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Every year on 19 December, Goa Liberation Day is celebrated in the state as Goa was liberated from Portuguese rule on that day in 1961. Goa was a Portuguese colony for 451 years. How Goa was liberated In the 19th Century, when there was a movement for Independence in India, the effects of which were felt on a smaller scale in Goa as well. Goans participated in Satyagraha in the late 1940s. After India got independence, the Portuguese refused to give up their hold over Goa. Finally, on 19 December, 1961, India conquered Goa from the Portuguese and Goa became a part of India. Greetings to all my Goan brothers and sisters on the 60th #GoaLiberationDay . I salute the supreme sacrifice of all our freedom fighters. On this momentous occasion, come let us pledge to usher in a New Dawn for our beautiful state and honour their sacrifice. — Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) December 19, 2021 Goa was taken over by the Portuguese from the Maratha rule in 1641 and began the minor Bichol

A youth hailing from Uttar Pradesh was beaten to death after he allegedly attempted to commit sacrilege inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Saturday evening. The incident took place when the man jumped golden grills inside the sanctum sanctorum, picked a sword and reached near the place where a Sikh priest was reciting the holy Guru Granth Sahib. The man was caught by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee task force members. When he was being taken to the SGPC office, the angry crowd thrashed him that later led to his death. Amritsar, Punjab | Today, one 24-25-year-old man barged inside (Golden Temple) where the holy book (Guru Granth Sahib) is kept. He tried desecrating it with a sword; was taken out by Sangat people; died in the altercation. Body sent to Civil Hospital: DCP Rampal Singh pic.twitter.com/4pq79BJZXB — ANI (@ANI) December 18, 2021 Deputy commissioner police (DCP) Parminder Singh Bhandal confirmed that the youth was beaten to de

Even as Sri Lankan Parliament was debating the annual budget presented by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, he flew off to New Delhi, for a two-day visit on 1 December, to seek urgent help from India to ward off an impending economic collapse of the country. This drew a sarcastic comment from former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Speaking in Parliament he said, “We have had past Presidents, who have also served as finance ministers parallelly, but they have always attended the Budget debates. We have never seen finance ministers leaving the country while crucial public finance matters are discussed. Our finance minister went to India and came back. We don’t know if he went to beg from India as well.” But Basil Rajapaksa had no other option but to seek urgent help from India as Sri Lanka’s net foreign exchange reserves have plunged to an all-time low of $1.2 billion, barely enough to pay for a month’s imports. The unprecedented shortage of essentials from oil to rice to cereals a

The Delhi Police Special Cell has arrested a DRDO scientist for allegedly orchestrating a blast inside a Rohini district court earlier this month, citing personal rivalry with a lawyer as a motive. The low-intensity explosion took place inside courtroom no. 102 on 9 December and injured one person. The explosion took place months after jailed gangster Jitendra Gogi was shot dead by two men, who were dressed as lawyers, inside a different Rohini courtroom on 24 September, raising questions over security at sensitive sites. Sources told News18 that the person arrested is a serving scientist at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which is charged with researching and developing for the military. Officials said three points of evidence point to the accused in the case. First is the CCTV footage that showed him twice on screen, once with a bag, suspected to carry the explosives, and the second time without it. The second was the presence of the lawyer who was the

The final results of the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Naval Academy (NA) exams have been put out by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Interested candidates can check their results at the official website at https://ift.tt/2G2dF5E. Steps to check the UPSC NSA and NA I results 2021: ― Visit the official website at https://ift.tt/2G2dF5E ― Click on the link for link for UPSC NDA and NA exam I 2021 that is given on the main page ― Click on the link for the final results of the NDA and NA exams that is given on the page ― The UPSC NDA and NA exam I 2021 results will appear on your screen in a PDF file ― Check your results and download a copy of the UPSC results for future use Direct link for UPSC NDA and NA results: https://ift.tt/3qamQqG The exams were held on 18 April this year. A total of 517 candidates have been selected for UPSC NDA and NA recruitment 2021. The list of the roll numbers of the selected candidates have been displayed, on the basis of merit, throu

