Breaking News, January 19 | HIGHLIGHTS

A 30-year-old crew member of Air India was shot dead allegedly by unidentified bike-borne men near a high-end market in Noida on Friday, police said. An official told PTI that the murder could be a fallout of a gang rivalry involving the family of the deceased, who has been identified as Suraj Mann.

Seven people have been arrested by the Tronica city police for allegedly beating their co-workers brutally with sticks and iron roads two days ago, officials said on Friday.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday instructed the officials to make strong arrangements for security and respect of the VIPs coming to participate in the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple here on January 22.

China on Friday said the “settlement process” of the boundary issue should not influence the normal development of ties with India, including trade relations.

US President Joe Biden on Friday announced cancellation of USD 5 billion in debt for more than 74,000 students, many of whom are Indian Americans.
Cancelling student debt was one of the key poll promises of Biden in the 2020 elections.

Four persons who were allegedly attempting an armed dacoity in the APMC market in Kalyan have been arrested, a police official said on Friday.

Ahead of the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple, beds have been reserved at city-based, district hospitals and the medical college here, and specialists from the AIIMS have provided focused emergency response training to the doctors at healthcare institutions in Ayodhya.

Ram temple fever has gripped not just the outside world but also the prisoners of Uttar Pradesh where the inmates are eagerly awaiting the 'Pran Pratishtha' ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22 as it will be shown to them live inside their barracks.

Akasa Air on Friday became the second airline to enter into a tie-up with the upcoming Noida International Airport in Uttar Pradesh.
Akasa Air will base aircraft at the airport to operate domestic and international flights, Noida International Airport said in a statement.

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath visited Saryu Ghat in Ayodhya and inspected arrangements ahead of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony on January 22.

All government offices and institutions in Madhya Pradesh will remain closed for half a day on January 22 to celebrate the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya, officials said on Friday. The state government issued a notification late on Thursday night regarding the closure of offices till 2.30 pm on January 22, they said.

The time to surrender by the convicts is expiring on January 21.

AMRUT 2.0 is designed to provide universal coverage of water supply through functional taps to all households in all the statutory towns in the country and coverage of sewerage/septage management.

Gujarat: Congress MLA from Vijapur CJ Chavda handed over his resignation to Gujarat Assembly Speaker Shankar Chaudhary at his residence in Gandhinagar.

All government offices in Gujarat will remain closed for half a day on January 22 to celebrate the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya, officials said on Friday. A notification regarding the closure of offices till 2.30 pm on January 22 was issued by the state government late on Thursday night, they said.

The Directorate of Estates on Friday sent a team of officials to evict former TMC MP Mahua Moitra from her government accommodation, an official said. Earlier this week, the DoE issued an eviction notice to Moitra, who was expelled from the Lok Sabha last month.

ED has alleged money laundering in the purchase and sale of Rs 36 crore property on the behest of AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan.

Cold weather conditions continued to persist in Punjab and Haryana, with Bathinda and Sirsa being the coldest places in the two states on Friday. According to the Meteorological Department here, Bathinda in Punjab recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees Celsius while Sirsa in Haryana recorded a low of 4.2 degrees Celsius. Several other parts of the two states were also under the grip of cold weather and experienced dense fog in the morning.

The national capital on Friday recorded a minimum temperature of 7.1 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season average, the weather department said. Dense fog conditions prevailed in parts of the city with the Palam Observatory near the Indira Gandhi International Airport recording a visibility level of 50 metres at 5:30 am. According to the Indian Railways, 22 Delhi-bound trains were delayed by one to six hours due to fog.

President Droupadi Murmu will confer the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, 2024 to 19 exceptional children in an award ceremony which will take place at Vigyan Bhawan on 22nd January. PM Modi will interact with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar awardees on 23rd January.

Train services were affected as members of the All Kamtapur Students' Union (AKSU) blocked the railway tracks in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Friday morning to press for their demand for a separate state. The blockade at the Betgara station in the New Jalpaiguri-New Bongaigaon section of the Northeast Frontier Railway began at 7 am, officials said.

The minimum temperature is expected to remain below 10 degrees Celsius for the next few days.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday inaugurate American aircraft manufacturer Boeing's new global engineering and technology centre campus near here, official sources said. Built at a cost of Rs 1,600 crore, the 43-acre state-of-the-art Boeing India Engineering and Technology Centre (BIETC) campus is the aviation giant's largest such investment outside the US, they said.

One person was charred to death after a container truck overturned and went up in flames in Maharashtra’s Thane city in the early hours of Friday, an official said. The incident occurred around 2.35 am on the Ghodbunder Road near Hiranandani Estate, said Yasin Tadvi, chief of the Disaster Management Cell of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).

The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra resumed on Friday morning in Assam as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi along with his party colleagues set sail for Majuli, the world's largest inhabited island. Several boats took them from Nimatighat in Jorhat district to Aphalamukh Ghat in Majuli district, with special ferries transporting some of the vehicles across the Brahmaputra.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to visit Purba Bardhaman district next week, and chair an administrative meeting there, an official said on Friday. The meeting is likely to be held at Godar Math in Burdwan town on January 24. She will also chair another public function there, he said.

The rupee fell 1 paisa to 83.14 against the US dollar in early trade on Friday amid heavy selling of equities by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs). Forex traders said positive cues from domestic equity markets and lower level of dollar provided support to the Indian currency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and lay the foundation stones of several development projects in Maharashtra’s Solapur on Friday, according to an official release. At a public programme scheduled to be held around 10.45 am in the southern Maharashtra city, he will lay the foundation stones of eight AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) projects in the state worth around Rs 2,000 crore, it said.