Breaking News, March 15 | News Wrap of the day- HIGHLIGHT

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nomination to be Ambassador to India was confirmed by US Senate. The Senate voted 52-42 advancing Garcetti’s nomination to be US Ambassador to India.

India provided more than 291 million doses of Make-In-India vaccines to 99 countries and to UN entities. Today, India is moving ahead, pursuing the principle of 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka ka Prayas', said BJD MP Sasmit Patra at 146th IPU in Bahrain.

Like-minded Opposition party leaders will meet tomorrow at LoP Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge's office in Parliament, on Thursday to chalk out the strategy on the floor of the house.

BJP workers gherao Chhattisgarh Assembly in Raipur demanding houses for the poor under PMAY in the state. 

Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann has written to the Governor of Punjab to allow the re-allocation of portfolios of Cabinet ministers.

18 cases of H3N2 were reported in the state in January, 6 cases were reported in February and no case has been reported so far in the month of March, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Punjab informed.

Lt General Daljit Singh has been appointed as the new Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services by the government. An alumnus of the prestigious Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, he is a well-known paediatrician and neonatologist of the country, Defence officials said.

HSBC has announced acquisition of UK arm of Silicon Valley bank. In India, HSBC is a large banker to startups. They were concerned. In India, we have offered them foreign currency account through GIFT city. They were assured with support of larger banking community, said HSBC India MD.

Officials in Madagascar have recovered 34 bodies from the Indian Ocean after the sinking of a boat that was carrying migrants hoping to get to Mayotte. The boat carrying 58 passengers sailed clandestinely without going through official immigration or customs controls and sank late Saturday night off the northwest coast of Madagascar, according to Malagasy maritime authorities.

The United States recognises the McMahon Line as the international boundary between China and Arunachal Pradesh, according to a bipartisan Senate resolution which sees Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India.

 In a temporary relief for Imran Khan, a Pakistani court Wednesday ordered the police to stop till Thursday its operation outside the former prime minister's residence here to arrest him in a corruption case after a scuffle between the security personnel and his supporters. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Tuesday challenged the police operation in the Lahore High Court, requesting it to direct the government to end it.

 UGC chairman Jagadesh Kumar on Wednesday said CUET-UG will be conducted in three shifts this year instead of two.

Police seized banned gutkha and tobacco products worth more than Rs 11.66 lakh being smuggled into Maharashtra in Palghar district and arrested a man, an official said on Wednesday.  The seizure was made by local crime branch officials from a small truck at a checkpost on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway on March 13, he said. A case was registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the official added.

India's exports dipped in February for the third consecutive month by 8.8 per cent to USD 33.88 billion against USD 37.15 billion in the same month last year, according to the data released by the commerce ministry on Wednesday.

Two persons suspected to be Rohingya refugees have been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) in Ballia for allegedly staying in the country illegally, an officer said on Wednesday. The Varanasi unit of the ATS and the Ballia district police arrested the duo -- identified as Arman alias Abu Talha and Abdul Amin -- based on a tip-off.

The Enforcement Directorate is carrying out searches at 11 locations across India, including the Nagpur office of the Church of North India (CNI), in connection with a case registered in Bhopal, an ED official said on Wednesday. ED officials said the searches are tied to a cheating case registered against P C Singh, bishop of the CNI’s Jabalpur Diocese. The office of CNI, a Protestant denomination, located in the Sadar area in the city is being searched, an official said. In September 2022, Singh had been detained at the Nagpur airport in Maharashtra for questioning after an offence was registered against him. Madhya Pradesh police at the time had recovered around Rs 1.6 crore in Indian and foreign currencies from the bishop’s residence in Jabalpur. Singh was then in Germany.

