NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has decided to move Supreme Court seeking remedy against the “unfortunate action of West Bengal chief minister” in obstructing the probe and tampering with evidence in a PMLA case against I-PAC, and a nod to continue with its probe against the political consultancy agency. The petition is likely to be filed late in the night or early Sunday morning. Lawyers aware of the developments told TOI that ED has, in its petition, accused the West Bengal police of actively acting under the directions of the TMC govt to thwart the probe into the money laundering case against I-PAC, by an FIR against the directorate officials to coerce them not to conduct investigations in the case.

ED is trying to get the petition listed for Monday amid indications that the solicitor general may represent it if the Supreme Court entertains the plea. The West Bengal govt has already filed a caveat in SC to preempt ED from seeking and getting an ex parte order, amid its continuing political slugfest with central agencies which began with the state govt in Nov 2018, withdrawing general consent to CBI to investigate cases inside the state. ED, it is learnt, has argued that its attempt to raise its grievances before Calcutta HC was unsuccessful as unruly scenes during the hearing on Friday forced the judge to adjourn hearing on a case which required urgent interim orders to protect the sanctity of investigations. Multiple FIRs filed ‘in malicious manner’ against officers: ED The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also contemplating requesting Supreme Court to transfer the pending petitions, one by ED and the other by Trinamool Congress relating to I-PAC case, to Delhi high court to be in an atmosphere conducive to adjudication by a constitutional court. The agency had petitioned Calcutta high court on Friday to order a CBI probe against West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, DGP Rajeev Kumar, Kolkata Police commissioner Manoj Varma and others for “theft of digital and other evidence, wrongful restraint and confinement of central govt officers, and breakdown of the rule of law”. It said that multiple FIRs had been registered “in a malicious manner” against its officers for conducting an investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) into the financial dealings of political consultancy I-PAC, which has been associated with TMC and the Bengal govt for years. The 28-page petition, filed in response to Mamata and the police brass’s allegedly “illegal and unconstitutional interference” in ED’s search of addresses linked to I-PAC, details how the Bengal CM and her entourage tailed the central agency throughout Thursday – from the Loudon Street residence of the firm’s director Pratik Jain to its office in the tech hub of Salt Lake’s Sector V. The petition alleges that Mamata entered Jain’s residence around 12.05pm and “took possession of all digital devices along with key incriminating documents” from an ED officer, ignoring requests not to interfere with the investigation into I-PAC’s alleged role in money laundering linked to a 2020 coal scam. At I-PAC’s Salt Lake office, ED officers were “obstructed” while performing their duties as the CM and a contingent of Trinamool functionaries and workers refused to budge from there for nearly four hours, the petition stated. Countering the CM’s allegation that Union home minister Amit Shah had sent ED to “snatch” documents and digital storage containing Trinamool Congress’s poll plans under the garb of an investigation into I-PAC’s dealings, ED informed the high court that its officials officially recorded the sequence of events in a panchnama.

The United States carried out “large-scale” retaliatory strikes against Islamic State targets across Syria on Sunday, following last month’s ambush near Palmyra that killed two US soldiers and an American civilian interpreter.US Central Command said the strikes began around 12.30 pm ET and were conducted alongside partner forces, hitting multiple ISIS targets across the country. A US official told CNN that more than 90 precision munitions were fired using more than two dozen aircraft.Also read | ‘Operation Hawkeye Strike’: US carries out ‘large-scale’ airstrikes on Syria; targets ISISSaturday’s strikes are part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, the Trump administration’s response to the December attack that killed Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, and civilian interpreter Ayad Mansoor Sakat while they were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led mission to defeat ISIS.US Central Command said the strikes were aimed at preventing future attacks and degrading ISIS’s remaining capabilities in Syria.“The strikes today targeted ISIS throughout Syria as part of our ongoing commitment to root out Islamic terrorism against our warfighters, prevent future attacks, and protect American and partner forces in the region,” the command said in a statement on X.“Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” US Central Command said.

