Here are the top 5 news updates of June 17, 2021:
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) today arrested former "encounter specialist" police officer Pradeep Sharma in Mumbai for his alleged involvement in the 'Antilia' bomb scare case and the murder of businessman Mansukh Hiran, an official said. An NIA team had picked up Sharma from Lonavla near Mumbai late on Wednesday night, after which he was brought to the central agency's office in south Mumbai for questioning, he said. "The NIA also conducted a raid at his residence located in J B Nagar in Mumbai's Andheri (west) around 6 am, and the operation continued for several hours. The officials recovered some incriminating documents from his house," the official said.
The Centre today told the Supreme Court that the CBSE will be adopting a 30:30:40 formula for evaluation of marks of Class 12 students based on results of class 10, 11 and 12 respectively. A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari was told by Attorney General K K Venugopal that CBSE students who are not satisfied with the evaluation formula will be given an opportunity to take up Class 12 examination when the pandemic situation becomes conducive. The top court told Venugopal to come up with modalities for dispute resolution mechanism in the CBSE scheme itself, so that grievances of students can be taken care of. Venugopal assured the bench that a committee will be constituted for redressal of students' concern, if any.
The highly virulent "Delta plus" variant of the novel coronavirus could stoke the third wave in Maharashtra, according to a presentation made at a meeting attended by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday. "The number of active patients could reach up to eight lakh, while 10 per cent out of them could be children," said the presentation made by the state health department, as per an official release. The meeting was held to take stock of preparations to tackle a possible third wave of COVID-19 even as Maharashtra, the state worst hit by the pandemic, emerges out of a devastating second wave of the infection.
Police in Chhattisgarh's Raipur have registered an FIR against yoga guru Ramdev for allegedly spreading "false" information about the medicines being used by the medical fraternity for the treatment of COVID-19, a police official said today. The case was filed on Wednesday night against Baba Ramdev based on a complaint filed by the Chhattisgarh's unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Raipur's Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Yadav said. As per the complaint, Ramdev has been allegedly propagating false information and his threatening statements on social media against medicines being used by medical fraternity, Government of India, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and other frontline organisations in treatment of coronavirus infection. There are several videos of him on social media in which he had allegedly made such misleading remarks, it said.
Equity benchmark Sensex tumbled 179 points today, weighed by losses in index heavyweights HDFC twins, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank amid a largely negative trend in global equities. The 30-share BSE index ended 178.65 points or 0.34 per cent lower at 52,323.33. The broader NSE Nifty declined 76.15 points or 0.48 per cent to 15,691.40. IndusInd Bank was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 3 per cent, followed by Dr Reddy's, NTPC, Maruti, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel and HDFC. On the other hand, UltraTech Cement, TCS, Asian Paints and Infosys were among the gainers.
(With inputs from PTI)
