THE old saying that agriculture is the best occupation and working for others the worst no longer holds true, says Raj Kumar, a farmer from western Uttar Pradesh, where farmers’ agitation seems to be driven more by “stagnant” sugarcane prices and the stray cattle menace, than by the three contentious agri laws. Kumar, a Rawa Rajput from Satheri village in this district, says sugarcane prices have not been raised for the past several seasons, whereas companies have reduced the size of Urea and DAP ..

THE CBI has identified 10 more victims of alleged child sexual abuse by now-suspended Uttar Pradesh Irrigation department junior engineer Ram Bhuwan, the alleged paedophile also accused of selling the illicit acts with kids on the dark web, officials said. Further expanding its exhaustive probe, the central probe agency recorded the statement of these 10 male victims to buttress its charges against Bhuwan who was arrested along with his wife and a suspected accomplice, they said...

TAMIL Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit has accorded his assent to a Bill to provide 10.5 per cent internal quota to the Vanniyakula Kshatriya community within the reservation for Most Backward Classes (MBC) and Denotified Communities (DC). The Governor on Friday gave his assent to Tamil Nadu Special Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments of Posts in Services under the State within the Reservation for the MBC and DC, Act, 2021. The notification was ..

INDIA’S COVID-19 tally climbed to 1,10,96,731 on Sunday with 16,752 new infections, the highest in the last 30 days, according to Union Health Ministry data. The country had recorded 18,855 new infections on January 29. The death toll mounted to 1,57,051 with 113 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. The active caseload further increased to 1,64,511. It constitutes 1.48 per cent of the total infections, it showed...

THE Government on Sunday extended the deadline for filing GST annual returns for 2019-20 fiscal by a month till March 31. This is the second extension given by the Government. The deadline was earlier extended from December 31, 2020, to February 28...

IN A daring heist, thieves allegedly stole huge quantity of silver kept in a box buried in the basement of a Jaipur house by digging a 20-foot-long and 15-foot-deep tunnel, according to police. The owner of the house, who is a doctor by profession, has not disclosed the exact quantity of silver. Police said the accused had purchased a house right behind the doctor’s house for Rs 87 lakh in January and covered its wall with tin sheds to block the view and started the digging work. The accused dug ..

UNION Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale on Saturday demanded 15 per cent reservation for the Kshatriya community in Uttar Pradesh. Speaking to the media in Lucknow Athawale said, “People of any community who live below the poverty line should be given reservation.” Commenting on the farmers’ protest, Athawale said the current NDA Government is not against the farmer..

IF THINGS go as planned, an Indian rocket will launch a Brazilian satellite for the first time from Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. It’s also Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first launch of 2021. Subject to weather conditions, the blastoff is scheduled at 10.24 hours from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, where countdown commenced at 08.54 hours on Saturday for the PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 mission. PSLV-C51 rocket, which is the 53rd mission of PSLV (Polar ..

SENIOR Congress leaders Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma on Saturday stated that the G-23 or the Group of 23 dissenting leaders are seeing the Congress party “getting weaker” and are raising their voice for the betterment of the party. “The truth is that we see Congress party getting weak. That is why we have gathered here. We had gathered together earlier too and we have to strengthen the party together,” Sibal said at the ‘Shanti Sammelan’ event here. Anand Sharma who addressed the ‘Shanti Sammelan’ ..

MAKING a strong pitch for a BJP Government in West Bengal to usher in ‘Asol Poriborton’ (real change), party chief J P Nadda on Thursday sought to punch a hole in the TMC’s main poll plank of Bengali pride and asked the people of the State whether they want to side with development or “cut money culture”. Nadda, while launching the ‘Lokkho Sonar Bangla’ (target to build golden Bengal) manifesto crowdsourcing campaign to seek suggestions from more than two crore people in the State ahead of the Assembly ..

IN A shocking development, an SUV filled with at least 20 gelatin sticks was found abandoned outside Antilia, the lavish multi-storied home of billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, here on Thursday evening, officials said. “A Scorpio with 20 gelatin sticks was found near Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai residence. The Crime Branch of Mumbai Police is investigating the entire matter and the truth will emerge soon,” Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said late on Thursday evening...

INDIA and Pakistan have agreed to strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and other sectors, according to a joint statement on Thursday. The decision on ceasefire, effective since Wednesday midnight, was taken at a meeting between the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan signed a ceasefire agreement in 2003, but it has hardly been followed in letter and spirit over past several years with more violations than ..

