SUNDAY FEATURE

Scheduled international flight services resumed in India on Sunday, two years after a ban was imposed on most foreign flights due to the coronavirus pandemic. Reacting to the development, Union Civil Aviation Min Jyotiraditya Scindia said that this will help connect India with the world.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, six Indian airlines and 60 foreign airlines will start connecting India with 63 countries from today onwards. According to the new summer schedule, foreign airlines will operate 1,783 weekly flights, while Indian carriers will operate 1,466 departures every week.  Market leader IndiGo will operate 505 departures per week, followed by Tata Group-owned Air India at 361 weekly flights, and its subsidiary Air India Express at 340 flights per week. The summer schedule refers to the period between March 27 until October 29.

Former chief minister of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami slammed CM MK Stalin's Dubai trip and alleged that it was a family trip rather than a step to attract investors to Tamil Nadu.

"They chartered a separate Boeing flight. Even before Stalin reached, his son Udhayanidhi Stalin was there. People have doubts if this Dubai trip was to bring more industrial capital to the state or to create opportunity for new family businesses", alleged Edapadi K Palaniswami.

Palaniswami said that when Stalin was in opposition, he had mocked him and had called the "AIADMK picnic cabinet", for taking an official trip abroad.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, in his first public reaction to the high court’s 3 March order opposing his idea to establish three state capitals, said Thursday that the judiciary was “crossing its domain and trespassing into the state government’s legislative terrain of making laws”. 

Speaking in the assembly during a short discussion, he also termed “impossible” the six-month deadline set by the court for the government to develop Amaravati as the state’s only capital.

The YSR Congress Party chief stressed that his government is “committed” to its earlier plan of decentralisation of administration, and is also “exploring legal options”.

S Phangnon Konyak was on Friday elected unopposed as the Rajya Sabha member from Nagaland, making her the first woman from the state to get a berth in Parliament’s Upper House.

“S Phangnon Konyak sponsored by the Baratiya Janata Party (BJP) has been declared duly elected uncontested to fill the seat in the Council of States [Rajya Sabha] from Nagaland State, the term of which is due to expire on 2nd April 2022,” chief electoral officer V Shashank Shekhar said in a statement.

Khruohituonuo Rio, the returning Officer for the biennial election in Nagaland, said Konyak was the only candidate who filed the nomination.

Union law minister Kiren Rijiju told Parliament on Friday that the government is considering linking Aadhaar with electoral rolls to check fraudulent voting, as he pushed for "one nation, one electoral roll". He also said the government is considering granting online voting facility to Indians working overseas.

Responding to a raft of questions in Lok Sabha, Rijiju said linking Aadhaar and electoral rolls is a way to weed out names that occur more than once from the voting lists. To a query on voting rights for "pravasi Indians", he said the EC is seized of a suggestion from the government for voting facility for those who work abroad. But he added "safety and transparency" would have to be ensured.