India

Srinagar, Oct 7 (PTI) Normal life remained affected in Kashmir for the 64th consecutive day on Monday as main markets continued to be shut and public transport off the roads, officials said.

Private transport was plying unhindered in Srinagar and other districts across the Valley, they said.

The officials said auto-rickshaws and some inter-district cabs were seen plying in the city, but the other modes of public transport were off the roads.

New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday restrained authorities from cutting anymore trees in Mumbai's Aarey to set up a Metro car shed.

A special bench comprising justices Arun Mishra and Ashok Bhushan said it will have to examine the entire thing and posted the matter for hearing on October 21 before its forest bench.

"Don't cut anything now," the bench said.

The felling of trees is being opposed by green activists and local residents.

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) Increasing awareness about investment opportunities and continuous work on improving ease of doing business will help Bangladesh attract Indian businesses, Deloitte said.

Huge investment opportunities are there in Bangladesh in areas like manufacturing and infrastructure for Indian businesses, Joydeep Datta Gupta, Partner, Deloitte India told PTI.

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) Only 10 per cent of Indian CEOs are confident about the reliability of their artificial intelligence (AI) applications, according to PwC India.

Even as AI has the potential to solve complex problems effectively at scale, badly designed applications can cause more harm than good, PwC India said in its report based on a comprehensive study conducted with over 1,000 CXOs and business decision makers from India and other regions, between May and September 2019.

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare annual Budget for 2020-21 from October 14 which, among other thing, will have to address critical issues pertaining to slowdown in growth and subdued revenue collection.

It will be the second Budget of both the Modi 2.0 government and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Srinagar, Oct 6 (PTI) In the first major political development post withdrawal of special status to Jammu and Kashmir, a 15-member National Conference delegation on Sunday met detained party leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah here.

The delegation discussed developments in the state and upcoming local body polls during the separate meetings with the two leaders. The Jammu and Kashmir government had given permission to the delegation to meet the leaders.

Sukma, Oct 5 (PTI) Security forces in Chhattisgarh on Saturday thwarted a possible naxal attack when they recovered a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) planted along a main road in Sukma district, police said.

A team of CRPF's 150th battalion and local police was out on a search operation when it unearthed the IED, weighing 5 kg, packed in a steel tiffin box, a senior official said.

The IED was buried close to a tree on the side of the road near Penta village in the Errabor police station area.

Mumbai, Oct 5 (PTI) Inspired by a film, a candidate from Latur Assembly seat in Maharashtra paid the poll deposit amount in Rs 10 coins to highlight the fact that the coin is not being accepted as legal tender by local traders.

Santosh Sabde, who is contesting as independent from this central Maharashtra town, said Election Commission officials on Friday were hesitant to accept the deposit in coins, but "acquiesced eventually".

Mumbai, Oct 5 (PTI) Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh are among the 40 "star" campaigners of the party for the October 21 assembly elections in Maharashtra, the first major political contest after the Lok Sabha outing held earlier this year.

Among other top leaders of the party who are expected to hit the hustings are former party president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party general secretary in Uttar Pradesh.

Patna, Oct 5 (PTI) RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwary on Saturday sought Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's intervention and annulment of the sedition case against 49 well known personalities who had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put a check on the growing incidence of mob lynching.

An FIR was lodged on Thursday at Muzaffarpur in Bihar for alleged sedition against the personalities who included Anurag Kashyap, Aparna Sen, Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Soumitra Chatterjee, Shubha Mudgal and Ramchandra Guha.