They top the list of 1,084 applicants Nearly half the applications pending for Indian citizenship are from Pakistanis, according to a Home Ministry database. Out of the 1,084 applicants who applied for Indian citizenship before 2011, as many as 526 are from Pakistan. There were 103 applications pending from Afghanistan, …

TaxiBots will tow aircraft during taxiing at IGI Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is set to be the first airport in the country to commence commercial use of TaxiBots — semi-robotic tow trucks — to help airlines reduce use of air turbine fuel during taxiing. SpiceJet and Jet Airways will …

Visit to help both sides learn from each other on VVIP security A delegation of a Chinese group that takes care of the security of the top seven members of the nation’s leadership will visit New Delhi in November, as security ties between India and China begin to expand. The …

PIL plea says it will help check abuse against women The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a PIL petition to extend the Vishakha guidelines against sexual harassment in workplace to ashrams, madrasas and Catholic institutions. The Vishakha guidelines introduced by the apex court in 1997 were evolved into a …

Caught in a four-decade, inter-State wrangle, the villagers of Umru come together to ensure a safe stopover for a flock of Amur falcons Umru village on the Assam-Meghalaya border lacks a road but that doesn’t stop its famous winter visitors — a flock of Amur falcons, the world’s longest travelling …

The two PMs visit factory making industrial robots Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, held informal talks at a picturesque resort near Mount Fuji and visited a factory making industrial robots on Sunday as they spent eight hours together on the first day of the two-day …

Amid Sirisena-Wickremesinghe stand-off, New Delhi assures Colombo of continued development aid India on Sunday reminded Sri Lanka of constitutional process, in an official statement following the ongoing political crisis that erupted after President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. India’s response came as both the leaders began an outreach …

Air quality turns ‘very poor’ ashaze engulfs city The Capital continues to battle dangerous levels of pollution and on Sunday recorded its worst score on the Air Quality Index (AQI) for the season. The city registered an average AQI of 366, which falls in the ‘very poor’ category, based on …

U.S. President Donald Trump will not travel to India as the chief guest for the Republic Day Parade, and the White House has conveyed its regrets to the Narendra Modi government, The Hindu has learnt. The government is now exploring several other options for the event. According to multiple government …

‘His comments on Sabarimala verdict contempt of court’ The Opposition parties on Sunday termed BJP president Amit Shah’s comments on the Supreme Court judgment allowing entry of women to the Sabarimala shrine as unconstitutional and contempt of court and hoped that the court would take suo motu cognisance of them …

Cites serious constitutional crisis, requests President to reconvene Parliament The Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, on Sunday urged President Maithripala Sirisena to protect the rights and privileges of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe until his majority in the House was challenged by another member. Further, citing possible “serious …

A fermented batter of ground rice and lentils, steamed in little circular moulds, served with a vegetable stew. Well, a decade ago, it was simply the idli. That is how fancy we have become. Every little simple thing has been turned into bizarre, out-of-this-world articles, making everyday life more complicated, …

I heard the first rumblings a decade ago. My siesta was rudely ended by a crash and screech. When I stepped on to the balcony to find the source of the commotion, I came face to face with the gigantic paws of what is called khooni panja in local parlance. …

I first recited St. Francis of Assisi’s poignant prayer (a.k.a. the Peace Prayer) sincerely but without much thought as a teenager at the St. Francis Junior College in Secunderabad. It fell to a brave man to bring alive for me its true meaning, over three decades later. The Hindu temple …

Twins. They had their own ways of doing things; at times barely agreeing with each other. Albeit they were identical, intricacies and layers of complexity defined them. One believed in logic. Calculated efforts. “You must trust only the facts!” was a frequent reminder to the wayward sibling. Neat and ordered …

Some were sitting under the shade of a huge banyan tree like sages in quest of eternal knowledge, eyes downcast, engrossed in the papers lying on their laps. Some looked like the proverbial rebels, as if any time they might stand up and lead a protest march there itself. Beards …

Scientists have developed the world’s smallest optical gyroscope – a device that helps vehicles, drones and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in 3D space. The new gyroscope, described in Nature Photonics, is 500 times smaller than the current best device. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning …

By studying the movement of virtual animals in computer simulation, a research team led by Srinivasa Chakravarthy, Department of Biotechnology, at IIT Madras has unlocked the navigation behaviour in rats moving in two dimensions and bats (3D). They hope to use these clues in engineering autonomous vehicles and drones. Previous …

The spot-necked day gecko and the Anaimudi day gecko, both very distinctly-patterned lizards found only in the higher reaches of the Agasthyamalai and Anamalai hill ranges in the Western Ghats, are the latest additions to India’s reptile fauna. Researchers including Vivek Philip Cyriac of the Indian Institute of Science Education …

One of the reasons why the efficiency of bone marrow transplantation gets compromised is due to fewer hematopoietic stem cells available for transplantation. Researchers from the Pune-based National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) have addressed this by using a novel way to multiply or expand the number of hematopoietic stem …