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India decriminalised homosexuality in 2018, while in 2017 the Supreme Court had recognised sexual orientation as protected under right to privacy. However, because financial and social security benefits are only accorded to those who have the legal sanction of a marriage, same-sex couples have trouble accessing some basic relationship rights. …

What are recombinants? Co-infection of multiple lineages of a virus could result in recombinations between genomes which can give rise to chimeric genomes, otherwise called recombinants. While most recombinations may not give rise to viable viruses, there is a rare possibility that recombination could result in the creation of a …

The Kerala government recently announced the State’s first waste-to-energy project in Kozhikode. The planned facility is expected to be built in two years and generate about 6 MW of power. There are around 100 waste-to-energy projects around the country but only a handful of them are operational, thanks to various production …

In unprecedented haste, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has cleared the decks for a mega project at the cost of about ₹70,000 crore at the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. NITI Aayog is piloting the project and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands …

In his keynote speech at the Lanting Forum in Beijing on February 21, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang highlighted the recently unveiled Global Security Initiative (GSI) Concept Paper. The GSI is presented as a China-led framework that seeks to restore stability and security, particularly in Asia. Accordingly, Mr. …

Darshan Solanki, an undergraduate student of chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, ended his life on February 12, 2023. He was a Dalit. The institute formed a 12-member committee to conduct an investigation, which submitted its report on March 2. The report said, “It appears from …

Since 2006, the Prime Ministers of India and Japan have exchanged visits for their “annual summit”, a meeting that has steered the course of this bilateral relationship. However, it was not the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership that was at the heart of the Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s …

The police action against violent separatists in Punjab is a case of better late than never. Religious fanaticism in the State has been raising its ugly head in recent years, and going out of control in recent months, with open calls for violence and threats to state functionaries including Union …

The findings of a recent report by Swiss technology company IQAir said 39 of the world’s top 50 most polluted cities were in India. IQAir is a Swiss air quality technology company that prepares annual world air quality reports based on data from monitoring stations operated by governments and other institutions and organisations across the …

In the never-ending debate about the origin of the virus that set off the COVID-19 pandemic, there is now fresh grist for the mill for those who have held out for the zoonotic angle — that the infection skipped from animals to humans. Undisclosed genetic data from a food market …

GDP growth may have slowed to 4.4% in the third quarter (Q3) from 6.3% in Q2, but “growth has not gotten shallower” and the momentum has sustained through the course of 2022-23, the Finance Ministry asserted on Monday. Macroeconomic stability was likely to get a further boost this year as …

Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health and there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report on Monday. The UN panel does not itself undertake scientific …

India is now one of the fastest-growing economies globally. However, this growth has not resulted in a corresponding increase in its Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is a composite statistical measure created by the United Nations Development Programme to evaluate and compare the level of human development in different …

Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York between 2020-22, and President of the United Nations Security Council for August 2021 India concluded its eighth stint in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) at the end of December 2022. And, by any yardstick, its two-year stint has …

There is a growing tendency in India to aggrandise Muslim religious organisations for their tokenistic gestures. For instance, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) is thought to have embraced secular polity because it no longer considers it against Islam to participate in democratic elections, and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH) is praised for …

A day before her appearance in front of the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K. Kavitha launched a six-hour hunger strike on March 10 seeking early passage of the long-pending Women’s Reservation Bill. The protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi was inaugurated by …

The study is part of a long-term project called the ‘Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalising Disorders and Addictions’ (C-Veda). It aims to follow up those tested over decades, and evaluate the effect of biological and environmental risk on cognitive development. Brain development progresses from childhood to early adulthood with wide-ranging …

Tamil Nadu has pioneered an initiative across the State to reduce the mortality rate among people with tuberculosis. The initiative — TN-KET (Tamil Nadu Kasanoi Erappila Thittam, meaning TB death-free project) — which began in April 2022 in 2,500-odd public healthcare facilities that diagnosed TB in 30 districts, has already …

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on Saturday virtually inaugurated the India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline that will bring diesel from Assam’s Numaligarh refinery’s marketing depot in Siliguri to Parbatipur in northern Bangladesh. Welcoming the initiative, Ms. Hasina thanked Mr. Modi and the Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta …

In an effort to encourage investors to set up units to produce ethanol for blending with petrol, the State government on Saturday said investors could obtain almost all the requisite standard clearances within 30 days. The Tamil Nadu Ethanol Blending Policy (EBP) 2023, released on Saturday by the Industries Department, …