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Taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today claimed that the Congress Vice-President knew “nothing” about poverty and his concern for the poor was only to “make headlines”.

“Tourists go to the Taj Mahal and take snaps of their visit for posterity….Rahul Gandhi does exactly the same when he visits the poor, taking photojournalists and cameramen with him so that photographs and footage of his interaction with the poor can make headlines,” Modi told election meetings in Bihar.

One polling officer was killed and five others were injured Thursday in an attack by separatist guerrillas on a polling staff party in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district, police said.

A senior police officer told IANS that polling staff was returning in a bus to the district headquarters in Shopian district from Nagbal polling station when they were fired upon by separatist guerrillas.

Despite every second child in India being malnourished, the issue of malnutrition does not find a mention in the manifestos of most of the political parties this election, a CRY analysis said Thursday.

NGO Child Rights and You (CRY), which analysed the manifestos of 10 major political parties including the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Samajwadi Party (SP), said that only five parties have mentioned the issue in their manifestos.

More than eight years after a boy was arrested for murdering a Shangri-la Hotel manager and convicted and sentenced for the crime in 2011, the Delhi High Court has ordered his release deeming him to be a juvenile “below the age of 18” at the time of the crime.

Justice Kailash Gambhir and Justice Sunita Gupta accepted the ossification test report submitted by medical board of AIIMS, conducted to determine the age of Anand Kishor, who claimed to be a juvenile at the time of crime. The report said Kishor’s present age is between 25-28.

Fresh after filing his Lok Sabha nomination in Varanasi today, BJP leader and Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi here today claimed that people had laid the foundation of a new government to replace the UPA regime at the Centre.

“The foundation of a new government at the Centre has been laid by people, who have decided to oust the Congress-led government,” Modi said in an election speech in Bihar, coinciding with the the third phase of the polling today.

Addressing a group of women journalists from the Indian Women Press Corps (IWPC), Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit pitched for the resumption of the dialogue process.

Basit stressed that he had come with a mandate from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and that there is a national consensus in Pakistan for improving bilateral relations between the two nations.

Basit also said that Pakistan’s Government is committed to changing the bilateral narrative of conflict into that of cooperation and mutual trust.

Five members of a family were burnt to death under mysterious circumstances in their Zakir Nagar home here, police said Thursday.

Firoz, 35, who ran an embroidery stitching factory, his wife Yasmeen Parveen, 30, and their four children — Afroz, 12, Afreen, 11, and Asif, 7 — fell victim to a blaze that was first noticed by a neighbour when he saw smoke coming out of the house located in south Delhi in the wee hours of Thursday.

The police and the fire department were informed at about 1.30 a.m.

The Supreme Court Thursday entrusted the administration of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala to a five-member committee headed by the district judge of Thiruvananthapuram.

The court also said the keys of the temple vault holding its treasure would be handed over to the district judge.

The bench of Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice A.K. Patnaik said former comptroller and auditor general (CAG) Vinod Rai would undertake the audit of the temple accounts and properties.

They are sitting MPs and belong to the family of Congress stalwart Ghani Khan Chowdhury – who never lost an election from Malda. But Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury and Mausam Benazir Noor had to wait for hours to cast their own votes.

Choudhury, contesting from Malda South and Benazir from Malda North, had demanded repolling after a faulty EVM prevented them from casting their votes. But the duo subsequently relented after being able to exercise their democratic rights later in the evening.

India is likely to witness below average monsoon rainfall in 2014 that will affect farm output and economic growth, the government’s weather office said Thursday.

Rainfall during the 2014 monsoon season (June to September) averaged over the country as a whole is likely to be 88 percent with a margin for error of plus or minus five percent of long period average, according to data released by the India Meteorological Department and Earth System Science Organization (ESSO).