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Facing less than a lukewarm response to project Unnati, which aims to reduce dependence on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by imparting skill training to its beneficiaries, the Union Rural Development Ministry wants to link performances of the States under the project with its labour budget …

A new draft of the much-awaited data protection Bill, the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP Bill) 2022, is now open for public comments. The Government had previously withdrawn an earlier draft by averring that it would come up with a “comprehensive legal framework” on data privacy and Internet regulation, …

The ongoing war in Ukraine on the one hand and the confrontation between Russia (India’s traditional partner) and the United States and the West (also India’s partners) on the other have increased the frequency/regularity of this question. When great powers seek India’s support during geopolitical contestations, such as the one …

Tamil Nadu’s power requirement is expected to touch 1,86,106 million units in 2031-32, from 1,09,914 million units in 2021-22, according to the 20thElectric Power Survey of India report from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) that functions under the Union Ministry of Power. The CEA conducts the survey of the country …

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the government pays mere “lip-service” to the independence of the Election Commissioners and this is evident from the way the tenures of Chief Election Commissioners (CECs) have “slid” down from over eight years in the 1950s to just about a few hundred days after …

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh stated that Government-accelerated Development Initiatives in North East have transformed ‘Look East policy’ into ‘Act East Policy’, leading to all round developments in the Northeast region, enabling all the states to improve trade with South East Asian Nations. He was addressing the two-day conclave on the theme …

PM KISAN Scheme is a Central Sector Scheme to supplement financial needs of land holding farmers.  Financial benefit of Rs. 6000 per year is transferred into the bank accounts of farmer families through direct benefit transfer.  Certain categories of higher economic status are excluded from the scheme. This ambitious scheme, …

Close on the heels of assuming the presidency of G20, a league of world’s largest economies, India will take over the chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), an international initiative to support responsible and human-centric development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has been Catalyzing the …

In 2014, the Delhi High Court held that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were guilty of illegally accepting donations from two companies registered in India but whose controlling shareholder was Vedanta, a foreign company. The court held that this was in contravention of the Foreign Contribution …

Background: The latest draft of the data protection law — the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (DPDP Bill, 2022) — has now been made open for public comments. This article deals with various themes within the Bill including data localisation requirements, whether children are considered as data principals, the …

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday announced a National Suicide Prevention Strategy, the first of its kind in the country, with time-bound action plans and multi-sectoral collaborations to achieve reduction in suicide mortality by 10% by 2030. The strategy broadly seeks to establish effective surveillance mechanisms for …

The Centre is bringing out a standard for publishing product reviews on e-commerce platforms from Friday. To start with, the standard will be voluntary, but could become mandatory later after observing compliance with the standard by such platforms. The framework for the standard was prepared by the Bureau of Indian …

Firefighting and fireproofing as national responses to crises are concepts that merit serious study in the emerging global geopolitical, geo-economic and security landscapes. Firefighting attaches itself to reactive responses to crises that arise from a lack of preparedness, lack of capacity, lack of national will and cohesion between different instruments …

It is after many years that we have a judgment which elaborates on the meaning of equality under India’s Constitution in its true and expansive spirit. Here I am not referring to the majority judgment in the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) case, but the minority opinion of the Chief Justice …

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will attempt the 200th consecutively successful launch of the Rohini RH-200 sounding rocket on Wednesday from Thumba here. Former President Ram Nath Kovind will be present at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), ISRO’s lead unit on launch vehicles, to witness the launch. The …

Thirteen mahouts/cavadies from the Anamalai and Mudumalai Tiger Reserves are set to visit the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Thailand for training and capacity building to learn how to manage camps and look after elephants better. The programme will involve an expenditure of ₹50 lakh, and tiger foundation funds will …

The Centre’s significantly shortened and revised draft Bill on personal data protection proposes a hefty increase in penalty amounts up to ₹500 crore, while also easing rules on cross-border data flows, in a big relief for large tech firms. The revised draft—now called The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 …

The six-metre-tall launch vehicle Vikram-S is named after Vikram Sarabhai; the rocket is developed by the Hyderabad-based start-up Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited It was a historic moment when Vikram-S, India’s first privately-developed rocket, lifted off precisely at 11.30 a.m. on Friday from Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) launchpad in Sriharikota. …

A study spanning 13 years has shed interesting light on flowering in Melocanna baccifera, a tropical bamboo species that has long fascinated researchers for its association with the occurrence of ‘bamboo death,’ ‘rat floods’ and famines in northeast India. Among other things, researchers detected a correlation between the sugar content in …

In recent years, there has been a grave erosion of constitutional provisions, constitutional morality, and constitutional ethos being witnessed among various constitutional bodies. If the manner of functioning by institutions such as the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has left much to be …