SPEEDY TRIAL:  Chief Justice of India S A Bobde on Friday made a case for speedy resolution of tax disputes saying it will act as an incentive for tax payers and free the funds locked in litigation. “A just and speedy dispute resolution is perceived as a tax incentive by the taxpayer. To the tax collector, an efficient tax judiciary assures that demands arising out of legitimate assessment are not strangled in delayed litigation,” Bobde said at the 79th foundation day celebrations of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.

NSA ON CAA PROTESTOR: The Supreme Court Friday said it cannot issue blanket orders restraining authorities from invoking the stringent National Security Act against people protesting the enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act.The Supreme Court Friday said it cannot issue blanket orders restraining authorities from invoking the stringent National Security Act against people protesting the enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee refused to entertain a plea challenging the imposition of NSA in few states as also in the national capital amid anti-CAA protests. “We are of the opinion that general writ will not lie in this case. We cannot invoke powers under Article 32. We agree that the NSA should not be misused but there cannot be a general command. This will create chaos,” the bench said.

INDIAN WORDS INCLUDED: The latest edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary features 26 new Indian English words, including Aadhaar, chawl, dabba, hartal and shaadi. The 10th edition of the dictionary, which was launched on Friday, has 384 Indian English words and incorporates over 1,000 new words such as chatbot, fake news and microplastic. The dictionary focuses on language change and its evolution through the years and has ensured that the language and examples used in the new edition are relevant and up to date with the times, Oxford University Press (OUP) said.

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NATIONAL

CAA: The Supreme Court on January 22  gave the Centre four weeks to respond to pleas challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said it will set up a five-judge Constitution bench to hear the petitions. SC said that it will not grant any stay on the CAA without hearing the Centre. A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde also restrained all high courts from hearing pleas on CAA till it decides the petitions. The bench said it will hear petitions related to  Assam and Tripura separately as the problem with CAA in these two states is different from the rest of the country.

UP: The UP government will provide land subsidy to the proposed food park of  Patanjali Group in Greater Noida. Patanjali is going to invest more than Rs 6,000 crore in the mega project spread over 91 acres of land in the National Capital Region (NCR). The decision was taken at the UP cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on January 21. Subsidies granted to the company include stamp duty rebate of 25 per cent.

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Submarine Project: The defence ministry on January 21, selected two Indian shipyards and five foreign defence majors for the Rs 50,000 crore project to build six conventional submarines in India for the Navy besides approving military procurement worth Rs 5,100 crore. The shortlisted Indian entities to construct the submarines are the L&T group and state-owned Mazagaon Docks Ltd (MDL).

Ayodhya Case:  A curative petition was filed in  Ram Janambhoom-Babri Masjid land dispute case on January 21,  challenging the November 9 verdict which cleared the way for construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya. The curative petition filed by Mohammed Ayyub, President of the Peace Party of India.

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Union Budget 2020 India: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman may not go overboard in setting growth target for FY21 in her second budget speech. The Finance minister perhaps would set the target for nominal GDP growth to 9.5-10 per cent as she now doesn’t have the time for ‘picking optimistic target’ experiments, IANS reported citing sources as saying. On the other hand, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO),  has asked the Finance Minister to avoid having over-ambitious tax revenue and fiscal deficit targets, according to the report.

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Section 144: The West Bengal state police has enforced prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC) to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for holding two back-to-back rallies since Sunday in support of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Cases have also been registered against BJP leaders for violating the orders. Both incidents have taken place in the north Bengal region where the BJP wrested all the Lok Sabha seats from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2019.

Nirbhya case: Supreme Court Tuesday rejected the Curative Petition of two of the four death row convicts in the December 16 gangrape case. Today a five-judge bench, comprising Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, RF Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, dismissed the plea filed by the convicts Vinay Sharma and Mukesh after a Delhi court scheduled the execution of all the four convicts for January 22, at Tihar Jail. One of them, Mukesh Singh—has filed a mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind. Again Mukesh Singh filed a petition through advocate Vrinda Grover, seeks setting aside  the January 7 order issuing a warrant for his execution on the ground that he has moved mercy petitions before the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and the President of India.

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Bihar starts NPR: Bihar will launch a data collection drive for the National Population Register (NPR) on May 15 and the exercise will conclude on May 28, deputy chief minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi said Saturday. “The NPR process in 2020 will be carried out between April 1 and September 30 in the country. In Bihar, it will be done between May 15 and May 28, 2020. Administrative and punitive action will be taken against officials if they refuse to carry out NPR.

