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  • Jammu Division | Summer break announced for Schools

    All schools upto higher secondary level falling in summer zones of Jammu division will observe the summer vacation from June 15 to July 15

    Schools falling under winter zones of Jammu will observe summer vacation from July 06 to July 15

    Weekly program, assignments shall be conducted throughout vacation period besides engaging children in cultural activities and for coverage of curriculum/syllabus, all the teachers have been asked to remain available for students through voice calls, texts and WhatsApp messages to answer the queries of students and clear the doubts with regard to the curriculum.

  • Rupee settles 5 paise lower at 75.84 against US dollar

    PTI

    Mumbai: The rupee settled 5 paise lower at 75.84 (provisional) against the US dollar on Friday as volatile domestic equities and sustained foreign fund outflows weighed on investor sentiment.

    Forex traders said risk appetite has waned and there is growing concern about a resurgence of COVID-19 infections.

    The rupee opened weak at 76.10 at the interbank forex market, but recouped most of the losses and finally ended the day at 75.84 against the US dollar, down 5 paise over its last close.

    It had settled at 75.79 against the US dollar on Thursday.

    During the four-hour trading session, the local unit witnessed an intra-day high of 75.84 and a low of 76.10.

    “The stock market was taking the reopening extremely well, but now there’s a possibility of a second wave of infections. This has soured market sentiment. Also US Fed provided a weaker assessment of the US economy on Thursday,” said Rahul Gupta, Head of Research- Currency, Emkay Global Financial Services.

    Gupta further said that “the uncertainty over coronavirus won’t completely fade away unless there’s a vaccine. So until then the appreciation in rupee will be limited, and we expect it to remain volatile”.

    For the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak, India recorded over 10,000 new cases in a day taking the tally to 2,97,535, while the death toll rose to 8,498 with a record single-day spike of 396 fatalities, according to Health Ministry data.

    Globally, the number of cases linked to the disease has crossed 75.17 lakh and the death toll has topped 4.21 lakh.

    Meanwhile, the 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex was trading 106.68 points lower at 33,431.69 and broader NSE Nifty fell 51.70 points to 9,850.30.

    Foreign institutional investors were net sellers in the capital market as they sold shares worth Rs 805.14 crore on Thursday, according to provisional exchange data.

    Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, fell 0.78 per cent to USD 38.25 per barrel.

    The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.19 per cent to 96.54.

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  • One killed, 2 injured in firing along Indo-Nepal border in Bihar

    One Lagan Rai is said to have been detained by the Nepal police

    One person was killed and two were injured in a firing on Friday allegedly by the Nepal police on the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district.

    The deceased, Vikesh Kumar Rai, 25, and the injured, Umesh Ram and Uday Thakur, are Indian nationals.

    One Lagan Rai is said to have been detained by the Nepal police.

    Locals said the firing took place after a clash between some people working in their agricultural field at the Lalbandi-Janki Nagar border in Pipra Parsain panchayat under the Sonebarsha police station of the district. Rai died on the spot, they stated.

    Sitamarhi Superintendent of Police Anil Kumar told The Hindu over phone, “In the firing incident, one person was killed and the injured are out of danger… they are admitted in a private hospital”.

    Mr. Kumar denied that the incident had anything related to the recent border tension between India and Nepal.

    Inspector General of Bihar sector of the Sashastra Seema Bal Sanjay Kumar said, “The incident took place between locals and the armed police force of Nepal… one person was killed, while two were injured in the firing by the Nepal police”. The SSB was not involved in the issue, he added.

    Senior police and SSB officials are camping at the spot.

    Later, Jitendra Kumar, Additional Director General of Police (headquarters) confirmed the incident.

    The victim’s father, Nageshwar Rai, told local media persons that his agriculture land fell under Narayanpur in Nepal where his son was working.

    Nepal shares a 1,850-km open border with India and people travel across for work and make family visits. Most of the Indians living in the bordering districts of Bihar are married on the other part of the border in Nepal.

