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The Supreme Court-appointed high-level technical committee supervised by Justice R V Raveendran has submitted an interim report detailing the progress of inquiry into alleged use of military-grade spyware Pegasus to snoop on the phones of activists, journalists, politicians and lawyers.

Nearly four months into the inquiry, the committee apparently expressed disappointment with a large number of activists, who had taken up the task of moving the

SC for an SIT probe into the Pegasus controversy, for not submitting their phones for verification of their claims, resulting in a slow progress towards reaching any con- clusion, sources told media.

Union home minister Amit Shah escalated the attack on the opposition, especially Samajwadi Party and Congress, on Monday, accusing them of shielding terrorists and making UP a “hot spot of terrorism”.

“UP was turned into an epicentre, a hot spot of terrorism, a corridor for terrorists,” Shah said, while addressing election rallies in Sitapur and Barabanki.

Shah’s observation marked BJP’s growing aggression against SP, three days after a special court in Gujarat pronounce death sentence to 38 out of 49 convicts in 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts case while giving life imprisonment to the remaining 11.

The Supreme Court on Monday decided to explore the possibility for enforcing the Fundamental Duties as enshrined in the Constitution and agreed to examine a PIL seeking that moral obligations of the duties be converted into legal commitments by enacting a law.

A a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh issued notice to the Centre and states seeking their response on making a comprehensive well-defined laws/rules ensuring adherence to the provisions of Part IV-A of the Constitution requiring the citizens to perform their Fundamental Duties properly. The Fundamental Duties obligate all citizens to respect the national symbols of India, including the Constitution, to cherish its heritage, and preserve its composite culture. They also obligate all Indians to promote the spirit of common brotherhood, protect environment and public property, develop scientific temper, humanism and abjure violence.

India's Omicron-driven third wave of Covid-19 continues to hurtle towards an early end. While cases continued to fall sharply for the fourth week running, deaths from the virus reduced in the week ending Sunday to nearly half the number reported in the previous seven days.

As the country recorded a second consecutive week of declining Covid fatalities, there was a significant drop in deaths in the current week (February 14-20). India recorded 1,898 deaths in the week, down 44% from the previous week's toll of 3,366. These figures exclude deaths from earlier periods that are being added to the toll.

While fresh cases declined for the fourth straight week, the past two weeks have seen infections reduce by more than half. India reported just over 1.73 lakh new cases in the current week, down 56% from the preceding week's tally of 3.94 lakh. That week (February 7-13) had witnessed a 59% dip in cases, the sharpest weekly decrease since the beginning of the pandemic.

China’s violation of agreements on not massing forces at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the reason why its relations with India are going through a difficult phase, external affairs minister S Jaishankar has said, while warning nations not to get sucked into a debt trap by accepting Chinese aid.

Jaishankar made the remarks while participating in a discussion on the theme “Regional order and security in the Indo-Pacific” at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. He was speaking alongside his Australian and Japanese counterparts, Marise Payne and Yoshimasa Hayashi.

“It’s a problem we’re having with China. And the problem is this – that for 45 years, there was peace, there was stable border management, there were no military casualties on the border from 1975,” he said in response to a question on India’s troubled relations with China.