PM Modi celebrates Diwali with troops along LoC in J&K's Gurez

Lucknow, Jan 21: Defending his brainchild, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the new law will not be scrapped despite the countrywide protests against it.

Addressing a rally here to drum up support for the CAA, Shah also declared that construction of a Ram temple "touching the skies" in Ayodhya will begin within three months.

He said there is no provision in the amended law for taking anyone's citizenship away. "A canard is being spread against the CAA by the Congress, SP, BSP, and Trinamool Congress. The CAA is a law to grant citizenship," he added.

"I want to say that irrespective of the protests this will not be withdrawn," he added.

Shah challenged Congress leaders to hold a discussion with him on CAA at a public forum.

He named Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee while throwing the "challenge".

Congress has become blind due to vote bank politics,"he said. He also blamed the Congress for Partition.

New Delhi, Jun 27: Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday called an emergency meeting here to discuss the situation following a locust attack in neighbouring Gurugram.

The minister also directed the administration to be alert, an official said.

"After the emergency meeting, an advisory will be issued on steps to be taken to deal with the situation," Rai told PTI.

He asked the officials of the Agriculture department to make field visits to areas close to Gurugram.

The development secretary, divisional commissioner, director, Agriculture department, and the district magistrates of South Delhi and West Delhi will attend the meeting, the official said.

Earlier in the day, the skies over many parts of Gurugram turned dark as swarms of locusts descended on the town.

However, the migratory pests are likely to spare the national capital for now, officials said.

The swarms of locusts, spread across two kilometres, moved from west to east. They entered Gurugram around 11.30 am, K L Gurjar of the Locust Warning Organisation, Ministry of Agriculture, told PTI.

The pests, he said, were headed towards Faridabad and Palwal in Haryana.

Alarmed at the invasion of the locusts, which settled on trees, rooftops and plants, many residents of Gurugram shared videos from their high-rise perches.

In May, India battled a devastating desert locust outbreak. The crop-destroying swarms first attacked Rajasthan and then spread to Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

According to experts, broadly four species of locusts are found in India – desert locust, migratory locust, Bombay locust and tree locust. The desert locust is considered the most destructive.

It multiplies very rapidly and is capable of covering 150 kilometers in a day.

This insect, a type of a grasshopper, can eat more than its body weight. A one square kilometer of locust swarm containing around 40 million locusts can in a day eat as much food as 35,000 people.

Experts blame the growing menace of desert locusts on climate change. They say breeding of locusts is directly related to soil moisture and food availability.

United Nations, Jan 2: Nearly 400,000 babies were born around the world on New Year's Day with India recording the highest number of these births worldwide at 67,385, the UN children's agency said.

An estimated 392,078 babies were born around the world on New Year's Day, according to UNICEF. Of this, an estimated 67,385 babies were born in India, the most globally. China comes in second with 46,299 births.

The beginning of a new year and a new decade is an opportunity to reflect on our hopes and aspirations not only for our future, but the future of those who will come after us,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said.

As the calendar flips each January, we are reminded of all the possibility and potential of each child embarking on her or his life's journey—if they are just given that chance.”

Fiji in the Pacific most likely delivered 2020's first baby, while the US, the last of the New Year's Day. Globally, over half of these births were estimated to have taken place in eight countries - India (67,385), China (46,299), Nigeria (26,039), Pakistan (16,787), Indonesia (13,020), United States of America (10,452), Democratic Republic of Congo (10,247) and Ethiopia (8,493).

Each January, UNICEF celebrates babies born on New Year's Day, an auspicious day for child birth around the world, it said. However, for millions of newborns around the world, the day of their birth is far less auspicious.

In 2018, 2.5 million newborns died in just their first month of life; about a third of them on the first day of life. Among those children, most died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis. In addition, more than 2.5 million babies are born dead each year.

UNICEF said over the past three decades, the world has seen remarkable progress in child survival, cutting the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday by more than half. But there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month accounted for 47 per cent of all deaths among children under five in 2018, up from 40 per cent in 1990.

UNICEF's Every Child Alive campaign calls for immediate investment in health workers with the right training, who are equipped with the right medicines to ensure every mother and newborn is cared for by a safe pair of hands to prevent and treat complications during pregnancy, delivery and birth.

Too many mothers and newborns are not being cared for by a trained and equipped midwife or nurse, and the results are devastating,” said Fore. “We can ensure that millions of babies survive their first day and live into this decade and beyond if every one of them is born into a safe pair of hands.”

India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country around 2027. According to UN estimates, India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050, while the population of Nigeria is projected to grow by 200 million. Together, these two countries could account for 23 per cent of the global population increase to 2050.

China, with 1.43 billion people in 2019, and India, with 1.37 billion, have long been the two most populous countries of the world, comprising 19 and 18 per cent, respectively, of the global total in 2019. Through the end of the century, India is estimated to remain the world's most populous country with nearly 1.5 billion inhabitants, followed by China with just under 1.1 billion, Nigeria with 733 million, the US with 434 million, and Pakistan with 403 million inhabitants.