THE Government on Thursday announced sweeping regulations for social media firm like Facebook and Twitter as well as OTT players such as Netflix, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country. The guidelines also make it mandatory for platforms such as Twitter and WhatsApp to identify the originator of a message that authorities consider to be anti-national and against security and ..

COOKING gas LPG price on Thursday was hiked by Rs 25 per cylinder across all categories, including subsidised fuel and those availed by Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries. This is the third increase in rates this month on the back of spiralling international rates as demand recovered. A 14.2-kg cylinder in Delhi now costs Rs 794 as against Rs 769 at which they were supplied on Wednesday, according to a price notification from State-owned fuel retailers. The increase is applicable across all categories including ..

MANIPUR Chief Minister N Biren Singh has felicitated Indian Army Captain Soiba Maningba Rangnamei for his bravery during the clash with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in Eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley last year. The CM felicitated Capt Rangnamei of 16 Bihar Regiment at his official residence here on Tuesday and said, “the State as a whole honours your courage which you have shown against the enemy.”..

PRAKASH Javdekar, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on Tuesday used Sanskrit for the first time in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Debate on climate change. Starting his UNSC debate on climate change, Javdekar addressed other dignitaries with the Sanskrit hymn from Shukla Yajurveda. “Om Dyouh shantih, antariksham shantih, prithvi shantih, aapah shantih, oshadhayah shantih, vanaspatayah shantih, vishve devaah shantih, brahma shantih, sarvam shantih, shantireva shantih, ..

PRESIDENT Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday inaugurated the world’s largest cricket arena here, the refurbished Sardar Patel Stadium, which will now be known as Narendra Modi stadium — named after the country’s Prime Minister. The state-of-the-art facility can accommodate 1.32 lakh spectators. “This stadium was conceptualised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. He was President of the Gujarat Cricket Association at that time,” Kovind said in his address after the inaugurati..

THE vibrant Indian diaspora in Mauritius is a “shining example” of the Indian values such as peace, pluralism and shared progress and universal brotherhood, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said during his address to the community here. Jaishankar arrived here in India’s strategically key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean region on Sunday night from the Maldives on the last leg of his two-nation tour. On Wednesday, Jaishankar visited the Ganga Talao, considered to be the most sacred ..

CLIMATE activist Disha Ravi, who was arrested in connection with the toolkit case, was released from Tihar jail on Tuesday night after a city court granted her bail. “Disha was released after jail authorities completed all formalities regarding her release,” official said...

A CBI team examined Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira on Tuesday in connection with the coal pilferage case, officials said. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the residence of her nephew Abhishek in south Kolkata’s Harish Mukherjee Road minutes before the CBI team landed there. The CBI reached Abhishek’s residence just before noon and the examination went on for around an hour, sources said. The team left around 1.15 pm amid a heavy police presence...

DESCRIBING terrorism as one of the gravest threats to humankind, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday that the bodies dealing with human rights should realise that terrorism can never be justified, nor its perpetrators ever equated with its victims. Speaking at the high-level segment of 46th session of Human Rights Council, Jaishankar said terrorism..

THE Defence Acquisition Council headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved capital acquisition proposals of various weapons and equipment including 118 Arjun tanks on Tuesday. “Three Acceptance of Necessities (AoNs) for an overall cost of Rs 13,700 crore were accorded,” the Ministry of Defence said. All these Acceptance of Necessities are in the highest priority category of Defence Acquisition -- Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)...

A DELHI court on Monday sent climate activist Disha Ravi to one-day police custody in connection with the ‘Toolkit’ case, during which she will be confronted with co-accused Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk. Ravi faces charges of conspiracy and sedition in the ‘Toolkit’ conspiracy case related to the farmers’ agitation and was arrested from Bengaluru on February 13. After her arrest, Ravi was first sent to five days’ police custody, followed by three days of judicial custody. The climate activist ..

UNION Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan launched the operational guidelines for Integration of NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) with NPCDCS (National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke), here on Monday. Expressing his elation at the timely importance of the event, Harsh Vardhan said, “NAFLD, the abnormal accumulation of fat in the liver in the absence of secondary causes of fatty liver, such as harmful alcohol ..

