WITH India recording the highest number of COVID-19 recoveries in the world, the Government on Tuesday said that for the past four consecutive days the number of daily recovered cases surpassed the new infections reported per day. Addressing a press briefing, Union Health Ministry Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said India has the highest number of recovered cases in the world at 44,97,867. “India’s COVID-19 cases share is 17.7 per cent of global infections, while those who have recuperated are 19.5 per ..

VETERAN actress Ashalata Wabgaonkar, who had worked in a number of Marathi and Hindi films, died on early Tuesday morning at a private hospital here after battling COVID-19, hospital authorities said. She was 79. Wabgaonkar was also a noted Marathi theatre personality and had featured in several plays. The actress had tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the private hospital on September 17 where she was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia, a senior doctor from the medical facility said...

INDIA on Tuesday successfully conducted the flight-test of ABHYAS - High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT) - from a test range in Odisha, defence sources said. The trial, carried out by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur near here, was tracked by various radars and electro-optic syste..

ONLY a few students turned up to attend special classes in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday as schools for higher classes reopened after a gap of over six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the union territory administration said. Principal Secretary, School Education and Skill Development, Asgar Hassan Samoon said, the reopening of schools was not meant for regular classes...

THE National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has arrested six Al-Qaeda terrorists from Murshidabad district of West Bengal, has found that more people in the State are working for the terror outfit, an official of the investigating agency said. On interrogating the six arrested from Murshidabad on Saturday, the NIA sleuths have unearthed the identities of two persons from Malda working in tandem with them, he said. “There are more members spread in other districts of West Bengal as well as other ..

ACTOR Kangana Ranaut on Monday denied the Mumbai civic body’s claim in the Bombay High Court that she had made illegal structural alterations at her Pali Hill bungalow, part of which was demolished on September 9. In a rejoinder affidavit filed in response to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) reply to her plea, Ranaut stated she didn’t make any structural changes or repairs illegally. She also denied that her plea seeking that the demolition be declared illegal and that she be paid Rs ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi asserted on Monday that the farm sector reform bills passed by Parliament were the need of 21st century India and again reassured farmers that the Government purchase of their produce coupled with the minimum support price mechanism will continue. With Opposition parties vehemently criticising the legislations as “anti-farmers” and protests continuing in States like Punjab and Haryana, Modi again mounted a strong defen..

INDIA on Monday pressed for an early and complete disengagement of Chinese troops from friction points in eastern Ladakh as their senior Army commanders held a sixth round of talks that primarily focused on implementing a five-point bilateral agreement to ease the prolonged border stand-off, Government sources said. The latest round of Corps commander-level talks that began at around 9 am in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) across India’s Chushul sector in eastern Ladakh ..

A WOMAN fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force will soon join the Golden Arrows squadron operating the newly-inducted Rafale fighter jets, official sources said on Monday. The woman pilot is undergoing training to fly Rafale aircraft, they said. She has been flying MiG-21 fighters and was selected for the Rafale fleet following an i..

THE News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has suggested to the Supreme Court that its “code of ethics” should be made part of statutory rules on cable TV by the Central Government to ensure it becomes binding on member and non-member news channels alike. Taking note of the NBA’s alleged inadequacy in regulating “hurtful” and “communal” contents in television programmes of news channels, the top court on September 18 had sought suggestions from it and the Centre to strengthen the association’s self-regulatory ..

ALL post-graduate students pursuing MD or MS in broad specialities in medical colleges across the country will have to undergo a compulsory residential rotation of three months in district hospitals as part of the course curriculum in the academic session 2020-21. Such rotation shall take place in the 3rd, 4th or 5th semester of the postgraduate programme...

AS many as 21 States, mostly ruled by BJP or parties which have supported it on various issues, have opted to borrow Rs 97,000 crore to meet the GST revenue shortfall in the current fiscal, sources said on Sunday. The States and Union Territories (UTs) which have intimated their decision to the Centre are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, M..

IN THE last three weeks, the Indian Army has occupied six new major hill features on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) during the ongoing conflict with the Chinese Army in the Eastern Ladakh sector. “The Indian Army has occupied six new heights between August 29 and the second week of September. The new hill features being occupied by ..

ASSERTING that the terror infrastructure in Pakistan is intact, a top Border Security Force (BSF) officer on Sunday said airdropping of weapons by drones in Jammu and Kashmir is a new challenge along with various anti-India elements coming together. Inspector General of Border Security Force (BSF), Jammu frontier, N S Jamwal said all security agencies are alive to the new security challenges and are maintaining tight vigil to scuttle the nefarious designs of the enemy forces...

JAMMU and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha announced a Rs 1,350 crore economic package for the Union Territory on Saturday to give a much needed boost to tourism and other sectors hit by the economic slowdown caused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the security scenario. ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of nine highway projects in Bihar through video conference on Monday and also inaugurate optical fibre Internet services through which the State’s all 45,945 villages will be connected, the PMO said on Saturday. These nine highway projects involve a road length of about 350 kilometr..

THE new National Education Policy (NEP) aims to reorient the education system towards meeting the needs of the 21st century by achieving the twin objectives of inclusion and excellence, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Saturday. Addressing the Visitors’ Conference on ‘Implementation of National Education Policy 2020 in Higher Education’, the President said the policy sets the vision of developing an equitable and vibrant knowledge society by providing quality education to all. “Higher education institutio..

