Today’s Top News Headlines and Latest News at 8:30 pm on 8 February 2024

Security has been stepped up in the national capital, especially on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, in view of the protests by farmers, with heavy duty bulldozers, backhoe machines, riot control vehicles and water cannons being at the ready. Farmer groups in Noida and Greater Noida have been protesting since December 2023, with demands for greater compensation and developed plots against their lands acquired by the local development authorities in the past. Massive traffic jams were witnessed on the Delhi-Noida border, as motorists spent hours in the crawling traffic. Long queues of vehicles choked the roads as several two-wheelers and four-wheelers were stuck in the jam at Sarita Vihar. A heavy traffic jam was reported on the Delhi-Noida highway as well.

Meanwhile: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled a 'White Paper on the Indian Economy' in the Lok Sabha. Sitharaman in her Interim Budget speech had announced that the government will come out with a white paper on the economy outlining the economic mismanagement in the 10 years of UPA rule till 2014. The NDA government has overcome the crisis of those years, and the economy has been put firmly on a high sustainable growth path with all-round development, Sitharaman said. "It is now appropriate to look at where we were then till 2014 and where we are now, only for the purpose of drawing lessons from the mismanagement of those years," she had said.

Next up: Rejecting Canada’s allegations of Indian interference in the country’s elections as “baseless,” New Delhi on Friday it is not India’s policy to interfere in the democratic process of other countries. Targeting Ottawa, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, addressing a press briefing, said it was Canada “which has been interfering in India’s internal affairs.” “We have been raising this issue regularly with them and we continue to call on Canada to take effective measures to address our core concerns,” he added. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service in its report has alleged that China sought to “clandestinely and deceptively influence” its last two federal elections, whilst also naming India as a foreign interference threat.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “lying to the world”, saying that Modi was not born in the Other Backward Class category as he belonged to the general caste. PM Modi will never hold a caste census in the country, he added. “Narendra Modi was not born as OBC. You are being made a fool of. Modi was born in the Teli caste in Gujarat. The BJP government made his community OBC in 2000,” Gandhi said, addressing a rally at Belpahar in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district.

Moving on: Days after announcing that a fence would be constructed along the entire 1,643-km-long Myanmar border to facilitate better surveillance, Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Centre has decided the Free Movement Regime between India and Myanmar will be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s northeastern states bordering Myanmar. In September 2023, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh had urged the Centre to permanently wind up the FMR along the India-Myanmar border to curb “illegal immigration”.

A Varanasi court has fixed February 15 as the date for hearing the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee’s plea against the recently allowed ‘puja’ in the cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque, PTI reported quoting the Hindu side counsel. Advocate M M Yadav said he told District Judge Anil Kumar that since the Allahabad High Court was scheduled to hear the matter on February 12, there was no point in the district court hearing it now. The court then posted the matter for February 15. On January 31, the Varanasi district court allowed puja (prayers) in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. The southern cellar was opened the same night and a priest performed prayers.

In world news: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed confidence his party would win national elections, a vote that has been marred by violence, deep political tensions and the imprisonment of a popular contender.A day before the election, at least 30 were killed in bombings at political offices, and sporadic attacks on Thursday appeared aimed at disrupting the balloting, including one that killed five police officers in a country beset by surging militancy. Several politicians in the country immediately demanded the restoration of mobile and internet services, even as the shutdown raised suspicion of election day rigging. The border crossing with Afghanistan and Iran will remained closed both for cargo and pedestrians due to security reasons.

A 23-year old Indian-American student at Purdue University, who was found dead in a nature preserve in Indiana this week, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities. Sameer Kamath, a US citizen, was found dead in the woods on February 5 at approximately 5pm in NICHES Land Trust – Crow’s Grove in Williamsport, Indiana. The press release from the coroner’s office said that the preliminary cause of death is a “”gunshot wound of the head” and Kamath died by “suicide”.

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