The national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 94.98 per cent, in the past 24 hours. With 30 thousand 6 hundred 5 new discharges the total discharged cases reached 93 lakh 88 thousand 1 hundred 59.

With 27 thousand 71 new COVID19 cases in 24 hours, India’s total cases have gone up to 98 lakh 84 thousand 100. Health Ministry said, with 336 new deaths in 24 hours, death toll has reached to 1 lakh 43 thousand 3 hundred 55. Total active cases are now at 3 lakh 52 thousand 5 hundred 86.

ICMR said,  upto yesterday 15 crore 45 lakh 66 thousand 990 samples were tested. Out of these, 8 lakh 55 thousand 1 hundred 57 samples were tested yesterday.

International Bank has applauded India’s efforts towards river rejuvenation and cleanliness. Xavier Chauvet De Beauchene, Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said the bank is very proud of all the work done in India who would have thought 5 years ago that 550 million people will stop defecating in the open in the country. He added that there is a massive shift in the Indian Government’s approach from focusing only on infrastructure development to working with people and bringing about behaviourial change.

Director General of National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) Rajiv Ranjan Mishra attributed the success of the Namami Gange Mission to his team, volunteers, academicians and many self-help organisations who are working continuously towards the cause of cleaning Ganga.

The first Trilateral Working Group Meeting between India, Iran and Uzbekistan on joint use of Chabahar Port will be held virtually today.

In a statement, Ministry of External Affairs said, India welcomes the interest of Uzbekistan to use the Chabahar port as a transit port. It said, this will open up economic opportunities for the traders and business community of the region. Besides Uzbekistan, other Central Asian countries have also shown interest in using this port. The Ministry said, India wants to cooperate closely with regional countries on this issue.

Reserve Bank of India has made Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) money transfer facility operational round-the-clock. The announcement to this effect was made by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. In a tweet, he said it has been decided to make RTGS available round the clock on all days of the year from last night. RBI Governor said, India has become one of the few countries in the world to operate its RTGS system round the clock throughout the year. The move is aimed at giving a push to digital payments in the country. Earlier, RTGS transaction facility was available for customers from 7 am to 6 pm on all working days of a week, except the second and fourth Saturdays.

The RTGS system is meant for high-value transactions, on a real-time basis. The minimum amount that can be remitted through RTGS is 2 lakh rupees and there is no maximum limit. The beneficiary bank receives instructions to transfer the funds immediately after the transaction is carried out, and the transfer is instantaneous. On the other hand, NEFT handles fund transfers up to 2 lakh rupees and such transactions are usually executed in a couple of hours.

RBI has also decided to increase the limit for contactless card transactions to 5,000 rupees from 2,000 at Point of Sale (PoS) terminals from January 1 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and feedback from stakeholders.

Railway Ministry has quashed media reports about issuance of unreserved tickets and informed that all trains are plying on reservations only. In a statement, the ministry clarified that there has been no change in policy to run all express trains including festival specials and clone specials as fully reserved train only.

The ministry said, the permission given to Zonal Railways to issue unreserved tickets is meant only for suburban and limited number of local passenger trains operating in few zones. It said, running of trains, norms of travel and reservations are constantly evolving under Covid times. Further changes, as and when they happen, will be informed to all concerned accordingly, the ministry said.

Currently, Railways is operating 736 special trains.

A delegation of farmers from Uttarakhand met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in New Delhi yesterday and extended their support to the newly enacted three farm laws. Mr Tomar thanked the farmers for supporting the laws. Talking to media persons, Agriculture Minister said, farmers have understood the laws, expressed their views, and supported it.

Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Kailash Choudhary and Uttarakhand Education Minister Arvind Pandey were also present at the meeting.

This was the third group of farmers that met Mr Tomar and extended support to the farm laws. Earlier, two delegation of farmers from Haryana met Mr Tomar and extended their support to the new farm laws. The delegation, led by Bharatiya Kisan Union (Mann) Haryana state leader Guni Prakash submitted a letter of support to Mr Tomar on the farm laws and demanded the government to continue with these legislations. They also threatened to start protest if new farm laws are repealed. Mr Guni Prakash said that the ongoing farmers’ agitation is no longer a peasant movement.

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has said that the government is taking every step to ensure holistic development of farmers and enrichment of the agriculture sector in the country. He said, farmers in the country have started benefitting from the reforms brought by the Centre. Mr Tomar said, extending the benefits of the IT sector to the farmers, the government is utilizing modern tools of communication for dissemination of useful information.

On creation of a data bank of farmers in the country, the Agriculture Minister said its resources will be utilized to inform farmers about soil health, send forewarning of floods and even maintenance of land records of agricultural fields. Mr Tomar said, the government aims at making agriculture profitable with assured returns for the farmers.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the 10th Knowledge Exchange Summit, the Agriculture Minister said, a promising agri sector in the country will be able to attract people from the new generation towards it. He said, under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, an amount of one lakh crore rupees is being utilized to create agri oriented infrastructure in the country.

Mr Tomar said, the government has also planned investment of 10 thousand crore rupees for development of food processing units. He said, an amount of 6 thousand 850 crore rupees is being spent towards creation of 10 thousand Farmer Produce Organisations (FPOs). Mr Tomar also informed that the government has paid a sum of 87 thousand crore rupees to the farmers towards settlement of claims under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.

