India wins election to UNHRC with highest votes

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) on Monday responded to Karnataka’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) regarding a blue corner notice issued against JDS MP Prajwal Revanna.

In its response, Interpol said that all 196 member countries were alerted to identify and report if Prajwal Revanna is spotted at any port in their jurisdiction.

The Karnataka government issued a Blue Corner Notice on Sunday against Prajwal Revanna, who is facing allegations of sexual abuse by his staff members.

A Blue Corner Notice is issued by the international police cooperation body to collect additional information from its member countries about a person’s identity, location or activities about a crime.

The notice was issued after the 33-year-old Hassan MP reportedly flew to Germany soon after the Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary wrote to the CM to order a probe into the sexual allegations against Prajwal.

Last week, the anticipatory bail application of Prajwal Revanna was also denied by Justice Santosh Gajanana Bhat’s bench of People’s Representative Court in Bengaluru.

Earlier, his MLA father and son of former Prime Minster HD Deve Gowda, HD Revanna was remanded to Karnataka SIT custody in a kidnapping-related sex scandal case.

His arrest came after the kidnapped victim was rescued from Revanna’s close assistant Rajasekhar’s farmhouse in Kalenahalli, Hunsur Taluk after the SIT conducted the rescue operation to find her, the police said.

The abduction case was filed by the son of a woman who worked at the Revannas’ house for nearly five years. He alleged that his mother was kidnapped from her home on April 29 by Satish Babanna a relative of Revanna.

The Karnataka Sex Scandal case pertains to explicit video clips allegedly involving the 33-year-old Prajwal, grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, which went viral on social media.

Those videos began to make rounds in Hassan in recent days, following which the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the sexual abuse allegations against the MP.

In a humanitarian move, Spain has refused entry to a ship carrying arms from India’s Chennai to Israel to dock at one of its ports, its Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has said.

The Denmark-flagged cargo ship Marianne Danica sailed from Chennai on April 8 when people in Gaza were observing Ramadan fasting, and was headed to the port of Haifa in Israel, according to maritime tracking portals and Spanish media.

Spain has been extremely critical of the rising civilian casualties due to the Israeli offensive in Gaza and, along with Belgium, has suspended arms exports licenses to Tel Aviv. 

Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Randhir Jaiswal, at the weekly press conference, only said that they have seen the report of the ship and will revert with more information.

Meanwhile, a source said, “Investigation will reveal if the items on board were cleared for export and if the end user is the same as reported by The Guardian because there are items that are not banned for exports.”

Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Thursday on the issue, Mr. Albares had said, “This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port.”

“This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The Foreign Ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” he stated.

The ship was carrying 27 tonnes of explosives according to local reports. It was to make a port call at Cartegena in Spain.
In February, Mr. Albares said that they had suspended arms export licences to Israel since October 7, which he said made them “realise” the importance of a “fair and lasting solution” to the Palestinian cause.

The incident comes amid an ongoing row between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party and his coalition partners over another ship, Borkum, that was due to dock at Cartegena port on Friday over allegations that it was carrying arms meant for Israel. However, the Spanish government has said that the arms it is ferrying are meant for the Czech Republic.

Belgium had suspended two arms export licences to Israel.

“We welcome the decision of the Spanish government to deny the transit authorisation of the vessel Marianne Danica, in accordance with Tratado (treaty) on Arms Trade and Spanish law,” Amnesty International Spain said on social media platform ‘X’.

The timing also coincides with the Israeli ground offensive inside Rafah. According to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at least 6,30,000 Palestinians have been forced out of Rafah since the launch of the incursion on May 7.

Israeli military aircraft have heavily bombed the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip accompanied with ground advances shortly after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said it had agreed to a proposal on ceasefire in Gaza.

A Palestinian journalist reported flares in the night sky, while locals said dozens of reconnaissance drones flew overhead.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa and Egyptian media said Israeli military vehicles advanced towards the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, as well as the Karem Shalom crossing with the Israeli-occupied territories.

A Palestinian security official and an Egyptian authority have told the Associated Press news agency that Israeli tanks have entered Rafah, reaching as close as 200 meters from Rafah’s border crossing with neighboring Egypt.

The Israeli military has said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has also said "Israel is continuing the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas" in order to advance the release of captives and what it called "the other objectives of the war."

In the meantime, it described the proposal on ceasefire as "far from Israel's essential demands," but added that it would send negotiators for talks "to exhaust the potential for arriving at an agreement."

The military strikes on Rafah came ahead of talks in Egypt on Tuesday aimed at sealing a truce proposal accepted by Hamas, which was put forward by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. 

According to a copy of the proposal, there will be three phases to ending Israel’s onslaught against Gaza.

The first phase calls for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Netzarim corridor and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes. The second phase involves an announcement of a permanent cessation of military operations. In the last phase, there would be a complete end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip. 

In return, Israel would be required to release an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners, withdraw its troops from certain regions of the Gaza Strip, and allow Palestinians to travel from the south of the coastal sliver to the north.

About 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, once designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military. Palestinians are now struggling to evacuate the city, after the Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering them to leave as a large-scale assault on the city is planned.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that a ground invasion of Rafah would be “intolerable” and called on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a truce deal.

“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilizing impact in the region,” Guterres told reporters on Monday ahead of a meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in New York.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has also warned that Israel is “jeopardizing the deal by bombing Rafah.”