Mohammed Zubair wins 2023 Freedom of Expression award by London-based Index on Censorship

Hyderabad, Dec 4: Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy in all likelihood will be the next Chief Minister of Telangana with the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting underway right now at a private hotel in Hyderabad.

Sources said the All India Congress Committee (AICC) is in favour of Mr. Reddy realising that he also enjoys the support of maximum number of MLAs who have indicated that their support will be for him.

The meeting going on right now under the supervision of AICC observer and Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka D.K. Shivakumar will take the final call and then the team will immediately head to Raj Bhavan to submit the letter to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.

Earlier, Mr. Dk Shivakumar met with Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka and Munugode MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy at another hotel. The meeting assumes importance as Mr. Uttam Reddy and Mr. Vikramarka too are in the race. Mr. Rajgopal Reddy is the brother of Mr. Komatireddy Venkata Reddy. 

The party will face a tough task in accommodating Mr. Uttam Reddy, Mr. Rajgopal Reddy and Mr. Venkata Reddy in the Cabinet as they all hail from Nalgonda district and belong to the Reddy community. The caste arithmetic doesn’t suit to accommodate all of them.

The US military says Yemeni Armed Forces have fired two ballistic missiles in the direction of USS Mason, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer, in the Gulf of Aden.

In a statement, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the destroyer was targeted early Monday morning local time after it aided the tanker ship Central Park that had been seized in the Gulf of Aden.

“The missiles landed in the Gulf of Aden approximately ten nautical miles from the ships,” the statement added.

“There was no damage or reported injuries from either vessel during this incident,” it claimed.

The Central Park was carrying phosphoric acid and had an international crew of 22, The Associated Press reported. It sent a distress signal prompting the US aircraft USS Mason to respond.

The tanker ship sails under the Liberian flag and is managed by London-based Zodiac Maritime, which is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer's Zodiac Group. 

Earlier this month, the Yemeni Armed Forces seized a vehicle transport ship also linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen.

They have threatened to attack Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen and launched drone and missile strikes targeting the occupied territories in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel waged a war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and left vast swathes of the coastal enclave in ruins.

It has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

A 19-year-old woman was hacked to death in broad daylight in Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district by two brothers, including the man accused of raping her, police said Tuesday (November 21). Police said the killers - Ashok and Pawan Nishad - had been released on bail a few days before the brutal murder.

Police said the woman - butchered with an axe on the main road as scared villagers watched helplessly - had accused Pawan Nishad of raping her three years ago, when she was a minor. Pawan (and his associates) had been harassing the woman, since then, to get her to drop the case filed against him.

Pawan's brother, Ashok Nishad, is an accused in a separate murder case and was released less than two days before the young woman's murder, police added. Pawan was out of jail by this time and the two plotted to confront the woman's family and force them to close the case, police explained.

However, the young woman refused to back down, after which the brothers ambushed and slaughtered her as she was returning from grazing her family's cattle at a nearby field, police said.

Pawan and Ashok Nishad are now on the run, police added.

"There was a dispute between two parties in the same community regarding an old rivalry and litigation... members of one party killed the girl with a sharp weapon. A police complaint was filed and the accused have been booked," Kaushambi Superintendent of Police, Brijesh Srivastava, said.

The horrific incident took place at the Dherha village. The police have sent the woman's body for a post-mortem examination and have formed teams to arrest the accused, Mr Srivastava added.

The murder has triggered a predictable political row in the BJP-ruled state. The opposition Congress' state office posted a brief video on X (formerly Twitter) showing police covering the woman's body.

"In Kaushambi, two brutes publicly killed a girl by cutting her with an axe. One criminal had come out on bail just two days ago in a murder case. The other was accused of raping the same deceased girl."

"... brutes in UP are so fearless they have no fear of law... no respect. Here, the daughters are so unsafe that if they raise their voice about their stolen honour, they may even have to lose their lives," the opposition party said in its post, ""When will this darkness of the dark city go away?"

The murder has once again focused attention on the UP government's record on preventing crimes against women. And it comes just two months after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath declared 'Yamraj (the Hindu god of death)' would exact retribution against anyone who harassed or harmed women.

The Chief Minister's grand remark came after a teen was killed in UP's Ambedkar Nagar district.

Two men on a motorcycle pulled on her clothes as she was riding a bicycle, causing her to fall and be hit by an oncoming vehicle. Police said she died on the spot.

According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, UP recorded over 56,000 cases of crimes against women in 2021 - the most of any state. This includes, rape, rape and murder, and acid attacks.