The Congress in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday questioned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat over the deaths of hundreds of cows in a shelter in the state.

Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh said he wrote to Modi and Bhagwat demanding that the deaths of cows in the country’s biggest shelter in Agar Malwa district’s Salariya village be probed and guilty be booked for murder.

State Congress chief Arun Yadav asked why are the people who give a free hand to cow vigilantes, who kill people caught with a single cow, silent on the deaths of so many cows.

Ajay Singh said he visited the shelter with Yadav on Tuesday and saw that many cows were in a bad condition. “The cows who had died had not been buried properly and dogs were feasting on the carcasses… It was a shameful sight.”

“To get votes, these people (in the Bharatiya Janata Party) do not shy away from calling the cow ‘gau mata’ (cow mother) and even ‘rashtra mata’ (mother of the nation) but once the votes are in, they forget everything.”

The two Congress leaders said that in the past three months, more than 400 cows have died at the shelter but the administration is accepting only 117 deaths.

The letter was sent to Bhagwat in Ujjain where the RSS chief is currently camping with some Bharatiya Janata Party members.

Bhagwat and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan were both present at the foundation laying ceremony of this shelter, the letter said, adding Chouhan had even said the spot will be made a pilgrimage place of cows.

The White news House said on Thursday that it will ban staffers and guests on using personal cellphones in the West Wing.

“The security and integrity of the technology systems at the White House is a top priority for the Trump administration,” Xinhua quoted White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as saying.

“Therefore, starting next week the use of all personal devices for both guests and staff will no longer be allowed in the West Wing,” she said.

“Staff will be able to conduct business on their government-issued devices and continue working hard on behalf of the American people.”

The move came one day after the release of controversial excerpts from “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by Michael Wolff, that revealed widespread dysfunction and infighting inside the Trump administration.

Former Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras, who is also the leader of the pro-independence Esquerra Republicana (ERC), appeared in the Spanish Supreme Court on Thursday to appeal against the decision to maintain him in preventive custody without bail.

Junqueras was sent to prison on November 2, facing charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds, Xinhua news agency reported.

He has previously been denied bail at the start of December, with the judge arguing there was a risk of repeat offending, while other former members of the Catalan regional government were allowed to leave.

Junqueras’ court appearance follows the regional election in Catalonia on December 21.

Spain’s pro-unity Catalan party Ciudadanos won the most votes by gaining 37 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament.

But the pro-independence bloc consisting of three parties — JuntsxCat, ERC and CUP — secured an absolute majority of 70 seats in the parliament.

A decision is expected on Junqueras’ request in the next few days.

Russia considers a US proposal to hold an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over recent protests in Iran as “harmful”, Sputnik news agency reported on Thursday, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

The Security Council is responsible for maintaining global peace and security, and Iran’s internal issues have nothing to do with its mission, Ryabkov said.

“Iran’s domestic affairs have nothing to do with the United Nations Security Council’s role,” he said.

He said Russia will roll out its own position, which is in line with the norms of international law.

Earlier this week, US envoy to UN Nikki Haley said Washington sought to convene emergency meetings at the UN headquarters and human rights council in Geneva.

Over the past week, riots broke out in some Iranian cities in protest against price hikes and economic woes.

US President Donald Trump and a number of other US officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have sided with the protesters.

Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Gholamali Khoshroo has slammed the US government’s recent attempts to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Islamic Republic.

At least 46 people, including 11 civilians, were killed in the last 24 hours in bombings allegedly by the Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, in western Yemen, medics said on Thursday.

Coalition aircraft attacked several positions by Houthi rebels in the province of al-Hudaydah, killing 35 combatants and wounding dozens, Efe news agency reported.

In addition, 11 civilians lost their lives on Wednesday night and eight suffered wounds when coalition planes targeted a group of Houthis near a restaurant in the town of Zabid, southeast of the port of al-Hudaydah, medical sources in the area said.

Al-Hudaydah is a strategic port on the Red Sea and is controlled by the Houthis.

