The Supreme Court has declined a request for an urgent hearing of a plea for contempt of court action against the Sabarimala priest, who closed the sanctum sanctorum to conduct “purification rites” immediately after two women entered the temple on Wednesday. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi rejected the plea …

Though the drop in temperature levels to a single digit pushes up the tourist footfall in the Agency of Visakhapatnam district, it proves to be a bane for the tribal people and they prefer to stay indoors due to the biting cold.Eight of 10 mandals in the Agency area have …

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that it was time for research to expand beyond the Central institutes of national importance — such as the IITs and the IISERs — and branch out into the numerous State universities.Observing that “95% of our students go to State universities and colleges,” …

A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer said the rescue efforts seemed uncoordinated and yielding no results. The court asked the Centre what it had done so far. “You had wanted to send high-powered pumps to Thailand [to rescue Thai boys and their teacher trapped in a …

Mr. Trump had referred to his conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging that Indian contribution to Kabul be increased and diversified as humanitarian contribution was not enough. “I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly …

The Shah of Iran said to-night [January 2] there were tremendous possibilities of co-operation between Iran and India and “we must seek to develop it to the maximum possible extent.” Responding to the toast at the State banquet here [New Delhi], he stressed the importance of regional co-operation. “Those who …

The Indian Tea Association announces [in London] that the Food Ministry has arranged that licences shall be freely issued for private import of tea provided that no portion of the tea is sold for home consumption and at least fifty percent of importations are offered to Food Ministry. Subject to …

Last year, on December 22, an incident of bonded labour reached the national headlines, even if only for a fleeting moment. BJP president Amit Shah tweeted on the subject. A week earlier, 52 trafficked labourers had been rescued from a ginger farm in Karnataka where they had been made to …

Revenue collections from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) are going too far off the mark for comfort. Inflows declined for the second consecutive month in December to Rs. 94,726 crore from Rs. 97,637 crore in November and Rs. 1,00,710 crore in the month before. Between April and December, GST …

The diplomatic row between Beijing and Ottawa over the detention and treatment of Canadian nationals in China continues to escalate, to the detriment of bilateral relations. But more serious could be the implications of the standoff for the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. The spat goes back …

The Cabinet has approved a significant relaxation of development controls along the coastline through the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2018, as part of a plan to encourage construction of buildings and launch tourism activities in areas that are closer to the high tide line. State governments and others had …

Last year, in October at Astana, Kazakhstan, world leaders declared their commitment to ‘Primary Care’. They were reaffirming what their predecessors had done in Alma Ata in 1978. The Alma Ata Declaration, as it was called, had been criticised as wishful thinking without a clear road map on strategies and …

On December 18, the Union Ministry of Power issued a seemingly anodyne memo that set the rules for the flow of electricity across South Asian borders. Evaluated against the turbulent politics around the issue, the new guidelines are a startling departure from India’s previous stance. In an atmosphere of regional …

India does not gain anything by escalating the nuclear arms race in the region with INS Arihant The indigenous nuclear submarine, INS Arihant ( picture ), is a great achievement for India. The Indian Navy, its engineers and scientists have done us immensely proud. But it might not be inappropriate …

Any rigid secular approach, unrestrained by considerations of electoral politics, could only lead to disapproval of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s demonstration of his religious faith and his characterisation of the Congress as a “party of Hinduism”. His approach has been widely termed “soft Hindutva”, and as an attempt to compete …

NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft has beamed back new images of volcanic plumes on Jupiter’s moon Io, captured during the mission’s 17th flyby of the gas giant. On December 21, four of Juno’s cameras captured images of the Jovian moon Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system. Source : …

Morocco has been named the second best performing country after Sweden in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI). The North African country significantly increased the share of renewables over the past five years and increased new renewable energy capacity. Sweden is in top position, followed by Morocco and Lithuania in …

The Indian economy is projected to be the fastest-growing major economy in the current year and upcoming fiscal 2019-20, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday, while emphasising that the government has taken several steps to boost investors’ confidence. The average growth of the economy between 2014-15 and 2017-18 was 7.3%, …

The RBI has appointed an eight-member expert committee headed by former SEBI chairman U.K. Sinha to comprehensively review and propose long-term solutions for revival of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. Other members of the panel are Ram Mohan Mishra, Additional Secretary, Development Commissioner MSME; Pankaj Jain, Joint …

Major Asian indices shed 1-3%; Sensex loses 520 points intraday; rupee slumps 1% against dollar A weak trend in the global equity markets on the back of disappointing economic data from China led to the Indian benchmarks shedding 1% on Wednesday as investors became jittery over the near-term outlook on …