Indian Revenue Service officer Sameer Wankhede, who headed the Narcotics Control Bureau in Mumbai when the NCB arrested several persons, including superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan in the controversial drugs-on-cruise case last year, was on Monday transferred to the DG Taxpayer Service Directorate in Chennai, an official said.
The squall that hit the city at 100kmph and blinding rain on Monday evening wreaked havoc on the green cover with trees falling like matchsticks, some of them crushing passing vehicles. Hoardings and iron and tin sheets at construction sites were flung in the air, only to collapse on the vehicles of unsuspecting commuters with unprecedented fury. To be on road for that half-an-hour of mayhem was to certainly risk one’s life. Two lives were lost in the freak weather event.
Watering down or withdrawal of police protection to 400-plus at-risk individuals in Punjab was hotly debated following the murder of popular rapper and Congress politician Sidhu Moose Wala, with the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking Monday to know from the AAP government in the state why names of those who had lost their security details were leaked. The HC asked the government to reply by June 2.
The fallout of singer Sidhu Moose Wala’s murder continued to reverberate across Punjab on Monday as his anguished parents and fans refused to allow the Punjab police to conduct an autopsy. The singer was shot dead on Sunday evening in a Mansa village in an ambush. The family finally consented to the post-mortem by late afternoon and is yet to take a call on the funeral of the singer.
The southwest (summer) Monsoon arrived in Kerala on Sunday, three days ahead of its normal date of onset (June 1), beginning the four-month rainy season in the country, said the India Meteorological Department which has already predicted ‘normal’ and well-distributed rainfall during the season. This is only the third occasion in the past 10 years when the summer monsoon recorded early onset — before June 1.
Aadhaar caught the government on the wrong foot over safety concerns after a statement issued by the Bangalore unit of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) – the agency that issues the 12-digit unique identity number – created a flutter when it asked people not to share their info with “unlicensed private entities” such as hotels or movie halls as it can be “misused”.
Bihar CM and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar has denied Union steel minister RCP Singh another term in the Rajya Sabha, while the fate of minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abaas Naqvi also looked uncertain after he failed to make it to the first list of BJP candidates from UP and Jharkhand. If the RS memberships of the two are not renewed, they will have to resign as ministers, setting the stage for a minor reshuffle of the Modi ministry.
A study by Christian Medical College, Vellore, on the effectiveness of mixed booster doses has yielded positive results and is currently being evaluated by central agencies, officials from the institute have said. “We presented the results to the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and our interim analysis to the Drugs Controller General of India. NTAGI listened to our findings, but is yet to take a decision,” said principal investigator of the study Dr Winsley Rose.
Singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu aka Sidhu Moose Wala, who had contested the Punjab assembly elections earlier this year as a Congress candidate, was shot dead near Jawaharke village in Punjab’s Mansa district on Sunday evening. The 28-year-old was shot at point blank range and was declared brought dead on arrival at the Mansa civil hospital. “Three people were brought to the hospital, out of which Sidhu Moose Wala was dead.
Amidst rising Covid-19 cases in the state, health officials on Saturday said seven patients were found infected with newer Omicron sublineages of BA.4 (four patients) and BA.5 (three patients). These cases were found in Pune. Maharashtra is the third state to report these newer sublineages, which are responsible for the fifth wave in South Africa. A few days back, Insacog scientists announced that two cases of BA.4 were detected in Tamil Nadu and one BA.5 in Telangana.
The academic disruptions due to the Covid-19 situation, with nearly a quarter of school children not having access to any digital devices, led to further deepening of the learning crisis in the country. When compared to the previous survey conducted in 2017, the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 of over 34 lakh students from classes III, V, VIII and X indicated that the worst hit are those studying in state-government run schools.
India can overcome geography and rewrite history "if only we get the policies and the economics right", foreign minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday while highlighting how land connectivity through Myanmar and sea connectivity through Bangladesh on a commercial scale could open up "a world all the way to Vietnam and Philippines, from Haiphong to Hazira, and Manila to Mundra".
China, Russia, Iran and 4 central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - joined India in strongly condemning terrorism in a joint statement after the 4th NSA-level regional security dialogue in Dushanbe while also calling for dismantling of terror camps in Afghanistan and the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the government is seeking to use technological aids, including drones, to deliver benefits to the poor and the middle class, something that was missing due to the indifference towards the use of technology in governance. "Har haath mein smartphone. Har khet drone. Har ghar samridhi, (a smart phone for all, a drone for each field and prosperity for each household is my dream)," Modi said, while inaugurating a drone expo on Friday.
The iconic inverted rifle and the soldier’s war helmet, the symbol of fallen soldiers of the 1971 and which were part of the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate, were shifted to the National War Memorial on Friday. “With this ceremony, the integration of the memorial of fallen soldiers of 1971 war with National War Memorial has been completed,” the ministry said in a statement.
At least seven Indian Army personnel died while 19 others were injured after the vehicle they were travelling in skidded off the road and fell into Shyok River in Ladakh’s Tuktuk sector on Friday.A party of 26 soldiers was heading from the transit camp in Partapur to a forward location in Hanif sub-sector when the accident took place around 9am, about 25km from Thoise, injuring all occupants.