Yemen is the scene of a civil war between forces loyal to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, exiled in Riyadh, and the Houthi rebels, who control regions in the north and west of the country, as well as its capital, Sana’a.

Reacting to US President Donald Trumps “lies and deceit” comments, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday said he “is singing Indias tune” and that the Islambad’s civil and military leaderships were on the same page.

Asif said the US government’s claim of releasing a dispensation of $33 billion in aid to Pakistan was also baseless, the Express news reported.

Speaking during a meeting here on Thursday of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, the Foreign Minister said the Trump administration disregarded the facts presented by Pakistan about the situation in Afghanistan.

The Foreign Minister went on to say that the Trump stance disregards the many sacrifices Pakistan has made in the war against terrorism. “We will not make any deals when it comes to our honour,” he added.

In the last four years, Asif said, we have been forced to deal with the mess left behind in Afghanistan for so many decades.

He said the war in Afghanistan cannot be fought in Pakistan and “we need to find a peaceful solution to the issue”.

“We shall take all decisions in this regard taking into account our national interests,” he said.

Delhi’s first automated commercial vehicle fitness testing centre will be opened during the current month, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said.

All commercial vehicles, including buses, taxis, autorickshaws, heavy and light commercial vehicle, among others, have to undergo testing and get a fitness certificate.

The testing centre at Jhuljhuli of west Delhi would be better compared to visual inspection currently done at the testing facility in Burari of North Delhi, according to officials.

New commercial vehicles have to be tested and also every year after the first two years, for the vehicle’s overall performance and its condition.

“For the past one month, we have been doing fitness testing of school buses and AITP (All India Tourist Permit) buses at the Jhuljhuli centre on a pilot basis,” Delhi Transport Department Special Commissioner K.K. Dahiya told IANS.

The testing of different parts of a vehicle like brakes and headlights will be done by machines and a test result would be generated.

Dahiya said that the new centre would take pressure off the only vehicle fitness testing centre in Burari.

The Jhuljhuli centre, set up in three acres of land, is a joint venture between the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Delhi government.

Dahiya said that the Burari centre will continue to function and they plan to automate the centre by the end of the current year.

A Transport Department official told IANS that the automated centre would end corruption as it would not be up to the inspecting officer to give the fitness certificate and the whole process would be more transparent.

“If the vehicles are in a better condition it would also decrease road accidents,” the officer said.

According to officials, the drivers waiting area of the centre is under construction.

Noting that the “bailout” for state-run banks through the Rs 2.12 lakh crore recapitalisation plan has turned out to be a “moral hazard” in view of the corporates’ inability to repay loans, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that capital infusion is solely aimed at strengthening the banking system.

He was replying to the debate on his Ministry’s supplementary demands for grants for 2017-18 in the Lok Sabha seeking Parliament approval for additional expenditure of Rs 80,000 crore towards recapitalisation of public sector banks (PSBs). The third batch of supplementary demands for grants was later approved.

“Banks have given money to industrialists in the past… however, some are now sitting in London, others cannot pay back,” the Finance Minister said in an obvious reference to corporate accounts which account for a major portion of the bad loans accumulated by PSBs, including the case of absconding industrialist Vijay Mallaya, who has been declared a proclaimed offender by a Delhi court.

“This is the moral hazard with the bailout but we have to strengthen the banking system,” he said.

Jaitley also said that without bringing politics into the discussion on what he has earlier described as a “legacy issue”, the effort now is to improve the lending capacity of banks through infusion of adequate capital.

Referring to the recapitalisation plan for state-run banks approved by the government in October, he said the objective is to ensure that the lenders’ ability to support growth is not impacted by their combined non-performing assets (NPAs) which have crossed the staggering level of Rs 7.5 lakh crore.

“In order to correct the situation, we brought in the Indradhanush plan to infuse Rs 70,000 crore spread over a period of three years, which is coming to an end.

“However, this money has proved inadequate owing to the provisioning amount going up on account of the Asset Quality Review for banks ordered by the RBI, which brought out the real dimension of NPAs,” he said.

