Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 12 (PTI) The government should provide additional funds as well as incentives in the upcoming Budget to promote indigenous farm research, oilseeds production, food processing and organic farming for the overall growth of the agriculture sector, according to industry experts.

The direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme should be utilised more to support farmers instead of giving subsidies, they added.

New Delhi, Jan 12 (PTI) The government has committed to buy from the Serum Institute further 4.5 crore doses of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, at a price of Rs 200 per shot plus applicable taxes by April, in addition to a firm order given to the company for 1.1 crore doses.

Flights have started ferrying the vaccines to different cities from Pune from Tuesday morning.

According to the purchase order placed on Monday, each dose of the vaccine has been priced at Rs 200 and with GST of Rs 10, it would cost Rs 210.

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) The Indian Navy will kick-start a two-day mega defence exercise on Tuesday covering the country's 7516 km coastline and exclusive economic zone, officials said.

Billed as India's largest coastal defence exercise, it will involve all the 13 coastal states and Union Territories along with other maritime stakeholders, they said.

"The second edition of the biennial pan-India coastal defence exercise 'Sea Vigil-21' will be conducted on January 12-13," the Navy said.

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) Ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament this month, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is in touch with leaders of various opposition parties who will soon meet to chalk out their joint strategy to corner the government on farm laws, sources said on Monday.

Gandhi is learnt to have started talking to opposition leaders for holding a joint meeting of various parties ahead of the session.

New Delhi/Pune, Jan 12 (PTI) The first consignment of Covishield vaccines reached Delhi from Pune on Tuesday, four days ahead of the launch of a nationwide drive against the coronavirus

A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines landed at the Delhi airport around 10 am. It had left for the national capital around 8 am, three hours after three trucks with the maiden consignment of the vaccines rolled out of the Serum Institute of India (SII) facility, 15 km from the Pune airport

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) Delhi on Monday confirmed bird flu cases after eight samples sent to a Bhopal-based laboratory tested positive for avian influenza.

All eight samples -- four from a park in Mayur Vihar Phase 3, three from Sanjay Lake and one from Dwarka -- have been found positive for avian influenza, Dr Rakesh Singh from the animal husbandry unit of the Development Department said.

The report of the test results arrived on Monday morning, he said.

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) NCP president Sharad Pawar met Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja here on Monday and discussed the ongoing farmers' agitation.

"We did discuss the Supreme Court order, informally. But the decision on what has to be done has to be taken by the farmers. They have to react to it. We stand by their demand for the repeal of the laws," CPI general secretary D Raja said.

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) The Supreme Court Monday pulled up the Centre for its handling of the farmers protest against the new farm laws saying it is extremely disappointed with the way negotiations between them were going and it will constitute a committee headed by a former Chief Justice of India to resolve the impasse.

New Delhi, Jan 9 (PTI) The Centre has procured 531.22 lakh tonnes of paddy so far during this kharif marketing season from over 70 lakh farmers at MSP, costing a little over Rs 1 lakh crore, amid the ongoing protest by farmers at Delhi borders seeking repeal of three new farm laws and legal guarantee of MSP.

The kharif marketing season starts from October.

"In the ongoing kharif marketing season (KMS) 2020-21, the government continues to procure kharif 2020-21 crops at MSP from farmers as per existing MSP schemes," according to an official statement.

New Delhi, Jan 9 (PTI) Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Saturday said its latest update - which has received criticism from a multitude of users globally - describes business communication and does not change its data-sharing practices with the social media giant.

Earlier this week, WhatsApp had started rolling out in-app notifications to users about an update in its Terms of Service and privacy policy regarding how it processes user data and partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the social media giant's products.