The results of the Karunya KR-528 lottery will be announced today, 18 December at 3 pm by the Kerala State Lottery Department. Ticket holders can check the lottery results for Karunya KR-528 at the official website of the Kerala lottery Department - https://ift.tt/3c41bK9. The much-awaited lottery draw will be held at Thiruvananthapuram’s Gorky Bhavan by the State lottery Department. Live results for the Karunya KR-528 lottery will be released at 3 pm and detailed results will be available on the official website from 4 pm onwards. The results for the Karunya KR-528 lottery will also be published in the Kerala Government Gazette. The first prize winner of the lottery will take home Rs 80 lakh. The second winner of the Karunya KR-528 lottery will get a prize of Rs 5 lakh and the third winner will receive Rs 1 lakh. A consolation prize of Rs 8,000 will be given to certain KR-528 lottery numbers. As per Times of India , the price of a single lottery ticket is Rs 30. Ticket holders n

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today, 18 December, lay the foundation stone of the Ganga Expressway in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur. The 594-km long six-lane expressway will be built at a cost of over Rs 36,200 crore, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a statement. The foundation stone will be laid at around 1 pm on 18 December in Shahjahanpur. PM Modi to lay the foundation stone of 594 km long Ganga Expressway in Shahjahanpur, UP on 18 Dec. The Expressway will be built at a cost of over Rs 36,200 cr. 3.5km long airstrip for assisting emergency take-off and landing of IAF planes to be constructed on the Expressway: PMO pic.twitter.com/3RWIzvH1ka — ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) December 16, 2021 The inspiration behind the expressway is the vision of the prime minister to provide fast paced connectivity across the country, the PMO said. Starting near the Bijauli village in Meerut, the expressway will extend till near the Judapur Dandu village in Prayagraj. It will pass

In 2017, India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) decided to install 40GW of rooftop solar (RTS) power by 2022. However, India could install just 6GW by the end of October 2021. The 40GW goal is part of India's ambitious target to achieve 175GW renewable energy (RE) capacity that includes 100GW of solar power by 2022. Maharashtra had been given a target to install 3.3GW of RTS capacity by 2022. The state could install only 988MW, according to an official of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL), the nodal agency for RE in the state. And it is unlikely that either the state or India will complete its target of RTS by 2022. Manufacturers and experts in RE blame regular policy flip-flops by state and central governments for this probable failure. Hike in GST for solar system components On 17 September 2021, India's Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council decided to hike GST of many components of the solar system from 5 percent to 12

Indian Air Force's Group Captain Varun Singh, who succumbed to his injuries after surviving the chopper crash in Tamil Nadu last week, was given a moving send-off in his hometown Bhopal today. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan attended the braveheart's funeral at the Bairagarh crematorium in Bhopal. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan pays last respects to Group Captain Varun Singh at Bairagarh crematorium in Bhopal. The lone survivor of #TamilNaduChopperCrash was under treatment at Command Hospital in Bengaluru, Karnataka where he passed away on December 15th. pic.twitter.com/VKwOYlb7Wo — ANI (@ANI) December 17, 2021 Earlier, Chouhan had announced that a decision will be taken regarding renaming any institute or installing a statue of him. Additionally, a government job and Rs 1 crore would also be given to the family. Group Captain Varun Singh's mortal remains were airlifted to Bhopal on Thursday following which IAF officials and Madhya Pra

The massive and sweeping victory of 2014 by the BJP led to the “Gujarat Model” becoming almost a talismanic reference and primer to winning elections. Seven years later, in a limited but very significant battle, West Bengal was retained by Mamata Banerjee for the third term, defying odds and the massive might of the BJP. Her strategy was so successful that soon enough the “Mamata model” was being dissected across political parties. Cut to February 2022 where another regional satrap is not just trying to stage a comeback but also take on a very well-entrenched and organised incumbent. Some election watchers say the Bengal Model is now being adopted and adapted by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav to take on the Yogi Adityanath Sarkar. On the face of it, there is perceptible warmth between “Didi” Mamata and “Babua” Akhilesh. She has publicly pledged support. Initial trends reflect well on him but whether that results in a groundswell of support for Akhilesh s too early to call.

