The government has convened an all-party meeting in New Delhi today in view of the Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir.

The meeting has been convened by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and invitations have been extended to all major political parties.

The parties will be briefed about the attack and the steps being taken by the government in this regard.

The decision to convene the meeting was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday.

Earlier, Union Minister Arun Jaitley had said, an all-party meeting would be convened to brief parties on the incident so that the nation speaks in one voice on the issue.

NASA on February 13 announced that its Opportunity Rover mission is complete after the rover failed to respond despite repeated trials since August 2018.

During a press conference, the space agency inferred that a planet-encircling dust storm cut off communications with Opportunity on June 10, last year, disabling its solar panels from storing power. Since then NASA has beamed over 830 unanswered rescue commands.

In a last-ditch attempt the Rover team, on February 12 sent a transmission of commands and Billie Holiday's I'll Be Seeing You to Mars via the Deep Space Network, however, Opportunity could not be roused.

The robotic rover, which wandered the surface of the red planet for over 15 years (5,515 Earth days), was launched by NASA in July 2003 as a part of its Mars Exploration Rover program.

Responsible for much of our understanding of the Martian landscape, geology, atmosphere and history, the Opportunity was originally intended to last just over three months. However, the gritty robot continued its mission travelling nearly 45 km on the red plains-- the farthest distance accomplished by any extra-planetary robot.

Senior bureaucrat Pramod Chandra Mody was on Thursday appointed as chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), a top policy making body for income tax department, according to a Personnel Ministry order.

Mody, a 1982 batch Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre), has been appointed in place of Sushil Chandra, who earlier Thursday appointed as an Election Commissioner ahead of the Lok Sabha polls due this summer.

Mody is at present member of CBDT.

India-US CEOs Forum Thursday decided to set up working groups on financial services, healthcare and defence with a view to accelerate trade and investments between the two countries.

The three working groups will be in addition to four such groups, which were established to deal with issues concerning energy, water and environment; ICT, emerging technologies and digital infrastructure; entrepreneurship, inclusive growth, and promoting small business; and infrastructure and manufacturing.

These issues, among others, were discussed during the India-US CEO Forum meeting, along with the India-US Commercial dialogue, attended by Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross participated through telephone as his flight got cancelled due to bad weather conditions.

Issues like data localisation, e-commerce and the generalised system of preferences (GSP) were not discussed during the commercial dialogue.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Ramesh Abhishek said that four working groups are established and three more would be set up.

The CEOs of both the sides gave some report, but "they are not detailed and comprehensive as such. We would like to have CEOs from both the sides in each of these groups. They will work on more detail," he said.

CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra was on Thursday appointed as an Election Commissioner, the Law Ministry said.

Chandra, an IIT graduate, is a 1980 batch officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre).

With his appointment, the EC now has Sunil Arora as the Chief Election Commissioner and Ashok Lavasa and Chandra as fellow commissioners.

The Supreme Court on Thursday grilled Amrapali Group CMD Anil Kumar Sharma for Rs 94 crore of homebuyers' money being shown in his bank account and also warned that it would send him to jail for his "reluctance" in disclosing the identity of a person, who had bought company's shares worth Rs 140 crore from the multi-national firm JP Morgan.

The top court gave Sharma one last opportunity to return Rs 6.55 crore of homebuyers' money, which he had transferred to his daughter, by February 28 and sought explanation of Rs 94 crore shown in his bank account. 

It also appointed a valuer to ascertain the exact value of 5,229 unsold flats including those booked by Amrapali for just Rs 1, Rs 11 and Rs 12 and asked the valuer to submit its report by the next date of hearing.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit also brought 'The Royal Golf Link City Projects Pvt Ltd' under its scanner and sought its share holding pattern, names of promoters and balancesheet.

The court was informed by the forensic auditors that land for the project were purchased by Amrapali and in all possibility it appears to be a front company of the embattled real estate firm.

India has said, it will take care of its commercial considerations with regard to import of oil from Venezuela.

Responding to a media query, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson on Thursday said, New Delhi is monitoring the evolving situation in that country. 
The spokesperson said, India is in favour of constructive dialogue process to solve the situation in Venezuela. 

India has slammed Pakistan over the Pulwama terror attack carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed and asked Islamabad to stop supporting terrorists and dismantle terror infrastructure operating from its soil.

The Ministry of External Affairs, MEA in a release also strongly reiterated its appeal to all members of the international community to support the proposal to list terrorists, including Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Masood Azhar, as a designated terrorist under the 1267 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council.

New Delhi said Masood Azhar has been given full freedom by the Pakistan government to operate and expand his terror infrastructure in territories under the control of Islamabad and to carry out attacks in India and elsewhere with impunity. It again appealed to ban terror groups operating from territories controlled by Pakistan.

Condemning the attack as cowardly, heinous and despicable, the MEA said, the government of India is firmly and resolutely committed to taking all necessary measures to safeguard national security. It said India is equally resolved to fight against the menace of terrorism.

The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) on Tuesday told the Bombay High Court that it will consider an application of the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) seeking permission to remove mangroves in Thane, Navi Mumbai and Palghar districts to make way for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.

The NHSRCL had approached the court after their proposal was rejected by MCZMA on December 22, 2018.

On Tuesday, MCZMA counsel Sharmila Deshmukh informed the court that they will consider the proposal and take a decision within four weeks.

Mild tremors were felt in Andaman islands in the early hours of Wednesday morning after an earthquake of 4.5 magnitude was reported in North North West of Bamboo Flat, according to United States Geological Survey.

On Tuesday, tremors were felt in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu, after a magnitude of 4.9 earthquake hit Bay of Bengal.