Ministerial panel to consider legislation to end instant triple talaq

New Delhi, Feb 9: As the outbreak of novel coronavirus has lead to the death of more than 800 Chinese nationals, aviation regulator DGCA on Saturday said that foreigners who went to China on or after January 15 will not be allowed to enter India.

The DGCA, in its circular to airlines on Saturday, reiterated that all visas issued to Chinese nationals before February 5 have been suspended.

However, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) clarified, "These visa restrictions will not apply to aircrew, who may be Chinese nationals or other foreign nationalities coming from China."

"Foreigners who have been to China on or after January 15, 2020, are not allowed to enter India from any air, land or seaport, including Indo-Nepal, Indo-Bhutan, Indo-Bangladesh or Indo-Myanmar land borders," the DGCA said.

Among Indian airlines, IndiGo and Air India have suspended all of their flights between the two countries. SpiceJet continues to fly on Delhi-Hong Kong route.

On February 1 and 2, Air India conducted two special flights to Chinese city of Wuhan, epicentre of the outbreak, evacuating 647 Indians and seven Maldivians.

Till date, three Indians have tested positive for novel coronavirus.

New Delhi, Mar 20: The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

They were hanged at 5.30 am, Director General of Prison Sandeep Goel said.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night. Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her. She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.

The death warrants were deferred by a court thrice on the grounds that the convicts had not exhausted all their legal remedies and that the mercy petition of one or the other was before the president.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30 am as the final date for the execution.

Mumbai, Mar 6; The Indian equity indices slumped on Friday morning, with the BSE Sensex falling over 1,450 points

The slump across the sectoral indices was led by the finance and banking stocks as the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday superseded the board of directors of Yes Bank and placed it under moratorium.

Persistent fears of the coronavirus outbreak severely impacting global economy also weighed on the investor sentiments, analysts said.

At 9.36 a.m., the BSE Sensex trimmed some losses and was trading at 37,376.66, lower by 1,093.95 points or 2.84 per cent from the previous close of 38,470.61

So far, the index has touched an intra-day low of 37,011.09, falling by 1,459.52 points.

It had opened at the intra-day high of 37,613.96.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was trading at 10,938.75, lower by 330.25 or 2.93 per cent from its previous close.