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School faces criminal probe over multi-faith prayers
A private school in Uttar Pradesh is being investigated by police under a controversial religious conversion law for holding multi-faith prayers that included the Islamic declaration of faith, an officer said on Tuesday.
Video on social media showed students at the Florets International School in Kanpur reciting prayers that included texts from four major faiths - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism.
Several right-wing Hindu outfits and parents held street protests in the city at the weekend.
Builders' assets worth Rs415 crore seized in biggest bank fraud
Days after an AgustaWestland helicopter was seized from the property of a Maharashtra-based builder accused of money laundering and cheating, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday seized assets worth Rs415 crore ($72 million) from him and another builder.
Sanjay Chhabria of Radius Developers and Avinash Bhosale of ABIL Infrastructure are accused in India's biggest bank fraud case.
Both men were earlier arrested in the Yes Bank-DHFL (Dewan Housing Finance Limited) case that caused an alleged loss of over Rs34,000 crore to a consortium of 17 banks led by Union Bank of India.
Enforcement Directorate arrests Shiv Sena's Raut
The case for which Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut was arrested is a Rs1,000 crore scam in Patra slum redevelopment project, the Enforcement Directorate has said.
The agency claimed Mr Raut and his family benefited from money to the tune of Rs1.06 crore. The ED also accused Mr Raut of threatening a key witness in the Alibaug land deal with rape and murder.
Mr Raut was arrested on Sunday night by the ED on charges of money laundering and was placed in the agency's custody for four days by a court in Mumbai.
The Sena MP claimed he was being framed as part of a political vendetta.
Mumbai woman finds her mother in Pakistan after 20 years
Social media has helped a Mumbai woman find her missing mother, who landed in Pakistan after she moved to Dubai with an agent to work as a house help.
Ms Yasmin Sheikh said her mother Hamida Banu never returned for 20 years. But now she has learnt through a Pakistan-based social media account, which posted a video of her, that her mother is in Pakistan.
The family has urged the Indian government to help bring Ms Hamida back as soon as possible.
Former Andhra CM NTR's daughter found dead
The daughter of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, K. Uma Maheshwari, was found dead at her Jubilee Hills residence in Hyderabad on Monday morning.
Officials at the Jubilee Hills police station said it was a case of suicide. Although no suicide note was found, police suspect depression drove the 57-year-old to end her life.
Ms Uma was the youngest of Mr Rama's children.
India set to get 5G by October
The fifth generation (5G) telecom services is likely to be launched in India by October this year as the government on Monday successfully completed the spectrum auction, mopping up over Rs1.5 lakh crore in bids by four companies - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Adani Data Networks.
Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said the allocation of the spectrum to the successful bidders would be done by Aug 10 and the 5G services are likely to be launched in the country by October.
Eight dead, 13 injured in Madhya Pradesh hospital fire
The owners and a manager of the Newlife Multi-speciality Hospital in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, were booked in connection with Monday's fire at the facility.
Eight people - three nurses, two patients and three attendants - were killed and 13 others injured in the fire, a senior police officer said on Tuesday.
According to Jabalpur Superintendent of Police Siddharth Bahuguna, an initial probe found that the fire department clearance taken by the administration for the hospital had expired in March.
He added that fire extinguishers were not installed in the hospital and there was no emergency exit.
Government approves climate-change commitments
The Indian government formally committed to pivot half its electricity generation capacity to use clean fuels by 2030 and reiterated a demand for its "due share" of financial assistance as one of the world's top emitters seeks to go carbon-neutral by 2070.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet on Wednesday approved plans to cut emissions intensity of its GDP to 45 per cent by 2030, from 2005 levels, the government said in a statement.
Government withdraws privacy bill proposal, working on new law
India's information technology minister on Wednesday withdrew a data protection bill that was first proposed in 2019 and alarmed big tech companies.
A government notice stated it was taking the decision as a parliamentary panel's review of the bill had suggested 81 amendments, leading to the need for a new "comprehensive legal framework".
Heatwaves increasing but related deaths fall
Temperatures during India's monsoon season have risen this century and the country might see more frequent heatwaves in future, the government said on Wednesday, but it added that heat-related deaths have fallen in recent years.
India suffered its hottest March in more than a century this year and temperatures were also unusually high in April and May. The searing heat is mainly blamed on climate change.
The government says heatwaves are common mainly between April and June.
India to ground MiG-21 fighter jets by 2025 following crash
India will ground all its Soviet-era Russian fighter jets, the MiG-21, by 2025, following the death of two officers in a crash.
The crash was the latest in a series of casualties involving the single-engine jet's failure, The Times of India reported on Saturday.
It quoted unnamed Indian Air Force officials as saying the MiG-21s are long past their retirement but must be replaced before being grounded.
