BJP's poll manifesto voice of an isolated man: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Sam Pitroda has stepped down from the post of Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress and his resignation was accepted by the party. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to X and announced that Sam Pitroda had decided to resign from the key post "of his own accord".

Pitroda had been under fire over his controversial remark that Indians in the East resemble the Chinese while those in the South look like Africans.

"We could hold together a country as diverse as India -- where people on East look like Chinese, people on West look like Arab, people on North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans. It doesn't matter. We are all brothers and sisters," Pitroda said during an interview with The Statesman.

The Congress immediately distanced itself from Pitroda's remarks, terming them "unacceptable".

"The analogies drawn by Mr Sam Pitroda in a podcast to illustrate India's diversity are most unfortunate and unacceptable. The Indian National Congress completely dissociates itself from these analogies," Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

The BJP also hit out at the Congress over Pitroda's remarks and termed them "racist and divisive".

New Delhi: In a big blow to Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a Delhi court has ordered the framing of charges against the former Wrestling Federation of India chief in the sexual harassment allegations levelled by women wrestlers. The court has said there is sufficient evidence on record to do so, and the trial against him can now begin. 

Friday's order by the Rouse Avenue court comes days after the BJP decided not to repeat Mr Singh, who is the party MP from Uttar Pradesh's Kaiserganj, as the candidate from the constituency and decided to field his son Karan Bhushan Singh instead. 

The court has ordered the framing of charges under Indian Penal Code sections Ordered to frame charges against Brij Bhushan under sections 354 (outraging a woman's modesty), 354-A (sexual harassment) and 506 (criminal intimidation). The Delhi Police had filed a chargesheet against under these sections and one additional section - 354D (stalking) - on June 15 last year. 

Charges should also be framed against the former assistant secretary of the Federation, Vinod Tomar, under Section 506, the court said. 

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Priyanka Rajpoot said the charges will be framed against Mr Singh for sexually harassing five wrestlers and that he stands discharged in the allegations levelled by the sixth.

The six-time MP has been at the centre of a huge political storm since last year, when sexual harassment charges were levelled against him and protesters had hit the streets led by Olympic medallists Sakshee Malikkh and Bajrang Punia, as well as Commonwealth Games and Asian Games medallist Vinesh Phogat.

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.