Tag: India news today

Unplanned lockdown disaster continues to haunt country: Rahul Gandhi | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that lakhs of families have suffered pain due to the government‘s “incompetence and myopia” as the unplanned lockdown continues to haunt the country.
The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 24 last year to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Gandhi has been attacking the government for the lockdown, saying the poor and migrants have suffered due to it.
“The unplanned lockdown disaster continues to haunt the country,” he said on Twitter.
“Condolences to the lakhs of families being punished with indescribable pain for GOI’s incompetence and myopia,” he added.
Gandhi also cited a media report quoting a UNICEF study that due to COVID-19, India is likely to see the highest rise in child mortality and maternal deaths among the six most populous South Asian countries.

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One new Covid-19 case in Andamans | India News – Times of India

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PORT BLAIR: One more person tested positive for Covid-19 in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, pushing the tally in the union territory to 5,036, a health department official said on Friday.
Two more persons recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of Covid-19 recoveries to 4,969, the official said.
The archipelago now has five active Covid-19 cases and all the five patients are in South Andaman district, he said.
The Covid-19 death toll remained at 62 as no new fatality due to the infection was reported in the last 24 hours.
The union territory administration has so far tested 2,99,048 samples for Covid-19 and the test positivity rate is 1.68 per cent, he said.
Altogether, 12,303 health care and frontline workers have been inoculated in the union territory till Thursday, and 1,865 people above 45 years of age have received the vaccine shots, the official said.
A total of 4,169 health care workers have also received the second dose of the vaccine.

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Nearly 40k coronavirus cases in India: Govt | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: India saw 39,726 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, the highest single day rise recorded so far this year, taking the nationwide Covid-19 tally to 1,15,14,331, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
Registering an increase for the ninth day in a row, the total active caseload has reached 2,71,282, which now comprises 2.36 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 96.26 per cent, the data stated.
The daily rise in infections (39,726) was the highest recorded in 110 days, while the death toll increased to 1,59,370 with 154 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
As many as 41,810 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours on November 29.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,10,83,679, while the case fatality rate has further to 1.38 per cent, the data stated.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
According to ICMR, 23,13,70,546 samples have been tested up to March 18 with 10,57,383 samples being tested on Thursday.

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US Def Secretary scheduled to begin India visit Friday; focus on expansion of strategic ties | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Ways to further strengthen India-US strategic ties, boosting cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in the face of growing Chinese assertiveness and the Afghan peace process are expected to be the key focus areas in talks between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and US Defence Secretary Lloyd J Austin on Saturday, people familiar with the development said Thursday.
Secretary Austin is scheduled to arrive here late Friday afternoon as part of his first overseas trip that also took him to Japan and South Korea.
The US Defence Secretary is expected to meet National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
His visit to India, also first by a top member of President Joe Biden‘s cabinet, came days after the top leadership of the Quad grouping of India, the US, Japan and Australia vowed to expand their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.
Cooperation under bilateral and Quad framework is expected to be discussed in the talks, said the people cited above.
Ahead of the high-profile visit, Senator Robert Menendez, the Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a letter to Austin, urging him to take up with Indian leaders the issue of New Delhi procuring Russian S-400 missile defence system.
In October 2018, India signed a USD 5 billion deal with Russia to buy five units of the S-400 air defence missile systems, notwithstanding a warning from the Trump administration that going ahead with the contract may invite US sanctions.
Recently, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia.
On March 10, the defence ministry said India and the US are expected to discuss ways to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation and exchange views on regional security challenges and common interests in maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific during Austin’s visit.
The evolving situation in the Indo-Pacific region in the wake of China’s increasing military muscle flexing has become a major talking point among leading global powers. The US has been favouring making Quad a security architecture to check China’s growing assertiveness.
The visit is also taking place at a time when India and China are looking to achieve the objective of disengagement from all friction points in eastern Ladakh after completing withdrawal of troops in the North and South banks of Pangong lake areas.
Austin and Singh had a telephonic conversation on January 27.
The Indo-US defence ties have been on an upswing in the last few years.
In June 2016, the US had designated India a “Major Defence Partner”.
The two countries have also inked key defence and security pacts over the past few years, including the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016 that allows their militaries to use each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies as well as provides for deeper cooperation.
The two sides have also signed COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018 that provides for interoperability between the two militaries and provides for sale of high end technology from the US to India.
In October last year, India and the US sealed the BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) agreement to further boost bilateral defence ties. The pact provides for sharing of high-end military technology, logistics and geospatial maps between the two countries.

