Day: March 4, 2026

The Kerala High Court has ordered the Chief Secretary to coordinate with the departments concerned and to submit before it a roadmap about the steps that the State government would take to ready a robust defence mechanism for dealing with human-animal conflict situations in and around Aralam farm in Kannur and at such conflict areas in Wayanad district.

The directive came in the wake of an elephant attack in the area on Friday that led to the death of Aneesh A.S., a member of a tribal community. A Division Bench of Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Jobin Sebastian had observed on Friday that the fatal incident showed clear lapses on the part of the administration in taking adequate security measures to protect the lives of tribespeople in the Aralam farm area, especially those residing in the Tribal Rehabilitation and Development Mission (TRDM) area.

While hearing the case, the court directed the Chief Secretary to bear in mind the urgency of the situation and to clearly state the steps that would be taken and the time limit within which they would be put in place. Moreover, a report in this regard ought to reach the court by March 12 for consideration the next day.

The Chief Secretary; Secretary, SC/ST department; Chief Wildlife Warden, and other officials attended Monday’s proceedings through videoconference.

The Madras High Court has granted bail to a woman accused of sponsoring the 2024 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) former State president K. Armstrong because she wanted to take revenge, denied bail to a co-accused, cancelled the bail granted by a sessions court to 12 other accused persons and confirmed the bail granted by the trial court to two more of the 30 people roped in the case.

Justice K. Rajasekar granted bail to S. Porkodi, who had been charged for the offence of giving her deceased husband Arcot Suresh’s 10 sovereign gold bracelet which was reportedly pledged for ₹3.56 lakh to procure vehicles and to provide accommodation to the assailants of Armstrong. The judge took into consideration that the petitioner was a woman who had been incarcerated for long.

Though the prosecution claimed that it was in possession of call detail records to prove that she was constantly in touch with the assailants for eliminating those she perceived to be responsible for her husband’s death, the judge said, the charge against her was only of generating the money required for the murder and “there is no allegation that she had active participation in the commission of the offence.”

The judge, however, refused to grant bail to advocate K. Haridharan, who had been arrayed as the nineteenth accused in the case and charged with the offence of transferring funds to the co-accused and destroying evidence by breaking six mobile phones and throwing them in to the River Kosasthalaiyar. The police had recovered those mobile phones using scuba divers and sent them for forensic analysis.

Further, passing orders on a petition filed by the police to cancel the bail granted by a sessions court to 14 other accused, the judge cancelled the bail granted to 12 of them and confirmed the bail granted to the rest. The judge said, the sessions court had not properly appreciated the gravity of the charges levelled against the 12 accused before granting bail and hence they must surrender before the trial court by March 6, 2026.

The 12 accused were: Ashwathaman (A3), Pradeep (A16), Hariharan (A17), Sathishkumar (A20), Siva (A21), Appu alias Pudur Appu (A22), Mukilan (A23), Noor alias Vijay alias Vijayakumar (A24), Vignesh alias Appu (A25), Rajesh (A26), Gopi (A27) and Kumara alias Senthilkumar (A28). Some of them have now filed petitions seeking extension of the time, fixed by the court for them to surrender, by four weeks.

The two accused whose bail, granted by the sessions court, was left untouched by the High Court were the 29th accused Anjalai and 30th accused S. Malarkodi.

The Kannur district administration has assured comprehensive assistance to the family of A.S. Aneesh who was killed in a wild elephant attack at Aralam farm and resolved to intensify measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

The decisions were taken at a meeting held at the collectorate on Tuesday. Sunny Joseph, MLA, District Collector Arun K. Vijayan, family members of Aneesh, and people’s representatives attended the meeting.

Immediate steps will be taken to grant compensation, and a recommendation was made to the government to bear the educational expenses of Aneesh’s children, said Rajesh Kumar, project officer, Integrated Tribal Development Project.

He added that a stronger enforcement team had been proposed to address human-wildlife conflict and ensure a permanent mechanism to clear undergrowth. The Tribal Development department Secretary and Director will visit Aralam farm soon.

A special officer has been appointed to oversee farm operations and will conduct weekly field-level reviews.

Pending completion of the elephant wall by May 31, solar fencing will be repaired and strengthened, and an alert system will be installed to warn residents of elephant movements in the farm, S. Sujeesh, special officer, Aralam farm, said. The contractor has been directed to deploy more workers to expedite construction. Additional patrol teams, including two from TRDM, will be deployed, he added.

Meanwhile, concerns were raised over damaged solar fences and inadequate farm maintenance.

Back home after being stranded at the Dubai airport for couple of days, PV Sindhu is admittedly disappointed at missing out on the prestigious All England Championships but agrees that safety considerations were paramount and is keen to get back on the court at the earliest.

“It was a terrifying experience, it was the first time going through something like that and hopefully the last,” Sindhu said during an interaction with select media late on Tuesday evening.