Buchchi Babu, the former auditor of BRS MLC K. Kavitha, on Wednesday joined the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) probe in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy scam case. Buchchi Babu was earlier arrested by the CBI in excise case. He was later granted bail by a Special CBI court and is now being grilled by the ED. Meanwhile, Kavitha, the daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, was grilled by the ED for eight hours on March 11 in connection with the case. She is slated to appear for the second round of questioning on Thursday. Last time, she was reportedly confronted with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Pillai, who had representing the South Group which allegedly gave ickbacks of Rs 100 crore to AAP leaders which were allegedly used in the Goa Assembly polls. Pillai has reportedly said that he was an associate of Kavitha.

Parliament has been adjourned for the day amid uproar over the demand for Rahul Gandhi's apology for his 'democracy under attack' remark.

A Muslim cleric, who had been booked by Uttar Pradesh police for allegedly making inflammatory remarks, was placed under house arrest after he made a call to his supporters to march to Delhi seeking a ban on Hindutva organisations, a senior official said on Wednesday. Ittehad-e-Millat Council chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza and his three associates were placed under house arrest on Tuesday night for three days after his call for march to Delhi, District Magistrate Shivakant Dwivedi said. He said the cleric's detention could be extended if there's a need. Bareilly City Magistrate Renu Singh said Raza had not taken permission to take out the march and only informed senior officials about his plans. Police said Raza and his associates were detained based on the information provided by intelligence agencies with regard to law and order. The cleric had announced plans to start a 'Tiranga Yatra' from Bareilly to Delhi on Wednesday to hand over a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu seeking a ban on Hindutva organisations.

Sukanya Mondal, daughter of Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrta Mondal, on Wednesday did not appear before the Enforcement Directorate's Delhi office in connection with the cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal. Sources said that she has sent a letter to the ED's office expressing her inability to be present there. Incidentally, on Tuesday afternoon, Manish Kothari, the personal chartered accountant of Anubrata Mondal, was arrested by the ED sleuths at the agency's New Delhi office after marathon interrogation. The ED officials claimed that Kothari was arrested after he resorted to thorough non-cooperation during interrogation. ED sources doubt that the last moment decision by Sukanya to not appear at the agency's headquarters at the national capital might be prompted by the fear that she might also receive the same fate like Kothari.

Lok Sabha proceedings were adjourned till 2 pm on Wednesday amid slogan shouting by opposition and treasury benches over Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's "democracy under attack" remark made in the UK. As soon as the house assembled, opposition members stormed into the well holding placards and shouting slogans. They demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the alleged stock manipulation by the Adani Group. Members of the treasury benches also raised counter slogans, demanding an apology from Gandhi for his remark made during an event in the UK. Gandhi had alleged that the structures of Indian democracy are under attack and there is a "full-scale assault" on the country's institutions.

Five Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were injured when their vehicle was hit by a truck along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, police officials said. The CRPF personnel were on patrolling duty when the Jammu-bound truck hit their vehicle from behind at Mand near Tikri around 6.50 am, the officials said. They said the injured personnel- four Assistant Sub-Inspectors and a selection grade constable- were shifted to nearby hospital and their condition is stated to be “stable”. A case was registered against the truck driver under relevant sections of the law and further investigation is on, they said.

Leaders of several opposition parties on Wednesday decided to take out a protest march from Parliament House to the ED office here and hand over a complaint to the probe agency on the Adani issue. The leaders met in the office of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge in Parliament House complex to coordinate their joint strategy on the issue. The protest march will begin at 12:30 pm from Parliament House and MPs from several opposition parties will take part, party sources said. The opposition has been demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Adani-Hindenburg issue and has been stalling proceedings of Parliament over their demand. US short seller Hindenburg Research had alleged that the Adani group was "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud", and used offshore shell companies to inflate stock prices. The group had denied the allegations, calling them "malicious", "baseless" and a "calculated attack on India. 

