Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be face of the BJP in the Gujarat Assembly elections due later this year, according to senior state party leaders who see these polls in his home state as a “battle of prestige”.

The party cannot afford a poor show in state elections as Modi gained popularity in the country on the 'Gujarat model of development', following which the voters in the country elevated him to the chair of Prime Minister in 2014.

With Modi's exit from the political scene of the state on becoming the Prime Minister and his formidable deputy Amit Shah's elevation as the party's national president, the BJP in the state lacks a credible mass leader to lead the campaign to reclaim Gujarat.

The party has in the recent past faced many upheavals in the state, like the Patel quota agitation, the Una Dalit flogging incident and deficient rainfall for three consecutive years leading to agrarian distress.

The BJP is also likely to face anti-incumbency as it has been in power in the state for over 22 years.

“PM Modi is our national face. He will be the face banking on whom the party will go for the 2017 Gujarat elections,” a senior state BJP leader said.

There are no state level mass leaders after Modi and Shah who can lead the BJP to victory. That is why the party will fight the elections with Modi as central figure in his home state, he said.

Even when Modi was the chief minister and led the BJP to victories in three state elections (2002, 2007 and 2012), the highest number of seats that the BJP was able to get was 129 seats.

He said this time the BJP is likely to set a target of 150 out of the total 182 seats which the party insiders believe is very high.

However, the leader said as this would turn out be a “battle of prestige” for the BJP before the 2019 polls, they would try to achieve the target.

“There is no question on who will be the face of our party. It would be PM Modi,” state BJP spokesperson Harshad Patel said.

“We will fight the elections on the popularity of Modi and strategy of party president Shah,” he said.

“Our preparations are going on in full swing for the elections. We have appointed observers for each of the 182 Assembly seats,” Patel said.

“We have formed various committees like an election manifesto committee, a parliamentary board to select candidates, a disciplinary committee and also appointed our senior leader Kaushik Patel as head of the campaign committee for the elections,” he said.

“We have time and again being holding programmes to connect with people and take the work done by the Centre and the state government to the people,” he added.

However, the opposition Congress said state elections are fought on local issues and not on national issues.

“They might want to fight elections projecting Modi as their face as they do not have any formidable state leader here. But these are state elections and they will be fought on local issues,” Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

“The BJP government this time has completely failed to address issues like agrarian distress, education, law and order and are not able to find solutions to issues raised by agitating communities like Patels for reservation which will ensure their defeat,” Doshi said.

Men with grey hair may be at an increased risk of developing heart disease, scientists have warned.

Atherosclerosis and hair greying share similar mechanisms such as impaired DNA repair, oxidative stress, inflammation, hormonal changes and senescence of functional cells, researchers said.

Researchers from Cairo University in Egypt studied about 545 adult men who underwent multi-slice computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography for suspected coronary artery disease.

Patients were divided into subgroups according to the presence or absence of coronary artery disease, and the amount of grey or white hair.

The amount of grey hair was graded using the hair whitening score: 1 – pure black hair, 2 – black more than white, 3 – black equals white, 4 – white more than black, and 5 – pure white.

Each patients' grade was determined by two independent observers. Data was collected on traditional cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, diabetes, smoking, dyslipidaemia, and family history of coronary artery disease.

Researchers found that a high hair whitening score was linked to increased risk of coronary artery disease, independent of age and established cardiovascular risk factors.

Patients with coronary artery disease had a statistically significant higher hair whitening score and higher coronary artery calcification than those without coronary artery disease, researchers said.

In multivariate regression analysis, age, hair whitening score, hypertension and dyslipidaemia were independent predictors of the presence of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. Only age was an independent predictor of hair whitening.

Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim in Shimla has come out support of the ban on cow slaughter in UP and said such ban should be imposed across the country.

Here in Shimla on Saturday for a short visit, he strolled on the Ridge and the Mall on Sunday afternoon along with his family.

Under Z-plus security cover, he pulled up crowd on the Mall and Ridge, with people flocking to seek his blessings.

He also appreciated the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign and said the people should come out in the support of the campaign for its successful implementation.

Gurmeet Ram Raheem blamed foreign hand for drug menace in the country and said the Centre government should take strict measure to protect the youth from drug abuse.

