NEWS

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot proposed in the state budget for 2022-23, which he presented on Wednesday, that the government would reintroduce the old pension scheme for government officials.

“Other states should also take a cue from the announcement. If an employee gives 30-35 years of his service to the government, he should get security for his old age,” he said later. The chief minister said all employees appointed on and after January 1, 2004 will also get the benefit of old pension scheme.

With an eye on Rajasthan pollsnext year, he announced a slew of people-friendly proposals and also presented the state’s first-ever separate agriculture budget in a bid to win farmers’ support.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea seeking cancellation of offline exams for Class 10 and 12 to be conducted by all state boards, CBSE, ICSE and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). Rejecting the appeal, the bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar observed that such petition creates "false hope" and "confusion" all over.

"This creates not only false hopes, it creates confusion all over to students who are preparing," said the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.

"Let the students do their job and let the authorities do their jobs," the bench observed.

The plea, filed by Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, an advocate and child rights activist, along with the Student Union of Odisha-NYCS,  had sought directions to the CBSE and other education boards, which have proposed to hold board examinations for classes 10 and 12 in offline mode, to devise alternate modes of assessment.

NCERT pattern following PIL plea was heard in the Madras High Court on Wednesday. The PIL plea was filed by the Tamil Nadu government to introduce the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) pattern of education in state board schools.

The plea to include NCERT in state schools was rejected by the first bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy. The writ petition was filed by J A Joseph, who claimed himself as the founder-president of J J Party, not yet registered by the Election Commission of India.

He prayed for a direction to the state educational authorities to adopt the NCERT syllabus from elementary to higher secondary in all government and government-aided schools to enhance education to meet all central and other state governments entrance, qualifying and employment exams, based on his representations.

Amid the latest flare-up in the Ukraine crisis, Russia said Wednesday that while the sanctions imposed by the West will lead to fear and mistrust affecting, among other things, the international banking system, Moscow will look forward to go ahead with the implementation of its "big plans" in defence with India as the only country, which is "honest" in sharing the technology with it.

India has so far not condemned Russia's actions and foreign minister S Jaishankar, while participating in a panel discussion in Paris Tuesday, said a lot of what's happening on the Ukraine issue is derived from Nato expansion, along with post Soviet politics and Russia-West dynamics. At the EU Indo-Pacific ministerial hosted by France, Jaishankar sought to focus on the challenge posed by China to the "global commons" even as others like Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi slammed Russia for what the West sees as the country's military adventurism against Ukraine.