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In a fresh blow to apps belonging to foreign companies, India has banned an additional 54 apps, blocking access to them through app stores.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released a list of 54 apps that are recommended for a ban, and, interestingly, it includes Garena Free Fire, which is a battle royale game owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd. The government said that it has the “power to issue directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource”, India Today reported.

While the list includes several lesser photo editing, video editing, app cloning apps, the biggest name is Garena Free Fire’s, which is one of the top downloaded games in India. Garena grew in terms of popularity after the ban on PUBG Mobile in 2020 threw a wrench in India’s mobile gaming industry. Nearly a year later, Krafton launched Battlegrounds Mobile India as a censored version of PUBG Mobile, highlighting that the game has no Chinese connection.

The ban on Garena Free Fire, however, does not apply to the publisher’s second game called Garena Free Fire Max. At the time of writing, Garena Free Fire Max was available for download on the Google Play Store. Coincidentally, the list of banned apps released by the government does not mention Free Fire Max either. However, Apple has delisted both Free Fire and Free Fire Max from its iOS app store in India.

Here is the full list of banned apps:

1. Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD
2. Beauty Camera Selfie Camera
3. Equalizer Bass Booster & Volume EQ & Virtualizer
4. Music Player- Music.Mp3 Player
5. Equalizer & Bass Booster Music Volume EQ
6. Music Plus MP3 Player
7. Equalizer Pro Volume Booster & Bass Booster
8. Video Player Media All Format
9. Music Player Equalizer & MP3
10. Volume Booster Loud Speaker & Sound Booster
11. Music Player MP3 Player
12. CamCard for SalesForce Ent
13. Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite
14. Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade
15. APUS Security HD (Pad Version)
16. Parallel Space Lite 32 Support
17. Viva Video Editor Snack Video Maker with Music
18. Nice video baidu
19. Tencent Xriver
20. Onmyoji Chess
21. Onmyoji Arena
22. AppLock
23. Dual Space Lite Multiple Accounts & Clone App
24. Dual Space Pro Multiple Accounts & App Cloner
25. DualSpace Lite 32Bit Support
26. Dual Space 32Bit Support
27. Dual Space 64Bit Support
28. Dual Space Pro 32Bit Support
29. Conquer Online MMORPG Game
30. Conquer Online Il
31. Live Weather & Radar Alerts
32. Notes- Color Notepad, Notebook
33. MP3 Cutter Ringtone Maker & Audio Cutter
34. Voice Recorder & Voice Changer
35. Barcode Scanner QR Code Scan
36. Lica Cam selfie camera app
37. EVE Echoes
38. Astracraft
39. UU Game Booster-network solution for high ping
40. Extraordinary Ones
41. Badlanders
42. Stick Fight: The Game Mobile
43. Twilight Pioneers
44. CuteU: Match With The World
45. Small World-Enjoy groupchat and video chat
46. CuteU Pro
47. FancvU Video Chat & Meetup
48. Real: Go Live. Make Friends
49. MoonChat: Enjoy Video Chats
50. Real Lite -video to live!
51. Wink: Connect Now
52. FunChat Meet People Around You
53. FancyU pro Instant Meetup through Video chat!
54. Garena Free Fire Illuminate

Police have arrested eight persons in possession of uranium worth around Rs 1 billion from Hotel Hyatt in Boudha.

Acting on a tip off, a joint team deployed from the Nepal Police headquarters in Naxal and Metropolitan Police Circle, Boudha nabbed them with the uranium.

The team arrested Bhupendra Khadka (34) of Sindhupalchok and currently residing at Kapan and Nawaraj Mahat (60) of Lalitpur with  2.8 kg of uranium from a  car (Ba 5 Cha 8209) parked in Hotel Hyatt.

During the interrogation, the duo said that they brought the uranium from India and the market price of one kg of uranium is Rs 350 million. police said.

After the interrogation, police apprehended six others involved in the illicit trading of uranium.

Police identified the detainees as Ram Krishna Lamichhane (40) of Sindhupalchok and currently residing at Mahankal, Gopi Lal Das (40) of Siraha and presently living at Thamel, Jibacha Narayan Yadav (55), Surendra Prasad Chaudhary (38) of Mahottari and currently living at Shivachok, Gokarneshwor Municipality, Raju Thakur (44) of Mahottari and  Upendra Kumar Mishra (63) of Bihar, India.

Police are further investigating into the case, SP Dinesh Raj Mainali said.

Russia said Tuesday that some units participating in military exercises would begin returning to their bases, adding to glimmers of hope that the Kremlin may not be planning to invade Ukraine imminently, though it gave no details on the pullback, Associated Press reported.

