Indian Sub-continent

New Delhi, Mar 20 (PTI) About 250 major students' organisations, youth bodies, and farmers' Unions, will participate in a two-day conference against unemployment which will be held this week here.

The National Employment Conference will see Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai as its chief guest and will be held on March 23 and 24 inside the Shah Auditorium.

It will be organised by Desh Ki Baat organisation, a body founded by Rai.

New Delhi, Mar 21 (PTI) A Supreme Court-appointed panel to study the three farm laws, which was scrapped by Parliament in November last year, had recommended that the three legislations should not be repealed saying they would be beneficial for farmers.

The report, which was submitted to the apex court on March 19, 2021, was made public on Monday.

The three-member committee had also suggested many changes in the laws, including giving freedom to states to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) system legal.

Guwahati, Mar 21 (PTI) The Opposition staged a walkout in the Assam Assembly on Monday over alleged horse trading of MLAs by the ruling BJP ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.

As soon as the House assembled in the morning, the Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia of the Congress said the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and the ruling BJP were indulging in "undemocratic practices" by allegedly trying to "buy" MLAs to win both the Rajya Sabha seats from Assam for which elections will be held on March 31.

New Delhi, Mar 21 (PTI) The Centre on Monday said of the 1,080 industries causing pollution in Ganga in five states, 190 have been closed while 165 are still not complying with norms.

Of the 165, closure orders have been issued to nine and show-cause notices has been served to 156 grossly polluting industries, it said.

Responding to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Jal Shakti Bishweswar Tudu said about 280.17 million litres per day (MLD) effluents is being discharged into river Ganga main stem having BOD load of 9.68 tons per day.

Kanpur: What a novel way to shoo away the monkey menace on the Central  railways station! It was conceived by deputy CTM Shashank Sekhar Upadhaya. The cut out of the langoor with a voice device has been placed at different places around the station area. It worked adequately. 

There were reportedly complaints galore over this kind of menace. Sometimes even the monkeys injured the passengers.

Kanpur: In a bizarre incident, a bunch of people attacked and assaulted policemen gone for questioning in a village area here. 

The police received a clue about a fight in the area and reached there to examine the matter when they were attacked.

While a case has been filed against 27 people, one of them has been arrested.

The accused not only assaulted the police but also took them as hostages.

As soon as the police team received the information, they reached the spot and rescued the captured cops.

COLOMBO, March 20 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan police said on Sunday two men collapsed and died while waiting in separate queues to secure fuel amid sky-rocketing prices leading to record inflation.

The men, in their seventies, died while they were waiting for petrol and kerosene oil in two different parts of the country, said police spokesman Nalin Thalduwa in commercial capital Colombo.

For weeks people have been queuing up at pumps, often for hours, and the country has been under rolling power cuts.

DHAKA, March 20 (Reuters) - At least five people died and dozens went missing after a small ferry packed with passengers collided with a cargo vessel and sank on Sunday on the Shitalakhsya River in central Bangladesh, the latest waterway tragedy to hit the nation.

Five bodies have been recovered after the ferry sank as it departed from the industrial district of Narayanganj, about 20 km (12.43 miles) from the capital Dhaka, to Munshiganj, said local police official Mohammad Moniruzzaman.

Kanpur: An eleven-year-old girl drowned and two men went missing while bathing in River Ganga in Maharajpur area here. Three other minors were rescued, police said on Sunday.

Teams from the State Disaster Response Force and divers from the Provincial Armed Constabulary have been pressed into service to trace and rescue the missing youths, they said.

Expressing grief over the incident, Uttar Pradesh caretaker Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked senior officials to attend to the rescue operations personally and ensure adequate medical treatment to those rescued. 

Pratapgarh (UP) Mar 20 (PTI) A 20-year-old woman was allegedly raped inside a public toilet located near a parking stand at the Pratapgarh railway station, police said on Sunday.