“So we need to put in more money and it becomes a bailout, which is not an ideal idea but it is important to keep the banks in good health,” he added.

Participating in a short-duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the state of the economy earlier on Thursday, Jaitley said that it was reckless lending by banks during the boom years in the previous UPA government that had led to accumulation of such huge NPAs, or bad loans, in the Indian banking system.

And this “reckless lending without proper risk management has affected the banks’ capacity to support growth” he said, adding that the massive lending by banks in the high-growth period after 2008 is now being reflected in their accumulated bad loans and through heavily leveraged corporate balance sheets.

BMW India on Thursday reported a growth of 25 per cent in its annual sales for 2017.

According to the company, its annual sales increased to 9,379 cars in 2017.

The BMW Group delivered 9,800 cars including those sold under BMW India and its Mini brand.

The central government on Thursday said that it has approved two foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth Rs 532 crore, including one from Metaffinity.

“During the month of December 2017, the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance has disposed of two FDI proposals involving foreign investment of Rs 532 crore,” an official statement said.

The proposal of Metaffinity sought approval for getting foreign investment up to 49 per cent in the form of non-voting equity shares by two investors, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Pantheon-HK Project Universe.

Metaffinity is an investment holding company, which will make a downstream investment in Religare Health Insurance Company Limited which is engaged in health insurance business.

Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said that businessman Sushil Gupta, one of its Rajya Sabha candidates, will help the party expand and accomplish its “Mission Haryana”.

AAP Delhi convenor Gopal Rai took up to Facebook Live to justify the party’s decision of electing the two outsiders — Narain Dass Gupta and Sushil Gupta – as its candidates for Rajya Sabha seats which triggered criticism from opposition parties.

Dismissing the allegations of “buying” the candidates, he said such allegations aimed at putting down Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Rai said Sushil Gupta, a businessman and an ex-Congress politician, who runs charitable schools and hospitals in Delhi and Haryana, was picked due to “practical reasons” and N.D. Gupta for his expertise on the economy.

“We had formed government in Delhi with a dream of eliminating corruption, establishing Swaraj. But the Centre is not letting us work. They are being able to do this as Delhi is not a full state.

“The party needs a full state for bringing about the changes it desires. We tried that in Punjab. But Congress and BJP did not let us do that. The party feels that it can form government in Haryana. We have chosen him keeping our mission Haryana in mind,” he said.

Earlier in the day, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, Sushil Gupta and chartered accountant Narain Gupta filed their nomination for the three Rajya Sabha seats that will fall vacant when the tenure of Congress members Janardhan Dwivedi, Parvez Hashmi and Karan Singh end.

It would be for the first time that the AAP, which officially has 66 members in the 70-member Delhi Assembly including some dissidents, will elect members to the upper house.

The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport has started the implementation of CAT III-B Instrument Landing System (ILS) from Thursday, that will allow flights to operate till the visibility drops below 50 metres.

“NSCBI Airport, Kolkata has become the fifth airport after Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknowand Amritsar to be equipped with CAT III-B ILS. The implementation of ILS CAT III-B will be a big boon for the airports worst affected by fog during winter when the visibility goes as low as 50 metres,” a statement said.

Every year during December and January, due to fog, flights operating to and from northern part of India are disrupted. It has been observed that in spite of best efforts from all the stakeholders namely, Airports Authority of India (AAI), airlines and Meteorological department, flights are delayed as a result of unpredictable weather.

To improve the air navigation facilities for the aircrafts and passengers at airports worst affected by fog, the AAI has already commissioned CATIII-B ILS at IGI Airport (runways 28, 29 and 11), Amritsar (runway 34), Lucknow (runway 27) and at Jaipur (runway 27) which is operational.

It facilitates aircraft to land with Runway Visual Range (RVR) of 50 metres with decision height of 15 metres. RVR is the visibility for a particular runway in a particular direction which is provided through an instrument by Indian Meteorological Department.AA

It also means aircraft can land when runway could be seen from a distance of 50 metres and aircraft can come down up to a height of 15 metres above the ground before sighting the runway for landing.

