The Border Security Force (BSF) fired at a Pakistani drone along the International Border in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said.
This was followed by a massive search operation in the area
The BSF troops manning the Chamliyal border post in Ramgarh sub-sector picked up a blinking red light in the air, believed to be a drone, from Pakistan around 2.30 am and fired over two dozen rounds to bring it down, they said.
The suspected drone, the officials added, subsequently returned to the Pakistani side.
The search operation was launched in the forward villages adjoining Chamliyal, Sapwal and Narayanpur border outposts to ensure that there was no dropping of any weapons or narcotics.
The open fields in Dug, Channi-Sapwal and Asampur villages are also being searched by the BSF personnel who were deployed in strength for the operation, the officials said.
Chandigarh: Opposing the Ordinance passed by Himachal Pradesh to impose water cess on hydropower projects for non-consumptive use of water for power generation, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday described the cess illegal, not binding on Haryana, and sought its withdrawal.
On the last day of the Budget session, the Chief Minister moved a resolution to oppose the Ordinance, which was unanimously supported and passed by the entire House.
It also urged the Central government to prevail upon the Himachal government to withdraw the Ordinance as it is in violation of the central Act i.e. the Inter State Water Disputes Act of 1956.
With this new levy, there will be an additional financial burden amounting to Rs 1, 200 crore per annum on partner states, out of which around Rs 336 crore will be burden on Haryana.
This new levy is not only an infringement of the exclusive rights of the state over its natural resources but will also result in additional financial burden for the generation of power resulting in the higher cost of generation of electricity, Khattar said.
“The levy of water cess by the government of Himachal Pradesh is against the provision of the Inter State Water Dispute Act of 1956. The state of Haryana through the Bhakra Beas Management Projects is already liberal in releasing 7.19 per cent of electricity of the composite share of Haryana and Punjab to HP, ” he said.
Delhi: The death toll from the earthquake that shook large parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan rose to 16 on Wednesday. The number of injured also rose to 200.
An earthquake of 6.5-magnitude shook and damaged buildings, triggered landslides and sent people running into the streets, BBC Urdu reported. The epicentre of the earthquake was a mountainous region in Afghanistan’s north-eastern area which borders Pakistan.
The temblor that struck Jurm valley also was felt as far as the Indian capital of New Delhi.
A Kabul resident told news agency AFP that they never felt such tremors in their entire life. The resident was a woman who rushed out of her fifth-storey apartment following the earthquake.
At least nine deaths were reported from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa valley. Three deaths were reported from Afghanistan. One child died in Afghanistan’s Laghman province, situated near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
“There are about 2,000 to 3,000 people in our village and we all spent the night outside under the sky. We were all scared and stayed awake the entire night,” a resident from the Jurm valley told news agency AFP.
The report by BBC said that several families were outside celebrating the Persian New Year or Nowruz when the quake struck.
The report by BBC pointed out that the remoteness and the rugged terrain of the areas affected by the temblor would slow down rescue operations. Telephone lines were affected and in Pakistan’s Swat valley, landslides blocked highways.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed disaster management agencies to help people on war footing. The tremors were felt over a 1,000-km area spanning India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, the BBC reported citing European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre.
The region struck is more prone to earthquakes because it lies at the juncture of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. Afghanistan witnessed an earthquake of 5.9-magnitude which killed over 1,000 people in Paktika province.
This is the deadliest earthquake to strike the country in nearly a quarter of a century.
Delhi assembly session over the budget row, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that “there is a bunch of illiterate people from top to bottom”.
He said, “Yesterday, the news was going on that the budget for advertisement was more than that of infrastructure. While the budget of infrastructure is Rs 20, 000 crore and that of advertisement is Rs 550 crore. There is a bunch of illiterate people from top to bottom.”
“Today the budget of Delhi was to be presented in the House. But the Centre put a hold on that and we couldn’t present the budget today (Tuesday). This is not only a constitutional crisis, it is an attack on the constitution, ” CM Kejriwal said.
He said that it is against the basic structure of the Constitution that the budget of Delhi is being sent to the Centre. However, we follow this tradition, but for the first time such an intervention has come to the fore.
Kejriwal further said, “We had the option to go to the court on the issue but we replied their four observations. Finally, the Centre has approved the budget.”
