The big news: Evacuation of Indians begins from Ukraine’s Sumy city, and nine other top stories
Other headlines: Akhilesh Yadav claims Varanasi official transported EVMs without informing candidates, and international flights to resume from March 27.
Here are the top headlines of the day:
- Evacuation of Indian students in Sumy begins after Russia offers humanitarian corridor: As many as 694 people, including families living in Sumy have left for the central Ukrainian city of Poltava. The Union Ministry of External Affairs has claimed that all students have left for Poltava, from where they would board trains to western Ukraine.
- Varanasi district magistrate transported EVMs without informing candidates, claims Akhilesh Yadav: The Samajwadi Party chief made the claims after social media users, including former Uttar Pradesh minister Swami Prasad Maurya, shared a video in which several electronic voting machines could be seen on a truck.
- Regular international flights to resume from March 27, says civil aviation ministry: They had been suspended in March 2020, ahead of the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown. In the last two years, India had set up air bubble agreements with 37 nations.
- US to ban all imports of oil and gas from Russia, announces Joe Biden: The United States president said his country “will not be a part of subsidising [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war”. The decision came a day after Russia warned that crude oil prices could increase to as much as $300 a barrel if western countries continued with its sanctions.
- Two Muslim men allegedly beaten up in Gurugram, say they faced religious slurs: The police said that a case was registered against unidentified assailants on the basis of a complaint filed by Abdur Rehman and Mohammad Azam.
- Centre will take decisions on oil prices in best interests of citizens, says petroleum minister: Hardeep Singh Puri also denied that hikes in prices of petrol and diesel had been stalled due to Assembly elections in five states.
- Income tax raids on premises of three aides of Maharashtra ministers Anil Parab, Aaditya Thackeray: Thackeray told reporters that central agencies have become the ‘publicity machinery’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
- Kerala HC dismisses actor Dileep’s plea to quash further investigation in 2017 sexual assault case: The High Court directed the Crime Branch to finish the inquiry by April 15.
- Ten persons get life sentence in Tamil Nadu for killing Dalit man in 2015: The accused men killed Gokulraj in Namakkal district after they suspected that he was in a relationship with a woman from the Gounder community.
- Coronavirus toll crosses six million mark globally: Experts believe that the fatality count around the world could be higher.