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The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP), aimed at improving multi-modal connectivity and last-mile connectivity across the country, is important for achieving the prime minister's dream of making India a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday.

Speaking at an event to mark the 15th Civil Services Day, Gadkari further said coordination and communication are required among different stakeholders for the completion of infrastructure projects.

"We have to make the Indian economy stronger. PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan is very important for achieving the prime minister's dream of making India a USD 5 trillion economy," the road transport and highways minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with tribal beneficiaries of various government schemes in Dahod, today.

A gold smuggling case booked on a passenger from Abu Dhabi at IGI Airport T3 in New Delhi. An approx 630.45g of gold worth Rs 30.55 lakhs was concealed inside his wig & rectum. The accused has been arrested and further probe is underway, Customs Commissioner Office said.

President Putin says Russia has successfully tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, will make Kremlin's enemies 'think twice', AFP reported.

"I'm grateful that the Supreme Court took notice of it and gave an immediate stay, but they still didn't stop. These people are calling the public Bangladeshi & Rohingya? They are Indians," said AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi over Jahangirpuri demolition drive which was later stopped by Supreme Court.

"Legally, a new bulldozer procession has been taken out. Muslims are undergoing collective punishment... be scared of a poor's curse. You demolished the shops in front of Mosque, why not in front of Temples? This is a targeted demolition...I condemn it," Owaisi said.

Maharashtra cabinet has cleared the proposal to hand over 10 acres of land near the MTHL to the Tirupati Temple Trust, State Minister Aaditya Thackeray infromed.

Anurag Thakur has accused Rahul Gandhi over comment 'bulldozers of hate' remark accusing him of 'sowing seeds of hatred'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates various developmental projects in Dahod & Panchmahal. CM Bhupendra Patel also present at the ceremony. PM Modi is on a 3-day Gujarat visit.

Former Head scientist of epidemiology & communicable disease at ICMR, Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar while speaking on the rising Covid cases said, "I don't think this is the 4th wave. The entire world continues to witness BA.2 variant affect people across the world. Some of us have misunderstood mandatory use of a mask which has been withdrawn means no fear of acquiring infection."

"No new variant has emerged so far. Those who are older, those who have not taken vaccines, those who have got infected so far, need to remember to use a face mask," Dr. Raman R Gangakhedkar said.

"We shouldn't shut schools as it will hamper education & overall development of students. Students above 12 years of age who are immunodeficient should take the vaccine as soon as possible," he added.

Gulli and Dilshad have been sent to 3-day police custody. They were presented before the court for the first time today, said Rajesh Kaushik, lawyer of one of the accused persons in the Jahangirpuri violence case.

Once again, wearing face masks in Delhi has been made mandatory, failing which will attract a fine of Rs 500, sources said. 

The Delhi High Court Wednesday sought the Centre's stand on public interest litigation seeking the constitution of an expert committee for the realisation of the promises made by India at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2021. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla asked the Centre to file a status report on the plea by lawyer Rohit Madan who has asserted that it is the Indian government's duty to honour its international commitments. Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, appearing for the Centre, said that the Union India is alive to the issue raised in the petition and has already set up several committees, such as the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, which is focusing on meeting the international obligations.
 

Amid concerns about a possible fourth wave of COVID-19, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar on Wednesday said such a situation does not exist in the state as of now, but the government was taking all the required precautionary measures and monitoring rise in cases in other states and countries. He advised people to continue to wear masks, especially at indoor gatherings, as a precautionary measure to control any new spread of infection. "There is a report that the number of (COVID) infections have increased in Delhi and few other north Indian states in the last two weeks, but such a situation does not exist in Karnataka. We are closely monitoring things," Sudhakar said.

Puducherry continued to report zero daily cases of COVID-19 as no new infection was detected in the union territory on Wednesday. The number of active cases also dropped to one as two of the three patients in home quarantine for last few days recovered. The overall case load remained 1,65,777 and total recoveries were 1,63,814. The Department of Health examined 312 samples during last twenty- four hours and found no fresh case.

A 38-year-old man was arrested with arms and ammunition after a brief encounter in Outer North Delhi, police said on Wednesday. Eight country-made pistols and seven live cartridges were recovered from him on Tuesday night, they said. Rajan alias Rahul was involved in around 70 cases, including Arms Act, two previous cases of encounters with the police, and incidents of snatching and theft. He also faces cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), 1985, they said. Rajan used to supply weapons to criminals based in Delhi-NCR, they said, adding, he has been labelled as a “bad character” at Manhender Park police station.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said that long-term strategic investments along with government support are crucial for fostering innovation in the field of traditional medicine. He was speaking at the inaugural function of the three-day Global Ayush Investment and Innovation Summit at Mahatma Mandir here in Gujarat. "Long term strategic investments along with government commitment are needed to support the innovation ecosystem for medicine in general and traditional medicine in particular," said the WHO DG.

The police in Sri Lanka on Wednesday said that curfew will continue in the southwestern region of Rambukkana where one person was killed and 13 others were injured in violence after the police opened fire at unarmed anti-government protestors demonstrating against the latest fuel price hike. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that he was "deeply saddened" over the incident and asserted that citizens' right to peacefully protest will not be hindered.

An employee of a defunct paper mill, earlier owned by Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC), in Assam's Cachar district died due to illness after failing to pay for his treatment, its union said on Wednesday. With this, 103 employees of HPC have died after its two mills in Cachar and Nagaon became non-operational. While the Cachar unit stopped functioning in October 2015, the Nagaon mill in Jagiroad became defunct in March 2017. Rajendra Kumar Daloi, a native of Cuttack in Odisha, died on Monday at the age of 58, Joint Action Committee of Recognised Union (JACRU) of Nagaon and Cachar Paper Mills said. He was suffering from kidney-related ailments but could not afford treatment due to financial crisis owing to non-payment of salary, it claimed.

