The dramatic proceedings on Friday began with the lawmakers occupying the Speaker’s chair for nearly an hour from 1.30 p.m., the time the session was scheduled to commence. The MPs ripped out the microphones and telephone chords at the Speaker’s desk, and continued chanting slogans until about 30 policemen, locking …
Read More »Daily Archives: November 19, 2018
GROWTH-India telescope’s first science observation
The 0.7 m GROWTH-India telescope at the Indian Astronomical Observatory located in Hanle, Ladakh, has made its first science observation which is a follow-up study of a nova explosion. Novae are explosive events involving violent eruptions on the surface of white dwarf stars, leading to temporary increase in brightness of …
Read More »British austerity inflicting misery: U.N. poverty expert
The British government’s policies of austerity are directly linked to a rise in poverty in the United Kingdom, a United Nations expert said in a scathing report after a two-week fact-finding mission to the country’s poorest districts. Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights, concluded …
Read More »As countdown to general election begins
The midday sun blazed down on a milling crowd. A key road was jammed with Opposition activists in front of their party headquarters in the capital Dhaka on November 14. The nomination-form sale entered a festive third day in the run-up to the election. Suddenly, the day lost its innocence. …
Read More »Ganga waterway project cleared
The IWAI contended that clearance was not necessary, as the proposed terminal at Varanasi was not a “port” and that only “maintenance dredging” was required. This activity was required to make an existing channel suitable, and was not a greenfield, dredging effort. Therefore, as per the provisions of the Environment …
Read More »The lowdown on RBI board meeting
The Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) meets every month to discuss inspection reports of banks and systemically important financial entities, and other routine issues of supervision. The Board now has 18 members, inclusive of the Governor and four Deputy Governors and two top bureaucrats from …
Read More »74.1% voter turnout in J&K’s panchayat elections
The first phase of panchayat election in Jammu & Kashmir on Saturday recorded a 74.1% voter turnout, with the Kashmir Valley clocking 62.1%, a quantum jump from the civic election percentage of 35.1 just 30 days ago. According to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shaleen Kabra, the border district of Kupwara …
Read More »Jumbo care! India gets its first dedicated elephant hospital
The result of a U.P. Forest Department and Wildlife SOS collaboration, the modern facility will treat treat injured, sick and geriatric elephants India’s elephants now have their first dedicated hospital near the Taj Mahal, complete with wireless digital X-Ray, laser treatment and dental X-ray facilities. The ‘jumbo’ hospital is the …
Read More »‘If you strengthen the CIC, you strengthen RTI’
Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu , who took on the Prime Minister’s Office and the Reserve Bank of India in a case dealing with the non-disclosure of wilful defaulters of major bank loans, warned on his last day of hearing RTI appeals that by December, he and three other CICs …
Read More »Microplastics – a scourge stalks the sea
Sometime in 2009, Bindu Sulochanan, a marine ecologist at Mangalore’s Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), was dissecting sardines in her laboratory. Scientists at the CMFRI have been doing this for decades, to study the feeding behaviour of various ocean-dwelling fish. As Dr. Sulochanan peered at the contents of the …
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