With all COVID-19 protocols in place, the counting of votes of Kerala local body elections will start from 8 am on Wednesday. According to the State Election Commission, the counting of votes will take place at 244 centres.

State Election Commissioner V Bhaskaran said the postal votes, including special ballot votes, will be counted first and EVM votes later. Earlier trends will be known once the counting of EVM votes is started. However, the final results are expected by 1 pm.

The farmers' agitation against agriculture laws has entered 21st day and farmers continue to camp on all the borders of Delhi for withdrawal of laws despite the freezing weather. Meanwhile, a petition will be heard in the Supreme Court on Wednesday against the problems caused by the farmers' protest.

Three petitions have been filed in the apex court regarding the agitation. A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramaniam will hear the petitions.

Delhi temperature dipped to 4.1 degrees Celsius in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Due to the icy winds blowing from snow-covered western Himalayas, Delhi witnessed the lowest temperature of the season so far.

The maximum temperature on Tuesday was recorded at 18.5 degrees Celsius at Safdarjung, 5 degrees Celsius below normal and 16.7 degrees Celsius at Palam, 7 degrees below normal, the weather department said.

The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 72.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.62 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Tuesday, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 72,818,538 and 1,620,294, respectively.

Gold price today fell to Rs 52,310 from Rs 52,540 per 10 gm, while silver price was trending at Rs 63,200 per kg, according to the Good Returns website.

Gold jewellery price vary across India, the second-largest consumer of the metal, due to excise duty, state taxes, and making changes.

Farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are protesting over the past few weeks at the borders of the national capital. The agriculture bills, which the government says would bring in reforms to Indian agriculture, have resulted in widespread protests among the farmers.

The protests are intensifying with every passing day as thousands of more protesters are joining the agitation each day. The crowd at the Delhi-Haryana border has become so huge that the Haryana police has termed the situation as 'unsustainable', warning that the borders can't take more people.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said photographs of those who have nothing to do directly or indirectly with demands of farmers have been seen during the protest over three farm laws, noting that a photo of a jailed person from Naxal-affected Gadchiroli district was seen in the protest and also of people who gave anti-national speeches in Delhi.

Gadkari, who is Minister of Road Transport and Highways, said there are some elements who are trying to mislead the farmers by taking advantage of their agitation.

The US has reached the grim milestone of 300,000 coronavirus deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national case count topping 16.3 million, the death toll across the US rose to 300,267 as of Monday afternoon, according to the CSSE data, Xinhua news agency reported.

The AIIMS-Delhi Nurses' Union went on an indefinite strike from Monday over their long pending demands, including those with regard to the Sixth Central Pay Commission, following which the Union health ministry directed the institute's director to ensure no disruption of nursing functions.

The ministry also said non-compliance of the code of conduct, laid down as per a Delhi High Court judgment, whereby no employee or staff or faculty member will cease work for any reason, will be treated as an offence under the Disaster Management Act.

Ten organisations from Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Bihar, and Haryana associated with the All India Kisan Coordination Committee on December 14 met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to extend their support to three farm laws enacted by the government recently.

The committee submitted a memorandum to Tomar which said that some elements in the farmers' agitation in some parts of the country, especially in Delhi, were trying to create misunderstanding among farmers about the farm laws.

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