People should take to the streets against Kamalnath govt.: Scindia

Tusle between Jyotiraditya Scindia and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath came to the fore yet again with the latter saying that the former was free to take to the streets to force the government to fulfil its farm loan waiver promises. The statement of Mr. Scindia is seen as a move against the central leadership (Sonia and Rahul).  

Responding to the media over Jyotiraditya Scindia's threat to protest if the state government fails to fulfil its promise to waive off the farm loans, the party had promised in its election manifesto, Kamal Nath said "to utar jayein [do it]".

Societies to provide list of Chinese Nationals

Residential societies of Noida and Greater Noida are providing a list of people who have returned from China in the month of January as well Chinese nationals living in the neighbourhood to the health department, after they were asked to conduct a survey to identify potential carriers of coronavirus.

On Wednesday, residents of Grand Omaxe in Sector 93B provided a list of 22 Chinese nationals who are residing in their society so that the health department can ascertain if any of them are showing symptoms of the highly contagious disease that originated in Wuhan, China, and has claimed over 1,300 lives so far.

Can't bar students from taking exams due to non- payment of fees: Jharkhand CM

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday directed all the school managements in the state not to prevent any student from appearing in Class 10 and 12 board examinations due to non-payment of fees, an official release issued here said. His directive came after several such incidents, where students defaulting on payment of fees were not allowed to sit for the exams, were reported from across the state in the past.

Chairing a meeting of the Education and Literacy department, Soren asked the officials to ensure that such incidents are not repeated during the upcoming board examinations, it said. The chief minister said the rule applies to all public, private and Coal India Limited-run schools, the release added.

10 students arrested over sex assault Gargi college

Ten students from different government and private colleges in Delhi-NCR have been arrested for allegedly molesting students of Delhi University’s Gargi College after gatecrashing a fest in the all-girls campus last week, police said on Wednesday.

Atul Kumar Thakur, deputy commissioner of police (south district), said the arrested students are all aged between 18 and 25 years. “They had gathered outside gate number 2. They had pushed a caterer’s parked van against the gate to break it open. One of them then entered the broken gate to open it from inside,” the DCP said.

Imran slapped with Rs 1.04 crore fine for anti-CAA protests

Uttar Pradesh poet Imran Pratapgarhi has been slapped with Rs 1.04 crore fine for participating in anti Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest in Moradabad and for allegedly instigating the protestors at the city’s Eidgah premises.

The Congress had fielded Imran from Moradabad constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Justifying the notice, Moradabad District Magistrate Rakesh Singh said action was being taken against all those who were defying the prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of CrPC.

Kerala man wins ₹12-crore bumper lottery

A day after the draw of the Kerala Christmas New Year Bumper lottery of the State government, the winner of the first prize, which is a whopping ₹12 crore, has been identified: 52-year-old Porunnan Rajan, a member of the Kurichiya community and a resident of Puralimala in Malur grama panchayat in Kannur.

Shah Faesal booked under PSA

Former IAS and J&K People’s Movement chief Shah Faesal was booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) on February 15, the seventh prominent mainstream politician to face the stringent law.

Peaceful CAA opposers not 'traitors, anti-nationals': HC

AURANGABAD: People wanting to agitate in a peaceful way "cannot be called traitors, anti-nationals only because they want to oppose one law", the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has said in an order on Thursday on a petition challenging denial of police permission to an agitation against the CAA.
"The submissions made show that there will be no question of disobedience of provisions of CAA by such agitation. Thus, this court is expected to consider the right of such persons to start agitation in a peaceful way. This court wants to express that such persons cannot be called as traitors, anti-nationals only because they want to oppose one law. It will be an act of protest only against the government for the reason of CAA," the bench said.

 

The bench quashed and set aside two orders passed by the additional district magistrate (ADM) of Beed district and the Majalgaon city police in Beed. The police had cited the ADM's order as the basis for refusal of permission.
“India got freedom due to agitations which were non-violent and this path of non-violence is followed by the people of this country till this date. We are fortunate that most of the people of this country still believe in non-violence,” the bench said.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Debasish Panda appointed new finance secretary

Senior IAS officer Debasish Panda was on Thursday appointed as the new finance secretary. Panda, a 1987-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, is at present special secretary, department of financial services. He has also served as Principal Secretary (Home), UP government.

Man shoots at 12 yrs boy after being hit by cricket ball

Children were playing cricket at Bheti village in the district on Thursday when the ball hit Ramlal and Bijendra Kandari who were sitting nearby. When Mahesh went near them to pick up the ball, Ramlal fired at him with Kandari's country-made pistol, Ghansali police station in-charge Pradeep Singh Rawat said. Villagers rushed the boy to a nearby community health centre from where he was referred to AIIMS, Rishikesh.

Felt bad on not invited to metro event: Mamata

West Bengal: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was not invited to the inauguration of the East-West Metro corridor. The first phase of the East-West corridor of the mass rapid transport network was flagged off by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday, but the TMC gave the event a miss after Banerjee's name did not feature in the list of invitees. "We had worked hard for the East-West Metro project. We had to literally shed tears for it (approval). I felt bad as I was not even informed about the inauguration," Banerjee said in the state assembly.

Rajiv Bansal appointed as Air India CMD

The government appointed Rajiv Bansal, an additional secretary with the oil and gas ministry, as the new boss of the state-owned airline. He will replace Ashwani Lohani, the current Chairman & Managing Director (CMD), who didn’t agree to extend his one-year contract, which expired on February 11.

India offers to open up poultry, dairy markets for US

India has offered to partially open up its poultry and dairy markets in a bid for a limited trade deal during US President Donald Trump's first official visit to the country this month, people familiar with the protracted talks say. India, the world's largest milk-producing nation, has traditionally restricted dairy imports to protect the livelihoods of 80 million rural households involved in the industry.

Noida: Five arrested for pasting posters on CAA

Five people were arrested by the sector 20 police from the Film City area in Sector 16A on Tuesday night for allegedly putting up posters about the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.

Police were tipped-off that a group of people were putting up posters with controversial content related to the CAA in Sector 16A. “The posters are of a small Gurugram-based political organisation. The content was neither in favour nor against the CAA. However, it might have hurt people’s sentiments. The person whose number is mentioned in the poster was also present there, but he had left before our police team reached the spot.