Breaking News, March 21

GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC), a division of GMR Air Cargo and Aerospace Engineering Ltd (GACAEL), on Monday opened a new facility at Hyderabad Airport to handle international courier and express cargo consignments.

The body of a 34-year-old man was found in a village in Wada taluka in Palghar district on Monday, after which a murder case was registered against unidentified persons, police said. An official identified the deceased as Bhiku Yadav, a resident of Khupri village. 

An officer of J&K's Public Works Department was found dead in his house in the Ramban district on Monday, police said. Police sources identified him as Assistant Engineer Jamshed Ahmad Khan.

Nongthombam Biren Singh was on Monday sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Manipur for the second consecutive term, a day after he was named as the leader of the newly-elected BJP legislators in the state. Singh was administered the oath of office by Governor La Ganesan at a ceremony at the Raj Bhavan in Imphal.

Udaipur, despite ranking third on smart city list, is under serious threat of dam breach as its age-old legacy of water conservation system is being demolished.

Eight people were injured on Monday when a snowslide hit a passenger vehicle in J&K's Kupwara district. Officials said eight passengers of a vehicle were injured when their vehicle was swept away by a snow slide into a gorge along the Sadhna Top in Kupwara district.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, saying it is ranked among the worst states in the country under the Niti Aayog's Multidimensional poverty index (MPI). "In the first multidimensional poverty index (MPI) of NITI Aayog, under the BJP rule, UP is among the three poorest states in the country; UP ranks third in terms of malnutrition rate and under the child and adolescent mortality rate category, UP has secured the worst position in the entire country. These are the badges of failure of the BJP government," Akhilesh said in a tweet in Hindi. He also posted a newspaper clipping which claimed that UP is among the poorest state in the country. The SP chief was referring to the Niti Aayog's MPI ranking report according to which Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India.

A cluster bus caught fire on Monday morning in northwest Delhi's Kanjhawala area, officials said. The information about the blaze was received around 8.30 am following which two fire tenders were rushed to the spot, fire department officials said. The fire was brought under control by around 9:00 am. No casualty has been reported, they said. A senior police officer said the bus had encountered a technical issue and when the driver came out to check, the vehicle caught fire. The vehicle had come out of the depot and there were no passengers inside the bus when it caught fire.

A Supreme Court-appointed panel to study the three farm laws, which was scrapped by Parliament in November last year, had recommended that the three legislations should not be repealed saying they would be beneficial for farmers. The report, which was submitted to the apex court on March 19, 2021, was made public on Monday. The three-member committee had also suggested many changes in the laws, including giving freedom to states to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) system legal. Anil Ghanwat, one of the members of the panel, released the findings of the report at a press conference in the national capital.

A Delhi court on Monday deferred for March 23 the order on the bail plea of former JNU student Umar Khalid in a case of larger conspiracy in connection with the north-east Delhi riots in February 2020. Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, who was scheduled to pronounce the order on Monday, posted the matter for Wednesday, saying it was not ready. The court had reserved the order on March 3 after hearing arguments from the counsel appearing for Khalid and the prosecution. During the arguments, the accused told the court that the prosecution lacked the evidence to prove its case against him. Khalid and several others have been booked under the anti-terror law in the case for being "masterminds" of the February 2020 riots, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. The violence had erupted during the protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens. Besides Khalid, activist Khalid Saifi, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have been booked under the stringent law in the case.

Scholars at the well-known Islamic seminary, Darul Uloom in Deoband, have said that they found 'nothing wrong' with teaching the 'Bhagvad Gita' in schools but added that it should not be imposed on those who are not willing. Reacting to the recent decision of the Gujarat government making the 'Bhagvad Gita' a part of the school syllabus from classes 6 to 12, Maulana Qari Ishaq Gora, the patron of Jamiat Dawat-ul Muslameen, a social organisation based in Deoband, said that the government must first get the students' consent and teach 'only those who are willing'. "It is a good thing to read and know about the holy books of all faiths. I have read the holy book of my religion, and of other religions too. I have read the 'Gita'. But I feel that it is not appropriate to impose a religion or its holy texts on anyone," he said.