FAD: USA’s health regulator has disapproved of manufacturing standards at GPT Pharmaceuticals’ Hyderabad plant, warning it will withhold approval for the company’s new products if it doesn’t fix matters. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said its investigators inspected the plant between June 24 and 28 last year and found numerous violations, including failure to ensure manufacturing standards.

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Identity of Gandhis: An old photo has been in circulation in social media saying that Gandhis were praying before the dead body of Smt India Gandhi. Countering this  Congress has been saying that Gandhis were praying before the dead body of Khan Abdul Khan. But the root question remains the same that why a Hindu shall pray like a Muslim, Which could be compared with other Hindus present in the Janaza. Hindus are in Folded hand praying for the departed soul, while Muslims were offering Namaz e Janaza.

Kerala Governor: Accusing historian Irfan Habib for “disrupting” his inaugural address at the Indian History Congress (IHC), Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan Saturday said that this “intolerance” towards a different opinion was “undemocratic” and Habib tried to physically stop his speech. In a series of tweets with photographs, Khan said efforts were made to interrupt his speech on stage at Kannur. In one of his tweets, Khan said Habib questioned his right to quote Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and shouted saying he should quote Nathuram Godse.

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December 27: On December 27, 1911, the National Anthem was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Congress. ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is the first stanza of the Bengali hymn ‘Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata’, written by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. A slightly varied version of the song was adopted by Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army in 1941 as the national anthem, called ‘Shubh Sukh Chain’, which also became popular in India since.

MiG-27 retires: The Indian Air Force conducted its de-commissioned ceremony of the MiG-27 aircraft, one of the most prominent fighter jets that have several glorious records to its name. The ceremony took place at the Air Force Station, Jodhpur. The jet has earned the ‘Bahadur’ title from IAF pilots for its role during the 1999 Kargil War.

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Foreigners: Janne Mette-Johannson, a tourist from Norway who arrived in India in October, was summoned to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Kochi on Thursday and asked about her attendance at an anti-citizenship protest march in the city on Monday. The FRRO is an office exclusively for the services of foreign tourists in the country.

SIT in UP: The Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh of UP state police have directed to constitute Special Investigation Teams (SIT) under supervision of Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) rank officers to ensure proper investigation in all 327 FIRs registered in connection with widespread violence during anti-citizenship law protests in as many as 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh. Besides.

Amit Shah: Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday continued the Bharatiya Janata Party’s attack on the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party in national capital Delhi, accusing them of creating confusion over the amended citizenship law that had sparked off massive protests in the city. “It is time to punish the tukde-tukde gang, which is responsible for the violence in the streets of the national capital with the help of the Congress party. The people of Delhi should punish them,” Amit Shah said at an event organised by the Delhi Development Authority on Thursday.

Pakistan: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday warned that PM Narendra Modi would “definitely” carry out an action of some sort in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in order to divert world’s attention from the recently introduced laws — Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) — by the BJP government.

FIR: Amritsar police has booked Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon, director-choreographer Farah Khan and comedian Bharti Singh for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of a community in a TV show, a senior official said on Thursday. The FIR was registered at Ajnala police station here under section 295-A of the IPC (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs).

Uttar Pradesh: A minister of Uttar Pradesh government refused to meet the families of two men killed in violence during protests against the amended Citizenship Act in Bijnor last week. Calling them “upadravi” (vandals), vocational education and skill development minister Kapil Dev Agarwal told me Why should he go to vandals’ place? How can those who are involved in vandalism and put the entire country and state in arson be social.

Good Governance Index: Tamil Nadu topped the composite ranking for Good Governance Index (GGI), with Maharashtra and Karnataka bagging the second and third spot respectively, according to a report released by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and the Centre for Good Governance on Wednesday. Chhattisgarh stood fourth, followed by Andhra Pradesh (fifth), Gujarat (sixth), Haryana (seventh) and Kerala (eighth). Madhya Pradesh bagged the ninth position, West Bengal tenth, followed by Telangana (11th), Rajasthan (12th), Punjab (13th), Orissa (14th), Bihar (15th), Goa (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Jharkhand at the eighteenth position in the big states category.

Army chief on CAA: General Bipin Rawat on Thursday slammed the protests over the new citizenship law, saying leaders emerge from crowds but are not those who “lead people in inappropriate directions”. “Leaders are not those who lead people in inappropriate direction. We are witnessing in large number of universities and colleges that students are leading masses and crowds to carry out arson and violence in cities and towns. “

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ONGC: State-run ONGC has received environment clearance (EC) for carrying out onshore exploration, development and production of oil and gas in 100 locations in non-forest area of Assam, that would entail an investment of Rs 3,500 crore, according to official documents.