Senior Congress leaders accused the BJP of trying to bring down the party-led government, which is surviving on support of over half a dozen independent, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs.
More than 20 lakh Covid-19 tests were conducted across the country in a span of 24 hours, which is a global record and the highest ever done in a single day in India, while the daily positivity rate has declined to 13.31 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
As the country battles the second wave of COVID-19, the government Thursday said the virus may emerge again and so preparations have to be made at the national level in collaboration with states, infrastructure needs to be ramped up while curbs and appropriate behaviour must be followed.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of the agitating unions, is meeting on Sunday to decide on the next course of action, including on the MSP issue and the proposed daily tractor march to Parliament during the upcoming Winter Session, SKM core committee member Darshan Pal said.
No breakthrough has been possible in the five rounds of talks so far as the protesting farmers have stuck to their demand for the repeal of the laws despite the government's assurance to look into specific issues without abolishing the legislations.
The sixth round of talks between the two sides are being held after a considerable gap. The fifth round of talks was held on December 5.
Appealing non-BJP outfits to join hands with the Congress, Hooda assured them that they would be given due respect.
'Judge Muralidhar was under transfer to Chandigarh for entirely opaque reasons but to abruptly ask him to leave day after a midnight hearing at his residence in Delhi that must have saved many lives manifests the arrogance of a Govt punch drunk on Power'
Over one crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the country till now with the highest single-day vaccinations of more than 6 lakh jabs given on Thursday, the Union health ministry said on Friday.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, which is spearheading the protest against the Centre's three new agri-marketing laws, told the MPs the 'Voters' Whip' overrides their party whips.
The SKM alleged that increased barricading, including digging trenches, fixing nails on roads, setting up barbed-wire fences, closing internal roads, stopping Internet services and "orchestrating protests through BJP-RSS workers" are part of "attacks" being organised by the government, its police and administration against the farmers.
The suggestions submitted to the Centre on Thursday evening also recommended restarting construction activities and allowing movement of labourers within the city, sources said.
There is an upward trend in the recovery rate which was recorded at 62.42 per cent on Friday.
The Congress and the government engaged in a war of words in Lok Sabha on Tuesday over sedition cases with the opposition party alleging the stringent law is being misused, drawing a sharp retort from Union minister G Kishan Reddy who asked it not to lecture others on democracy.
Giving details of coronavirus situation in the country, Bhushan said the previous highest surge has already been crossed and the trend is going upward and that is a cause for worry and that is something they continuously share with the states and UTs and try to help them tackle the pandemic in a more effective manner.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
The ministry said 24.44 per cent of the total active cases in the country have been reported from 10 districts including Bengaluru Urban, Pune, Delhi, Ernakulam, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Thrissur, Jaipur, Kozhikode and Mumbai.
The earlier resolution allowing these developers to charge higher power tariffs, now stands cancelled.
Even in terms of new single-day cases, Delhi reported the highest number of infections, followed by Kerala and Maharashtra.
The government and unions representing farmers, who have been camping at Delhi's border for about three months in protest against the three laws that they see will end state procurement of crops at MSP, have held 11 rounds of talks, the last being on January 22.
Telecom industry body COAI has approached the information technology ministry for removal of fake and misleading messages from social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter linking spread of COVID-19 to 5G technology. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), whose members include Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, said the claims linking 5G with coronavirus are baseless as 5G networks have not yet been installed in the country and even 5G trials are yet to be started by the telecom operators. In a letter dated May 15 to MeitY additional secretary Rajendra Kumar, COAI director general S P Kochhar said: "To safeguard the national interest, we request your good office to kindly instruct all the social media platforms such as Facebook, Watsapp, Twitter, etc, to remove all such posts and misleading campaigns from their platforms on an urgent basis." People have been sharing audio and video messages on social media platforms in which 5G towers are being blamed for rise in casualties across the country even though none of the companies have installed 5G technology anywhere in India.
The 'restore old pension' campaign is being spearheaded by the National Movement for Old Pension Scheme (NMOPS), a federation with over 13 lakh government employees as its members.
Out of the 447 adverse events following immunisation, only 3 required hospitalisation.
The Centre may pass any law undermining the Constitution and on the back of its majority, but once the common man and farmers rise, they will not keep quiet until the new farm acts and the ruling party are destroyed, Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar said on Monday.
Air pollution may lead to a faster spread of Covid-19 infection as it causes coughing and sneezing, government officials told a parliamentary panel on Friday, according to sources.
The company has already put in place this digital register in Jaipur in Rajasthan and pilot projects are running in Haryana and Telangana
According to the latest data available from the Centre and the states in the night, the total number of Omicron cases in the country was around 1,200.
As cracks began to appear in their ongoing agitation against the agri laws, farmer unions on Wednesday cancelled their planned march to Parliament on February 1 when the Budget would be presented.
The government's ninth round of negotiations with protesting farmer unions will take place as scheduled on Friday and the Centre is hopeful of positive discussions, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Thursday.
Labour rights activist Naudeep Kaur was freed Friday by the Punjab and Haryana high court, which said slapping charges like attempt to murder on her is a 'debatable issue' to be considered at a later stage in the trial.
In a letter to 40 union leaders, Union Agriculture Ministry Joint Secretary Vivek Aggarwal said the Centre is making all efforts with "an open heart" to find an appropriate solution to resolve all the concerns raised by farmers.
The death toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,466 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country.
According to sources, the government has worked out possible solutions to the provisions on which farm leaders have raised objections.
The Shiv Sena accused Jyotiraditya Scindia of working hard to see that Pilot quits the Congress.
The next meeting has been scheduled for January 22, a day after the farmer unions hold their internal discussions on Thursday, farmer leaders said after the 10th round of talks ended at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi after nearly five hours of talks, including two breaks.
He also said the government is sensitive towards farmers and is in discussion with them and their representatives to resolve their concerns.
The portal, which has been tentatively named by the labour and employment ministry as the National Portal for COVID-19 Affected Unorganised Migrant Workers, will gather the details of all the unorganised sector workers who are stranded in relief camps, residential or industrial clusters.
Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, filmmaker Karan Johar and Suniel Shetty on Wednesday said citizens should focus on the government's efforts to resolve the ongoing farmer crisis rather than paying attention to "half truths" and those "creating differences."
'If the government wants to see our strength, we will show them'
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