He urged the addicted youth to take religious recourse to seek freedom from these evils.

Ram Rahim will be heading to Palampur from Shimla for a satsang (religious gathering) at Chachian in Palampur.

The EVMs are robust and tamper- proof and even the manufacturers cannot manipulate them at the time of production, the Election Commission said on Sunday, countering allegations that the machines are unreliable.

With the Opposition's questions on the reliability of the electronic voting machines getting louder, the Commission has come out with a list of 'frequently asked questions' to put across its views in public domain.

Recently, the Commission had issued two statements defending the machines. The FAQs are the third attempt by the poll watchdog to counter the doubts on the machines' reliability.

One of the first questions the FAQ addresses is whether the machine can be hacked? 

No, asserts the Commission.

The M1 (model one) of EVM was manufactured till 2006 and had all necessary technical features it "non-hackable contrary to claims made by some activists", it said.

The M2 model of EVMs produced after 2006 and up to 2012 incorporated additional safety features. It can detect "malicious sequenced key presses".

"Further, the ECI-EVMs are not computer controlled, are stand alone machines and not connected to the Internet or any other network. Hence, there is no chance of hacking by remote devices… also do not have any frequency receiver or decoder for data for wireless or any external hardware port for connection to any other non-EVM accessory or device. Hence no tampering is possible," the poll panel said.

The Commission also rejected suggestions that the machines can be manipulated by the manufacturer itself.

"Not possible," it said. The EVMs have been manufactured in different years since 2006 and sent to different states.

The manufacturers — ECIL and BEL — would not know several years ahead which candidate will contest from a particular constituency and what will be the sequence of the candidates on the ballot unit," it said.

It also asserted that no 'trojan horse' can be injected into the EVM in the field. In fact, the new M3 EVIN produced after 2013 have additional features like tamper detection and self diagnostics.

The tamper detection feature makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine. The self diagnostic feature checks the EVM fully every time it is switched on. Any change in its hardware or software will be detected.

It said contrary to "misinformation and as alleged by some", India does not use any EVMs produced abroad.

The EVMs are produced indigenously and the software programme code is written in-house and not outsourced.

"The programme is converted into machine code and only then given to the chip manufacturer abroad because we don't have the capability of producing semi-conductor microchips within the country.

"Every microchip has an identification number embedded into memory and the producers have their digital signatures on them. So, the question of their replacement does not arise at all because microchips are subjected to functional tests with regard to the software. Any attempt to replace microchip is detectable and can make EVM in-operative," it said.

Ruling out the possibility of manipulation of the machines at the place of storage, the Commission said security measures and double checks that such a possibility does not arise.

It said due to different level of stringent checks and balances, neither 'ECI-EVMs' can leave the EC system nor any outside machine — non-ECI EVM — can be inducted into the system.

Why have developed nations such as the US and the European Union not adopted EVMs and some have discontinued? 

To this, the Commission said the problem faced with the machines in these countries was that they were computer controlled and connected to the network, which in turn, made them prone to hacking.

Moreover, adequate security measures and safeguards in their corresponding laws were not present. Hence the use of EVMs were struck down by their courts.

Singers Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's Soul2Soul: The World Tour here had a star-studded opening night. Stars like Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves were spotted enjoying the music.

Eonline.com has obtained a photo backstage at Hill and McGraw's tour on Friday, where the A-listers stepped out for a night of incredible music. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and his wife Brittany Brees also joined the four for the VIP photo opp. 

The singers will wrap up their tour in New York at the end of October, rounding out their first co-headlining extravaganza in 10 years. 

McGraw, married to Hill, had earlier said: "It's been 10 years since we've been on the road together doing a tour so we're pretty excited about presenting some new stuff and some of the old stuff in a different way, which is fun."

 At least 50 persons were injured when a commuter train and the Moscow-Brest long-distance train collided, Russian Railways said on Sunday.

Fifty people applied for medical assistance on Saturday night after the motorman used the emergency brake when a person tried to cross the railway tracks, TASS News reported.

Four railway carriages derailed, suspending the railway traffic.

According to Russian Emergencies Ministry's Moscow Directorate, the service was restored on Sunday.