“It was worse because there was little information also, given the uncertain situation. We were informed that the airspace had been shut and were accommodated at the transit hotel itself.

“What made it more scary was the coach (Irwansyah) was still at the airport when he heard a loud noise less than 100m away. Many people including him were then evacuated and taken to a different hotel,” she explained.

Sindhu was, however, all praise for the Indian authorities including the consulate officials for facilitating the return. “It is obviously not ideal to miss the All England. I have written to the BWF explaining the situation and they have been very positive since the situation is so unusual.

“I should hear from them in a day or two with clarity on how the rankings, participation and other things will pan out. But the penalty for missing the competition ($5000) I think will be waived off since the situation was beyond my control. I am now hoping to find a way to make it to the Swiss Open next week. It is not easy because all the flights are either packed or cancelled,” she hoped.

President Emmanuel ​Macron on Tuesday (March 3, 2026) said France was sending its ‌aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the ​Mediterranean and working to build ⁠a coalition that would help secure maritime traffic imperiled by the escalating crisis in the West Asia

In ‌a televised address to the nation, Mr. Macron said that action needed to ‌be taken with the Straits of ‌Hormuz ⁠closed and the Suez Canal and Red ⁠Sea shipping routes threatened by the widening conflict. “We have economic interests to protect, because oil prices, gas prices ​and the international ‌trade situation are being profoundly disrupted by this war.,” Mr. Macron said.

He said France had also sent a frigate to Cyprus ‌and had shot down drones in the ​skies above its Gulf allies.

Rafale jets were among the assets being ⁠used.

Macron on U.S.-Israel role on Iran attack

“We have defense agreements that bind us to Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. ‌The latter are particularly targeted, and we owe them solidarity,” Mr. Macron said. He said France was helping its citizens who wanted to leave the region get out and that two flights were due to arrive ‌in Paris on Tuesday evening. Security had also been ​reinforced at some sites in France, he added.

Mr. Macron said Iran itself “bears primary ⁠responsibility” for the U.S.-Israeli action, but added: “the United States ⁠of America and Israel have decided to launch military operations; they were conducted ‌outside international law, which we cannot approve.” 

An Iranian ballistic missile hit the United States’ military base at Al-Udeid on Tuesday (March 3, 2026), Qatar’s Defence Ministry said, as Tehran struck targets across the Gulf in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli attacks.

The Ministry said Qatar was targeted by two missiles, adding: “Air defence systems successfully intercepted one of the missiles, while the second missile struck Al-Udeid Qatari Base without causing any casualties.”

Later Qatar said it had dismantled two spy cells linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, its official press agency reported just after midnight on Wednesday (March 4, 2026).

“Close surveillance made it possible to arrest 10 suspects: seven were tasked with spying and gathering information about vital and military infrastructure in the country, and three were meant to carry out sabotage operations,” the agency said.

It added the suspects “admitted during the investigation their links to the Revolutionary Guards and having been instructed to conduct espionage and sabotage activities”.

An air strike hit a military base in southern Iraq housing the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group on Tuesday (March 3, 2026), two sources from the armed faction said.

The Jurf al-Nasr base, which serves as one of the main bastions of the powerful Tehran-backed group, has been struck several times since the war in the West Asia broke out, starting in the early hours of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran.

The strikes have since expanded to other areas, and more than 10 fighters, mostly from Kataeb Hezbollah, have been killed across Iraq since Saturday.

A second source from the group said Tuesday’s strike only caused material damage.

Iraq, which recently regained a sense of stability but has long been a proxy battleground between the U.S. and Iran, said it did not want to be dragged into the war. But it has not been spared.

Several Iran-backed armed groups — known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, to which Kataeb Hezbollah also belongs — have said they will not stay “neutral” and have claimed dozens of drone attacks on U.S. bases.

A drone was shot down on Tuesday (March 3, 2026) evening near Baghdad International Airport, the Iraqi government’s security media cell said.

Hours earlier, security forces announced that they seized nine rockets and a launchpad that were set up to target the airport, which includes a military base that hosts American advisers and previously housed U.S.-led coalition troops.

Since the war started, the autonomous Kurdistan region, which hosts U.S. troops, has been the main target of drone attacks, the majority of which were intercepted by air defences.

An AFP correspondent reported that a strike on Tuesday (March 3, 2026) night hit Kurdistan’s Sulaimaniyah, the second-largest city in the autonomous region.

Kurdish security forces said that a drone struck an area near a building that previously served as a United Nations office in the city, with no casualties reported.

Loud bangs were again heard in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, AFP journalists reported.

Earlier in the day, drone strikes blamed on Iran hit a camp hosting Iranian Kurdish fighters and family members in Iraqi Kurdistan, a local official and an exiled opposition group told AFP.

AFP photographers at the scene reported damage to rooms used as lodgings for the camp’s hospital staff.

Iraq’s Kurdish region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish rebel groups that have repeatedly faced cross-border strikes from Iran, which has long accused them of serving Western or Israeli interests.