The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has completed the process of recruitment of 400 tribal youth from Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada, the districts worst affected by left-wing extremism in Chhattisgarh. The recruits will join the basic CRPF training in March, a senior government official said. To encourage recruitment from these …

The Centre’s position in the Supreme Court remained uncertain on Tuesday on whether its 1993 notification identifying Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis as minority communities needed reconsideration in light of a view by the National Commission for Minorities that religious and linguistic minority communities ought to be identified State-wise. …

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, ‘Squealer, the small fat pig’ was a brilliant orator who always spoke to the hard-working animals about a ‘readjustment of rations’, but ‘never as a “reduction”’. The Government’s latest announcement on free foodgrains is a case of similar doublespeak. The Cabinet has announced that under the …

It is an ill-wind that blows throughout the neighbourhood. A recent World Bank study on air pollution concludes that about two million people die prematurely in South Asia each year as particulate measure concentrations put nine South Asian cities among the world’s top 10 worst affected by air pollution. The …

The last month of 2022 capped a year dominated by high inflation headlines on a seemingly amiable note. The average price rise faced by consumers during December slipped to its lowest since November 2021 at 5.7%. Data released on Monday show that wholesale inflation also fell to a 22-month-nadir of …

India has welcomed the designation of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) deputy chief Abdur Rehman Makki as a sanctioned terrorist by the UN Security Council, after China withdrew the “technical hold” it had placed on the listing last year. Makki, the brother-in-law of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, is on the most wanted lists …

The recent attempt to unsuccessfully translocate and rehabilitate a “problem elephant”, as described by the State Forest Department, has highlighted the need for better cooperation among Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka while releasing elephants in the tri-junction area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR). The elephant in question, Pandalur Makhna-2 …

The ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council (UNSC) has placed Abdul Rehman Makki, a fundraiser and key planner of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), on its sanctions list. The move was made possible after China withdrew the “technical hold” that it had imposed last June, …

India is reeling under an acute shortage of specialist doctors, with a shortfall of nearly 80% of the required specialists at Community Health Centres (CHCs), reveals the Rural Health Statistics report published by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Thursday. The CHCs are 30-bed block-level health facilities which …

India’s industrial output bounced back to post 7.1% growth in November 2022, after shrinking 4.2% in October as per revised estimates. The jump was aided by a base effect as November 2021 had clocked just 1% growth, but also marked a 6% uptick in output levels over October 2022, when …