THE Supreme Court on Monday allowed Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, who is facing criminal cases that are being probed by the ED and the CBI, to travel abroad. A bench, headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, asked Chidambaram to deposit Rs 2 crore with the registry and submit details on the places to be visited and the place where he would stay. Opposing the application, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju said earlier Chidambaram was earlier allowed to travel abroad, but with a deposit of Rs 10 crore...

THE National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday filed a supplementary chargesheet against two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists, who had actively participated in conspiracy meetings for targeted killings of important personalities belonging to the Hindu community in Bengaluru, Hubli and Nanded. An NIA spokesperson said here that the agency has named Sabeel Ahmed aka Motu Doctor and Asadulla Khan aka Abu Sufiyan under several sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities Prevention ..

INDIA is working hard to enhance its capabilities and capacities in the defence-manufacturing sector at a fast pace, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, noting that there were hundreds of ordnance factories before independence with large-scale weapons export from the country in both world wars but this system was not strengthened. Addressing a webinar on the effective implementation of the Union Budget’s provisions in the defence sector, the Prime Minister listed a series of measures taken ..

INDIA on Monday offered a USD 100 million line of credit to Mauritius to facilitate procurement of defence assets as the two countries signed a landmark Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Partnership Agreement following talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth here...

NEARLY 100 people fell sick due to food poisoning after eating at a marriage feast in Kendrapara district of Odisha, police said here on Sunday. Residents of Matia village had attended the marriage function on Saturday night. The villagers complained of vomiting, stomach pain and nausea in the early hours of Sunday, a district health official told reporters here...

SOLAR winds may have led to Mars losing its atmosphere, according to a computer simulation study which confirms the long held belief that planets need a protective magnetic field to block such harmful radiations in order to sustain life. While factors like the existence of a moderately warm, moist atmosphere and liquid water determine whether a planet can host life, the study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, noted that the ability of planets to generate magnetic ..

FINANCE Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said the Union Budget 2021-22 is about the role of Government as a facilitator and the private sector as a key driver of economic growth, without which the country would be losing a big opportunity. The most important component or input required here is the participation of the private sector. Unless the private sector is energised enough, unless the private sector is facilitated enough, India is just losing a very big opportunity, she said here during ..

SUSPICION, however strong, cannot take the place of proof, the Supreme Court has said, stressing that an accused is presumed to be innocent unless proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. There has to be a chain of evidence so complete as to show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused, a bench of justices Indira Banerjee and Hemant Gupta observed while upholding an order of the Orissa High Court which acquitted two men accused of murdering a home guard by electrocuting ..

MAHARASHTRA Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that in view of the rising COVID-19 cases, religious, social and political gatherings will be prohibited in the State from Monday. Asking people to follow “COVID-appropriate” behaviour and safety norms, he said he would observe for a week to 15 days and then decide whether to impose another lockdown...

THE Union Health Ministry has written to all States and UTs highlighting the need to significantly enhance the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations, noting that a large number of healthcare and frontline workers still remain to be covered. In a letter addressed to Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the number of days of vaccination in a week should also be increased to a minimum of four days per week at the earliest to speed up the process of vaccination and ..

AMID an outcry over record high petrol and diesel prices, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the Centre and State Governments will have to together work out a mechanism to bring retail rates to reasonable levels. As much as 60 per cent of the retail price of petrol, which shot above Rs 100-mark in some places in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and is at an all-time high elsewhere in the country, is made up of Central and State taxes. Taxes make up for about 56 per cent of the ..

KERALA took a major step forward in its progress towards a knowledge society with the inauguration of the country’s first Digital University, based in Technocity at Mangalapuram near here on Saturday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan presided over the function, where Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who is also the Chancellor of the Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology, unveiled the varsity plaque. Both the Governor and the Chief Minister addressed the function through video ..

PETROL price on Saturday touched an all-time high of Rs 97 per litre in Mumbai while diesel rate crossed Rs 88 -mark. Petrol price was hiked by record 39 paise per litre and diesel by 37 paise a litre, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers...

NASAs Perseverance rover has sent some stunning photos of the Red Planet, including a high-resolution colour selfie taken during its landing. The selfie is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on February 18. “While NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover sent back a stop-motion movie of its descent, Perseverance’s cameras are intended to capture video of its touchdown and this new still image was taken from that footage, which is still being relayed to Earth ..

