In a notice to Pakistan on January 25, India said that it has been compelled to call for the ‘modification’ of the 63-year-old Indus Waters Treaty owing to Pakistan’s persistent objections regarding India’s Kishenganga (KHEP) and Ratle hydropower projects in Kashmir. What is the Indus Waters Treaty? In 1947, the …

The Army has stated that the process for selection of women officers to command assignments in the rank of Colonel, a major step towards bringing them at par with their male counterparts, has been conducted. This flows from the Supreme Court judgment of 2020 upholding an earlier judgment granting permanent …

Air India has called as excessive the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) decision to suspend the licence of one of its pilots for a period of three months following the November 26 incident on a New York-Delhi flight where a lady passenger complained that a co-traveller had urinated over …

The Union Education Ministry on Sunday released data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in student enrolments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrolments reaching 4.13 crore. The survey revealed that in 2020-21, when the COVID-19 pandemic …

Tamil Nadu was among the top five GST compensation receiving States during the five-year transition period from July 2017 to June 2022, according to a study by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced on July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2022 marked …

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is no stranger to reform. In fact, the zeal with which reforms are introduced often outpaces the capacity to adapt. Every time the administrative system gets back on its feet after a reform move, it is hit by another. Poorer States …

Adam Smith, in his famous work The Wealth of Nations, argued that commodities such as sugar, rum and tobacco, though not necessary for life, are widely consumed, and thus good candidates for taxation. Research in India and around the world supports the use of taxes to regulate tobacco consumption. However, …

The State-level Vulture Conservation Committee (SVCC) has decided to conduct a synchronised vulture census in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The census has been planned before March as the nesting season is in progress, Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas Reddy has said. At the SVCC’s first meeting held on January 25, …

A swallowtail butterfly disappearing from its previously known ranges from Myanmar and southern China to Vietnam has been recorded for the first time in India. Three butterfly enthusiasts — Atanu Bose, Loren Sonowal and Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi — recorded the “extremely rare” Noble’s Helen (Papilio noblei) from three locations in …

Researchers have uncovered 92 nesting sites containing a total of 256 fossil eggs in central India’s Narmada Valley belonging to titanosaurs, which were among the largest dinosaurs to have ever lived. The finding, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent. …