The Haryana Transport Department has notified Haryana Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules, 2018, wherein various officers have been appointed officers of the Motor Vehicles Department under Section 213, to exercise powers to challan vehicles for certain offences.

These officers include the Transport Commissioner (TC), Deputy Commissioner (DC) concerned, Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC), Additional or Joint State Transport Commissioner, Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Flying Squad Officer, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil)-cum-Registering Authority (Motors), City Magistrate, Director General, State Transport, Additional or Joint Director, State Transport, General Manager and Traffic Manager Haryana Roadways, Motor Vehicle Officer (Enforcement), Motor Vehicle Inspector (Enforcement) and Assistant Secretary, Regional Transport Authority.

In a bid to give relief to ex-servicemen in Haryana, the state government has decided to enhance the ignorable part of pension from Rs 4,000 to Rs 15,000 in the case of commissioned service officers and civil officers holding Group ‘A’ Posts.

Disclosing this, Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu said on Wednesday that the state government has also approved the new pay fixation policy of re-employed military pensioners in the state. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has approved a proposal in this regard, he said.
Abhimanyu said in all cases where the pension is fully ignored, the initial pay on re-employment would be fixed as per entry pay in the revised pay level of the re-employed post applicable in the case of direct recruits appointed on or after 1 January 2016 as per Haryana Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016.

He said in cases where the entire pension and pensionary benefits were not ignored for pay fixation, the initial basic pay on re-employment would be fixed at the same stage as the last basic pay drawn before retirement.

If there is no such stage in the re-employed post, the pay would be fixed at the stage next above of that pay, he added.
The new pay fixation policy of re-employed military pensioners would be solely governed by Haryana Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, Abhimanyu said.

Haryana Public Works (Building and Roads) minister RaoNarbir Singh said the BJP government in the state has taken various initiatives for strengthening roads, expansion of metro and for developing regional rapid transit system.

he said that even Opposition legislators, during the Assembly sessions, had referred to the improvement of roads in their constituencies.
RaoNarbir said the department has recently launched ‘Harpath App’ to make the state’s roads pothole free. Any person could complain about the condition of roads on this App and his complaint would be resolved within 96 hours, he said. In case the road is not repaired ever after 100 hours then the government would bear the penalty, he added.

The minister said during the previous government, the National Highway-1 had become a cause of accidents due to the pending construction work in Shahbad, Pipli, Nilokheri, Karnal and Madhuban. But the present government had got a new underpass built. Similarly, the present government got work restarted on the 135 km Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway, he added.

Punjab’s power and irrigation minister, Rana Gurmeet Singh, on Wednesday said the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) is committed to provide reliable, affordable and uninterrupted power to its all the consumers of the state.

Disclosing this while releasing the wall calendar of PSPCL, Singh said Punjab has met the maximum demand of 11705 MW power on 11 July 2017, which was a grand achievement. gave the credit to the hard working engineers and employees of PSPCL.

“Under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Jyoti Yojana strengthening and augmentation of sub-transmission and distribution infrastructure under rural areas has been undertaken covering 1968 villages at a cost of Rs 252.06 crore. The feeders segregation/AP consumer metering in Kandi area is being undertaken at a cost 190.24 crores,” the minister said. Singh said that about 2.5 lakh connections have been released during 2017-18.

About 75 lakh children between the age of nine months to 15 years would be immunised in Punjab under the ‘Measles-Rubella Vaccination Campaign’ in month of April and May.

Disclosing this, health and family welfare minister, Brahm Mohindra, said that in order to reduce infant mortality rate and birth defects, the health department would carry out the ‘Measles-Rubella Vaccination Campaign’ for the fortification of children against the measles and rubella virus.

He said measles is a major childhood killer disease across the world whereas congenital rubella syndrome is also responsible for irreversible birth defects.

Mohindra said instructions regarding the campaign have been issued to all civil surgeons and about 75 lakh children would be immunised. He said soon state level micro-plan would finalise to cover each and every village, schools and remote areas of the state.
He said this ambitious campaign would also address CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome) which causes birth defects such as irreversible deafness and blindness in the children.

