The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to make dowry harassment and maintenance provisions "gender neutral." The court stated that it cannot legislate law and it is the responsibility of Parliament to look into such matters. The PIL, filed by an NGO, argued that these provisions are often misused to harass husbands and their families. The court, however, emphasized that every case must be judged on its own merits, and that the provisions are intended to protect women and children. The court also noted that the allegation of misuse was vague and that such claims should be examined on a case-by-case basis.
The India meteorological department said heatwave conditions will persist for at least two more days.
'There is a clear relationship between the Char Dham road widening and these landslides.' 'The situation has further worsened with the massive influx of tourists whose number are running into several lakhs per month.' 'No parameters have been laid down to control tourist inflow and the result is that the Char Dham yatra has seen a sharp escalation in accidents and loss of lives.'
The Indian insurance industry is set to focus on customer-centric technological adoption and expansion into rural areas to drive growth in 2025.
'If you align your ambition with India's rise, the peak of your careers will unfold alongside the peak of India's power.'
The Calcutta High Court has ordered the formation of a three-member committee to identify and rehabilitate people displaced by violence during protests over the Waqf (Amendment) Act in Murshidabad district. The court also extended the deployment of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) in the area. The committee will consist of officials from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC), and the State Legal Services Authority (SLSA). It will be responsible for identifying displaced persons, assessing damage to properties, collecting FIR data, facilitating FIR filing, and overseeing the well-being of displaced individuals. The state government has been instructed to provide necessary infrastructure to the committee and report on its progress by May 15. The court also directed the state to formulate a rehabilitation scheme for displaced persons, including the construction of damaged houses and shops, compensation for lost livelihoods, and protection for families of those who died in the violence.
'If Indians are to be truly protected, Parliament must review and address these dangerous provisions before they become law.'
The US Trade Representative noted that India's average applied tariff rate stood at 17% per cent, the highest of any major world economy.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted approval to Paytm to onboard new UPI users, subject to the adherence to all procedural guidelines and circulars, according to the company. The move is expected to come as a relief to Paytm, which had suffered a blow following the Reserve Bank of India's restrictions earlier this year on associate company Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) in onboarding new UPI users on the Paytm app. In March, the NPCI gave approval to Paytm to participate in UPI as a Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP).
The Bill says that the central government, in consultation with the Data Protection Authority, can direct any data fiduciary or data processor to provide non-personal data to enable better targeting of delivery of services. The government can also ask data processors to provide data for formulation of evidence-based policies for its own use.
Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, has warned policymakers that frequent and large-scale sharing of citizen data, even if anonymized, can damage users' privacy. Pointing to research that shows data sets lose their anonymity if shared consistently over time, he said: "I would encourage policymakers and companies to be extremely circumspect while proceeding in that direction." Anonymization is a technique that removes or modifies personally identifiable information, resulting in data that cannot be associated with any one individual.
'Why does a State that sees a national security issue at every turn not recognise the seriousness of the data from sensitive databases being breached?'
The Supreme Court of India has assured the creation of a robust mechanism to address the alarming number of suicides occurring in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The court was informed that 18 suicides had taken place in these institutions over the past 14 months. The court has also directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) to finalize draft regulations aimed at combating caste-based discrimination in educational institutions.
Markets regulator Sebi has notified a stricter regulatory framework for small and medium enterprise (SME) IPOs by introducing a profitability requirement and capping a 20 per cent limit on offer-for-sale (OFS). The reforms aim to provide SMEs with a sound track record an opportunity to raise funds from the public while protecting investor interests. This move follows a rise in SME issues, which has driven significant investor participation.
'People don't need to take any added medication other than plain fever medication.'
'We also realised that locking customers to our Cloud was not fair to them.'
'Maybe the State wants to be watching people all the time. But when they are watching, others too may be watching!' 'The State is becoming more and more secretive while throwing people to the wolves.'
"But the BJP wants it to be done after Lok Sabha elections. The tenure of this Lok Sabha will end on 16th June and SBI wants to share the data by 30th June," Kharge said.
The Supreme Court of India has announced its intention to establish an effective mechanism to address caste-based discrimination in educational institutions throughout the country. The court directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) to draft regulations to prevent such discrimination and to provide data on institutions that have implemented equal opportunity cells as mandated by the 2012 UGC equity regulations. The court's decision stems from a public interest litigation filed in 2019 highlighting the prevalence of caste-based discrimination in higher education institutions and its tragic consequences, including the suicides of students like Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi.