    Nepal closed its international borders on March 22 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    A dispute had marked the relations of both the countries after Nepal had shown some areas of India like Lipulekh and Kalapani in its map.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • Parents of Private Schools Association stages protest, demand fee waiver

    Srinagar: Protests of parents against private school charging school fees picked up steam on Friday with a small but actual demonstration in the heart of Srinagar city. Private Association of Private Schools Kashmir Friday staged a protest in Karan Nagar area of Srinagar city demanding parents should be exempted from paying the school pay during the lock down period.

    Various members of the Association assembled at Municipal Park Karan Nagar and protested against the silent attitude of the administration and anti-parental order regarding private school fee.

    “We seek the intervention of Lieutenant Governor. Authorities should feel the pain of parents who are finding it hard to feed their families in this pandemic. It is strange that even in this pandemic, when everything was shut and schools were functional, orders were issued asking parents to deposit the school fee,” the protesters told news agency KNT.

    They said that schools have taken admission fee in this year that too against the judgment of Supreme Court of India and FFC order.

    “The salaries of the staff are always taken up by the schools as a tactic to emotionally blackmail the government and parents as well. We ask the government that if the parents have been cooperating with the schools since August 2019 by paying full fee, why the schools this time can’t waive off the fee for the pandemic period,” they said.

    The protesters said that schools are continuously texting and calling the parents to deposit the fee. Some schools have even threatened to stop the online classes if the fee is not paid.

    They requested administration to take a humanitarian view of the current situation and take a just decision which will not overburden the parents during this pandemic. (KNT)

  • Supreme Court allows private firms to negotiate with staff on wages for lockdown period

    No coercive action will be taken for non-payment of full wages, says top court.

    The Supreme Court on Friday gave private factory owners and other private establishments an option to negotiate terms and enter into settlements with their staff on payment of wages during lockdown.

    A Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan observed that industry could not survive without its labourers and workers. The court urged employers and employees to sort out their differences and resume work in a congenial atmosphere.

    It said that those employers whose factories had continued to work during lockdown, though not to full capacity, may also enter into talks. With this, the court continued its existing order that no coercive action should be taken against private factory/industry owners unable to pay full wages to workers during 54 days of lockdown as per a notification issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on March 29.

    The court has further asked the Centre to file a detailed counter affidavit in two weeks. The case would be taken up again in the last week of July.

    Last week, the court had restrained the government from taking any “coercive action” against private employers unable to pay full wages to their workers during the COVID-19 lockdown.

    The Bench on Thursday last reserved its order on a clutch of petitions challenging the legality of a notification issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on March 29 compelling employers to pay 100% wages to their workers during the entire period of the national lockdown.

    The petitions filed by the owners of small commercial establishments, industries, shops and factories said the pandemic had already driven them to the brink of insolvency. Paying workers full wages with no work done would irretrievably drive them out of business. The economy would fall flat. They said the March 29 notification was ill-devised and arbitrary.

    Justice Bhushan had questioned the government’s authority to compel private employers to pay full wages to their workers.

    Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal for the government had said the March 29 notification was no longer operational and most workers had already returned to their villages.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • Donald Trump targets ICC with sanctions over Afghanistan war crimes case

    He authorises economic sanctions and travel curbs against Court employees.

    Reuters

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order authorising sanctions against individuals involved in an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into whether U.S. forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

    A senior White House official, without providing details, said the ICC probe is “being pushed forward by an organisation of dubious integrity” and accused Russia of having a role.

    The order authorises Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in consultation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to block assets in the U.S. of ICC employees involved in the probe, the official said.

    It also authorises Mr. Pompeo to block entry into the U.S. of these individuals.

    Mr. Trump has repeatedly assailed The Hague-based ICC set-up to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. It has jurisdiction only if a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself.

    Afghanistan is a member of the ICC, though Kabul has argued that any war crimes should be prosecuted locally. The U.S. government has never been a member of the court, established in 2002. The government imposed travel restrictions and other sanctions against ICC employees a year ago.

    The ICC decided to investigate after prosecutors’ preliminary examination in 2017 found reasonable grounds to believe war crimes were committed in Afghanistan and that the ICC has jurisdiction.