The minister said the health department is also conducting awareness activities (IEC) concerning the vaccination campaign for 100 per cent immunisation of the children in the state.

“A plan to protect the children from preventive diseases which are infectious and transferable between the infants and children has also been chalked out” said Mohindra.

To boost tourism, the Punjab government is planning to connect historically and culturally important spots, including places associated with the freedom struggle.

Addressing a Press conference, the local government and tourism and cultural affairs minister, Navjot Singh Sidhu, said the Union government has sanctioned Rs 100 crore for the religious circuit which comprises Sri Anandpur Sahib, Fatehgarh Sahib and Chamkaur Sahib.

Apart from this, places associated with the freedom struggle ~ JallianwalaBagh, KhatkarKalan and Hussainiwala ~ are also included in the circuit.

An additional Rs 15 crore has been released for the Jang-E-Azadi memorial at Kartarpur. In coming days, Maharaja and Mughal circuits would be given shape and proposals would be sent to the Union government for getting more funds, Sidhu said.

The Maharaja Circuit includes Patiala, Nabha, Kapurthala and Faridkot which would be developed and made attractable for tourists. Similarly, Mughal Circuit comprises serais in Punjab such as- Shambhu, Doraha, Noormahal and Tarntaran which would be developed as wedding destinations thus paving the way for strengthening the economic infrastructure of the state, the minister said.

Sidhu said Kalanaur where the coronation of Mughal Emperor Akbar took place, and AamKhasBagh in Sirhind would be developed too. The policy of medical tourism would be framed and patients from foreign countries visiting India would be accorded specialised amenities.

atting for making Punjab a favourable destination for shooting movies, the minister said a Film City would come up in Punjab which would go a long way in ensuring increased avenues of employment.The state would also revive otherwise neglected and dilapidated spots, the minister said. Programmes would be chalked out to promote diminishing handicrafts, art forms besides creating job avenues for the people connected with these arts under ‘HunarNaalRozgar’. A food street would also come up at Amritsar, Sidhu said.

The minister also said the 550th Gurpurb of Sri Guru Nanak DevJi in 2019 would be observed on a large scale and in the same year the centenary of the JallianwalaBagh tragedy would be observed as per a specially chalked out programme.

Apart from this, Sufi Mela, Heritage Melas at Patiala, Kapurthala, Amritsar and Bathinda and Military Literature Festival would be held too. The other traditionalmelas such as HarvallabhSangeetSammelan, HolaMohalla, Qila Raipur, Baba Sheikh FaridAagmanPurb and Shiv Batalvi festival and Babe Da Viahpurb would be held on a grand scale and given all assistance, Sidhu said.

Google has started testing its Fuchsia Operating System (OS) on the $1000 Pixelbook hybrid laptop that was unveiled alongside the second-generation Pixel smartphone and Google Home Mini smart speaker at the company’s 2017 hardware event in California, reports said.

“This isn’t your typical developer operating system, and you’ll need two machines to host and target a Pixelbook to load the OS. It’s interesting that Google has chosen its own Pixelbook to experiment with,” The Verge reported on Wednesday.

“Fuchsia has mostly been linked to embedded systems like wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the past, but testing was expanded to Intel’s NUC and Acer’s Switch Alpha 12 Chromebooks,” it added.

The Pixelbook installation process for Fuchsia is not easy and the tech giant has reportedly recommended installing the OS with a USB drive.

Fuchsia OS has been open-sourced for the developer community to help build, test and evolve. It is different from the Linux kernels that are also the foundation of Android and Chrome OS.

The operating system, which is being developed, is Google’s third operating system after Chrome OS and Android.

It has been described as targeting “modern phones and modern personal computers” that would put it in competition with both of Google’s existing operating systems, according to tech website Ars Technica.

Providing safer drinking water to those in need may become a little easier as researchers have developed a new desalination technique that removes salt from water using less energy than previous methods.

“Globally, there is reduced access to fresh water,” said one of the researchers Bruce Logan, Professor at Pennsylvania State University in the US.

