NEWS

Ludhiana police in collaboration with an NGO has set up a 'Girl Child Day Care Facility' for the migrant labourers. Children of migrant labourers are soft targets of sexual harassment as they are left alone at home. First of its kind, this facility has been set up to take care of the girl child whose parents are off to work. Provided at free of cost, the facility takes care of the education and food of the children. One of the migrant labourer said, 'We are tension free as everything is taken care of here, from education to safety.'

The Union Health Secretary has written to Maharashtra, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal urging them to take steps to curb the spike in coronavirus cases. As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, these states have been reporting an upsurge in the number of daily new coronavirus cases in recent days.

The states have been advised to maintain a 'strict vigil' and to take steps to keep a check on the rising cases, especially in view of the new strain of the virus being observed in certain countries which has also been reported in a few states in India.

As per the Ministry, these four states comprise of 59% of total coronavirus cases in the country.

This comes on a day when India reported 20,346 new coronavirus cases, 19,587 discharges, and 222 deaths in last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry. The total infection tally in India stands at 1,03,95,278, while the active cases are at 2,28,083. The death toll in India due to coronavirus is 1,50,336 while as many as 1,00,16,859 people have recovered from the virus.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President JP Nadda will launch a campaign "ek mutho chaal" (a handful of rice) in Bardhaman district in West Bengal on Saturday (January 9), sources informed.

The state is due for its Assembly elections by the middle of this year. JP Nadda will visit the residence of farmers and will take "anna daan" from them. After this, he will do a roadshow in the district. Sources further said the BJP plans to directly connect with the farmers of West Bengal through the "anna daan" programme.

The BJP leaders and workers will visit all the villages of West Bengal and will hold this programme. During the visit, JP Nadda will hold a "Krishak Suraksha Gram Sabha" at Katwa in Bardhaman. Farmers will take part in this programme where Nadda will speak with the farmers and will also inform about the initiative taken by the Union government in the last six years for the welfare of farmers, sources added.Sources further said in his two-day visit, Nadda will hold many public programmes as well as meet the party leaders to review the West Bengal poll preparation.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday urged PM Narendra Modi to restart the sanctioned and stalled railway projects of the state on priority.

He said the majority, around 42% of the New Rewari-New Madar section of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) crosses Rajasthan for Gujarat. “We have demanded that a railway station should be made in Bhiwadi town as it has a Japanese investment zone, the first-of-its-kind in India, with around 6521 industrial units," he said.

Speaking about the virtual inauguration of WDFC by PM Modi, the Rajasthan CM said, “A number of projects of Rajasthan, which were sanctioned and had been started are stalled due to some reasons. The PM should take them up on priority and restart the projects."