A look at the headlines right now:

  1. Telecom firms told to pay Rs 1.47 lakh crore dues by midnight, hours after SC pulls up government: Vodafone is facing potential collapse after the top court issued contempt notices to the companies for not paying the money till now. Airtel has informed the telecom department it will deposit Rs 10,000 crore by February 20, and the remaining amount ‘well before’ March 17, said media reports.
  2. Peaceful anti-CAA protestors can’t be called traitors or anti-nationals, says Bombay HC: A group of citizens had moved the court after police did not let them protest against the law in Maharashtra’s Beed district.
  3. Third Indian on cruise ship in Japan tests positive for coronavirus; all are doing well, says embassy: They have been taken to ‘hospitals for further treatment and quarantine’.
  4. Parent and teacher granted bail in Bidar sedition case after two weeks in jail over anti-CAA play: They were arrested on January 30, more than a week after the students of a Urdu school in the Karnataka city performed the play criticising the citizenship law.
  5. India must swiftly lift remaining curbs in J&K, says EU after envoys’ visit to Jammu and Srinagar: Diplomats from Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Mexico, Afghanistan, Austria, Uzbekistan, and the EU, visited the Union Territory this week.
  6. Wholesale inflation rose to 3.1% in January as food articles continued to become dearer: Primary goods as a category became dearer by 10.01%, compared to January 2019.
  7. SC dismisses 2012 Delhi gangrape convict Vinay Sharma’s petition against rejection of mercy plea: The top court said the petition was devoid of any merit.
  8. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal invites Narendra Modi to Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony: Earlier this week, AAP leader Gopal Rai had said no political leader or chief ministers of other states would attend the event at Ramlila Maidan.
  9. BJP lost Delhi polls due to Congress’ ‘sudden disappearance’, claims Prakash Javadekar: The Union minister said ‘there was a direct fight between the BJP and the AAP’ because of the Congress’s irrelevance in the elections in the national Capital.
  10. Rahul Gandhi poses three questions about Pulwama attack, BJP calls him ‘known sympathiser of LeT, JeM’: On the first anniversary of the terror attack, the Congress leader asked who had benefited the most from it.