India

NEW DELHI: Taking, in what it called, an important step towards environmental governance and reducing dependence on foreign certification systems, India has set up the world’s second National Environmental Standard Laboratory here at the CSIR–National Physical Laboratory (NPL) that will develop requisite testing and calibration facilities for air pollution monitoring equipment in the country.Currently, most…

NEW DELHI: Holding that delay in trial and long incarceration cannot be a “trump card” to get bail in UAPA offences and that a court cannot treat liberty of an accused as the sole criterion and societal security as peripheral, Supreme Court Monday rejected bail pleas of student activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in…

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand high court has ordered the release of a man who had been serving a life sentence in a 2003 murder case, after it found he was a juvenile at the time of the offence. Mobin, who spent over 13 years in prison, was declared a juvenile in conflict with law, rendering his continued…

NEW DELHI: Sparks flew in SC as Telangana opposed Andhra Pradesh’s Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar Project (PNSP) with A Revanth Reddy-led govt accusing AP of attempting to misappropriate its share of Godavari water and N Chandrababu Naidu-led govt charging Telangana of attempting to stall farmer-friendly projects even after taking erstwhile capital city Hyderabad.Telangana through senior advocate A…

TRICHY: Union home minister Amit Shah’s two-day visit to poll-bound Tamil Nadu ended on an inconclusive note Monday, with no apparent breakthrough in BJP’s efforts to strengthen NDA in the state. There was anticipation that Shah would initiate alliance talks with potential partners, PMK and DMDK during the visit, while also seeking a resolution to…

KOLKATA/RAMPURHAT: Sunali Khatun, the pregnant Birbhum woman who was banished to Bangladesh as an illegal immigrant and forced to spend six months in a jail, gave birth to a son on Monday at a state-run hospital in Bengal. “For us, this is nothing short of a miracle. The child was born healthy despite Sunali being…

NEW DELHI: Defence minister Rajnath Singh commissioned the Indian Coast Guard‘s (ICG) first indigenously designed and built pollution control vessel ‘Samudra Pratap’ in Goa on Monday, saying the ship will “bolster India’s self-confidence”. The 114.5-metre vessel, built by Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL), has over 60% of indigenous content.During the commissioning of ‘Samudra Pratap’ in Goa,…

2020 Delhi riots: Supreme Court denied bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots case, with Khalid saying jail has now become his life. Fire at ONGC well: A gas pipeline leak at an ONGC well in Andhra Pradesh’s Konaseema district triggered a fire at the site, but no casualties or…

NEW DELHI: The Congress move to appoint Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as chairperson of the candidate screening committee for the upcoming Assam elections has added to the murmurs of leadership debate within the grand old party, with the BJP-led NDA claiming internal conflict between the Gandhi siblings. Soon after Priyanka’s elevation, which was announced on Sunday,…

Mallikarjun Kharge (File photo) NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday likened US President Donald Trump to dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini over the United States’ actions in Venezuela. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly yielding to Trump’s demand to cut India’s purchase of oil from Russia, which has been…