Submit your Article

The Congress on Tuesday said its senior leader and former party president Rahul Gandhi is in Nepal to attend the wedding of a journalist friend, The Indian Express reported.

The statement came soon after Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s information and technology department, put out a video on Twitter purportedly showing Gandhi at a nightclub.

“Rahul Gandhi was at a nightclub when Mumbai was under seize. He is at a nightclub at a time when his party is exploding. He is consistent. Interestingly, soon after the Congress refused to outsource their presidency, hit jobs have begun on their Prime Ministerial candidate…,” he tweeted.

When asked about Gandhi’s whereabouts, Congress communication department head Randeep Surjewala told reporters: “Rahul Gandhi has not gone as an uninvited guest like Prime Minister Modi went to Pakistan to celebrate birthday and cut cakes for the then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif. Rahul Gandhi has gone to a friendly country Nepal to participate in a private marriage function of a friend. By chance, the friend also happens to be a journalist. So I think they are also abusing your fraternity.”

The PTI quoted a report in The Kathmandu Post and said the Congress leader was in Kathmandu to attend the wedding of his Nepali friend Sumnima Udas.

“Last when I checked, having a family in this country, having friends in this country, attending marriage, engagement ceremonies is a matter of our culture and civilization. It has still not become a crime in this country to be married, to be friends with someone, or to attend their marriage celebration,” Surjewala said at an AICC press conference.

“Maybe after today Prime Minister Modi and the BJP may decide that it is illegal to attend a marriage. They may say it is a crime to have friends or participate in family functions. But do let me know so that we all change our status, habits and civilizational practices of attending the marriage of friends as also family,” he added, according to The Indian Express.

Actor Bhuwan KC joined the Nepali Congress on Tuesday. Along with him, actress Shweta Khadka and Rabindra Khadka have also joined the Congress.

Nepali Congress President and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba welcomed them to the party amid a program organized in Baluwatar this morning.

Earlier, actress Karishma Manandhar had joined the CPN (Maoist Centre) and Rekha Thapa joined the Rastriya Prajatantra Party.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning to visit Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, in Nepal on May 16 to celebrate Buddha Jayanti, birth anniversary of Lord Buddha, The Hindu reported.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is also expected to be in Lumbini to mark the occasion, the sources added.

Indian Prime Minister, however, will not stay in Kathmandu, according to The Hindu.

Temple trustees have told local media that the two Prime Ministers will take part in the lamp-lighting ceremony at the Mayadevi temple.

According to the sources, the Ministry of External Affairs and security officials have already conducted a reconnaissance of the arrangements for the visit, The Hindu reported.

This will be Modi’s first visit to Nepal since he was re-elected in 2019. In his previous term, he visited Nepal on four occasions, including twice in 2014 and twice in 2018.

Attacks have resumed on Mariupol's steel works, despite hundreds of civilians remaining trapped inside, a Ukrainian officer has said, BBC reported.

The Azovstal plant was being shelled by "all kinds of weapons", National Guard commander Denys Shlega said on Monday.

On Sunday a number of civilians who had sheltered inside the last resistance stronghold managed to escape.

But "several dozen small children are still in the bunkers underneath the plant", the commander said.

The shelling on the plant in the southern port city, which has been under intense Russian bombardment for weeks, began as soon as the civilians who had been evacuated left, he told Ukrainian television, according to BBC.

On Monday evening, footage emerged apparently showing a massive fire at the Azovstal, in what social media users said was a result of Russian bombardment.

A first group of evacuees from the steelworks were expected to arrive in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday - but the rescue efforts have run into delays, the BBC's Laura Bicker, who is in the city, reports.

It is not clear what is causing the hold-up, she says. The convoy is on its way, but the buses have hundreds of miles to travel along a road which is - in part - rubble. They also have to go through a number of Russian checkpoints. 

Those who left Mariupol on Monday were evacuated with the support of the United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which organised an official convoy.

Russia said some evacuees had been taken to a village controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. But state media later reported that they would be free to travel onwards to Ukrainian-held territory if they wanted to.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the news that around 100 people were heading for Zaporizhzhia, which is about 140 miles (230km) north-west of Mariupol, BBC reported.

"Grateful to our team! Now they, together with UN, are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant," he wrote on Twitter.

Some people have spent many weeks sheltering in the Azovstal steelworks, with reports suggesting food, water and medicine supplies are all running low. 

"The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe," Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

One Russian news report estimated the number of civilians still in the plant was more than 500, according to BBC.