News in Brief (2024-01-22)

FE Team | Published: January 21, 2024 23:30:14

Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque helping Modi boost his political standing
NEW DELHI, Jan 21: Three decades after Hindu mobs tore down a historical mosque, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the consecration of a grand Hindu temple at the same site on Monday in a political move to boost his party ahead of a crucial national vote. Experts say the temple, dedicated to Hinduism's most revered deity Lord Ram, will cement Modi's legacy - enduring but also contentious - as one of India's most consequential leaders, who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation. "Right from the beginning, Modi was driven by marking his permanency in history. He has ensured this with the Ram Temple," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an expert in Hindu nationalism and author of a book on Modi. —AP
45-year old Russian plane crashes
KABUL, 21 Jan: Russian aviation authorities said on Sunday a Russian-registered 45-year old plane with six people thought to be on board disappeared from radar screens over Afghanistan the previous night, after local Afghan police said they had received reports of a crash. Russian aviation authorities said in a statement the plane was a charter ambulance flight traveling from India, via Uzbekistan to Moscow on a French-made Dassault Aviation Falcon 10 jet manufactured in 1978. Police in northern Afghanistan received reports of a plane crash in Badakhshan province, a provincial police spokesperson said on Sunday. Zabihullah Amiri, a spokesperson for Badakhshan's provincial government, told Reuters a team had been sent to the location —Reuters
Five Nigerian kidnapped sisters rescued
ABUJA, Jan 21: Nigerian police say they have successfully rescued five sisters who were held hostage after being kidnapped in the country's capital. The girls were freed in a joint police-army operation in a forest in northern Nigeria on Saturday night. They were taken from their home in Abuja earlier this month, along with another sister who was later killed. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom for their release, but the statement made no mention of one being paid. —BBC
Putin willing to visit N Korea soon
MOSCOW, Jan 21: Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit Pyongyang soon when he met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Russia last week, North Korea's state news agency KCNA reported on Sunday. Putin also thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for his invitation to visit, KCNA said, citing North Korea's foreign minister's assistant office. It would be the Russian leader's first trip to North Korea in more than two decades. —Reuters
NASA regains contact with Mars copter
WASHINGTON, Jan 21: NASA has re-established contact with its tiny helicopter on Mars, the US space agency said Saturday, after an unexpected outage prompted fears that the hard-working craft had finally met its end. Ingenuity, a drone about 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) tall, arrived on Mars in 2021 aboard the rover Perseverance and became the first motorized craft to fly autonomously on another planet. Data from the helicopter are transmitted via Perseverance back to Earth, but communications were suddenly lost during a test flight on Thursday, Ingenuity's 72nd lift-off on Mars. —AFP