LIVE: Families Joshimath being evacuated after houses develop cracks

Live news updates: Amid protests by a group of residents in Joshimath, the Chamoli administration on Thursday put a ban on all construction activities in and around the ''sinking'' town even as nearly 50 families staying in houses at risk have been evacuated so far.

An earthquake of 5.9 magnitude was recorded in Afghanistan with tremors being felt as far as in Delhi and and its neighbouring areas.

Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has slammed Air India’s handling of the incident of a drunk man urinating on a woman passenger and leaving without any action as “unprofessional”. The DGCA said in the statement that the manner in which the company handled the incident led to "systemic failure". The DGCA has asked the airline's top officials and the pilot and the crew of the flight to furnish an explanation in two weeks.

In order to further boost the partnership between the Centre and State governments, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the second National Conference of Chief Secretaries in Delhi on January 6-7. The first such Conference of Chief Secretaries was held in Dharamshala in June 2022. The three-day conference will focus on achieving rapid and sustained economic growth in partnership with the States. 

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that India tried to defuse the situation around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and quietly helped in the grain deal between Moscow and Kyiv. "India tried to defuse the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Points, we have already helped - very quietly on the grain deal," Jaishankar said during an interview with a German-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vienna Die Presse.

United States embassy and consulates in India have broken their record as nearly, 125,000 student visas were issued in the fiscal year 2022, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a press conference. While responding to a query over the slowdown in clearing visas backlog for Indian tourists, Price admitted that there was a delay but also said, "Our embassy and consulates in India broke their all-time record for the number of student visas issued in the single fiscal year 2022. We have issued nearly 1,25,000 student visas."