Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee expressed her gratitude to the people of the state for their support. Mamata informed that the oath taking ceremony will be held on 27 May and the session of Assembly will be called before 29 May.

Emerging trends show that TMC winning by a large margin. In a press conference she said that tomorrow she will hold a meeting of all the newly-elected MLA's at 12:30PM. When she was asked about her bigger role in 2019 national election, she urged people to consider her as a 'LIP,' least important person.

With this victory, she will begin her second term as the Chief Minister of the state. In the year 2011, Trinamool Congress defeated the Left front by a huge margin and the same is being anticipated in this year's election.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Assam, Sarbanada Sonowal, on Thursday, 19 May, to congratulate him on the party's performance in the state.

BJP and its allies took an early lead in the counting of votes on Thursday, as the three-pronged alliance looks set for a landslide victory in the North Eastern state. Modi also thanked BJP workers in the state, and termed the party's victory as a historic win.

The Prime Minister assured the party's support to fulfill the aspirations of the people of Assam, and "take the state's development journey to new heights".

Failing to find any evidence to show that JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar shouted anti-India slogans at an event on the JNU campus, the Delhi police, which had arrested him for sedition, is likely to drop charges against him.

However, the police said that they had credible evidence against Anirban Bhattacharya and Umar Khalid, two other JNU students arrested after the 9 February event, according to The Telegraph, and the sedition charges against them will remain.

The European Union has asked its Pakistan representatives to look into the statement made by Pakistan Punjab's law minister Rana Sanaullah in an interview with BBC's Urdu service on Wednesday in which he said that that the Pakistan government cannot act against terror groups like the Jaish-e- Mohammad and the Jamaat-ud-Dawah because "How can you prosecute a group with whom the state itself has been involved?"

Should the minister's statement be found to be true, the EU will start "a process to slam economic sanctions on Pakistan", including a ban on aviation landing rights, says ANI.

The government's claims that the charred mass found at the Air Force base in Pathankot after the terror attack of 2 January were the remains of two terrorists killed by the National Security Guard at the airmen's billet, have been not been substantiated by the forensic reports.

According to experts, the reports on the mass provided by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Chandigarh only show male DNA, but do not show how many individuals the DNA came from, or that it came from two distinct men. Instead, the charred mass showed DNA from several individuals, says The Indian Express.

Only one in 10 Indians receives treatment for mental illness, even as the country, together with China, accounts for a third of the world's mental illnesses, according to a new report.

The report says that in 2013, 36 million years of healthy life were lost to mental illness in China, and 31 million in India. By 2025 according to estimates, 39.6 million years of healthy life will be lost to mental illness in China (10 per cent increase), and 38.1 million in India (23 per cent increase), according to The Indian Express.

The nine rebel Congress MLAs in Uttarakhand, including former chief minister Vijay Bahugana, joined the BJP "unconditionally" on Wednesday and sought the dissolution of the House.

The rebels were disqualified from the state Assembly under the anti-defection law. They met BJP president Amit Shah before state party president Ajay Bhatt made the announcement. According to The Telegraph, Bahuguna said their entry into the BJP was in the state's interest.