NEW DELHI―On Monday, at least two associations of lawyers practising in the Supreme Court issued resolutions criticising the handling of the sexual harassment allegations against Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi while a third resolution by the Supreme Court Employees Welfare Association supported him.

In the morning, the Supreme Court Advocates―On-Record Association, a group of advocates with the exclusive right to file petitions in the apex court, sought the appointment of a committee headed by “full court of the Supreme Court” to conduct an impartial investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment made by a former court employee against Chief Justice Gogoi.

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In its resolution, the association also expressed “deep reservation” against the “procedural impropriety shown by the Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ranjan Gogoi” in a suo moto hearing held on Saturday after several online news portals reported the allegations made by a former employee of the court.

In sharp contrast with the dismissive approach of the court towards the allegations, the association further stated that, “The allegations of the Ex Employee of the Supreme Court have to be dealt with as per the established procedure of law and law must be applied in each and every case uniformly.”

Within hours on Monday, towards early evening, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) also called on the full court of the Supreme Court to “take all such necessary steps as may be required in law in this regard”.  The Executive Committee of the SCBA also decided to “collate all the materials and facts” pertaining to the sexual harassment allegations which “may be considered” in the next meeting. It called Saturday’s hearing a “violation of procedure established by law as well as principles of natural justice”.

On its part, the resolution of the Supreme Court’s Employee Association condemned what it termed as “false, fabricated and baseless allegations” against Gogoi. It said the court staff is firmly in support of Gogoi “to defeat the malicious attempt of external forces to target the Indian Judiciary”.

One husband-and-wife team is chronicling their pregnancy journey in comic form, and it’s both relatable and entertaining.

For years, artists Yehuda and Maya Devir have captured the many experiences of married life in their popular comic series “One of Those Days.”

In December, Yehuda announced on Instagram that he and Maya, who are based in Israel, were expecting their first child together.

“It was the best news I’ve ever gotten,” he told HuffPost. “I hugged Maya the hardest I could.”

Since then, the pregnancy has provided lots of new inspiration for the series. The couple collaborates on concepts for the illustrations together. Then Yehuda illustrates their vision, while Maya focuses on details such as the typography and color schemes.

“The pregnancy time puts us in new situations we never imagined we would find ourselves in,” Yehuda said. “This experience shapes us very much and makes you see new and beautiful aspects of your partner.”

During the pregnancy, Maya has experienced some acne, bladder pressure and intense salty cravings.

She said she feels fortunate that she’s had such a great support system in her husband throughout the journey  

“He’s the best there is! I’m not a spoiled person but Yehuda is for sure the most caring partner there is,” Maya said. 

The couple did not want to reveal the baby’s sex or due date yet (stay tuned!). But Yehuda did say he couldn’t be more confident in the kind of mother Maya will be.

“She will be the best mom there is. If she wasn’t working in art, she would probably work with children,” he said. “She is a great educator.”

Below, see more of the couple’s pregnancy comics. You can also visit their website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Patreon.

In what was supposed to be a somber statement of condolence from a world leader over the terror bombings in Sri Lanka, US President Donald Trump goofed up and mistakenly recounted the death toll as “138 million” in a weekend tweet.

The astronomical figure (there are fewer than 22 million people in all of Sri Lanka) remained posted for more than 20 minutes before it was deleted. 

The actual death toll in Saturday night bombings at the time of Trump’s tweet was 138 — not 138 million. The toll continued to rise and was reported Monday as 290 dead and 500 injured.

The tweet, the first on Sunday posted by Trump — was later corrected and reposted. But before the change, Trump radically switched his mood, wishing everyone a “Happy Easter” and bragging about the economy, saying he had “never been happier or more content” because “your Country is doing so well.”  He added: “Have a great day!”

Then Trump angrily swerved into attacking the media, “Trump Haters,” Democrats and special counsel Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt.” 

Job creation dropped by 1.73 percent in February to 15.03 lakh compared to 15.30 lakh in the same month last year, according to the latest payroll data released by the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

In his responses to criticism about the government’s poor record in employment creation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would often cite two data sources that would show the government in better light — the Employment Provident Fund Organisation data and the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation data. In all instances, the data would be the government’s biggest defence of its poor jobs record. This is the first instance in recent months when even ESIC data has yielded unfavourable employment creation numbers.

The ESIC has been releasing payroll data from April 2018, covering the period starting September 2017. It provides health insurance and medical services to insured persons covering all those establishments which have 20 or more workers and all those employees whose monthly wages are up to Rs 21,000.

The data showed that during September 2017 to February 2019, nearly 3 crore new subscribers joined the ESIC scheme.

According to the data, the gross new subscribers addition remained the highest at 19.81 lakh in July 2018. The data also showed that 2.34 lakh women subscribers joined the ESIC scheme in February 2019 while around 12.69 men enrolled under the scheme.

The number of subscribers of Employees State Insurance (ESI) scheme also gives an idea of the level of employment in the formal sector.

However, contrary to the ESIC data, the retirement fund body EPFO’s latest payroll data showed that net employment generation in the formal sector almost trebled to 8.61 lakh in February compared to 2.87 lakh in the same month of last year.

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has also been releasing payroll data from April 2018, covering the period starting September 2017.

According to the latest data, the highest job creation was recorded in January 2019 at 8.94 lakh against the provisional estimate of 8.96 lakh released last month.

During February 2019, the highest number of 2.36 lakh jobs were created in the 22-25 years age group, followed by 2.09 lakh in the 18-21 years age bracket.

The data showed that 80.86 lakh new jobs were created in the 18 months period from September 2017 to February 2019.

(With PTI inputs)

The BJP’s familiar face on TV channels, Sambit Patra, has been one of the most visible candidates in Odisha, thanks to his constant social media updates from the campaign trail. From hugging voters to clicking selfies with them to singing Telugu and Hindi versions of the same song, Patra has been going all out to woo voters away from sitting BJD MP Pinaki Mishra.

There was strong speculation ahead of the election that Puri would be PM Narendra Modi’s second seat after Varanasi. However, the BJP sprang a surprise by fielding Patra, who has been saying that Modi sent him to the constituency as his “representative”. The Indian Express reported that Patra has been chanting mantras and taking a dip in ponds while giving interviews to the media. He has also been making rounds of the temples in the area. The report, however, added that the reaction to Patra has been mixed, with one BJP worker saying that Balakot air strikes and Mission Shakti don’t have many takers in constituency which votes in the third phase on 23 April.  

Misra, who won the Puri constituency with 50% of the vote share in 2014, is also a spokesperson for his party.

A group of civil society activists and eminent citizens has sought a probe by an inquiry committee, headed by a woman and comprising senior retired judges and eminent members of civil society, into the allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.

A statement, signed by Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy, Palagummi Sainath among others, was issued on Monday.

“The charges are prima facie serious enough to warrant an independent inquiry by a high level independent committee,” the statement read. 

It criticised the suo moto hearing held in the Supreme Court on Saturday in the presence of Gogoi, saying the act of holding the hearing, “goes against all just and settled principles of law.” In the hearing, the statement said that “one-sided allegations were made by the Chief Justice and senior most law officers” of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. 

“This is unbecoming of a judicial proceeding, especially one where the complainant in a sexual harassment case is absent and is permitted to be openly vilified in court. These actions augur a dark day in the history of the Supreme Court and have, undoubtedly, cast a shadow on the credibility of the Chief Justice and the judiciary,” the statement said.

It sought protection for the complainant and asked the CJI to not exercise his administrative powers. This statement was in addition to at least three other resolutions by Supreme Court lawyers’ groups and a Supreme Court employees’ group taking various stands about the handling of the sexual harassment complaint against CJI Ranjan Gogoi. 

CHANDIGARH, Punjab — As the Lok Sabha elections enter their third phase, thousands of voters across India could not cast their votes as their names were missing from the electoral list. Some took to Twitter to express their anger, but many have written to the Election Commission Of India (ECI) and sought an investigation into the matter.

 In a letter written to ECI, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka alleged mass indiscriminate  deletion of voters names in the electoral list, especially in Bengaluru South.