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SC to hear petition against electoral bonds next week | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: On the first day of the Supreme Court permitting oral mentioning by advocates to seek urgent listing of pleas nearly a year after it stopped physical hearing due to Covid-19, lawyer Prashant Bhushan made the most on Thursday by convincing the court to hear two cases — electoral bonds and detention of Rohingya Muslims in Jammu — next week.
Bhushan was the first to mention before the bench led by CJI S A Bobde, who then had to instruct court staff to allow others also to mention for urgent listing of important matters. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta followed suit, got a matter relating to possible jailing of a major general listed, and even got relief for the senior Army officer.
Bhushan said though the main petition challenging the government’s decision to periodically issue electoral bonds was pending, he was moving a fresh application seeking stay of the government decision to issue fresh electoral bonds from April 1. He said the court had earlier not stayed issuance of electoral bonds but had asked political parties to submit details of their accounts.
He said electoral bonds were used by the corrupt to park ill-gotten money with political parties and backed his submission by mentioning that both Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Election Commission had branded electoral bonds as detrimental to democracy.
On the Rohingya Muslims issue, Bhushan said they were refugees and it was illegal on the part of Jammu police to detain them. He said the worrisome development was the proposal to deport them back to Myanmar, where they would face genocide, especially since the Army has taken over through a coup.
Mehta said he had no objection for early hearing of the plea on Rohingyas but it would be wrong to suggest that their detention in Jammu was illegal. The SC said it would hear the electoral bonds plea on Wednesday and the Rohingya issue on Thursday next week.

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Parties misuse reservation policy for political gain, AG tells Supreme Court | India News – Times of India

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Expressing concern over political parties using reservation policy for vote-bank politics, attorney general KK Venugopal on Thursday told the apex court that it is unfortunate that such promise on the eve of elections is not treated as bribe.
Addressing a Constitution bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat on reservation for socially and educationally backward classes including quota for Marathas in Maharashtra, Venugoupal said states are allowed to identify backward classes for purpose of reservation.
He, however, submitted that it had become a regular feature of electoral politics to whip up sentiments of a particular caste or class on the eve of election by political parties by promising to include it within the ‘reserved’ category. “This unfortunately is not considered a bribe. It is very unfortunate,” he said.

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Vikas hobe, chakri hobe, Didir khela sesh hobe: PM Modi in Bengal | India News – Times of India

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PURULIA: Resuming his campaign in Bengal with a new take on Trinamool’s “khela hobe” catchphrase and more than a smattering of Bengali, PM Modi on Thursday declared “vikas hobe, chakri hobe (there’ll be development and jobs)” to voters in Purulia before delivering the punchline: “Didi-r khela sesh hobe (Didi’s game will be up) and Bengal’s journey to development will begin on May 2”.
The PM peppered his “development” narrative with references to Trinamool’s “appeasement politics” and its alleged culture of “tolabaazi (extortion)” and “cut money”.
“Otyachar onek korechho, Didi. Bhoi dekhanoi tomar ostro. Rukhe darabe ebar Banglar manush. Ma Durgar ashirbade korbe tomay porasto (You have tortured people enough. Your only weapon is fear-mongering. People of Bengal will rise in opposition. They will defeat you with the blessings of Ma Durga),” he said at Hutmura in Jangalmahal.