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Heung-Min Son scored a scorcher of a goal against West Ham United but the Korean wasn’t in a celebratory mood after the draw as he felt his side deserved more from the game.

“I’m really upset not to get the three points, everyone is. We deserved more,” Son insisted in his post-match interview with Sky Sports.

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It was largely one-way traffic at Wembley Stadium on Thursday night, as West Ham didn’t have a single shot on target in the first-half with Hugo Lloris a virtual spectator for most parts of the game.

The Hammers’ first shot on target, however, was an unstoppable one as Pedro Obiang scored a contender for goal of the season and Son absolved Lloris of any blame for the opener.

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“Sometimes football is like this. Their goal was a great strike, Hugo (Lloris) could do nothing about that,” the in-form Korean winger stressed as he continued, “After that we showed good mentality, came back strong and created chances. We fought until the last moment. I just feel sorry for my team-mates and the fans who came to support us.”

Spurs, who had beaten Swansea 2-0 away on Tuesday, will now shift their focus to the FA Cup, where they take on AFC Wimbledon on Saturday before hosting Everton in the Premier League on January 15.

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The Lilywhites are effectively out of the Premier League title race but remain in contention for the UEFA Champions League spots (top-four), as the fifth-placed Lilywhites are just three points of Liverpool, who are in fourth place.

The Congress on Thursday alleged that Narendra Modi government is not serious of getting the triple talaq bill passed in Rajya Sabha and was running from debate, and its only policy was to “divide the society”.

Noting that the established tradition of Rajya Sabha is if any motion is left unfinished, it is taken up the next day for discussion from there, party leader Pramod Tiwari said: “When the House got adjourned yesterday (Wednesday), all the 18 opposition parties including Congress were demanding that there be voting on sending the bill to the Select Committee.”

“Today they (the government) should have started the proceedings with triple talaq. They did not do it. BJP has neither the policy nor the intention to get the triple talaq bill passed in Parliament,” he told reporters here.

Tiwari said even BJP’s allies like the AIADMK, the Telugu Desam Party and other independent parties like the Biju Janata Dal and the Indian National Lok Dal are not with them on the issue.

The deadlock on the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha continued on Thursday with the government rejecting the opposition’s insistence on sending the bill to a Select Committee for detailed scrutiny.

With no agreement, the government placed the bill in the bottom in the list of business, which the opposition strongly objected to and demanded that its motions for referring the bill to a Select Committee be taken up immediately.

Senior Congress leader P. L. Punia alleged that the BJP and the RSS ignited violence in Maharashtra’s Pune district on January 1.

“The Maharashtra government failed to control the violence there. We demand immediate arrest of the two accused named in the FIR for allegedly instigating violence in Pune,” he said, asking why the government was protecting the accused linked to Hindutva outfits.

“We demand legal action against those who were trying to disturb harmony,” he said, adding that the violence was spreading to other states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Power-starved Meghalaya on Thursday Wednesday added 40 MW power by formally commissioning the New Umtru Hydro Electric Project in Ri- Bhoi District bordering Assam.

The commissioning of the 2×20 MW power project at Dehal is expected to ease the power deficit in the state.

Meghalaya, which was once a power-surplus state, has now become power-deficit. Against the peak hour demand of 650 MW, the state generates only 186.7 MW, which is exclusively hydel-based power.

Commissioning the project, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said that the state has added substantially to its power generation capacity and encouraged the Meghalaya Power Generation Corporation Ltd to further look at potential areas where small hydroelectric projects can be developed so as to improve the state’s overall energy scenario, particularly in remote areas.

He called for an integrated approach in optimum utilisation for the optimum benefit of the people, suggesting that the concept of water harvesting, water conservation can be integrated appropriately with power projects for optimum benefit.

Sangma also informed that the state government is committed in bringing down the losses of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd and encouraged in bringing people ples’ participation for timely realization of the tariff across the state.

