Mohanlal steps down as Malayalam film body chief amid #MeToo storm

Bengaluru: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) moved the Karnataka High Court on Monday seeking to quash criminal case against it in M Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede incident that claimed 11 lives.

DNA Entertainment Networks Pvt Ltd, the event organiser, has also filed a separate petition challenging the FIR against it.

Royal Challengers Sports Limited (RCSL), owner of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), has contended that it has been falsely implicated in the case.

According to the petition, RCSL claimed that it had clearly communicated on social media that only limited passes were available. It also said that even for free passes, pre-registration was mandatory for entry.

It alleged that stadium gates, which were supposed to open at 1.45pm, were actually opened only at 3pm, causing a crowd surge.

According to the event mangement firm, the incident occurred due to failure of crowd management by the police. The High Court is expected to hear the matter on Monday afternoon.

Tehran, June 3: Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri and commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami have been martyred in an Israeli aggression.

Major General Gholam Ali Rashid, commander of the central headquarters of the Iranian Armed Forces, was also martyred in one of the attacks which came early Friday.

Veteran nuclear scientists Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoon Abbasi were martyred in separate attacks.

Initial reports named Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari and Seyyed Amirhossein Feqhi, Motalebizadeh as other nuclear scientists martyred in the attacks.

The attacks were first reported around 3:00 a.m. local time on Friday in the capital, Tehran, followed by a series of explosions in several other provinces across the country.

Videos circulating on social media show widespread destruction in residential areas of Tehran and other regions, the result of what has been described as indiscriminate Israeli aggression.

The Israeli regime confirmed responsibility for the attacks, claiming to have targeted sites in Natanz, Khorramabad, Khondab, and several other locations.

The IRNA news agency, citing a security source, reported that Iran is preparing a "decisive response" to the latest act of Israeli terrorism against the Islamic Republic.

The aggression comes amid escalating tensions in the region, fueled by the warmongering rhetoric of Israeli regime officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Reportedly, US President Donald Trump had approved the latest Israeli aggression despite ongoing indirect nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

According to sources, the sixth round of talks scheduled for Sunday is now likely to be canceled.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, in a statement, condemned the aggression and vowed Iran's severe retaliation against the Tel Aviv regime.

“In the early hours of today, the Zionist regime once again revealed its evil and bloodstained hand by committing a crime on our beloved soil, further exposing its malicious nature through attacks on residential areas. The regime must now await a harsh punishment,” read the statement.

New Delhi, June 16: The Narendra Modi-led government has officially notified plans to conduct India's 16th national census in 2027 — the first in 16 years since the last full enumeration was carried out in 2011. This upcoming census will, for the first time, include caste-based data collection across the country.

According to the notification issued on Monday, the census will be conducted with two different reference dates:

•    October 1, 2026 for snow-bound and non-synchronous areas such as Ladakh, parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

•    March 1, 2027 for the rest of the country.

The government plans to deploy around 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors, supported by 1.3 lakh census functionaries, all equipped with digital devices to streamline the massive data collection exercise.

A significant update for the 2027 exercise is the inclusion of caste enumeration, a move that has long been debated in policy circles and public discourse. Additionally, the census will provide an option for self-enumeration, allowing citizens to submit their data digitally.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparations for the exercise on Sunday in a high-level meeting attended by Union Home Secretary, Registrar General and Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and other senior officials.

Two-Phase Operation

The census will be conducted in two distinct phases:

1.    House Listing Operation (HLO): This phase will record housing conditions, household assets, and amenities.

2.    Population Enumeration (PE): This phase will capture detailed information on demographic, socio-economic, and cultural aspects of each individual in every household.

This will be India’s 16th decennial census since the first one in 1872, and the eighth since Independence in 1947.

The government has also assured that robust data security protocols will be implemented to safeguard information during collection, transmission, and storage, addressing concerns around privacy and digital vulnerabilities.