Mutual fund managers' investment in equities declined by 27 per cent to over Rs.51,000 crore in 2016-17 due to volatility in stock markets.

However, fund houses are upbeat about the industry's performance in the new fiscal while expecting investment from new investors to fuel the growth of the sector.

As per data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), mutual fund managers invested a net sum of Rs.51,352 crore in stock markets during 2016-17, lower than Rs.70,130 crore invested in the preceding fiscal.

In 2014-15, fund mangers had infused close to Rs.41,000 crore in stock markets — the first net inflow in six years. Prior to that, they had pulled out over Rs.14,000 crore.

“The equity market has overall been more volatile in 2016-17 than 2015-16 with a lot more negative sentiment. Investors may have seen the volatility of the year as a positive to average out costs,” said Srikanth Meenakshi, COO at FundsIndia.com, an investment portal for MFs.

Apart from equities, fund managers invested a staggering Rs.3.14 lakh crore in debt markets.

The past fiscal saw a surge in the number of retail investor accounts, or folios, in equity, equity-linked saving schemes and balanced categories, which grew by more than 58 lakh to 4.4 crore.

According to market experts, the mutual fund industry is at a take-off stage in terms of growth and Indian investors are warming up to investments in equity as an asset class.

“The positive net inflow in equities can be credited to maturity of retail investors who have come up in the 'learning curve' by contributing 1.3 crores monthly systematic investment plans (SIPs), adding more than Rs.4,000 crore per month in various top performing equity schemes,” Bajaj Capital Group Director Anil Chopra said.

A mutual fund pools the assets of its investors and invests the money on their behalf. It provides diverse investment instruments like stocks and bonds without requiring investors to make separate purchases and trades.

Government investigators looking into how Google pays its employees have accused the tech giant of shortchanging women doing similar work to men.

A US Department of Labour official disclosed the agency's allegations during a Friday court hearing in San Francisco.

"We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," Janette Wipper, a Labour Department regional director, testified, according to a report published by The Guardian.

Google said it vehemently disagreed with the charges, which the Mountain View, California, company said it hadn't heard until Wipper's court appearance.

"Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap," Google said in its statement.

Google and other technology companies have been trying to improve hiring practices that have historically doled out most of their technical jobs to white and Asian men. Their efforts to strike a better balance have been mostly unsuccessful so far.

For instance, only 19 per cent of Google's technology jobs are held by women. Overall, nearly one-third of Google's more than 70,000 workers are women.

The Labour Department's probe evolved from a lawsuit filed in January seeking to bar Google doing business with the federal government unless the company complied with an audit of its employee-compensation records. Google has said it has turned over some of the requested records, but withheld other information that it believes would invade its workers' privacy.

While Google and its peers have been disclosing embarrassing sexual and racial imbalances in their workforces for the past few years, the technology industry so far has kept its compensation practices a closely guarded secret.

The Labour Department is now scrutinising Silicon Valley for patterns of pay and hiring discrimination under its powers to vet companies that bid for lucrative government contracts.

Earlier this year, the Labour Department also sued Oracle, alleging that the business software maker routinely pays white male workers more than their female and non-white counterparts for comparable jobs.

Users of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea mobile services filed maximum billing complaints in October-December of 2016, as per the latest report of Trai.

The complaints in the case of Bharti Airtel mostly came from 2G pre-paid subscribers in Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Kolkata, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, where the benchmark violation ranged between 0.11 per cent and 0.12 per cent.

According to quality of service norms, the complaint level should not be more than 0.1 per cent per 100 bills issued in one quarter.

The maximum violations are found in the case of Vodafone, where 0.15 per cent and 0.13 per cent of bills were disputed by its users in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, respectively.

Vodafone is the only company during the reported quarter whose post-paid customers in the Mumbai circle also raised a number of quality issues.

Complaints against Idea in the north-east telecom circle pertained to 0.13 per cent of disputed bills.

As for other quality parameters, Trai found performance of Aircel below par for call drops in most telecom circles.

Trai has set a penalty of up to Rs.2 lakh for poor mobile service, including call drops. The penalty kicks in for more than 2 per cent call drops in a quarter in one telecom circle.

