BJP delegation today met President Ram Nath Kovind and demanded the dismissal of the TMC government in West Bengal.
 
The delegation that included Kailash Vijayvargiya, Arvind Menon, Babul Supriyo, Swapan Dasgupta and Raju Bista apprised the President about the political killings taking place in West Bengal.
 
Yesterday the body of Hemtabad MLA Debendra Nath Ray was found hanging from the ceiling of a verandah outside a shuttered shop near his home in Bindal village in North Dinajpur district yesterday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually address the valedictory of high-level segment of United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Friday.
 
This will be Prime Minister Modi’s first speech at the United Nations after India reinstated it’s place as a non permanent member in the Security Council earlier this year.
 
ECOSOC serves as the central forum for discussing international economic and social issues and formulating policy recommendations addressed to member states of the United Nations. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Council since it’s formation in 1945.

US government has dropped its plans to deport international students whose courses move fully online because of the coronavirus pandemic. The decision comes a little over a week after US President Donald Trump’s administration had announced the policy.
 
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the government over the plan.
 
District Judge Allison Burroughs in Massachusetts has said the parties have come to a settlement.   Foreign students were told last week that they would not be allowed to stay in the US this autumn unless they switched to a course with in-person tuition.

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will declare the result of Class 10th examination this afternoon. Students can access their results through the websites- www.cbse.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in and www.results.nic.in.
 
Results will also be sent to the candidates through SMS on their registered mobile number and on registered email id’s. In addition to it, results can be obtained by sending SMS on mobile number 7738299899 with required details.
 
Results of Class 10th can also be obtained through Interactive Voice Response System on telephone number – 011-24300699. Besides, students can also view their results on UMANG App and on www.umang.gov.in. Students can also access Digilocker Application on UMANG App to view their marksheets and other digital academic documents.
 
Candidate’s digital marksheet, passing, migration and skill certificates will also be available in DigiLocker. The DigiLocker mobile app can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry has said that the difference between the active cases and the recovered cases are increasing progressively and the total recoveries have reached 1.8 times of the active cases in the country.
 
It said, a total of five lakh 71 thousand 460 people affected with coronavirus have recovered in the country so far. With this, the recovery rate in the country has reached 63.02 per cent. Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is three lakh 11 thousand 565.
 
The Health Ministry has informed that India has 657 cases per million in comparison to the global average of one thousand 638 cases per million and the country has registered 17.2 deaths per million compared to the global average of 73 deaths per million due to Coronavirus. It said, the daily growth rate in new cases is showing a declining trend and it is now 3.24 per cent which was around 31 per cent in the March this year.
 
The Ministry said the case fatality rate has also declined to 2.61 percent. It said, 30 States and Union Territories have recorded lower fatality rates than the national average.
 
AIR correspondent reports that there are 20 States and Union Territories that have better recovery rate than the national average of 63.02 per cent. In terms of recovery rate, top five States and Union Territories are – Ladakh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Haryana wherein the recovery rate is above 75 per cent. 10 States and Union Territories have contributed 86 per cent in the total Covid-19 cases and 50 per cent of it alone came from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Government has said that adequate testing is being done in the country to effectively deal with this crisis.
 
There are 22 states in the country which are conducting 140 tests per day per million and overall 201 tests per day per million is being conducted in the country. Lab network has been ramped up to increase the testing and more than 14 hundred labs are conducting the COVID-19 test in the country. 

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said, States have been advised to keep a continued focus on containment, testing and clinical management. It said, increased testing will help in early detection of the cases and COVID appropriate behaviour and community ownership is necessary to contain the spread of this disease.
 
On the question of higher prices of certain drugs used in the COVID-19 treatment, the Health Ministry said, the Drug Controller General of India has asked the companies to start helpline numbers for the people and publicize the distribution centres through their websites. In addition, the state governments have been asked to keep vigil on price hike of the drugs and ensure the supply of the medicines.
 
The Health Ministry said that a Sero Survey has been conducted in Delhi and 22 thousand 800 blood samples were collected from 26th June to 5th of July. It said, the report will be published soon as different kinds of stratification of the data is underway.
 
On the question of nationwide wide lockdown, the Health Ministry clarified that strict measures have been imposed in certain containment areas as it has been found that easing of lockdown in the containment zones increases the number of cases.

The 15th meeting of the India-European Union Summit will be held in virtual mode today. The Summit will be co-chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President of European Council Charles Michel and President of European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
 
The Summit will review India-EU cooperation covering political and security relations, trade and investment and economic cooperation. It is also expected to discuss developments around the COVID-19 pandemic and contemporary global matters of interest to both sides.
 