“The officials have purposefully and deliberately deleted names without any reason, just to render undue official favour to the ruling coalition party,” the letter reads.

Going by complaints on social media, many of the voters who found their names deleted in Karnataka were BJP supporters, while in BJP-ruled UP, it was the Congress supporters who cried foul. Between all the finger-pointing though, it’s clear that for a large number of Indians, not being able to vote came as a genuine surprise.

 When  the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls ended on April 18, over 2,200 voters in South Bengaluru (HuffPost India is in possession of the list) who have applied  to get their votes included in the electoral rolls on February 2 this year, are still waiting for their EPIC cards.

As per the latest status on April 22,  the ECI is yet to allocate a Block Level Officer (BLO) to look into the matter.

The voters of South Bengaluru are merely the most vocal section of a wide-ranging problem, experts say.

There appear to be multiple causes behind this problem. According to Khalid Saifullah, founder of Missing Votes app, pursuing the case of missing voters with ECI, deleting any voters name from the official voters list is a ‘child’s play’, by misusing the established procedures for removing people who have shifted or died from the list.

 This is something that the police in Telangana fears might have been done by political parties in the state to target voters that profiles, built using wrongly obtained Aadhaar data, identified as likely to not vote for them.

An added complication is the electoral roll purification process, done with the help of the Aadhaar and potentially faulty software algorithms, that was aimed at removing duplicate entries, but actually caused real entries to go missing, as Huffington Post has reported.

How thousands of voters names got deleted

Ravi Subramanya, BJP MLA from Basavanagudi tweeted that approximately 100,000 voters names were deleted from Bangalore South constituency, of which 80% voters are BJP supporters.

Journalist DP Satish also claimed that around 50 to 60 names were missing from each of the 150 booths in Malleshwaram assembly seat in Bengaluru North. Another journalist, Saahil Murli Menghani, tweeted that Fatima Inter College, a Muslim dominated booth in Amroha constituency in Uttar Pradesh has over 16% voters (150 out of 900) deleted from the list.

 Amongst the renowned voters, Yamini Mazumdar, 87, mother of Biocon chairperson and Managing director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, could not vote as her name was deleted from the voters list. Several other people also tweeted that despite having a pan, Aadhaar, driving licence and a voter card, they were not able to cast their vote as their names were missing from the voter’s list.

While there are many possible reasons for these deletions, one possibility is the malicious removal of names from the lists.

“All you need to do is to fill an online Form-7-Application for objecting inclusion of any name in electoral roll or seeking deletion of name from electoral Roll. As the process is not linked to any OTP verification, political parties can fill bulk forms to send a request for voters deletion to weed out supporters of the opposition party,” said Saifullah of Missing Votes.

The rest depends on the booth management of the political parties. “It is quite easy to convince BLOs looking for A -gradings from their political bosses to delete the numbers, while the ECI remains an ignorant  spectator in the whole process and the voters do not even know that their votes were stuck down without any verification,” said Saifullah.

 As per Saifullah, Form 20 of the ECI reveals details of the booth level performance of each political party. The political leaders are aware of the areas which can vote against them. It is easy for them to assess the areas where the party may face a challenge, and can get the voters deleted in the manner described.

“There is a dire need for ECI to scrutinise all the Form 7 received at each booth level and to ascertain the identity of the person or the group who may have led to the mass deletion of voters in some states,” said Saifullah.

Aadhaar was meant to delete duplicate votes — but made things much worse

Aside from political parties attempting to rig the system though, there are also concerns about the rest of the electoral process.

Professor Jagdish Chokkar, founding member of the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), has raised concern over the systematic deletion of voters, a pattern observed in the election held in recent years.

“Making and updating an electoral list is a complex and humongous process and cannot be made error free. What concerns us the most is the systematic pattern with which the voters are getting deleted in bulk. The ECI is the custodian of the largest democracy of the world and it should be transparent in its action. There is a need to conduct a thorough probe in the voters deleted in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka during the Aadhaar linking process, and the findings should also be made public,” said Chhokar.

In November, HuffPost India found  some parts of the dusty electoral lists of millions of voter identity cards with their corresponding Aadhaar numbers carefully scribbled down by hand in Godrej almirahs, on shelves in forgotten storerooms, and in kitchen cabinets in private homes of government school teachers in Punjab.

These printouts, linking two extremely sensitive personal identity numbers, are the remnants of the 2015 National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP), the Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) controversial drive to use Aadhaar-related software developed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ostensibly weed out so-called duplicate entries in India’s voter rolls by flagging these names for deletion.

 The project ran until August 2015, when it was curtailed by the Supreme Court, as it was still adjudicating the constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

Interviews with serving and retired election officials in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, and a review of hundreds of pages of internal documentation revealed how the ECI and UIDAI sought to use Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication, and unproven algorithms, to toy with the most fundamental right of any citizen in a democracy — the right to vote.

The documents showed how Aadhaar-related technology, particularly data-sorting algorithms, have permeated some of the most fundamental aspects of civic life in India without any public discussion about its efficacy, or the risks involved. Rather than create transparency and accountability, the UIDAI’s software has had the opposite effect — where senior government officers defer their judgement to software which they barely understand.

 In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, two states that served as a template for a wider, national roll-out in February 2015, election officials admit that software could have played a role in the elimination of 2.2 million voters from Telangana’s electoral rolls.

What happens next for deleted voters?

In 2018, the Telangana Chief Election Officer apologised to the public for deleting names of over 3 million voters during the linkage of Aadhaar with the EPIC under NERPAP. However, the people whose votes were deleted won’t get to have a say in their government.

What can be done, is to bring in greater transparency into the whole procedure, said Delhi-based lawyer, Gautam Bhatia.

“This requires three things: first, that the algorithm of the software used by the Election Commission to clean up voter rolls should be made public; secondly, that the data audit log of deletions should be revealed; and thirdly, that the source code (that is, the technical instructions on the basis of which a software runs) used to conduct a “de-duplication” of the voter rolls should be made public,” said Bhatia.

 Meanwhile though, more deletions are likely to come to light in the remaining phases of the polling for the Lok Sabha elections.

 On April 6, a Chandigarh-based PR professional received a call from two different mobile numbers  where the caller asked him to name the party he would vote for on May 12, the sixth phase of polling to be held in Delhi amongst other states.

“The first call (7447118710) was an Interactive Voice response (IVR)  based call and asked me to select one of the three option between BJP, Congress and AAP in the same order, the second (8929489592) was a voice call appeared to have been made from a call centre,” said Priya Ranjan.

Both calls were made to his Delhi based number, and similar calls were also received by two of his friends, both working in Delhi. This is the same method mentioned by IG Stephen Raveendra, whose investigation into Hyderabad-based software vendor IT Grids led to an investigation into the wrongful removal of voters from the electoral rolls.

“While we disconnected the IVR call without pressing any option, the girl  on the voice call was aware about my identity. By calling my first name she asked me to reveal my voting preference. Despite refusing to discuss my voting choice with her, she kept on pestering me for over three minutes to know about whom me along with my family will vote in the forthcoming election in Delhi. Needless to say, she was a thorough professional,” said Ranjan.

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5:27 pm: Polling Booth Set Up For One Person In Gujarat’s Gir Forest

5:22 pm: Man Booked In Thiruvananthapuram For False Complaint On VVPAT

A man in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram was arrested for lodging a false complaint on EVMs. 

ANI reported that Abin Babu, a voter at booth no. 151 in Vattiyoorkavu, had alleged that his vote had gone to another candidate. 

News18 said a case was registered under Section 177 of the Indian Penal Code (furnishing false information). 

5:20 pm: Congress Workers Protest Outside EC Office In Bengal

Congress workers in West Bengal protested outside the EC office after a Congress worker was killed during clashes in Murshidabad, News18 reported. 

State president Somendra Nath Mitra said his Congress only wanted free and fair elections in the state. 