Supreme Court orders status-quo on demolition drive conducted by North Delhi Municipal Corporation in Jahangirpuri, Delhi.

China’s business hub Shanghai has reported seven more fatalities due to COVID-19, taking the death toll to 17 amidst signs of a declining trend in fresh cases, the health commission said on Wednesday. The Chinese mainland on Tuesday reported 2,753 locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases, of which 2,494 were in Shanghai, according to the National Health Commission's report. The country reported 17,166 asymptomatic cases with a majority of them in Shanghai, China’s business hub of 26 million, which was under a lockdown for over three weeks due to spiralling cases of the Omicron variant.

A health official says 4 million more people in Shanghai have been allowed to leave their homes as anti-coronavirus quarantine rules ease. The official, Wang Ganyu, said Wednesday a total of almost 12 million people are allowed to leave their homes as China's most populous city tries to contain virus outbreaks. Authorities imposed rules that confined most of Shanghai's 25 million people to their homes starting March 28 following a surge in infections. China's case numbers in its latest infection surge are relatively low, but the ruling Communist Party is enforcing a “zero-COVID” strategy that has shut down major cities to isolate every case.

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Seven members of a family were burnt alive in a fire that broke out in their hut here on Wednesday morning, police said. Assistant Commissioner of Police (East) Ludhiana, Surinder Singh, said they were migrant labourers and were asleep in their hut near the municipal garbage dump yard on Tibba road. SHO of Tibba police station, Ranbir Singh, identified the victims as a couple and their five children. Their names were yet to be ascertained.

A couple was injured in a mysterious explosion outside a slum in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir Tuesday, officials said. Vinod Kumar (25) and his wife Kranti Devi (20), residents of Uttar Pradesh, were injured in the blast outside their shanty at village Jaglanoo in Kotranka area, they said. “A mysterious explosion took place outside a slum in Kotranka late Tuesday night. A husband-wife duo sustained injuries and was hospitalised,” police said in a statement, adding that both of them are out of danger.

A day after Goa's industry bodies agreed to bear the cost of purchasing additional power to meet their demand, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday gave his approval for purchase of electricity from open market. The chief minister has given the approval to purchase 120 MW power from open market, which would be supplied to the industries, a senior official said. The industry bodies had on Monday written to the state government raising concerns about the “acute power shortage” in the coastal state, which had resulted in load shedding and affected operations. The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI), Goa State Industries Association (GSIA) and Goa Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers' Association (GPMA) wrote to Sawant and State Power Minister Sudin Dhavalikar expressing their concerns.

The Biden administration is launching a USD 6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change. A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It's the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors. Owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down for economic reasons can apply for funding to avoid closing prematurely. The first round of awards will prioritise reactors that have already announced plans to close.

Health services in government hospitals of Nagaland were affected for the second consecutive day on Tuesday in the three-day agitation by government doctors. Members of the Nagaland in-Service Doctors’ Association (NIDA) have taken mass casual leave to press their demand for increase in the superannuation age of government medical practitioners from 60 to 62 years. The demand is in line with the promise Prime Minister Narendra Modi made in 2016, NIDA claimed. The agitation has mainly affected services in the out patients’ department (OPD) in government hospitals and health centres across the state, but the emergency department and ICUs were open.

The Centre on Tuesday designated Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) member Sheikh Sajad alias Sajjad Gul and Al Badr member Arjumand Gulzar Dar alias Hamza Burhan as terrorists for their involvement in a series of terror acts in Jammu and Kashmir. While Dar has been involved in funding terrorism and other violence, Gul, who belongs to the LeT terror group, had taken part in the conspiracy to kill journalist Shujaat Bukhari in Srinagar in 2018. Gul and Dar are the 37th and 38th individuals respectively to have been designated as terrorists by the Union Home Ministry.

Senior IAS officer Naresh Kumar has been appointed as the chief secretary of Delhi, a home ministry order issued on Tuesday said. Kumar, a 1987-batch AGMUT cadre IAS officer, has been transferred from Arunachal Pradesh to Delhi. He was holding the post of chief secretary of Arunachal Pradesh before the transfer. "Consequent upon voluntary retirement of Vijay Dev, IAS (AGMUT:1987) , Naresh Kumar IAS (AGMUT:1987) is hereby appointed as chief secretary of GNCTD with effect from April 21, 2022 or with effect from date of joining, whichever is later," stated the order.

The police on Tuesday registered three cases against Driver Mahasangha for entering the city despite its assurance not to do so and indulging in violence. The deputy commissioner of police U S Dash said CCTV footage of the protests at different places of the city are being examined and action will be taken against those who resorted to violence during the agitation by the drivers in the city on Monday. “The Drivers Mahasangha had assured us that their members will remain outside the city and a delegation will enter it for discussions on their demands. However, they entered the city and resorted to road blockades and violence in some pockets,” the DCP said.

The father of the management student, who was shot dead in Toronto earlier this month, has demanded that the government waive the loan that he has taken to send his son to study in Canada. Several people, including his friends and old classmates, on social media platforms have also been demanding the waiver. Kartik Vasudev was shot dead in Toronto on April 7 outside the Sherburne subway station. He had gone there in January to study MBA. "We mortgaged our house and ornaments to send him to Canada for MBA. The Indian consulate in Canada helped us to bring his body back," Kartik's father Jitesh Vasudev told news agency PTI on Tuesday.