Madhya Pradesh govt's submission in SC
The Madhya Pradesh government is expected to submit a response to the Supreme Court on Wednesday on plea filed by former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking a direction to conduct an immediate floor test on the floor of the assembly. Chouhan and nine other BJP lawmakers, including the leader of opposition in the state assembly, moved the Supreme Court on Monday just after Speaker N.P. Prajapati cited coronavirus concerns and adjourned the house till March 26 without taking the floor test, apparently defying the directions of Governor Lalji Tandon.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has arrived in Bengaluru to meet the 22 rebel MLAs who are lodged in Hotel Ramada. The Congress's Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh arrived in Bengaluru early morning on Wednesday and was received by newly elected Karnataka Congress President D.K. Shivakumar.
Yes Bank moratorium to be lifted
With the Centre approving the Yes Bank reconstruction scheme, the RBI-imposed moratorium on the debt-ridden lender will be lifted by 6pm on Wednesday. As a result, the bank will resume all banking services around the same time Wednesday. "We will resume full banking services from Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 18:00 hours. Visit any of our 1,132 branches from March 19, 2020, post commencement of banking hours to experience our suite of services. You will also be able to access all our digital services and platforms," Yes Bank had informed in a tweet on Monday.
The lifting of the moratorium will remove the withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 on customers.
The banking services is being resumed sooner than previously expected as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-imposed moratorium will be lifted on March 18, as opposed to the earlier date of April 3. The moratorium imposed on March 5 restricted withdrawals to Rs 50,000 per depositor till April 3.
Under the reconstruction scheme, SBI will hold up to 49 per cent in Yes Bank. The country’s largest lender had on Thursday approved an investment of Rs 7,250 crore (725 crore shares at Rs 10 each). The country’s largest mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) and ICICI Bank will invest Rs 1,000 crore.
IndiGo cancels certain overseas flights from March18-31
IndiGo announced that as aviation regulator DGCA has restricted international traffic from Turkey and Malaysia, it will be cancelling its flights on Delhi-Istanbul route and Chennai-Kuala Lumpur route from March 18 to March 31. "These are purely temporary and precautionary measures. We understand that these measures will cause inconvenience to our customers and we will be refunding the full amount to the impacted passengers," the airline stated in a press release.
The airline has already cancelled flights between Bangalore-Kuala Lumpur until March 31, 2020 and Delhi-Kuala Lumpur until April 30, 2020.
COVID-19 latest updates
The total number of coronavirus cases rose to 142 in India on Tuesday. With the rising number of cases, the government has stopped incoming travel from a number of nations, including the European Union, Malaysia, Philippines and Afghanistan.
More than 7,100 people have died globally till now due to COVID-19. Many countries across the world have partially or completely sealed their borders, causing major airlines across the world to ground most of their planes. The number of deaths due to the new coronavirus in the US has reached 105, with the outbreak spreading to all 50 states.
Global sports events cancelled
A number of sports events have been cancelled as coronavirus pandemic spreads across the world. The French Open has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and will take place from September 20 to October 4. On Tuesday, Euro 2020 and Copa America tournaments were postponed by one year to 2021. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee, which met on Tuesday, said it was not the time for "drastic decisions" over the staging of the Tokyo Olympics, which has not yet been postponed because of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to run between July 24-August 9, but the year's biggest sporting event is as yet one of the sole sporting competitions to have survived a postponement in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak that has caused more than 7,400 deaths and infected more than 180,000 around the world.
(With PTI inputs)