5:17 pm: Polling Adjourned In 2 Odisha Booths Because Of VVPAT Malfunctioning

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Odisha has adjourned voting in two polling booths in the state because of wrong pairing of VVPAT machines. In a press statement, Odisha CEO Surendra Kumar said, “VVPAT meant for Parliamentary constituency was mistakenly attached to Control&Ballot Unit meant for Assembly constituency during replacement. Error was detected after 22 votes were polled.”

5:05 pm: Voter Turnout Till 5 pm

The total voter turnout across all states and union territories in Lok Sabha Elections phase 3 till 5 pm was 56.50%

Here is the state wise turnout:

Assam 72.03%

Bihar 47.87%

Goa 61.87%

Gujarat 52.53%

J&K 11.22%

Karnataka 58.95%

Kerala 65.06%

Maharashtra 47.96%

Odisha 51.67%

Tripura 67.41%

Uttar Pradesh 50.93%

West Bengal 68.84%

Chhattisgarh 56.88%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli 56.81%

Daman & Diu 64.20%

5:05 pm: Varun Gandhi Visits Polling Booth In Pilibhit

BJP’s Pilibhit candidate Varun Gandhi visited a polling booth in the Lok Sabha constituency during polling in phase 3 of the Lok Sabha polls. 

The incumbent MP from Pilibhit is Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi. She is contesting from Sultanpur where Varun is incumbent MP. 

4:36 pm: PDP, NC Workers Clash In Anantnag

A reporter from Kashmir tweeted out a video that showed people fighting at a booth in Kashmir’s Bijbehara. The tweet said that the ruckus was between PDP and NC workers. 

Anantnag saw a very poor voter turnout during the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2019, with Kashmiris refusing to come out and vote. 

4:30 pm: 11 Uttar Pradesh Candidates Were Found Asking For Votes On Social Media

The chief electoral officer in Uttar Pradesh has sought details from district magistrates after 11 candidates in fray for the third phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019 were found asking for votes on social media in the 48 hours before polls on Tuesday.

According to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, five candidates of the BJP, four of the SP-BSP alliance and two of the Congress have been found using social media in the past 48 hours, even though the electioneering period had ended.

They are Parmeshwar Lal Saini (Sambhal), Chandrasen Jadon (Firozabad), Sanghmitra Maurya (Badaun), Rajvir Singh (Etah), Kunwar Sarvesh Kumar Singh (Moradabad) from the BJP, Hemraj Verma (Pilibhit), Akshay Yadav ( Firozabad), Ruchi Veera (Aonla), Bhagwat Saran Gangwar (Bareilly) from the SP-BSP combine, Imran Pratapgarhi (Moradabad) and Praveen Singh Aron (Bareilly) from the Congress, officials said.

4:28 pm: Woman Dies In Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh Lok Sabha Constituency

A 46-year-old woman collapsed Tuesday waiting in queue to cast her vote in Raigarh Lok Sabha constituency in Chhattisgarh and later died at hospital. The woman, Anjela Toppo, was waiting for her turn to exercise her franchise at polling booth no.3 in police line area in the Raigarh district headquarter when she collapsed, said Raigarh Additional Superintendent of Police Abhishek Verma told PTI.

Her family said she had been unwell for a while. 

4:05 pm: Voter Dies In Uttar Pradesh’s Aonla

Hindustan Times reports that a 60-year-old voter in Uttar Pradesh’s Aonla Lok Sabha constituency died because of an asthmatic attack. 

He was waiting in queue to vote.  

3:55 pm: Polling Agent Found Dead In West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur, Plus More Crude Bombs

Now, ANIreports that a polling agent was found dead in his home in Buniadpur, Dakshin Dinajpur. 

The news agency also reported that crude bombs were hurled at a polling booth in Murshidabad’s Raninagar area by unknown assailants. 

3:53 pm: Azam Khan Casts Vote In Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur 

3:36 pm Polling Official Dies In Odisha’s Dhenkanal

ANI is reporting that a polling official died in Odisha’s Dhenkanal after collapsing while duty. 

3:17 pm: Voter Waiting In Queue Killed In West Bengal As TMC-BJP Clashes Intensify

One person has been reportedly killed in clashes between BJP and Congress workers in Baligram in West Bengal’s Murshidabad during phase three of the Lok Sabha elections 2019. 

Hindustan Times reported that the man was identified as Piyarul Abul Kalam. Meanwhile, NDTV reported that it was a Congress worker who was stabbed to death. 

West Bengal is seeing widespread clashes between party workers. Earlier in the day, TMC and BJP workers razed each other’s camp offices in Motigunj. 

When polling started there were reports that crude bombs had also been hurled at TMC workers in Murshidabad’s Domkal municipality, injuring three. 

3:15 pm: Voter Turnout Till 3 pm

The total voter turnout across all states and union territories in Lok Sabha Elections phase 3 till 3 pm was 49.38%

Here is the state wise turnout:

Assam 62.13%

Bihar 46.94%

Goa 56.83%

Gujarat 48.36%

J&K 10.47%

Karnataka 49.39%

Kerala 53.00%

Maharashtra 42.82%

Odisha 44.25%

Tripura 55.25%

Uttar Pradesh 42.69%

West Bengal 66.80%

Chhattisgarh 53.83%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli 49.64%

Daman & Diu 53.72%

3:14 pm: Manmohan Singh Casts Vote From Assam’s Dispur 

3:12 pm: PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti Casts Her Vote In J&K

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti cast her vote in Jammu and Kashmir’s Bijbehara area in Anantnag. 

Anantnag has seen the lowest voter turnout numbers in phase 3. 

2:25 pm: More TMC-BJP Clashes Reported From Bengal

News18 reports that the Motiganj are of the North 24 Parganas of West Bengal saw clashes between BJP and TMC workers. The report said that TMC workers reportedly ransacked BJP’s camp office and then BJP workers did the same to the TMC camp office in the area. 

2:15 pm: 6 Voters Die In Kerala

According to Manorama Online, six voters have so far died in Kerala during voting in phase three of the Lok Sabha elections 2019. 

First, a 65-year-old woman died in Kannnur while waiting in queue to vote. One more death was reported from Pezhumpara near Ranni where a man fainted while entering a polling booth. The third person, an 87-year-old fainted in a booth near Kalady and later died in hospital. 

A 74-year-old died after collapsing in a polling booth in Kandiyoor near Mavelikkara. A 64-year-old man from the Adivasi Colony in Anjanikkunnu near Panamaram also collapsed while going to the polling booth and declared “brought dead” to the hospital. 

Another voter from Talipparamba died after casting his vote. 

1:55 pm Arun Jaitley Votes From Ahmedabad

1:50 pm: Central Forces Influencing Voters To Vote For BJP In Malda, Says TMC

The ruling Trinamool Congress has reportedly with the sub divisional officer in English Bazaar of Malda South constituency. They said in the complaint that central forces were influencing voters to cast their votes for the BJP, reported Hindustan Times.

Times Now also tweeted a video of a man helping a voter in English Bazaar. 

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections in rural West Bengal have been extremely polarised. Huffpost India’s Piyasree Dasgupta had reported from Harishchandrapur, a village in Malda, that Muslim women did not trust the BJP with the Triple Talaq issue and readily associated readily associated the BJP with violence and prejudice directed at their community.

1:41 pm: LK Advani Votes From Ahmedabad

1:09 pm: Voter Turnout Till 1 pm 

The total voter turnout across all states and union territories in Lok Sabha Elections phase 3 was 26.60%. 

Here are the state wise voter turnouts:

Assam 43.37%

Bihar 26.52 %

Goa 29.14%

Gujarat 25.88%

J&K 4.72%

Karnataka 23.79%

Kerala 31.59%

Maharashtra 18.45%

Odisha 20.12%

Tripura 29.54%

Uttar Pradesh 23.98%

West Bengal 37.84%

Chhattisgarh 30.85%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli 21.62%

Daman & Diu 23.93%

12:45 pm: Dismal Voting In J&K’s Anantnag, Only 1% Turnout In Bijbehara

Voting in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency’s Anantnag area was a dismal 1.50% during the first four hours of polling. 

Polling in other areas of the constituency was also slow. 9.60% voter turnout was recorded in Dooru, Korernag saw voter turnout of 9.50%, Shangus 7.70%, Bijbehara 1%, Pehelgam 10.10%. 

