NEWS

Bombay HC on Tuesday "cancelled and confiscated" a caste certificate which it held was "fraudulently obtained" by Navneet Rana, independent MP from Amravati and imposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on her. The amount has to be paid to Maharashtra Legal Services Authority within two weeks.

The 36-year-old Rana was elected in the May 2019 Lok Sabha Elections from a reserved seat.

The HC set aside her caste certificate and a 2017 order validating the certificate of her belonging to the ‘Mochi’ Scheduled Caste and directed her to surrender her caste certificate within six weeks.

The HC bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and V G Bisht passed the judgment in a batch of three petitions, two by her opponents in 2018 and 2019, and one filed by her in 2020. It dismissed her petition observing that she had “committed a fraud on the Constitution."

The Karnataka government is in the process of drafting a legal notice to be issued to e-Commerce giants, Amazon, over the use of Kannada colours and state emblem as a design for a bikini sold by the company’s Canada arm.

Speaking to medai, Kannada and Culture minister Arvind Limbavali said the case has already been referred to chief secretary P Ravi Kumar and the DPAR secretary to initiate action against Amazon for their “insensitive” act of misusing the state emblem to market a product.

“The company has till now not come forth to give a justification over the issue. It is highly irresponsible of the company,” he said.

As COVID-19 cases show a declining trend in the Union Territory, the Chandigarh administration on Tuesday eased restrictions, allowing all shops to remain open till 6 pm and reducing the night curfew timing. The administration also allowed all restaurants, bars, gyms, clubs and spas to open with 50 percent capacity for the first time after over a month of closure.

The night curfew in the city will now be from 10 pm till 5 am. Earlier, the night curfew was in place from 6 pm till 5 am on weekdays.

At the high-level Covid review meeting chaired by Chandigarh Administrator VP Singh Badnore, it was decided to continue with a total weekend closure on every Sunday. Only the essential shops will be allowed to open but the movement of vehicles be restricted.

The Indian monsoon is likely to get much more dangerous and wetter as global warming alters the system, new research says. India has witnessed a change in monsoon pattern over the years as climate disruptions take a toll on the system in the subcontinent.
The research published in the journal Science Advances stated that scientists analysed changes in the past million years to conclude that monsoon is set for the worse. "We find that the projected monsoon response to ongoing ice melt and rising carbon dioxide levels is fully consistent with dynamics of the past 0.9 million years," the research paper said.

Led by Steven Clemens, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University, the team of researchers analysed mud samples recovered from the Bay of Bengal to reach the conclusion.