6:48 PMEAM Jaishankar to visit Japan from Oct 6-7 to attend Quad meet
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Tokyo from October 6 to 7 to attend a ministerial meeting of the Quadrilateral coalition and hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi on ways to further deepen bilateral ties.
Announcing the visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Jaishankar and Motegi are expected to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest.
"During the visit, the External Affairs Minister will also participate in the second India-Australia-Japan-USA ministerial meeting on October 6 in which the foreign ministers of the respective countries will participate," the MEA said.
6:34 PMAhead of the festive sale, Amazon pumps Rs 1,125 crore into its India unit
Amazon has invested Rs 1,125 crore into its India marketplace unit. The infusion would help the e-commerce giant to take on its rivals including Walmart-owned Flipkart and Reliance’s JioMart in the upcoming festive season.
The company’s online marketplace arm, Amazon Seller Services Private Limited, has received the infusion from Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited, Singapore and Amazon.com Inc Limited, Mauritius, according to the documents filed by Amazon, which were sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. The infusion was done by allotting 112.5 crore equity shares to the investors at a nominal amount per share of Rs 10.
According to the analysts, this may be the third infusion of Amazon for 2020 in India. Normally, there is at least a four-month gap between infusions, but the latest infusion has come much faster, given that India unit raised $307 million in the first week of July, according to the analysts at the business intelligence platform Paper.vc.
6:26 PMRailway announces daily Thiruvananthapuram-Delhi special train from Sept 30
The Southern Railway on Tuesday announced operating daily special between Thiruvananthapuram and New Delhi, starting September 30. The Railway Board has notified fully reserved daily superfast special trains between Trivandrum Central and New Delhi, an official release here said.
The Thiruvananthapuram CentralNew Delhi Superfast special train will leave Thiruvananthapuram Central on September 30 at 11.15 hrs and reach New Delhi at 13.45 hrs on the third day. The first service from New Delhi will be on October 3, 2020.
6:23 PMGujarat: 4.1 magnitude quake recorded in Rajkot, no casualties
An earthquake of 4.1 magnitude was experienced in Rajkot district in Gujarat on Tuesday afternoon, the Institute of Seismological Research (ISR) said. There were no reports of casualties or damage to property.
As per the ISR, which is located in Gandhinagar, the epicentre of the tremor, which was recorded at 3:49 pm, was located 25 kms east-northeast from Upleta town in the district, which is at a distance of 215 kms from here, and it was recorded 14.5 kms deep in the earth's crust.
6:09 PMDelhi HC asks NDMC to disburse pending salaries of municipal body's teachers
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to disburse pending salaries of municipal teachers and observed that no employee should be deprived of the joy during the Diwali festival.
A division bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad observed that many people are suffering from depression due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Diwali festival is round the corner. "We will not allow you (NDMC) to deprive any employee of that little joy of festivity," the bench said.
North DMC counsel informed the court it has released salaries of June to its teachers earlier of this month. The court directed the Corporation to release the salaries of teachers for the pending months.
5:43 PMPM inaugurates six STPs in Uttarakhand
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated six sewage treatment plants worth over Rs 500 crore in Uttarakhand under the Namami Gange mission, saying with the projects' completion the sewage treatment capacity of the state has gone up nearly four-fold in six years. The six STPs were inaugurated at Haridwar, Rishikesh, Muni-ki-Reti and Badrinath via video conference.
The six STPs were inaugurated at Haridwar, Rishikesh, Muni-ki-Reti and Badrinath via video conference.
Describing Ganga as a symbol of the country's cultural glory and faith, Modi said that from the point of the river's origin at Gaumukh in Uttarakhand to where it merged with the sea in West Bengal, the mighty river enriched the lives of half of the country's population.
4:52 PMNational eGovernance Plan can be achieved in J&K over 10 years: CAG
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has criticised the Jammu and Kashmir government for its failure in implementing the National e-Governance Plan, saying the objective of making all local public services accessible to the common man could not be achieved in the Union territory over a period of around 10 years.
In its report on Social, General, Economic (Non-Public Sector Undertakings) sectors for the financial year ended March 31, 2017, the CAG also highlighted the shortcomings in the National Afforestation Programme (NAP) and said no annual report was prepared by the erstwhile state's forest development agency since its inception in July 2010.
4:40 PMGold rises Rs 663 to Rs 51,367 per 10 gm, silver jumps Rs 1,321
Gold prices rallied Rs 663 to Rs 51,367 per 10 gram in the national capital on Tuesday, in line with the rise in international prices and rupee depreciation, according to HDFC Securities.
The precious metal had closed at Rs 50,704 per 10 gram in the previous trade. Silver prices also jumped Rs 1,321 to Rs 61,919 per kilogram from Rs 60,598 per kilogram on Monday.
"Spot gold prices for 24 carat in Delhi rallied Rs 663, reflecting gains in international prices and rupee depreciation," HDFC Securities Senior Analyst(Commodities) Tapan Patel said.
4:06 PMStayqrious raises Rs 14.7 cr in seed funding
Edutech firm Stayqrious on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 14.7 crore in seed funding from early-stage investors to develop tools and content for students.
Investors include Learnstart, dedicated seed fund of Learn Capital, and other global venture capitalists such as Draper Associates, Y Combinator, Nitin Sharma (First Principles VC), Lavni Ventures, and Dream Incubator (Japan), the company said in a statement.
"We plan to use the funds primarily to build the product, the coach tools and the instructional content that will enable this classroom of the future," Stayqrious founder and CEO Aanand Srinivas said in a statement.
3:57 PMPM says opposition wants only middlemen to thrive, not farmers
In a scathing attack on those opposing the new farm laws, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said they wanted only the middlemen to thrive and referred to the burning of a tractor in Delhi by Congress workers as an insult to farmers.
"They are opposing the freedom of farmers and want their problems to continue forever. By torching farming equipment, which the agriculturists worship, these people are now insulting farmers," he said without naming the Congress.
The Congress' youth wing activists on Monday morning set a tractor ablaze near India Gate, a few hundred metres from the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Parliament, to protest the contentious farm laws.
Modi said the opposition has only one way of doing politics in the country and that is by opposing things. Terming it "opposition for the sake of opposition", the prime minister said that by opposing big reformative steps by the Centre such as the farm laws, these forces were making themselves irrelevant in the society and in the country.
3:44 PMKarnataka: Elections for 4 vacant Legislative Council seats on Oct 28
Elections to the four vacant Legislative Council seats in Karnataka will be held on October 28, the Election Commission said on Tuesday. The four seats belonged to the category of Karnataka South-East Graduates' constituency, Karnataka West Graduates, Karnataka North-East Teachers and Bengaluru Teachers' constituency and have been vacant since June 30.
R Chowda Reddy Thoopalli, S V Sankanur, Sharanappa Mattur and Puttanna represented the four constituencies in the Legislative Council.
The EC had put the elections on hold for an undeclared period due to the coronavirus scare though the tenure of the four incumbents ended on June 30.
According to the schedule announced by the Commission, the notification for the elections will be issued on October 1 while the last date of filing nominations is October 8.
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