“I know how your rights and benefits are being denied. If Didi had any concern for the backward communities, she wouldn’t have turned this region into a hotbed of Maoists. People in Bengal know how coal mafia and the sand mafia are getting indulgence here.”
As in his first Brigade rally in Kolkata on March 7, PM Modi said Trinamool even distribution of relief in the wake of the devastation wrought by cyclone Amphan last year wasn’t spared by Trinamool’s alleged system of taking cut money. “They (Trinamool) wanted the victims to deposit commission in the party office first to get relief materials,” Modi said. “Under this process, you can get relief even if you didn’t face any loss. We believe in direct benefit transfer (DBT). They believe in ‘transfer my commission’, which stands for TMC. This is why Ayushman Bharat or the PM Kisan Nidhi schemes were not implemented, because ‘TMC’ doesn’t apply in those projects.”
The PM accused Trinamool of never considering Adivasis, backward classes and Dalits, who constitute a large section of voters in the Purulia belt, as its own. “These sections have been the worst victims of the cut-money culture and tolabaazi by the party,” he said.
Questioning why water-starved Purulia didn’t have a water project yet, PM Modi said these were issues BJP would address. “The khela (game) over recruitment of teachers will also be done away with.”
Modi reminded the gathering that 36 lakh people in Bengal had received free LPG connections under the Bharat Ujala Yojana. “We have also increased MSP for forest produce. We have made huge allocations in the Budget for the education and employment of Adivasis and Dalits. Hundreds of Eklavya schools are being opened.”
Targeting CM Mamata Banerjee for her “stand” on issues concerning national security, the PM said, “People of Bengal have a strong memory. Bengal remembers who accused the Army of plotting a coup, and whose side you (Mamata) took during the Pulwama attack. People remember the stand you took when Delhi police officer Mohan Chand Sharma was killed in the Batla House encounter. A Delhi court has since exposed the forces behind it. The court sentenced one of the accused to death for killing the officer. These people (Trinamool) had sided with the terrorists and questioned the encounter.”

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SC panel on agriculture laws may support ‘legal guarantee for MSP’ demand | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: The SC appointed committee on farm laws may consider backing protection for MSP in its report with several unions, pitching for stronger protection of a floor price.
There are indications that the three-member panel may speak favourably on the MSP demand — though its exact formulation is as yet unclear — as most unions who appeared before it or submitted their views strongly called for a legal guarantee to MSP to procure all crops.
In their representations they are learnt to have told the panel that any decision pertains to giving legal guarantee to the MSP may end the ongoing agitation as the protestors would not like to return to their villages empty handed.
Even RSS-linked organisations such as Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (MSP) too have publicly spoken in favour of legal guarantee to MSP, besides submitting their other suggestions to the government. The SC-appointed panel is expected to submit its report by March 20.
Jai Kisan Andolan (JKA), on Thursday launched ‘MSP loot’ calculator to show losses incurred by farmers. Though the government’s figures show increase in procurement footprints this year during the ongoing ‘Kharif Marketing Season’ (KMS), the organisation led by Yogendra Yadav used official data to clarify how farmers actually incurred losses as they were forced to sell their crops much below MSP.
Terming it as the “loot of farmers”, Yadav said, “If the same trend of sale below MSP price continues and the government does not interfere, then in this year itself the farmers will be looted of Rs 870 crore.”

