Israel has dismissed social media claims suggesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been assassinated, calling the reports “fake news” as tensions continue to escalate across the Middle East.The rumours began circulating online amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, responding to a question about the claims, the office said the reports were completely false.

“These are fake news; the Prime Minister is fine,” the office told Anadolu News when asked about posts claiming Netanyahu had been killed in retaliation for recent Israeli and US strikes on Iran.The speculation emerged during a period of heightened regional conflict that began on February 28, when Israel and the United States launched coordinated strikes on Iranian targets. The attacks reportedly killed more than 1,200 people, including Iran’s then supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Iran has since retaliated with waves of drone and missile strikes across the region, targeting Israel and several neighbouring countries including Jordan, Iraq and Gulf states. Tehran has said the attacks are aimed at “US military assets” in the region.Amid the escalating hostilities, Netanyahu has also issued a direct warning to Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son and successor of Ali Khamenei. Asked whether Israel might attempt to target him in the same way it has targeted other leaders allied with Iran, Netanyahu declined to rule out such a move.Also read: ‘Just for fun’- Trump signals fresh US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island“I wouldn’t issue life insurance policies on any of the leaders of the terrorist organisations,” he said. “This is their patron of terrorism. And I don’t intend to provide an exact report here about what we are planning or what we are going to do.”Netanyahu described Mojtaba Khamenei as a “puppet” of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps who “cannot show his face in public”.The Israeli leader also suggested that the latest developments have significantly altered the strategic balance in the region. “This is no longer the same Iran. This is no longer the same Middle East. And this is also not the same Israel,” he said.“We are not waiting, we are initiating, we are attacking. And we are doing so with a force the like of which has not been seen before.”Netanyahu also referred to the possibility that Israel’s military actions could create conditions for political change inside Iran, though he acknowledged that such an outcome would ultimately depend on the Iranian people themselves.“I have added another goal: to create the conditions for the Iranian people to overthrow this terrible tyrannical regime. To create conditions doesn’t guarantee that it will happen… It’s up to you,” he said.“You can lead someone to water, but you can’t make them drink,” Netanyahu added, referring to the possibility of a popular uprising against Iran’s ruling establishment.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court quashed and set aside a city sessions court’s Oct 19, 2024 conviction and life sentence of a Kanjurmarg (E) man for the murder of his elder brother with a cement paver block.Allowing his appeal, Justices Ajey Gadkari and Shyam Chandak on March 10 instead convicted Hemant Devrukhkar under IPC Section 304 (Part I) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and sentenced him to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment (RI).According to the prosecution, Sainath was addicted to tobacco and spat in the house. He abused and assaulted his mother and brother, who persuaded him to give up the vices. On April 12, 2018, around 9 pm, a quarrel ensued after Sainath began spitting and making loud noises. Sainath beat up Hemant, who was unwell with jaundice. The next morning at 7 am, the mother heard the sound of a stone falling, followed by Sainath’s cries. He was hit with a cement block on the head and mouth. Hemant told her he put an end to the daily disputes. The next day, Sainath succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. Hemant’s advocate, Nitesh Nevshe, argued that Sainath’s death was caused without premeditation on account of the sudden fight and in the heat of passion. The offence could not be murder but culpable homicide not amounting to murder, he said. Prosecutor Ashish Satpute said such quarrels occurred on previous occasions and Hemant “intentionally” killed Sainath to put an end to disputes.The judges said witnesses’ evidence corroborated Hemant’s “extra-judicial confession” to his mother, which cannot be overlooked. She admitted Sainath’s behaviour was “unbearable”. The spot panchnama clearly showed the family resided in a small room, and Sainath “further created hardship by spitting tobacco and keeping it unhygienic”. The judges noted that Sainath assaulted Hemant, though he was unwell and not at fault. “On the contrary, he wanted Sainath to give up his addictions and improve,” they said.The judges concluded that Hemant’s “act of causing the homicidal death of Sainath” fell under Exception 1 of IPC Section 300 (murder), where the offender loses self-control by grave and sudden provocation, causing the death of the provoker or any other person by mistake or accident. They said Sainath’s “cumulative and continued abuse” towards Hemant and his mother over a period of time, coupled with a provocative assault on Hemant during their last quarrel, resulted in “continuing the stress by provocation, which ultimately led to the unfortunate homicidal death of Sainath.” The “appropriate” conviction is Section 304 (Part I), they added.

‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge,’ or ‘Dhurandhar 2,’ is all set to arrive in theaters in a few days. The buzz around the movie is at an all-time high, and amidst this, a report about ‘Dhurandhar 3’ has surfaced on the internet. The latest development in the film franchise will leave you even more excited.

Makers urge Aditya Dhar to develop ‘Dhurandhar 3’

According to Variety India, witnessing the advance booking for ‘Dhurandar: The Revenge’, the makers are exploring the idea of expanding the universe even further. As per the report, the studio has urged Aditya Dhar, the director of the ‘Dhurandhar’ franchise, to develop ‘Dhurandhar 3’ as well.