The December ambush marked the first deadly attack on US personnel in Syria since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, were members of the Iowa National Guard. Three other Guard members were injured.Operation Hawkeye Strike was launched on December 19 with a large-scale operation that hit roughly 70 ISIS targets across central Syria. The United States and Jordan also carried out a previous round of strikes under the same operation last month.A day before Saturday’s strikes, Syrian officials said their security forces had arrested the military leader of ISIS’s operations in the Levant. Saturday also saw intense clashes in northern Syria’s Aleppo city, where Syrian government forces deployed in the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood after days of fighting with Kurdish fighters that left dozens dead and wounded. According to Syria’s state news agency SANA, two Kurdish fighters blew themselves up while surrounded by security forces, causing no casualties. Gunfire was reportedly still heard around noon as security forces urged residents to stay indoors. Later in the day, an explosive drone struck the Aleppo Governorate building shortly after a press conference by two Cabinet ministers and a local official. The clashes began Tuesday in Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh, and Bani Zaid after negotiations between the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stalled over integrating Kurdish forces into the national army. Government forces have since taken control of Achrafieh and Bani Zaid. Five days of fighting killed at least 22 people, including civilians on both sides, according to AP. The United States on Saturday called on the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to negotiations, AFP reported. Conflicting reports emerged from Aleppo, with authorities claiming a halt to fighting and the transfer of Kurdish fighters out of the city, which the Kurdish forces denied.

US role and ongoing mission

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have long been the United States’ main partner against ISIS, but since Assad’s ouster, Washington has increasingly coordinated with Syria’s central government in Damascus. Syria recently joined the global coalition against ISIS. Despite President Donald Trump’s skepticism about US involvement in Syria, hundreds of American troops remain deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. In April, the Pentagon announced plans to cut troop levels in half, and in June US envoy Tom Barrack said the United States would eventually reduce its bases in the country to one.

NEW DELHI: India records one of the highest numbers of deaths globally, yet the country still does not know what most people die of – a gap most pronounced in north India and even the national capital. A nationwide study published in Scientific Reports has found that only 22.5% of deaths in India are medically certified, leaving nearly four out of five deaths without a doctor-confirmed cause in official records. The findings are particularly significant for Delhi and north Indian states, which together account for a large share of the population. North India has the poorest medical certification of deaths, averaging just 13%, while Delhi’s rate has remained stagnant at around 57-59% for years – far from universal coverage despite its dense network of hospitals and medical colleges. The consequences extend well beyond record-keeping. “Without knowing the cause of death, it becomes difficult to assess disease prevalence nationally or regionally, which in turn affects health delivery, especially in remote areas,” said Dr Vinay Aggarwal, former national president of Indian Medical Association. He added that poor death documentation also affected processes such as electoral roll revision, underlining the wider administrative fallout.

Public health experts warn that unreliable cause-of-death data means govts are effectively planning health policy without knowing which diseases are killing people. Deaths from heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, infections, maternal causes, injuries and suicides cannot be accurately tracked, distorting disease burden estimates and skewing health spending. Weak certification also delays outbreak detection and undermines surveillance at a time when non-communicable diseases account for a growing share of adult deaths. The study tracked death certification patterns across India over 15 years, from 2006 to 2020. Regional disparities are stark. Large parts of north and east India continue to report single-digit or low double-digit certification rates, pulling down national averages and leaving millions of deaths each year without medical explanation. In contrast, southern and western states perform far better, reflecting stronger hospital reporting and administrative compliance. Some Union Territories are close to universal coverage – Lakshadweep reports over 94% medical certification, while Goa has near-complete coverage. The study challenges the assumption that doctor shortages alone explain the gap. While poorly performing states have fewer physicians, the strongest determinant is whether hospitals actually report deaths. In low-performing states, only about half of registered hospitals submit cause-of-death data, compared with over 90% reporting in high-performing states and UTs. The scale of the problem is stark. In 2020, India recorded around 8.8 million deaths. While about 80% were registered, only around 2 million had a medically certified cause. Progress has been slow, with certification improving by just 2.5 percentage points over a decade, despite expanded health infrastructure. Researchers warn that unless medical certification becomes routine and enforceable – particularly in north India and large urban centres like Delhi – India will continue to underestimate major killers, knowing far more about how many people die than why they die.