Honduras President Xiomara Castro announced Tuesday that her government will seek to establish diplomatic relations with China, which would imply severing relations with Taiwan. The switch would leave Taiwan recognised by only 13 countries as China spends billions to win recognition for its “One China” policy. Castro said on her Twitter account that she instructed Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister Eduardo Reina to start negotiations with China and that her intention is “expand frontiers freely in concert with the nations of the world.” Castro said during her presidential campaign in 2021 that she would look for ties with China if elected, but once in power, her government backtracked on those comments. In January 2022, the foreign affairs minister told The Associated Press that Honduras would continue strengthening ties with Taiwan and that establishing a diplomatic relationship with China was not a priority for Castro.

In a first, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will take the aerial route to survey properties in the city's industrial areas for tax assessment by using drones to curb tax evasion, officials said. This will help verify details submitted by residents of their properties while paying tax, an MCD official said on Tuesday. The MCD has invited bids to conduct a drone-based survey through an agency for the purpose of tax assessment. The last date to submit a bid is March 16. This will be the first time that the MCD will be utilising drones to survey properties falling in industrial areas in the national capital. The MCD has decided to use drones after the success of a pilot project last year. On a pilot basis, a survey was carried out in Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area on Mathura Road last year, an MCD official associated with the project told PTI.

The revenue and land reforms department of the Bihar government would take up on a "priority basis" land transfer requests for projects under the MP and MLA local area development schemes, and issue clearance certificates at the earliest, a minister said. Making this announcement in the assembly on Tuesday, Alok Kumar Mehta, the revenue and land reforms minister, said that a time limit would be fixed for the issuance of the certificates. "Henceforth, MP and MLAs will not have to wait for long for getting clearance certificates involving transfer of land for initiating work under the local area development schemes," he said. Under the local area development schemes, MPs and MLAs can advise district collectors to take up development work in their respective constituencies. Concluding a debate on his department's budget for 2023-24, the minister also tabled a report submitted by the three-member commission that was set up by the Bihar government in 2017 to check paperwork of the land donated during the 'Bhoodan' movement.

A winter storm dumped heavy, wet snow in parts of the Northeast on Tuesday, causing tens of thousands of power outages, widespread school closings, dangerous driving conditions and a plane to slide off a taxiway. The storm's path included parts of New England, upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey. Snow totals by the time it ends Wednesday were expected to range from a few inches to a few feet, depending on the area. About two feet of snow fell in parts of northern New York and the Catskill Mountains, with Indian Lake in New York's Adirondack Mountains recording 31 inches (79 centimeters) of snow. Gov. Kathy Hochul said some areas could get an additional foot by Wednesday morning. “Heavy snow has impacted much of the state today- and it's not over yet,” Hochul said late Tuesday on Twitter. She said more than 74,700 households had lost power and that a windy night was anticipated. More than two feet of snow fell on some parts of New Hampshire Tuesday including the town of Bennington, which recorded 30 inches (76 centimeters), according to the National Weather Service. In Derry, New Hampshire, firefighters and police officers used chain saws, shovels and their bare hands to rescue a girl trapped under a fallen tree. Authorities said the girl had been playing outside near a parent who was clearing snow when the tree fell on her. The girl was taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday urged state government staffers, who have gone on an indefinite strike seeking restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), to call off their agitation, stressing that the government was positive and sympathetic about their demand. Speaking in the Assembly, Shinde said one can take an extreme step when there is no scope for a discussion, but in the present case the government is ready for talks with agitating employees as any decision on the pension scheme will have financial implications. “I request them (government employees) to hold a discussion and withdraw the strike. They have to think and discuss the issue with the government and withdraw the strike in view of problems being faced by people,” he said. Lakhs of state government employees went on an indefinite strike from Tuesday seeking restoration of the OPS, a defined pension scheme offering 50 per cent of the last drawn salary, hampering functioning of various services and facilities at hospitals.

