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New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : Hitting out at Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for 'glorifying' slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani at the United Nations, India has asserted that his statement only proves Islamabad's attachment to terrorism.

Taking to Twitter, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that Sharif glorifying Wani in his address at the United Nations General Assembly, which is one of UN's highest forum, shows Pakistan's continued connection with terrorism.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is mulling over connecting about 22 airports under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) in the first phase.

Dr Guruprasad Mohapatra, the chairman of Airports Authority of India, expressed hope of making airfares affordable to encourage flying among the masses.

He said another 30 airports can be made ready for operations under the scheme by making some investments.

He was also of the opinion that very less population of the Indian middle class, who have high aspirations, travel by air.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the plea of Vikas Yadav, who is serving a 25-year jail term without any remission for brutally murdering Nitish Katara in 2002. Yadav has appealed for his prison term to be reduced.

Yadav had made the plea for leniency yesterday, and Senior Supreme Court advocate U.R. Lalit appearing for the convict who is the son of former parliamentarian, D.P. Yadav, told a division bench of the apex court headed by Justice Dipak Misra and Justice C. Nagappan, that his client had already served over 14 years of his jail sentence.

He also said that his client has been serving his jail sentence without parole, despite both the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court granting him custodial parole several times.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : Hitting out at Arvind Kejriwal for blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his name was included in a case regarding alleged illegalities in the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asserted that the chief minister has repeatedly been making wild allegations but somehow is conveniently blind to the flaws of several ministers of his government.

BJP leader O.P. Sharma told ANI that Kejriwal is habitual of making ludicrous charges, but managed to turn a blind eye to the misdeeds by the members of the Aam Aadmi Party.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : Carrying forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Swachh Bharat mission, 80,000 villages and 287 blocks in the country have become open-defecation free.

This was announced yesterday by Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar while addressing children from seven countries at a conference organised by the Sulabh School Sanitation Club, a child-centred and girl-led global movement of children and young adults, engaged in bringing about positive social transformation in schools by empowering girls through hygiene education.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 22 : The Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council will today hold its first meeting here in the national capital.

The council will decide on long pending issues of threshold limit for applicability of the tax as well as the limit for dual control between Centre and states. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will chair the meeting.

The GST is a single indirect tax which will subsume most of the central and state taxes such as VAT, excise duty, service tax and central sales tax.

The two-day meet of the GST Council is likely to iron out issues between the Centre and states for rolling out the new indirect tax regime from April 1, 2017.