Here are the top 5 news updates of July 24, 2021:
1. Tokyo Olympics 2020: First medal for India, Mirabai Chanu wins silver in weightlifting
Mirabai Chanu ended India's 21-year wait for a weightlifting medal at the Olympics by clinching a silver medal in the 49kg category to open the country's account here on Saturday.
The 26-year-old lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to better Karnam Malleswari's bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. With this, she exorcised the ghosts of the 2016 Games where she had failed to log a single legitimate lift.
The gold went to China's Hou Zhihui with an effort of 210kg (94kg+116kg) , while Aisah Windy Cantika of Indonesia took home the bronze with an effort of 194kg (84kg+110kg).
Considered her weakness in the run up to the marquee event, Chanu attempted 84kg in her first snatch attempt. The Manipuri took her time and cleanly heaved the barbell.
The Maharashtra Government on Saturday released a status report of floods in various parts of the state due to incessant rains. As per the compilation made by the disaster management, relief and rehabilitation department, as many as 90,000 people from flood hit districts have been evacuated so far. Nearly 76 people and 75 animals lost their lives, 38 are injured and 30 people are still missing.
The department in order to aid response to the floods deployed teams of the National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force across all the affected districts.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will be visiting the affected areas later on Saturday. He is set to leave for Mahad at 12 pm by chopper, following which he will visit Taliye by road at 1.30 pm. There, he will go to villages where more than 49 have died in landslides.
As the Pegasus spyware issue is being hotly debated in the country, the Maharashtra government on Friday asked its employees to keep the use of mobile phones to a minimum during officer hours, saying that landline phones are more preferable.
An order issued by the General Administration department (GAD) said mobile phones should be used only if necessary for official work.
Indiscriminate use of mobile phones in office maligns the government's image, the order said, without any reference to the spyware row.
Text messages should be used more if mobile phones are to be used at all and conversation through these devices should be as little as possible, it added.
The use of social media through mobile devices during officer hours should be limited, the government said.
Personal calls on mobile phones should be answered by stepping out of office, the `code of conduct' further said.
The order also said that conversations on mobile phone should be "polite" and carried on "in low voice", keeping in mind people in the vicinity.
Amid the ongoing talks of Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa resigining from his post, there is new name doing the rounds who will be succeding the existing CM. If reports are to be believed, it is being said that BJP leader and union minister Pralhad Joshi may be the new chief minister of the Kannada state.
However, Mr Joshi when asked about the development said that no one has spoken to him about this and he was not aware that BS Yediyurappa has been asked to resign or not.
Joshi said, "There is no high command in the BJP but national leadership. We got different leaderships from time to time. There was Rajnath Singh, after which Nitin Gadkari came, who was succeeded by Amit Shah and now J P Nadda is there. In the present situation, we have supreme leaders in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. They will decide."
"No one has spoken to me about it (succeeding Yediyurappa). It's only the media, which is discussing it. As no one has spoken to me, there is no need to react to it," he said, as news agency PTI reported.
5. CISCE results: 99.98% students pass ICSE class 10, 99.93% ISC class 12
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations has declared ICSE, ISC Result 2021. The result for both Class 10 and Class 12 was announced at 3 pm. Students who have registered for ICSE and ISC exam can check the result on the official site of CISCE on www.cisce.org or www.results.cisce.org
According to the council, girls outshined boys by 0.2 percent margin in ISC class 12 results.
The exam board announced that no merit list will be announced this year for classes 10 and 12 in the view of exceptional circumstances owning to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"In class 10, girls and boys have achieved a pass percentage of 99.98 per cent. In class 12, the pass percentage of girls is 99.86 per cent while that of boys is 99.66 per cent," CISCE Chief Executive and Secretary Gerry Arathoon said.
