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The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the word "dowry" ought to be given a wider interpretation to include any demand made on a woman, whether in respect of a property or a valuable security of any nature, and held that demand for money for constructing a house comes within the ambit of dowry.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli said interpretation of a provision of law that will defeat the very intention of the legislature must be shunned in favour of an interpretation that will promote the object sought to be achieved through the legislation meant to uproot a social evil like dowry.

As the city’s daily Covid tally tumbled for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, experts said the Covid-Omicron wave may already be “flattening”, barely three weeks after cases started rising exponentially.

Maharashtra reported a marginal increase in its daily detections. The city’s Covid tally on Tuesday stood at 11,647 as against 13,648 on Monday, 19,474 on Sunday and 20,318 on Saturday. Mumbai conducted 62,097 tests in the last 24 hours, which is lower than the tests conducted a few days ago.

“The Omicron wave (in Mumbai) is flattening for sure,” said Shashank Joshi, who is a member of the state government’s task force on Covid. As experts expect different peaks in various cities and regions, the Covid tally in Maharashtra registered a 3% rise over a 24-hour period: cases climbed to 34,424 on Tuesday as against 33,470 the day prior. The reason for cheer in Mumbai stems not only from a dropping daily count, but also a drop in the daily positivity rate.

In a major push towards Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the military sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government is going to shelve a number of defence import projects being acquired through the Buy (Global) route.

This initiative from the government comes at a time when the Centre is coming up with the new Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy which will lay down the way ahead for strengthening defence production within the country and help in their export to friendly foreign countries.

A high-level meeting of the Defence Ministry will take place virtually on Wednesday in which all the import projects under Buy (Global) category would be reviewed and are likely to be scrapped or put on hold by the government, government sources told a news agency.

Fearing invectives, both judges on a Supreme Court bench—Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna—created a record of sort by recusing from hearing the Krishna river water dispute case just because they hailed from Maharashtra and Karnataka, two litigants in the case apart from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.

Though the judges take oath to render justice without “fear or favour”, apprehensions over insulting or abusive criticism forced their recusal from the Krishna water dispute case.

“We do not want to be targets of invectives,” Justice Chandrachud said after consulting Justice Bopanna, who was of the view that similarly placed judges had recused from hearing the sensitive river water disputes case.

There will be no lockdown in the national capital to contain the spread of rapidly spreading Covid-19 despite there being a steep rise in cases, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) decided on Monday as it discussed restrictions such as closing dine-in facility in restaurants and scaling down seating capacity in Metro trains and buses.

No Lockdown in Delhi Despite Covid Spread, DDMA May Shut Dining in Restaurants, Scale Down Metro, Bus Capacity© Provided by News18 No Lockdown in Delhi Despite Covid Spread, DDMA May Shut Dining in Restaurants, Scale Down Metro, Bus Capacity

In a meeting, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the DDMA also discussed ways to strictly enforce existing restrictions to check rising cases of the coronavirus and its Omicron variant, an official told News18.