Voting to pick a new 70-member Delhi Assembly continued peacefully on Wednesday as the turnout touched 57.70 per cent till 5 p.m. with the ruling AAP eyeing a fourth straight win and the BJP putting up a tough fight to return to power after 1998.

As the turnout continued to rise after a slow start, there were allegations of a model code violation after a brief commotion at a polling booth in Seelampur where a bogus voter was caught casting a vote on someone else’s identity. The incident occurred at Aryan Public School, Booth Level Officer, Seelampur, Gayatri, said.

BJP nominee from the seat, Anil Gaur, accused the rival Congress and the AAP of bringing 300-400 fake voters from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

India captain Rohit Sharma on Wednesday said that the Indian team is still waiting for clarity on Jasprit BUmrah's injury and his availability for the upcoming Champions Trophy in Dubai.

Bumrah had suffered a back injury in the fifth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia. Though he was included in the ODI squad for the England series, with the provision that he will be available for the third match of the series in Ahmedabad, he was quietly removed from the updated squad that the BCCI sent after the inclusion of spinner Varun Chakravarthy.

On Wednesday, Rohit clarified that Bumrah has to undergo some scans in the next couple of days, the results of which will clarify about his availability for the third ODI and the subsequent Champions Trophy.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday met leading Indian startup founders and investors in a closed-door session here, and discussed the ChatGPT maker’s plans for the Indian market.

Altman, along with top company executives chief product officer (CPO) Kevin Weil and VP of Engineering Srinivas Narayanan, also discussed the challenges faced by AI-driven businesses and potential opportunities for collaboration.

Prominent startup leaders who attended the meeting included Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal, Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl, Chaayos co-founder Raghav Verma, Ixigo Group CEO Aloke Bajpai, Haptik CEO Aakrit Vaish, and HealthifyMe’s Tushar Vashisht.

Altman’s visit to India comes at a crucial time when large language models (LLMs) are at the centre of global AI discussions.

Former England captain Joe Root is set to make his long-awaited return to England’s ODI XI for the first time since the 2023 Cricket World Cup, as the visitors named their playing XI for the series opener against India, scheduled to commence on Thursday at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium.

Root, who was not part of England’s T20I squad, last played 50-over cricket in November 2023 against Pakistan at Eden Gardens during the ODI World Cup. His inclusion comes as England looks to stabilise its middle order in spin-friendly conditions ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

England’s white-ball tour of India has been challenging, with Jos Buttler’s men suffering a 1-4 defeat in the T20I series. The loss marked a tough start for head coach Brendon McCullum, who took charge of England’s limited-overs squad for the first time ahead of the series.

After securing control over five municipal corporations in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party today elected its mayor in the Bathinda Municipal Corporation as well. AAP councillor Padamjit Mehta has been elected as the Mayor of Bathinda Municipal Corporation.

In the mayoral election, Padamjit Mehta received 33 votes, while the Congress candidate could secure only 15 votes. In the recently held by-election for Ward No. 48 of Bathinda Municipal Corporation, Mehta had won with a margin of approximately 850 votes.

Following the election of the AAP mayor, the party's Punjab President Aman Arora addressed a press conference in Bathinda along with other party leaders. He was joined by Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian, MLA Rajneesh Dahiya, AAP Co-President Amansher Singh Sherry Kalsi, and party leaders Neel Garg and Shaminder Khinda.

The remains of all 67 individuals who died in the helicopter and passenger plane mid-air collision in Washington last week have been recovered by rescue teams, US media cited the Unified Command as saying.

Sixty-six of the remains have been positively identified, the reports news agency

The Unified Command said its crews are still working to clear the wreckage, including large pieces of the plane, from the Potomac River, and large lifts will continue through Tuesday evening.

Unloading is expected when "environmental and tidal conditions allow" on Wednesday.

It added that operations will then shift to recovering wreckage from the Black Hawk helicopter.

Three workers were killed in a wall collapse on a construction site in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Another worker was injured in the incident that occurred in LB Nagar.

According to police, the incident occurred when the workers were engaged in digging a pit for the cellar of an under-construction building of a hotel. A compound wall in the same premises fell on the workers, burying them under the debris.

Police and Disaster Response Force (DRF) personnel rushed to the spot and launched rescue operation. Bodies of three workers were pulled out from the rubble.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday reiterated his demand for a nationwide caste census, arguing that Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and tribals have insufficient representation in India’s power structure across sectors like education, health, corporate, business, and judiciary.

Speaking at an event in Patna on the occasion of birth anniversary of freedom fighter Jaglal Chaudhary, Rahul Gandhi criticised the current system, stating: "Dalits have been given representation, but due to lack of actual participation in the power structure, it means nothing."

Rahul Gandhi emphasised that conducting a caste census is necessary to ensure fair representation in governance, business, and administration.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday revealed a list of 12 umpires and three match referees as match officials for the 2025 ICC Men’s Champions Trophy, happening from February 19 to March 9 in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The tournament will take place in four venues: Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, and Dubai in the UAE. In a statement, the ICC said a distinguished panel of 12 umpires will officiate the eight-team event, with six of them returning after officiating in the 2017 edition.

That includes Richard Kettleborough, who stood in the final of the previous Champions Trophy in the United Kingdom in 2017. Kettleborough, a veteran of 108 Men’s ODIs, will be joined by fellow umpires Chris Gaffaney, Kumar Dharmasena, Richard Illingworth, Paul Reiffel, and Rod Tucker, who also officiated in the 2017 tournament won by Pakistan.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in all likelihood, is set to cut the repo rate by 25 basis points for the first time in almost five years, aligning with the Budget's objectives of stimulating economic activity while managing a prudent fiscal position, which provides comfort on currency and inflation fronts, industry experts said on Wednesday.

The central bank last reduced the repo rate by 40 basis points to 4 per cent in May 2020, to help the economy tide over the crisis following the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, the repo rate stands at 6.50 per cent.

Given the Union Budget's emphasis on reviving consumption to support economic growth, the RBI might consider turning the policy rate cycle.