“More and more, the waters that are being used are impaired, either due to salt or other contaminants, so we are seeing an increasing need to rely on less optimal water sources,” Logan said.

With an aim to combat this problem, Logan and his colleagues came up with a desalination method called battery electrode deionization (BDI).

Although the current configuration is not suited to desalinate extremely salty water such as seawater, the results, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, showed that the BDI technique could be effective as a low energy method for brackish, or slightly salty, water, such as groundwater, or for desalinating water before it enters treatment plants.

“There is nothing that inherently prevents its use with seawater, it’s just that as water gets saltier and saltier, there are other issues that we have to contend with, such as increased energy consumption and membrane fouling, that may reduce its utility relative to other approaches,” Logan said.

The new method improves upon standard capacitive deionisation techniques by eliminating the regeneration stage and lowering the voltage required to complete the process, the study said.

The CBI on Wednesday questioned the three accused in connection with its ongoing probe for trafficking 23 teenaged students to France in 2016 for “a rugby training camp”.

An agency official said that Lalit David Dean, Sanjeev Raj and Varun Chaudhary were questioned for several hours at its headquarters in south Delhi’s Lodhi Road area.

On Thursday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked them under charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, trafficking of persons and forgery under the Indian Penal Code.

Accrding to the agency officials, the CBI learnt about the human trafficking racket in December 2017, only when French investigators caught one of the trafficked boys and approached Interpol.

The agency then started a preliminary enquiry on Interpol’s information about an alleged human trafficking network. It later found that these three Delhi and Faridabad based agents lured parents of the 25 minor boys sometime in 2016, stating that their kids will be sent to France for a rugby training camp.

The agency in its FIR said that the accused had collected Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh from the parents and sent the students, aged between 13-18 years, to France on the pretext of rugby training.

But after the students reached France in February 2016, they were dumped in a gurudwara.

The agency also alleged that the visa in respect of said students were obtained from French Embassy at Delhi on the basis of forged and fabricated documents.

According to the CBI, all the 25 were left in Paris and their return tickets were got cancelled by accused but two boys somehow managed to come back before their tickets had been cancelled.

On Friday, the agency also conducted searches at four places in Delhi which resulted in the recovery of incriminating documents and other articles from the premises of accused persons.

LG Electronics Inc said on Wednesday that it will introduce new televisions equipped with its artificial intelligence (AI) platform called “DeepThinQ” at the 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018 slated for next week.

The South Korean tech giant said it will unveil the 2018 editions of premium TVs, including the OLED TV “ThinQ” and the Super Ultra HD TV ThinQ, at CES 2018 which will kick off in Las Vegas, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The new TVs will be equipped both with “DeepThinQ” as well as Google’s Artificial Intelligence-enabled (AI) Google Assistant, to provide users with various top-notch features, such as operating TVs with only voices or connecting to other home appliances powered by Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies.

Users can make commands such as “Please find my photos taken in Las Vegas last year from my Google account” or “Find movies starring Scarlett Johansson”.

The South Korean tech major said viewers can also ask questions such as “Who is the main character of this drama I am watching?”

The television can also support High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, which allows screens to deliver vivid pictures by optimising brightness and boasting improved display quality.

The TVs will support the Dolby Atmos system which will deliver sharp and realistic sound.

Naresh Dhankhad, a former Captain of the Indian Army, who allegedly killed six persons with an iron rod in neighbouring Haryana’s Palwal, underwent a head surgery in the city’s Safdarjung Hospital, said authorities on Wednesday.

Forty-five-year-old Dhankhad, who is believed to be mentally unstable, had suffered head injury and was admitted to the hospital’s emergency department on late Tuesday evening.

“Dhankhad’s surgery was performed today (Wednesday). He is stable now,” said a senior doctor, part of the medical team.

Resident of Ballabhgarh, Dhankhad had allegedly killed six people in Palwal on Monday night. He had also attempted an attack on a policeman when he tried to stop him.

The Union Cabinet was on Wednesday informed about a MoU that has been signed by India and Italy for cooperation in the area of renewable energy, an official statement said.

