NEWS

New Delhi: As per the government wish to conduct long-due local body elections, Jammu and Kashmir governor Narendra Nath Vohra announced local bodies’ polls would  be held in the state from September to December in a phased manner.

“The administration has taken the required steps for organising elections to panchayats and municipalities. Necessary amendments to the existing laws have been made and speedy action is underway to gear up the administrative and logistical arrangements for undertaking the elections,’’ Vohra said in his Independence Day speech.

The elections were due in January. But they were deferred after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) coalition government told the Centre the situation was not conducive for them.

New Delhi: Flood alert has been sounded in Tamil Nadu’s western and central districts and evacuations have been started even as the region has received deficient rainfall this monsoon. Officials said that the alert was issued as major dams in the region’s seven districts are full due to heavy water inflow from the neighbouring states. 

The lower riparian Tamil Nadu had been getting heavy water inflow through the Cauvery river and its rivulets from Karnataka, which has recorded heavy rains. “All major dams in Tamil Nadu have filled and a huge amount of water is now flowing into Mettur, Bhavani Sagar and Amaravathi dams due to surplus inflow from Karnataka and Kerala,” said state disaster management commissioner K Sathya gopal.

New Delhi: In a government-driven attempt to speed up the process of accreditation, Multiple government and semi-government agencies will be allowed to accredit educational institutions in addition to the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

The Centre is set to notify the University Grants Commission (UGC) (Recognition and Monitoring of Assessment and Accreditation Agencies) Regulations, 2018 which will allow registration of assessment and accreditation agencies (AAAs) to accredit higher education institutes and programmes.

“Semi government agency” has been defined as an entity formed by a government agency with a majority stake in partnership with a private entity that has at least five years of experience in the accreditation process.

New Delhi: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed names of around 66 per cent Bengalis in Assam don’t figure in the draft are Hindus. She has raised her pitch against the Centre on the National Register of Citizenship issue.

She also alleged that Assam government has kept over a thousand people in detention camps to prevent protests against the NRC.

“Out of 4 million names deleted from the NRC, 3.8 million are those of Bengali-speaking people. And out of this 3.8 million, 2.5 million are Hindus. The rest 1.3 million are Bengali-speaking Muslims,” Banerjee told the media after meeting members of some NGOs who recently visited Assam to conduct a field study.