WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Monday that he is ready to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani without preconditions.

"I'd meet with anybody. I believe in meeting," Trump told a joint news conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, when asked whether he was willing to meet with the Iranian leader.

New Delhi, July 30 (PTI); Civil society organisations today held a protest demanding the resignation of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over the alleged sexual abuse of minor girls in a shelter home at Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

They staged a protest outside Bihar Bhawan in Chanakyapuri here and also sought a fair probe into the incident.

Slamming the state government, the protesters indulged in sloganeering against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bihar Chief Minister.

Tehran , July 30, IRNA - India’s Ministry of Petroleum has claimed that crude imports from sanctions-hit Iran witnessed a massive jump this June in comparison to last year; disproving reports published by global research agencies that India had heavily cut down crude purchases from Iran due to American sanctions.

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- American and Chinese scientists developed a new nanoparticle vaccine that could effectively protect mice against influenza A virus, according to a study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The double-layered vaccine made with peptides showed strong potential for combating influenza viruses, providing a promising approach for developing universal influenza vaccines.

By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad/Peshawar, Jul 30 (PTI); Imran Khan said today that he will take oath as prime minister on August 11, even as his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was striving to get the required numbers to form a government.

The PTI, led by 65-year-old Khan, has emerged as the single largest party in the National Assembly after the July 25 elections, but it is still short of numbers to form the government on its own. Khan's party yesterday announced that it is trying to reach out to smaller parties and independents to form the next government.

JERUSALEM, July 30 (NNN-XINHUA) - Israel said, it intercepted on Sunday, a Gaza-bound European ship, in the latest attempt by international activists, to break the 11-year Israeli blockade on the Palestinian enclave.

The motor vessel, named "Al Awda," or "The Return" in Arabic, was contacted by the Israeli military in international waters, some 49 nautical miles from the port of Gaza, the flotilla's organisers said.

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI); The Supreme Court considered today the submission of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA) that it should dispose of the suo motu cognizance of the Kathua gangrape and murder case in which it has taken strong note of some lawyers obstructing the judicial process.

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI); A crucial bill seeking to provide death penalty to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years and making the law against such sexual offences more stringent, was passed by the Lok Sabha today.

The bill replaces the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated on April 21, following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the rape of another woman at Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.

PTI; Guwahati, Jul 30 :  Over 40 lakh peoples' fate remains in limbo with the Centre today declining to comment on their citizenship status after exclusion of the names from the "complete draft" of National Register of Citizens (NRC), which contains names of 2.89 crore eligible persons.

At a press conference here, Registrar General of India Sailesh announced that 2,89,83,677 people were found to be eligible for inclusion in the complete draft of the ambitious NRC out of a total 3,29,91,384 applicants.

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI); The Delhi High Court was today told that over Rs 15 crore collected since 2006 from wages of convicts lodged in Tihar Jail for welfare of their victims has been lying unutilised.

The submission was made before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar by the prison authorities during hearing of a PIL challenging the practice of deducting 25 per cent of the convicts' wages towards a victim welfare fund.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aspiration to make his country a full-fledged member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), expressed at the Johannesburg summit, cannot be fulfilled now, Executive Director for the National Committee on BRICS Research Georgy Toloraya told TASS.

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- American scientists identified a substance in blood as a biomarker for depression and pointed to a new class of antidepressants that could be freer of side effects and faster-acting than those in current use.

People with depression have low blood levels of acetyl-L-carnitine (LAC), a nutritional supplement that is being sold in drugstores, according to a study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.