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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.

Dubai [UAE], Sept.21 : International Cricket Council (ICC) Chairman Shashank Manohar has congratulated the Board of Control for Cricket in India for the country's 500th Test match, which will be the first of the three-match series against New Zealand to be played in Kanpur from Thursday.

"This is a huge milestone in the history of Indian cricket. India has been a very important member of the ICC with its rich heritage and great following for the game," Manohar said.

"India has produced world-class players who have entertained fans the world over. I congratulate the BCCI on this historic occasion and I'd like to thank the BCCI for their kind invitation to share in the celebration. The ICC wish its team all the best for this 500th Test and in the years to come," he added.

New Delhi [India], Sep 21 : India's first truly digital account opening process 'Kotak Now', enabling customers to open their bank accounts through smart phones, has been launched by the Kotak Mahindra Bank

The end-to-end digital process will verify the KYC documents and signature via a video call with the bank and would require no physical interaction or biometric verification. The entire process is 100 percent paperless.

The account opening process is simple and takes a very less amount of time.

Once the Kotak Now app is downloaded, the prospective customer can upload KYC documents (PAN card, and either Aadhar Card or Passport), and the image of the signature.

On entering a few personal details, the Customer Relationship Number (CRN) and Account Number is generated.