Earlier in the day, former chief minister Omar Abdullah urged voters to step out and cast their votes.

12:12 pm: Snake In VVPAT Machine Stalls Voting In Kannur

Indian elections are colourful, and each day of polling throws up a new surprise. Voting in Kerala’s Kannur Lok Sabha constituency had to be halted because of a snake inside the VVPAT machine. 

Hindustan Times reported that the tiny snake was removed from the VVPAT machine in the polling booth at Mayyil Kandakkai in the constitutency. The report said that the booth has been seeing heavy polling and that the snake incident triggered panic among officials. 

12:00 pm: Hardik Patel’s Racist Chowkidar Jibe

Congress leader Hardik Patel took a dig at BJP’s “chowkidaar” slogan, but went a bit racist with his jibe. 

After casting his vote in the Surendranagar constituency of Gujarat, he said, “Chowkidaar dhoondhna hoga toh mein Nepal chala jaaunga, mujhe desh mein PM chahiye jo iss desh ke arthvyavastha ko, shiksha ko, yuvaon, jawanon ko mazboot kar sake. Mujhe chowkidar nahi pradhan mantri chahiye. (If I need a ‘chowkidaar’ I will go to Nepal. I want a PM for the country who will strengthen the economy, education, youth in the country. I don’t want a chowkidar, I want a prime minister).”

11:50 am: Akhilesh Yadav Says EVMs Across India Malfunctioning, Calls It ‘Criminal Negligence’

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday that EVMs across the country were malfunctioning. He took to Twitter to allege that most EC officials were not equipped to handle EVMs and called it “criminal negligence”. 

11:40 am: ‘Give Your Anger A Voice’: Omar Abdullah Urges Anantnag to Vote

Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah took to Twitter on Tuesday, urging people in Anantnag to cast their vote. 

Kashmir has been seeing low voter turnouts in this phase with only 4.72% of the people have exercised their franchise in Anantnag. 

“To the voters of Anantnag, please don’t reward the death, destruction & deceit of the last 4 years by staying home & boycotting the election. Come out & vote to give your anger a voice. Vote for the best candidate in the field,” Abdullah said. 

11:31 am: Voter Turnout Till 11 am

The total voter turnout till 11 am was 22.68% across India. Here are the state wise numbers

Assam 28.64%

Bihar 25.65% 

Goa 27.21%

Gujarat 23.11%

Jammu and Kashmir 4.72%

Karnataka 20.63%

Kerala 24.61%

Maharashtra 14.95%

Odisha 17.19%

Tripura 25.40%

Uttar Pradesh 22.11%

West Bengal 34.58%

Chhattisgarh 26.57%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli 17.67%

Daman & Diu 23.27%

11: 15 am: Mohanlal, Mammootty Cast Their Votes In Kerala

11:11 am Anna Hazare Casts Vote In Ralegan Siddhi

10:55 am: Woman Dies In Kannur While Waiting To Vote

Hindustan Times reported that a woman in Kerala’s Kannur died while waiting in queue to vote in the third phase of the General Election. 

10:52 am: NDA Candidate From Wayanad Seeks Repolling

Thushar Vellappally, the NDA candidate from Wayanad, has demanded repolling in the Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, alleging EVM malfunctioning, ANI reports.

Wayanad has been in the limelight since Congress president Rahul Gandhi (profile) announced that he would contest from there, apart from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.

10:40 am: In UP’s Rampur, E-Rickshaw Drivers Reportedly Hired By SP Detained

Meanwhile in Rampur, where actor-turned-politician and BJP candidate Jaya Prada (profile) and Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan are contesting against each other, e-rickshaw drivers have been detained. 

Hindustan Times reports that they were hired by the Samajwadi party to ferry voters. 

10:32 am: 3 TMC Workes Injured In Crude Bomb Blast

Three Trinamool Congress workers in Murshidabad’s Domkal municipality were injured after a crude bomb was reportedly hurled at them. This comes after reports the husband of a Trinamool Congress councillor of the Domkal municipality was hospitalised after being beaten with sticks.

West Bengal has seen clashes and attacks on political party workers since the elections began on 11 April. While the ruling Mamata Banerjee government has blamed the Opposition parties and the BJP, the BJP in turn has accused Mamata Banerjee of jungle raj in the state. 

10:30 am: Shashi Tharoor Casts Vote In Thiruvananthapuram

Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram candidate Shashi Tharoor cast his vote in Kerala today. 

10:25 am: PM Modi’s Mother Heeraben Modi Cast Her Vote In Ahmedabad

Heeraben Modi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother, cast her vote in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. 

PM Modi visited his mother before he cast his vote, and sought her blessings. 

9:52 am: Voter turnout till 9 am

Across India: 10.09%

Assam 12.36%

Bihar 12.64%

Goa 11.70%

Gujarat 9.98%

Jammu and Kashmir 1.59%

Karnataka 7.42%

Maharashtra 6.40%

Odisha 7.15%

Tripura 5.83%

Uttar Pradesh 10.36%

West Bengal 16.85%

Chhattisgarh 12.58%

Dadra and Nagar Haveli 10.59%

Daman and Diu 9.93%

9:50 am: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik Casts Vote 

9:31 am: Amit Shah Casts Vote From Ahmedabad’s Naranpura

BJP chief Amit Shah (profile) and his wife Sonal Shah cast their votes from the polling booth in Naranpura Sub-Zonal office in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. 

Shah is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the first time from the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency where LK Advani is the incumbent MP. 

The BJP did not give a party ticket to veteran Advani, ending the poll road in his political career. 

9:21 am: Voting Delayed In Pathanamthitta Because EVMs Not Working

According to The News Minute, EVMs are not working in five booths of Kerala’s Pathanamthitta constituency because of which polling has been delayed. 

9:15 am: Here’s Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad Connection

Congress president Rahul Gandhi does indeed have an old Wayanad connection. A report in Malayala Manoram said that on 19 June 1970, Wayanad native Rajamma Rajappan was the nurse on duty when Sonia Gandhi gave birth at the New Delhi’s Holy Family hospital.

Her colleagues and she took care of the newborn for a week at the hospital. 

Rajappan said she hoped to see Gandhi in Wayanad soon. 

8:40 pm: Voter ID More Important Than IED, Modi Says After Casting Vote

After climbing onto his jeep, Modi told the media, “I did my duty by casting my vote.” This was interrupted by loud cheers of ‘Modi, Modi’. 

“Like you feel pure after a holy dip in Kumbh, one feels pure after casting vote in this festival of democracy,” he said. 

He said people must come out to vote for a ‘bright future’. 

Now addressing journalists he said, “My journalist friends have been working hard for the past one month in this heat, I am grateful to you. You have been relentlessly covering the election, thank you very much.”

He also made political statements like “voter ID more important than IED”. 

8:28 am: Modi Casts Vote, Now Takes A Padyatra

Television visuals showed Modi taking a padyatra after he cast his vote. He held up his finger marked by the indelible ink, and walked out and waved to the people lined up on both sides of the street. 

Is the election commission watching? 

8:25 am: Modi’s Procession Ahead Of Voting Violation Of Poll Code?

In 2014, Narendra Modi had flashed the BJP symbol after he cast his vote. While the lotus was nowhere to be seen, Modi drove up in a jeep, waving to people — almost like it was a mini roadshow. 

He came in a cavalcade, got off and interacted with voters and posed for a picture with a baby in tow. 

If rules of the Model Code of Conduct is anything to go by, this could be a clear violation. 

8:20 am: Supriya Sule Casts Vote From Maharashtra’s Baramati

8:15 am: Dull Beginning To Voting In Anantnag

While the Anantnag district of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency in Jammu and Kashmir is polling today, officials say it began on a dull note. PTI reported officials as saying residents in most parts of the district in restive south Kashmir have stayed indoors so far, an official said.

While polling is underway in Anantnag district, voting in Kulgam district will be held on 29 April while Pulwama and Shopian districts will go to polls on 6 May.

