The government has exempted basic customs duty on all drugs as well as food items prescribed for special medical purposes, that are imported for treatment of rare diseases. It has exempted Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), used in treatment of various cancers, from basic customs duty.
While government facilities were grossly overburdened in the first few days of the strike, the situation seems to have stabilised. "Due to the strike, patients from other states have stopped coming to Rajasthan for now," said Dr Achal Sharma, superintendent of Jaipur's SMS Hospital, the largest government health facility in the state. Rajasthan draws a sizable patient load from neighbouring states owing to its relatively better healthcare infrastructure.
Drawing flak from the southern states, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India issued on Thursday a revised notification to say that food business operators may use the term "curd" along with any other prevalent common name in a regional language.
The land holdings of some 727 Bengali Hindu refugees in three rehab camps in Raichur district, Karnataka, in 1971 — carrying thesurname ‘Sarkar’ — have been marked government or ‘sarkari’ land, in a bungle over the surname.
When Hisha Baghel, 19, marched at her passing out parade as the first batch of female Agniveers at INS Chilka in Odisha on Tuesday, she had no clue that her father - who inspired her to join the armed forces - is no more. Her family didn't tell her about her father's death lest it affect her training, reports Partha Behera. Hisha is the first female Agniveer from Chhattisgarh.
While announcing bypolls to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat and four assembly seats on Wednesday, the Election Commission held back on the Wayanad LS seat, saying it would rather wait for the aggrieved party (Congress' Rahul Gandhi, who stands disqualified as MP) to avail himself of judicial remedy in the 30 days given by the court.
"Is the state impotent? Can't it take timely action against hate speech mongers? If it can't take, why do we have a state at all?" These posers came from the Supreme Court Wednesday on a petition seeking contempt proceedings against Maharashtra for inaction against hate speeches by Hindu organisations despite undertaking to prevent it.
Two months after the order of the Kerala high court's January 25 order staying P P Mohammad Faizal's conviction, the Lok Sabha secretariat restored the membership of the disqualified Lakshadweep MP (of NCP) - just hours before the Supreme Court was set to take up his petition against the delay.
The August 2022 order by NGT was in an application filed by a south Mumbai resident Dileep Nevatia who had sought orders to direct the government and civic administration to “maintain air and noise quality level for construction of the Coastal Road (South) project within limits’’ specified under the Noise Pollution rules.
Punjab police launched a late-night search Tuesday for fugitive Khalistan supporter Amritpal Singh in and around Marnaian Kalan village of Hoshiarpur after an abandoned Innova was found near a gurdwara. A team of the counterintelligence wing had chased the Innova carrying three people. One of whom is suspected to be Amritpal.
Respect for the rule of law and judicial independence is the cornerstone of any democracy, the US has said, adding that it is watching Rahul Gandhi's court case that resulted in his disqualification from the Lok Sabha.
A seven-member special task force (STF) from Haryana's Sonipat on a quiet mission to nab a murder accused at a village in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district was attacked by locals with sticks and stones on Sunday. Some STF men were injured and their weapons were snatched before a UP police squad reached the spot and rescued them.
Citing a media report, Pasha said despite the SC's February 3 order directing the Maharashtra police to take action against a Hindu organisation indulging in hate speech and calling for boycott of Mulsims, as many as 50 rallies have been organised in the last four months across the state.
The petitioner, MP leader of the opposition Govind Singh, alleged that the unbridled power given to the agency was being misused to silence opposition leaders across the country.
The government is all set to allow drug companies an increase in line with the change in the annual Wholesale Price Index (WPI). The annual change in WPI, as notified by the government, works out to 12.12% during 2022, the drug prices regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said on Monday.
The government is considering a proposal to build 37 more roads with a cumulative length of 875 km along the India-China border. This Rs 13,000 crore work has been proposed under the India-China Border Roads (ICBR) programme. Nearly 70% of these roads under ICBR-III would be built in Arunachal Pradesh, as per the proposal.
In view of the current weather conditions, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday advised farmers to postpone harvesting of matured crops in Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, and keep already-harvested produce in safe places or cover them in the field with tarpaulin sheets.
The Centre has decided to decrease the jurisdiction of 'disturbed areas' declared under the AFSPA in Nagaland, Assam and Manipur from April. Union home minister Amit Shah said the decision had been taken on account of significant improvement in the security situation in northeast India. This is the second reduction in AFSPA - for long, a source of resentment in the northeast - within a year
While the fines collected through e-challans by the traffic and transport rule enforcement agencies across states have increased 450% in the past three-and-a-half years since the penalties were hiked, there has been barely 3% decline in road deaths during this period. Experts said better and scientific enforcement of rules is key to reducing road crashes and fatalities rather than focusing on slapping challans and fines.
Rahul Gandhi was on Friday disqualified as an MP from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in compliance with the Surat trial court order, which had on Thursday convicted him in a criminal defamation case and sentenced him to two years, in a development which escalated BJP's confronation with Congress and widened its arc with many others in the opposition rallying for the Congress leader.
NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification has come into “immediate and automatic” effect upon his conviction and sentencing despite the grant of bail and suspension of his sentence for a month, say lawyers who have closely worked with EC on such cases. The only scenario where the disqualification shall not take effect is if the trial court itself or an appellant court stays his conviction as well as sentence or the appellant court reduces the quantum of his sentence.
The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Appropriation Bill in less than nine minutes, without any discussion in the House, paving the way for the Centre to spend over Rs 45 lakh crore in the next financial year. The proceedings of the House were conducted amid din, with PM Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh and other ministers in attendance, and opposition members shouting slogans of “Modi-Adani Bhai Bhai” while demanding a JPC on the Adani issue.
Two inebriated flyers were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly creating a ruckus and hurling abuses at the crew and co-passengers on board an IndiGo Dubai-Mumbai flight. Sahar police, who registered an FIR on the airline staff’s complaint, said John G Dsouza (49) from Nalasopara and Dattatray Bapardekar (47) from Manbet in Kolhapur told them that they had downed half a bottle of alcohol each mid-air to celebrate their return to India after a year of working in Dubai.
CBI has asked the Commission for Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) for restoration of Red Notice against Mehul Choksi wanted in bank fraud cases to the tune of over Rs 13,900 crores. The agency said the CBI had taken up the “serious shortcomings, procedural violations, over reach of mandate and mistakes committed by CCF” in the manner of reaching this unfounded and perfunctory decision.
India needs to develop “both offensive and defensive space capabilities to safeguard our assets”, Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari said on Tuesday, in the backdrop of China furiously building and deploying anti-satellite weapons from direct ascent missiles and co-orbital killers to directed-energy laser weapons and electronic jammers.
Cricket bookie Anil Jaisinghani, booked for trying to bribe and then extort from deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s wife, was intercepted at Kalol, about 55km northwest of Vadodara, in Gujarat late on Sunday night after a 750km chase over 72 hours.
