New Delhi, Jul 18: Textiles Minister Smriti Irani was today given the additional charge of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry after M Venkaiah Naidu resigned from the Cabinet to contest the vice-presidential poll.
The portfolio of urban development, which too was with Naidu, was given to Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, the PMO said.
The BJP had yesterday decided to field Naidu as NDA's candidate for the post of vice president.
New Delhi, Apr 17: With 1,076 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and 32 deaths, India's total count of coronavirus cases has surged to 13,835, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.
The total cases are inclusive of 1,766 cured and discharged patients, one migrated and 452 deaths. At present, there are 11,616 active COVID-19 cases in the country.
Before the lockdown, the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases was about three days, but according to the data of the past 7 days, the doubling rate of cases now stands at 6.2 days, said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health and Family Welfare.
"Before the lockdown, doubling rate of COVID-19 cases was about three days but according to the data of past 7 days, the doubling rate of cases now stands at 6.2 days," Aggarwal said during the daily briefing on COVID-19.
Aggarwal said that as many as 5 lakh rapid antibody testing kits are being distributed to States and Districts where a high case burden has been observed.
"A total of 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1.73 lakh isolation beds, 21,800 ICU beds readied in India," he added.
New Delhi, Mar 31: India is likely to blacklist about 300 foreigners who came from 16 countries, including Malaysia and Thailand, on tourist visas but attended an Islamic congregation at Nizamuddin here that has become a key source for the spread of coronavirus in the country, officials said on Tuesday.
These foreigners were among around 8,000 people who attended the Tabligh-e-Jamaat at Nizamuddin Markaz facility in March, many of whom have shown symptoms of COVID-19, a Union Home Ministry officlal said.
About 30 of those who attended the Nizamuddin event in mid-March tested positive and at least three have succumbed to the infection in last few days.
"Those who came on tourist visa but attended the Nizamuddin event stands being in our blacklist as they have violated the visa conditions. Tourist visa holders can't attend religious function," a Union Home ministry official said.
If a foreigner is put in the Home ministry's blacklist, he or she can't travel to India in future.
A total of 281 foreigners were found by the police at the Nizamuddin campus in the last two days.
They include 19 people from Nepal, 20 people from Malaysia, one from Afghanistan, 33 from Myanmar, one from Algeria, one from Djibouti, 28 from Kyrgystan, 72 from Indonesia, 7 from Thailand, 34 from Sri Lanka, 19 from Bangladesh, three from England, one from Singapore, four from Fiji, one from France and one from Kuwait.
Most of these foreigners came on a tourist visa, an official said.
Mumbai, Mar 8: A day after the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and raided his premises, he was taken to the agency's office in Mumbai on Saturday for further questioning.
Kapoor, who was grilled by central agency's officials on Friday night at his Samudra Mahal residence in Mumbai, was shifted to the ED office in the metropolis around 12.30 pm.
ED officials said Kapoor was questioned throughout the night, with some rest time.
A senior ED official connected with the probe told IANS: "Kapoor will be questioned about Yes Bank loans to Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL)."
The official said that during searches a lot of incriminating documents were found and the agency wanted to grill him on his links with DHFL promoters and other companies.
Kapoor's alleged role in the disbursal of loan to a corporate entity and kickbacks reportedly received in his wife's bank account are also under probe.
The ED had filed the money laundering case against Kapoor and raided his residence, apart from issuing a look-out circular so that he does not flee the country.
The ED registered a money laundering case against Kapoor as a continuation of its probe against the DHFL wherein it was allegedly found that Rs 12,500 crore was diverted to 80 shell companies using one lakh fake borrowers. The transactions with these shell companies date back to 2015.
An ED official in New Delhi told IANS that the DHFL probe revealed that funds diverted by the DHFL originated from Yes Bank.
He said that the searches at Kapoor's residence on Friday night were meant to find out any irregularity in grant of loans to the DHFL by the Yes Bank.
The ED has accused Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL of purchasing shares in five firms -- Faith Realtors, Marvel Township, Abe Realty, Poseidon Realty, and Random Realtors -- after which they were amalgamated with Sunblink.
The outstanding loans of these five firms, totalling around Rs 2,186 crore till July 2019, were allegedly appropriated onto the books of Sunblink to cover up the diversion of loans acquired from DHFL.
The ED's action comes after the RBI superseded Yes Bank Board for 30 days and appointed an administrator, putting a cap of Rs 50,000 on withdrawals by account holders for a month.
The RBI said that the bank's board was superseded "owing to serious deterioration in the financial position of the bank".
Former SBI CFO Prashant Kumar was appointed as administrator of Yes Bank, which has over 1,000 branches and 1,800-plus ATMs across the country.
On Thursday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the bank was on watch since 2017 and developments relating to it were monitored on a day-to-day basis.
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We better prepare another list of those who got killed by saffron terrorists and send it to President of India.
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