China on Friday announced plans to permit the return of 'some' Indian students stranded in India for over two years following the visa and flight restrictions imposed by Beijing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Principal Secretary of the state health department Bibek Kumar, in his letter to the secretary of the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Friday, described the list as "an erroneous assessment" and said Bengal, keeping in view the parameters set by the Centre, has earmarked four "red" zones -- Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore.
Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code has been imposed in sensitive areas in the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada, and Bengaluru.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stressed the need to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level and asked officials to maintain coordination regarding this with the states, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 situation.
AP Moller-Maersk, one of the affected entities globally, operates the Gateway Terminals India at JNPT.
All these persons have been kept in single room isolation at designated health care facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, the ministry said.
'Non-separation of religion from politics is India's most daunting challenge'
Concerned by the terror attacks in Pune, Pakistan will send a two-member delegation to India to assess the security arrangements for the hockey World Cup starting on February 28 in Delhi.
The government may have to rework the valuation of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) for its initial public offering (IPO) if the listing is pushed beyond May, an official said. The current embedded value of LIC, pegged at Rs 5.4 trillion as of September 30 and for the six-month period ended September, will have to be re-evaluated if the issue is pushed beyond May 12, as approved by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). This would impact the market value of LIC, that is currently being internally estimated at 3-4 times of the embedded value.
Indian Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane on Tuesday said that as far as the western front was concerned, there is an increase in the concentration of terrorists in various launch pads and there have been repeated attempts of infiltration across the Line of Control.
Union minister Jitendra Singh assured the members of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that there is better nuclear safety in India as compared to many other countries and there are enough safeguards in the Indian nuclear plants.
Asked for China's comments on India not joining the RCEP deal over concern of cheap Chinese products potentially harming its domestic industry, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media in Beijing on Tuesday that China welcomes India joining the deal.
Fitch Ratings said with GDP growth of 6.5% and WPI-based inflation of 8.8%, India may have entered into a stagflation period in 2011-12.
What is it that China seeks and why has the Ladakh border become and remained hot for two years and what is going on in Arunachal Pradesh?, asks Aakar Patel.
The prime minister wrote on Twitter that he spoke with Union Home Ministry officials and National Disaster Management Authority regarding the situation 'which is being monitored closely'.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
The move comes soon after US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris directed towards mobilisation of American resources to assist India to tackle the unprecedented health crisis in the wake of the deadly second wave of coronavirus.
India's public debt ratio, which remarkably remained stable at around 70 per cent of the GDP since 1991, is projected to jump by 17 percentage points to nearly 90 per cent because of increase in public spending due to COVID-19, the IMF said.
The Afghanistan airspace on Monday was declared "uncontrolled" by the Kabul airport and transit flights have been asked to avoid it.
Singh also said that Indian troops are standing firm braving extreme weather and hostile forces to defend the country's territorial integrity.
'India has the potential to reduce its trade deficit with China by $8.4 billion in FY21.'
NHAI has already initiated process to handle such emergency situation and also taking all possible measures to avoid such incidents in future, an official statement said on Sunday.
India's harsh lockdown has left companies grappling with temporary closure, chaotic supply chains and depressed demand. Consequently, business plans have been modified.
India needs to shed its policy of lethargy and inhibitions to engage the Taliban with an intent to maintain its influence in Afghanistan. This would not just put a spanner in Pakistani designs, but also incentivise the Taliban not to be the puppets of GHQ, Rawalpindi, asserts Colonel Nikhil Apte (retd), who served on the Af-Pak desk at the Military Operations Directorate.
This is Gen Pande's first visit to the sector after taking over as the chief of the Indian Army on April 30.
'Traditionally, the US tried to tamp down tensions whenever a crisis situation arose and deputed officials from Washington to travel to Delhi to counsel restraint.' 'This time around, no US envoy flew down to Delhi -- not even when tensions spiked and a flashpoint was reached last week,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Severely critical of China, Pompeo, cited killing of Indian Army personnel in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in a clash with the Chinese military, and asserted that both India and the US are taking steps to strengthen cooperation against all threats and not just those posed by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Indian Navy has a big role to play in support of our strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is a matter of concern and need to be factored. Hence, the requirement of an Aircraft Carrier is a foregone conclusion, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
... 'Or any country which has reasonable vaccine coverage.' 'The emergence of Omicron clearly proves that if we allow a virus to circulate in an unvaccinated population, it would take a form which could be a Variant of Concern, or a new variant.'
'Given the possibility that our unstable northern and western borders may become 'live' at short notice, any major systemic change which impacts combat effectiveness should be brought about in a cautious and progressive manner.'
Speaking with reporters, Gandhi said, "This (school) is India's future. Hate and violence has destroyed it. Nobody has benefited from this. Violence and hate are enemies of development."
Until last month more than two-thirds of the Indian Army was deployed against Pakistan. Of 14 army corps, just four-and-a-half faced China, while more than twice that number was ranged against Pakistan.
'They keep watching Jos score those hundreds and keep asking me why I can't hit the ball out of the park like him.'
Modi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit, including with Putin, and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev among other leaders.
According to officials, the board will inform students about the schedule 10 days in advance.
'The current budgetary practice of shifting expenditures off-balance sheet in order to be seen to be meeting fiscal targets should be discontinued; additional fiscal stimulus would be imprudent; individual income tax rates should not be cut; GST rates should not be raised now,' advise Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman.
'The government should immediately enact an Act to make caste discrimination a criminal offence and lay down a procedure similar to that of the Anti-Ragging Act.' 'Ragging has nearly been eliminated because it is treated as a criminal offence.' 'Similar procedure should be used in case of caste discrimination.'
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
Even though the Health Ministry and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have been insisting that there is 'no solid evidence' of community transmission so far, the government has started scaling up health infrastructure to deal with any situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday undertook an aerial survey of affected areas in Gujarat and the adjoining Union territory of Diu to assess the devastation caused by Cyclone Tauktae.
