Air India will completely ban use of plastic in Alliance Air and Air India Express from 2nd October.

Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Ashwani Lohani said this while addressing a workshop of Civil Aviation Correspondents in New Delhi today.

Plastic tea cups will be replaced with sturdy paper cups and plastic tumblers will be replaced with paper tumblers.

The move follows a clarion call by Prime Minister Narendra to ban single use plastic during his Independence Day Address from the ramparts of Red Fort.    

In shooting, India's Elavenil Valarivan claimed her maiden senior World Cup gold medal in the women's 10m air rifle competition at Rio de Janeiro yesterday. With this, Valarivan became the third Indian to achieve the feat. 

In her debut year at the senior level, Elavenil shot 251.7 in the finals to help India extend their new-found dominance in the event.

However, 20-year old Valarivan's top prize did not translate into an Olympic quota for India as Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil have already secured the maximum two berths available per country in last year's World Championships.  

Assam government has said that opportunity to prove their citizenship will be given to those whose name doesn't not figure in the final NRC list. Talking to AIR, Additional Chief Secretary of the Home and Political department Kumar Sanjay Krishna said that 200 Foreigners Tribunals will become functional from 1st of September in Assam. He said, if someone's name doesn't appear in the NRC, he or she can appeal before the Foreigners Tribunals. Mr Krishna said that Tribunals are expected to dispose off the appeal within 60 days. He said that the Centre and the Assam government will decide later on what to be done with those who fail to prove their Indian citizenship through courts.

The Union Cabinet has approved setting up of 75 new Medical Colleges by 2021-22. The move will add 15,700 more MBBS seats in the country. These medical colleges will be established in under-served areas having no such colleges with at least 200 bedded district hospitals. 

Preference will be given to Aspirational districts and district hospitals having 300 beds. This was informed by Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar to the media after the Cabinet meeting. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch a nation-wide Fit India Movement today on the occasion of National Sports Day. The campaign is aimed at encouraging people to inculcate physical activity and sports in their day to day life. At a special function in New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi will administer the oath of fitness to all. 

In his ‘Mann ki Baat’ programme on Sunday, the Prime Minister had announced the launch of ‘Fit India’ movement to take the country forward on the path of fitness and wellness.

Moreover, President Ramnath Kovind will give away the national sports awards in New Delhi today. Wrestler Bajrang Punia and para-athlete Deepa Malik will be conferred with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, footballer Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, hockey player Chinglensana Kangujam, sprinter Mohammed Anas, heptathlete Swapna Barman and shooter Anjum Moudgil are among some prominent names to be given Arjuna award. 

Faced with stiff competition from roadways and low-cost airlines, railways is set to offer up to 25% discounts in trains like Shatabdi Express, Tejas and Gatiman Express which have low occupancy, to bump up ticket sales, according to a senior official.

The discount will be given on the base fare of trains with AC chair car and executive chair car seats and charges like GST, reservation fee, superfast charges and others will be levied separately, the official said on Tuesday.

“Trains with monthly occupancy of less than 50% in the previous year are eligible for the discount,” the official said.

The Supreme Court today decided to examine the legal challenge against the Centre's decision to abrogate Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and referred the matter to a five-judge Constitution bench. 

The apex court issued notices to the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir administration on a batch of pleas challenging the Presidential order by which Article 370 was abrogated.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was not in agreement with the Centre that there was no need for issuance of notice in the matter as Attorney General K K Venugopal and Solicitor General were marking their presence in the court. The bench also said all the matters would be listed for hearing in the first week of October.

Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has handed over 1.82 crore rupees to the medallists of the Para-Badminton World Championship, amending the policy for para-athletes to make them eligible for more cash awards. 

As per the amended guidelines, medal winners in world events and world championships, organised by International Paralympic Committee, International Sports Federation and recognised by International Olympic Committee, will be eligible for cash awards from the government.

The first set of athletes who received their cash awards under the changed guidelines are para-badminton players. They have just won 12 medals at the recently-concluded World Championships. 

Human Resource Development Ministry under its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, NMEICT has launched the National Digital Library of India project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility. 

As of now, there are more than 3 crore digital resources available through the National Digital Library. The contents cover almost all major domains of education and all major levels of learners. More than 50 lakh students have registered themselves in the National Digital Library with about 20 lakh active users

The Bimal Jalan Committee-recommended surplus transfer by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has offered a much-needed respite to the Centre, in the current fiscal. Excluding the Rs 28,000 crore interim dividend already paid by the RBI to the Centre last fiscal, the Rs 1,48,051 crore of transfer in the current financial year, could make up for the shortfall in tax collections to a great extent.

True, the market had already pencilled in some windfall gains by way of RBI’s higher than the usual dividend, but what has come as a surprise is the one-time bonanza, rather than a staggered pay out as was broadly expected.