The News Journal

For centuries the stone was owned by kings in the Indian subcontinent before British colonisers took it and made it a prized possession of the monarchy. For decades, Indians , Pakistanis, Afghans and Iranians have laid claim to the precious stone, which is believed to bring bad luck to its male owners. Britain has consistently declined the claims and asserted they were legal owners of the gemstone, a view held by India’s Supreme Court which ruled that the diamond was not looted or stolen but procured by the colonisers through a legal treaty. But social media users in India have been demanding the return of the famed gemstone since the queen’s died on September 8, promoting petitions for the cause. Venkatesh Shukla started a petition aiming to get 1 million signatures on LinkedIn, reminding the “honourable country” UK to return the “loot”. So far, it has just 6,500 signatures. “Every time the crown appears with Koh-i-Noor as the jewel of the crown, it reminds the world of Britain's...

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan next week to attend the state funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated during an election campaign event in July. Mr Modi, who described the Japanese leader as a "dear friend" is expected to join about 50 world leaders including Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau, his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese and US Vice President Kamala Harris for the funeral on September 27. Abe was delivering a speech near a train station in the western city of Nara when he was shot by an assailant on July 8. He was flown to hospital, where he was not breathing and his heart stopped, officials said. He was 67. The Abe family held a private Buddhist funeral ceremony for the former leader in July at a temple in Tokyo. It was the first assassination of a sitting or former Japanese prime minister since the 1930s. India's Foreign Ministry said Mr Modi would separately meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio K...

Indian multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani has announced a $25bn (£21.3bn) plan to launch 5G mobile internet services in the country within two months. Mr Ambani, who heads the telecoms-to-retail group Reliance Industries, says the high-speed network will be introduced first in major cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai. He said it will then be expanded to the rest of India by December 2023. The company is also working with Google to develop a budget 5G smartphone. Speaking on Monday at Reliance's annual general meeting, Mr Ambani said that once the firm's 5G network is fully operational it would be the biggest in the world. The service will be rolled out through Reliance's subsidiary Jio - which is India's largest mobile carrier. Asia's richest men battle to dominate 5G in India What is 5G and what will it mean for you? Mr Ambani also said that Reliance was working with US technology giant Google to develop an "ultra-affordable" 5G smartphone, without givin...

The Congress on Sunday slammed the Madhya Pradesh government's orders which stated that the investigation agencies mandatorily need to acquire prior permission of the chief minister to inquest corruption charges against officials of all-India services. Congress leader Kamal Nath accused the BJP of making 'elaborate arrangements to protect the corrupt.' "Those who used to give the slogan 'Na Khaunga and Na Khane Dunga' at the time of elections and those who used to talk about putting the corrupt in 10 feet deep pit, all of them together have made elaborate arrangements to protect the corrupt," the Congress leader wrote in a tweet. Notably, the General Administration Department of the Madhya Pradesh Government issued an order on Thursday stating that prior permission of the chief minister of the state would be required to initiate a probe against officers of All India Services (IAS, IPS, IFS etc.) under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The order was passed ...

 At least 11 devotees – including two children – were killed and more than a dozen injured, after being electrocuted during a procession at a temple in India's southern Tamil Nadu state. Police said the incident occurred early on Wednesday when a temple palanquin, or temple car, came in contact with a high-voltage line at Appar Swami temple in Kalimedu in Thanjavur district. Hundreds of devotees were part of the religious procession at the time of the accident. More than a dozen people were riding the chariot when it came into contact with an overhead high-voltage power line. Three people are in serious condition with severe burn injuries, police said. Television footage showed the aftermath of the accident, with the palanquin completely scorched from the incident. “Eleven people have been killed and 16 people are injured … the palanquin came into contact with high tension wire at 3am last night. The people have burn injuries,” Dinesh Ponraj Oliver, district collector, told The Nat...

 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in India’s western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday for his two-day visit to the South Asian country as he seeks to bolster ties between the historical partners. The trip is Mr Johnson’s first to India and the first ever by any British prime minister to Ahmedabad — the capital of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat. The Prime Minister will visit a new factory being opened by a top British firm in Gujarat, as well as a biotechnology university working in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh. The city, a major commercial hub, is known as the "Manchester of India" for its cotton-textile industry and is the ancestral home to about half of the Anglo-Indian population in Britain. “As I arrive in India today, I see vast possibilities for what our two great nations can achieve together. From next-generation 5G telecoms and AI to new partnerships in health research and renewable energy — the UK and India are leading th...

 India’s Kerala High Court has dismissed a petition filed by a Christian father over his daughter’s marriage to a Muslim. Joisna Mary Joseph, 26, a nurse who works in Saudi Arabia, married Shejin M, a Communist Party of India worker from Alappuzha, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, without her parents' approval, on April 12. The marriage created a storm in the coastal state after the bride's relatives accused Mr Shejin of abducting Ms Joseph. But she denied this, saying: “I married the person I loved, so I wanted to go with him.” Her father had approached police with a complaint of abduction. After failing to get help from officers, he filed a habeas corpus petition in the court, alleging his daughter had been taken away against her will and illegally detained. Habeas corpus is a recourse in law that orders a person who has detained another person to produce them before the court. The high court summoned Ms Joseph on Tuesday and dismissed the petition after she said she h...

 India's civil aviation minister urged Indian airlines on Friday to add more long-haul aircraft to their fleets and to increase flights abroad, as air travel rebounds from a two-year slump due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Domestic passenger numbers are expected to exceed pre-pandemic levels within one year, Jyotiraditya Scindia said during an air show in the Indian city of Hyderabad. But foreign airlines dominate international routes to and from India, which industry experts say is partly because Indian airlines do not have enough wide-body, long-haul planes. “Along with our thrust on narrow-body aircraft, we must also increase our fleet of wide-body aircraft. It is not enough to connect all points in India — we need to connect the world to India,” the minister said. India's aviation market is dominated by narrow-body planes operated by low-cost airlines such as IndiGo. In 2019, Indian airlines operated more than 550 narrow-body planes and less than 60 widebodies. Only two Indian ...

 New Delhi has rebuked China over its comments on the disputed region of Kashmir, saying Beijing has no right to comment on the “internal matters” of India. The Indian Foreign Ministry said it “rejected” the remarks on Kashmir by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the opening of a meeting of Organisation of Islamic Co-operation foreign ministers in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. Mr Wang, who was a special guest at the two-day meeting that began on Tuesday, said Beijing “shares the same aspirations” as other Islamic nations over the Kashmir issue, prompting a sharp reaction from New Delhi. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation meeting. “We reject the uncalled reference to India by the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Matters related to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are entirely the internal affairs of India,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement released late on Wednes...