The Election Commission has curtailed the polling duration for Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency by two hours after a request from the state police. The voting will be held in south Kashmir areas from 7 am to 4 pm.

8:06 am: TMC Councillor’s Husband Beaten With Sticks In Bengal

Hindustan Times reports that the husband of a Trinamool Congress councillor of the Domkal municipality was hospitalised after being beaten with sticks. The report says that TMC has alleged hat supporters of the Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) attacked him 

7:57 am: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan Stand In Queue To Cast Vote

7:36 am: Modi Meets Mother Before Casting Vote

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting his mother in Gandhinagar before he casts his vote in Ahmedabad today. 

Reports say Amit Shah will accompany Modi to the polling booth. 

7:26 am: PM Modi, Manmohan Singh To Cast Vote Today

Phase 3 of the Lok Sabha Elections 2019 is not only going to see some star candidates like Congress president Rahul Gandhi and BJP President Amit Shah, it will also see some star voters. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will cast his vote from the booth in the Ranip area of the city, which falls under the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh will vote from Guwahati. LK Advani and Amit Shah will also cast his vote. 

Arun Jaitley will also cast his vote from a booth in SG Highway in Ahmedabad. 

7:23 am: Karnataka Leaders Flock To Temples As Polling Begins

Karnataka leaders are flocking to temples as polling begins in 14 constituencies. BJP candidate from Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency, Dr Umesh Jadhav, was seen at the Sharana Basaveshwara Temple in Kalaburagi. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa visited Hucharaya Swamy temple in Shikaripura, in Shimoga district

6:53 am: Preparations At Polling Booths Already In Full Swing

Polling officials in booths across India have been preparing for voting much before the voters queue up to cast their votes. They conduct mock polls and test out EVMs and VVPATs to ensure they actually work during polling. 

Here are some visuals ANI tweeted from Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala. 

6:45 am: Rahul Gandhi, Amit Shah In Fray; Polling To Begin At 7 am

The electorate in 12 states and two union territories will cast their votes in Phase 3 of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 on Tuesday. As people cast their votes, we’ll bring you live updates through the day — the good, the bad and the ugly.

Malfunctioning EVMs across the country, clashes in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura marked the first two phases of polling, with opposition parties blaming the ruling BJP government for people being unable to vote. There were reports of several leaders flexing their muscles and breaking poll code —  the opposition alleged that Nagaland’s deputy chief minister voted eight times and BJP MP from Bulandshahr Bhola Singh sought “blessings” from voters inside a polling booth.

Political bigwigs like Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shashi Tharoor and Amit Shah are all in the fray on Tuesday.

For the latest elections news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.

All the seats in Gujarat (26), Kerala (20), Goa (2), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1) and Daman and Diu (1) go to polls in the third of the seven-phase election. Besides, polling will also be held in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, one in Jammu and Kashmir, 14 in Karnataka, 14 in Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, and five in West Bengal.

Uttar Pradesh

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP faces a tough battle from the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance. These elections saw arch-rivals Mulayam Singh Yadav (profile) and Mayawati burying the hatchet and even campaigning together. The BJP had won seven out of the 10 seats in UP that are going to poll on Tuesday.

Rampur is seeing a bitterly battle between actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada (profile) and Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan. While BJP’s Nepal Singh is the incumbent MP, Jaya Prada has won from this seat in 2004 and 2009.

Varun Gandhi (profile) has exchanged constituencies with his mother Maneka Gandhi and is now contesting from Pilibhit which goes to polls on Tuesday. While Maneka is the sitting MP and a six-time winner from the seat, Varun is currently the MP from Sultanpur. Varun has earlier won from Pilibhit in  2009.

A total of 1.76 crore voters will exercise their franchise in UP in the third phase.

Gujarat

Gujarat is one of the strongholds of the BJP in the country. In 2014, the BJP had swept all 26 seats in the state. This time around, BJP chief Amit Shah (profile) is is fighting his first Lok Sabha battle from Gandhinagar replacing veteran leader LK Advani. No party ticket for Advani meant the end of the poll road for him. Shah will take on Congress’s CJ Chavda.

In Vadodara, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi won in 2014, and gave up his seat for Ranjanben Bhatt after he chose with stay with Varanasi, the latter is taking on Congress’s Prashant Patel. While actor-turned-politician Paresh Rawal won from Ahmedabad East in 2014, he has not been given a BJP ticket this year.

Kerala

In Kerala, the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency has constantly made headlines because of Congress president Rahul Gandhi (profile) who is contesting from there. He is fighting against CPI’s PP Suneer.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor (profile) is contesting from Thiruvananthapuram where he is looking to become the MP for the third straight time. He is taking on BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan, who resigned as the Mizoram governor to contest on a BJP ticket.

In Pathanamthitta,  ground zero for Sabarimala protests, the BJP has fielded K Surendran (profile) a leader from north Kerala who was jailed during the agitation. Over 240 cases have been filed against him. Other important candidates from Kerala include Alphonse Kannanthanam from and Suresh Gopi from Thrissur.

Prime Minister Modi has campaigned for the BJP in Kerala as the party tried to make inroads into Kerala politics. Sabarimala has been one of the major issues that the BJP has been campaigning with, trying to tell voters that the communist government is anti-Hindus. Countering the prime minister, Vijayan had accused him of “misleading” the country on the Sabarimala issue and said only those who went against the law were arrested (during the protests over Sabarimala issue).

The state had witnessed frenzied protests by devotees and others last year after the state government decided to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of all ages into the hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala, setting aside a traditional ban. The LDF and UDF also raised the Sabarimala issue. While the UDF said it was with the believers, the LDF sought votes on the plank of uprooting communalism from the state.

Maharashtra

The 14 seats going to polls in Maharashtra are Jalgaon, Raver (both in north Maharashtra), Jalna, Aurangabad (Marathwada), Raigad, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg (Konkan), Pune, Baramati, Madha, Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, Hathkanangale (western Maharashtra) and Ahmednagar (south Maharashtra).

The prominent seats in the third phase include Jalna, where state BJP president Raosaheb Danveis in the fray against Vilas Autade of the Congress. In Baramati Supriya Sule, the daughter of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, is contesting against BJP’s Kanchan Kul.

Another keenly watched seat will be Ahmednagar, where Sujay Vikhe Patil is the BJP’s nominee. He is the son of Congress veteran and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil. Sujay Vikhe Patil joined the BJP in the run-up to the polls, after the NCP refused to vacate the Ahmednagar seat for the Congress. He is now pitted against NCP’s Sangram Jagtap.

HuffPost India’s Pavan Dahat reported on Monday that MNS leader Raj Thackeray, who hasn’t been relevant in the state for a long time, is now trying to play spoiler for the BJP by holding rallies around the state where he trolls and fact-checks Modi. Read it here.

Odisha

In Odisha, prominent candidates are BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab who is seeking re-election from Cuttack Lok Sabha seat and sitting BJD MP from Puri Pinaki Mishra, who is fighting to retain the parliamentary constituency. In Puri, Pinaki Mishra is facing a stiff challenge from BJP’s national spokesperson Sambit Patra. It has turned out to be an uphill task for Mahtab in Cuttack where the BJP has pitted retired IPS officer and former Director General of CRPF and ex-DGP of Odisha, Prakash Mishra against him. Also in the race in the Lok Sabha segment is Congress nominee and ex-minister, Panchanan Kanungo.

A senior police official told PTI that several areas going to the polls have been identified as critical, tight security arrangements have been made to ensure free, fair and peaceful poll.

Goa

Goa sends two MPs to the parliament, and right now both of them are from the BJP. The party has fielded sitting MPs Pad Yesso Naik and Narendra Keshav Sawaikar from North and South Goa respectively. After the death of Manohar Parrikar, the Goa BJP has faced a leadership crisis.

(With PTI inputs)

The night is dark and full of ... Arya and Gendry finally had sex!

On Sunday, viewers took in the the second episode of the final season of “Game of Thrones” and saw the two characters get steamy. While Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), the youngest living member of the Stark brood, and Gendry Baratheon (Joe Dempsie), former King Robert Baratheon’s only living bastard, have given the audience tension since Season 1, the will-they-or-won’t-they questions are over.

