Archives for June 2021

NEW DELHI: Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it will take into account the students’ scores in Classes 10, 11 and 12 to arrive at the final marksheet for Class 12 board exams 2021. 

The CBSE Class 12 board exam results will be declared by July 31.

A similar criterion will be adopted by  Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) for ISC Class 12 board exams.

Justice AM Khanwilkar led bench has accepted the CBSE and ICSE detailed assessment scheme.

“Students who want to appear (for Class 12 board exams later) can do so for improvisation of marks. This takes care of the students who want to appear,” said SC in its order.

Explaining the assessment scheme Attorney-General for India K K Venugopal who was appearing for CBSE said the CBSE assessment methodology takes into account the performance in each subject.

Venugopal told the bench that the board will give 30 weightage to final scores from Class 10, 30 percent for Class 11 and 40 percent for Class 12. The final score will be arrived at on the basis of this marking.

For Class 10, there are five subjects where the best of the three are taken and averaged out. He added that for Class 11, the three exams-unit, term and final exams are taken into account and a final marksheet is based on an average of the three.

He added that the subject-wise marks given by the school for 2020-21 will have to be in the range of plus/minus 5 marks obtained by the students in the school.

Similar criteria will be followed by ICSE board as well.

NEW DELHI: The Z-category VIP security cover of West Bengal politician and MLA Mukul Roy, who recently re-joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after a brief stint with the BJP, has been withdrawn, official sources said on Thursday.

Sources said Roy, who won the assembly election as a BJP candidate from Krishnanagar Uttar constituency, had written to the Centre to withdraw the security cover, which has now been given effect to. Roy had quit the TMC after being removed from the post of the party’s national general secretary.

He had joined the BJP in November, 2017, and was made the party’s national vice president. Soon after, he was accorded a low category Y+ central security cover of the central paramilitary CRPF which was upgraded to the second top level of Z just before the assembly polls in the state that were held in March-April this year.

He had a contingent of about 22-24 armed CRPF commandos who used to move with him every time he travelled in West Bengal. Sources said the small category security cover being provided to Subhrangshu by another central paramilitary force CISF has also been withdrawn.

The father-son are now being provided security by the state police.

Pradeep Sharma

Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday conducted a raid at former encounter specialist’ police officer Pradeep Sharma’s residence in suburban Andheri here early on Thursday in connection with its probe into the Antilia’ bomb scare case and Mansukh Hiran’s murder, an official said.

An NIA team along with armed CRPF personnel raided Sharma’s house located in J B Nagar in Andheri west around 6 am, the official said.

A search is being carried out, he said.

According to sources, Sharma is also being questioned by the NIA team in connection with the case.

Roads leading to the building, where Sharma lives, have been cordoned off by the central security forces and public movement in the area has been restricted.

After getting the information about the raid, the Mumbai police also deployed its personnel at the spot.

Earlier, Sharma had been questioned by the NIA for two days at its office in south Mumbai as part of the probe.

The central investigation agency had earlier arrested former police officers Sachin Waze, Riyazuddin Kazi, Sunil Mane, former police constable Vinayak Shinde and cricket bookie Naresh Gour for their involvement in the case.

It had recently arrested Santosh Shelar and Anand Jadhav in this connection. The NIA has said that both of them were allegedly involved in the conspiracy to plant an SUV with explosives near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence.

The SUV was found abandoned near Ambani’s south Mumbai residence Antilia’ on February 25 this year. Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hiran, who was in possession of the vehicle, was found dead at a Mumbra creek on March 5.

The two linked cases, earlier being probed by Maharashtra Police, were later taken over by the NIA.

Sonu Sood / Zeeshan Siddique

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to scrutinise the role that local Congress MLA Zeeshan Siddique and actor Sonu Sood played in procurement and supply of anti-COVID drugs to citizens, following their SOS calls and appeals on social media.

The high court also observed that “these people (celebrities) projected themselves as some kind of messiahs without verifying if the drugs were spurious or if the supply was legal”.

A bench of Justices S P Deshmukh and G S Kulkarni issued the direction to the Maharashtra government after state Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told the HC that it had registered a criminal case at the Mazgaon metropolitan court against a charitable trust, BDR Foundation, and its trustees for supplying anti-COVID drug Remdesivir to Siddique even though the trust did not have requisite licence.

Kumbhakoni said that Siddique had been merely diverting the drug to citizens, who had approached him, so no action had been taken against him yet.

He further said that Sonu Sood had received the drugs from several pharmacies located inside the private Lifeline Care Hospital in Goregaon. Pharma company Cipla had supplied Remdesivir to these pharmacies and inquiry into it was still going on, Kumbhakoni said.

