‘Will go to any extent to save Kulbhushan Jadhav’ – Rajnath Singh

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said India will go to any extent to save Kulbhushan Jadhav. “We will go to whatever extent we need to, but we will save Kulbhushan Jadav,” the minister said, while attending an event in Mumbai. The minister maintained that Kulbhushan Jadhav was not a spy, but a businessman who happens to […]

Asaduddin Owaisi calls Pakistani military tribunal ‘banana court’

Asaduddin Owaisi, head of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or All India Council of the Union of Muslims said the Indian government should have anticipated the death verdict handed out to Kulbhushan Jadhav, an ex-Indian Navy member, and moved in advance to exert pressure on the country. “We all know that it is a banana court,” Owaisi […]

Bhushan & Yadav’s Swaraj India chooses ‘whistle’ symbol for MCD polls

Swaraj India, the political outfit floated by breakaway Aam Aadmi Party faction led by Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, will fight the upcoming election to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi on the ‘whistle’ symbol. The move follows successful registration of the whistle symbol by 95% of the party’s candidates for the poll scheduled to be […]

NTPC starts 660 MW Solapur Super Thermal Power Project in Maharashtra

NTPC Ltd, India’s largest power producer, has taken its total installed production capacity beyond the 51,000 MW mark with the addition of the 660 MW Solapur Super Thermal Power Project in Maharashtra. The total capacity of the NTPC Group has become 51410 MW, including 20 coal based, 7 gas based, 10 solar PV, one Hydro, […]

India sets up committee to study Chinese interest in power grid

India’s ministry of power has set up a committee to examine concerns around the participation of Chinese companies in the country’s fast-growing transmission sector. Since large Chinese firms typically have close ties to the Chinese government, concerns have been raised by both Indian companies as well as some security experts about letting them manage large […]

Govt to strengthen official email service to lure employees from pvt providers

Government of India is overhauling its email system in an effort to encourage government officials to use only their official email accounts for official purposes, the IT department said. At present, many government officials use private email services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail, even for official and semi-official communications, putting government data at risk. […]

BHEL commissions 800 MW supercritical coal unit in Karnataka

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) commissioned an 800 MW coal-based supercritical thermal unit at the  Yeramarus Thermal Power Station located in Raichur district of Karnataka, the heavy equipment maker said. The plant is a joint venture between BHEL and Karnataka Power Corporation Limited and now has a capacity of 1600 MW. With this, BHEL has supplied […]

India is the first country to reuse nuclear waste on large scale – Minister

The Department of Atomic Energy today said that India is the first country in the world where the waste produced by nuclear power plants is being used for civilian applications. Jitendra Singh, the minister of state overseeing the department, also allayed concerns about any possible leakage of radiation from spent fuel. “There has been no […]

Smuggling down on Indo-Bangladesh border, up on Bhutanese side

Incidents related to smuggling of fertilizer and narcotics on the Indo-Bangladesh border fell sharply in 2016, but there was a compensatory increase in drug smuggling cases along India’s border with Bhutan and Nepal, according to data from the Union Home Ministry. Fertilizers — which cost less in India because of government subsidies — are smuggled out, […]

Nearly a quarter of all food samples tested found fake or adulterated

Over one-fifth of all food samples tested in India’s government labs in the last year were found to be fake or adulterated, according to numbers compiled from various state government food testing facilities by union government’s department of consumer affairs. Exempting Gujarat, which accounted for nearly 23% of the samples, the total percentage of fake and adulterated […]

Trademark registration up three fold in India

The number of trademarks awarded by the India’s Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks has jumped threefold this financial year, according to data obtained from the Patent Office. A total of 2.11 lakh trademarks were registered in India in the first eleven months of the year beginning April 2016, compared to just 65,045 in […]

Govt to bring 532 welfare schemes under Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer

The finance ministry has conducted an examination of the existing welfare and subsidy schemes of the central governments and identified 532 of them as being suitable to be migrated to the ‘direct benefit transfer’ or DBT model of disbursing of funds. Under the DBT scheme, the scheme benefit is converted into an equivalent monetary value, which […]

No exemption to Tamil Nadu on NEET: Health Minister

Exemptions to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test cannot be given to any place or zones inside India as a common entrance test is required under the law, Faggan Singh Kulaste, junior minister in charge of health and family welfare said. “Section 10D of Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 prescribes conducting of a uniform entrance examination namely […]

Transport vehicle drivers, staff to get coverage under ‘third party’ insurance policy

The drivers and staff of all vehicles classified as ‘transport’ will be brought under the definition of ‘third party’ in third party insurance policies, the finance ministry said today. This will cover buses, vans and other commercial transport vehicles and will be implemented through the upcoming amendment to theMotor Vehicles Act. At present, only the driver […]

Lopinavir syrup for children with HIV now available across India – Govt

Minister of health and family welfare Anupriya Patel said Lopinavir syrup, the life-saving drug given to infants and toddlers with HIV has been restocked by the National Aids Control Organization. “NACO has done an emergency procurement from a registered manufacturer — McNeil and Argus. The drug has already been supplied and is available throughout the […]

Govt not to supply LNG to stranded gas power projects from next month

The government is not planning to extend the two-year-old scheme to supply subsidized, imported natural gas to stranded gas power projects when it expires this month, according to a senior power ministry official. “We got a representation from the association of power producers requesting us to extend the scheme,” said the official “but we have decided […]

‘Nirbhaya scheme’ for women’s transport security at standstill

A well-publicized scheme for ensuring security for women in public road transport unveiled in the wake of the brutal ‘Nirbhaya’ rape and murder of in December 2012 seems to have ground to a halt in the absence of political will. According to the ministry of road transport and highways, only Rs 1.43 cr was spent on the ‘Security […]