THE Centre has released Rs 1 lakh crore to States and UTs in four months since October 2020, to meet GST compensation shortfall, the Finance Ministry said on Saturday. The Ministry on Friday released the 17th weekly instalment of Rs 5,000 crore to 23 States and 3 Union Territories (Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir & Puducherry), taking the total amount released so far under the special borrowing window set up in October last year to Rs 1 lakhcrore...

THE Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that one has to be restrained and sensitive while in power. Addressing the Visva-Bharati University convocation virtually, the Prime Minister said, “Responsibility comes with knowledge and power. Just as one has to be restrained and sensitive while in power, every scholar also has to be responsible towards those who do not have knowledge.” Addressing the students, he said, “Your knowledge and skill can make a nation proud or can push society into the ..

GOLD weighing 56.86 kg, given to the District Collector in Rajasthan’s Chittogarh for weighing then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in wake of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, will be passed on to the Government, a court has ordered. The gold, valued at Rs 4.76 lakh at that time, is now valued at Rs 27.29 crore. The District and Sessions Court in Chittorgarh on Wednesday directed the officials concerned to hand over the gold to the Assistant Commissioner of Central Goods and Service Tax. The controversy ..

YOGA Guru Ramdev released a research paper on the “first evidence-based medicine for COVID-19 by Patanjali” in presence of Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday in Delhi. Speaking at the launch event, Ramdev said that the research paper will clear all ‘suspicions’ related to Patanjali’s COVID-19 medicine Coronil. “When we launched Coronil, people raised questions on its validity and asked if we followed scientific parameters. People think research can only ..

AFTER a nearly seven-month journey through space, Perseverance -- the largest and the most advanced rover NASA has ever sent to another world -- successfully touched down on the surface of Mars on Friday in a nail-biting landing that marks its first step in the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched on July 30, last year, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US. The rover streaked through the ..

FOUR Chinese soldiers were killed in the fierce clash with the Indian Army in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June last year, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) acknowledged for the first time on Friday. China’s military authorities have honoured two officers and three soldiers, including four who received the awards posthumously, for defending the country’s western border, the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese military...

PETROL and diesel prices maintained its northward rally on Friday, the eleventh consecutive day when its retail prices rose across the country, with the global oil market remaining stable but firm. Accordingly, oil marketing firms raised the pump price of petrol by 31 paise and diesel by another 33 paise per litre in Delhi. With this increase, petrol is now priced at Rs 90.19 a litre and diesel Rs 80.60 a litre in the national capital...

THE Supreme Court on Thursday said that the possibility of a conspiracy against former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi cannot be ruled out, as it closed an inquiry set up after sexual harassment charges were levelled against him in April 2019. A bench comprising Justices S K Kaul, A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said that the Intelligence Bureau Director had said, in a report, that then Chief Justice Gogoi had taken serious view in connection with the finalisation of the National Register of Citizens, ..

Climate activist Disha Ravi, arrested for alleged involvement in sharing a toolkit backing the ongoing farmers’ protest, moved the Delhi High Court on Thursday seeking to restrain police from leaking to the media any probe material in relation to the FIR lodged against her. The petition, which is listed before Justice Prathiba M Singh, also seeks to restrain the media from publishing the content or extract of any private chats, including those on WhatsApp, between her and third parties. When the ..

Airpower can bring asymmetric results if the time and place are chosen correctly, said Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria on Thursday. Bhadauria was speaking at the Air Force Museum on Thursday after he released retired Air Marshal Bharat Kumar’s book ‘The Epic Battle of Longewala’. The Air Chief Marshal said the Pakistan Army’s plan of armoured thrust on Jaisalmer’s Longewala was brilliant, but the enemy force’s mistake was not factoring in India’s airpower. “Pakistan Army’s plan of ..

AGITATING farmer groups on Thursday held a four-hour nationwide ‘rail roko’ agitation with the railways saying there was negligible impact on services though some trains were stopped by officials at stations as a precautionary measure. In Punjab and Haryana, farmers at several places squatted on railway tracks which led to disruption in normal movement of trains on some routes. Protests were also staged at some places in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, in many States, it was ..

INDIA, which has shipped ‘Made In India’ COVID-19 vaccines to 25 countries, on Wednesday appealed the international community to stop “vaccine nationalism” and actively encourage “internationalism”, underlining that hoarding superfluous doses will defeat global efforts to attain collective health security and combat the deadly pandemic. Addressing the UN Security Council, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar outlined nine points for consideration of the international community to help the world ..