On the observation noted down by Lt Governor V.K. Saxena, Kejriwal said, “As per the constitution, LG has no such right to make any observations. The Constitution and the order of the Supreme Court say that except in three cases, the LG will approve all the files, he has no right to write on the files.”
Accusing Centre for delaying in budget approval, the CM claimed, “The officers are all scared of the Centre. They got an order from the MHA to stop the budget file for three days. Our minister called repeatedly and then file was sent at six in the evening. What did they get…this is what made Kejriwal bow down. This was done only to satisfy the ego.”
“I appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that we do not need to fight. Where there is a fight in the house, state and the country, they get destroyed. If we work together we will progress, ” Kejriwal said in his address to the House.
After the address of the Chief Minister, the House has been adjourned for Wednesday. Delhi Finance Minister Kailash Gahlot will now present the budget on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP Working President Virendra Sachdeva and Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri in a joint press conference on Tuesday alleged that Kejriwal is again intentionally telling lies to defame the central government.
Delhi BJP spokespersons Harish Khurana and Praveen Shankar Kapoor were also present during the press conference.
Virendra Sachdeva said that every year the budget proposal of the Delhi Government is sent to the Union Home Ministry for approval through the Lt. Governor and the date of the budget is given only after the approval of the Ministry but the Kejriwal government did not wait for the approval of the budget and announced the date itself.
He said that Kejriwal kept patting the back of his government in the assembly session after Lt. Governor’s address but during the session he did not mention that there were some objections on the budget which had to be rectified and resent.
Guwahati: Two more aides of pro-Khalistan self-styled radical preacher Amritpal Singh were brought to Assam on Tuesday and lodged at the Dibrugarh central jail, a top police source said.
A team of Punjab Police arrived at Dibrugarh’s Mohanbari airport on Tuesday morning with the two arrested aides whose identities have not been revealed, according to the source.
Harjit Singh arrived at the jail at around 8.30 a.m. in the morning.
When IANS asked Prasanta Kumar Bhuiyan, IG (Law & Order) of Assam Police, as to where Harjit Singh had first landed in Guwahati or the Jorhat Air Force base, he said: “I am not aware of whether Amritpal Singh’s uncle and other aides were brought to Dibrugarh today or not.”
Notably, Bhuiyan reviewed the security measures at Dibrugarh central jail on Monday.
He held several meetings with district police officers and prison authorities.
Earthquake tremors were felt in Punjab and Chandigarh. Along with this, there is news of earthquake shocks felt in Pakistan’s Punjab as well. Currently there is no news of any kind of damage. After the shocks of the earthquake, people came out of their houses in panic. It is being told that the tremors of the earthquake were felt for several seconds. Earthquake tremors were felt in Delhi-NCR at around 10.15 pm. Earthquake tremors were also felt in UP, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Bihar. Its magnitude is said to be 5.5. The epicenter of the earthquake was Afghanistan. Apart from India, earthquake shocks were also felt in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and China.
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Monday extended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s judicial custody till April 3, by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy case.
On March 17, the court extended Sisodia’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody in the same case till March 22.
After the CBI arrested Sisodia on February 26, the ED also arrested him in the same case on March 9.
On March 6, Special Judge M.K. Nagpal of the Rouse Avenue Court sent Sisodia to 14 days of judicial custody in CBI case, which expired on Monday. He is lodged in the national capital’s Tihar jail.
The court will also hear Sisodia’s bail application on Tuesday, in the same case being probed by the CBI.
During the last hearing in the ED case, the court was apprised by the ED that important details have come up during Sisodia’s custody and he had to confront with other accused persons.
The probe agency had informed the court that voluminous data from Sisodia’s email and mobile, etc. is also being forensically analysed.
Sisodia’s counsel, however, had opposed the central agency’s remand plea saying that there is not a whisper from the agency regarding the proceeds of the crime, which is fundamental to the case.
His lawyer had further contended that there is no justification to seeking extension of custody and that Sisodia was confronted only with four people during his earlier custody of seven days.
The ED had said that they need to unearth the modus operandi, the entire scam and confront Sisodia with some other people.
ED’s counsel Zoheb Hossain, while claiming that Sisodia was part of the “money laundering nexus” had said that the movement of tainted money through hawala channels was also being probed.
Hossain had submitted that the policy was formulated to ensure that certain private entities get huge benefits and that one of the biggest cartels was made to operate 30 per cent of liquor business in Delhi.
