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At least four persons died and several were feared missing after a cloudburst triggered a flash flood in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. A rescue operation was underway in the Dharali area, which is about 18 kms from the Hindu pilgrimage town of Gangotri.

The disaster relief forces and the Indian Army were involved in the rescue operation.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that people were being evacuated to safe locations on a priority basis and the situation was being monitored. Read more.

Parliament extended the President’s Rule in Manipur by six months. The statutory resolution was passed in the Rajya Sabha through a voice vote on Tuesday. The Lok Sabha cleared the resolution on Thursday.

President’s Rule was imposed in the North East state on February 13, four days after Bharatiya Janata Party leader N Biren Singh resigned as the chief minister amid allegations from Kuki-Zomi-Hmar groups that his response to the ethnic violence was partisan and that he had stoked majoritarianism.

Manipur has seen ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities since May 2023. At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the violence broke out. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024. Read more.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik died on Tuesday. He was 79. Malik was undergoing treatment for kidney-related ailments in a hospital in Delhi.

He served as the last governor of Jammu and Kashmir from August 2018 to October 2019. He also held the post in Bihar (2017-2018), Goa (2019-2020) and Meghalaya (2020-2022).

Malik was an MP in the 1980s, and jumped parties including the Congress, the Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He also served as the Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs and tourism in 1990.

In recent years, Malik made several allegations of corruption in Jammu and Kashmir, and Goa. He had also claimed in an interview in April 2023 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him not to speak about the alleged security lapses that led to the Pulwama terror attack in 2019. Read more.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra defended her brother Rahul Gandhi a day after the Supreme Court criticised his remarks on alleged Chinese incursions.

“With due respect to the honourable judges, they do not decide who a true Indian is,” Vadra said. “It is the duty of the Opposition leader to question the government.”

On Monday, the court told Rahul Gandhi that a “true Indian” would not make remarks such as those he had about China having allegedly intruded into Indian territory. The bench made the comments while hearing his petition seeking to quash a defamation case against him.

The case pertains to comments the Congress leader made in 2022 about a clash between the Indian and Chinese soldiers along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang. Read more.


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