The MoU was signed here on October 30, 2017, by the New and Renewable Energy Secretary Anand Kumar and the Italian Ambassador to India Lorenzo Angeloni, according to a New and Renewable Energy Ministry statement.

“The Union Cabinet has been apprised of the memorandum of understanding on India-Italy cooperation in renewable energy.

“India and Italy aim to establish the basis for a cooperative institutional relationship to encourage and promote technical bilateral cooperation on new and renewable energy issues,” it said.

The MoU envisages setting up a joint working committee to review, monitor and discuss relating to clean energy. It also aims for an exchange of expertise and networking of information and to strengthen bilateral cooperation in this area, the statement added.

Leftist student groups staged a demonstration outside Maharashtra Sadan here on Wednesday, demanding action against two local leaders for instigating the Bhima-Koregaon riots in Pune city in which a man was killed and many shops and vehicles were vandalised.

Protestors, including members of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and the Students’ Federation of India, raised slogans against state’s Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging them of harbouring and promoting anti-Dalit groups and demanded the latter’s resignation.

“The riots were pre-planned. Even before the people started coming to the place, shops were forced to shut down on the highway… The day has been celebrated for years and with much fanfare. This is the only time such a thing has happened,” Abhilasha Srivastava, the Maharashtra AISA state secretary, told IANS.

She emphasised that the day was now celebrated not primarily for cheering the Dalits’ contribution in defeating the Peshwas, but to counter the corporate-politician nexus which “has kept the Dalits and poor marginalised”.

“The gathering was to call out the ‘neo-Peshwai’, the fascist-capitalist structure which is nurtured by the politicians,” Srivastava added.

The students alleged that these were local leaders like Milind Ekbote of “Samast Hindu Aghadi” and Sambhaji Bhide of “Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan”, who instigated the riots and demanded that they be booked for same.

On January 1 every year, Dalits and Bahujans gather at Koregaon-Bhima near Pune to commemorate the anniversary of the Koregaon Battle of 1818 in which the British Bombay Native Infantry, comprising mostly Mahar Dalit soldiers, defeated the Peshwa army.

This date is revered by the Dalits as a victory against the Brahminical Peshwas. This year the function was especially important since it marked 200 years of the battle.

The AISA leader also alleged the two leaders of appropriating slogan — “Ek Maratha, Lakh Maratha” — used by the Maharashtra youth who were demanding reservations some time back “to give their act of rioting a wider subscription, which is false”.

The riot has spread out to Mumbai, the state capital, with police detaining many protestors.

Many Dalit-based parties had called for a “Maharashtra Bandh” on Wednesday, which was however withdrawn after sporadic acts of violence were reported, leaving the state virtually paralysed.

The ‘Panic Button’ safety feature is not a fun thing, Women and Child and Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said on Wednesday as her ministry prepared for another test, in Uttar Pradesh this time.

“We would request the people of UP to take it easy and don’t think its a fun thing. Let us see where it goes from here. If it works in UP, it can work anywhere,” she said.

The ministry has decided to test the ‘panic button’ feature on mobile phones in Uttar Pradesh on January 26.

The project was slated to begin earlier, but Gandhi said that the feature got delayed because of a large number of prank calls.

“When we tried for one day in Delhi, the lines got immediately jammed because there were so many people making prank calls. Police then just completely backed off and this led us in delaying the project for over a year,” she said.

The pilot project of the ministry was taken up as a step to ensure safety and security of women. In April 2016, the Department of Telecommunications made it mandatory for mobile phone manufacturers to provide panic buttons in cell phones by January 2017.

According to the ministry, they will appoint volunteers for keeping an eye on the feature and they will be screened by the authorities and receive an orientation on how to provide help to a woman in distress.

The feature will be available in smartphones and users will have to download the mobile application. One can send alert by long pressing the feature and the notification will be sent to victim’s family members or friends.

A BSF head constable, RP Hazara, from West Bengal was killed when Pakistan Rangers indiscriminately targeted Indian posts in the Samba sector of the Jammu division on Wednesday.