They did. And it was hot as hell.

The moment also had Arya delivering one of the most boss quotes of the series: “I’m not the Red Woman. Take your own bloody pants off.”

Amid the duo making out and removing their clothes, social media exploded with commentary over the moment. Some were happy, others were in shock. And some ... just appreciated the horniness.

Here’s some of our favorite remarks: 

Riding high on the success of their comeback single “Sucker,” the Jonas Brothers gave fans a first look Monday at “Happiness Begins,” their first full-length album in a decade. 

Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas all shared the cover art on their social media accounts Monday morning. It shows the trio lounging by a pool in the California desert with their backsides to the camera. The album, which will also feature the band’s latest single, “Cool,” hits retailers and streaming platforms June 7. 

“After 7 years of not working together living life and finding ourselves in our own paths we came back to give you our journey in album form,” Kevin Jonas wrote on Instagram. “I have to say out of all the albums we have done together I’m the most proud of this one. I wish I could hand it to you now but you will just have to wait a little bit longer.”

In a short video posted to the band’s Instagram, Nick Jonas echoed those sentiments and said he and his brothers were “making sure we brought you love, joy, and happiness you bring to us every day, so thank you. Can’t wait for you to hear it.”

Aside from “Sucker” and “Cool,” specifics on the new album ― which is the band’s first since 2009’s “Lines, Vines and Trying Times” ― are thus far scarce. Speaking to HuffPost in March, Nick Jonas said the band had been working in the studio closely with producer Ryan Tedder, the OneRepublic frontman who has collaborated with the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5 and Beyoncé. 

He went on to note that the new album would incorporate influences from his work as a solo artist as well as Joe’s ventures as the frontman of the dance-pop outlet DNCE. 

“We didn’t know what to expect when launching this new chapter, and coming back as the Brothers, but to have this outpouring of love and support for this song [‘Sucker’] and this video, and just for us, feels incredible and we don’t take it for granted for one minute,” he said. “The fact that we got to make the songs and that they came out the way they did was just the icing on the cake.”

CORRECTION: The original version of this article mistakenly identified Kevin Jonas as the frontman of DNCE. Joe Jonas is the band’s lead singer.  

Fresh off celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s 93rd birthday on Sunday, the British royal family is already marking another big milestone. 

Kensington Palace released photos on Tuesday of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s third child, Prince Louis, just before his first birthday on April 23. In keeping with tradition, the former Kate Middleton took the photos of her youngest son herself.

Louis can be seen climbing outside the family’s Norfolk home, his eyes wide as he flashes a still-mostly-toothless smile.

In another image, Prince Louis sports a knitted blue sweater emblazoned with a polka-dotted dog. 

Louis is currently the youngest Windsor, though Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are expecting a baby of their own any day now. Unlike William and Kate, the couple is keeping details of their child’s birth under wraps.

She’s not a little girl anymore.

On Sunday night, “Game of Thrones” fans were shocked when Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), a former tomboy turned revenge-fueled assassin suffering from murderous tunnel vision, showed her humanity by propositioning and losing her virginity to her friend Gendry (Joe Dempsie).

Yet no one was more surprised by the scene than Williams herself, who told Entertainment Weekly on Monday that when she first read the script, she thought it was a joke.

EW noted that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have sent hoax scripts to cast members in the past, including a Season 1 scene sent to Kit Harington in which Jon Snow’s face was to be disfigured.

“At first, I thought it was a prank,” the 22-year-old Williams said. “I was like, ‘Yo, good one.’ And [the showrunners were] like, ‘No, we haven’t done that this year.’ Oh f—k!”

The actress, who was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for her portrayal of Arya, explained that she first learned of the scene from her BFF and co-star Sophie Turner (aka Sansa Stark), who had zipped through the final season’s scripts before Williams. Turner thought the scene was “awesome,” but Williams stood by her belief that the scene was bogus until the cast did a table read and the sex scene was still in the script.

“I got to the read-through and I’m reading the scene and thought, ‘Oh, we’re actually going to do this. When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym.’ A whole list of things,” Williams told EW.

The actress noted that she was given a certain amount of control over how much nudity to reveal, which is refreshing considering that “Game of Thrones” is notorious for its gratuitous sex scenes.

“David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want,’” Williams said. “So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show, so …”

Dempsie, who is a decade older than Williams and has known her since she was a young girl working on the show, had the same concerns about the scene as many fans did. 

But he seems to have handled the whole thing pretty well.

“It’s obviously slightly strange for me because I’ve known Maisie since she was 11, 12 years old,” the 31-year-old actor told EW. “At the same time, I don’t want to be patronizing toward Maisie — she’s a 20-year-old woman. So we just had a lot of fun with it.”

It should also be noted that the scene took place on the eve of an epic battle in which many beloved characters believe they’re going to die, including Arya. So, regardless of how one may feel about this shocking scene, it was nice to see Arya finally just be human again — even if it took the threat of death to allow her to embrace life.

Sunday’s episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” featured more than just Bran’s stares and Jon Snow’s confusion ― it also had a cameo from the former deputy director of the CIA.

An HBO spokeswoman confirmed to HuffPost that David S. Cohen, who served at the agency from 2015 to 2017, got about 15 seconds of fame as a field worker on the second episode of the show’s final season. The CIA’s Twitter account also tweeted out the news.

Cohen told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday that he managed to get an appearance on the popular fantasy drama because his brother-in-law, David Benioff, is the show’s co-creator. The former CIA official reportedly asked Benioff during Thanksgiving in 2017 if he could be an extra.

Cohen’s character did not have any lines, but he got some screen time while Ser Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham) served him soup as Winterfell braced for the Night King’s army.

“A perk of working for the CIA is world travel,” the CIA tweeted. “Apparently that sometimes extends to other realms...”

Before he was at the CIA, Cohen was the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department. He now works as an attorney at WilmerHale.

NEW DELHI — The BJP Monday fielded former cricketer Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi constituency and renominated Meenakshi Lekhi from the New Delhi seat, but suspense prevailed on party’s candidate from North-West Delhi.

Barring the North-West Delhi seat, the party has so far announced its candidates for six of the seven seats in the national capital.

Gambhir has replaced Maheish Girri as the party’s candidate and will take on Arvinder Singh Lovely of the Congress and Atishi of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Congratulating Gambhir for his candidature, incumbent East Delhi MP Maheish Girri wished him luck for the contest. Girri said he will join Gambhir in his nomination rally.

Lekhi is pitted against AAP’s Brajesh Goel and Ajay Maken of the Congress. 

Suspense, however, prevailed over party’s candidature from North-West Delhi.

Apprehending that his party may deny him a ticket, sitting BJP MP from the reserved North-West Delhi parliamentary seat Udit Raj on Monday asked the party to clear the confusion over his candidature for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Talking to reporters, Raj said he will wait till an announcement of the official BJP candidate on the North-West Delhi seat is made before deciding his future course of action.

The BJP had on Sunday fielded its four sitting MPs from Delhi ― Harsh Vardhan from Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari from North-East Delhi, Pravesh Verma from West Delhi and Ramesh Bidhuri from South Delhi.

The party is yet to name its candidate for the North-West Delhi constituency.  

The BJP had won all the seven seats in the national capital in the last general election.

Kerala saw brisk polling on Tuesday as it recorded 65.70% turnout till 5pm. All the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies are voting in third phase of the elections today. 

Kannur and Wayanad, where Rahul Gandhi is contesting from, recorded over 72% voting, according to Election Commission figures.

Vadakara was lowest at 59.23% polling.

In the 2014 election, Kerala’s turnout had been just over 70%.

Six voters collapsed and died across the state, while in line to vote or just after casting their vote, The NewsMinute reported. Two of the deaths were reported in Kannur.

Amid reports of EVM glitches in several parts of the state, Mathrubhumi said one voter was booked by the police in Thiruvananthapuram for making false allegations.

In Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor is up against BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan and LDF’s C Divakaran.

Tharoor, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan are among the key candidates in the state.