The report stated, “It’s a kind of subject that can be made into multiple parts. Given the phenomenon created by ‘Dhurandhar’ and the unprecedented buzz around its sequel, a third part cannot be ruled out.”The report further added that Aditya Dhar already has an idea for the third chapter; however, he has not committed to anything as of now. Reportedly, the studio doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity and has asked the filmmaker “to at least include a post-credit tease in ‘Dhurandhar 2’ to hint at a possible third film to sustain audience excitement.”

Is Aditya Dhar excited for the third installment?

The report further added that the makers might announce the third installment as the production house wants it. However, the announcement will not guarantee that the movie will be actually made.Reportedly, the twist is that Aditya Dhar is not keen on it, as he doesn’t prefer making a franchise and instead loves to challenge himself with each new project. The filmmaker would want to work on another project, “as he finds following the same trend again and again plainly boring.”The report stated, “‘Dhurandhar’ worked because it broke the usual template of the YRF Spy Universe and the popular South Indian action movies. Dhar may not want to trap himself within the very trend he challenged.”

Aditya Dhar has signed a deal with the production house

As per the report, Aditya Dhar has signed a deal with the production house in which he will be producing multiple projects for the studio. Though he has not yet decided on his next film, he is keen on reuniting with Ranveer Singh for another large-scale mythological action adventure. Reportedly, he will start working on the script by the end of this year.Meanwhile, ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ is set to arrive in cinemas on March 19, 2026.

Landfills first revealed themselves to artist Navjot Altaf not in a city, but in a forest. She and activist friends from the Koyla Satyagraha travelled through Bastar several years ago when they stopped at a viewpoint along a tributary of the Mahanadi River, where elephants usually paused to drink. It was a beautiful place, and Altaf took in the view.“As I was looking at the landscape, I saw a huge pit to my left, as large as half a taalaab (pond). And in it were broken TV sets, radios… at least two truckful,” says the artist, who lived and worked in Bastar since 1997. “We saw ash dykes for miles in the area because of coal mining. But now, we started to see the same waste in forests that we saw in cities. And not just any waste, but electronic waste. That’s when I started looking at landfills carefully.“She began studying them with the compound eye of an environmentalist, cultural historian, material archivist, and social activist—reading in those palimpsests of cardboard packaging, leaking batteries, plastic food tubs, and tangled wire both contemporary history and prophecy. “I started looking at landfills not just as sites of discard, but as layered histories of human desire; histories that are inscribed in the very matter of that earth.”She presents this exegesis in a new body of work titled Waste Archives as Landscape, now on view at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS). The exhibition, curated by Puja Vaish, comprises 30 works in gouache on paper, along with two installations and two video works created over the past three years.One installation, Take-Make-Waste, resembles a kind of Tetris made of large pipes mounted on the ceiling and operated by a hidden motor. It mimics supply chains that convey product parts in an unending ballet of production, only to spew out a steady stream of mounting waste at one end. “I took the title from the linear economy, which believes that you can extract as much as you can, shape it into objects for brief use, and then discard them.” The maze also alludes to global waste trade routes that ship waste from richer economies to poorer ones, risking their public health and environmental safety. As landfills multiply, they begin to transform from geological lookalikes into actual landscapes. This gradual usurpation consumes potential habitats, stifling spaces where biodiversity might otherwise have thrived. “The landfill, to me, appears as a sublime grotesque,” she writes. “A theatre where beauty and horror entwine. It is a landscape that insists on presence, that refuses to vanish even when buried.”Altaf’s field studies took her to the landfills at Deonar and Kanjurmarg in Mumbai, and to the Pirana Landfill (Mount Pirana) near Citizen Nagar in Ahmedabad. The latter is the setting for Instinct, an animated short that captures the cries of a dying dog, presumably affected by something toxic it consumed at the landfill.The artist’s new work extends themes she explored in earlier projects such as Soul Breath Wind and Barakhamba, which “look at things that are destroying the ecological rhythm.” Mined minerals eventually reappear as mountains of e-waste, in a kind of Frankensteinian reshaping of the earth.Ultimately, Altaf notes, it is not only power systems—industrial and govt, global and regional—that create markets and landfills for ‘things’, but consumers who are also complicit in this ‘landscaping’. We became dependent on conveniences that generate such waste, she says. “Even in villages, what appears like fields of white flowers are actually plastic as you draw near.”Flowers also appear in her gouache works—a first for Altaf—tightly framed and juxtaposed with images of trash. When the leaves of a plant fall, she says, they may appear like ‘waste’ on the ground. “But what this waste does and what that waste does,” she says, referring to landfill waste, “is that the minutest component of that waste can contaminate the soil and the water, while on this side, fallen leaves and flowers sustain biodiversity.” The ecofeminist lens Altaf brings to her work reminds viewers “to nurture the environment in ways that allow all living beings to exist.” Embedded in this worldview is the principle of consuming less. “I’m against the model of progress driven by the global economy where you have relentless production, relentless consumption, then relentless waste,” she says. “The way to prosperity is not the accumulation of goods—that’s the patriarchal way.“