According to the report, Aircel's 2G network crossed this limit in four circles. The call drop rate on the Aircel network was as high as 27.73 in the north-east circle. Airtel, Sistema Shyam and Reliance Communications (GSM) service also overshot the call drop level in one circle each.

During the peak hour, the rate is relaxed up to 3 per cent. Even in this category, the figure remained above this level for Aircel 2G in 11 out of the 22 telecom circles.

State-owned BSNL, Tata Teleservices (CDMA) and Vodafone also failed on the 3 per cent parameter in one circle each. Telenor's performance was found below par in Bihar and UP East circle, as per the report.

RCom topped the list of offenders in the deposits refund category, followed by Tata Teleservices. As per Trai rules, a telecom operator should refund 100 per cent of the claimed deposit within 60 days, but RCom, including its subsidiary, breached this norm across 20 circles in the country.

TTSL did not comply with the deposit rule in six telecom circles, according to the report.

The "once-upon-a-time" and "happily-ever-after" fairytales that children and young adults are heavily fed on while growing up have often reinstated patriarchal notions and gender stereotypes: the princess is almost always "slender, fair, and delicate" and forever awaits her prince charming. A trickle of new animated films are attempting to change this narrative in today's politically correct and gender-neutral times.

Walt Disney Animation Studio's Moana, which hit the screens in 2016, is one such story. Moana is a feisty young girl who, despite her father's best efforts, embarks on a daring mission to save her people on her island. She meets the once-powerful demigod Maui, who, after casting doubts on her ability to be on such a risky adventure, finally guides her in her quest.

Moana is unlike the other Disney princesses. She does not wait for someone else, much less a "prince charming", to rescue her when she is faced with monsters in the ocean. She does all the slaying and the voyaging by herself.

Frozen, yet another Walt Disney production, was again female-centric and was a blockbuster hit when it was released in 2013. A story of two sisters, this tale hands over the rescue operation to the young Ana, who is determined to bring back her elder sister, Elsa, from her self-imposed exile after she set off an unending winter because of mishandling her magical powers.

What takes the cake, though, is the answer to the quintessential question: What is the act of true love that will save the dying princess? No, not a "true love's kiss". The story leads the young audience — and the rest like us — to push the boundary of "true love" beyond what may exist between a man and a woman in a romantic relationship.

But what difference does that make, do you ask? It's just fiction! "Any movie that's relatable impacts children," says author Vani Mahesh who has recently written an Indian mythology-based comic book for the famous Amar Chitra Katha publisher. "When a girl watches another girl being fearless, it naturally evokes the same emotions in her. Autobiographical movies, like Dangal, probably have an even higher impact because kids can see their icons in action."

Clinical psychologist Debasmita Phukan agreed, saying that gender stereotypes begin to be acquired by the age of five. "By the time a child reaches adolescence, what society considers 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' with respect to a certain gender is well understood," she said.

In a fast-evolving society where children have ready information at the click of a button, 32-year-old Anushree Vaidya carefully chooses the TV and movie content her three-year-old daughter is exposed to. "I don't want my daughter to be caged within stereotypes — that a girl must be fair and demure. I want her to grow up as a strong individual, and since at this age it's usually cartoons that they idolise, I choose our movie content accordingly," the young mom said.

It's pertinent to point here that it's not just young girls who get influenced by gender stereotyping through stories — be it through movies or books. Boys are equally impacted.

"When a patriarchal society leads a child to believe that girls are helpless and demure, and boys are 'manly' only if they are bulky and get into fights, stories like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White only reinforce these stereotypes, thereby perpetuating patriarchy," Debasmita added.

"And patriarchy is dehumanising and discriminating to men too," said feminist activist, poet and author, Kamla Bhasin. "Boys are discouraged from crying from an early age — tears are seen as a sign of weakness — and are made to believe that they are protectors of women, as a result of which their emotional intelligence can be left deeply wanting. In some cases this can lead to difficulty in accepting rejection and deep-seated frustration."

