Babri Masjid case: SC dismisses review petitions against its pro-temple verdict

In yet another setback to the Congress party amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, its candidate from Indore Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination on Monday, April 29, days before voting.

Interestingly, he had reached the Collector's office with BJP MLA Ramesh Mendola to withdraw his nomination. He also reportedly joined BJP. 

Senior BJP leader and state cabinet minister Kailash Vijayvargiya in a post on X said Bam was welcome to join the BJP.

"Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Indore Akshay Kanti Bam is welcome in the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party national president J P Nadda, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and state president VD Sharma," he said in the post.

The Congress had fielded Bam against sitting BJP MP Shankar Lalwani from the Indore Lok Sabha seat, where polling will be held on May 13.

Bengaluru: Voting was underway on Friday in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls in 14 constituencies in Karnataka. Polling began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm.

A total of 247 candidates -- 226 men and 21 women -- are in the fray for the first phase covering most of the southern and coastal districts, where more than 2.88 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 30,602 polling stations.

The Congress and BJP are locking horns on the electoral battleground again in less than a year. This election is witnessing a straight fight between the ruling Congress and the BJP-JD(S) combine unlike the Assembly elections in May last year which witnessed a triangular contest among the three parties.

The state has a total of 28 Lok Sabha constituencies. The second phase of polling in the remaining 14 seats is on May 7.

In the first phase, while the Congress is contesting in all 14 seats, BJP has fielded nominees in 11 and its alliance partner JD(S), which joined the National Democratic Alliance in (NDA) in September last year, in three -- Hassan, Mandya and Kolar.

Besides the three, the segments where elections are being held on Friday are: Udupi-Chikmagalur, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South and Chikkballapur.

According to Election Commission, 1.4 lakh polling officials are on duty for the first phase. Besides them, 5,000 micro-observers, 50,000 civil police personnel, and 65 companies of Central Paramilitary Force and State Armed Police force of other States have been deployed for security. All the 2,829 polling stations of Bangalore Rural parliamentary constituency are being webcast.

"This is as per the request of our returning officers and observers; so we have given more than double the Central paramilitary force for Bangalore Rural constituency. Seven companies of Central paramilitary forces have been inducted at the constituency since April 22," Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena has said.

In fact, out of the total 30,602 polling stations in the first phase, 19,701 are webcast, and 1,370 covered via CCTVs, he had added. Chikkaballapur has a maximum number of 29 candidates, followed by 24 in Bangalore Central, and Dakshina Kannada has the least number at nine.

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy from Mandya, his brother-in-law and noted cardiologist C N Manjunath from Bangalore Rural on a BJP ticket against Deputy CM D K Shivakumar's brother and MP D K Suresh of Congress, and erstwhile Mysuru royal family scion Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar from Mysore, from the BJP, are among the prominent candidates in the fray in the first phase.

Also in the contest are BJP MP Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South pitted against Minister Ramalinga Reddy's daughter Sowmya Reddy of Congress, and Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje on BJP ticket from Bangalore North against former Indian Institute of Management Bangalore professor M V Rajeev Gowda of Congress.

Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent crackdown of protests by the ruthless cops. 

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta's Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil' Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

"Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away," Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the confirmed death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon's cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school's quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were "Emory community members", had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students "are shocking" and that he is "horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions."

The university's response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.