP for taking action against opposition parties.Operation Lotus“, is a term used by its political opponents to describe the saffron party’s alleged strategy of inducing defections.According to sources, in view of the rapidly evolving situation, the TMC president, party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and other senior leaders attended a long meeting “to decide on the next course of action”, with the need to keep the flock together in Parliament a major concern.Banerjee’s MPs are going to face a big test in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament. His MPs will need to re-strategise their reach and projection in the face of serious setbacks in Bengal. Banerjee’s stellar record as a three-time CM and her clear voice had helped establish TMC as a major regional player and key member of the Bharat alliance.However, given the latest developments, TMC is likely to lose this strength. Despite the defeats faced by the Congress in the recent assembly elections, except in Kerala, the influence of the Congress is also expected to increase in the Indian faction.The changing dynamics within the alliance are expected to become clear at Monday’s meeting. More so, since the DMK, another major opposition party, has broken ties with the Congress, which after the party’s defeat in the assembly elections, decided to break ties with it in Tamil Nadu and joined the Vijay-led TVK government. It is noteworthy that DMK has not yet confirmed its participation in the June 8 meeting.

New Delhi: Stepping up efforts to resolve the problem of passengers struggling to book confirmed tickets, IRCTC More than three crore suspicious user IDs have been deactivated and another six crore have been placed under verification of authenticity to prevent misuse.The catering and ticketing arm of the Railways has also expanded the AI-based kitchen monitoring system across its network to deal with complaints about food hygiene and quality. Officials said more than 800 kitchens are now being monitored through 2,394 AI-enabled cameras that detect nine types of issues that are primarily responsible for unhygienic food in trains.These include head cap compliance, transparent glove detection, mopping, mopping, rodents, flies and cockroaches.Regarding action against suspicious users booking tickets, officials said 501 complaints related to 4.18 lakh suspicious PNRs have been registered on the National Cyber ​​Crime Portal. It has also taken action against fraudulent digital identity by blocking 13,343 suspicious email domains during the year.On kitchen surveillance, a senior IRCTC official said the AI-enabled cameras can detect anything as small as the size of an ant (7-8 mm). IRCTC to serve around 60 crore meals in 2025-26.The official said they are expanding this monitoring as more kitchens are added to its network. Cameras supported by AI tools instantly identify unhealthy practices and send alerts.“Any issue raised is forwarded to the concerned kitchen manager and if the issue is not resolved, the matter is escalated. Action is taken against the person responsible within two hours and the error is rectified,” said the official who oversees the IRCTC war room.Not wearing a headgear is the most common hygiene-related violation detected by the AI ​​system in the kitchen. On average, the system generates about 350 alerts or error tickets per day.Officials said the toughest time is during seasonal weather changes when the quality of food can be affected. Most complaints are received during this period. He said that while the AI ​​system generates about 350 tickets a day, the effective error rate is about 10%.

New Delhi: Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez arrived in India on Wednesday on a five-day visit to expand energy cooperation, as New Delhi looks to diversify its crude purchases amid supply disruptions from the West Asia crisis.Apart from energy, both sides are also ready to explore ways to enhance cooperation in the areas of trade and investment, pharmaceuticals and technology.Rodriguez is scheduled to hold extensive talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on social media, “Acting President of Venezuela Delsey Rodriguez is warmly welcomed on her arrival in New Delhi.”“This visit will further deepen India-Venezuela relations and add momentum to the bilateral partnership.”Rodriguez took over as acting president of Venezuela after U.S. forces detained then-President Nicolas Maduro in January.India was once a major processor of Venezuelan heavy crude, importing more than 4,00,000 barrels per day at its peak, until US sanctions and rising compliance risks forced purchases to end in 2020.New Delhi started buying crude oil from Venezuela after sanctions were lifted following Maduro’s capture. Indian oil marketing companies have significantly increased supplies of crude oil from Venezuela in the last few weeks due to the crisis in West Asia.The Acting President of Venezuela is accompanied by a number of ministers, including the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Economy and Finance, Science and Technology, Communications and Information, and Transport.The Venezuelan delegation will visit several sites in the energy, pharmaceuticals and auto sectors to gain insight into India’s technological and industrial capabilities and explore opportunities for collaboration.India and Venezuela have a history of cordial relations. The state visit of former President Hugo Chavez to India in March 2005 gave a major boost to bilateral relations.There is strong cooperation in the energy sector between the two countries.ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) has a joint venture with Corporación Venezolana del Petroleo (CVP).The joint venture for oil production and exploration in the San Cristóbal area is known as “Petrolerindovenezolana SA”, in which OVL has a 40 percent stake.