City News latest updates: Punjab witnesses 3,635 incidents of stubble burning

The Andaman and Nicobar Police on Wednesday announced a reward of Rs one lakh for information leading to the arrest of absconding Labour Commissioner R L Rishi in connection with a gang rape case in which former chief secretary Jitendra Narain is also an accused. (PTI)

An employee was killed in an explosion of a demonstration machine's storage tank at a plant of government-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district on Wednesday, officials said. The incident took place this afternoon in the NTPC's Sipat plant when testing of a demo machine was underway, a plant official said. (PTI)

Two men were arrested for allegedly transporting more than 30kg of calf meat in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district, police said on Wednesday and later a video surfaced purportedly showing one of them being beaten up by a belt-wielding person. (PTI)

AAP MLA Raaj Kumar Anand will take oath as a minister in a ceremony in Raj Niwas here on Thursday morning, a Delhi government official said. Anand will be administered oath of office by Lt Governor VK Saxena at the ceremony to be held at 10am on Thursday, the official said. (PTI)

Delhi's air quality improved marginally on Wednesday owing to relatively better meteorological conditions, with the Commission for Air Quality Management saying there is no immediate need to implement curbs, such as a ban on the entry of trucks and a closure of educational institutions, under the fourth stage of the Graded Response Action Plan. (PTI)

Seven months after the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh that led to the killing of 10 people in West Bengal's Birbhum district, the CBI arrested the prime accused in the case, a senior official said on Wednesday. (PTI)

A court in Delhi while hearing a case related to the 2020 Delhi riots sought clarifications from the northeast district deputy commissioner of police (DCP) regarding a "conflicting stand" taken by the prosecution on the number of accused people. It also asked several questions to the DCP, including what action was contemplated for mentioning wrong names of the accused in the FIR. (PTI)

Two women are missing and three others injured on Wednesday when a country boat carrying them capsized in the Sonkosh river in Kokrajhar district, officials said. The incident occurred near No 1 Gorumara "Char", a tract of land surfacing out of a river bed, when five women went to collect wood floating in the water. (PTI)

Water and electricity connections to former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta's quarters inside the Assam Assembly complex were snapped on Wednesday as he has not shifted to a new accommodation despite receiving several notices to do so, officials said. Mahanta is not an MLA at present and his official residence is not the responsibility of the Assembly Secretariat, the officials said. (PTI)

Four agriculture labourers were electrocuted and as many injured after a high-tension wire fell on their tractor in Ananthapuramu district on Wednesday. According to police, a live wire snapped and fell on the tractor at Darga Honnur, village, about 500 KM from here when the victims were boarding it after the day's work. (PTI)

Born in the Second World War era, Bihar native Shiv Narayan had arrived in Delhi in 1976 in the middle of the Emergency in search of a better future, and after decades of struggle of living in a slum cluster, the 78-year-old man and his wife received a 'key' to their own home on Wednesday. The couple hailing from Madhubani district, which is renowned for its traditional painting, felt elated and redeemed at the prospect of owning a house as they anxiously waited in the afternoon at Vigyan Bhawan to get the symbolic key to their flat. (PTI)

A 50-year-old man was charred to death in a fire that broke out a paper mill godown on Wednesday here, police said. The fire broke out at Star paper mill's godown located in area under Sadar Bazar police station at around 2 am, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vipin Tada said. (PTI)

Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states - a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the BJP and regional parties. (PTI)

The Delhi Congress on Wednesday said a facility to monitor pollutants and air quality here in real time, which was supposed to become functional on October 20, is "yet to start operations", a claim the city government termed as baseless. The party's city president, Anil Kumar, who visited the centre, also alleged that "machines are still being procured at the supersite", despite the air quality index (AQI) reaching "severe" in several parts of the national capital. (PTI)