Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, called into question US assertions that Islamic State, which once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, was behind the attack. “Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s ISIS? Might you think again about that?” Zakharova said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

A day after BJP released its fifth list, Congress announced its sixth list of five candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding Prahlad Gunjal from Kota to take on outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. The list had no names from Karnataka. The party is yet to name candidates for Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Ballari and Chamarajanagar LS constituencies.

China on Monday continued to claim that Arunachal Pradesh has “always been” its territory, notwithstanding India dismissing Beijing’s claim as “absurd” and “ludicrous”. On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian reiterated China’s claim while reacting to external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s assertions on Saturday, dismissing China’s repeated claims on Arunachal Pradesh as “ludicrous” and that the frontier state was a “natural part of India”.