Here are the top 5 news updates of January 11, 2022:
In a jolt to the BJP ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Minister Swami Prasad Maurya on Tuesday resigned from the state cabinet and joined the Samajwadi Party in presence of party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Informing about his decision, Maurya said in a tweet in Hindi, "Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP." In his resignation letter addressed to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Maurya said, "I discharged my responsibilities as the minister for labour, employment, coordination in the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, despite adverse ('vipreet') circumstances and ideology." Maurya, who hails from a backward caste, had joined the BJP before the 2017 assembly polls. He is the MLA from Padrauna.
The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today ruled out lockdown in the city. Speaking to reporters, CM Kejriwal said, "We are expecting that the city would report somewhere around 20,000-22,000 new COVID-19 cases in Delhi. The positivity rate has been around 24-25 per cent for the past two days. We are enforcing strict restrictions like night curfew in Delhi out of compulsion." The Chief Minister and Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jai visited LNJP hospital to take stock of preparation to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the city. He further said that most cases of coronavirus during the third wave are showing mild symptoms unlike the second wave, which was caused by the life-taking Delta variant. Omicron variant of COVID-19 is less virulent but highly contagious, he added.
It is a "very disturbing" scenario in Maharashtra where former police commissioner Param Bir Singh does not have faith in his own force and the state government has no faith in the CBI, the Supreme Court said today. A bench comprising Justices S K Kaul and M M Sundresh made this observation after the counsel for the former police chief submitted that the state police was trying to corner him in departmental cases. The top court, which refused to extend protection from arrest to Singh, said: "This is the same police which you headed for so much of time. What do we say that head of police force doesn't have any trust in the police force, state government has no faith in the CBI. Look at the scenario which is being painted. It is a very disturbing scenario for us. We can't resolve it peacefully."
The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked Twitter to block the account of actor Siddharth over his "sexist" tweet against ace badminton player Saina Nehwal. NCW chief Rekha Sharma has written to the resident grievance officer of Twitter India to block actor Siddharth's account. NCW Chairperson Rekha Sharma said, "We have not received any reply from them. We are waiting for their reply and we are pursuing with them and want actor Siddharth's account to be blocked." "Today also we have written to Tamil Nadu DGP on another incident where he is using abusive language for one of the media person. So, we have taken up that matter and we have written to the DGP again. We are pursuing both cases," Sharma added, "We have not had a word with Sania Nehwal. We took suo moto on this case. Many similar cases are seen on social media and we took this up to set an example for others," she said.
Continuing its winning run for the third session in a row, the BSE benchmark Sensex added another 221 points to revisit the 60,500-level today, helped by buying mainly in IT and financial shares. After early hiccups, the 30-share benchmark remained poised throughout the session and went on to hit the day's high of 60,689.25. It finally ended 221.26 points or 0.37 per cent higher at 60,616.89. Likewise, the NSE Nifty gained 52.45 points or 0.29 per cent to end at 18,055.75. On the Sensex chart, HCL Tech, HDFC, Tech Mahindra, TCS, RIL, Sun Pharma and SBI were the major gainers, rising as much as 4.3 per cent. On the other hand, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, ITC, Asian Paints and Kotak Bank were among the laggards.
