The appointments committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared Bhalla's appointment as OSD in the ministry with immediate effect.
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
According to the government's notification, 10 central probe and snoop agencies are now empowered under the Information Technology Act for computer interception and analysis, ministry of home affairs officials said.
The government also said the coronavirus tracking app Aarogya Setu is secure as it has been designed keeping in mind the privacy of people and is playing a crucial role in India's fight against COVID-19.
Farmer leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan said told reporters after the meeting that the unions urged the government to repeal the three laws, but the Centre was unwilling to do so. "We decided to meet again on January 19 at 12 pm," he said.
Opposition members tried to corner the government in both the Houses over the Supreme Court decision that states are not bound to provide reserved seats for the SCs, STs and OBCs in appointments and promotions.
India summoned the Pakistani charge d'affaires in New Delhi and lodged a firm protest, expressing grave concerns at this reprehensible incident and the continued attacks on the freedom of religion of the minority communities and their places of religious worship in Pakistan.
Abrahams was among a group of MPs who issued formal letters following the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 in August last year.
French observers point out that Paris had no choice but to issue a denial given the importance of India's Rafale purchase for France's aerospace industry.
At present only government labs are permitted to do the test and the Centre is making arrangements to nearly double its capacity to test for the respiratory ailment. According to Health Ministry officials, around 60 accredited private laboratories are likely to be given permission to conduct the tests soon.
'Listen to the government's advice. Self-isolation for a few weeks may give you many more years.'
It is the obligation of the states to maintain law and order, the apex court said.
The move comes amid sharp increase in retail prices of onion since August despite the government's several measures to boost the supply and contain prise rise.
The Delhi government on Wednesday announced a compensation of Rs two lakh each to the next of kin of the four persons, who died in a state-run hospital allegedly due to malfunctioning of an oxygen supply machine
Top officers across various ministries participate in the meeting that started at 8 pm on Saturday. The meeting is currently underway. The country is currently witnessing a second and more severe wave of the pandemic.
Launching a scathing broadside over the arrest of Delhi law minister, the Aam Aadmi Party government on Tuesday.
In an affidavit filed in the apex court, the state government has alleged that Kappan is the office secretary of Popular Front of India and was using a 'journalist cover' by showing identity card of a Kerela-based newspaper which was closed in 2018.
He assured the startups that both the banking system and the government will make the resources available to them
Article 370 'was not a special status. It was a special discrimination. With its abrogation we have brought Kashmiris on par with Indians', he said.
While Ramdev claimed that Ayurved-based 'Coronil and Swasari' medicine have shown 100 per cent favourable results during clinical trials on COVID-19 infected patients except those on a life support system, the Ayush Ministry sought from the company detailed report on composition, testing and other data of the drugs.
A division bench of justices Biswanath Somadder and A Mukherjee said the government's silence on the permission is 'astonishing and astounding'.
The networking giant said it has taken steps to reduce the visibility of hashtags containing harmful content, which included prohibiting them from trending and appearing as recommended search terms.
Abrahams, who chairs a British parliamentary group on Kashmir, was denied entry into India upon her arrival at the New Delhi airport on Monday. Government officials had said on Monday also that she was informed in advance that her e-visa had been cancelled.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, the central team in north Bengal, led by senior bureaucrat Vineet Joshi, said more field officers are required to monitor and provide feedback about the effectiveness of various measures undertaken by the government.
Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
He alleged that the people of Madhya Pradesh were 'befooled' by the saffron party as there was no council of ministers or a health or home minister in place in the state amid the crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The green panel has also asked the city government to identify the most polluted areas on Tuesday itself and sprinkle water.
The AAP government appointed senior bureaucrat Arvind Ray as principal secretary.
'I came to know that there was a big racket going on in the selling of onions. Private players were hoarding onions and these things cannot happen unless they have political patronage.'
The govt said that states have been asked to classify districts which have reported a higher number of cases as hotspots, the districts where cases have been reported as non-hotspots, and green zones where no cases have been reported.
The JD-U leader said that the change in stance was prompted by country-wide agitations. He also said that the govt would with for a favourable SC verdict on CAA.
The ones chosen for operation, management and development through a public-private partnership model are Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati.
During the meeting, it was impressed upon Twitter representatives that they should improve their system of response to investigation-related legal requests.
This may include Rs 1,500 as a screening test for suspect cases and an additional Rs 3,000 for confirmation test, the guidelines said.
Journalist Siddique Kappan was arrested on October 5 while he was on his way to Hathras, home to the young Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men.
'You cannot implement such a huge exercise, which is bound to cause misery to millions, without studying every aspect of its consequences, economic and social,' notes Sherna Gandhy.
India is currently under the 21-day lockdown since March 25, with only essential services exempted to contain the fast-spreading virus.
The Cabinet approved giving Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Reliance Jio an option to avail of a two-year moratorium on payments they were supposed to make in yearly installments for the spectrum bought in auctions.
A fresh confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party government and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung flared up with the former refusing to comply with his order cancelling Swati Maliwal's appointment as Chief of Delhi Commission for Women even as she claimed on Wednesday night that the LG told her not to come to office from Thursday and that it will be locked.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the city government not to implement the 50 per cent subsidy announced by it to people who did not pay their power bills from October 2012 to December 2013.
