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Towards a “heightened vigilance” leading into the new year in the backdrop of a “sharp increase” in Covid cases over the last four days, the Centre Thursday said the spike being reported from several urban districts is likely part of the global rise pushed by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The Union Health Ministry has red-flagged nine urban districts and six “emerging states of concern”, including Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, on the basis of an increasing trajectory in weekly case counts and positivity rates.

Summing up the data, Dr V K Paul, who heads the national Covid task force, said “there is a changing scenario in the pandemic situation”.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 46th meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi on Friday (December 31), the last day of the year. Union Ministers of State in the Ministry of Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary and Dr Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad will also be attending the council meeting. 

On Thursday, Ministry of Finance tweeted, "FM Smt @nsitharaman will chair the 46th meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi, tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MoS for Finance @mppchaudharyand @DrBhagwatKarad, besides Finance Ministers of States and UTs and Senior officers from Union Government and States."

The 46th GST Council meeting holds importance ahead of the Union Budget, which is presented on the first day of February by the Finance Minister in Parliament. 

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will take out a ‘Shanti March’ in Punjab's Patiala on Friday, which comes days after the state witnessed the Ludhiana district court bombing and the sacrilege attempt at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The AAP said its national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will lead the Shanti March on Friday and senior party leader Bhagwant Mann will also be present during the rally. Kejriwal is currently on a three-day visit to Punjab that started on Thursday and will end on Saturday.

The AAP has said that both incidents of violence in Punjab were carried out under a conspiracy to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Haldwani in Uttarakhand on Thursday (December 30, 2021) to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of 23 projects worth over Rs 17,500 crore.

According to a release issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), among the 23 projects, the foundation stone will be laid for 17 projects worth over Rs 14,100 crore. The release also said that these projects cover a wide array of sectors/areas across the state including irrigation, road, housing, health infrastructure, industry, sanitation, drinking water supply. 

Today's programme will witness the inauguration of six projects including multiple road widening projects, a hydropower project in Pithoragarh and projects to improve the sewerage network in Nainital. The cumulative cost of the projects being inaugurated is over Rs 3,400 crore.

As Congress struggles to keep its flock together and PCC chief Navjot Singh Sidhu pushes for the announcement of a name for the party’s candidate for Punjab CM, election campaign committee chief Sunil Jakhar has made it clear that the party high command would not announce its CM candidate before the polls.

Jakhar said the high command’s declaration of Captain Amarinder Singh as its CM candidate in the run-up to the 2017 polls was an exception. “This time, the high command has decided that the Punjab polls will be fought under its collective leadership, whether someone likes it or not,” Jakhar said, adding that only elected legislators would choose their leader.

After the Congress screening committee meeting in Delhi on Wednesday, Jakhar said the final list of candidates would be released by the central election committee headed by AICC president Sonia Gandhi.