Referring to the meetings between restaurants’ association and Sisodia, the had ED alleged that relaxations were afforded to the restaurants in excise policy like reducing the legal age of drinking and other things.
The central agency had argued that Sisodia had destroyed the evidence.
“Within a span of one year, 14 phones have been destroyed and changed, ” the agency had claimed.
“Sisodia has used phones purchased by others and SIM cards that are not in his name so that he can use it as a defence later. Even the phone used by him is not in his name, ” the ED counsel had submitted.
He (Sisodia) has been evasive from the start, the ED had alleged.
There was a conspiracy behind framing the excise policy. The conspiracy was coordinated by Vijay Nair, along with others and the Excise policy was brought out for extraordinary profit margin for wholesalers, the ED had argued in the court.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) President Harjinder Singh Dhami has strongly condemned the excesses being done by the police against Sikh youths in Punjab for the past few days.
Harjinder Singh Dhami has said in a statement that it is not right to deliberately target innocent Sikh youths in Punjab.
The statement of the SGPC president on the backlash of Police action whereupon conducted flag marches and searches across Punjab in their manhunt for radical preacher Amritpal Singh, arresting 34 more supporters and shifting four men in custody to a jail in far-off Assam.
“It is not in the interest of the state to arrest the youths by creating fabricated stories without any charge. Punjab has seen many eras and it is very unfortunate that the present government of the state has added another chapter to the situation”, said Dhami.
SGPC President clearly said that the Sikh youth of Punjab have contributed a lot to the progress of not only the state but also the country and the world. But it is sad that Sikh youths are looked at with suspicion repeatedly. The present government of Punjab is also making a similar mistake, he said.
He said that if any fault of someone comes to light, then legal action can be taken against him.
“The government should not create an atmosphere of terror in the state in the guise of any phenomenon. It would be a big mistake of the government to present the practice of consciousness in the Sikh youth as a crime”, said Dhami.
Advising the Punjab government to stop such actions, SGPC President said that if the government is sincere and serious, it should provide employment opportunities to the youth of Punjab. He also said that misuse of government machinery only for political gain is not justified.
A Sikh hardliner outfit ‘Damdami Taksal’ chief Giani Harnam Singh Dhuma in a statement issued said that Punjab Government should forthwith stop to harass Sikh youths in Punjab by slapping false cases as number of Sikh were being arrested.
He said all the arrested Sikh youth should be released unconditionally as such action of Punjab police inviting disturbance in the State and would create law and order problem.
He urged the Punjab chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to intervene in the issue to ensure the release of arrested Sikh youths and status of Bhai Amritpal Singh. He asked the chief Minister that Bhai Amritpal Singh should be handed over to Sikh community without further delay.
At the same time Dhuma urged all the Sikh outfits to come on a single platform to raise voice in favor of Bhai Amritpal Singh.
The Tulip Garden in Srinagar, the Asia’s largest, where 1.5 million flowers bloom, opened for the public on Sunday.
Formerly known as Siraj Bagh, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden was opened in 2008 by then chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad to boost tourism in the Valley.
Spread over an area of about 30 hectares the garden is located in Zabarwan foothills surrounding famous Dal lake. .
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha at the opening ceremony said that about 68 varieties of tulips will bloom in the garden this year. He said that last year the garden witnessed 3.60 lakh visitors, which is the highest since it was opened.
The LG expressed hope that this year’s visitor footfall surpasses last year’s numbers.
A new tulip garden will also be opened in April in Sanasar area of the Jammu region in which 2.75 lakh tulips of 25 varieties will bloom.
New Delhi: India recorded a single-day rise of 918 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours pushing the active cases to 6, 350, according to the Union health ministry data on Monday.
Meanwhile, the country also reported four Covid deaths — two in Rajasthan, and one each in Karnataka and Kerala. With this, the total death toll stands at 5, 30, 806.
Recovery of 479 patients in the same period took the cumulative tally to 4, 41, 59, 182. Consequently, the recovery rate stands at 98.80 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Daily Positivity rate has been pegged at 2.08 per cent, while the Weekly Positivity Rate stands at 0.86 per cent. Also in the same period, a total of 44, 225 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall tally to over 92.03 crore. As of Monday morning, a total 220.65 crore vaccines have been administered against Covid that includes 1, 246 doses in the past 24 hours, said the ministry.
