India News

Large-scale volcanic eruptions can help in better forecast of the Indian monsoon, the annual phenomenon that brings rain over the Indian subcontinent, a joint study involving Indian and German scientists has found.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said that West Bengal government did not share data of returning migrant labourers with the Centre and no district of the state could be included as a beneficiary under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan (PMGKRA).

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday said it has seized cocaine worth about Rs 4 crore, arrested a person from Mumbai and is probing an illegal network of narcotics distribution in the western metropolis that has "possible linkages" with "high-profile" drug users.

India has handed over two modern trains to Nepal that would run between Jaynagar in Bihar and Kurtha in Dhanusa district from mid-December, marking the beginning of the first broad-gauge railway service in the Himalayan nation, officials said on Saturday.

The Drugs Controller General of India has approved the commercial launch of "Feluda", the Tata CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) COVID-19 test, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said on Saturday.

A 70-year-old farmer died after consuming some poisonous substance during a protest against the new farm Bills in Muktsar district of Punjab, police said on Saturday.

Questioning the Akalis alliance with the NDA, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday asked the SAD to list "one pro-farmer initiative" persuaded by it with the BJP-led Centre in the past six years.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday described the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Union Cabinet as "bold, historic and a principled stand", and said the Akalis could never be a party to anything which harms the interests of farmers.

A mob of 10 people ransacked a petrol pump and assaulted staff in Manickpur area of Palghar district over mask violations and efforts were on to catch them, police said on Saturday.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Dilbag Singh on Saturday said the DNA sample report of three youths killed in an alleged fake encounter in Shopian district is expected soon and subsequent action will be taken accordingly.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday asked Akalis to stop "lying and misleading" the people of the state by "picking selective portions" of the Congress manifestos, saying it did not even remotely propose any of the anti-farmer moves that the BJP-led Central Government was trying to push on poor farmers to promote the interests of "their rich corporate friends".

May saw a massive migrant exodus from Mumbai amid the coronavirus crisis. One such area which is about 90 per cent full of migrants is Mumbai's Bhayyawadi in Juhu Koliwada, which saw nearly 80 per cent of its residents leave in May when the coronavirus lockdown was in full effect.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss the coronavirus situation with the chief ministers of seven states - badly hit by the pandemic - on September 23 via video conferencing.

Aiming to curb air pollution in the National Capital Region, a high-level task force led by PK Mishra, the principal secretary to the prime minister, met to review action taken by various agencies and to firm up plans, the PMO said in a statement on Saturday.

Sulochana Subrahmanyam, mother of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, passed away on Saturday Mr Jaishankar informed about the demise of his mother in a tweet, along with a picture of her.