Ajit Pawar with Supriya Sule and other party members in Pune, Saturday

PUNE: Estranged cousins Ajit Pawar and Supriya Sule came together for the first time on a political platform on Saturday to release the joint manifesto of NCP and NCP (SP) for the Pune civic polls nearly two-and-a-half years after the split in the family and party. However, both remained non-committal on a possible merger of their outfits. “Wait and watch,” said Ajit Pawar, without giving a specific answer to the issue of speculation over the parties’ merger. Ajit Pawar’s NCP and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) formed an alliance for the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation elections despite being on opposite sides in the state govt and at the Centre. NCP is with the governing alliance in both govts, while NCP (SP) is in the opposition. After the two NCPs forged the alliance, some workers from both sides were disappointed. Speaking on the issue, Sule said, “When any alliance is formed, some party workers get disappointed. But we will not leave them on their own. On both sides of the alliance, our focus is on workers and not on netas.” When Sule was asked about her absence in the Pune municipal corporation (PMC) and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation (PCMC) poll campaign, her cousin Ajit Pawar came to the rescue. “She told me to take the lead in the campaign as I am older to her and promised that she would follow me,” he said. The PMC will go to polls with 28 other municipal corporations in the state on Jan 15. The bonhomie between members of the two parties was visible during the release of the joint manifesto. They had trained guns on each other during the Lok Sabha and assembly polls in 2024 following the split in NCP in July 2023. Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) approached the court against Ajit Pawar’s NCP, claiming ownership of the party’s name and the “clock” symbol. Asked about speculation over the parties coming together when the case was still in court, the deputy chief minister said, “We respect the court’s order and follow it. As far as the solution to the issue is concerned, Supriya and I will sit together and find it on our own; nobody else needs to bother about it.”

The White House on Saturday shared a first-hand account of the US raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The post detailed a Venezuelan security guard’s claim that regime forces were overwhelmed in what he described as a “massacre”. “Stop what you are doing and read this,” White House Press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote while sharing the account online.

The post, presented as an interview with a Venezuelan security guard who claimed to have been on duty during the raid, describes a sudden and overwhelming assault that left Venezuelan forces unable to respond. According to the account, radar systems “shut down without any explanation” before swarms of drones appeared overhead.Also read: Wars without declarations: The American way“We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down,” the guard said. “The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.”The guard claimed that only a handful of helicopters followed, deploying what he estimated to be “maybe twenty men”. He said that the Venezuelan forces were “technologically unmatched.” “They didn’t look like anything we’ve fought against before,” he said.When asked how the confrontation unfolded, the guard replied: “It was a massacre.”“We were hundreds, but we had no chance,” he said, describing gunfire delivered with “precision and speed”, adding that it appeared as though each attacker was firing “300 rounds per minute”.The guard also described a weapon that he could not identify, which he likened to a sonic or acoustic device. “It was like a very intense sound wave,” he said. “Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”

The guard claimed the attackers suffered no casualties, adding: “Those twenty men, without a single casualty, killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology.”He concluded with a stark warning to other countries in the region. “I’m sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States,” he said. “They have no idea what they’re capable of.”

Operation Absolute Resolve

The account surfaced as US officials continue to defend the legality and necessity of the raid that saw Maduro seized in a predawn operation and flown out of Venezuela. The mission followed months of covert intelligence-gathering by the CIA, including drone surveillance and human sources close to the Venezuelan leader, which allowed US planners to map his movements in minute detail.Chair of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Dan Caine previously said the intelligence operation meant the US knew “where Maduro moved, what he ate and even what pets he kept”. Elite Delta Force commandos rehearsed the extraction on a full-scale replica of Maduro’s compound before launching the raid.US forces reportedly disabled air defences, plunged parts of Caracas into darkness and cleared a path for helicopters carrying special operations troops. Maduro was captured within minutes and transferred to a US warship before being flown to the United States to face charges.President Donald Trump has framed the operation as a decisive blow against drug trafficking in Latin America.

