Sunday, 22 December 2024
Sunday, 22 December 2024
The unrelenting heatwave sweeping large parts of the country has claimed at least 110 lives and left over 40,000 people grappling with suspected heatstroke between March 1 and June 18 this year, Health ministry sources said. "The data visible may not be final submission from states. So the numbers are expected to be higher than this," an official source said.
In a setback to the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, the Patna High Court struck down its last year's decision to raise quotas for Dalits, backward classes and tribals from 50 to 65 per cent. The quotas were increased following a comprehensive survey of castes which gave a fresh estimate of the population of SCs, STs, OBCs and extremely backward classes (EBCs) in Bihar.
Supreme Court sought responses from the Centre, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and others on petitions, including those seeking the scrapping of NEET-UG 2024 exam and a court-monitored probe into the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance test. A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti issued notices to the parties seeking their responses on four separate pleas filed by the NTA seeking transfer of some pending petitions, including those concerning alleged paper leak, from the high courts to the apex court.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Centre over the alleged irregularities in NEET and cancellation of UGC-NET and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "psychologically collapsed" post-elections and will struggle to run a government like this. Gandhi said the basic concept of Modi has been demolished by the opposition in the just-concluded elections and had it been a prime minister like Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh, who believed in humility, the government would have survived.
Thirty four people belonging to Kallakurichi district have died following consumption of 'methanol mixed arrack,' Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said. The chief minister said four persons linked to the sale of poisonous arrack have been arrested so far and announced Rs 10 lakh assistance to each of the families of 34 people who died after consuming illicit arrack.
West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose said that he was apprehending a threat to his security because of the presence of the current contingent of Calcutta Police posted at Raj Bhavan in Calcutta. “I have reasons to believe that the presence of the current officer-in-charge and his team is a threat to my personal security,” Bose said.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has imposed a fine of up to Rs 1.2 lakh on eight students, who performed a play that allegedly mocked Lord Ram and portrayed the 'Ramayana' in a bad light, a fellow student said. "The play that was presented mocked Lord Ram and portrayed the Ramayana in a vulgar and derogatory manner," said a Masters student at the institute.
Police have registered a case against a man after his woman friend died when a car she was driving fell into a valley in Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district three days back, an official said. Shweta Survase (23) died after she accidentally pressed the accelerator while her car was in reverse gear.
Funds parked by Indian individuals and firms in Swiss banks, including through local branches and other financial institutions, fell sharply by 70 per cent in 2023 to a four-year low of 1.04 billion Swiss Francs (Rs 9,771 crore), annual data from Switzerland's central bank showed. Besides, the amount in customer deposit accounts and funds held through other bank branches in India also declined significantly, the data showed.
Former India pacer David Johnson has died after falling from the balcony of his fourth-floor apartment here and an investigation is being conducted to figure out if it is a case of suicide, a police official said. "We were informed that he had fallen from the fourth floor of his apartment building. He was taken to a hospital but the doctors declared him brought dead," a Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) official told PTI.