Florida Republicans on Tuesday advanced a proposal to ban classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity through the eighth grade, expanding the controversial law critics call "Don't Say Gay". The bill, which was approved by a House subcommittee, still must clear another committee before moving to the full House. A separate House subcommittee approved a bill that would make it easier to sue journalists for defamation, a priority for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who frequently criticizes what he calls “legacy media.” The education measure also would prohibit school staffers or students from being required to refer to people by pronouns that don't correspond to the person's sex. Florida came under intense national scrutiny last year over the so-called Don't Say Gay law, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade. DeSantis has been a fierce defender of the law as part of his campaign against what he calls woke ideology in education, a position he has heavily leaned into as he prepares to launch his expected presidential candidacy. The proposal approved Tuesday would expand the ban of classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from prekindergarten to the eighth grade.

A presidential advisory sub-committee has recommended the federal government to extend the grace period for H1-B workers, who have lost their jobs, from the existing 60 days to 180 days so that the workers have enough opportunities to find a new job or other alternatives. “The immigration subcommittee recommends the Department of Homeland Security and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to extend the grace period for H1-B workers, who have lost their jobs, from 60 days to 180 days,” Ajay Jain Bhutoria, member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, said on Tuesday. In his presentation, Bhutoria highlighted the significant challenges faced by H1-B workers laid off from their jobs. The current 60-day grace period presents numerous hurdles, including finding a new job within a tight timeframe, complex paperwork for transferring H1-B status, and delays in processing at USCIS, he said. As a result, many H1-B workers are forced to leave the country which could result in a loss of skilled labour for the United States, he told members of the advisory commission.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed as “sheer nonsense” allegations that Ukrainians could be behind the blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, and again pointed the finger at the U.S. Putin spoke after The New York Times, The Washington Post and German media published stories last week citing unidentified U.S. and other officials as saying there was evidence Ukraine, or at least Ukrainians, may have been responsible. The Ukrainian government has denied involvement. Germany's Die Zeit newspaper and German public broadcasters ARD and SWR reported that investigators believed five men and a woman used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attack. German federal prosecutors confirmed that a boat was searched in January but have not confirmed the reported findings. Putin rejected the notion as “sheer nonsense.” "Such an explosion, so powerful and at such depth, could only be conducted by experts backed by the entire potential of a state that has relevant technologies,” he said in televised remarks.

A Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday in a “brazen violation of international law,” causing American forces to bring down the unmanned aerial vehicle, the US said. Moscow said the US drone maneuvered sharply and crashed into water following an encounter with Russian fighter jets scrambled to intercept it near Crimea, but insisted its warplanes didn't fire their weapons or hit the drone. The incident, which raised tensions over Moscow's war in Ukraine, appeared to mark the first time since the height of the Cold War that a U.S. aircraft was brought down after being hit by a Russian warplane. US President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to White House National Security spokesman John Kirby. He added that U.S. State Department officials would be speaking directly with their Russian counterparts and “expressing our concerns over this unsafe and unprofessional intercept.”

The government is mulling a new framework to develop adequate security standards for mobile phone users, with sources saying the initiative follows concerns over misuse of data and spying by pre-installed apps. The Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) in a tweet on Tuesday said security of mobile phones is important and the government is in consultation with stakeholders to develop adequate security standards. "India is emerging as a trusted player in the global value chain of electronics. Security of mobile phones and applications is important. The government is in consultation with stakeholders to develop adequate security standards," the Meity tweeted.

Federal authorities are investigating a group of at least 16 migrants who apparently were stowaways aboard a cargo ship headed to Puerto Rico and jumped into the ocean as it neared the US territory on Tuesday. The incident occurred in San Juan Bay and was recorded by onlookers as all but two migrants hurled themselves into the water and were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. Two female migrants who remained aboard the cargo ship also were detained, Jeffrey Quiñones, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told The Associated Press. The cargo ship had departed from Jacksonville, Florida, but officials suspect the migrants might have scrambled aboard the ship in waters near the Dominican Republic after abandoning a small boat in that area, Quiñones said. Authorities had not yet determined where the migrants are from or why they jumped into the water, but they were in good condition overall, he said.