Air India to not accept passengers with cancelled tickets of Jet Airways

New Delhi, Jun 26: Petrol prices in the national capital have reached Rs 80.13 per litre on June 26, up by 21 paise from yesterday’s Rs 79.92 per litre; while diesel prices in Delhi also rose to Rs 80.19 per litre – up by 17 paise compared to yesterday’s Rs 80.02 per litre.

This is the 20th consecutive day that fuel prices have been hiked by oil marketing companies (OMCs). The hikes began from June 8 after a 83-day halt on revised pricing during the lockdown period.

The state government’s increased value-added tax (VAT) on diesel since May is causing the fuel’s prices to soar in Delhi. VAT was increased to 30 percent for both petrol and diesel from 27 percent and 16.75 percent, respectively.

Coupled with the Centre’s hiked excise duty of Rs 3 per litre since March 14 and then Rs 10 per litre on petrol and Rs 13 per litre on diesel since May 5 has affected prices.

The hike on diesel prices is unusual, as the government traditionally keeps the price for the fuel low due to its impact on agriculture and other high consumption economic activities.

New Delhi, Feb 4: Saying the matter had been adjourned many times and it will have to hear it someday, the Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed April 14 for hearing a plea by Zakia Jafri, wife of slain MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the SIT's clean chit to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 riots.

A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari posted the matter for hearing in April after Zakia's counsel sought an adjournment and urged the court to post it after the Holi vacation.

When advocate Aparna Bhat, appearing for Zakia, told the court that the issue in the matter is contentious, the bench said, "It has been adjourned so many times, whatever it is, we will have to hear it someday. Take one date and make sure you all are available." Zakia had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging the Gujarat High Court's October 5, 2017 order rejecting her plea against the decision of the Special Investigation Team.

Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed at Gulberg Society on February 28, 2002, a day after the S-6 Coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat.

On February 8, 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was "no prosecutable evidence" against them.

Tehran, Mar 10: Twenty-seven people have died from methanol poisoning in Iran after rumours that drinking alcohol can help cure the novel coronavirus infection, state news agency IRNA reported on Monday. The outbreak of the virus in Islamic republic is one of the deadliest outside of China, where the disease originated.

Twenty have died in the southwestern province of Khuzestan and seven in the northern region of Alborz after consuming bootleg alcohol, IRNA said.

Drinking alcohol is banned in Iran for everyone except some non-Muslim religious minorities. Local media regularly report on lethal cases of poisoning caused by bootleg liquor.

A spokesman for Jundishapur medical university in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan, said 218 people had been hospitalised there after being poisoned.

The poisonings were caused by "rumours that drinking alcohol can be effective in treating coronavirus," Ali Ehsanpour said.

The deputy prosecutor of Alborz, Mohammad Aghayari, told IRNA the dead had drunk methanol after being "misled by content online, thinking they were fighting coronavirus and curing it." If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

Iran has been scrambling to contain the spread of the COVID-19 illness which has hit all of the country's 31 provinces, killing 237 people and infecting 7,161.

According to IRNA, 16 out of 69 confirmed cases have died of coronavirus infection in Khuzestan as of Sunday.