Here are the top 5 news updates of March 3, 2021:
With India ramping up the process of COVID-19 vaccination, Centre has said that the government has removed the time constraint on getting vaccinated and people can get the jab 24x7 at their convenience. He emphasized that Prime Minister Narendra Modi understands the health of citizens of the country as well as the value of their time. The announcement comes a day after Centre directed all the states and union territories to utilize all private hospitals - empaneled under government insurance schemes in full capacity to achieve optimum number of vaccinations.
2. Karnataka sex scandal: Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi resigns on ‘moral grounds’, claims innocence
Karnataka Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi today sent his resignation letter to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa following allegations of sexual harassment against him. The development comes a day after purported video clips showing Jarkiholi getting intimate with an unidentified woman, were widely aired by Kannada news channels. "The allegations against me are far from the truth, it has to be investigated at the earliest. Though I'm confident about my innocence, taking moral responsibility I'm resigning my position as the cabinet Minister. I request you to accept it," Jarkiholi said in the letter to the Chief Minister.
3. I-T dept raids Taapsee Pannu, Reliance Entertainment CEO and Phantom Films promoters
The Income Tax Department today raided premises linked to the filmmakers, including Anurag Kashyap, who launched the now dissolved production house Phantom Films, Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhashish Sarkar and Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu. The searches are being carried out in over 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune, officials said. Some executives of celebrity and talent management company KWAN are also being raided. The action is part of a tax evasion probe against Phantom Films, which was dissolved in 2018, and its then promoters Kashyap, director-producer Vikramaditya Motwane, producer Vikas Bahl and producer-distributor Madhu Mantena, they said.
4. MCD bypolls: AAP wins 4 wards, Congress 1
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today won four of the five civic wards in Delhi in a bypoll, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asserting that people were desperate to bring the party to power in the three municipal corporations in the national capital. The AAP, however, suffered a shocking defeat in the minority-dominated Chauhan Bangar ward, where Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad of the Congress defeated the party's candidate Mohammad Ishraq Khan by a whopping margin. The BJP failed to open its account in the bypolls, being seen as the semi-final ahead of the civic polls due in 2022, and even lost the Shalimar Bagh seat held by it to the AAP.
5. Sensex zooms 1,148 points, Nifty 50 tops 15,200
Continuing their winning run for the third session in a row, the BSE Sensex surged nearly 1,148 points to breach the 51,000-level and the NSE Nifty recaptured the 15,200-mark today, propped up by intense buying in financial and energy stocks. At the closing bell, the 30-share Sensex was up 1,147.76 points or 2.28 per cent at 51,444.65 -- the biggest single-day rise since February 2. Intra-day, the index swung 1,243 points. Likewise, the NSE Nifty climbed 326.50 points or 2.19 per cent to end at 15,245.60.
(With input from agencies)