DHAKA: Voting begins in 64 seats across seven states in the penultimate round of the Lok Sabha elections Wednesday.  The Congress appears to have an uphill task to perform with the whole of Seemandhra and parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal casting their vote, NDTV reprted.

DHAKA: Australian prime minister Tony Abbott called the Indonesian president on Tuesday to express regret after axing a trip to Bali reportedly due to fears an asylum boat turn-back could inflame tensions. Jakarta said, reports The Straits Times. The call came as Indonesian officials

DHAKA: China has detained a prominent human rights lawyer on a charge of ‘causing a disturbance’, two lawyers said on Tuesday, after he attended a weekend meeting that urged a probe of the bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Pu Zhiqiang, a

DHAKA: Indonesia’s first female provincial leader went on trial on Tuesday, accused of bribing one of the country’s top judges over an election dispute in an attempt to strengthen her political dynasty. The case of Ratu Atut Chosiyah, governor of Banten province, has transfixed even

DHAKA: Pakistan will set up mandatory polio immunisation points at its international airports in response to recommendations by the World Health Organisation. Pakistan health ministry said on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times. The WHO warned on Monday that the crippling disease has

DHAKA: European foreign ministers are meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine, where the authorities have launched a crackdown on pro-Russian separatists. Austria hopes backing will be given to this month's presidential election at the Council of Europe summit in Vienna, reports the

DHAKA: India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal to release Sahara conglomerate chairman Subrata Roy, who has been in jail for two months over his group's alleged failure to refund investors in an outlawed bonds scheme. Roy, one of India’s most enigmatic corporate

DHAKA: Thailand’s Constitutional Court said on Tuesday it would hand down a ruling on May 7 in an abuse of power case brought against prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra that could see her removed from office if found guilty. ‘The court makes an appointment to hand down its verdict on

DHAKA: Six people were wounded in a knife attack at a train station in China on Tuesday, police said, the latest in a string of violent episodes at public transport hubs. Police shot one of the attackers at the train station in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, the city’s public

DHAKA: A civilian diver taking part in the search for those missing from a recently sunken ferry died on Tuesday after falling unconscious during a mission. South Korean officials said, reports The Straits Times. The diver, identified as a 53-year-old man surnamed Lee, was brought to a

DHAKA: Egyptian presidential favourite and former army chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi on Monday has vowed that the banned Muslim Brotherhood group "will not exist," should he win. In his first interview with Egyptian TV, he added that two assassination plots against him had been uncovered,

DHAKA: Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has threatened to ‘sell’ the hundreds of schoolgirls it abducted three weeks ago.Militant leader Abubakar Shekau sent a video obtained by media, in which he said for the first time that his group had taken the girls, reports the

DHAKA: Hours after Narendra Modi targeted the Gandhis on their turf, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accused the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate of insulting her father Rajiv.‘On Amethi’s soil, they insulted the memory of my martyred father. The people of Amethi will never forgive them,’

DHAKA: Pro-Russian militants just outside Sloviansk have retreated amid attacks by Ukrainian troops, reports say.Government forces took control of a TV tower in the suburbs and rebels were pulled back deeper into the city, the Russian Interfax news agency said, reports the BBC.Earlier

DHAKA: Grief-stricken and destitute Afghan villagers vented anger on their government as they scrambled for emergency aid, three days after deadly landslides engulfed their homes. Some 300 homes in Aab Bareek, a village in the Argo district of Badakhshan, a remote and mountainous

DHAKA: Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram says it carried out the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in April.About 230 girls are still believed to be missing, prompting widespread criticism of the Nigerian government.‘I abducted your girls,’ Boko Haram leader Abubakar

DHAKA: The head of Libya’s parliament has confirmed businessman Ahmed Maiteeq as the country’s new prime minister, according to a decree signed by him on Monday, one day after a deputy speaker had declared Maiteeq’s election invalid. The divisions in the assembly highlight growing

DHAKA: Much to the dismay of the Vatican, an approximately 1500-2000 year old bible was found in Turkey, in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara. Discovered and kept secret in the year 2000, the book contains the Gospel of Barnabas, a disciple of Christ, which shows that Jesus was not

DHAKA: Four of Sri Lanka’s most senior hardline Buddhist monks appeared in court on Monday accused of insulting the Koran, in the first such case following a spate of religious hate attacks. Police accused the monks, from the nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, of

DHAKA: Government officials from Australia, China and Malaysia pledged on Monday not to give up searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared almost two months ago, despite lingering questions about how to proceed and who will pay. No trace of the jetliner has been found