The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre to file an affidavit responding to a challenge to the delimitation exercise undertaken in Jammu and Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the State.
India’s merchandise exports in April grew 30.7% year-on-year to $40.19 billion, $2 billion higher than the estimates released earlier this month, Commerce Ministry data showed on Friday. Goods imports during the month were also $2 billion more than the earlier estimates of $60.3 billion, reflecting a 31% growth. The trade deficit in April was marginally higher than the previous estimate of $20.1 billion and wider than March’s $18.5 billion.
For 30 days in Sri Lanka’s own ‘Gota go gama’, a space carved out by protesters in front of the Presidential Secretariat, Sri Lankans responded to a vision of an alternative Sri Lanka — one that was democratic, non-violent, inclusive and creative; where youth would find a special place and where fear no longer would be the governing principle. Music, theatre and traditional rituals filled the space along with political chants and slogans. People from every community sought refuge at ‘Gota go gama’ from the daily hardship of living, irrespective of class, religion, gender or ethnicity.
A letter war between two sets of retired public officials (civil servants, judges and army officers), concerning the prevailing political and social situation in the country, has been widely reported in the media. In the last week of April 2022, a group of these retirees, calling themselves as the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) sent an ‘open letter’ to the Prime Minister. In the letter, they appealed to him to call for an end to the politics of hate and violence against the minorities, particularly Muslims.
For a government that prided itself on its inflation taming successes in the first five years, a combination of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, high crude oil prices and now the war in Ukraine have created a perfect storm that sent the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation racing to a 95-month high of 7.79% in April.
In the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again brought up the much-discussed issue of reforming the World Health Organization while addressing the heads of countries at the second global COVID-19 summit. That reforms are urgently needed to strengthen the global health body and its ability to respond to novel and known disease outbreaks in order to limit the harm caused to the global community is beyond debate.
The monsoon is slated to make its earliest arrival in 13 years over Kerala. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday that the monsoon will make its onset over the State on May 27, four days ahead of its normal date of June 1. The IMD records show that the monsoon arrived on May 23 in 2009, May 26 in 2006 and May 28 in 2007. The last time the monsoon arrived in Kerala in May was 2018.
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here has established the “proof of principle” of the first indigenous mRNA vaccine technology coming from a scientific institution in India, Vinay K. Nandicoori, Director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research institution, said on Friday.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully carried out the static test of the HS200 solid rocket booster, taking the space agency one more step closer to the keenly awaited Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission. The test was held at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on Friday morning. Designed and developed by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram for over two years, the HS200 booster is the ‘human-rated’ version of the S200 rocket boosters used on the geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle Mk-III (GSLV Mk-III), also called the LVM3. The GSLV Mk-III rocket, which will be used for the Gaganyaan mission, will have two HS200 boosters that will supply the thrust for lift-off
Counterterrorism teams from Russia, China, Pakistan and Central Asian countries will gather in Delhi on the weekend ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Regional Anti-Terror Structure (SCO-RATS) meeting hosted by India from May 16 to 19. These are the first such official discussions to be held in India since the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Chinese PLA troops transgressed in 2020, and since the Russian invasion in Ukraine this year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Nepal counterpart, Sher Bahadur Deuba, will focus on connectivity and electricity projects during their bilateral talks on Monday, when Mr. Modi travels to Lumbini to attend Buddha Purnima celebrations. Giving details of Mr. Modi’s visit to Nepal, which will span only a few hours, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra on Friday said it was significant that the bilateral meeting was taking place just a month after Mr. Deuba visited India in April.
The movement of each Amarnath Yatra pilgrim will be tracked with the help of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, a high-level meeting to review the logistics and security preparedness of the Yatra was informed on Friday. The meeting chaired by Ajay Bhalla, Union Home Secretary, was attended by officials of the Jammu and Kashmir administration, the chiefs of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and the J&K police.
Sri Lanka has received assurance from Indian officials regarding the supply of fertilizers that the island nation requires urgently. High Commissioner Milinda Moragoda met with officials concerned on Friday where the issue was discussed.
Stalled negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme have been unblocked after fresh talks in Tehran, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday, adding that he believed a final deal was within reach. Mr. Borrell said a mission by EU envoy Enrique Mora this week to help revive the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers had gone “better than expected”.“The negotiations had stalled and now they have been reopened,” Mr. Borrell told reporters on the sidelines of a G7 meeting in Germany.