Senior Congress leader Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, has been issued a showcause notice by the party over his alleged comments on Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

PM Modi is “more popular than Rahul Gandhi,” Karti Chidambaram had apparently said in an interview with Thanthi TV. In the same interview, he had also expressed faith in Electronic Voting Machines — an issue over which the Congress is in a tussle with the Election Commission.

The Congress has been actively opposing the use of EVMs, citing concerns about their reliability. Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh has recently written to the Election Commission again, flagging the issue.

Karti Chidambaram’s divergence from the party’s narrative seems to have contributed to the internal scrutiny.

The notice issued by former MLA K R  Ramasamy as part of the disciplinary committee seeks his response in 10 days.

Sources close to Karti Chidambaram have asserted that only the All India Congress Committee holds the authority to issue a notice to a Member of Parliament. However, the Tamil Nadu Congress has taken the unprecedented step, leading to speculation about the underlying motives.

Insiders suggest that the showcause notice might be strategically aimed at thwarting Karti Chidambaram’s potential elevation as the Tamil Nadu Congress Chief.

The move indicates underlying tensions and internal power dynamics within the party, adding a layer of complexity to the political landscape in the state ahead of the general elections due later this year.

The chief executive officer of an artificial intelligence start-up, arrested for allegedly killing her four-year-old son in a service apartment in North Goa, tried to end her life after committing the gruesome crime, police said on Tuesday, citing initial investigations.

The Goa police arrested the accused, Suchana Seth, from Chitradurga in adjoining Karnataka on Monday night. She was brought to Goa on Tuesday and remanded in police custody for six days by a court in Mapusa town, an official said.

The 39-year-old entrepreneur smothered her son to death in a room in the service apartment in Candolim, where they checked in on January 6, and then tried to die by suicide by cutting her left wrist with a sharp object, a senior police official said.

The motive behind the gruesome murder was not immediately known, but Seth told the police she and her husband were estranged and that their divorce proceedings were currently underway.

“The blood stains that were found on a towel in the service apartment were due to the slashing of her wrist,” he said.

After killing her son, the start-up CEO stuffed the body in a bag and left for Bengaluru in a taxi on Monday, according to the police.

The murder came to light when the apartment’s housekeeping staff went to clean the room in which she stayed and found blood stains on the towel, they said.

The service apartment management informed the Calangute police.

A police inspector spoke over the phone to the taxi driver, who was on way to Bengaluru and had reached Chitradurga district in Karnataka, to take the accused to the nearest police station. A team of the Calangute police rushed to Chitradurga and obtained a transit remand of the accused, who was brought to Goa.

According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of start-up Mindful AI Lab and was among the top ‘100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021’.

“The motive behind the killing is yet to be ascertained. We have got six days police custody of the accused and we will thoroughly interrogate her,” the official said.

A Calangute police team led by Inspector Paresh Naik is currently in Chitradurga and waiting for post-mortem examination on the child’s body, he said.

Seth has been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence), and also under the Goa Children’s Act, said the official.

Superintendent of Police (North Goa) Nidhin Valsan said the woman hails from West Bengal and has been living in Bengaluru, while her husband is from Kerala.

He is currently in Jakarta (Indonesia) and has been informed about the incident, Valsan said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Music maestro Ustad Rashid Khan passed away today in Kolkata at the age of 55 due to prostate cancer. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced this sad news. According to reports, the musician had been undergoing treatment for his illness.

“We tried our best but failed. He passed away at around 3:45 PM,” said an official from the Kolkata-based private hospital where Khan was admitted.

“This is a great loss for the entire country and the entire music fraternity. I am in a lot of pain as I still can’t believe that Rashid Khan is no more,” expressed the chief minister during her visit to the hospital.

At the age of 11, Rashid Khan held his debut concert, followed by a performance at an ITC concert in Delhi in 1978. In April 1980, at just 14 years old, he joined the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (SRA) in Calcutta when his guru Nissar Hussain Khan transitioned there. Khan’s music not only embraced classical Hindustani music but also ventured into collaborations, such as concerts with instrumentalist Louis Banks.

Possibly the last living legend of Rampur-Sahaswan gharana, Rashid Khan was recognised as the 31st generation of Sangeet Samrat Mian Tansen, as detailed on his official website.