NEW DELHI: A 55-year-old man from Jammu and Kashmir was detained on Saturday after he allegedly attempted to offer namaz inside the Ram Mandir complex in Ayodhya and raised slogans when stopped, Uttar Pradesh police said.The man was identified as Ahmed Sheikh, a resident of Shopian district in Jammu and Kashmir, according to Superintendent of Police (Security) Balramchari Dubey. Officials said Sheikh entered the temple premises during the day, visited the shrine and later sat near the Sita Rasoi area, allegedly preparing to offer namaz.Security personnel noticed his actions and intervened immediately, following which he was detained by temple security staff and handed over to the local police. Some sources claimed that the man raised slogans when he was stopped, police said, adding that the allegation was being verified.Police said Sheikh’s family has claimed that he is mentally ill and provided medical records from the psychiatry department of Srinagar Medical College. His son, Imran, told reporters at their residence in Shopian that the family had no knowledge of Sheikh’s visit to Ayodhya.“We didn’t know anything about it. He is totally unsound,” Imran said.Imran said his father does not stay at home for long and often leaves without informing the family. “He had visited his in-laws’ place five to six days ago. He keeps leaving and does not stay at home,” he said, adding that his father frequently visits mosques.Neighbours in Shopian said Sheikh has been undergoing treatment and taking medication. “Had he been of sound mind, he would not have prayed inside a temple. He would have known it is a temple. He often leaves home like this. He doesn’t understand that he has a family to care for,” a neighbour said.Investigators are questioning Sheikh to ascertain his intent and are verifying his travel details, including the purpose of his visit to Ayodhya and whether anyone else was involved. Police sources said that during preliminary checks, items such as cashews and raisins were found in his possession, and that the man told investigators he was travelling to Ajmer.Senior police officers and intelligence agencies are also reviewing security arrangements at the Ram Mandir complex following the incident. The Ayodhya district administration and the Ram temple trust have so far declined to comment.

NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma countered AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi‘s remarks of India’s potential to see a “hijab-clad” daughter as the Prime Minister. He said that India is a Hindu nation and the Prime Minister of India shall always be a Hindu person.Responding to Owaisi’s remark, Sarma said, “Constitutionally, there is no bar. Anyone can become the Prime Minister. But India is a Hindu nation, Hindu civilisation, and we will always believe, and we are extremely confident that the Indian Prime Minister will always be a Hindu person.”

BJP spokesperson also sharply responded to the statement, challenging Owaisi of making a burqa-clad woman or anyone from the Pasmanda community to make the President of his own party.Poonawala said, “Owaisi Miya, there is no restriction in the Constitution on whether the Prime Minister should be someone who wears a hijab or not. Anyone can become Prime Minister, but first, win the votes.”He further went on to challenge Owaisi saying, “Before dreaming of becoming Prime Minister, Owaisi Miya, why don’t you first make a hijab-wearing woman, a burqa-clad woman, or at least someone from the Pasmanda community the president of your own party?”Also read: Asaduddin Owaisi says India will one day have Hijab-clad PM Earlier, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, highlighting the inclusivity in the Indian constitution, had stated that it is his dream to see a hijab-clad daughter as the Prime Minister of India. He drew comparisons with the Pakistani constitution, stating that Pakistan’s constitution restricts non-muslim people from holding top positions.“The constitution of Pakistan clearly states that a person belonging to only one religion can become the Prime Minister of the country. Baba Sahib’s constitution says that any citizen of India can become Prime Minister, CM, or mayor. It is my dream that a day will come when a hijab-clad daughter will become the Prime Minister of this country,” he said.The remarks come amid intense campaigning for Mumbai’s upcoming civic elections, which are scheduled to be held on January 15. The results will be announced on January 16.

Rescue workers put out a fire at a residential building damaged by a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine (Picture credit: AP)

A Ukrainian drone strike triggered a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s southern Volgograd region on Saturday, regional authorities said, as both sides continued to target energy infrastructure amid intensified fighting. There were no immediate reports of casualties, though residents living near the depot may be evacuated, the regional governor said in a Telegram post carried on the local administration’s channel, as per news agency AP.

The post did not detail the extent of the damage. Kyiv has previously said its long-range drone strikes on Russian energy facilities are aimed at reducing Moscow’s oil export revenues, which it says help finance Russia’s full-scale invasion. Russia has continued its own campaign against Ukrainian power and fuel facilities.The strike came a day after Russia launched a large-scale overnight attack on Ukraine, firing hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.At least four people were killed in Kyiv, including an emergency medical worker, while dozens were injured. For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia also used its nuclear-capable Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which struck western Ukraine, in a clear warning to Kyiv’s Nato allies, reported AP.Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had used aviation, drones, missiles and artillery to hit Ukrainian energy facilities and fuel-storage depots on Friday and overnight, without specifying locations or damage. The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 121 drones and one Iskander-M ballistic missile overnight into Saturday, adding that 94 drones were shot down.