India

More than 10,000 pilgrims were stranded on the Kedarnath yatra route late Tuesday after a landslide blocked the Sonprayag-Gaurikund highway in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag amid continuous rain. The landslide hit the key Char Dham route during peak pilgrimage season as erratic weather continues to affect pilgrimage routes in Uttarakhand, report Gaurav Talwar & Kautilya Singh. The…

NEW DELHI: A Pune-based defence company has successfully carried out firing demonstrations of the EXTRA and Predator Hawk “Suryastra” rockets with ranges of 150km and 300km, respectively, at the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur, Odisha, on May 18 and 19, reports Surendra Singh. Suryastra is India’s first indigenous universal multi-calibre rocket launcher system, designed for…

NEW DELHI: The portmanteau wrote itself. Now, it has a ring to it that could launch a thousand toffee ads. PM Narendra Modi landed in Italy early Wednesday, greeted his counterpart Georgia Meloni and, much to the delight of the political paparazzi, handed her a packet of ‘Melody’. Curiously, the name of the Parle toffee…

PATIALIA: For 26 monsoons, the Bhakra canal’s water hid a grisly secret as three families of Ropar grappled with grief and hope. On Sunday, a mangled Maruti Omni, rusted and falling to pieces, was winched out of the depths, still holding a child’s school uniform, luggage, personal belongings and a few bones — the remains…

Factsheets generated from the sixth National Family Health Survey completed in Dec 2024 have been ready for over a year, according to sources, but they are yet to be made public. In Aug last year, there were media reports that they would be out in a month. According to those who were part of conducting…

SRINAGAR: Ladakh lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Wednesday granted “industry” status to hotels and guesthouses registered with tourism department with an aim to strengthening hospitality sector in the UT.The order will come into force on June 1. It is expected to benefit 1,257 hotels and guesthouses in the UT, including 1,078 in Leh and…

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a Pakistan-backed spy for allegedly passing on confidential, security-related information to Pakistani intelligence officers, as part of an anti-India terror conspiracy. Zafar Riaz @ Rizvi, a Kolkata resident, had a look out circular issued against him and proceedings were also under way to declare him a…

A new survey by the Observer Research Foundation has found that young Indians overwhelmingly support a stronger response to cross-border terrorism and see the Middle East as central to India’s future economic ambitions.The survey, titled Foreign Policy Survey 2025: Young India and the Middle East, was conducted across 19 Indian cities between October and November…

West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari The BJP government in West Bengal has, within days of assuming office, rolled out a series of high-impact administrative, welfare and governance decisions aimed at signalling a policy break from the previous Trinamool Congress regime. The measures span welfare restructuring, recruitment reforms, reservation policy changes, scrutiny of caste certificates, educational…

Tamil Nadu chief minister Vijay and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi NEW DELHI: The Congress is set to return to the Tamil Nadu cabinet after nearly 60 years, after party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday approved the induction of MLAs Rajesh Kumar and P Vishwanathan into the cabinet led by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief Vijay.The…