‘Rechristening Faizabad district as Ayodhya will erase the historical identity of its eponymous city’ The decision to rechristen Faizabad district as Ayodhya has not gone down well with many of its residents, who believe it is an “unnecessary step” taken for “political” reasons and will eventually “erase the identity” of …

System may intensify into severe storm in the next 24 hours The deep depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified into Cyclone ‘Gaja’ on Sunday. North Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are likely to get good rain on November 14 and 15, India Meteorological Department officials said. Named ‘Gaja’ by Sri …

Patrol team targeted ahead of first phase polling in 18 constituencies A day before the first phase of polling in the partly Maoist-dominated areas of Chhattisgarh, insurgents triggered a series of improvised explosive devices (IED) in the Koylibeda block of Kanker district, killing one BSF sub-inspector and injuring another. Inspector-General …

Praying mantids prey on smaller insects and sometimes the odd frog or lizard. Now, it looks like they’ve added fish to their menu too, for naturalists have observed one catching and eating small ornamental fish in a garden in Bengaluru. Guppy-catcher It was on the evening of March 7 last …

Natural recharge during monsoon may not help much if groundwater depletion becomes acute, as rainfall of past years controls current storage With 230 billion metre cube of groundwater drawn out each year for irrigating agriculture lands in India, many parts of the country are experiencing rapid depletion of groundwater. The …

The pH and salinity of the waters exceeded permissible limits for ecologically sensitive zones The water quality at the Point Calimere Wildlife Sanctuary might be unsafe for avifauna to feed and breed, notes a study that examined different pollution indicators in water. Researchers from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli compared their results …

Sensitivity for pulmonary TB and pleural TB were 94% and 93%, respectively. A highly sensitive diagnostic test for pulmonary TB and pleural TB has been developed by a multi-institutional team led by Jaya Sivaswami Tyagi from the Department of Biotechnology at AIIMS. The diagnostic test makes use of a DNA …

In the month or so preceding Remembrance Day, which marks the anniversary of the end of the First World War, red poppy badges are a common sight across Britain. This year, however, some of them come with a difference. Prime Minister Theresa May is among the high profile figures to …

Caught in the demographic pincers of a declining birth rate and an ageing population, notoriously immigrant-shy Japan is being forced to open its doors to foreign workers. Its current position on immigration is, at best, tepidly welcoming to highly skilled workers, while sceptical of allowing in job-seekers from lower down …

After a 40-year ride of economic reforms, Shenzhen is now looking for answers to spur an artistic renaissance. “Many questions of creativity have come to the fore,” says Ole Bouman, director of the Sea World Culture and Arts Center, a head-turning icon in the Shekou area of Shenzhen. It was …