Over three-quarters of registered deaths in India remain without causes being medically certified and in a state like Bihar, that proportion is a scarcely believable 96.6%. While nationally there has been a marginal improvement in certification of deaths with the proportion rising from 20.7% in 2019 to 22.5% in 2020, several states have seen a worsening.
Nine people were killed in a tragic road accident near Chini Nallah Zojila Pass on Srinagar-Leh highway on Wednesday night. Officials sources on Thursday said a Tavera car bearing registration number JK12-7466, which was heading for Srinagar from Kargil, fell down 800ft into a gorge after the driver allegedly lost control over the vehicle.
Congress dissident and high profile lawyer Kapil Sibal on Wednesday snapped his ties with the party and crossed over to the Samajwadi Party camp, adding to the mounting list of crossovers in recent weeks and amplifying the perception of negativity about the grand old party.
A special NIA court in Delhi on Wednesday handed concurrent life terms to Kashmiri separatist and JKLF chief Yasin Malik for funding terror in J&K and waging war against the state, rejecting his contention that he had adhered to the Gandhian principle of non-violence and spearheaded "a peaceful struggle" since giving up armed militancy in 1994.
At a time when objectionable social media posts are circulated with impunity by sheltering behind the right to free speech, the Supreme Court has ruled that the shield of this fundamental right is available only to those who adhere to law and respect legal processes.
The just over two-month-old government in Punjab sacked health and family welfare minister Dr Vijay Singla on Tuesday for alleged corruption and got him arrested soon after, based on an audio clip from a sting operation in which his officer on special duty (OSD) is purportedly heard seeking "shukrana" (commission) on sanctioned contracts.
Terrorists gunned down an off-duty J&K policeman and wounded his seven-year-old daughter when they stepped out of their home on the outskirts of Srinagar to go to her tuition classes on Tuesday evening. Constable Saifullah Qadiri, a resident of Aanchar in Srinagar’s Soura area, was the third cop killed by terrorists this April-May, and the 125th since 2017. Police said the little girl suffered a bullet wound in her right hand.
Describing India’s ties with the US as a “partnership of trust”, PM Modi on Tuesday said the two countries shared the same perspective about the Indo-Pacific region and are working to safeguard their shared values and common interests not only at the bilateral level but also with other like-minded countries. The remarks came at the PM’s meeting with President Biden in Tokyo, which saw them discussing what Biden termed “Russia’s brutal, unjustified invasion” of Ukraine and its effect.
The 67-year-old veteran politician is currently a Samajwadi Party MLA from the Jaswantnagar assembly segment in the Etawah district.
Rain and thundershowers continued to lash Delhi, its neighbouring areas and the NCR on Monday night. Spells of rain and thunderstorms on Monday morning has brought people in Delhi-NCR a much-needed respite as the mercury dropped by around 11 degrees Celsius. The rainfall also caused disruption of flight services, waterlogging and traffic snarls on Monday. Trees were uprooted at over 40 locations in the capital.
The Supreme Court has ruled all courts must consider pre- and post-crime conduct of a convict to ascertain mitigating grounds to avoid imposition of the capital punishm, in what marks another milestone on the meandering judicial journey since the 1980s towards virtual abolition of death penalty. Through this ruling, the court commuted the death sentences of three youth convicted for sensational and grotesque murders of three defenceless women in Indore in 2011 to 25 years in jail.
India was among a dozen "initial partners" that signed up in Tokyo Monday for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), a fresh economic arrangement proposed by US President Joe Biden to counter China's growing influence in the region through integrated, resilient and clean economies.
The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety has directed states to ensure that forensic crash investigations are conducted of all “mass fatality crashes” in each district to detect the exact cause of the mishaps. The panel set up to monitor road crashes and to guide the Centre and states to reduce fatal accidents has also asked all states to plan the deployment of different types of ambulances as per the historic caseload of road crashes in districts.
Five Hindu women plaintiffs have told the Supreme Court that the entire Gyanvapi mosque land belonged to Kashi Vishwanath temple and cited the British government’s trial court statement repudiating a Muslim person’s 1936 suit for a declaration that the mosque land was a wakf property.
The Quad summit in Japan on Tuesday will provide an opportunity to leaders to review progress of their common initiatives and exchange views on the developments in Indo-Pacific region, PM Narendra Modi said in a statement. PM Modi’s most significant engagement on Monday will be his participation in the launch of US President Joe Biden’s ambitious Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative that seeks the integration of Indo-Pacific economies and secure and resilient supply chains.
Loudspeakers at mosques in Uttar Pradesh have either turned down their volume or been removed, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Sunday and added the uninstalled public address systems are being donated to schools and hospitals. The chief minister further said there were no riots in the BJP-ruled state during and after the recent assembly polls.
A little 10-year-old champion skater from Worli, Rhythm Mamania, has become one of the youngest Indian mountaineers to summit the Everest Base Camp (EBC) in the Himalayan ranges in Nepal. Rhythm had no coach or formal training, and would practise by running up and down the long flight of steps near Shastri Garden at 5am.
The Centre on Saturday slashed excise duty by Rs 8 on petrol and Rs 6 on diesel to bring down fuel prices and ease inflation by reducing transportation charges for the Aam-Aadmi’s daily staples. The government also announced a Rs 200 subsidy on LPG for consumers who were given connection free of cost under the Ujjwala programme, one of the Narendra Modi government’s flagship social welfare schemes launched in 2016.
