GS

The difference lies in being able to ‘eat’ viruses to fulfil one’s biological imperatives. Plankton of the genus Halteria, they claim to have found, can each consume 10,000 to a million virus particles a day, increase their population using the metabolised energy, and provide more food for the zooplanktons that …

Ecologically sensitive zones (ESZ) are intended to safeguard ‘protected areas’ — national parks and wildlife sanctuaries — by transitioning from an area of lower protection to an area of higher protection. However, the creation of these zones has provoked protests in Kerala and some other regions, in a precursor to …

There is something rude and unpleasant in the way the Government is going about the task of demanding a big say in the appointment of judges in constitutional courts. The latest salvo is from Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, who has written to the Chief Justice of India to request …

The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China is set to boost global oil demand this year to a record high, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, while price cap sanctions on Russia could dent supply. “Two wild cards dominate the 2023 oil market outlook: Russia and China,” the …

The ASER 2022 report shows that government schools saw a sharp rise in enrolment for the first time in 16 years; basic literacy levels of children have taken a big hit, with their reading ability, as compared with numeracy skills, worsening much more sharply and dropping to pre-2012 levels As …

Come April and it will be 50 years since the Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict in Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala. The judgment is widely recognised as a milestone in India’s history. In holding that Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution was not plenary, that any change that …

The Tamil Nadu Assembly witnessed unprecedented scenes on January 9 when Governor R. N. Ravi, while delivering his customary address to the House, omitted certain paragraphs from the text prepared by the State government. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin later moved a motion to take on record only the transcript distributed …

The Union of India calls the Bhopal gas leak tragedy the world’s largest industrial disaster. On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, leading to hundreds of deaths. Thirty-nine years after the incident, …

It is now clear that all warnings in the Mishra Committee report almost 50 years back went unheeded in the race to develop Joshimath by successive governments since 2001. It was clearly pointed out that Joshimath township is situated on debris of earlier landslides and would slip someday. But development …

Global overturning circulation—the equatorward transport of cold, deep waters and the poleward transport of warm, near-surface waters— controls ocean heat distribution and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus playing a critical role in global climate. It is thought that tectonic changes might have led to the formation of two separate water …

The gazette notification on the Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2022, came out on December 29. Ever since the Union Power Ministry shared the draft rules with the States last August, the CPI(M)-led government in Kerala had fiercely objected to Rule 14 which permits distribution companies (Discoms) to automatically recover from consumers, …

The recent flashpoint between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena was triggered ahead of the January 6 election of the Mayor and deputy Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). AAP has accused the LG of issuing orders on “practically everything” and bypassing …

For around 70 lakh pensioners, the end to the agonising wait for higher pension under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995, appears to be no where in sight even though it has been over two months since the Supreme Court of India reiterated, as a matter of principle, its approval …

The Union Cabinet’s recent decision to earmark ₹2,600 crore for providing banks with an incentive to promote digital payments has focused attention on India’s welcome push to broaden and deepen alternatives to the most widely accepted method of payment worldwide, cash. The Reserve Bank of India’s ‘Payments Vision 2025’ document …

The Government’s summit for developing nations, called the “Voice of the Global South Summit”, as its first big leadership-level G20 event, is an extremely important signal. It is also a departure from New Delhi’s looking towards the “high-table” of global leadership, involving its relationship with the UNSC P5 and G-7 …

The National Aquifer Mapping and Management programme, which is aimed at delineating aquifer and water availability, is set to be completed in a year, G. Asok Kumar, Director-General, National Mission for Clean Ganga, Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, said in Chennai on Monday. Kumar inaugurated a three-day conference on ‘Water …

The Election Commission of India (ECI) could not demonstrate a prototype of its new Remote Electronic Voting Machine (RVM), which would allow domestic migrants to vote in national and regional elections, after the Opposition raised concerns about the logistical and administrative challenges to remote voting. The Congress had earlier urged …

China’s population declined by 850,000 in 2022, the first such fall since a nationwide famine in 1961, marking a landmark demographic shift for the world’s second-largest economy. The National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing on Tuesday said the national population stood at 1.411 billion at the end of 2022. India …

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has completed the process of recruitment of 400 tribal youth from Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada, the districts worst affected by left-wing extremism in Chhattisgarh. The recruits will join the basic CRPF training in March, a senior government official said. To encourage recruitment from these …

The Centre’s position in the Supreme Court remained uncertain on Tuesday on whether its 1993 notification identifying Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis as minority communities needed reconsideration in light of a view by the National Commission for Minorities that religious and linguistic minority communities ought to be identified State-wise. …