Close to half the country is experiencing deficient rains and the shortage for the figure has gone up to 16 per cent.
Farmers flaunting colourful turbans, sunshades, long beards and twirling moustaches danced on tractors, distributed sweets and hugged each other to mark the occasion that seemed like a festival.
Hounded by biting cold and urgings by senior district officials, as many as 483 riot-hit families camping in Loi village on Tuesday left for "safer places".
As many as 19 people have been arrested and 25 FIRs lodged in connection with the Republic Day violence in the national capital during the farmers' tractor rally in protest against the three new agri laws, the Centre informed the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.
'If the government published the actual number, people will start crying on the road.'
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a tweet said the rights to peaceful assembly and expression should be protected both offline and online.
The locusts initially entered Rajasthan from Pakistan and from there the swarms moved towards Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab over the last few weeks and are now threatening to enter Uttar Pradesh, putting at risk the summer crop.
For Tuesday, the IMD said heavy to very heavy rains, with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places, are likely over Assam and Meghalaya.
Incessant rains pouring over parts of North India since the past few days led to more areas being marooned by swollen rivers as the toll crossed 100 in the region, with 14 more deaths in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. Heavy rains continued to batter Uttar Pradesh, where 14 more people perished in rain-related incidents, taking the toll this season to 270 in the state. Over 1,000 villages, mostly in western UP.
Farmers had threatened to block other roads of Delhi in the coming days if the new agriculture laws are not scrapped soon.
Accused Rishi Sharma, who carried a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his arrest, was held near Bulandshahr border in western Uttar Pradesh.
In the wake of farmers' tractor rally turning violent, the Centre on Tuesday decided to deploy additional paramilitary troops in Delhi to restore peace and maintain law and order, officials said.
The remarks of the apex court, which also said there is a 'peculiar lack of comprehension' about constitution of a panel, assumes importance as some of the members of the recently constituted committee to resolve the deadlock between farmers and the centre over the farm laws had earlier reportedly expressed their views on the subject.
The petitioner's plea was that the web series was a work of fiction. There was no intention of the applicant to outrage the religious feeling of any community.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Thursday ordered a CBI probe against tainted Noida official Yadav Singh, whose disproportionate assets were exposed in a raid by the Income Tax department several months ago.
India is likely to experience below-normal monsoon rainfall this year, with a 20 per cent chance of drought due to the end of La Nina conditions and the potential for El Nino to take hold, private forecasting agency Skymet Weather said on Monday.
The protesting farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been at the border points of the national capital for almost 40 days now, braving the bone-chilling cold weather in the region.
BSP VP Jai Prakash Singh Rahul Gandhi will not succeed in Indian politics because his mother was a foreigner.
"Farmers' organisations in western UP have expressed their willingness to support the Shiv Sena and we may ally with smaller parties. In Goa, efforts are on to explore a formula like MVA. Let's see if we succeed," Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said.
Singh's meeting with Shah on Wednesday had added another dimension in politics in Punjab where no party is being seen as a clear favourite in the polls, expected to be held early next year.
They are marching towards Delhi as part of the Bharatiya Kisan Union's protest call over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices
Announcing the election schedule with a strong focus on digital and virtual modes of campaigning, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said the ban on rallies, roadshows, nukkad sabhas, padayatras and vehicle rallies will be reviewed on January 15.
At least six police personnel and some people were injured in the incident, while 106 protesters were detained and released later, an officer said.
The opinion piece added that the party combines the most striking principles of three major political entities in the world -- the Likud Party of Israel, the Communist Party of China and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
Monsoon will be insufficient this year.
The seven-member committee consists of four members of Parliament and three leaders from Uttar Pradesh.
'Yogi was there, but ultimately the BJP got extremely worried and therefore Modi pitched in.'
Maharashtra recorded the highest number of cases in the country under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2021 at 3,67,218, while Mumbai was placed second among major metropolitan cities in registration of criminal offences, according to a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report.
Protesting farmer leaders in the vulnerable age group Monday said they are not afraid of coronavirus and won't take vaccine jabs, even as the second phase of vaccination drive got underway to inoculate senior citizens and those above 45 with underlying medical conditions.
The government and farmer unions have held 11 rounds of talks so far, the last being on January 22, to break the deadlock and end the farmers' protest. Talks have not resumed following widespread violence during a tractor rally by protesting farmers on January 26.
Northern and western states had the highest power demand, with Uttar Pradesh sourcing 19,082 Mw, Delhi 6,029 Mw, Rajasthan 10,395 Mw, Gujarat 16,825 Mw, and Maharashtra 23,609 Mw.
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.
Here are some of the key farmer leaders who fronted the protests.
Among the key demands of agitating farmers has been a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP). The protest reached a crescendo when thousands of farmers from Punjab and elsewhere marched towards Delhi late last year and decided to block the main entry points once they were denied entry. The Centre, on its part, held 11 rounds of discussions with the protesters and even offered to amend some of the provisions without much success. With now one of their chief demands met, farmers have now moved on to force the government to concede on MSP.
According to the police, one of the accused had made IEDs and later tested them at several places in Delhi, Rajasthan and Haldwani in Uttarakhand.
India has called the remarks by foreign leaders and organisations on protests by farmers as "ill-informed" and "unwarranted", asserting that the matter pertains to the internal affairs of a democratic country.
India's recently-enacted agri laws have the potential to increase farmers' income, but there is a need to provide a social safety net to the vulnerable cultivators, IMF's Chief Economist Gita Gopinath has said. Indian agriculture is in need of reforms, she said. There are multiple areas where the reforms are needed, including infrastructure, the chief economist of the Washington-based global financial institution said on Tuesday. The three agri laws, enacted in September last year, have been projected by the Indian government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.
This is not an election Budget in the sense that I might target the voter in the coming elections. But if you look beyond this round of state elections, and tilt the periscope to graze at the more distant horizon, see how the Narendra Modi government wishes things looking by the summer of 2024, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A large number of women from various states reached the sites of protest against the Centre's three farm laws that has been going on for over 50 days now.
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.
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