Arunachal Pradesh did not report any fresh COVID-19 case on Monday, a senior health department official said. The COVID-19 tally in the frontier state remained at 64,484, he said. One more person recovered from the disease during the period, taking the total number of COVID-19 recoveries to 64,179, State Surveillance Officer (SSO) Dr Lobsang Jampa said. Arunachal Pradesh currently has nine active COVID-19 cases. The COVID-19 death toll in the state remained unchanged at 296, as no fresh fatality was reported in the past 24 hours, Jampa said.

TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee on Monday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) here for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in West Bengal. The 34-year-old Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary was seen entering the new office of the central probe agency in central Delhi around 11 am. Officials said Abhishek Banerjee's statement will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and he is expected to be confronted with some "evidences" gathered by investigators in the case. His role and links with other accused is being investigated, they said. The Diamond Harbour MP was once questioned in this case in September last year.

A suspected fraudster has been arrested for allegedly duping a businessman in Odisha's Keonjhar district of over Rs 2 crore after impersonating as a government official, police said. The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police said Himanshu Bhandari was a member of a gang that was involved in many cases of fraud, forging documents and impersonating as senior government and RBI officials. Bhandari, who was arrested from Uttar Pradesh last week, had contacted Pramod Rout in October 2019, in the guise of a Ministry of Finance official, a release stated on Sunday. The resident of Joda town was told that his insurance policy was selected under the PM National Relief Fund and the Union government would release Rs 3 crore to his account, according to the EOW. Subsequently, Rout received a fake letter on WhatsApp from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, which instructed him to clear some dues. He kept on receiving calls from different numbers and the callers warned him of freezing his accounts if he did not pay the dues. They persuaded him to transfer money in several bank accounts through the RTGS (real-time gross settlement). Rout had sent around Rs 2.35 crore in instalments from November 2019 to February 2021. When no amount was credited, the complainant started contacting those who called him, but found all the mobile numbers to be switched off, the EOW said. Bhandari was arrested from Noida in Uttar Pradesh last week and brought on transit remand to Odisha. Efforts are on to identify and arrest other members of the gang, it added.

Four employees of a gas supply agency were seriously injured when a gas cylinder kept in their residential quarters exploded at Kalwa in Thane district of Maharashtra, a civic official said on Monday. The incident occurred around Sunday midnight, said Avinash Sawant, who heads the Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC). "The four employees sustained 80-90% burn injuries and were admitted to civic-run Shivaji Hospital at Kalwa," he said. The residential quarters of the employees are located adjacent to the gas agency's office in the Shiv Shakti Nagar area.

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 470.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 6.07 million and vaccinations to over 10.79 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Monday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 470,646,813 and 6,077,482, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 10,795,324,448. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 79,728,165 and 971,162, according to the CSSE. The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (43,007,841 infections and 516,479 deaths), followed by Brazil (29,637,814 infections and 657,495 deaths). The other countries with over 10 million cases are France (24,323,239), the UK (20,243,940), Germany (18,730,442), Russia (17,327,694), Turkey (14,693,917), Italy (13,861,743) and Spain (11,324,637), the CSSE figures showed. The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Russia (357,234), Mexico (322,072), Peru (211,814), the UK (164,099), Italy (157,785), Indonesia (153,738), France (153,738), Iran (139,610), Colombia (139,452), Argentina (127,494), Germany (126,920), Poland (114,218), Ukraine (112,459) and Spain (101,703).

READ FULL STORY HERE

Prohibitory orders were clamped in Bodhan town of Nizamabad district , Telangana, on Sunday after two groups protested and pelted each other with stones over installation of a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, police said. Teargas shells to disperse the crowd brought the situation under control. A constable was injured in the stone-hurling and sent for a medical examination, said the police. According to them, the statue was placed by one group, which was opposed by another. This resulted in protests and stone-hurling. The prohibitory orders under Section 144 (of CrPC) were imposed, said Nizamabad Commissioner of Police KR Nagaraju. Police pickets were set up and preventive arrests were being made, another senior police official-in-charge of law and order told PTI. No permission was obtained for installing the statue, said the official. Additional policemen were deployed and peace was ensured, he said.

