GS-III

Modi hopes the country will become engine of world economic growth Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Uttarakhand’s first investors summit on Sunday, saying India is the ideal investment destination in the world today with major social and economic changes sweeping the country.Addressing top business leaders and industrial houses at “Destination …

The fighter plane now has the capability to take off vertically, giving a shot in the arm for the IAF The Indian Air Force’s beast — MiG-29 — has gained in strength and ferocity after an upgrade, giving the force, battling a shortage of fighter aircraft, a much-needed boost, according …

Task force of ex-servicemen will help in crowd management, keep river clean In January 2019, when the Uttar Pradesh government organises the Kumbh Mela, it will have a special unit to help: a volunteer force of ex-servicemen.The Ganga Task Force (GTF), specially trained by the Ministry of Defence will help …

You’d imagine that a mammal more than a metre long would be hard to miss. But it has taken more than 70 years to confirm the presence of the elusive Eurasian otter — one of the least-known of India’s three otter species — in the Western Ghats. Ironically, researchers found …

31 children died of diphtheria in September; nearly half of the diphtheria cases reported globally are from India The leafy, unhurried campus of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation-run Maharishi Valmiki Infectious Diseases Hospital (MVIDH) masks an ugly truth. Witness to 31 child deaths due to diphtheria last month, with the …

The Valley’s famous apple orchards are in fruit with a bumper crop Apple trees droop heavily with fruit in the famous orchards of Kashmir this season. In the apple-rich districts of south and north Kashmir, the harvest continues to be a family affair. The orchard owners have a reason to …

Diver-activists are removing abandoned or lost fishing nets that trap sea life It’s a lazy Sunday morning, but not for Suneha Jagannathan. With over 3 kg of diving gear, she is out on a mission — to collect ‘ghost nets’. Diving to depths of 30-50 m, Ms. Jagannathan, CEO of …

Scientists say they have developed a new DNA tool that uses machine learning to accurately predict people’s height and assess their risk for serious illnesses such as heart disease and cancer. The tool, or algorithm, builds predictors for human traits such as height, bone density and even the level of …

The Eastern Ghats spread across Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has lost almost 16% of its forest area over a span of 100 years, a recently published study shows. Researchers from the University of Hyderabad studied historical maps and satellite images from 1920 to 2015 to understand the …

This is interesting as ants are usually depicted as poor pollinators Bees might be the most well-known pollinators, but researchers have found that common white-footed ants are the best pollinators of a rare evergreen tree in the southern Western Ghats. Syzygium occidentale is a small, wild jamun tree that grows …