Daily bulletin: Modi to meet Trump, Abe at G20 Summit, Centre sends bill of Rs 290 cr to Kerala for flood rescue ops; day's top stories

G20 Summit: Narendra Modi to meet Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe At the G20 Summit, which is scheduled to begin on Friday, India, US, and Japan are expected to have their first ever trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet with his Russian and Chinese counterparts at the summit for the first time in 12 years. Amid speculation that US president Donald Trump would meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the conference, Trump has tweeted that he will not meet Putin due to “the fact that the (seized) ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia”. Earlier this week, Russia had seized three naval ships in a strait near Moscow-annexed Crimea. Ahead of the Summit, Modi also met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been at the epicentre of the controversy surrounding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey’s Saudi consulate. Modi and the Crown Prince reportedly discussed ways to further boost economic, cultural, and energy ties. Modi wrote on Twitter, “Had a fruitful interaction with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. We discussed multiple aspects of India-Saudi Arabia relations and ways to further boost economic, cultural and energy ties.” [caption id=“attachment_5566131” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Image courtesy PIBTwitter/@PIB_India[/caption] Centre sends invoice of Rs 290 crore to the Kerala government Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state has to pay Rs 290 crore to the Centre for the rations received and rescue assistance provided during the massive floods paralysed the state in August. He added that the state government had received only Rs 2,683.18 crore in its Distress Relief Fund and was finding it difficult to cobble resources for the ’re-build Kerala initiative’. The Controller of Defence Accounts on Thursday also presented the government of Kerala with a Rs 33 crore bill as charges towards the use of Indian Air Force planes for air-lifting services. Reportedly, the bill also included services for air-dropping resources like diesel and rice to those stranded. “Air Force has asked the state to pay over Rs 33.79 crore as the charge incurred for the rescue efforts during the deluge,” Vijayan said. NDTV also quoted Vijayan as saying, “We in the recent past have also written to the Central Government, stating that we were expecting the ration including the extra quota of rice and kerosene as free of charge, given as assistance during the floods. But we’ve not received any response to even that.” Day 2 of Kisan Mukti March in Delhi Farmers from across the country have converged in the National Capital to demand the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report through a special 21-day session of the Parliament. On the second day of the agitation, farmers who arrived at Ramlila Maidan on Thursday will march towards the Parliament Street at 8 am on Friday. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and CPM cheif Sitaram Yechury are expected to attend the march later in the day. The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, the umbrella body under which at least 200 farmer organisations have joined the protest, has reportedly written to Modi as well as representatives of other political parties to join the march. Congress not part of current Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Mayawati’s BSP and Ajit Singh’s RLD have worked out a formula for an alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, however, the Congress has not been made part of the current ‘gathbandhan’. Apart from BSP-SP-RLD, Mayawati and Akhilesh will also consider the Om Prakash Rajbhar-led Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party. Rajbhar is presently a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet but had constantly been criticising his own government and the BJP. Samajwadi Party MLC and party’s national spokesperson Sunil Singh Sajan told News18 that the Congress cannot be beneficial to the larger political narrative that the SP and BSP want to build against the BJP. “Our national president Akhilesh Yadav had made his stand clear on the Congress recently in Madhya Pradesh,” he said. Scientists call for probe into research claiming to have produced world’s first genetically modified babies Wrapping up the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, organisers called for an investigation into He Jiankui’s research. They have also asked for an assessment to be made to verify Jiankui’s claims. Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, claims to have created the first genetically modified babies. Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi faces trouble over non-payment of dues to workers, claims FWICE The producers of the film are yet to clear dues of approximately Rs 1.5 crore to the workers and junior artists, according to Federation of Western India Cine Employees. The film, which is due to be released on 25 January next year, is currently under post-production. The makers have been shooting some portions of the film at Film City in suburban Mumbai. The shoot was halted on Wednesday afternoon mid-way because of non-payment of dues of workers, technicians and junior artists. “It has been three months but they have not cleared dues of daily wage workers, which is about Rs 40 lakh. About Rs 90 lakh are to be paid to light vendor and Rs 25 lakh to junior artistes. The producer (Kamal Jain) had promised to make the payment by October but he has not fulfilled his commitment,” Ashok Dubey, general secretary of Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) told PTI. With inputs from agencies