AIR correspondent reports that the Summit is taking place in the background of the EU wanting to play a more active role globally and also attaching higher priority to relationship with India and trying to look at the partnership in a more substantive way.
 
The new Presidents of the European Commission and European Council had taken over in December last year. The new leadership believes that the EU needs to play a stronger role in the global platform and has shown a lot of interest in India. It was in the year 2000 in which India and the European Union decided to institutionalise the mechanism at the level of the Summit.
 
This year marks 20 years of the Summit process between India and the EU. The last Summit between the two sides took place in 2017.
 
Ahead of the India-EU summit, the European Union representative in India, Ambassador Ugo Astuto, in an exclusive interview to AIR News, said that India has an important role to play in the post-Covid world. Speaking about the 15th Indo-EU summit, the EU Ambassador emphasised that economic cooperation, climate change, multilateralism and post-Covid response are going to be the focus of today’s discussions.
 
Mr. Astuto said that both India and EU share strong bilateral relations and the summit holds high significance as both the partners will pledge to fight the menace of COVID-19 together. He said, both the partners share the same values of democracy and have converging interests that have become more relevant in the current scenario.
 
The Ambassador asserted that the summit will focus on a new cooperation agenda to create the future roadmap for a strong bilateral strategic partnership in the years ahead.
 
Mr. Astuto said, both India and European Union will discuss multiple issues in the virtual bilateral summit ranging from climate change to security and global peace. He expressed confidence in development of stronger Indo-EU partnership on multiple fronts.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver a video address on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day today. The day marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Skill India Mission. A Digital Conclave is being organized by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to mark the occasion.
 
Our Correspondent reports that skill India is an initiative of the Government of India to empower the youth with skill sets, making them more employable. Skill India offers courses across several sectors which are aligned to the standards recognised by both, the industry and the government under the National Skill Qualification Framework.
 
The courses enhance the technical expertise and companies don’t have to invest in training for the particular job profile.

Everyone out there saying, Nature is healing and it is the revenge of nature that’s why we’re suffering this pandemic because we people were harming our mother ‘Earth’ and some posting that, let’s not pollute our planet, use of vehicles should be less and blah, blah… That’s completely okay if we’ll not safeguard our planet then who will.

But Maybe nature taught us the real meaning of freedom that we craved for in the past 2 months and we’re neglecting it.

Maybe she is making us realise the value of freedom of those birds and animals who are caged inside our homes and zoo.  Don’t they deserve this freedom, and after being caged in our homes in this pandemic, why we’re still not sensing this common message?

Maybe we can’t do less use of vehicles for less pollution and maybe we can, but there’s one thing we can surely do, ‘To release those innocents’, let them free and fly all around, the way we wanted in this lockdown and if still, we’re not realising this then nothing can make us sense their freedom.

This earth is their mother too, they do deserve this freedom.

In Enrica Lexie’s case, India’s long-await hasn’t caused any satisfactory result. Italy has command over it since the very beginning and eventually succeeded in its objective. on February 15, 2012, two fishermen sailing on fishing boat St. Antony shot off by two Italian marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvotore Girone in India’s contiguous zone. Which is positioned 20.5 nautical miles off the Kerala coast. This incident caused outrage and conflict of opinions over legal jurisdiction and immunity between the governments of India and Italy.

Recently, Permanent Court of Arbitration acknowledged the functional immunity of the two marines accepting the plea of Italy that they were working on a mission on behalf of the Italian government and gave Italy the jurisdiction over the matter, regardless of the fact that, the incident happened in India’s contiguous zone and the victims were the Indians. Due to the non-existence of any unilateral and bilateral and treaty between India and Italy, the Italian marines shouldn’t have gotten away in the name of immunity. This decision has set the menacing precedent for all the countries will now be enacting specific laws to give immunity to the military and paramilitary personnel. This will be troublesome for contiguous States. Albeit, the International  tribunal for the law of the Sea,  ruled that the marines are entitled to compensate India for the loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property, and moral harm, India still seeks for more than just monetary restitution for the unjustified killing of its citizens on mere doubt that the boat was a pirate skiff. Now it is to be seen how Italian court will act against the marines under the criminal law. India as a responsible state accepted the decision made by PCA by the virtue of Article 51 of Indian constitution which mandates it to uphold and respect the International law. Now that India has no jurisdiction over the matter anymore it must not show any leniency in securing the justice for Pink and Valentine if Italian court go to the extreme to support the killers.