Till a decade ago, Meghalaya generated surplus power and sold it to neighbouring states. But today, the state shells out about Rs 20 crore for purchasing power every month.

The situation may not improve in the near future as many of the hydel power projects under construction are running behind schedule.

A delegation of BJP MPs on Thursday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to demand a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the killing of a Hindu activist in Karnataka and other such deaths in the state.

Lead by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Shobha Karandlaje, the delegation requested the Home Minister to intervene in the matter and ensure a probe by the counter-terrorism agency into the murder of Deepak Rao, who is reportedly 21st person to be killed in Karnataka in the recent past.

According to police, Rao was hacked to death in the Dakshina Kannada district on Wednesday when he was returning after collecting some documents from his shop owner Abdul Majid. He was riding a motorbike on his way to work when four assailants came in a car, waylaid him and attacked with a sharp-edged weapon.

Karandlaje alleged involvement of radical Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) in most of the killings.

“This is the 21st murder in Karnataka. Of these, 12 were committed by ‘jihadis’. The organisation is active in Karnataka because the state government is supporting it. It should be linked to national security and terrorism. The cases should be probed by the NIA,” Karandlaje told reporters after the meeting.

She accused the Congress-led Siddaramaiah state government of trying to hush up the cases and not disclosing the forensic report of another slain activist, Paresh Mesta.

Mesta was killed in Uttara Kannada district’s Honnavar town in December 2017.

She also charged the state government with supporting the Islamist group for “vote bank politics”.

“Siddaramaiah himself called the PFI and its political body, and asked them to support the Congress in the next elections,” she claimed.

BJP MP Pralhad Joshi also demanded on Thursday in the Lok Sabha a probe into the murder of Rao by the NIA while raising the issue during the Zero Hour.

He accused the Congress government in Karnataka of turning a blind eye to the killings as it “wants to adopt the Kerala model” of governance where BJP members “are being targeted”.

“I demand an NIA inquiry into all these cases,” Joshi said.

West Ham United man Pedro Obiang and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Heung-Min Son scored contenders for Premier League Goal of the Season in a 1-1 draw between the sides at Wembley Stadium on Thursday night.

With a number of key personnel, especially in the attacking department, missing, David Moyes set up his Hammers side to frustrate their fancied opponents and his players followed his gameplan to perfection up almost till the very last minute.

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Pedro Obiang scored with West Ham’s first shot on target, and what a shot it was. The Spaniard collected Manuel Lanzini’s pass some 30 yards out, near the left flank and surged forward before letting fly with a venomous shot that left a sprawling Hugo Lloris with no chance in the 70th minute.

Spurs, to their credit, didn’t panic and continued to dominate the game as they had earlier and eventually broke through with a world-class strike of their own. Heung-Min Son, who had been his industrious self throughout, got the ball with some distance between himself and the Hammers goal but let fly with Mark Noble backing off.

Adrian, who had been keeping Spurs at bay with a series of excellent saves, was well-beaten for once with three minutes on the clock to silence the few, but raucous Hammers travelling contingent.

The first-half had been much less eventful than the second, with the away side clearly content to defend deep and Spurs were largely limited to half-chances despite seeing almost 75 per cent of possession.

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Referee Mike Dean had a dim view of two Spurs penalty shouts as Mauricio Pochettino’s men were forced to settle for a result that saw them fail to capitalise on arch-rivals Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea on Wednesday night.

The Lilywhites remain in fifth place, three points behind fourth-placed Liverpool and will next face AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup third round on Sunday before resuming their Premier League campaign with a home clash against Everton on January 13.

West Ham, who have climbed to 15th place with the draw, will be delighted by the result considering Spurs’ dominance and will be confident of progressing to the next round when they take on Shrewsbury on Sunday in the FA Cup.

The Hammers’ next Premier League clash is an away trip to Huddersfield Town on January 13 and David Moyes’ men will approach that tie with plenty of optimism, especially if they can welcome some of their injured back into the fold.