News Highlights: DU set to reopen from Thursday; students exalted, some worried

Britain will double the size of the British force in Estonia as part of a NATO deployment and will send equipment, including tanks and armoured fighting vehicles, to the country amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Alongside our NATO Allies, we are deploying troops and assets on land, sea and air to bolster European defences in response to the build-up of Russian military forces on the border of Ukraine," British defence minister Ben Wallace said in a statement.

"NATO and our allies have been clear that an invasion of Ukraine will be met with severe consequences."

. Delhi University (DU) colleges are gearing up to welcome the students on Thursday as many of them will be visiting the campus for the first time since they took admission.

The university has been closed for nearly two years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is set to resume offline academic activities from Thursday.

There is a sense of fervour among the students, who are excited to return to the campus and "reclaim" the years lost due to the pandemic.

. The Tamil Nadu government is to commence a massive drive to remove the encroachments from water bodies in the state spread across 9,800 hectares.

The decision came after the Madras High Court had expressed displeasure over a large number of water bodies being encroached upon in the state.

The state government has already constituted three committees at the divisional, district, and state level for effective reporting and monitoring developments in identifying and evicting encroachments in water bodies and government lands.

. ANI

. Spanish prosecutors are investigating 68 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic church staff, the public prosecutor's office said on Wednesday in the first release of official data about such cases.

Allegations of child abuse by Catholic clergy and of possible cover-ups by the church are only surfacing now in Spain, years after similar scandals rocked the Church in other countries such as the United States, Ireland and France.

. The Supreme Court Collegium Wednesday approved the proposal for the appointment of Justice Ahanthem Bimol Singh, Additional Judge of the Manipur High Court as Permanent Judge.

The Collegium headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana also approved the proposal for the elevation of 10 advocates as Judges in the Bombay High Court.

In another decision, the Collegium also approved the proposal for elevation of the six advocates as Judges in the Madras High Court

. Second-largest IT exporter Infosys may hire more than 55,000 fresh graduates from campuses in FY23 as it sees a very good runway for growth going forward, a top executive said on Wednesday.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company's chief executive Salil Parekh said there are tremendous opportunities awaiting engineering and science graduates in the tech sector, but urged them to internalise that it will be a career where they will have to learn new skills at shorter durations.

"We will recruit 55k college grads in FY22. We think we will recruit that or a higher number in next year (FY23)," Parekh said while addressing IT industry lobby Nasscom's annual NTLF event.

He said Infosys is targeting a 20 per cent jump in annual revenues in FY22 and this presents a great opportunity for a fresher to join the company and grow.

. A senior official in Ukraine's state security service said on Wednesday that only Russia would be interested in carrying out the ongoing mass denial of service attacks on the defence ministry and large state-owned banks.

The Kremlin earlier denied involvement in the cyber attacks. Illya Vityuk, Head of the Cybersecurity Department of the state security service (SBU), said it was too early to identify specific perpetrators, but added:

"And today we know that the only country that is interested in such ... attacks on our state, especially against the backdrop of massive panic about a possible military invasion, the only country that is interested is the Russian Federation."

. A South African judge on Wednesday dismissed a bid by former president Jacob Zuma to appeal an earlier ruling rejecting his attempt to have the prosecutor in his arms deal corruption trial taken off the case for alleged bias.

The judgment means Zuma's trial will move forward on April 11.

. Russia would be ready to re-route supplies to other markets should new Western sanctions target its energy companies, finance minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday.

Siluanov did not say how Russia would divert its energy exports but said that Russia's foreign exchange reserves, National Wealth Fund and a budget surplus should shield its economy and banks from any possible sanctions hit.

The United States and its allies are considering new sanctions including against Russia's largest banks, economy and energy sector, with export controls possible, in the event that Moscow invades its neighbour Ukraine.

The Kremlin denies it has any such intention.

. ANI

. Vertical Aerospace and Embraer's Eve have gained more customers for their Jetsons-like visions for urban air mobility at the Singapore Airshow, but they face steep regulatory and social acceptance hurdles to make the dream a reality.

. Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof sees their Women's World Cup opener against India as an opportunity to inspire "millions of girls" in both countries to take up the sport.

India are set to face Pakistan in their opener of the World Cup on March 6 at Tauranga, New Zealand. The quadrennial event will be held from March 4 to April 3 across six cities in New Zealand.

“Pakistan vs India is indeed a great stage for any player to establish her credentials, but at the end of the day, it is a cricket match that has to be won by executing the basics right and keeping thing simple," Maroof, who is making a comeback after motherhood, told PTI Bhasha from Queenstown, New Zealand.

. After 20 years as a member of the World Trade Organization, China has failed to adopt the institution's rules and has become an even more "state-led, non-market" economy, US President Joe Biden's administration said Wednesday.

. The Income-tax department has conducted searches at multiple premises of Chinese telecom company Huawei in the country as part of a tax evasion investigation, official sources said on Wednesday.

