India’s top court: Instant divorce among Muslims unlawful

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the Muslim practice that allows men to instantly divorce their wives as unconstitutional.

The bench, comprising five senior judges of different faiths, deliberated for three months before issuing its order in response to petitions from seven Muslim women who had been divorced through the practice known as triple talaq.

Indian law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on NDTV that since the court deemed the practice unconstitutional there is no need for any further legislative action by the government.

Azerbaijan's leader names his wife as 1st vice president

Azerbaijan's president on Tuesday appointed his wife as the first vice president of the ex-Soviet nation — the person next in line in the nation's power hierarchy.

Ilham Aliyev, 55 named his wife Mehriban, 52, to the position created after a constitutional referendum in September. Mehriban, who married her husband when she was 19, graduated from a medical university. She has served previously as a lawmaker and headed a charity.

India police: Ex-minister, UN diplomat's wife was murdered

Indian police said Wednesday that they are now treating the death of the wife of a prominent former government minister and U.N. diplomat as a murder and have set up a special team to investigate her death in a New Delhi hotel last year.

Sunanda Pushkar's death last January was previously believed to have been a suicide. But Delhi police chief Bhimsen Bassi said Wednesday that after an investigation, a medical board had concluded that she had been poisoned.