Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
An entire nation waited, praying and hoping fervently, as the countdown to touch down on the moon wound to a slow close on Wednesday with many thousands gathering in schools, places of worship and elsewhere and scientists doing last minute checks to ensure Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing on the lunar south pole.
US President Barack Obama on Sunday affirmed his commitment to enhancing India's 'voice and vote' in global financial institutions like IMF.
Even as banks and finance companies are reporting record-high earnings, their weighting in the benchmark National Stock Exchange Nifty50 Index has seen a downward trajectory. Investors expect a stronger performance from other sectors in the new year. Currently, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) companies collectively hold a weighting of 34.5 per cent, down from 36.7 per cent at the end of December 2022 and a record high of 40.6 per cent at the end of December 2019. This represents the sector's lowest weighting in the index since December 2021 when it stood at 33.7 per cent.
Former National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Official Mike Gold has said Chandrayaan-3's success is a triumph of Indian innovation, human capital and the capabilities that will take India even further.
The Congress leader from Gujarat said the Dalit community has given a call for a nationwide candle march on February 19 in support of Solanki, who was a first-year student of B.Tech (chemical) course.
In the 2021 QS rankings announced in London on Wednesday, IIT Bombay continues to be the best-ranked Indian institute at 172, a 20-slot dip from the 2020 ranking.
The former PM said key national institutions vital for good governance are experiencing unprecedented new strains, India's neighbourhood is far less secured than it was in 2014 and its ties with neighbours deteriorated in the last four years.
Sources said the designers present in the meeting will submit their individual proposals shortly to the MSME ministry entailing suggestions to set up design centres.
Terming it as an important day in history, Shah said Madhya Pradesh has become the first state in the country to start the MBBS course in Hindi.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to start finishing schools which would impart skills to the graduates while also brushing-up their knowledge of core subjects.
Meet Fathima Shabana who's cleared her JEE (Main) and wants to study computer science from an IIT.
'We need to find out whether any structural element has got fatigue.' 'We want to increase the lifespan of the bridge.'
It is the first time that the JMI has been placed among the top 10 universities in the (HRD) Ministry's National Institutional Ranking Framework rankings.
With eight institutes -- out of 56 universities that participated from India -- in the top 100, India is the third most represented country in the Asia rankings
To stay on course with their academic calendars, several steps for graduating batches and fresh incoming batches are being taken.
Dr Sethuraman 'Panch' Panchanathan, senior vice president, Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, ArizonaStateUniversity, was last week appointed to the United States National Science Board by President Barack Obama.
Social networking giant Facebook has hired an engineering student here for a fat annual pay package of Rs 1.34 crore, one of the biggest offers made to alumnus of any technical institution of the country.
Shares of real estate firms have been outperforming over the past year. The rally, analysts say, may hit roadblocks in the near term amid stretched valuations, even as the long-term prospects for the sector remain ebullient. "Most of the positive news flow is already in the price. Hence, investors sitting on hefty profits may partially cash out at current levels," suggests V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
The suicides have involved more NEET aspirants than JEE. 'It's a make-or-mar situation.' 'Either you get into a government medical college, where the fee is much lower than in private institutes, or you don't make it.'
The National Institute of Fashion Technology invites applications for its various undergraduate and post-graduate programmes.
'Keeping the global temperature below not just 1.5 degree Celsius, even 2 degree Celsius is beyond our reach now. Both are impossible.'
The agency had received Rs 946.51 crore to manage its affairs in the Budget Estimates for 2023-24, which was later increased to Rs 968.86 crore in the Revised Estimates.
To begin with, the state has identified seven priority sectors such as Chemical, Plastic and Packaging, Garment, Auto and Engineering, Gems and Jewellery, besides Textiles and Infrastructure.
...Is a cultural swaraj under way, wonders Ajit Balakrishnan.
The Indian startup ecosystem has lauded the inclusion of startups in the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration for the first time ever in the history of G20. Industry stakeholders say that the move will lead to easier access to capital, reduce regulatory hurdles, and may revive funding activity. The Declaration, through the Startup20 initiative, recognised startups as "natural engines of growth" and key to socio-economic transformation by driving innovation and creating employment.
Being driven to abandon Indian middle-class values, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
'I did not bother to collect my diploma certificate because the course was a waste of time and more or less useless. It would be instructive for me to describe it because manufacturing is seen as the way out for India's great unemployment problem. It is? I do not think so,' says Aakar Patel.
Education finance is a complex and dynamic sector. There are too many variables -- the course, the calibre of students, the universities, and the job prospects once the course is over, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The average annual salary of graduates of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology has dropped by 5 per cent, while that of the National Institutes of Technology graduates has increased by 6 per cent.
A video showing some students kicking and beating up their juniors at an engineering institute in Andhra Pradesh has sent shock-waves even as the college authorities on Thursday said the footage was not related to 'ragging'.
'When resources are few; when frugality demands repairing a broken thing rather than replacing it with a brand new and expensive option, enterprising commoners in rural and urban India improvise on a daily basis and solve their problems with whatever they have,' observes Shivanand Kanavi.
India will sign three agreements with Japan, aimed at enhancing ties between institutions and industries of the two countries in the information technology and telecom sector
Showing respect to the Indian flag, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday immediately picked up the tricolour placed on stage at a BRICS meeting here to mark the standing place of every leader so as not to step on it.
Back home, the Nifty IT index - a gauge of the performance of the IT stocks on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) that has closely mirrored the performance of NASDAQ over the past few years - has lost nearly 2 per cent in CY23.
According to the police, one of the accused had made IEDs and later tested them at several places in Delhi, Rajasthan and Haldwani in Uttarakhand.
'A veiled secret of India's defence and strategic culture is the lack of a serious interest in them by the political class. The Indian National Defence University would fill this void,' feels Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd).
The BRICS nations on Friday underlined the need for using local currencies in international trade and financial transactions besides committing themselves to supporting rule-based open and transparent global trade. A joint statement issued at the end of the meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, also pressed for a robust Global Financial Safety Net with a quota-based and adequately resourced International Monetary Fund (IMF) at its centre. It further said the process of IMF governance reform under the 16th General Review of Quotas, including a new quota formula as a guide, should be completed by December 15, 2023.
'We are receiving a steady stream of interest from well-established foreign universities.'
The Army on Monday commemorated the 75th anniversary of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers by paying homage to the fallen soldiers at the National War Memorial in New Delhi.