Divya Patni

Everyone can perfom Yoga

Many yoga studios and local gyms offer yoga classes that are open to all generations and levels of strength. It’s fun to walk into a room full of young people, athletes, middle-aged mothers, older men, and solid foods and bodybuilders. Everyone can feel welcome and included and, unlike other games or classes focused on niche clients, yoga tends to offer open arms. Whether you like “Om” or can’t stand the word “yogi”; whether you are 92, 53, or even 12, yoga can help you.

This is how it encourages our health

Yoga is not just about working out, it’s about a healthy lifestyle. Yoga practice allows students to find peace in a world dominated by chaos. The peace and quiet that comes from training that focuses on loving everyone.

Breathing habits and deep meditation on Yoga help to promote inner transformation from the to-do list, the needs of children and spouses, financial worries, and relationships struggling in something less than the problems you face. Yoga helps relieve stress and distort the mind, helping you to stay focused.

Different faces of yoga

One of the benefits of yoga is that you can choose a yoga style tailored to your lifestyle, such as hot yoga, power yoga, relaxing yoga, baby work yoga, etc. Whether you prefer to practice at home, in a private session, while watching a DVD or a studio or gym, there are many options to suit your goals and needs.

If you are a beginner of yoga, hatha yoga, which focuses on the basic exit at a relaxed pace, it can be good for you. If you want to increase energy by using more of your body’s resistance, energy yoga may be right for you. When you are ready for a deep practice, Bikram, also called “hot yoga,” may be what you are looking for. In Bikram yoga, room temperature is maintained at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit [105 ° C], leading to the elimination of toxins from the human body through increased sweat production. No matter your fitness level, fat percentage, or health history, yoga has your own style.

Strength advantages and flexibility of Yoga

Yoga’s focus on strength training and flexibility is an incredible benefit to your body. The postures are meant to strengthen your body from the inside out, so you don’t just look good, you feel good, too. Each of the yoga poses is built to reinforce the muscles around the spine, the very center of your body, which is the core from which everything else operates. When the core is working properly, posture is improved, thus alleviating back, shoulder, and neck pain.

The digestive system gets back on track when the stretching in yoga is coupled with a healthy, organic diet, which can relieve constipation, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and acid reflux. Another one of the benefits of yoga is that stretching and holding postures also causes muscles to lengthen, which gives the body a longer, leaner look.

Allover Power of Yoga

Isometric exercise is one of the best ways to build spinal strength. Isometric, dubbed “the same” and “the same length,” simply translates holding one position without moving. The power of yoga uses isometric exercises and other exercises designed to make the spine and back strong. Flexibility and firmness from the depths of your heart, so it is important to train this area of ​​the body. Also, you can increase the strength and health of your whole body. A high temperature is often used in this practice to help keep the tissues warm and to release more toxins from the body.

Chapter III of Indian Penal Code, 1980 defines punishment for various offences. Section 53 of the Indian Penal Code sets out different kinds of punishments which are awarded to convicts for crime by the courts. These are imprisonment for life, rigorous or simple imprisonment, forfeiture of property, fine and death penalty (also known as capital punishment). Yes, capital punishment is a legal penalty in India. It is an integral part of criminal justice system in India but it is highly debated. All the punishment is based on the same proposition i.e. there must be penalty wrongdoing and the person who has done wrong should suffer for it also it is a common belief that inflicting punishment on wrongdoers discourages other from doing wrong. But with the increasing strength of human rights movement all across the world, the existence of capital punishment is questioned as immoral and extreme. In spite of many organizations protesting for the nullification of death sentence, it is still being executed in different countries. The profounder of death penalty argued that it will act as a deterrent against crimes in the society and it is economical than keeping the convicts behind the bars. On the other hand, some might argue that, punishment in present context must be more reformative than retributive. The UN in its Charter of Rights has declared death penalty or capital punishment as a crime against humanity and had also asked its member countries to put an end to it. One of the member countries of the UN – India, still carries out capital punishment in “rarest of the rare” cases even though the Constitution of India has stated that the government has no right to take the life of any person as per article 21. A majority of countries in the world has now abandoned the use of the death penalty but the world has not yet amicably come forward against its use.