The Supreme Court of India has formed a National Task Force (NTF) to address the growing concern of student suicides in higher educational institutions. The court took note of the recurring cases and directed Delhi Police to register FIRs on the complaints of families of two students who died by suicide at IIT Delhi in 2023. The NTF, chaired by former apex court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat, will prepare a comprehensive report, including the identification of causes leading to suicides, analysis of existing regulations, and recommendations for strengthening protections. The NTF will also have the authority to conduct surprise inspections of higher educational institutions and make further recommendations to ensure a holistic approach to addressing mental health concerns and eliminating suicides.
India needs another shot of difficult reform, of the kind only possible at gunpoint. Mr Trump holds that gun to our heads now. A drastic reduction in tariff protection, other elements of sarkari wet-nursing will force entrepreneurial India to become competitive again, argues Shekhar Gupta.
In the worst-case scenario, it will be next to impossible for tech companies like Amazon and Google to run any service that requires user biometrics.
Fair trade regulator CCI on Thursday alleged that Google has created a digital data hegemony and called for a market space with "free, fair and open competition". Concluding the arguments of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) before the appellate tribunal NCLAT in the Google matter, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman said a market with greater freedom for all players would be in total sync with principles of free competition rather than the 'walled garden' approach of the internet major. On October 20 last year, the CCI slapped a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore on Google for anti-competitive practices in relation to Android mobile devices.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday imposed a penalty of Rs 213.14 crore on social media major Meta for unfair business ways with respect to WhatsApp privacy policy update done in 2021. Besides, the competition watchdog has directed Meta to cease and desist from anti-competitive practices.
Bad loans in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry more than doubled in financial year 2024 (FY24) to Rs 1,163 crore from Rs 472.1 crore in FY23, said a financial services company on Monday. Non-performing assets (NPAs), as such loans are officially called, were a modest Rs 14.7 crore at the end of FY19 when P2P lending was in its nascent stage, according to Capitalmind Financial Services that accessed data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a right to information application.
In a dramatic shift in Canada's foreign policy, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday declared that the long-standing economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States has ended, responding to US President Donald Trump's announcement of new auto tariffs that could severely impact Canada's economy, Politico reported.
While there is no specific treatment for dengue, recovery primarily involves managing symptoms and preventing complications, says Dr Amit Sakaria.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih referred to newspaper reports mentioning a considerable violation of court orders.
'Avoid rushing into any financial transactions or disclosing personal information.'
Every online user must put these additional security layer in place to prevent theft of their online identities and vital information like user IDs and passwords
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates India's largest airport, dismissed the expert committee report as "inaccurate", claiming it relied on "probabilities, hypothesis, and conjectures" rather than empirical data or complete documentation.
China has defended its plan to build the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, assuring that the project will not affect riparian states and safety issues have been addressed through decades of studies. The dam, estimated to cost USD 137 billion, has raised concerns in India and Bangladesh, but Chinese authorities maintain that the project has been thoroughly studied and safeguards are in place. The dam is part of China's efforts to develop clean energy and respond to climate change.
We the people are left in the wind, waiting on the whims of an unengaged president and an oligarch with a nearly bottomless wallet, observes Sree Sreenivasan.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the Indian border. The USD 137 billion project, which is expected to dwarf even China's own Three Gorges Dam, has raised concerns in India and Bangladesh, the downstream riparian states. Concerns in India are centered around China's potential to control water flow, potentially enabling the release of large amounts of water to flood border areas in times of hostilities. The dam is part of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, and the Chinese government claims that the project is safe and prioritizes ecological protection.
The affidavit further said that the IT Rules impose a host of obligations on a company in relation to the security of the data collected by it in the course of its business.
The Centre on Monday started selling tomatoes at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg in the national capital to provide relief to the common man and check abnormal profits by intermediaries. Tomatoes are being sold at an average rate of Rs 90 per kg in the national capital.
A company claims to run ads on Facebook where students are encouraged to provide their details to get help from career counsellors.
The government on Monday published a draft data policy for public consultation, which says all data collected, generated, and stored by every government ministry and department will be open and shareable barring certain exceptions. Also, detailed datasets that have undergone value addition could be monetised by the government. The policy document, called "Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy 2022", prescribes that a regulatory authority called the Indian Data Council (IDC) and an agency by the name India Data Office (IDO) will oversee framing metadata standards and enforcement, respectively.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM Joseph asked the mobile messaging app to give advertisement in five newspapers to publicise its undertaking given to the government.
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