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Curbing terrorism and terrorist financing in Afghanistan, and the use of trade and connectivity routes via Iran are key to regional security, said India as National Security Adviser (NSA) AjitDoval chaired the first India-Central Asia meeting of NSAs and Secretaries of Security Councils in Delhi on Tuesday. The day-long meeting, …

The World Bank on Tuesday lifted its growth forecast for India’s economy this year to 6.9%, after having downgraded it to 6.5% in October, citing resilience in economic activity despite a deteriorating external environment. The Bank said it revised the GDP forecast considering the strong upturn in the July-to-September quarter …

India will become a hub of drone technology and would require at least one lakh drone pilots by next year, Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Youth Affairs and Sports, has said. The Minister inaugurated a drone yatra organised by the Chennai-headquartered start-up Garuda Aerospace. He …

During the meeting, Shri Tomar inaugurated the creation of an integrated “Agriculture Investment Portal” by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. In the meeting, Shri Tomar said that there are many challenges in the agriculture sector, to solve which the Government of India is continuously working efficiently under the …

The Union Agriculture Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar had approved the formation of an Advisory Group for streamlining the development of the Bamboo sector. The Advisory group encompasses the representation of various stakeholders viz., academicians, researchers, innovators, progressive entrepreneurs, designers, farmer leaders, marketing specialists and policy makers. The inter-ministerial and …

Background: Vizhinjam has been on the boil for the past four months with protesters mainly fisherfolk and their families laying siege to the under-construction Vizhinjam port. The protestors led by the Latin Archdiocese have been demanding the halting of the construction work of the port by Adani Vizhinjam Port Private …

In a bid to scale up its dairy production to become self-sufficient, Sri Lanka has sought technical assistance from India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and market leader Amul, reviving a collaboration that the island attempted in the late 1990s, but failed to take forward. Officials from Sri Lanka’s Agriculture …

India’s consumption of Russian oil is just one-sixth of European consumption and should not be compared unfavourably, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in his talks with visiting German Foreign Minister AnnalenaBaerbock on Monday, defending the government’s decision to increase the intake of Russian oil since the war in Ukraine. …

Reservation was introduced as a short-term measure to give opportunities to classes of people who were socially and educationally backward and/or inadequately represented in education, employment, politics and other spheres. The intent was laudable. Reservation has increased the standard of life for many. But what was supposed to be a …

Protracted litigation in the name of combating forcible religious conversion is taking up valuable time of courts. The Supreme Court is hearing a purported Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking action to curb deceitful religious conversion in the country. Not wanting to be left behind, the Gujarat government is seeking the …

Arthur Schopenhauer, a famous German philosopher, observed, “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom. Perhaps he was right but he overlooked that in a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, pain and boredom occur together. Lay-offs of the employed and deaths on a massive scale …

The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Chennai on Monday announced that a low pressure area (LPA) has formed over the south Andaman Sea and neighbourhood. It is likely to concentrate into a depression by Tuesday evening and bring widespread light to moderate rain over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal for three …

Bench says it will examine ‘veiled intentions’ behind religious conversions through allurement by offering food, medicines, treatment; purpose of charity should not be conversion, it adds The Supreme Court on Monday said acts of charity or good work to help a community or the poor should not cloak an intention to …

Background: The Reserve Bank of India this week launched the digital rupee on a pilot basis. The digital currency will be offered by a select group of public and private banks in a few major cities initially, which can be used for both person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions. What is the …

On November 21, China’s top development aid agency convened the first “China-Indian Ocean Region Forum” in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming. The meet organised by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) is the latest Chinese initiative focusing on the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), underlining Beijing’s growing strategic interests …

All-weather allies: For OPEC+, the big unknown in the oil equation is how heavily the sanctions will hit Russian supply. AP However, the organisation of 13 oil-producing countries says it is ready to ‘meet at any time and take immediate additional measures’ to address market developments. The next meeting of the body is …

With the country getting its highest-ever rank in the ICAO aviation safety rankings, Arun Kumar, chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, on Sunday said the challenge is to further improve the air safety ecosystem. The comment also comes against the backdrop of the country’s aviation sector slowly coming …

Two weeks after a cyberattack crippled the servers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the system has not been completely restored as investigators anticipate more damage if it is linked to the Internet. The file extensions for all the physical servers of AIIMS running on the Linux …

In the early days of the pandemic, the Tablighi Jamaat, a little-known Islamic organisation, found itself in the middle of a controversy in India after many of its patrons who attended a religious congregation tested positive for COVID-19. Those who got infected were referred to by many as the ‘Nizamuddin …

Healthy soils are essential for our survival. They support healthy plant growth to enhance both our nutrition and water percolation to maintain groundwater levels. Soils help to regulate the planet’s climate by storing carbon and are the second largest carbon sink after the oceans. They help maintain a landscape that …