NEWS

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Centre’s response on a petition filed by the Aam Aadmi Party government challenging the sweeping amendments carried out by the Centre last year making the “government” in the national capital to mean Lieutenant Governor, whose concurrence was made mandatory on all crucial decisions to be taken by the Delhi government.

Issuing a notice on the Delhi government’s plea challenging the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2021, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana directed the Centre to file its response in four weeks. The Court also agreed to list a pending petition filed by Delhi government to decide whether Centre or Delhi has the power to appoint and transfer officers in the Delhi government. A two-judge bench of the top court had delivered a split verdict on this issue in February 2019 and the same now required consideration by a three-judge bench.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday night on the Ukraine crisis as India stepped up its efforts to evacuate its citizens, mostly students, from the country under attack from Russia.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal besides senior officials attended the meeting. Modi has held a series of meetings since Sunday to spearhead India's efforts to safely bring back its nationals, asserting that this is his government's top priority.

Earlier in the day, the Indian embassy in Ukraine asked all Indian nationals to leave Kharkiv immediately to safe zones or further westwards.

Soon vehicles will have one more sticker on the windscreen to display their “fitness” status. Currently, all four-wheelers and above category of vehicles have the mandatory FASTag on their screens and the ones in Delhi have one more — colour-coded sticker indicating the fuel type.

In a draft notification, the road transport and highways ministry has proposed mentioning the details of validity of fitness (in format DD-MM-YYYY) and registration number of the vehicle.

Sources said this is aimed at better enforcement as displaying such details will help detect vehicles with expired fitness test certificates.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin slammed the union government, accusing certain BJP leaders of insensitive comments over the death of an Indian medical student in Ukraine's Kharkiv.

"Not the right time for BJP to ask why students go to small countries like Ukraine to study medicine," Stalin said.

The DMK chief also claimed that it was not the right time for propaganda.

Mentioning Naveen, the student from Karnataka who was killed in Kharkiv shelling, CM Stalin said that he is saddened by the fact that Naveen scored 97 per cent and even then was unable to clear NEET, forcing him to study in Ukraine.