EVM glitches in Kovalam, Cherthala

In Thiruvananthapuram, after a voter filed a written complaint about the VVPAT showing the wrong party, a test vote was carried out in the presence of polling officials, which showed no glitches. He was then booked by the police, Mathrubhumi reported.

Glitches in EVMs in some polling booths were reported in the initial hours of voting in Cherthala in Alappuzha district and Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram.

At the Kovalam booth, voters alleged votes were going to BJP when they pressed the Congress button, Malayala Manorama reported. 

However, Thiruvananthapuram district collector K Vasuki dismissed reports of glitches in the machine in Kovalam and said it was ensured that it was error-free and the polling was continuing.

NDA’s Wayanad candidate Thushar Vellapally has demanded repolling, alleging that an EVM was damaged in the constituency, Mathrubhumi said.

After voting in Kannur, CM Vijayan told reporters that there was some problem in the voting machine in his booth and in two other places nearby.

Issues relating to the voting machines have been reported from various other places in the state, he said, adding the Election Commission should have ensured that they were free of any glitches. 

NEW DELHI —On Saturday, April 20, normally a holiday for the Supreme Court, an unusual notice was circulated. It stated that a special bench comprising the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna was being constituted to urgently deal with a case self-importantly titled “A Matter of Great Public Importance Touching Upon the Independence of Judiciary” that was to be mentioned by the Solicitor General Mr. Tushar Mehta at 10:30 am.

Meanwhile, four online news portals had published a startling story alleging sexual harassment and severe abuse of power by Chief Justice Gogoi, prompting speculation that that the special bench would address that development.

The accusations, which can be accessed here, were made by a former Junior Court Assistant, and detail two incidents of alleged molestation and the victimisation that she and her family members suffered for her rejection of his advances, including loss of employment, arrest and torture in police custody. She was transferred thrice to different sections within the Supreme Court, subjected to disciplinary proceedings for objecting to the multiple transfers and for taking a casual leave on a Saturday, and finally dismissed from the Supreme Court on 21 December 2018, barely three months after Justice Gogoi took office as the CJI. By the end of that year, her husband and his brother, both of whom worked with the Delhi Police, were also suspended from their respective jobs.

Many of the details mentioned in her affidavit are accompanied by recordings, and incidents such as transfers, disciplinary proceedings etc. are easily verifiable from the records. A criminal case that was filed against her, allegedly as part of this intimidation and retribution, was due for hearing shortly, in which police were seeking cancellation of her bail. With her back against the wall, the complainant said, she sent copies of her sworn affidavit detailing this saga to the residences of several Supreme Court judges.

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If these allegations are true, they point to a horrific story of sexual harassment and subsequent persecution and vendetta at the hands of no less than the Chief Justice of India while he was in office. One would think that this merits a serious investigation. However, the manner in which the CJI, his fellow Justices and senior law officers have reacted to these allegations has put paid to any hope of a serious, impartial inquiry.

No natural justice

Saturday’s special hearing violated every single principle of natural justice and due process: the accused presided over the proceedings, using the Supreme Court as his personal pulpit to character-assassinate his accuser; the other two judges were handpicked by him based not on seniority or affiliation with the court sexual harassment committee, but purely on personal preference; not a single woman judge was part of the bench; the complainant was not present or asked to be present, giving her no opportunity of being heard; senior law officers such as the Solicitor General and Attorney General who were present in Court did not think to advise the bench that this procedure was highly irregular and unlawful, but instead acted as cheerleaders of the Chief Justice, bemoaning this assault on judicial independence and accepting, at his word, that the allegations were false. They were clearly not unaware of the procedures under the Sexual Harassment Act, as they did (incorrectly) rely on one provision of it—the one requiring confidentiality, which they sought to use to shield the CJI. Yet, none of them thought to suggest that this matter should be taken up by an inquiry committee under the Act and the court’s own guidelines, instead of by the accused himself.

At no point did the CJI or anyone around him think it pertinent to address the details of the allegations. In fact, he said that to deny them would be to stoop too low for him. Instead, he vilified her character, referred to the police case against her as “evidence” of her unreliability, and resorted to piety and emotional arguments about his own character, including, bizarrely, about his bank balance. He portrayed these allegations, which were against him personally, as an attack on the judiciary, equating himself to an institution, and engaged in conspiracy theories about external forces wanting to destroy the judiciary.

“Judicial terrorism”

As if these proceedings were not shameful enough, the order that was passed at their conclusion was no less shocking. The coram did not reflect that the Chief Justice had been part of the proceedings at all, which is nothing short of a blatant lie, and the order, without explicitly saying so, strongly suggests that the media self-censor in reporting these allegations. The chilling effect of such an order on free speech, particularly where the accountability of such a powerful official is in question, cannot be overstated. One senior lawyer has gone on record to term it an act of “judicial terrorism”, and it is difficult to disagree with that assessment.

So what could the court have done?

Despite the existence of a legislation protecting against sexual harassment at the workplace, as well as the Supreme Court’s own in-house procedure to deal with such complaints, this is not an easy question to answer. In its procedure for dealing with complaints against Supreme Court and High Court judges, the Chief Justice is in charge of implementing the procedure and granting permission to act on a complaint. There is no provision on how to deal with a complaint against the CJI, and there is no in-house panel comprising his subordinates who can fairly hear a complaint against him. In the present case, the complainant has sought a special committee of retired Supreme Court Judges to look into her allegations. The complaint ought to have been taken up by the court’s in-house committee, bypassing the requirement of the CJI’s permission in the circumstances, and ideally, the committee could have set up the special committee required in this case, with a majority of women and retired judges with no known familiarity with the accused, and the in-house committee  extending a supporting role to the complainant to balance out the power equation. The Court’s Gender Sensitization Internal Complaints Committee needs to be empowered by the rules to act against the CJI in such cases, with external help if necessary, such as retired judges, and the rules must envisage and provide for a situation where the CJI himself is the accused.

Supreme Hypocrisy

Saturday’s proceedings also flew in the face of Justice Gogoi’s own policy on limiting the mentioning practice to urgent matters involving death penalty or immediate eviction, as well as the principled objections he was part of airing during last year’s controversial press conference. In that conference, he and three other judges expressed their displeasure at the misuse of then Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s powers of controlling the roster, and assigning cases to his preferred benches. Though the official letter circulated at the press conference in 2018 refrained from naming specific cases, informed speculation as well as a petition filed by Senior Advocate Shanti Bhushan pointed to a few instances, in particular, the politically sensitive cases of the 2G controversy, Judge Loya’s death, Sunanda Pushkar’s death, and a high-profile land acquisition case.

Guardians of democracy

The response of the legal community is the one heartening aspect of this sordid story. There are, of course, many lawyers, including senior counsel, who are too afraid to voice their objections to Saturday’s illegalities. But a few have done so on record, and the resolutions adopted by the Supreme Court Bar Association, the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association, as well as petitions by Women in Criminal Law Association and other lawyers are a welcome departure from the usual reluctance among lawyers to criticise judicial conduct.

However, the less said about the country’s top law officers and office bearers of legal bodies the better. The Supreme Court Bar Association president (whose own association went against him today) participated in the hearing to show support to the CJI, and ludicrously claimed, as did the Bar Council of India chair, that they represent all lawyers in their obsequious attempts to curry favour with the judges. The Attorney General and Solicitor General seem to have forgotten that there exists something called separation of powers, demarcating clear boundaries between the executive and the judiciary. Their rush to defend the CJI is deeply troubling, for it gives the appearance of a possible quid pro quo between the government and the accused.

Guilty or not, process matters

Nobody is asking that people presume guilt or blindly believe the accuser. But objectivity demands that we take a stand on Saturday’s proceedings and make it clear that they have no place in a constitutional democracy. If there is any threat to the integrity of the judiciary, it is not from such allegations, but from within.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his vote in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections at a booth in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

He greeted people who had gathered on both sides of the road in a campaign style procession to the booth.

Modi rode in an open jeep surrounded by bodyguards, instead of the a bullet-proof vehicle, to the polling station set up in Nishan High School in the Ranip area of Gujarat’s Ahmedabad.