There has, however, been some change in mindsets which is reflected in the movies that are being made now. If one were to trace Walt Disney's movies, the early Disney princesses were the typical damsels-in-distress, like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White who could not get themselves out of their own problems. As feminism rose in America, Disney reinvented its princess with The Little Mermaid in the 1980s — rebellious and ambitious, who married her true love. Then came Pocahontas who stood for herself, and Mulan who fought off an entire army to save her country. 

Similarly, in a society which considers cooking and dancing to be essentially feminine actions, Ratatuoille and Happy Feet welcomed the thought that passion does not have a gender and that it's ok to be different.

A Whatsapp video doing the rounds recently showed a young mother being pulled into an "intervention" by Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

"It's 2017," the trio said, "Don't you think it's time you stop reading such stories to your child… these stories have just been lazy misinterpretations and propaganda by male writers." Then what do I read to my child, asks the mother. "Tell her real stories, of real-life heroes like Madam Curie and Kalpana Chawla." The video was a fictional set-up, but the suggestions? Take your pick.

Singer Janet Jackson has reportedly called it quits with husband Wissam Al Mana just three months after giving birth to their first child.
The online website Page Six reports claimed that the two had an amicable split after being together for five years, reported People magazine.
Jackson, who was previously married to James DeBarge and Rene Elizondo, Jr, tied the knot with the Qatari businessman in 2012 during an intimate ceremony.
They welcomed son Eissa, now 3 months, this past January.

In a daring heist, a gang on Sunday morning at a gunpoint looted passengers of cash and valuables and assaulted some of them aboard the prestigious New Delhi-Patna Rajdhani Express in Bihar's Buxar district, the police said.

A dozen men barged into three coaches of the train near the Buxar railway station, about 125 km from here, and threatened to shoot the passengers if they tried to resist the robbery, the passengers told the police.

At least seven Government Railway Police (GRP) official — a Sub Inspector and six constables — were suspended and an FIR was registered at the Patna railway station after the angry passengers protested here.

The passengers told the police that the robbers boarded the train somewhere between Mughalsarai and Buxar. After looting them, they pulled the chain to stop the train and fled.

Patna Rail Superintendent of Police Jitender Mishra said an inquiry has been launched into the incident and the criminals would be arrested soon.

Indian and Chinese navies joined hands to save a Tuvalu-flagged container ship with 19 Filipino crew members which was attacked by pirates late on Saturday night in the Gulf of Aden, an official said on Sunday.

Responding to an alert from UK Maritime Trade Organisation (UKMTO), the Indian Navy deployed its warships INS Mumbai, INS Trishul, INS Aditya and INS Tarkash which were on a mission to the Mediterranean, to help the 21,000-ton bulk cargo carrier sailing from Kelang Port in Malaysia to Port of Aden.

Early on Sunday, the Indian naval ships managed to establish contact with the container ship's captain who, along with the crew, had locked themselves in a strongroom onboard.

An Indian Navy helicopter carried out an aerial reconnaissance of the ship to "sanitize" the upper decks of the ship and trace the whereabouts of the pirates who could still be on board.

Emboldened by the Indian Naval cover and on receiving an "all clear signal" that there was no sign of any pirate on board, the crew members gradually emerged from the strong room.

Later, a Chinese naval team boarded the ship, while the Indian Navy helicopter provided air cover.

They carried out a full search of the vessel and ascertained that the pirates had fled the ship under cover of darkness after their attempt to hijack the vessel was foiled.

Much to the discomfort of home buyers, as many as 826 housing projects in the country are facing long delays of about three to four years, a study said.

Over 2,300 real estate projects were being developed at the end of December 2016 and out of that 826 housing and 60 commercial projects were facing significant delays, according to a study by industry body Assocham.

The maximum delay has been witnessed in Punjab at 48 months, followed by Telangana (45 months), West Bengal (44 months), Odisha (44 months) and Haryana (44 months).

There is a delay of 42 months each in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Maharashtra saw a delay of 39 months in projects execution, Karnataka recorded lowest delay of 31 months.

Realty projects in Rajasthan and Kerala are facing delay almost equal to Karnataka.

On an average construction and real estate projects have been delayed by 39 months. Public sector projects are delayed by 39.03 months and private sector by 39.63 months.

