The 50-year-old jeweller, who remains behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London, had lost the first stage of the high court appeals process last week as a judge declined permission to appeal "on the papers". Modi's lawyers had five days to file a renewal application seeking an oral hearing to plead the case for permission to appeal against the extradition ordered by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on April 16.
Wanted diamond merchant Nirav Modi, whose extradition to India was ordered in April by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case, has lost the first stage of his extradition appeal in the high court in London.
As many as 721,469 appointments were made through the national booking service on Friday -- the day of the announcement -- at an average of more than eight every second. To cope with demand, the NHS said it is using stadiums and football grounds as giant vaccination centres.
"Reaching an international agreement on how large digital companies are taxed has been a priority for the chancellor since he took office," said a spokesperson for his UK treasury office. "The chancellor's consistent position has been that it matters where tax is paid, and any agreement must ensure digital businesses pay tax in the UK that reflects their economic activities. That is what our taxpayers would expect and is the right thing," the spokesperson said.
World leaders gathered at the G7 Summit in Cornwall discussed the possibility that a laboratory leak in central China's Wuhan city may have a connection with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief saying all hypotheses behind the origins of the deadly disease remain in play.
The Delta variant of COVID-19, or the B1.617.2 variant of concern (VOC) first identified in India, is about 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha strain identified in the United Kingdom and also reduces the effectiveness of vaccines to some extent, UK health experts report.
Several major websites across the world, including the UK government's Gov.Uk website, crashed for some time on Tuesday due to an outage at global website hosting service Fastly.
Over 200 world leaders, including former presidents, prime ministers and ministers have backed a campaign urging the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations to help vaccinate the world's poorest from low-income economies against COVID-19 by paying two-thirds of an estimated $66 billion required.
The UK's medicines regulator on Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.
British intelligence agencies now believe it is 'feasible' that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a coronavirus leak from a Chinese bio laboratory, a media report said here on Sunday, prompting Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi to demand that the World Health Organisation (WHO) must fully investigate the origins of the deadly virus.
The UK government said on Tuesday that it has kicked off preparations for a free trade agreement (FTA) with India, launching a 14-week consultation to seek the views of the public and business before formal negotiations begin later this year. UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss said Britain wants a trade deal with India that pushes new frontiers and welcomes wide input from consumers and businesses across all sectors, which will help craft a deal that includes closer cooperation in "future-focused industries" such as science, technology and services, creating high-value jobs across the country. "We're firing the starting gun on a free trade deal with India - the world's largest democracy, fifth-biggest economy, a nation of 1.4 billion people and a huge market for British goods like whisky, cars and services," said Truss.
In separate statements following an independent inquiry's conclusion that the BBC "fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark", her sons blamed the controversial 1995 interview for her "fear and paranoia" that damaged their parents' relationship.
The BBC on Thursday issued an apology as an inquiry concluded that the media corporation had covered up the tactics used by journalist Martin Bashir to secure his famous 1995 interview scoop with Princess Diana, in which the late Princess of Wales opened up about her troubled marriage to Prince Charles.
A consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday moved a step closer in their attempt to recover debt from loans paid out to Vijay Mallya's now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines after the high court in London upheld an application to amend their bankruptcy petition, in favour of waiving their security over the embattled businessman's assets in India. Chief Insolvencies and Companies Court (ICC) Judge Michael Briggs handed down his judgment in favour of the banks to declare there is no public policy that prevents a waiver of security rights, as argued by Mallya's lawyers. At a virtual hearing, July 26 was set as the date for final arguments for and against granting a bankruptcy order against the 65-year-old Mallya after the banks accused him of trying to "kick matters into the long grass" and called on the "bankruptcy petition to be brought to its inevitable end".
The paper also includes musing that SARS -- which hit China in 2003 -- could have been a man-made bioweapon deliberately unleashed by "terrorists".
The Pakistani-origin former Labour member of Parliament was the first Muslim mayor of a European capital city when he was first elected in 2016. The mayoral poll was due last year but was postponed by a year at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar left London at the end of a four-day visit to the United Kingdom on Friday with a message of convergence as the two countries agreed on an ambitious '2030 Roadmap' towards a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Two members of the small delegation accompanying External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to the UK have tested positive for Covid-19, forcing him to rework his official schedule in London.
External Affairs Minister Jaishankar on Wednesday described the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic as an "all consuming" challenge posed by a virulent strain of coronavirus and welcomed the enormous goodwill from countries around the world as a sense of solidarity in diplomacy.
Britain has finalised 1 billion pounds worth of new trade and investment with India, creating over 6,500 jobs in the UK, to be signed off at a virtual summit between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Tuesday. The investments confirmed by Downing Street on Monday evening form part of an Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP), which will set the ambition to double the value of UK-India trade by 2030 and declare a shared intent to begin work towards a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA). "Like every aspect of the UK-India relationship, the economic links between our countries make our people stronger and safer," Johnson said.