A look at the headlines right now:

  1. Two soldiers, four militants killed during encounter in Kashmir’s Kulgam district: Four weapons were reportedly found at the spot.
  2. Five more AIADMK MPs support O Panneerselvam’s claim to Tamil Nadu chief minister’s post: R Lakshmanan was sacked from his regional top post in the party after his joined the OPS camp.
  3. Congress turned this ‘devbhoomi’ into ‘loot bhoomi’, says Narendra Modi at Uttarakhand rally: The prime minister also claimed that the ruling party and Samajwadi Party were secretly forming an alliance in the state.
  4. Ministry of Home Affairs website temporarily blocked, reports say it was hacked: Officials told PTI that the step was taken after they realised that the website had been hacked.
  5. Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe condemn North Korea’s ballistic missile test: ‘The US is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent,’ the American president said during a joint conference with the Japanese prime minister.
  6. Uttar Pradesh minister booked for threatening to set journalist on fire: Radhey Shyam Singh had accused the journalist of canvassing against him.
  7. Kailash Satyarthi’s Nobel Prize replica and citation recovered, three arrested: He had earlier urged the people behind the theft to return the ‘citation as it is of national importance’.
  8. Three crew members of a barge near Mumbai coast die after inhaling toxic gas: The incident took place after they entered the sludge tank to manually dispose of wet waste.
  9. ‘Upper caste judges taking law into their own hands’, says Calcutta High Court judge: Justice CS Karnan accused the Supreme Court of being ‘anti-Dalit’ for issuing a contempt notice against him last week.
  10. 63% voter turnout in first phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections: The BJP’s demonetisation decision will be put to the test in the key state, with the SP-Congress alliance and the BSP close at its heels.