Delhi

New Delhi, Jul 16 (PTI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday met senior opposition leaders Sharad Pawar and A K Antony here, sources said.

Both Pawar and Antony had been Defence ministers in the past.

NCP supremo Pawar and senior Congress leader Antony were invited by Singh for the meeting at his residence, the sources said.

The meeting assumes significance as it was held just days before the start of the Monsoon session of Parliament on July 19, they said. Singh is the deputy leader of the BJP in the Lok Sabha.

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) NCP president Sharad Pawar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Saturday, and both leaders held talks on a number of issues in a nearly hour-long meeting.

The Prime Minister's Office tweeted a picture of their meeting but shared no details about their talks.

In a tweet Pawar said, "Met the Hon. Prime Minister of our country Shri Narendra Modi. Had a discussion on various issues of national interest."

The meeting comes two days before Parliament's Monsoon session starts on Monday.

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) Former Union minister Arun Shourie on Thursday moved the Supreme Court to have the sedition law declared unconstitutional, arguing that it is "heavily abused" and cases are being filed against citizens for "exercising their freedom of speech and expression".

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Thursday ruled out the reopening of schools in the national capital in the near future in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Like we are seeing trends internationally that there will be a third wave of COVID-19. So, until the vaccination process is complete we would not like to take risk with children. So, there aren't any plans to reopen schools as of now," Kejriwal told reporters.

He was responding to a question about whether schools in Delhi will begin to reopen like in other states.

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) A lawyer has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the new Information Technology (IT) Rules for allegedly being in gross disregard of the fundamental rights of free speech and privacy of users of social media intermediaries such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter.

In his petition that is likely to be listed on July 21, advocate Uday Bedi has contended that the new IT rules are unconstitutional and antithetical to the fundamental principles of democracy.

Jammu, Jul 15 (PTI) Lashing out at the Centre for the "unprecedented" price hike of essential commodities, the Congress on Thursday said BJP leaders who used to protest on every fraction of price rise while in opposition are mute spectators in the government now as ministers.

Mumbai, Jul 16 (PTI) The country's economy will start witnessing a growth of 6.5 to 7 per cent from fiscal 2023 onwards, helped by various reforms undertaken by the government so far and also as COVID-19 vaccination drive progresses, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said.

He said the second wave of COVID-19 is unlikely to have a very significant on the economy.

The country's economy contracted by 7.3 per cent in fiscal 2020-21.

New Delhi, Jul 14 (PTI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held a one-hour meeting on Wednesday in Dushanbe with a focus on resolving the outstanding issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

After the talks, Jaishankar said he highlighted that unilateral change of status quo was not acceptable to India and that both sides agreed on convening an early meeting of the senior military commanders.

Mumbai, Jul 14 (PTI) In a major supervisory action, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday indefinitely barred the US-based Mastercard from issuing new credit, debit and prepaid cards with effect from July 22 for its failure to comply with data storage norms.

Mastercard, a major card issuing entity in the country, is the third company to have been barred by RBI from acquiring new customers after American Express Banking Corp and Diners Club International over data storage issue.

New Delhi, Jul 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to examine a fresh plea by a former army officer challenging the Constitutional validity of the sedition law on the ground that it causes "chilling effect" on speech and is an unreasonable restriction on free expression, a fundamental right.

A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana, A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy directed the petitioner to serve a copy of the plea to the Attorney General K K Venugopal.