According to media reports, Pakistan Rangers opened sniper fire at Indian positions at 4.15 pm injuring a head constable identified as RP Hazara, who was a resident of Tamara in Murshidabad.

He succumbed to injuries, while being treated in a hospital for his wounds. Hazara is survived by his wife and two children.

The BSF retaliated in a strong and effective manner, according to media reports.

India skipper Virat Kohli and his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni are among the top players who are set to be retained by their respective IPL franchises, Royal Challengers Bangalore and comeback outfit Chennai Super Kings respectively.

The retention list of players is to be announced by BCCI here on Thursday.

Kohli, yet to taste a triumph as captain in IPL in spite of his extremely successful run as national captain, and 2011 World Cup-winning skipper Dhoni are expected to be shoo-ins when RCB and CSK decide which players they are retaining in the squad for the next three seasons — 2018 to 2020.

Among other top Indians who are almost certain to be retained are Rohit Sharma, who led Mumbai Indians to their title triumph last season, exciting MI all-rounder Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, who is set to go back to CSK after playing for Gujarat Lions over the last two seasons, and Australian pocket dynamo David Warner for Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Another franchise making a return after serving a two- year suspension, Rajasthan Royals, will certainly go for Australia captain Steve Smith, considering the form he has been in.

Each team can opt for up to five players by virtue of a combination of Player Retention (Pre Player Auction) and Right to Match (RTM) (during the Player Auction), according to the decision of the IPL GC at its meeting in New Delhi on December 6.

There can be a maximum of either three retentions or three RTMs at the discretion of the franchises and if there is no retention before player auction, then franchises can have up to three RTMs, as per the norms put in place by the IPL GC.

The break-up is: Maximum number of 3 capped Indian players, 2 overseas players and 2 uncapped Indian players each.

The player pool available for CSK and RR for retention/RTM will be the players who played for them respectively in IPL 2015 and who were part of Rising Pune Supergiant and GL squads in IPL 2017, as per the norms.

The salary cap has also been raised. For the coming season, it’s fixed at Rs 80 crore and will increase to Rs 82 and 85 crore respectively in 2019 and 2020.

The minimum spend has been fixed at 75 per cent of the salary cap for each season.

The player retention price guideline for salary cap charged has also been set as Rs 33 crore (for 3 players pre auction), Rs 21 crore (for 2 players pre auction) and Rs 12.5 crore (for 1 player retained pre-auction).

Each squad can consist of a maximum number of 25 players (up to 8 overseas players) and a minimum of 18.

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the 3rd edition of Jangalmahal Utsav at the Medinipur College Ground in Paschim Medinipur district on Wednesday.

The festival will be held from January 3 to 10.

The fourth ‘Jangalmahal Utsav’, to be held at Jhargram from 3rd to 10th January, was also inaugurated from today’s occasion. Later, I visited some areas of the district and interacted with the local people.
My best wishes to all. pic.x.com/LVJNcLN41w

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) January 3, 2018

The festival will showcase the region’s rich traditional cultural forms including dance forms like Chung, Rono-pa, Pata, Jhumur, Chhou, Bhadu-Tusu, Raibeshe.

Dhamsa and madol, two popular folk percussion instruments of the State, were distributed among 480 cultural groups from 24 blocks. Around 40 stalls and 4 pavillions will showcase and promote handicrafts from the Jangalmahal region.

At the the inauguration ceremony of the seven-day festival, Banerjee said that we do not support riots and disturbing the communal harmony. The Government will take strong action against this. True religion is about respecting and loving all religions and standing by one another, said Banerjee.

She said, that the Bengal government will crack down heavily on anyone who tries to spread communal violence and disrupt peace.

Banerjee also distributed prizes for the Jangalmahal Cup.

The Jangalmahal Cup, organised by the State Youth Welfare Department in association with West Bengal Police, the has been a tremendous success during the last few years.

It was held in the districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum, with competitions in sports like football, kabaddi and archery.

Banerjee said that around 45000 young sportspersons are participating in the Jangalmahal Cup. We have allocated Rs 1 lakh per police station to organise sporting events in their areas.