Digest year-ender for domestic stories for month of February, 2019

Feb 1: New Delhi: Making a big populist push in its final budget before elections, the Narendra Modi-government Friday exempted people with an earning of up to Rs 5 lakh from payment of income tax, announced an annual cash dole-out of Rs 6,000 to small farmers and provided a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to workers in the unorganised sector.

Feb 2: New Delhi: Ending speculation, the government on Saturday appointed former Madhya Pradesh Police chief Rishi Kumar Shukla as the director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), weeks after the controversial removal of Alok Kumar Verma from the post.

Feb 3: New Delhi: Six people died on Sunday after nine coaches of the Delhi-bound Seemanchal Express derailed in Vaishali district of Bihar, railway officials said.

Feb 4: Kolkata/New Delhi: A political firestorm raged Monday as Mamata Banerjee's sit-in protest against CBI's bid to question Kolkata police chief in chit fund scam cases entered the second day, with the West Bengal Chief Minister declaring her agitation to save the "Constitution and country" will go on and she was ready to face the consequences.

Feb 5: New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday rapped the Centre over the National Register of Citizens(NRC) in Assam, observing it is "hell bent" on stalling the process by seeking suspension during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls citing non-availability of security forces.

Feb 6: New Delhi: The death toll due to swine flu in Delhi has risen to six, even as 74 fresh cases of the HINI virus were recorded here on Wednesday, taking the total number of people affected by the disease in the city this year to 1,093, according to a report of the Directorate General of Health Services.