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Nirmala Sitharaman lands defence portfolio, Piyush Goyal gets Railway

Agencies
September 3, 2017

New Delhi, Sep 3: Nirmala Sitharaman emerged as the biggest gainer of the cabinet reshuffle today as Prime Minister Modi gave her the heavyweight Defence portfolio, while Piyush Goyal replaced Suresh Prabhu in the Railway Ministry in a major rejig, which saw nine new faces being inducted.

Sitharaman became the first woman Defence Minister of the country since Indira Gandhi held the charge.

Sitharaman, who was holding the Commerce portfolio as a Minister of State, was elevated along with Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to the cabinet rank.

As the Defence Minister, Sitharaman will be a member of the crucial Cabinet Committee on Security whose members include the Prime Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister and the Finance Minister.

Prabhu was shifted to the commerce and industry ministry, while Pradhan and Naqvi retained their portfolios of Oil and Gas and Minority Affairs respectively. Goyal will continue to head the Coal Ministry along with Railways.

Modi stripped cabinet minister Uma Bharti of the charges of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation and handed them over to Nitin Gadkari. Bharti will take care of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Pradhan was given the additional charge of Skill Development Ministry. The Prime Minister also reposed faith in the administrative capabilities of three former government officials by giving them independent charge of crucial portfolios.

Former diplomat Hardeep Puri and former IAS officer Alphons Kannanthanam have been made MoS (Independent charge) of Housing and Urban Development and Tourism respectively.

R K Singh, former Home Secretary, was given charge of Power and New and Renewable Energy portfolios. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore replaced Vijay Goel in the Sports MInistry.

Goel, who earlier held independent charge, has been shunted as the Minister of State for Parliamentary Afairs and Statistics and Programme Implementation.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

New York, Aug 3: The number of coronavirus cases confirmed all over the world has surpassed 18 million, while the global COVID-19 death toll stands at over 687,000 according to data from the Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center.

As of 06:00 Moscow time on Monday (03:00 GMT), there are 18,017,556 confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. The global death toll from COVID-19 stands at 687,930. The number of recovered individuals stands at 10,649,108.

The United States remains the country with the largest number of cases (4,665,932) and the highest COVID-19 death toll (154,841), according to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University.

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News Network
February 9,2020

New Delhi, Feb 9: Calling India a "long-standing friend", Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for visiting his country in the aftermath of last year's Easter Sunday terror attacks and outlined that New Delhi has always helped Colombo in its fight against terrorism.

In a joint press briefing with PM Modi, Mahinda Rajapaksa said he hopes that India will continue to help Sri Lanka fight terrorism.

Mahinda Rajapaksa expressed his gratitude to PM Modi for the neighbourhood first policy and the priority India gives to Sri Lanka.

"We had agreed that our cooperation is multifaceted and priority is given to a number of areas including security, economy, culture and social sectors. Part of our discussions centered on cooperation with regard to the security of the two countries. India has always assisted Sri Lanka to enhance our capacity, capabilities in intelligence and counter-terrorism. We look forward to getting continued support in this regard," he said.

"I thank the Prime Minister for visiting Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday terror attacks that provided us with immense strength to come to terms with the tragedy. We also appreciate Prime Minister Modi's $400 million line of credit to enhance the economy of Sri Lanka and another $50 million line of credit for fighting terrorism," he added.

The Sri Lankan president urged PM Modi to consider further assistance to expand housing projectS all over Sri Lanka to benefit people from rural areas.

"The Prime Minister and I discussed how Sri Lanka and India can work together in the field of economy. India is among the world's fastest growing economies. I discussed with PM Modi how Sri Lanka could benefit from certain economic sectors where India is in a strong position," he said.

Concluding his statement, Mahinda Rajapaksa said, "India is our closest neighbour and a long-standing friend. The close historical links...provided a solid foundation to our ties."

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News Network
June 12,2020

Jun 12: The global number of COVID-19 cases has increased to over 7.5 million, while the death toll was nearing 421,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Friday morning, the overall number of cases stood at 7,500,777, while the deaths increased to 420,993, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US continues with the world's highest number of confirmed cases and deaths at 2,022,488 and 113,803, respectively, according to the CSSE.

In terms of cases, Brazil comes in the second place with 802,828 infections.

This was followed by Russia (501,800), the UK (292,860), India (286,605), Spain (242,707), Italy (236,142), Peru (214,788), France (192,493), Germany (186,691), Iran (180,156), Turkey (174,023), Chile (154,092), Mexico (133,974), Pakistan (125,933) and Saudi Arabia (116,021), the CSSE figures showed.

Regarding fatalities, the UK continues in the second position after the US with 41,364 COVID-19 deaths, which also accounts for the highest number of fatalities in Europe.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Brazil (40,919), Italy (34,167), France (29,349), Spain (27,136) and Mexico (15,944).

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