News brief: Big stories of the day

News brief: Big stories of the day

Malaysian jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (C) walks out from a court house in Kuala Lumpur on September 5, 2016.

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India's minister of state for external affairs General VK Singh visited North Korea from May 15-16.

India and North Korea had established diplomatic relations in December, 1973, this year marks the 45th anniversary of relations between the two countries.

The home ministry today declared a state of ceasefire during Ramzan in Jammu and Kashmir

Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti had appealed for ceasefire earlier.

Anwar Ibrahim, a controversial figure in Malaysian politics, was freed on Wednesday after pardon from King Sultan Muhammad V. Anwar was sentenced to five-year jail term for sodomy, a charge he says was trumped up by the government of ousted Prime Minister Najib Razak. 

The remaining fighters started to withdraw from the last rebel-held enclave in central Syria on Wednesday, state television reported, sealing the government's control over the area and opening a major stretch of the country's most important highway.

Brandishing a gun, unidentified miscreants, on Wednesday, escaped with a ballot box from polling booth no. 76 in Malda's Ratua during the re-polling in the Panchayat elections.