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The Israeli military said it had carried out “the largest coordinated strike across Lebanon” since the start of the West Asia conflict. This came hours after United States President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in West Asia in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran had confirmed that Iranian forces will stop their “defensive operations” if the attacks on the country are halted. “For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces…,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

Welcoming the announcement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said New Delhi expects that “unimpeded freedom of navigation and global flow of commerce would prevail through the Strait of Hormuz”. Read on.

The Congress said that Pakistan facilitating the ceasefire talks between the US and Iran was a “severe setback” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “highly personalised” style of diplomacy. Modi’s “self-styled vishwaguru [world leader]” image had been “thoroughly exposed”, the party said.

While announcing the two-week ceasefire in West Asia, Trump said that Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistani military chief Asim Munir had requested him to “hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran”.

Sharif also invited the US and Iranian delegations to Islamabad on Friday “to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes”. Read on.

The Trinamool Congress alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar told a delegation of the party to “get lost” during a meeting about the upcoming Assembly elections. The party had approached the poll panel to express concerns about officials allegedly linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party being made part of the West Bengal polling process.

On social media, the poll panel referred to “straight-talk to Trinamool Congress” and said it had told Bengal’s ruling party that the Assembly polls would be “fear-free, violence-free, intimidation-free, inducement-free and without any chappa, booth-jamming and source-jamming”.

The Trinamool Congress objected to the post, asking if this was how “a neutral constitutional body” was expected to behave. Read on.

The Delhi High Court asked the police and social media platform X to take action against journalist Rana Ayyub for ‘inflammatory’ posts she made between 2013 and 2017 about Hindu deities and Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar. The matter required urgent consideration, the bench said and sought responses from Ayyub, X and the Delhi Police.

The court was hearing a petition by a lawyer named Amita Sachdeva seeking that six posts made by the journalist be taken down.

Sachdeva had also approached a Delhi court in January 2025 seeking an FIR against the journalist. The court had then ordered that a case be filed, following which the police registered an FIR. Read on.

India’s Border Security Force shot dead a Bangladeshi man along the Dhabolguri border while he was allegedly attempting to cross into the country, said a Border Guard Bangladesh official. The man was reportedly with seven to eight other Bangladeshi nationals who had allegedly attempted to cut the barbed-wire fence.

Following this, India’s 156 BSF battalion fired a round of blank shots to disperse them. As they did not disperse, the Indian security forces opened fire and one man was shot while the others fled, said the Bangladeshi official. Read on.

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