The announcement came a day after Russia’s foreign minister indicated the country was ready to keep talking about the security grievances that led to the Ukraine crisis — changing the tenor after weeks of rising tensions. Still, Western officials continued to warn that an invasion could come at any moment and said some forces and military hardware were moving toward the border, muddying the picture.

It wasn’t immediately clear where exactly the troops that the Russian Defense Ministry said were pulling back were deployed or how many were leaving, making it hard to understand the significance. The announcement pushed world markets and the ruble up, but Ukraine’s leaders expressed skepticism.

“Russia constantly makes various statements,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “That’s why we have the rule: We won’t believe when we hear, we’ll believe when we see. When we see troops pulling out, we’ll believe in de-escalation.”

Russia has massed more than 130,000 troops near Ukraine, sparking the fears of an invasion. Russia denies it has any plans to invade Ukraine, despite placing troops on Ukraine’s borders to the north, south and east and launching massive military drills nearby. 

The new glimmers of hope accompanied a flurry of diplomacy. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz planned to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a day after he sat down with Ukraine’s leader in Kyiv. Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau of Poland, one of Russia’s most strident European critics, was also in Moscow on Tuesday to meet Lavrov, while Ukraine’s foreign minister hosted his Italian counterpart.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s comments came at a made-for-TV meeting with Putin and seemed designed to send a message to the world about the Russian leader’s position. The foreign minister argued that Moscow should hold more talks, despite the West’s refusal to consider Russia’s main demands.

The talks “can’t go on indefinitely, but I would suggest to continue and expand them at this stage,” Lavrov said, noting that Washington has offered to discuss limits for missile deployments in Europe, restrictions on military drills and other confidence-building measures.

Moscow wants guarantees that NATO will not allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members. It also wants the alliance to halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe.

Lavrov said possibilities for talks “are far from being exhausted.”

Putin noted that the West could try to draw Russia into “endless talks” and questioned whether there is still a chance to reach agreement. Lavrov replied that his ministry would not allow the U.S. and its allies to stonewall Russia’s main requests.

The U.S. reacted coolly.

“The path for diplomacy remains available if Russia chooses to engage constructively,” White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “However, we are clear-eyed about the prospects of that, given the steps Russia is taking on the ground in plain sight.”

One possible off-ramp emerged this week: Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.K., Vadym Prystaiko, pointed at a possibility of Ukraine shelving its NATO bid — an objective that is written into its constitution — if it would avert war with Russia. 

Prystaiko later appeared to back away from the idea, but the fact that it was raised at all suggests it is being discussed behind closed doors.

Even amid the hopeful signs, the U.S. and European countries kept up their warnings.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss reiterated Tuesday that the danger of an invasion still exists, telling Sky News that it “could be imminent.” But she added that “there is still time for Vladimir Putin to step away from the brink.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt issued a similar warning.

U.S. officials have said the Russian military continued apparent attack preparations along Ukraine’s borders. A U.S. defense official said small numbers of Russian ground units have been moving out of larger assembly areas for several days, taking up positions closer to the Ukrainian border at what would be departure points if Putin launched an invasion.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information not publicly released. CBS News was first to report on the movement of the units.

Nepal logged 680 new Covid-19 cases and two deaths on Tuesday. 

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,111,898. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,902. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 4,256 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 498 returned positive. Likewise, 2,839 people underwent antigen tests, of which 182 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 1,835 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 19,400 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 19,982 people are staying in home isolation while 757 are in institutionalized isolation.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 209 new cases today.

According to the Ministry, 171 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 24 in Lalitpur and 15 in Bhaktapur.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has extended sorrow over the demise of prominent literary figure Dr Tara Nath Sharma.

Late Sharma was a lifetime member of the Nepal Academy. 

President Bhandari said that Nepali literature has lost an eminent literary practitioner with the passing away of Sharma,

Taking to Twitter today, She wrote, “With the demise of a prolific literary writer and critic, the Nepali literature has lost a genuine literary practitioner. Sharma will remain immortal among us through his dozens of literary creations. I extend tribute to the late Sharma and expressed deep condolences to the bereaved family members.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba also extended sorrow over the passing away of the prominent literary writer, Sharma. 

Extending tribute to the late Sharma, PM Deuba expressed deep condolences to the bereaved family members. RSS

Former Finance Minister and NC leader Ram Sharan Mahat said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is in the interest of Nepal and it needs to be endorsed at the earliest. 

Talking to journalists after the Parliament Party of the meeting held at the Lhotse Hall in the Constituent Assembly building on Tuesday, he said, “Rumours are being created and spread against MCC. This is not under any military strategy. All these are merely baseless things and rumours. I have put my remarks in the meeting in this line.”

Noting that the MCC project has been wrongly made a sponsored propaganda citing it an anti-national agenda, he underlined the need to cut through the misconception propping up against the project. 

