President of India condoles the loss of lives due to derailment of a train in Andhra pradesh

Nia Griffith MP, Labour’s
Shadow Defence Secretary, commenting on the Prime Minister’s failure to
explain when she knew about the Trident test blunder, said:

“This
report of a Trident missile veering off course during a test is clearly a very
serious matter indeed, and we need to know exactly what happened.”

“Furthermore,
it is completely unacceptable that today the Prime Minister chose to side-step
questions on the test, and would not even tell us when she knew about the
incident.

“I am demanding the Prime Minister come to
Parliament tomorrow to give a full explanation to MPs.”

This year Republic Day Parade on Rajpath will witness tableaux from 17 States and Six Ministries of the

China will step up efforts to fight desertification to meet a global target of halting net land degradation by 2030, a senior official said Sunday.

The country plans to rehabilitate more than 11,300 square kilometers of severely desertified farmland in the next three years at a cost of at least 27.2 billion yuan (about 4 billion U.S. dollars), Zhang Yongli, deputy head of State Forestry Administration, said at a press conference.

Zhang said China will enhance vegetation protection on desert land and improve compensation mechanisms to reward localities working toward fighting desertification.

China will also strengthen international cooperation, especially with countries along the Belt and Road, to reverse desertification, Zhang said.

Expanding deserts are a global challenge. It is estimated that one-third of the earth is exposed to desertification, affecting millions of people.

China has spent decades curbing desertification through greening. It has effectively contained desertification, with desertified land area shrinking continuously during the past decade.

The area of its desertified land totaled 1.72 million square kilometers at the end of 2014, nearly one fifth of the country, down 9,900 square kilometers from 2009.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, will head a new central commission for integrated military and civilian development, according to a decision by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Sunday.

The decision was made at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, which was chaired by Xi.

The commission will be the central agency tasked with decision-making, deliberation and coordination of major issues regarding integrated military and civilian development.

The commission will report to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

Attendees at the meeting also heard a report on the work of leading Party groups of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the State Council, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.

In a statement released after the meeting, the political bureau called for efforts to uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core, adhere to its centralized and unified leadership, and fully implement major policies of the committee.

The year ahead is an important year to implement the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) and supply-side structural reform.

The top leadership called on the leading Party groups of the NPC Standing Committee, the State Council, the CPPCC National Committee, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to follow new development concepts, fulfil their responsibility for strict governance of the Party, promote stable and healthy development of the economy and social stability and harmony.

Attendees urged the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee to make policies to serve the overall situation, improve its working system and capability to solve practical problems so as to complete tasks given by the CPC Central Committee.