Former West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, 80, passes away

Cairo, June 19: Israeli army’s direct gunfire and strikes killed at least 140 starving people including child and women across Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, as some Palestinians in the Strip said their plight was being forgotten as attention has shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran.

At least 40 of those killed over the past day died as a result of Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Wednesday, Gaza’s health ministry said. The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on the territory.

Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp, the Zeitoun neighborhood and Gaza City killed at least 21 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on an encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Fourteen more people were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

Asked about the Salahuddin road incident, the Israel Defense Forces said that despite repeated warnings that the area was an active combat zone, individuals approached troops operating in the Nuseirat area in the central Gaza Strip in a manner that posed a threat to forces.

Troops fired warning shots, it said, adding that it was unaware of injuries. Regarding other strikes, the IDF said it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities” while taking “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”

On Tuesday, Gaza’s health ministry said 397 Palestinians among those trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since aid deliveries restarted in late May.

Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked due to the new Israel-Iran conflict.

“People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days,” said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

“Whoever doesn’t die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won,” he said. 

Dubai: Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early Monday, triggering air raid sirens across the country as emergency services reported at least five killed and dozens more wounded in the fourth day of open warfare between the regional foes that showed no sign of slowing.

Iran announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for Israel’s sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure, which have killed at least 224 people in the country since last Friday.

The attacks raised Israel’s total death toll to at least 18, and in response the Israeli military said fighter jets had struck 10 command centers in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran.

Powerful explosions, likely from Israel’s defense systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn on Monday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the coastal city.

Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva said Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, shattering windows and ripping the walls off multiple apartments.

The Israeli Magen David Adom emergency service reported that two women and two men — all in their 70s — were killed in the wave of missile attacks that struck four sites in central Israel.

“We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,” said Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne outside the bombed-out building in Petah Tikva. “And this is just one scene, we have other sites like this near the coast, in the south.”

The MDA added that paramedics had evacuated another 87 wounded people to hospitals, including a 30-year-old woman in serious condition, while rescuers were still searching for residents trapped beneath the rubble of their homes.

No negotiation while under Israeli attack

Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on Sunday, killing and wounding civilians and raising concerns of a broader regional conflict, with both militaries urging civilians on the opposing side to take precautions against further strikes. 

Israel warned that the worse is to come. It targeted Iran's Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran and sites it alleged were associated with Iran's nuclear program, while Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses and slammed into buildings deep inside Israel.

An Iranian health ministry spokesperson, Hossein Kermanpour, said the toll since the start of Israeli strikes had risen to 224 dead and more than 1,200 injured, 90 percent of whom he said were civilians. Those killed included 60 on Saturday, half of them children, in a 14-story apartment block flattened in the Iranian capital.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hoped a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Canada on Sunday would reach an agreement to help resolve the conflict and keep it from escalating.

Iran has told mediators Qatar and Oman that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire with the US while it is under Israeli attack, an official briefed on the communications told Reuters on Sunday. The Israeli military, which launched the attacks on Friday with the stated aim of wiping out Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, warned Iranians living near weapons facilities to evacuate.

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.