India

New Delhi, Feb 12 (PTI) Hitting out at the Congress and Left over its criticism of privatisation, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said the government will not disinvest PSEs if these political parties which are "close to China" recover about Rs 18 lakh crore losses which India incurred due to COVID-19.

Bhubaneswar, Feb 12 (PTI) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday transferred Rs 1,272 crore to the bank accounts of more than 53 lakh farmers in the state, under his governments Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme.

The chief minister, after talking to several farmers and enquiring about their activities over a video conference, said various schemes have been floated by his government to strengthen the infrastructure necessary for selling agricultural produce.

New Delhi, Feb 12 (PTI) The Lok Sabha on Friday passed a bill to amend the arbitration law, with Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying foreign arbitrators are welcome in India.

The bill seeks to ensure that all stakeholders get an opportunity to seek unconditional stay on enforcement of arbitral awards where the agreement or contract is "induced by fraud or corruption".

Prasad said the bill seeks to check fly-by-night operators who take advantage of the law to get favourable award by fraud.

New Delhi, Feb 12 (PTI) A Delhi policeman was injured after he was allegedly beaten up by some people at the Tikri border where he went on Friday to paste posters of missing farmers, officials said.

The policeman, identified as Jitender Rana, is posted at Nangloi police station. He received injuries to his head and other body parts, they said.

New Delhi, Feb 12 (PTI) A high intensity earthquake hit Tajikistan on Friday night, tremors of which were felt in Delhi-NCR and several other parts of north India.

The seismology department at first erroneously gave the epicentre as Amritsar and put the quake's depth at 19 km. It later sent a revised statement to confirm the quake was in Tajikistan. It ascribed the error to a software mistake.

According to the National Centre for Seismology (NCS), the magnitude of the quake was 6.3.

Mandla, Feb 13 (PTI) Two Naxals, including a woman, were killed in a gunbattle with police in a forest area of Madhya Pradesh's Mandla district, an official said on Saturday.

The intermittent exchange of fire took place during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, he said.

"Two Maoists, in the age group of 25 to 30, died in the encounter with police. One of them was a woman," Mandla district superintendent of police Yashpal Singh Rajput told PTI over phone.

New Delhi, Feb 13 (PTI) The Bahujan Samaj Party on Saturday supported the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha and lashed out at the Congress for its opposition to the government's measures that it said are in "support" of the poor, Dalits and other deprived communities in the union territory.

New Delhi Feb 13 (PTI) A bill to merge the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) cadre of all-India services officers with the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre was passed by Lok Sabha on Saturday by a voice vote.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2021 has already been passed by Rajya Sabha.

The statutory resolution, opposing the ordinance which the bill has replaced, was rejected by the House. An amendment too was defeated by a voice vote.

New Delhi, Feb 13 (PTI) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the Union Budget 2021-122 has set the pace for India to become Aatmanirbhar.

Replying to debate on the Budget in Lok Sabha, the minister also said the challenges of pandemic did not deter government from undertaking reforms for maintaining long term goals of the country.

The reforms undertaken will lay the path for India to become one of those fastest-growing economies in the world, she said, adding the Budget has set the pace for India to become Aatmanirbhar or self-reliant.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court on Friday asked for the government and Twitter’s response to a petition seeking greater regulation of content on social media platforms amid a debate over free speech.

The case comes during a growing standoff between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government and Twitter, after the company refused to fully comply with orders to remove certain accounts that were critical of the government’s handling of monthslong farmer protests.