A series of flash floods in Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh killed at least 16 people on Wednesday and damaged several residential houses, standing crops and a mini power plant, officials said.
Several people had taken shelter under the recently constructed structure while it rained. The dead, all of them men, were mostly relatives or neighbours of Jai Ram, who was being cremated at that time, officials said.
As the Centre pushes reforms in the power sector, especially for the beleaguered electricity distribution segment, several states, especially those ruled by Opposition parties, are clamouring against it. Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerela have voiced their reservations against the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003. The irony is the states opposing the amendments on the ground of threat of privatisation already have private partnerships in power supply. The proposed Bill was slated to be placed on the floor of Parliament in the Monsoon session. But it still awaits Cabinet approval amid several states complaining that they have been not consulted on the issue.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said the country is at the doorstep of economic revival on the back of accommodative monetary and fiscal policies being pursued by the central bank and the government.
Energy's exit is a cautionary tale for several foreign investors in India as close to 16 Gw of solar and wind power projects languish without any power purchase agreement, 24 Gw without transmission connectivity and around 2 Gw unilaterally cancelled by project developers.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain the appeal of Sushant Singh Rajput's sister challenging the Bombay high court order which refused to quash a first information report lodged against her on the complaint of actress Rhea Chakraborty, the late actor's girlfriend.
The police team arrived on July 28 to probe the 'abetment to suicide' case registered by the actor's father in Patna against Rhea Chakraborty and others.
"Vaccination is our big weapon in the fight against COVID-19," he said. He added that India is the fastest country globally to reach the landmark of 17 crore doses in 114 days and thanked all the states and UTs for their contribution in achieving this feat.
Facebook-owned messaging platform said Indian journalists and human right activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli sypware Pegasus.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved a five-year-long reform-based result-linked power distribution scheme worth Rs 3.03 lakh crore, for strengthening system of utilities to improve efficiency. Briefing after the CCEA meet here, Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh said, "We have done a lot for power distribution reforms. It needs to be strengthened. Today, the Cabinet has approved the new scheme worth Rs 3.03 lakh crore, including Rs 97,000 crore central outlay." He said the funds would be given to power distribution companies (discoms) to strengthen their system.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
The medical board has ruled out murder in the death of Rajput, terming it 'a case of hanging and death by suicide', the premier institute's forensic chief Dr Sudhir Gupta had said last week.
Other decisions piled up include rationalisation of GST rate slabs, correction of inverted duty on certain items and inclusion of petroleum products.
Lt Gen (retd) Tejinder Singh was arrested on Monday on orders by a Delhi court which dismissed his bail plea for allegedly offering Rs 14-crore bribe to then Army Chief Gen V K Singh for clearing file pertaining to procurement of 1,676 heavy mobility Tatra vehicles.
The remarks were made by a bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik while reserving its verdict on a petition filed by Rajput's sisters - Priyanka Singh and Meetu Singh- seeking to quash an FIR for alleged forgery and fabrication of a medical prescription for their brother.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
Twenty-four people, most of them attending a funeral, were killed and 17 others injured when the roof of a shelter at a cremation ground in Uttar Pradesh's Muradnagar collapsed on Sunday, police said.
India's most valuable company Reliance Industries was once fined for producing more than its licensed capacity, its owner and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani said on Monday as he pitched for a push to manufacturing to make the country 'Aatmanirbhar' or self-reliant.
India's power consumption grew 11.45 per cent to 55.37 billion units (BU) in the first half of October this year, mainly driven by buoyancy in industrial and commercial activities, as per government data.
The panel's report also provides a range for fiscal deficit and debt path of both the Union and states and also recommended additional borrowing room to states based on performance in power sector reforms. Finance Commission is a constitutional body that gives suggestions on Centre-state financial relations. The report of the 15th Finance Commission was tabled in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The CoWIN portal will be made available in Hindi and 14 regional languages by next week, while 17 more laboratories will be added to the INSACOG network to monitor the variants of COVID-19, the health ministry said on Monday.
The new Council of Ministers has representation from almost all the states, except Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.
The actress, who is the complainant in the case against Rajput's sisters Priyanka Singh and Meetu Singh, filed an affidavit in the HC on Tuesday opposing their plea and said the allegations against them are serious.
'What was her crime?' 'She loved a boy, looked after him through his darkest days, put her life on hold to be there for him and when he took his own life she was crucified.'
The Bihar government, realising that it does not have the jurisdiction to probe the case, is now adopting this 'illegal method' of recommending the case to be handed over to the CBI, says Rhea's lawyer.
A rise in the number of daily COVID-19 cases and mortality has been observed in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, indicating the pandemic is moving eastwards, the Union health ministry said.
'We have the technical expertise, and international collaborations. We also have robust real-time data. We are a university of pandemic management. If the ministry neglects the role of NCDC, it is the loss of the country'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the government has begun an exercise to assess the impact of the pandemic on the economy and likely contraction in GDP, even as she did not rule out the possibility of another stimulus to boost growth.
Timely, proactive, and graded strategy initiatives for effective coronavirus infection management in the country, led by the Centre and implemented by the states and Union Territories, have ensured that the actual COVID-19 caseload remains manageable.
Thackeray held a meeting on the issue and instructed authorities concerned to ensure there is no recurrence of the episode, an official statement said.
Ravi Shankar Prasad in Patna Sahib, Ram Kripal Yadav in Pataliputra, R K Singh in Arrah and Ashwani Choubey in Buxar are all having a tough time.
Making a case for an optimal fiscal stance, the Economic Survey on Friday said growth leads to debt sustainability and not necessarily vice-versa. "This is because debt sustainability depends on the 'Interest Rate Growth Rate Differential' (IRGD) i.e. the difference between the interest rate and the growth rate in an economy. "With the Indian context of potential high growth, the interest rate on debt paid by the Indian government has been less than India's growth rate by norm, not by exception," it said.
People aged 45 and above account for about 88 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in India making them the most vulnerable section, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday, a day after the government opened up vaccinations for all those in the age bracket from April 1.
Around 6,000 sugarcane farmers from across India held a massive protest in national capital New Delhi against the controversial Rangarajan Committee report. Former Army Chief V K Singh joined issue with the farmers and declared war against the government. Priyanka reports
In her complaint sent to the Bandra police in Mumbai on Sunday, Chakraborty sought that Priyanka Singh and Dr Tarun Kumar, working with Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi, be booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code for forgery, the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines.
Modi visited over 55 countries in 48 foreign trips since taking over as prime minister in May 2014.
'Bring Mossad and KGB too. There is nothing to hide. We are not opposing the CBI. When the Mumbai Police is already on the job, what will the CBI do?'
The Centre has asked states and union territories witnessing surge in new COVID-19 cases and high active caseload to continue with the strategy of 'test, track and treat' that had yielded rich dividends at the height of the pandemic and accelerate vaccination for priority population groups in districts reporting higher infections on mission mode.
As the case gets nastier by the day -- with the coverage on some news television channels getting shriller and uglier -- Namrata Thakker finds out more about the woman at the centre of it all.
Suhag has filed an affidavit in Supreme Court, accusing the minister of trying to scuttle his promotion to the appointment of army commander.
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