Amid Opposition demands for a discussion on the Pegasus spyware issue, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi on Monday said the issue is sub judice and there need not be a separate discussion on the issue in the Budget session of Parliament.

Farm unions said they would be forced to resume their agitation if the Union government failed to fulfil its written commitments on withdrawal of cases against protestors, compensation for those who died during the agitation and the establishment of a committee on minimum support prices (MSP), according to a memorandum submitted by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday.

The Russian government has sent a written response to a U.S. proposal aimed at deescalating the Ukraine crisis, according to three Biden administration officials.

The Economic Survey for 2021-22, tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha, expects the GDP to grow by 9.2% this year and 8% to 8.5% in 2022-23, even as it expressed concerns about the implications of hardening inflation and energy prices.

There is an urgent need for crop diversification in view of the severe water stress in areas where paddy, wheat and sugarcane are grown as well as to increase oil seed production and reduce dependency on imports of cooking oil, the Department of Economic Affairs said in the annual Economic Survey released on Monday.

Demand for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme has dropped from the peak of the first lockdown, but is still higher than pre-COVID levels, the Department of Economic Affairs said in its annual Economic Survey, noting that this is “an indicator of rural labour markets”.

President Ramnath Kovind on Monday lauded the health care professionals, the government’s massive vaccination drive against COVID–19 aided by the indigenous production of vaccines and the citizens “who displayed profound faith in the democratic values, discipline and sense of responsibility” during the pandemic entering its third year, in his address to the joint Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she had blocked State Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on social media platform Twitter.

The Chief Minister told presspersons at the State Secretariat that she has been forced to take the decision because the Governor was issuing tweets everyday targeting her and officials of the State government to work as per his “instructions”.

In this episode of Talking Politics with Nistula Hebbar, we discuss the importance of western Uttar Pradesh in the 2022 Assembly Elections. Will voters favour those talking about farmers? Or will Hindu-Muslim polarisation be the deciding factor?

Union minister S.P. Singh Baghel on Monday filed his nomination papers from Mainpuri’s Karhal Assembly constituency to take on Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday transferred the probe into the death by suicide of a schoolgirl, who was studying at a Christian Missionary-run school in Thanjavur district, to the CBI.

The Kerala High Court on Monday deferred for two days the implementation of the order issued by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) revoking the licence of MediaOne TV channel and removing the name of the channel from the list of permitted channels.

India called for quiet diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of the Russia-Ukraine tensions. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Ukraine, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN also called for the immediate de-escalation of the situation while taking into account the security interests of all.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Monday for the first time on Russia’s troop build-up and threatening actions against Ukraine at the request of the United States, and all key players are expected to square off in public over the possibility of a Russian invasion and its global impact.

The United Arab Emirates intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels early Monday, January 31, 2022, as the Israeli President visited the country, authorities said, the third such attack in recent weeks.

The attack amid President Isaac Herzog’s visit only fuels the ongoing tensions affecting the wider Persian Gulf, which has seen a series of attacks as Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers collapsed and Yemen’s yearslong war raged.

The story so far: India has invited applications from 100 domestic companies, startups and small and medium enterprises to become a part of the design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme. Along with it the IT ministry has sought proposals from academia, start-ups and MSMEs to train 85,000 qualified engineers on semiconductor design and manufacturing.

Equity benchmarks notched up solid gains on Monday after a two-session sliding streak as healthy growth projections in the Economic Survey and supportive global cues enthused investors.

Veteran India hockey goalkeeper P.R. Sreejesh on Monday won the prestigious World Games Athlete of the Year for his 2021 performances, becoming only the second Indian to receive the accolade.