NEWS

New Delhi:  The bodies of five more armed forces personnel, killed in the IAF chopper crash near Coonoor, were identified and they are being transported to their respective home towns, military officials said on Saturday. Efforts to "positively identify" remaining mortal remains are continuing, they said.

The armed forces personnel whose bodies were identified in the last few hours are Junior Warrant Officer (JWO) Pradeep, Wing Commander P S Chauhan, JWO Rana Pratap Das, Lance Naik B Sai Teja and Lance Naik Vivek Kumar. "The mortal remains of the five personnel were released to close family members this morning," said a senior military official.

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday took potshots at the BJP government over the Saryu Nahar National Project, saying three fourth of its works were completed during his government. According to the Centre, the project was launched in 1978 but got delayed for four decades due to "lack of continuity of budgetary support, interdepartmental coordination and adequate monitoring".

"The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh took five years to complete the remaining works of Saryu Nahar National Project which was three-fourth completed during the SP government," Akhilesh tweeted in Hindi, hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's arrival in Balrampur here to inaugurate the project.

New Delhi: A 35-year-old man, with travel history to Zimbabwe and South Africa, has tested positive for Omicron, becoming the second patient in Delhi of the new COVID-19 variant, sources said on Saturday. He is admitted at the LNJP Hospital and only has weakness, they added.

He returned to India from Zimbabwe and had even travelled to South Africa, the sources said, adding that he is fully vaccinated. The LNJP Hospital has been designated for treatment of patients infected with the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

There is no proposal under consideration currently to scrap the law on sedition, law minister Kiren Rijiju said in Lok Sabha on Friday. He, however, said “the question of law” regarding Section 124-A was pending adjudication before the Supreme Court. In response to a question in the House on whether the government was planning to strike down the sedition laws in view of an adverse observation by the Supreme Court, the minister said there was no such proposal under consideration of the government at present.

The SC had asked questions about the law saying the sedition law was a colonial law. “Do we still need the law in our country after 75 years of Independence?” the court had said. However, the issue remains contested with the case being made out that “anti-national” activities need to be covered by some law.