    The senior administration official said the directive authorises sanctions against any individual directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate U.S. personnel without American consent.

    ‘Mass killings’

    The official said the probe threatens to infringe on U.S. sovereignty and that while the ICC was established to provide accountability, “in practice the court is an unaccountable, ineffective and out-of-control international bureaucracy that threatens American service members and intelligence officers.

    ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wants to investigate possible crimes committed between 2003 and 2014, including alleged mass killings of civilians by the Taliban, as well as the alleged torture of prisoners by Afghan authorities and, to a lesser extent, by U.S. forces and the CIA.

  • PNB bank fraud: CBI registers three cases involving over ₹120 cr.

    Top functionaries of companies, bank officials booked for causing loss to PNB

    The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered three cases against 22 persons, including companies, for causing loss of over ₹120 crore to the Punjab National Bank (PNB).

    Two cases have been registered against Linkson International, Linkson Ispat and Energies Private Limited, associated companies and their directors.

    In these cases, the PNB had taken over the loan portfolios of Linkson International from State Bank of Indore and that of Linkson Ispat and Energies Private Limited in August 2007. However, due to alleged non-payment of dues, both the accounts were declared non-performing assets in 2014, causing a total loss of more than ₹90 crore.

    Based on the complaints lodged by the bank, the CBI has booked top functionaries of the two companies, besides Lyra Housing and Finance Limited, Trimurty Commercial P Limited and Linkson Coal & Minerals P Limited, according to the FIRs.

    In another case, the agency has booked Global Trading Solutions Limited (Bhubaneswar), its managing director Abhinash Mohanty, former directors Kaushik Mohanty and Anshuman Samantaray, and director Bidhubhusan Nayak.

    The then PNB Chief Manager Nagmani Satyanarayana Prasad, Assistant General Manager S.C. Sharma, Chief Manager Manoranjan Dash and Senior Manager Priyotosh Das have also been named.

    Conducts searches

    “The CBI has conducted searches on the premises of the accused persons in Visakhapatnam, Kolkata, Jammu, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack,” said a CBI official.

    It is alleged that the PNB officials concerned conspired with the company’s directors to commit cheating in the processing, sanctioning and disbursing of cash credit facility, bill discounting and issuing letters of credit during 2010-15, causing a loss of ₹31.92 core. The funds were diverted to other group companies, it has been alleged.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • 97-year-old Agra man recovers from COVID-19

    District Magistrate hails the nonagenarian’s recovery as ‘ray of hope’

    PTI

    A nonagenarian man from Agra has recovered from COVID-19, with the local authorities saying the recuperation has come as a “ray of hope” for the novel coronavirus patients.

    The 1923-born man (name withheld) was discharged on Wednesday from a private hospital.

    He is one of the oldest COVID-19 patients in the country to recover successfully.

    Agra District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh, on Thursday, hailed the recovery as a “matter of pride” for the historic city.

    “Our team was keeping an eye on his condition daily, and the day his coronavirus test came negative after recovering, we felt so delighted. We hear of people trying to take their lives sometimes when they contract COVID-19, but not this 97-year-old man. His recovery has come as a ray of hope,” he said.

    He also tweeted on Thursday about his recovery, saying, it will lend hope, especially to people of the older age, and wrote, “Salute to #CoronaWarrior”.

    The man was admitted on April 29 to Nayati Hospital, a level-2 hospital for COVID-19 care in Agra, sources said.

    He has hypertension and initially needed a bit of oxygen supply, but recovered fine, they said.

  • Petrol price up by 57 paise/litre, diesel 59 paise

    This is the sixth increase in a row

    PTI

    Petrol price on Friday was hiked by 57 paise per litre and diesel by 59 paise a litre as oil companies adjusted retail rates — the sixth straight day of increase in rates since oil firms ended an 82-day hiatus of rate revision.

    Rates have been increased across the country and vary in each state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or value added tax.

    This is the sixth consecutive daily increase in rates since oil companies on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.

    In six hikes, petrol price has gone up by ₹3.31 per litre and diesel by ₹3.42