He was responding to previous orders of the high court passed while hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) on several issues related to the management of drugs and resources required to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

The HC had directed the state government and the Centre to probe how celebrities and politicians had managed to procure and distribute anti-coronavirus drugs to the public when the supply of the same was scarce and was supposed to be allocated to states by the Union government.

On Wednesday, the HC asked if initiating action against the charitable trust was adequate and should the state not look further into the roles played by Siddique, Sood, and any other celebrities concerned?

“We would expect the state government to scrutinise their actions. We want you to very seriously examine their roles,” the high court said.

“Since both were dealing directly with the public, was it possible for the public to ascertain the quality or source of these drugs?” it said.

The HC referred to a news story published on Wednesday, which said that a private housing society in the city had said that it had probably been cheated and provided spurious anti-COVID-19 vaccines by those who had carried out a vaccination drive for its residents.

“We don’t want any such incidents. Such things should not happen because of the existence of a parallel system. These are situations with which we are not too happy,” the high court said.

“These people (celebrities) projected themselves as some kind of messiahs without verifying if the drugs were spurious or if the supply was legal. In both these cases, we expect the State Govt to scrutinise their actions,” the HC said.

The high court will next hear the plea further on June 25.

New York: Microsoft’s India-born CEO Satya Nadella has been named the company’s Chairman, an additional role in which he will lead the work to set the agenda for the board.

Microsoft Corp on Wednesday announced that the board’s independent directors unanimously elected Nadella to the role of board chair, and unanimously elected John W Thompson as the lead independent director, a role he held previously from 2012 to 2014.

In this role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review, the company said in a statement.

Nadella, 53, succeeds Thompson, who as the lead independent director, will retain significant authority including providing input on behalf of the independent directors on board agendas, calling meetings of the independent directors, setting agendas for executive sessions, and leading performance evaluations of the CEO, the technology giant said.

In addition to these role changes, the board declared a quarterly dividend of USD 0.56 per share. The dividend is payable September 9, 2021, to shareholders of record on August 19, 2021.

Nadella had succeeded Steve Ballmer to become Microsoft’s CEO in 2014.

New Delhi: A fire broke out at an AIIMS hospital building here on Wednesday evening, Delhi Fire Service officials said.

No injury has been reported so far in the fire that broke out on the ninth floor of the hospital’s Convergence Block, they said.

According to the fire department, a call about the fire was received at around 10.30 pm after which 22 fire tenders were rushed to the spot.

Ghazipur (UP): A newborn girl, wrapped in a piece of cloth and a chit declaring her as the “daughter of the Ganga”, was found in a wooden box floating in the river at Dadrihhat here.

Contained a picture of goddess Durga, a horoscope and incense sticks, the box carrying the infant was found by a local boatman, Gullu Chaudhary, who carried the girl home.

Police said Gullu was at the Dadrighat on Tuesday evening when he heard cries of the baby and found her alive in the box.

Later, police got the child admitted to the district hospital.

In a tweet, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath praised the boatman and said that the government will make arrangements for the upbringing of the child.

The boatman who saved the life of a newborn girl has presented a unique example of humanity, he said.

“As a token of gratitude, he will be benefitted by all eligible government schemes. The UP government will make arrangements for the upbringing of the child, the CM said in a tweet in Hindi.

District Magistrate Mangala Prasad Singh and other officials visited the hospital to enquire about the health of the infant.

Thanking Chaudhary for saving the life of the girl, the DM directed officials to provide a new boat to him.

Chaudhary has expressed his desire to raise the child.

Chhotaudepur: A young tribal couple from a remote village in Gujarat’s Chhotaudepur district was allegedly thrashed with sticks for eloping by five men, including family members of the teenage girl, in the presence of villagers, police said on Wednesday, adding three accused were arrested.

The incident, which occurred in Dhada village under the Rangpur police station in Chhotaudepur district on Monday, caught the attention of the police after a video of the brutal assault went viral on social media.

“A team of Rangpur police rushed to the village on Wednesday and arrested three members of the girl’s family after registering an FIR for assault and rioting against six persons, including an unidentified person who recorded the video and circulated it,” Rangpur police inspector N M Bhuriya told reporters.

As the young victims, both 19-year-old, belonging to a tribal community are in love, they eloped together on Monday and hid in the nearby forests, Bhuriya said.

“However, they were traced by family members of the girl who brought the duo to the village and thrashed them. A person shot the clip and circulated it. We have lodged an FIR against six men based on a complaint given by the teenage boy’s grandfather. Three accused were already arrested,” he said.

In the video, two men, armed with sticks, can be seen hitting the teenage boy who was tied to an electricity pole. Then, one of the men brings the girl near the pole and hits her with a stick repeatedly in the presence of some villagers.

The arrested trio included the girl’s uncle, her brother and a distant relative. Three others are yet to be nabbed, said the police officer.