The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, was constitutionally valid, but a person’s rights could not be denied on the ground of lack of the unique ID. While the apex court upheld seeding of PAN with Aadhaar, it set aside linking Aadhaar to bank accounts and mobile phone numbers.

Ruling that Aadhaar was not compulsory for school admissions, the SC said no child could be denied benefits of any schemes for not having Aadhaar number. “CBSE, NEET, UGC cannot make Aadhaar mandatory, also it is not compulsory for school admissions,” Justice AK Sikri said.

Stating that Aadhaar empowers the marginalised sections of society and gave them an identity, the SC said Aadhaar authentication data cannot be stored for more than six months. Justice A K Sikri, who is part of the five-judge bench ruling on the validity of the Aadhaar Act and who wrote the majority judgment, also struck down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, which permits private entities to avail of Aadhaar data. Sikri said Aadhaar was different from other ID proofs as it could not be duplicated.

“Minimal demographic and biometric data of citizens are collected by the UIDAI for Aadhaar enrolment. Aadhaar number given to a person is unique and can’t go to any other person. Aadhaar identification is unparalleled,” Justice Sikri, who has authored the judgment on behalf of himself, CJI Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar, said in opening remarks.

A five-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan had on May 10 reserved its judgment on a string of writ petitions, pending since 2012, challenging the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Act, bringing to a conclusion which, in the words of Attorney General KK Venugopal, was the second-longest hearing in the history of the apex court. The case was heard for 38 days.

The first petition was filed by former High Court Judge Justice K S Puttaswamy in 2012. He had argued that Aadhaar violated the right to privacy and had no legislative backing.

The brainchild of the UPA government, the Aadhaar Bill was passed by the Narendra Modi government in 2016, with the mode of the passage of the Bill itself raking up controversy. The government termed the Aadhaar Act, 2016, a Money Bill and passed it in Lok Sabha. However, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh challenged the manner used for the passage of the Aaadhar Act and the case was clubbed with the petitions.

Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered the global financial crisis, India’s non-banking financial companies (NBFC) sector is roiled by a series of defaults by the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group of companies. Fears of the contagion spreading has led to a sharp fall in the stocks of housing finance companies (HFCs) and NBFCs (which operate on borrowed funds), causing the Sensex to plunge 1,785 points in the five trading days from September 15-24. Here’s what happened — and what can happen now.

New Delhi: India on Monday congratulated Opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on his victory in the presidential polls in the Maldives and said the election reflected the country's commitment to the values of democracy and the rule of law.

India also hoped that the Maldivian Election Commission will officially confirm the result at the earliest.

"We welcome the successful completion of the third presidential election process in the Maldives which, according to preliminary information, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has won," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

President Ram Nath Kovind conferred National Sports Awards for 2018 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhawan this evening.

Captain of Indian cricket team Virat Kohli and world champion weightlifter Saikhom Mirabai Chanu received the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the highest sporting award of the country. Apart from a medal and a citation, both the awardees received a cash prize of 7.5 lakh rupees.

Star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, athlete Hima Das, Jinson Jhonson, Shuttler Nelakurthi Sikki Reddy, Boxer Satish Kumar, Golfer Subhankar Sharma, Shooters Rahi Sarnobat, Ankur Mittal, Shreyasi Singh, Table Tennis Players Manika Batra, G Sathiyan, Wrestler Sumit, Wushu player Pooja Kadian, Para Athlete Ankur Dhama, Para-Badminton player Manoj Sarkar and Hockey players Manpreet Singh, Savita and Polo player Col. Ravi Rathore got the Arjuna Awards.

The President also presented the Dronacharya awards to eight coaches. They are Subedar Chenanda Achaiah Kuttappa for Boxing, Vijay Sharma for Weightlifting, A. Srinivasa Rao for Table Tennis, Sukhdev Singh Pannu for Athletics, Clarence Lobo for Hockey, Tarak Sinha for Cricket, Jiwan Kumar Sharma for Judo and V.R. Beedu for Athletics.

Dhyan Chand Award was given to four persons. They are Satyadev Prasad for Archery, Bharat Kumar Chetri for Hockey, Ms. Bobby Aloysius for Athletics and Chougale Dadu Dattatray for Wrestling.

Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh were awarded the best performing states in terms of "Ease of Living Index" under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) at the National Dissemination Workshop on Ease of Living Index, 2018, here, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs ministry said on Monday.

Kakinada, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, and Vijayawada cities of Andhra Pradesh; Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain, Satna, Sagar, Jabalpur and Gwalior of Madhya Pradesh and Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from Odisha were covered under the Ease of Living Index.

"The Ease of Living Index is a transformative initiative of the Ministry to help the cities assess their liveability vis-a-vis national and global benchmarks," stated Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs,

Government says, Foreign Direct Investment in telecom sector has jumped five times in last three years from 1.3 billion US dollars to 6.2 billion US dollars.

Communications minister Manoj Sinha said that through New Digital Communication Policy (NDCP), telecom ministry is targetting FDI of 100 billion US dollar.

Speaking at a seminar in New Delhi, the minister said government is aiming to commercially introduce 5G services in the country by the end of 2020.

He said, the next generation of mobile Internet connectivity, 5G would offer much faster and more reliable networks, which would form the backbone for the emerging era of Internet of Things.

Telecom secretary Mrs Aruna Sundararajan said Indian telecom sector, which is second largest in the world, will work towards growth-oriented investment perspective.

Environment Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday inaugurated air pollution control device Wind Augmentation Purifying Unit, WAYU, at ITO in New Delhi. 

The device WAYU is developed by Council of Science and Industrial Research to mitigate air pollution at traffic junctions.

Along with particulate matter, the device will remove poisonous gases such as volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide. 

This device works on two principles mainly wind generation for dilution of air pollutants and active pollutants removal. 

The Supreme Court today said that the legislators could not be banned from practising as lawyers in courts. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking ban on the legal practice of MPs, MLAs and MLCs who are legal professionals.

The Supreme Court said that no law debars the MPs, MLAs and MLCs from practising in court. The petition had been filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay. He contended that allowing MPs, MLAs and MLCs to practise in a court of law amounts to violation of the fundamental right to equality before law as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.

Though the number of lawyers being elected to the Lok Sabha has reduced since 1952 when the first Lok Sabha was elected. Back then, 36 per cent of the Lok Sabha MPs were lawyers. In the current 16th Lok Sabha, only 7 per cent members are lawyers. But they continue to dominate government and proceedings of Parliament.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that chargesheeted Members of Parliament and MLAs, on conviction for offences, will be immediately disqualified from holding membership of the House without being given three months’ time for appeal, as was the case before.

A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya struck down as unconstitutional Section 8 (4) of the Representation of the People Act that allows convicted lawmakers a three-month period for filing appeal to the higher court and to get a stay of the conviction and sentence. The Bench, however, made it clear that the ruling will be prospective and those who had already filed appeals in various High Courts or the Supreme Court against their convictions would be exempt from it.

Section 8 of the RP Act deals with disqualification on conviction for certain offences: A person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for varying terms under Sections 8 (1) (2) and (3) shall be disqualified from the date of conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release. But Section 8 (4) of the RP Act gives protection to MPs and MLAs as they can continue in office even after conviction if an appeal is filed within three months.

Instagram on Monday said co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have resigned as chief executive officer and chief technical officer of the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook Inc, with the pair giving scant explanation.
The departures at Facebook's fastest-growing revenue generator come just months after the exit of Jan Koum, co-founder of Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, leaving the social network without the developers behind two of its biggest services.

They also come at a time when Facebook's core platform is under fire for how it safeguards customer data, and while it defends against political efforts to spread false information.

Systrom wrote in a blog post on Monday that he and Krieger planned to take time off and explore "our curiosity and creativity again".

Their announcement came after increasingly frequent clashes with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg over the direction of Instagram, Bloomberg reported.

In a statement, Zuckerberg described the two as "extraordinary product leaders".

"I've learned a lot working with them for the past six years and have really enjoyed it. I wish them all the best and I'm looking forward to seeing what they build next," Zuckerberg said.

Koum's departure in May led to a reshuffling of Facebook's executive ranks. Zuckerberg ally Chris Cox, who leads product development for Facebook's main app, gained oversight of WhatsApp and Instagram, which had been given independence when Facebook bought them.