The winners of the Nirmal NR-255 lottery will be declared by the Kerala State Lottery Department today, 17 December at 3 pm. The NR-255 lottery draw will take place in the afternoon and detailed results will be available from 4 pm on the official website of the Kerala State Lottery Department at https://ift.tt/1fJwvHg. The first prize winner of the Nirmal NR-255 lottery will get Rs 70 lakh. The second prize winner will receive an amount of Rs 10 lakh. A winning amount of Rs 1 lakh will be earned by the third prize winner of the Nirmal NR-255 lottery and a consolation prize of Rs 8,000 will also be given. Along with these, the fourth prize-winning tickets will get Rs 5,000, the fifth prize winners will receive Rs 1,000 and the sixth and seventh prize winners will take home Rs 500 and Rs 100 respectively. The much-awaited NR-255 lottery draw will be held at the Gorky Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram. Meanwhile, the price of a single lottery ticket of the NR-255 draw is Rs 30. How to cl

The BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh Cabinet gave approval to the draft of a bill, which seeks to punish those who damage public and private properties. State home minister Narottam Mishra confirmed the same, saying that the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday had given its nod to the proposed draft of Madhya Pradesh Lok Evam Niji Sampati Ka Nuksan Nivaran Evam Nusksani Ki Vasuli (Redressal and Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Properties) Bill 2021. The Bill will be introduced in the winter session of the Vidhan Sabha, starting from 20 December. Mishra said that once the proposed Bill becomes a law, it would pave the “path for recovery of damages caused to public and private properties from the protesters who caused the damages and from those who provoked protesters for causing the damage”. Provisions of the proposed Bill The Bill contains a provision for constituting a Claims Tribunal to determine the compensation for the damages. The cla

Even as golden bells chime across India and Bangladesh in what is truly a celebration of a well-deserved triumph 50 years ago, the day ought to also present itself as a time for stocktaking and retrospection. After all, the years that followed the day of liberation had also been marked by a period of great uncertainty and turmoil for Bangladesh. Indeed, the pro-liberationists were overthrown in a bloody coup and its founding father was assassinated on 15 August 1975 — less than five years after the historic victory of 16 December 1971. Indeed, the most important question pertaining to India-Bangladesh relations that needs to be raised is as to how a country whose liberation was ably aided by its larger neighbour India, and in the military campaign for which many Indian lives were lost, acquired a “turn around” and became a hostile nation within a matter of few years. While a mature democracy like India appreciates the imperatives of non-interference in the domestic affairs of a sovere

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and address the All India Mayors' Conference, which is being organised in Varanasi, on Friday via video conferencing at 10:30 am. The conference is being organised by the department of urban development of Uttar Pradesh in Varanasi. Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri will also be present on the occasion. Mayors of more than 100 cities of the country will reach Varanasi from Thursday to participate in the conference, which marks the beginning of the month-long celebrations after the inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project. Apart from studying the development of Kashi, the mayors will also visit the renovated and expanded Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham. On Friday morning, Modi will address mayors at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay-Business Facilitation Center (DDUTFC) to mark the start of his convention. Uttar Pradesh urban development minister Ashutosh Tandon s

Dismissing the conclusion that COVID’s Omicron strain only causes mild disease, a top scientist and official from the country’s apex genome sequencing institute told News18.com that the early phase of a variant is always mild and we may know the new version better by the end of December. According to Dr Anurag Agrawal, director, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), it is good to hope that what has been true for South Africa should be true for India, but even mild viruses have the capability of bringing the entire healthcare system to its knees. What’s prudent is that India should hope for the best but prepare for the worst, he said. “It is too early to conclude anything on Omicron at least before the end of December," he said. IGIB, an institute under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has been sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 genes to detect Omicron and understand how it works. Explaining further, Agrawal said, “We need to understand that the