Read live updates here.

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At the polling station, he was welcomed by BJP president Amit Shah, who is contesting the Lok Sabha election from the Gandhinagar seat, and accompanied to the booth.

Before entering the polling station, he spent time waving at a crowd gathered outside. 

After voting, he stepped out to display his inked finger. He then walked a few feet as crowds chanted his name, while his jeep followed behind. 

In a brief interaction with the media, he said the “voter ID” (identity card) was much more powerful than the “IED” (improvised explosive device) of terrorists.

“I feel blessed to have exercised my franchise in this biggest festival of democracy. The power of the voter ID is much more than IED of terrorism,” Modi said. 

He urged people to come out in large numbers to vote in the ongoing polls.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — As a state of emergency took effect Tuesday giving the Sri Lankan military war-time powers, police arrested 40 suspects, including the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers involved in deadly Easter bombings and the owner of a house where some of them lived, officials said.

Sri Lanka’s president gave the military a wider berth to detain and arrest suspects — powers that were used during the 26-year civil war but withdrawn when it ended in 2009.

The death toll from Sunday’s attacks rose to 310, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said.

On Tuesday, which President Maithripala Sirisena declared a day of mourning, Sri Lankan authorities planned to brief foreign diplomats and receive assistance from the FBI and other foreign intelligence-gathering agencies after officials disclosed Monday that warnings had been received weeks ago of the possibility of an attack by the radical Muslim group blamed for the bloodshed.

The six near-simultaneous attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels and three related blasts later Sunday were the South Asian island nation’s deadliest violence in a decade. The government blocked most social media to curtail false information. Even after an overnight, nationwide curfew was lifted, the streets of central Colombo remained mostly deserted and shops closed as armed soldiers stood guard.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he feared the massacre could unleash instability and he vowed to “vest all necessary powers with the defense forces” to act against those responsible. 

 In an indication of the tensions, three explosions caused panic but apparently no injuries Monday as police were defusing bombs inside a van parked near one of the stricken churches. Dozens of detonators were discovered near Colombo’s main bus depot, but officials declined to say whether they were linked to the attacks.

At Bandaranaike International Airport outside of Colombo early Tuesday morning, police walked explosive-sniffing dogs outside as inside cheery video advertisements of gamblers and snorkelers played. At a roadside checkpoint at the airport, security officials checked car trunks and questioned drivers.

The lack of social media access was contributing to the confusion and doing little to reassure residents and visitors that the danger had passed.

International intelligence agencies had warned that the little-known group, National Thowfeek Jamaath, was planning attacks, but word apparently didn’t reach the prime minister’s office until after the massacre, exposing the continuing political turmoil in the highest levels of the Sri Lankan government.

Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said the warnings started April 4, the defense ministry wrote to the police chief with information that included the group’s name and and police wrote April 11 to the heads of security of the judiciary and diplomatic security division.

Sirisena, who was out of the country Sunday, had ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in October and dissolved the Cabinet. The Supreme Court reversed his actions, but the prime minister has not been allowed into meetings of the Security Council since October, leaving him and his government in the dark about the intelligence.

It was not immediately clear what action, if any, was taken after the threats. Authorities said they knew where the group trained and had safe houses, but did not identify any of the suicide bombers, whose bodies were recovered, or the two dozen other suspects taken into custody.

All the bombers were Sri Lankans, but authorities said they strongly suspected foreign links, Senaratne said.

Also unclear was a motive. The history of Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, a country of 21 million including large Hindu, Muslim and Christian minorities, is rife with ethnic and sectarian conflict.

In the 26-year civil war, the Tamil Tigers, a powerful rebel army known for using suicide bombers, was finally crushed by the government in 2009 but had little history of targeting Christians. Anti-Muslim bigotry fed by Buddhist nationalists has swept the country recently, but there is no history of Islamic militancy. Its small Christian community has seen only scattered incidents of harassment.

Two of the stricken churches are Catholic and one Protestant. The three hotels and one of the churches, St. Anthony’s Shrine, are frequented by foreigners. Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said 39 foreigners were killed, although the foreign ministry gave the figure as 31. The reason for the discrepancy wasn’t clear, but some victims were dual nationals.

India and Britain have confirmed eight dead each. The U.S. State Department confirmed that at least four Americans dead and several seriously wounded. Others were confirmed to be from Bangladesh, China, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and Australia.

The scale of the violence recalled the worst days of the civil war, when the Tamil Tigers, from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Sinhalese-dominated, majority Buddhist country. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.

The six near-simultaneous blasts were set off Sunday morning at St. Anthony’s and the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels in Colombo, as well as the two churches outside Colombo. They collapsed ceilings and blew out windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests, and leaving behind scenes of smoke, soot, blood, broken glass, screams and wailing alarms.

The military confirmed two other related blasts, one near an overpass and another at a guesthouse where two people were killed. A ninth blast, which killed three police officers, was set off by occupants of a safe house trying to evade arrest, authorities said.

A morgue worker in Negombo, outside Colombo, where St. Sebastian’s Church was targeted, said many bodies were hard to identify because of the blasts. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said at least 110 of the dead were killed at St. Sebastian’s, making it the deadliest of the attacks.

Nilantha Lakmal, a businessman who took his family to St. Sebastian’s for Mass, said they all escaped unharmed, but he remained haunted by images of bodies being taken from the sanctuary.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said the attacks could have been thwarted.

“We placed our hands on our heads when we came to know that these deaths could have been avoided. Why this was not prevented?” he said.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to lawyer Utsav Bains who claimed there was conspiracy to frame CJI Ranjan Gogoi on sexual harassment allegations. 

The court will take up the matter on Wednesday.

A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra issued notice to Utsav Bains and sought his response with regard to his claim that he was also offered Rs 1.5 crore to represent a former apex court woman employee and arrange a presser against the CJI at the Press Club of India.

The bench, which also comprised Justices R F Nariman and Deepak Gupta, has now fixed the case titled as a matter of “great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary”, for hearing tomorrow at 10:30 AM.

The lawyer had filed an affidavit on Monday following the unprecedented hearing on Saturday during which the CJI had said a larger conspiracy was behind it and that he would not stoop too low even to deny these allegations.

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According to the Election Commission, the state-wise polling percentage for the third phase of voting is:

Till 1 pm: 26.60%

Assam: 43.37%

Bihar: 26.52 %

Goa: 29.14%

Gujarat: 25.88%

Jammu and Kashmir: 4.72%

Karnataka: 23.79%

Kerala: 31.59%

Maharashtra: 18.45%

Odisha: 20.12%

Tripura: 29.54%

Uttar Pradesh: 23.98%

West Bengal: 37.84%

Chhattisgarh: 30.85%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli: 21.62%

Daman & Diu: 23.93%

Till 11 am: 22.68%

Assam: 28.64%

Bihar: 25.65%

Goa: 27.21%

Gujarat: 23.11%

Jammu and Kashmir: 4.72%

Karnataka: 20.63%

Kerala: 24.61%

Maharashtra: 14.95%

Odisha: 17.19%

Tripura: 25.40%

Uttar Pradesh: 22.11%

West Bengal: 34.58%

Chhattisgarh: 26.57%

Dadra & Nagar Haveli: 17.67%

Daman & Diu: 23.27%

Voting is underway for 116 Lok Sabha seats, including all constituencies in Gujarat and Kerala, with BJP president Amit Shah, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and several Union ministers among prominent candidates in the fray.

About 18.56 crore voters are eligible for voting in the third phase of the elections, for which 2.10 lakh polling booths/stations have been set up.

The Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangements. 

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Besides all seats in Gujarat (26) and Kerala (20), voting is being held in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, 14 each in Karnataka and Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, five in West Bengal, two in Goa, and one each in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Tripura.

Voting in Tripura East constituency, which was earlier scheduled for April 18, is also being held, as also in a part of the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir, where election is being held in three phases.

Voting is also being held in some Assembly constituencies in Odisha, Gujarat and Goa.

In the first two phases, election was held to 91 and 96 Lok Sabha seats on April 11 and April 18 respectively.

(With PTI inputs)