India

NEW DELHI: Ahead of start of Census 2027 on April 1, home minister Amit Shah on Thursday launched four digital tools for the country’s first ever digital Census and unveiled the two Census mascots — ‘Pragati’, a female enumerator and ‘Vikas’, her male counterpart. The four digital platforms include a self-enumeration portal that will allow…

Scheduled Tribe members adhering to Hindu customs are not barred from the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Chhattisgarh High Court ruled. The court set aside a family court’s rejection of a mutual divorce petition, stating that those who voluntarily follow Hindu rites cannot be excluded. RAIPUR: Members of the scheduled tribe (ST) community who follow Hindu…

PUNE: India’s summer heatwaves – the humid, suffocating kind that impact more than dry heat – are not just getting more frequent, but also more intense through a now-identified specific atmospheric chain reaction. A Jan 2026 study by scientists from IMD and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune, published in the Journal of the…

File photo: Nishant Kumar NEW DELHI: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is a rare regional heavyweight who has been vocal in his disdain of dynastic politics and made it a point to keep his family members, including his only son Nishant, out of any limelight. As politics would have it, Nishant is now being seen by…

Foreign secy Vikram Misri at the Iranian embassy on Thursday NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Vikram Misri signed the book of condolence – on behalf of the Indian government and people – opened at the Iranian embassy on Thursday, following the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Feb 28, amid criticism over India’s silence.External…

File photo: PM Modi with French President Macron NEW DELHI: India continued to engage the international community over the situation in West Asia region as PM Modi on Thursday spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron, reiterating the need for a return to dialogue and diplomacy.After his telephonic conversation with Macron, the PM said they will…

JDU workers protest against Nitish Kumar filing his nomination for Rajya Sabha, outside the CM’s residence in Patna on Thursday NEW DELHI: As the nomination process for Rajya Sabha elections spread across 10 states ended on Thursday, moves for new political alignments, including a rare BJD-Congress tie-up in Odisha and unity of BJP’s rivals in…

NEW DELHI: Criticising the practice of litigants, particularly government authorities, of not complying with court orders and filing appeals or review pleas when faced with contempt proceedings, the Supreme Court has said the court should deal with them harshly, otherwise public faith in the judiciary would erode.A bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R Mahadevan…

File photo: National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah SRINAGAR: A court in Kashmir has dismissed an application by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking to add charges against National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah and others in the Jammu & Kashmir cricket association (JKCA) scam case. The court said ED cannot be made party to a…

BENGALURU: State-run defence electronics major Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has signed a memorandum of understanding with space technology startup Bellatrix Aerospace to jointly design, develop and manufacture satellite systems and payloads, with a focus on the emerging very low Earth orbit (VLEO) regime.“The agreement aims to combine BEL’s experience in mission-critical electronics and defence payloads…