Union minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday attacked the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, in which the BJP is a senior partner, claiming "persecution of Hindus" in his Lok Sabha constituency. Singh, who is here on a visit, vented spleen over an alleged incident of communal violence in Rajaura village that he said reminded him of the plight of Kasmiri Pandits. "I could not sleep for two to three days after watching the ‘Kashmir Files’. Hindus are not a vote bank so they are like orphans. I want to ask the chief minister of Bihar whether Hindus of Rajaura are condemned to a similar fate,” said the Union minister, who had won Begusarai in 2019, defeating his nearest CPI rival Kanhaiya Kumar in a high-voltage election.

Apprehending disturbance to public tranquility and rioting in the Lakshadweep islands where Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was planning to hold a protest march on March 21, prohibitory orders were issued restricting all types of processions in the island archipelago from Sunday night onwards. The restriction was issued in view of intelligence reports that the protest march by the Lakshadweep State Committee of the Nationalist Congress Party at Kavaratti and nine other islands may disturb the public tranquility and cause rioting there, the order issued by the District Magistrate of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep said. The order said that actions of supporters of the march "clearly shows that they are instigating the common people to do acts prejudicial to the public tranquility and social harmony". The restriction will remain in effect till further orders, it said.

Bharatiya Janata Party Legislative assembly in Goa will meet on Monday in Panaji to announce the name of the next Chief Minister and the date of the swearing-in ceremony.Goa BJP President Sadanand Tanavade confirmed on Sunday that Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and L. Murugan will also be present in the meeting as BJP's central observers to facilitate the government formation in the state."The BJP legislature party meeting will be held at 4 pm at the BJP office," said Tanavade.Meanwhile, caretaker Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, also the frontrunner candidate for the CM post, said that he will accept whatever responsibility the party decides to give him."I am happy that I was able to get 20 seats for my party. BJP observers are coming tomorrow for the Party Legislature meeting. Everything will be decided in the meeting tomorrow. I'll gladly accept the responsibility given by the party," said Sawant on Sunday.The BJP will stake a claim and approach Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai to form the government.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday held discussions with his Cabinet colleagues and other top officials on the proposed animal corridors in Kaziranga National Park. The meeting deliberated on 'structural corridors' for smooth movement of the animals, Sarma said in a tweet at the end of the meeting. "Held a meeting with Cabinet colleagues & sr state govt officials on the proposed 9 animal corridors of Kaziranga National Park,” he wrote on the micro-blogging site. Ministers Atul Bora, Keshab Mahanta and Parimal Suklabaidya, among others, were present at the meeting. The state's advocate general and deputy commissioners and superintendents of police of Nagaon and Golaghat districts also attended the meeting, he said.

TMC candidate for by-election to the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday took a jibe at the BJP for labelling him as an outsider, wondering what the saffron party makes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi contesting from Varanasi. Sinha, who would be filing his nomination on Monday, told reporters at Andal Airport in Paschim Bardhaman district that he was sure the electorate of Asansol would root for Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, who “always stood for the development of Bengal”. “If for national figures like the PM, contesting the Lok Sabha polls from anywhere is accepted, then the same holds true for me as well,” the actor-turned-politician said. Bengal BJP leaders like Sukanta Majumdar and Agnimitra Paul had recently labelled Sinha as an outsider in the state. Sinha said he was touched by the love and warmth of the people of Asansol, pointing towards the cheering crowd at the airport.

Two men died of suffocation in the basement of a shop in east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar area on Sunday, police said. They said an incident was reported to them at 12.07 pm about two men getting trapped in a shop basement. The shop, RK Trading company, is located on main road in Kailash Nagar area and deals in assembling of cycle rickshaws meant for carrying goods. When police reached the shop, it met Abrar, one of the workers there. According to Abrar, he, along with Vaibhav Khaturia, the son of the owner, and another worker, had reached the shop around 10.30 am. They started their work and needed some wooden planks for assembling. So Abrar went to fetch rims, said a senior police officer. While he was gone, the owner’s 22-year-old son, and a 40-year-old Zakir went down in the basement of the shop and slipped on the makeshift stairs, made with loose planks, the officer said. When Abrar came back after 5 minutes, he saw the two men stuck inside in an unconscious state, police said. He called the police immediately and shouted for help.