Lot of evidence to prove that you are a terrorist: BJP to Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi, Feb 1: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised to make India a higher education destination, as she unveiled the government’s plan to invest in the education sector in her Budget speech.

“We propose Rs 99,300 crore for education sector in 2020-21 and Rs 3,000 crore for skill development,” said Sitharaman. While there is an increase of 4.6 per cent in the education spending than last year, the budget for skill development remains almost unchanged. Sitharaman also announced holding IND-SAT exam in African and Asian countries, for foreign candidates who wish to study in India.

The Finance Minister had listed three themes of the Union Budget 2020 while presenting the financial statement of the government in Parliament: Aspirational India to boost the standard of living, economic development for all, and building a humane and compassionate society. The spend under education is being done under aspirational India, “which focusses on focussed on skills, education, and agriculture” said Sitharaman.

“A degree-level full-fledged online education programme will be offered by institutes in top 100 in National Institutional Ranking Framework,” said Sitharaman, adding that Centre will announce a new education policy soon. “The government has received over 2 lakh suggestions on it.”

Further giving boost to India’s import of skilled human capital, Sitharaman said, “I propose special bridge course for nurses and medical professional for labour export to countries who open their door for such jobs.”

“Steps will be be taken to attract external commercial borrowing and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the education sector,” the finance minister added.

She further said the government plans to start a programme for urban local bodies to provide opportunities for internship to young engineers.

The Finance Minister also said National Police University and National Forensic University are being proposed.

The government has also proposed to attach medical colleges with district hospitals on PPP model to deal with shortage of doctors, Sitharaman added.

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of encounter with a tiger. Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior. pic.twitter.com/1rLZyZJs3i

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) January 25, 2020

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

Here's the full video pic.twitter.com/Avvci4Bnhg

— January 25, 2020

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

New Delhi, Mar 19: Hit hard by coronavirus, budget carrier IndiGo today announced that it will cut salaries of senior employees. IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta, who will himself take a 25% cut in salary, said senior vice presidents and above are taking a 20% pay cut while vice presidents and cockpit crew are taking a 15% pay cut.

With precipitous drop in revenues, the very survival of airline industry is now at stake, Dutta said while announcing the pay cut. "We have to pay careful attention to our cash flow so that we do not run out of cash," Dutta said adding that he knew how hard it was for families to take a cut in "take-home pay".

"With a great deal of reluctance and a deep sense of regret, we are therefore instituting pay cuts for all employees, excluding Bands A and B, starting April 1, 2020," the chief executive officer said. Band A and B are the lowest brackets in salary class, where most of the employees are.

IndiGo's flight operations chief Ashim Mitra had written an email to pilots this morning saying that the economic environment has deteriorated significantly and no airline is insulated from this severe downturn.

"It has become a necessity to initiate some tough calls and we are working on a string of measures that will be shared and implemented over the next few days and weeks," Mitra said.

With countries sealing their borders partially or fully across the world due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, aviation sector has been hit extremely hard as most airlines globally have drastically curtailed their flight operations.

Another budget airline GoAir has already terminated contracts of expat pilots amid curtailed operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Citing "unprecedented" decline in air travel, the budget carrier announced it was suspending international operations and offering leave without pay programme to its staff on a rotational basis.

Government-owned Air India may also cut salary of employees by 5% amid its growing financial woes particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has nearly grounded its entire international operations. The reduction will be across the board, according to a PTI report.

The loss-making airline, which is in the process of a second attempt of privatization after failing to get a single buyer nearly two years ago, has already taken some steps such as reduced flying allowances to cabin crew besides withdrawing entertainment allowance to executive pilots, among others.

“Air India is considering a 5 per cent pay cut to its employees as it faces huge financial crisis due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, which has brought almost its entire international operations save the US, Canada and a few other markets, to the ground," a source told news agency.