It was a night when humanity's worst was on display and it has forever scarred our minds. We are talking of the incident in which a 23-year-old medical student, who later came to be called 'Nirbhaya', was gang-raped by six people on a moving bus in the national capital. She could not survive her trauma, and the gruesome details of the incident sparked a national conversation on the change needed to prevent and punish such acts. Here's a look at what has changed since 16 December 2012 and how do women perceive the issue of safety in India today. The incident Nine years ago, on 16 December 2012, a medical student, Jyoti Singh, and her friend stepped onto a private bus from Munirka in New Delhi along with her friend after watching a movie. What followed was not only tragic but also shook the psyche of the country. Six men, who were aboard the bus, tied up the male friend and trashed him whereas the woman was dragged to the rear of the bus and was then beaten with a r

The result of the Karunya Plus KN-399 lottery will be announced at 3:00 pm today, 16 December, by the State Lottery Department in Kerala. The lottery result can be checked at https://ift.tt/2e9x2O0. Moreover, the detailed results of Karunya Plus KN-399 can be viewed from 4:00 pm onwards at the official website. The person who has the winning numbers for the first prize will get Rs 80 lakh. For second place winning numbers, the prize money is Rs 10 lakh. The State Lottery Department will give Rs 1 lakh to the third prize winner and few lucky winners will also get Rs 8,000 for consolation prize. For the unversed, the lottery draw will be carried out at Gorky Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram under the supervision of experienced judges. https://ift.tt/33sD4DT Here are few steps to check Karunya Plus KN-399 result: Step 1: Enter the name - keralalotteryresult.net - on a search bar Step 2: Search and click on the link that reads ‘Kerala Lottery Result 16.12.2021 Karunya Plus KN-399' l

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, on the occasion of Swarnim Vijay Diwas, recalled the great valour and sacrifices by the Muktijoddhas, Biranganas and the Indian Armed Forces and said together 'we fought and defeated oppressive forces'. Taking to Twitter, Modi said: On the 50th Vijay Diwas, I recall the great valour and sacrifice by the Muktijoddhas, Biranganas and bravehearts of the Indian Armed Forces. Together, we fought and defeated oppressive forces. Rashtrapati Ji’s presence in Dhaka is of special significance to every Indian. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 16, 2021 Swarnim Vijay Varsh commemorates 50 years of India's victory in the 1971 War and the formation of Bangladesh. Last year on 16 December, Modi lit the Swarnim Vijay Mashaal from the Eternal Flame at the National War Memorial. He also lit four flames that were to be carried in different directions. Since then, these four flames have traversed across the length and breadth of the cou

The daily horoscope for you is right here. As the new week begins, this Thursday, 16 December will see the Moon entering its Waxing Gibbous phase which is the second phase after the Moon. This is the phase between the first quarter of the moon and the full moon. Under this waxing phase of the Moon, all the zodiac signs will experience a surge in energy. It is advised to remain calm. It is best to deal with difficult situations in a composed and practical manner. Refrain from surgeries under the lunar influence today. Check your horoscope for today:   Aries: (21 March – 19 April) Overall a very lucky day for Aries. Right from experiencing peace at home to performing extraordinarily at work, the day promises very favourable circumstances. Crucial responsibilities might come your way at work. Maintain your courteous attitude to get work done. Possibility of the arrival of distant relatives cannot be ruled out. Taurus: (20 April – 20 May) Whatever obstacles come your way, will turn

The only survivor of the Indian Air Force helicopter crash that killed Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others, Group Captain Varun Singh, succumbed to his injuries and passed away today, 15 December. According to news reports, Captain Singh was being treated at a military hospital in Bengaluru and  was on life support . The 39-year-old had been critically injured in the helicopter crash, which took place on 8 December. Several prominent political leaders offered their condolences on the his demise. President Ram Nath Kovind said he was saddened to learn about the passing of Group Captain Singh, adding “he displayed the soldierly spirit of valour and indomitable courage” while he was fighting for his life: Sad to learn that Group Captain Varun Singh breathed his last after putting up a valiant fight for life. Though badly injured in the chopper crash, he displayed the soldierly spirit of valour and indomitable courage. The nation is grateful to him. My condolences