Mahat said that the NC parliamentarians should clear their misconceptions against the MCC project.  

Leader Mahat further said that the MCC was not under Indo-Pacific military alliance but merely a development project.

Saying that MCC endorsement should not be delayed anymore, he noted the project should be endorsed within the given timeframe. RSS

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday called on the country’s people to fly flags and sing the national anthem in unison on Feb. 16, a date that some Western media say Russian could invade, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian government officials stressed that Zelenskiy was not predicting an attack on Wednesday, but responding skeptically to the foreign media reports.

“They tell us Feb. 16 will be the day of the attack. We will make it a day of unity,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to the nation.

“They are trying to frighten us by yet again naming a date for the start of military action,” Zelenskiy said. “On that day, we will hang our national flags, wear yellow and blue banners, and show the whole world our unity.”

Zelenskiy has long said that, while he believes Russia is threatening to attack his country, the likelihood of an imminent invasion has been overstated by Western allies, responding to Moscow’s efforts to intimidate Ukraine and sow panic.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, told Reuters the president was responding in part “with irony” to media reports of the potential date of the invasion.

“It is quite understandable why Ukrainians today are skeptical about various ‘specific dates’ of the so-called ‘start of the invasion’ announced in the media,” he said. “When the ‘start of the invasion’ becomes some sort of rolling tour date, such media announcements can only be taken with irony.”

Zelenskiy’s office released a decree calling for all villages and towns in Ukraine to fly the country’s flags on Wednesday, and for the entire nation to sing the national anthem at 10 a.m. It also called for an increase in salaries of soldiers and border guards.

U.S. officials said they were not predicting an assault ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin on a specific day, but repeated warnings that it could come at any time.

“I won’t get into a specific date, I don’t think that would be smart. I would just tell you that it is entirely possible that he could move with little to no warning,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Earlier, Kirby said Moscow was still adding to its military capabilities on the Ukrainian frontier.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington, which has already sent most of its diplomats home, was moving its remaining diplomatic mission in Ukraine from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv, much further from the Russian border. He cited a “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces”.

Blinken said Washington was offering Ukraine up to $1 billion in sovereign loan guarantees to calm markets.

The State Department issued a travel advisory recommending that U.S. citizens leave Belarus, which borders both Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near the border of Ukraine. Russian political leaders deny Western accusations that it is planning to invade, but say it could take unspecified “military-technical” action unless a range of demands are met, including barring Kyiv from ever joining the NATO alliance.

Russia suggested on Monday that it would keep talking to the West to try to defuse the security crisis.

In a televised exchange, Putin was shown asking his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, whether there was a chance of an agreement to address Russia’s security concerns, or whether it was just being dragged into tortuous negotiations.

Lavrov replied: “We have already warned more than once that we will not allow endless negotiations on questions that demand a solution today.”

But he added: “It seems to me that our possibilities are far from exhausted … At this stage, I would suggest continuing and building them up.”

Western countries have threatened unprecedented sanctions if Russia invades. The Group of Seven large economies (G7) warned on Monday of “economic and financial sanctions which will have massive and immediate consequences on the Russian economy”.

After speaking with the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he still believed “from his own analysis, his own hopes” that there would not be a conflict, a U.N. spokesperson said.

Moscow says Ukraine’s quest to join NATO poses a threat. While NATO has no immediate plans to admit Ukraine, Western countries say they cannot negotiate over a sovereign country’s right to form alliances.

ECONOMIC DAMAGE

Ukraine has already suffered economic damage from the standoff. A surge in the price of 5-year credit default swaps on Ukrainian sovereign bonds suggested that markets gave Kyiv a 42% probability of defaulting.

Ukraine International Airlines, the nation’s biggest airline, said its insurers had terminated coverage for some of its aircraft.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held talks with Zelenskiy in Kyiv. Scholz is due to fly to Moscow on Tuesday, following visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and two British ministers went last week.

Scholz said he saw “no reasonable justification” for Russia’s military activity on Ukraine’s border, and that “we are ready for a serious dialogue with Russia on European security issues”. He announced a credit of 150 million euros ($170 million) for Ukraine.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) gained 53.30 points to close at 2,754.28 points on Tuesday.

Similarly, the sensitive index plunged by 10.63 points to close at 522. 13 points.

Meanwhile, a total of 6,343,228 unit shares of 224 companies were traded for Rs 3. 23 billion.

In today’s market, all sub-indices saw green. Life Insurance topped the chart with 187.03 points.

Meanwhile, Nyado Hydropower Limited was the top gainer today, with its price surging by 10. 00 percent. NIC Asia Balanced Fund was the top loser as its price fell by 3.14 percent.

At the end of the day, total market capitalisation stood at Rs 1. 34 trillion.