Here are the top stories this Friday evening:

11th Farmers-Centre Meet Ends Inconclusively, No Date Fixed For Next Round

Farmers' unions and the Centre failed to reach a middle ground on Friday, January 22 as the 11th round of discussion ended inconclusively. While the meeting on Friday lasted for nearly five hours, farmers representatives have said that discussions were held for less than 30 minutes. No date has been fixed for the next round of meeting, as per sources. Meanwhile, the farmers' unions reiterated its firm resolve in proceeding with the tractor parade in Delhi on the occasion of Republic Day despite the Delhi Police suggesting against it.

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TMC Expels Bally MLA Baishali Dalmiya From The Party 2 Weeks After She Exposed Rot Within

Two weeks after Bally MLA Baishali exposed the rot within TMC in an interview with Republic TV, it expelled her from the party for "anti-party activities". This assumes significance as many TMC leaders including Suvendu Adhikari, Arindam Bhattacharya and other MLAs have expressed disenchantment with the party and jumped ship to BJP in the lead-up to the West Bengal Assembly polls. Reacting to this development, BJP's West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya opined that this was bound to happen owing to the arrogance of the TMC government. He observed that any person speaking up for inner-party democracy in TMC was being punished. 

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Karnataka Cabinet Troubles Continue; CM Yediyurappa Reshuffles Portfolios Within 24 Hrs

Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa on Friday, reshuffled his cabinet, reorganising some of the portfolios allocated to the seven newly inducted ministers. After four cabinet ministers - JC Madhuswamy, MTB Nagaraja, K Sudhakar and K Gopalaiah complained of the reshuffled portfolios. Apart from JC Madhuswamy, the other three ministers recently jumped ship from Congress and JDS respectively - propping up the Yediyurappa government.

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Serum Institute Fire: Poonawalla Claims Rs 1000 Cr Loss; Rotavirus, BCG Products Affected

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday informed that SII had incurred a loss of approximately Rs 1000 crore in the fire that had broken out in the complex yesterday, stating that the blaze had affected the stocks of Rotavirus vaccine, BCG, and other products. Poonawalla, however, asserted that supplies would not be affected as a result of the accident, adding that the loss in the bulk production would be made up through other facilities.

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Real Madrid Boss Zinedine Zidane Tests Positive For COVID-19, Spanish Club Confirms

French attacking midfielder and the current manager of La Liga club Real Madrid Zinedine Zidane on Friday has tested COVID-19 positive. The news has officially been confirmed by Real Madrid as they have announced the same on their website. Meanwhile, it has been learned that the 1998 FIFA World Cup winner will need to be away from the team until he tests negative for the virus, which usually takes around two weeks. 

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