"The real estate and housing sector is battling several problems. The process of obtaining mandatory approvals from multiple regulators and authorities result in cost and time overruns. These delays not only discourage investments in the housing sector but also lead to delays and corruption," the statement said.

Assocham said the Centre and state governments must introduce a single-window system to approve real estate projects. The government should act as a facilitator rather than a regulator of the real estate projects, it added. 

 One person was killed and five others were injured in clashes between security forces and protesters as polling for by-election to the Srinagar parliamentary constituency began here, leading to abysmally low voting in many parts.

The BSF opened fire in Pakharpora near Charar-e-Sharif area to quell stone-pelting protesters in which at least one person was killed and five injured.

Violent incidents were reported particularly from the central district of Budgam where miscreants pelted stones on polling booths this morning, a police official said.

The violence affected the overall voting percentage which was in some booths was even below 1 per cent in the first two hours. Kangan and Ganderbal reported only two persons polled in the district.

Two polling stations had to be abandoned because of heavy stone pelting in the Charar-e-Sharif area.

Unconfirmed reports said the condition of two of those injured is critical.

The official said stone-pelting incidents were also reported from Ganderbal districts of central Kashmir which are part of Srinagar Parliamentary constituency where polling began at 7 AM.

Meanwhile, normal life was affected in the three poll-bound districts of the Valley due to a strike called by separatist groups, who have asked people to stay away from the election process.

Most of the shops, fuel stations and other business establishments in the districts of Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal were shut, while public transport was off the roads, the official said.

He, however, said that few private cars were seen plying in these areas.

The government has declared a holiday for today in these three districts.

The last meal that the supermassive black hole of the Milky Way had was six million years ago, when it consumed a large clump of infalling gas before burping out a colossal bubble of gas weighing the equivalent of millions of suns, a new research led by an Indian scientist from here has found.

With the help of the NASA's Hubble Space telescope, Rongmon Bordoloi and his team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge found that several distant quasars can be seen through the northern half of the Fermi Bubbles, an outflow of gas expelled by the Milky Way galaxy's hefty black hole.

The Hubble Space Telescope probed the quasars' light for information on the speed of the gas and whether the gas is moving toward or away from Earth. Based on the material's speed, the research team estimated that the bubbles formed from an energetic event between 6 million and 9 million years ago.

"Six-nine million years might sound like a long time in human years. But in terms of cosmic timescale, it is like the blink of an eye. Just to give you the scale, the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old, and the dinosaurs became extinct around 66 million years ago. So the last meal that the supermassive black hole of the Milky Way had was after the dinosaurs became extinct," says Bordoloi.

The Supreme Court has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to prepare within six weeks an inventory of the existing firecrackers with traders in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

The exercise has been necessitated as the apex court has already banned selling and stockpiling of firecrackers in Delhi and NCR.

A bench comprising Justices MB Lokur and SK Kaul asked CPCB to furnish the details in consultation with Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan governments.

“The exercise of making the complete inventory with the licensees should be completed within six weeks,” the bench said.

The order came after the counsel appearing for CPCB said that assistance of Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organization (PESO) would be needed for the purpose and sought more time.

The bench then said, “Assistance of PESO may also be taken to identify firecrackers that may be dangerous for the health of the people and environment as well as with respect to the chemical composition.”

The bench has now posted the matter for hearing after summer vacations on July 7.

The top court had earlier extended its ban on selling and stockpiling of firecrackers in Delhi and NCR and refused to modify its order of suspension of licences of traders dealing in such explosive material.

The bench was hearing a plea of traders who had sought permission to dispose of their existing stock of firecrackers by selling it outside Delhi-NCR.

The court, however, had directed CPCB to prepare an inventory of existing firecrackers with the traders and suggest measures for their disposal.

It had asked CPCB to upload the prescribed limit of chemical composition of commonly used firecrackers on its websites.

The board was asked by the apex court in its order on November 11 last year to study and prepare a report on the harmful effects of the materials which are currently being used in the manufacture of fireworks.

The apex court had on November 11 last year directed the Centre to suspend all such licences as permit sale of fireworks, wholesale and retail within the territory of NCR and said that the suspension shall remain in force till further orders of the court.

It had also directed that no such licences shall be granted or renewed till further orders.