NEWS

The parliamentary standing committee on home affairs will pay a visit to Jammu & Kashmir as well as Ladakh from August 17 to 21 for a detailed examination of matters relating to administration, development and people’s welfare in the two Union territories.

While the panel, chaired by deputy leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress MP Anand Sharma, will arrive in Ladakh on August 16 and be there on August 17 and 18, it will spend the remaining part of the tour in Jammu and Srinagar before returning from Jammu on August 22. The visit comes almost two months after PM Narendra Modi met leaders of all parties of J&K, the first such interaction after revocation of Article 370. Modi had requested the J&K parties to participate in the delimitation process and assured them that polls would follow after the process was complete.

Those individual involved in disturbing “law and order, stone pelting or crimes prejudicial to the security” of J&K will be denied security clearance for passports and government jobs, according to a circular issued by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of J&K Police to the field officers.

In the circular issued on Saturday, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), CID, Amod Ashok Nagpure asked field officers to “specifically look into” the involvement of the individual in law and order disturbance, stone pelting and crimes that are a threat to the security of J&K.

“All the field units of CID SB (Special Branch) Kashmir are hereby directed to ensure that during verification related to passport, service and any other verification related to government services/schemes, the subject's involvement in law & order, stone-pelting cases and other crime prejudicial to the security of the state be specifically looked into and same must be corroborated from local police station records," the SSP CID wrote in his communication to the field units.

Bihar minister and BJP leader Samrat Choudhary said that the party accepted Nitish Kumar as the state chief minister despite the JD(U) having 43 seats in the legislative assembly as opposed to 74 seats of the saffron party.

"In the present alliance, BJP has 74 seats and JD(U) has 43. But still we have accepted Nitish Kumar as the chief minister," Samrat Choudhary said at an event organised by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in Aurangabad on Sunday.

He added that running the coalition government in Bihar was a challenging task as the NDA consists of four political parties with different ideologies.

Odisha's Bhubaneswar has become the first city in India to achieve 100 per cent vaccination coverage against Covid-19. Additionally, about one lakh migrant workers have also been administered the first dose of Covid vaccines in the capital city of Odisha.
Talking to media, Anshuman Rath, South-east Zonal Deputy Commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, said, "100 per cent of the population in Bhubaneswar have been vaccinated against Covid-19. Along with this, one lakh migrant workers in the city have been administered the first jab."

He further said, "The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation set a goal of immunising cent per cent of its population by July 31. During this time, we have administered the second jab to a total of 9,07,000 people above 18 years of age, which includes around 31,000 health workers, 33,000 frontline workers, 5,17,000 people between 18-45 and 3,20,000 above 45. As per reports, around 18,35,000 doses of Covid vaccine have been given till July 30."