Centre has exempted Handicraft and Geographical Indications toys from Quality Control Order. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade mentioned this exemption in Toys (Quality Control) Second Amendment Order, 2020.

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry has devised a comprehensive action plan to boost production and sale of indigenous toys across the country.

Quality control order was issued by the Department for standardization and quality adherence of Toys and the order will come into effect from 1st January next year. This order aims to bring forward the synergized efforts of the centre, states and the stakeholders to promote ‘Team up for toys’ vision keeping quality standards of the indigenous toys as the priority.

Government has said that about 40 lakh 53 thousand paddy farmers have benefited during the ongoing Kharif Marketing Season with Minimum Support Price (MSP) value of more than 70 thousand crore rupees.

The Agriculture Ministry said, government continues to procure Kharif crops at its Minimum Support Price from farmers as per its existing MSP Schemes. It said, the procurement is continuing smoothly in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar. Out of the total purchase of 372 lakh tonnes, more than 202 lakh tonnes has been purchased from Punjab, which is around 54.45 per cent of total procurement in the country.

The country’s COVID-19 recovery rate has reached around 94.89 per cent. During the last 24 hours, 33 thousand 494 COVID patients have recovered. The Health Ministry said, total number of recoveries has gone up to over 93 lakh 24 thousand. The actual caseload currently comprises only 3.66 per cent of the total positive cases. Presently, the total number of active cases in the country is 3 lakh 59 thousand 819.

In the last 24 hours, over 30 thousand new cases were reported taking the total number of positive cases in the country to over 98 lakh 26 thousand.

The Ministry said that effective implementation of the strategic and graded Test, Track and Treat approach has led to higher recoveries and lower fatality. Currently, India’s Case Fatality Rate is 1.45 per cent, which is one of the lowest globally. During the last 24 hours, 442 deaths were reported taking the Covid related death toll to one lakh 42 thousand 628.

According to Indian Council of Medical Research, more than 10 lakh 65 thousand tests were conducted during the last 24 hours. The total number of samples tested so far has reached over 15 crore 26 lakh. 

Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said that new farm laws will bring more investment in rural India and raise farmers’ income. Addressing FICCI’s Annual Convention, he said, these laws will open up new opportunities to do trade, commerce & business for the farmers without changing the past systems.

Mr Goyal urged all business leaders and intellectuals associated with FICCI to talk about the benefits of the farm laws, as these laws are for the benefit of all farmers across the country.  

Describing Startups as the backbone of new India, Mr Goyal said that Startups & the ecosystem of Startups are encouraging innovation and promoting & strengthening new & young entrepreneurs. He urged the Indian industry to support the startups, by providing them financial support, handholding, opportunities and mentorship so that they can grow, without resorting to dilution of their stakes to foreign companies at very low valuations at the initial stage itself.

He said, Indian brands should demonstrate to the world that it is of superior quality. Mr Goyal said that scale of manufacturing, coupled with quality & productivity, can truly make India competitive in several sectors & help move towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat which is going to be an important building block of New India.

He said, the government will identify areas where we have competitive & comparative advantages, where we can become global players & contribute to global trade in a bigger way.  

A delegation of farmers from Haryana met Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in New Delhi and extended their support to the new farm laws.

The delegation, led by Bharatiya Kisan Union (Mann) Haryana state leader Guni Prakash submitted a letter of support to Mr Tomar on the farm laws and demanded the government to continue with these legislations.

They also threatened to start a protest if new farm laws are repealed. Mr Guni Prakash said that the ongoing farmers’ agitation is no longer a peasant movement. The BKU leader sought to know why the previous government did not implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission till 2014. This was the second group of farmers from Haryana that met Mr Tomar and extended support to the farm laws. The first group had met the minister on December 7.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, the Agriculture Minister said, the farmer leaders submitted a memorandum supporting the three farm laws. Mr Tomar said they also shared their experience on how these laws are benefiting farmers.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has called on all countries to declare a climate emergency to spur action to avoid catastrophic global warming.

He was speaking at a virtual summit on the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement.

Mr Guterres criticised G20 member countries for spending 50 percent more of their pandemic recovery cash on fossil fuels compared to low-carbon energy. 

The UN secretary general said that 38 countries have already declared a climate emergency and he called on leaders worldwide to now do the same. More than 70 world leaders are participating in the virtual summit organised by the UN, UK and France.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has not only achieved it’s target against climate change as per the Paris Agreement 2015 but has also gone beyond it.

Speaking at the Climate Ambition Summit 2020, co-hosted by the United Nations, the United Kingdom and France, Prime Minister asserted that review of achievements should be done against the set targets in order to inspire the youths and forthcoming generations. Mr. Modi said, India has increased it’s solar capacity from 2.63 Gigawatt in 2014 to around 36 Gigawatt in 2020.

Referring to the two remarkable initiatives of International Solar Alliance and Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, Prime Minister said that the centennial India in 2047 will not only meet it’s own targets but will also exceed the expectations.

The Prime Minister  said that India has exceeded in expanding it’s forest cover and also safeguarding it’s biodiversity. The virtual summit witnessed world leaders coming together to make new commitments to tackle climate change and deliver on the Paris Agreement. The Climate Ambition Summit 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement which was adopted on 12th December 2015.