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Space diplomacy: India plans space pact with Saudi, pushes key projects with Quad nations | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: To boost space diplomacy, India and Saudi Arabia have held discussions on initiating cooperation in space science and technology, and explored the possibility of a space pact. Also, New Delhi has given a boost to space ties with Quad countries — the US, Japan and Australia — in the last few weeks.
Isro had held separate meetings or talks with Japanese space agency JAXA, Nasa and Australian Space Agency (ASA) recently to give push to several key programmes like joint lunar mission, earth imaging satellite programme (NISAR), navigation satellite and establishing a transportable terminal in Australia to help the Gaganyaan mission.
On Wednesday, Isro chairman K Sivan and president of board of directors of the Saudi Space Commission, Prince Sultan bin Salman, led the space meeting on virtual mode. “Both had discussions on initiating space cooperation in areas of mutual interest. The possibility of concluding a country-level MoU for space cooperation was also discussed,” an Isro statement said. In December last, India’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ausaf Sayeed had held talks with Prince Sultan bin Salman in Riyadh to boost cooperation in remote sensing, satellite communication and satellite-based navigation projects.
On March 11, Isro and JAXA agreed on collaborative activities for rice crop area and air quality monitoring using satellite data during a meeting between the Isro chief and JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa. The two agencies reviewed ongoing programmes in earth observation, lunar cooperation and satellite navigation, and also agreed to explore opportunities for cooperation in space situational awareness and professional exchange programme. Both space agencies are specifically working on sharing earth observation data and establishing Isro’s NavIC (India’s constellation of eight navigation satellites in space) reference station in Japan.
Isro had on March 8 flagged off a key component of the joint Isro-Nasa SAR (NISAR) mission to the US to fast-track the earth imaging satellite project, which will help measure dynamic changes on the earth’s surface, natural resources and hazards. Isro had shipped the S-band synthetic aperture radar to Nasa’s JPL in California so that it could integrate it with its L-band radar and sent the module back to India for its launch, which is likely in 2023. Both agencies are also working for an implementing arrangement to carry Nasa’s Laser Reflectometer Array (LRA) in Chandrayaan-3 mission and exploring collaboration in the human spaceflight programme.
On February 17, Isro and ASA signed an amendment of the ‘2012 India – Australia Inter-Governmental MoU for cooperation in Civil Space Science, Technology and Education’ in the presence of envoys from both countries. The amendment makes the Department of Space and ASA as executive organisations. Both sides also reviewed the status of activities in earth observation, satellite navigation, space situational awareness and establishment of the transportable terminal in Australia to support India’s first manned mission (Gaganyaan) to space.

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Congress betting on its Chhattisgarh model to pull off upset over BJP | India News – Times of India

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GUWAHATI: The Congress’s strategy for the forthcoming Assam elections takes a leaf out of its campaign for the 2018 Chhattisgarh elections. At that time too, the party had made several promises to the electorate, the most effective of which was farm loan waiver. But the strategy in Assam is on a different level as this time the party isn’t making promises but offering guarantees. And the chief architect of this is Naresh Arora of Mohali-based DesignBoxed, who was also the brain behind the Chhattisgarh campaign.
Even without offering guarantees, the grand old party had managed to dislodge the 15-year-old Raman Singh-led BJP government in Chhattisgarh. So, the party is hoping that Arora’s magic would work in Assam too.
The concept of a poll guarantee is new in India, and this seems to have been Arora’s suggestion to the Congress high command. The party’s national general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, later announced this at a rally in Tezpur. Arora, therefore, is likely to play a key role in finalising the Congress manifesto.
While Arora didn’t speak to the media, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel said the party’s guarantees are given by the top leadership and not ‘jumlas’. “It will surely surprise all pollsters and political commentators, just like the Chhattisgarh results. We are winning the elections. We will show that the target Amit Shah has set for BJP is going to be our tally — over 100,” Baghel said, taking a dig at the NDA’s claim of winning over 100 of 126 seats in Assam.
Baghel is in the BJP stronghold of upper Assam as Congress observer. He has called in Arora and his team of experts there.
Expressing confidence in the seven-party grand alliance called Mahajot, Baghel said the Congress coalition with AIUDF, BPF, regional and Left parties is “very strong”. “Together, we are defeating the BJP alliance convincingly. Plus, we are giving our voters what they need the most — no CAA, 200 units of free electricity, Rs 2,000 monthly income guarantee to homemakers, Rs 365 as daily wage to tea garden workers, and five lakh jobs,” Baghel said, adding that Congress will implement everything like they did in Chhattisgarh.
The first phase of Assam elections is scheduled on March 27. And Congress is hoping to pull off a major upset over BJP. But saffron party has also pulled out its big guns, calling 20 star campaigners to the state, the most prominent of whom are Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP national president J P Nadda, Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal and key strategist Himanta Biswa Sarma.

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