However, the number of countries carrying out the death penalty is declining and it is possible that worldwide opinion and pressure will gradually influence all countries to abolish this practice. Capital punishment in current scenario of the country trend towards abolition of the death penalty as it has emerged over recent decades.  It will trace the development of capital punishment as a human rights issue in the international forum, and examine recent challenges to the death penalty in India. Death, life imprisonment, simple or rigorous imprisonment, fine and forfeiture of property. In contemporary India, death sentences are only reserved for the rarest of rare case.

However, there is no guideline or structure to define these “rarest of rare” cases. Whenever a Punishment is awarded for the wrong doing there are two main reasons for inflicting such punishment; 1.) One is that the person who committed the wrong must suffer for it. 2.) And, the other one is that inflicting punishment on wrongdoer acts as an example for others. In India deciding the case for death penalty is based on doctrine of “rarest of the rare test” which was stated in the case of Bachan Singh V. State of Punjab. Which means that death penalty will only be awarded in rarest of rare cases only . Further, in the case of Macchi Singh & Others V. State of Punjab the Three Judge Bench followed the decision of Bachan Singh and stated that only in rarest of rare cases when collective conscience of community is in such a way that it will expect the holders of the judicial powers to inflict death penalty then it can be awarded if the murder is committed in an extremely brutal, revolting or dastardly manner so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of the community. 2.) When a murder of a member of a Scheduled caste is committed which arouse social wrath. 3.) In case of “Bride Burning” or “Dowry Death”. 4.) When the crime is enormous in proportion. 5.) When the victim of murder is ● An Innocent child ● A vulnerable Women or a Person rendered unaided by mature epoch or illness. ● once the injured party is an individual in relation to whom the slaughterer is in point of authority or reliance. Apex court in the case, Macchi Singh v. State of Punjab expanded the finding laid down in Bacchan Singh. Hereunder are certain observations made by the court; “capital punishment can be awarded only in the case of gravest crimes. Circumstances of the offender must be taken into consideration before pronouncing a death sentence”. Jagmohan vs state of UP was the first case dealing with the question of constitutional validity of capital punishment in India. India retains death punishment for a number of serious offences.

Death penalty is no doubt unconstitutional if imposed arbitrarily, capriciously, unreasonably, discriminatorily, freakishly or wantonly, but if it is administered rationally, objectively and judiciously, it will enhance people’s confidence in criminal justice system. thus, the conclusion in the present circumstances of the country, it is required to retain death penalty in rarest of the rare cases. Because if it doesn’t deter the crime, then why do people still seek for commutation and pardon?

Illiteracy and Poverty go hand in hand. Education plays a very big role in uplifting people from poverty. It also helps one to improve his/her lifestyle or standards of living. Illiterate people miss these opportunities provided by education. Everyone, every girl, boy or an adult should be literate, it not just forms a basis to have a good career but it helps one in handling day to day life issues too.

Time is changing fast; technology and research making progress in leaps and bound. The present generation is completely different from the generation for which our education system was designed. The current education system is not keeping up with current needs of education. We are in dire need of extensive changes in Indian education system. Education is the most important component out of various components of social infrastructure. The well educated and properly trained manpower can accelerate the pace of economic development.

The following are the main problems faced in the progress of education:

1. Lack of funds: The lack of sufficient funds is the main problem in the development of education. Due to insufficient funds most educational institutions lack infrastructure, science equipment and libraries etc. 
2. Expensive Higher Education: University, professional and technical education has become costly in India. It is beyond the reach of common man. Privatization of higher education has led to the growth of profit hungry entrepreneurs. Now a day’s higher education is much costly affair.
3. Neglect of Indian Languages: The medium of instruction particularly in science subjects is English. So rural students who are not well versed in English, cannot study science properly in English. They suffer a lot; Indian languages are still under developed. Standard publications are not available in Indian language.
4. Problem of Brain Drain: When intelligent, talented and deserving candidates do not get suitable jobs in the country, they prefer to go abroad for seeking jobs. So our country is deprived of good talent. This phenomenon is called ‘Brain drain’.
5. Mass Illiteracy: Despite constitutional directives and economic planning we are not able to achieve cent percent literacy. -Even now 35 percent people remain illiterate. In India, the number of illiterates is almost one-third of the total illiterates in the world. 
6. Problems of Primary Education: Our primary education is ridden with too many problems. Large number of primary schools has no buildings what to talk of basic facilities like drinking water, urinals and electricity, furniture and study materials etc. Large numbers of primary schools are single teacher schools and many schools are even without teachers. So the drop rate is very high and a cause of concern. Concluding, we can say that there is quantitative expansion of education but in qualitative development we are still lagging behind.

The only way to deal with failing education system is that they need to adapt with time over and over again.