West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
Future, even present, wars -- at least those involving such tech giants as China -- include hi-tech battlefields, which a Pakistan-obsessed India has not sufficiently prioritised. Today's generals plan on how to disrupt an enemy city's power supplies, rail networks, airports, ports, and government departments, not just by bombing or torpedoing them; they also examine the option of tripping up the computer networks that run these, notes David Devadas.
'Today's India is fearless and is on track to be a great power. But this is definitely not happening without women, who form 48 per cent of our population.'
"You cannot just pick Rs 8 lakh out of the thin air and fix it as a criteria. There has to be some basis, some study. Tell us whether any demographic study or data was taken into account in fixing the limit. How do you arrive at this exact figure? Can the Supreme Court strike down the criteria, if no study was undertaken?" the Supreme Court asked.
Against the backdrop of thousands of suggestions being made to the Justice Verma committee on crime against women, activist Aruna Roy on Monday pitched for the involvement of citizens in framing laws.
Faced with the Supreme Court rap on the independent functioning of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday discussed ways to give greater autonomy and more financial powers to the agency. The GoM, at its first meeting, was given a power-point presentation by the department of personnel and training, in which it opposed scrapping of the provision which requires the CBI to seek the government's permission.
The Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority, in a tweet, said as per the latest updates #GajaCyclone is likely to have landfall between 8 pm and 11 pm on Thursday in all probability in Nagapattinam district.
The US had also said there was an "urgent need" for dialogue among all actors to reduce tensions and to avoid a potential military escalation in South Asia.
The order has, however, not gone down well with the employees, with the president of the UP Secretariat Employees' Association, Yadavendra Mishra, saying that such attempts were aimed at harassing government servants.
Even as the Maharashtra government claims it is implementing in phases the Ram Pradhan committee report, which examined the government's response to the 26/11 terror attacks, gaping holes still exist in the security apparatus.
The state government decides to take over the management of all shelter homes after incidents of sexual abuse surfaced in Muzaffarnagar, reports M I Khan.
On October 18, the tax department had said searches had led to detection of undisclosed income of more than Rs 500 crore in addition to Rs 93 crore worth seizures, including gold jewellery and diamonds. A revised appraisal of such seizures now pegs its value at Rs 106 crore which includes cash (Rs 45 crore), gold jewellery and diamonds (Rs 41 crore) and foreign currency Rs 20 crore.
The Central government has taken measures to deal with the two-day strike called by 11 trade unions from Wednesday.
The move came after a high powered selection committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Justice A K Sikri and leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, in a split verdict, decided to transfer him 21 days ahead of the completion of his tenure.
The state government asked the local administration to shift people from low-lying areas in Vadodara if needed as water entered into houses in several localities.
In the wake of the recovery of a powerful improvised explosive device from a passenger train ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Guwahati in Assam on November 29, security agencies have been forced to embark on a detailed inspection of all the vulnerable locations including those frequented by VIPs.
The government has decided to challenge in the Delhi high court a decision of the Central Information Commission allowing disclosure of records related to appointment of Research and Analysis Wing chief.
There are 5,004 IAS officers working across the country.
Five soldiers were trapped at an Army post after multiple avalanches hit Batalik sector in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir today, an Army official said.
The US president said that there is a lot of "dislike" (between India and Pakistan).
Goa Governor's secretary Rajeev Verma, Rajasthan chief minister's secretary Rajat Kumar Mishra and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's private secretary Vimlendra Sharan are among 44 lucky Inidian Administrative Service officers of the 1992 batch empanelled for appointment as joint secretaries or equivalent posts at the Centre.
As the country eagerly awaits an expected coronavirus vaccination drive in January, at least 125 intended beneficiaries each in four states who had registered on the Co-WIN App were on Monday sent SMSes informing them about the time and place of their 'COVID-19 vaccination' under a mock-drill to administer the shots at designated centres.
In yet another secretary-level change, government appointed Hasmukh Adhia, a 1981 Gujarat cadre IAS officer, as the new Financial Services Secretary replacing G S Sandhu.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to withdraw the Centre's order recalling Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, and said her government 'is not releasing' the top bureaucrat.
Violent agitations continued to rock parts of West Bengal for second consecutive day on Saturday as people protesting against the amended Citizenship Act set several buses on fire and torched portions of a railway station complex, officials said.
Babu R was trapped in a mountain gorge without food or water for two days till the Indian Army rescued him in a daring mission.
Faesal, who recently returned from a foreign training and was awaiting posting, said he had decided to resign from Indian Administrative Service, "to protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach out from the Union government".
'If more than 60 commissioner-level tax officials were compulsorily retired in the span of a few months, surely the malaise is far deeper,' notes A K Bhattacharya.
"That is a fact of life because we are not being able, after 75 years, to bring the SCs and STs to the same level of merit as the forward classes," Attorney General K K Venugopal told a bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao.
It was during his tenure that Air India made its first operating profit of Rs 105 crore in FY17 since the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India in 2007.
Residents in Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra continue to struggle as floods leave them in a watery hell.
From dancing to playing musical instruments to exercising... balconies across the world have become the hospot as people continue to quarantine and self-isolate themselves at homes to fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Central govt. brushed aside all rumours about raising the retirement age of its staff from 60 to 62.
The Odisha government imposed a curfew-like shutdown in three hotspot districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur from 10 pm Thursday, to conduct active surveillance and contact-tracing.
The government employees must be considered for promotions in case meetings of the Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs) are held after their retirement, the Centre has said.
Mapping all its 13 lakh employees and identifying potential quarantine facilities for each of them is part of the protocol drafted by Central Railway to insulate its staffers from Covid-19. The document, 'Rail Pariwar Dekh Rekh Muhim' (drive to take care of the railway family)' lists a series of steps to be followed by zonal railways to keep employees safe.
Working round-the-clock to help flood victims in Bihar, National Disaster Response Force personnel rendered timely help to three marooned pregnant women at separate places deliver their babies safely.
"Under the CO-JEET" plan, personnel of the three wings of the armed forces -- the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy -- have been pressed into service to help restore oxygen supply chains, set up COVID beds and provide help to the civilian administration in its fight to control the pandemic," said the Lt General, whose post of deputy chief integrated defence staff (medical) comes under the Chief of Defence Staff.
The tearing hurry to form theatre commands has to be replaced by a balanced and deliberate approach. We need to accept that this process will take time if executed correctly and in the best interests of the Indian armed forces, argues Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