The raids were launched at the company's premises in Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana) and Bengaluru in Karnataka on Tuesday.

Sources said the officials looked at financial documents, account books and company records as part of a tax evasion investigation against the company, its Indian businesses and overseas transactions.

. Ukrainian leaders were to stage a "Day of Unity" on Wednesday to rally patriotic support and defy fears of a Russian invasion, as Moscow announced an end to military manoeuvres in occupied Crimea.

Russia's huge build-up of troops, missiles and warships around Ukraine -- which US intelligence warns could turn quickly into an invasion -- has been called Europe's worst security crisis since the Cold War.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine be forbidden from pursuing its ambition to join NATO and wants to redraw the security map of eastern Europe, rolling back Western influence.

But, backed by a threat of crippling US and EU economic sanctions, Western leaders have launched a drive to seek a negotiated settlement, and Moscow has signalled it will start to pull forces back.

. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra on Wednesday alleged that he has been detained by Jharkhand police at Birsa Munda airport.

Mishra arrived at Ranchi to visit the kin of 17-year old boy Rupesh Kumar Pandey at Hazaribag who was killed during a clash at Barhi during immersion procession of Saraswati idol on February 6.

Despite repeated efforts, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ranchi, Surendra Kumar Jha could not be contacted for an official statement on the issue.

"Detained by Jharkhand police at Ranchi Airport for last two hours,” Mishra tweeted.

. JUST IN | UGC has said the results for UGC-NET December 2020 and June 2021 exams will be declared in a day or two

. As part of his efforts to forge an anti-BJP alliance at the national level, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will be meeting his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai on February 20.

Thackeray spoke to Chandrasekhar Rao over phone on Wednesday and invited him to Mumbai.

According to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), the Maharashtra chief minister extended his full support to the efforts of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief to fight "anti-people" policies of the BJP government at the Centre and for federal justice.

The Shiv Sena leader was all praise for KCR's fight and told him that to protect the country from "divisive" forces, he has raised his voice at the right time.

. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will be hoping the new National Cricket Academy (NCA), whose foundation stone was laid by secretary Jay Shah on February 14, will nurture talent and support the growing cricket ecosystem, as the country's players continue to bring back laurels -- the latest being the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup triumph in the Caribbean.

While laying the foundations stone in Bengaluru, Shah also said that only a "collective vision" will see Indian cricket rise to new heights. "Laid the foundation stone for @BCCI's new NCA. It is our collective vision to have a Centre of Excellence which nurtures talent and supports the cricket ecosystem in India," tweeted Shah.

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly also posted images of the proposed facility, which will become not just the country's but the world's biggest cricket-nurturing facility once it is completed.

. An unknown person tried to enter NSA Ajit Doval's residence. He was stopped by security forces and detained. Further investigations are underway, ANI reported. Primary investigation by the Delhi Police suggests thatthe man seemed mentally disturbed. He was driving a rented car.

. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence has suffered a major cyber attack that prevented users from accessing its website, amid heightened tensions with Russia.

Two Ukrainian banks also lost access to online banking services, according to the government.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said that its website was hit with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

"The website was probably attacked by DDoS: an excessive number of requests per second was recorded. Technical works on restoration of regular functioning are carried out. Communication through FB and Twitter pages," the ministry tweeted late on Tuesday.

. China's factory-gate inflation eased to its slowest pace in six months and consumer price growth also softened in January amid weakening property sector demand, new coronavirus curbs and government efforts to rein in surging materials costs.

The producer price index (PPI) increased 9.1 per cent from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on Wednesday, slower than the 9.5 per cent growth tipped by a Reuters poll and a 10.3 per cent gain in December. It was the weakest pace since July.

While producer prices in the world's second-largest economy remain elevated thanks to critical supply issues and home and abroad, China's relatively benign consumer inflation contrasts with cost pressures seen in most other economies.

. Landslides and flooding triggered by heavy rainfall killed at least 18 people Tuesday in a tourist town in the hills above Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian firefighters said.

"So far, 18 deaths caused by landslides and floods have been confirmed" in recent hours, the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department said in a statement.

It said more than 180 firefighters were at the scene in the picturesque hill town where Brazil's last emperor Pedro II is buried

. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Monday protested outside the Tamil Nadu House here, accusing the state government of "suppressing voices" that demand justice for Lavanya, who died by suicide allegedly after forced conversion.

. The family of a woman shot by Alec Baldwin on the set of the movie "Rust" sued the US actor on Tuesday, claiming "substantial" damages for her wrongful death.

. US air safety regulators said Tuesday they will perform final inspections on new Boeing 787 planes, retaining an authority normally granted to jet manufacturers.

News Highlights: DU set to reopen from Thursday; students exalted, some worried

UK will double the number of troops in Estonia as part of NATO mission

DU set to reopen from Thursday; students exalted, some worried

TN govt to commence massive drive to remove encroachments from water bodies

Court summons Satyendar Jain, other AAP leaders in defamation case

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