THE RAJYA Sabha on Saturday passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, 2020, whereby fresh insolvency proceedings will not be initiated for at least six months starting from March 25 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Replying to a debate on the Bill in the House, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the intention of the IBC is to keep companies a “going concern” and not liquidate them. The Bill..

INDIAN Navy’s decommissioned aircraft carrier Viraat on Saturday set sail for the last time, on way to Alang in Gujarat, where it will be broken down and sold as scrap. For Navy veterans who watched the huge vessel being towed away by a tug boat, it was an emotional moment as they stood near the Gateway of India, waving at the o..

IN A massive security breach, a malware has attacked approximately 100 computers of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the Government’s nodal agency which is responsible for securing critical cyber-infrastructure in the country and comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi extended an invitation to the Bhutanese king and his family to visit India at a mutually convenient time during a telephonic conversation with him in which both leaders underlined the unique ties of trust and affection that bind their countries. ..

AT A time China is attempting to expand its influence in the region, India and Japan are looking at working together in third countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, reflecting growing congruence of their strategic interests. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that both India and Japan have actually started to look at working practically in third countries, adding “we have done a little bit of that in Sri Lanka.” ..

INDIA’S COVID-19 tally raced past 52 lakh with 96,424 people testing positive in a day, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease rose to 41,12,551 on Friday, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The country’s recovery rate stands at 78.86 per cent. ..

TIMELY and prompt treatment by a multidisciplinary team of doctors at Max Hospital, Saket, provided a new lease of life to a man whose heart functioned merely at 15 per cent of its capacity. In addition to his complications, he had also developed acute renal failure post his heart operation. His life was saved after a set of complex surgeries...

FINANCE Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said amendments to the banking regulation law seeking to extend the supervision of RBI to cooperative banks are aimed at improving their governance and protecting depositors’ money. Moving the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said the Government was compelled to come out with an ordinance during the lockdown period as the condition of the cooperative..

AMID the ongoing tensions over transgressions by the Chinese in Eastern Ladakh, the Indian Army is keeping its formidable Bofors howitzers ready for operations. In a visit to the maintenance facilities for the Bofors guns in Ladakh, ANI could see the effort with which the engineers of the force are servicing and maintaining the 155mm Bofors gun in Ladakh. The Bofors gun, which was inducted into the regiment of artillery in the mid-1980s, is capable o..

INDIA’S economic recovery is likely to be gradual as the country is still reeling from the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) and rising infections continue to pose a risk, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday...

THE Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Limited, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in India, have agreed to cooperate on clinical trials and distribution of Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in India, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund revealed in a statement on Wednesday. Sputnik V, an adenovirus vector-based vaccine, was developed by the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, along with the Ru..

A MAN convicted in the 2002 post-Godhra riots case in Gujarat, who jumped parole about two months back, has been arrested by Ahmedabad Police, an official said on Tuesday. The convict, Kalubhaiya Rathod (43), was nabbed on Monday and primary investigation revealed he jumped parole to look after his ailing mother, Krushnanagar police station’s senior inspector J R Patel said...

AFTER the Chinese Army’s attempts to occupy dormant heights in Southern Pangong Tso area were foiled by the Indian security forces, Indian agencies are keeping a close watch on their movements opposite other sectors, especially Arunachal Pradesh, where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been moving troops in the depth areas. “A strict vigil is being maintained in almost all the sectors with China from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh as the Chinese suffered a setback in the southern Pangong Tso ..

ACTOR Kangana Ranaut has amended her petition before the Bombay High Court to seek a compensation of Rs 2 crore from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for “illegal” demolition at her bungalow. After the BMC demolished what it termed as illegal alterations at the ‘Queen’ actor’s bungalow at Pali Hill in suburban Bandra on September 9, Ranaut moved the High Court...

FORMER Navy man Madan Sharma, who was recently attacked by Shiv Sena workers, on Tuesday said he will associate with the BJP and RSS from now on. Sharma, who met Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhawan, along with local BJP leaders Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Atul Bhatkhalkar, said he wants stringent action against those who assaulted him. “From today onwards, I am with BJP-RSS. When I was beaten up, they had levell..

DEFENCE Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said India is committed to a peaceful resolution of the current border stand-off with China in Ladakh but any attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo by the neighbouring country is unacceptable. Making a statement in Lok Sabha, Singh also said the Indian Army has inflicted heavy costs including casualties on the Chinese side during the clash with the PLA at the Galwan valley on June 15...

A DELHI court on Monday sent former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, to police custody for 10 days in a case related to the communal violence in north-east Delhi in February. Khalid was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat through video conferen..

IN A first, some Lok Sabha members attended the House proceedings on Monday while seated in the Rajya Sabha chamber as Parliament met for the Monsoon Session amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaker Om Birla said in Lok Sabha that rules and procedures have been eased to allow Lok Sabha members sit in the Upper House and Rajya Sabha members occupy seats in Lower House due to social distancing norms. While Lok Sabha is meeting between 9 am and 1 pm on Monday, Rajya Sabha will assemble between 3 pm and ..