NEWS

The home ministry has cancelled the registration of two Christian evangelist NGOs — New Hope Foundation based in Tamil Nadu and Holy Spirit Ministries based in Karnataka — funded by controversial foreign donor Gospel For Asia, over violation of provisions of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, 2010.

Gospel For Asia (GFA) and Gospel For Asia World (GFA World) have been at the receiving end of lawsuits in US and Canada over alleged fraud and misuse of funds. In 2017, FCRA registration of Gospel For Asia’s Indian arm and affiliates like Believers Church etc was scapped over alleged FCRA violations.

Former Rajya Sabha MP Mohammad Adeeb has moved the Supreme Court with a contempt plea against top officers of the Haryana government over the Gurugram namaz controversy. Adeeb alleged that the Haryana police and civil administration failed to take action against those who prevented Muslims from offering namaz on public grounds.

Adeeb sought contempt action against Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) PK Agrawal and Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal in the case.

Adeeb, a former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member, alleged that the police and administration did not take action against hate speech over the namaz controversy. He also alleged that the administration failed to stop "identifiable hooligans" from creating communal tension by repeatedly blocking namaz in Gurugram.

AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday, addressed a rally in Lambi constituency of Muktsar — considered a bastion of former CM and SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal, who is the MLA from the area — during which he trained his gun at Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.

Kejriwal, during his Thursday rally in Lambi, said that CM Channi has made a mockery of the government.

Kejriwal said that in the upcoming election, Punjab should decide for itself whether it needs a puppet government that can play ‘gulli-danda’ or a pro-people government to build schools and hospitals. He said, "You gave the Congress government chance for 25 years and the SAD-BJP alliance for 20 years. Give one chance to the AAP in 2022," he said, while addressing a rally in favour of AAP's Lambi candidate Gurmeet Singh Khudian.

Amid concerns about a possible surge in Covid-19 cases due to the new Omicron variant, the Centre on Wednesday reviewed the status of oxygen supply, equipment, ventilators and concentrators among other things with states and UTs, urging them to monitor their availability on a daily basis to ensure that there is absolute preparedness to tackle any rise in the number of infections.

In a review meeting with the states and UTs, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan advised states to ensure the gap between equipment and systems delivered to the districts and installed at the healthcare facilities is reduced to zero.