The big news: SC asks Centre for rules on regulating OTT platforms, and nine other top stories
Other headlines: A Union minister backtracked after announcing BJP’s Kerala CM candidate, and India vaccinated over 10 lakh against coronavirus in a day.
A look at the headlines right now:
- ‘There must be some screening of OTT platforms,’ says SC, asks Centre to submit rules for it: The court was hearing a plea by India head of Amazon Prime Video Aparna Purohit in connection with the case filed against her for the webseries ‘Tandav’.
- Union minister clarifies ‘Metro man’ E Sreedharan is not BJP’s Kerala chief ministerial candidate: V Muraleedharan told ANI that the announcement was erroneously made due to a miscommunication and was incorrect.
- India vaccinates over 10 lakh beneficiaries in a day – highest number so far: A total of 1,77,11,287 beneficiaries were vaccinated against the virus till Thursday evening.
- SC suggests Centre to form additional courts to deal with 35 lakh pending cases of bounced cheques: The court said Centre has the power to come up with a law to create additional courts to deal with such cases.
- In Tamil Nadu, BJP asks EC to stop Rahul Gandhi from campaigning, book him for sedition after event in school: The party said his interaction with students of St Joseph’s Matric Higher Secondary School in Mulagumoodu in Kanyakumari was akin to poll campaign.
- Ahead of West Bengal polls, Trinamool Congress writes to EC seeking removal of ‘biased’ state in-charge: The party’s MP Derek O’ Brien, in a letter, claimed that Sudeep Jain has a ‘track record’ of being partisan to the BJP during 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, BJP leader Tejasvi Surya said his party will win over 200 seats in the state.
- ‘Kashmir Walla’ moves HC against FIR for story claiming Army forced school to celebrate Republic Day: Editor-in-Chief Fahad Shah and Assistant Editor Yashraj Sharma called the FIR against the news website ‘clearly unconstitutional and against the law’.
- Haryana’s decision to reserve 75% private jobs for locals will ‘spell disaster’, says FICCI: The Bill proposes to reserve 75% of the jobs in the private sector that pay less than Rs 50,000 per month.
- 38 killed in Myanmar during protests against military coup, says UN envoy: Christine Schraner Burgener said that Myanmar’s military says it is ready to withstand sanctions in response to its actions.
- EPFO keeps interest rate on provident fund deposits unchanged at 8.5%: The interest rate had been reduced to a seven-year low of 8.5% in March last year.