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Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has reached Vanarasi as a part of his three-day India visit on Sunday.

PM Deuba left New Delhi for Vanarasi at 9 am today.

The prime minister will visit Vishwanath and Pashupatinath Temples.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath welcomed him at the airport.

The head of the government is scheduled to return home today itself.

Earlier on Saturday, PM Deuba held a meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House and inked four deals and also inaugurated cross-border railway, a transmission line and Indian digital card RuPay.

A man died after being struck by a lightning in Taplejung.

The deceased has been identified as Mukesh Bhattarai (23) of Ambegudin Lhasa Tole of Sirijunga Rural Municipality-2.

According to Inspector Kailash Kumar Adhikari, spokesperson at the District Police Office, the incident occurred at around 9 pm yesterday.

Critically injured in the incident, Bhattarai was rushed to a hospital but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

Gujarat Titans defeated Delhi Capitals by 14 runs in their IPL match here on Saturday, The Indian Express reported. 

Sent in to bat, Shubman Gill smashed 84 off 46 balls to guide Gujarat Titans to 171 for 6.

Besides Gill, skipper Hardik Pandya made 31 off 27 balls after being asked to bat. David Miller remained unbeaten on 20 off 15 balls.

Mustafizur Rahman scalped three wickets for 23 runs, while Khaleel Ahmed picked up two wickets giving away 34 runs for DC, according to The Indian Express.

Jos Buttler smashed the first century of IPL 2022 to power Rajasthan Royals to 23-run win over five-time champions Mumbai Indians, who slumped to their second consecutive defeat on Saturday, The Indian Express reported.

Opening the innings after being sent into bat, Buttler hit a whirlwind 100 off 68 balls, only his second ton in the history of the IPL. He struck 11 boundaries and five sixes during his knock. Besides Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer (35 off 14) looked in destructive form while skipper Sanju Samson (30 off 21) too got a start. Jasprit Bumrah (3/17) was the pick of the bowlers for MI.

Chasing the total, Tilak Verma smashed 61 off 33 balls, while opener Ishan Kishan made 54 off 43 balls but it was not enough to guide MI home as they finished at 170 for eight. Yuzvendra Chahal once again shone bright with the ball picking up two wickets for 26 runs from his four overs, according to The Indian Express.

A 36-hour curfew has been declared in Sri Lanka, as a state of emergency is enforced amid violent protests against food and fuel shortages, BBC reported.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa issued a notice prohibiting anyone from being on any public road, in a park, on trains, or on the seashore, unless they have written permission from the authorities. 

The curfew began at dusk on Saturday.

Social media sites have been blocked, including Facebook and Twitter.

WhatsApp is also down, and mobile phone users received a message saying this was "as directed by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission". 

The stringent restrictions are aimed at preventing new protests, after crowds were accused of setting vehicles ablaze near the president's private residence on Thursday.

The military has since been deployed and now has the power to arrest suspects without warrants, according to BBC.

The island nation is in the midst of a major economic crisis. It is caused in part by a lack of foreign currency, which is used to pay for fuel imports.

Faced with power cuts lasting half a day or more, and a lack of fuel and essential food and medicines, public anger has reached a new high.

Thursday's protest outside President Rajapaksa's Colombo house began peacefully, but participants said things turned violent after police fired tear gas, water cannons and also beat people present.

Protesters retaliated against the police by pelting them with stones.

At least two dozen police personnel were reportedly injured during the clashes, according to an official cited by Reuters news agency. 

On Friday, 53 demonstrators were arrested, and local media reported that five news photographers were detained and tortured at a police station. The government said it would investigate the latter claim. 

Despite the crackdown, protests continued, and spread to other parts of the country.

Demonstrators in the capital carried placards calling for the president's resignation, BBC reported.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's decision to impose a state of emergency has come as a shock to many. 

One of the most draconian pieces of legislation in Sri Lanka, it is meant to be deployed in situations of "exceptional threat, danger or disaster". 

One of the last times it was invoked, for instance, was in the aftermath of the deadly Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. 

The law allows for the detention of people without proof or the presumption of innocence, and severely restricts fundamental rights such as the freedom of movement and expression. 

It also allows the police and military to arrest and detain people without warrants.

This has given rise to fears that the government is going to resort to a brutal crackdown on protesters, who are angry about the toll taken on their lives by the ongoing economic crisis. 

Civil protesters and journalists have already reported being tortured by police for simply being present at the protests outside Mr Rajapaksa's home, and one of the organisers was taken in for questioning late on Friday night. 

The imposition of the law cannot be challenged in the courts, although parliament will need to ratify it within 14 days of its declaration. 

The government has the majority in parliament to pass it. Thereafter it will need to be extended on a monthly basis, according to BBC.

President Rajapaksa said the decision to declare a state of emergency was taken in the interests of public security, the protection of public order, and to ensure the maintenance of supplies and essential services.

The demonstrations mark a massive turnaround in popularity for Mr Rajapaksa, who swept into power with a majority win in 2019, promising stability and a "strong hand" to rule the country, BBC reported.

Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country’s capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off streets of one town out of fear that Russian forces may have left them booby-trapped, Associated Press reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed.” His claims could not be independently verified. 

Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched as Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armored vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance. Locals said the dead — the AP counted at least six — were civilians killed without provocation by departing Russian soldiers.

"Those people were just walking and they shot them without any reason. Bang,” said a Bucha resident who declined to give his name citing safety reasons. “In the next neighborhood, Stekolka, it was even worse. They would shoot without asking any question.”

Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine. 

The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugeeswho have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.

In his nightly video address Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said the country’s troops were not allowing the Russians to retreat without a fight: “They are shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.”

Russia, Zelenskyy said, has ample forces to put more pressure on Ukraine’s east and south, according to the Associated Press.

“What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to seize the Donbas and the south of Ukraine,” he said. “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”

Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azov is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had hoped to evacuate Mariupol residents Saturday but had not yet reached the city. A day earlier, local authorities said the Red Cross was blocked by Russian forces.

An adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in coming days.” 

The Mariupol city council said earlier Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometers (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said, Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said 765 Mariupol residents on Saturday used private vehicles to reach Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as the destination for other planned evacuations. 

Among those escaping was Tamila Mazurenko, who said she fled Mariupol on Monday, made it to Berdyansk that night and then took a bus to Zaporizhzhia. Mazurenko said she waited for a bus until Friday, spending one night sleeping in a field.

“I have only one question: Why?” she said of her city’s ordeal. “We only lived as normal people. And our normal life was destroyed. And we lost everything. I don’t have any job, I can’t find my son.”

Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian forces for more than a month and suffered some of the war’s worst attacks, including on a maternity hospital and a theater that was sheltering civilians. Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and they face dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, according to the Associated Press.

Zelenskyy said a significant number of Russian troops were tied up in Mariupol, giving Ukraine “invaluable time ... that is allowing us to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”

Home Minister Balkrishna Khand, also the acting Prime Minister, has directed the authorities concerned to immediately fix the problems recently surfaced in the supplies of petroleum products.

He issued a directive to Secretary at Ministry of Supplies Ganesh Prasad Pandey, acting Director-General of Nepal Oil Corporation Birendra Goit and General-Secretary of Nepal Petroleum Dealers Association Biswo Aryal to immediately resolve the issue of petro product supplies.

The Home Minister warned that the government would be compelled to take tough measures despite its unwillingness if problems continued on the supplies of most essential goods.

NOC acting director-general Goit shared that Minister Khand had directed them to monitor whether or not the oil entrepreneurs were selling out petro products. As per the directives, they carried out the monitoring of petro supplies in collaboration with the District Administration Office Kathmandu, Goit added.

He further informed that they monitored 20 plus petrol pumps of the Kathmandu Valley and found some were smoothly supplying and some others not.

He also shared that preparation was underway to have a dialogue with the agitating side at 5 pm on Saturday.

General-Secretary of the Association Aryal informed that a directive was issued to end the problem surfaced in petro product supplies by holding dialogue with the NOC.

The oil entrepreneurs and diesel suppliers have been warning to stop the sales and supplies of petro product demanding increment of petro tanker fare with the rise in the price of petro products. RSS

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi said that India-Nepal relation is developing as a unique example in the world.

PM Modi said so while addressing a joint press meet with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India today following a delegation-level bilateral talks led by Prime Ministers of both countries.

Stating that the friendly ties between India and Nepal and the mutual relations between people of both countries remained a unique example, Modi claimed such an example was not seen in any country in the world.

Furthermore, during the joint press meet, the Indian Premier mentioned that the thread between India and Nepal was interlinked since ancient times at various levels including civilisation, cultural and mutual relations. “We have been all-weather friend since time immemorial.”

Expressing his happiness to welcome Prime Minister of Nepal in New Delhi on the auspicious day of beginning of Navarattra today, he extended best wishes to the citizens of Nepal and India on the occasion.

The Indian PM commended Deuba’s role in making Indo-Nepal relations more dynamic and better, terming PM Deuba as an ‘old friend’ of India.

He reminded of India’s ‘Neighbour First’ policy upheld by his government since his first stint as the Prime Minister of India to give top priority to the neighboring countries.

Asserting that India’s policy towards Nepal was influenced by cordiality, he reaffirmed India’s commitment to assist Nepal in its journey of peace, progress and development.

PM Deuba reached New Delhi on April 1 leading a 50-member delegation in a three-day official visit to India at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

Informing that there had been a discussion and review on all aspects of multi-dimensional India-Nepal relations with the Nepali delegation, Indian PM Modi said that both the countries agreed to collaborate and cooperate on energy sector.

He also reiterated his commitment to speed up the Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project.

Necessary efforts would be taken for India to purchase electricity from Nepal, help it to promote clean energy and help reduce trade deficit the country is undergoing, said PM Modi

He also expressed the hope that the Jaynagar-Kurtha railway that come into operation from today would help strengthen contact and relations between people of both the countries.

The Indian PM said that there would be an India-Nepal partnership in the construction of Ramayan Circuit, an integrated check post in Nepalgunj and a police training academy, adding that they were aware about the misuse of the open border between the two countries and so were engaging in discussions on the matter.

Saying that there have been ancient relations between the two countries due to Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu and Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, he wished Nepal’s PM Deuba’s visit to Kashi Vishwanath tomorrow (Sunday) would be fruitful. RSS