Congress leaders, on their part, are confident that the mobilisation of voters away from the BJP will gain more momentum in the state elections, scheduled for October 1, in the absence of national issues and the 'Modi factor'.
An initiative of Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, people+ai on Tuesday unveiled its vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, dubbed 'Adbhut India' (Amazing India). It aims to harness AI as a powerful tool to enhance the lives of all Indians. The event marked the rollout of several initiatives by people+ai that are focused on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating population-scale AI use cases for India.
The US needs to understand that it could potentially lose out on attracting several Netravalkars in the future if it curbs the influx of such industrious Indian immigrants, argues Vishal Menon.
There was a memorable meeting with a 'tall, elegant, beautiful girl', who had recently finished her 12th in the strongly tribal Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh. 'I was shocked. In this whole sea of villages, I knew for sure there was no other 12th pass girl. I said I want to meet your father.' 'She brought her father, a daily-wage labourer. I asked him: "How come you decided to educate your girl till the 12th standard? You break stones for a living and you don't have a lot of money".' 'He just said one line and in that one line he said everything.'
Moody's Ratings on Tuesday said India's growing water shortage can disrupt farm and industry sectors and is detrimental to the credit health of the sovereign as rising food inflation and decline in income may spark social unrest. It said decreases in water supply can disrupt agricultural production and industrial operations, resulting in inflation in food prices and hence can be detrimental to credit health of sectors that heavily consume water, such as coal power generators and steel-makers.
As Cyclone Dana barrels toward the coasts of Odisha, threatening to impact nearly half of the state's population, the government is racing against time to execute a massive evacuation plan aimed at relocating about 10 lakh people in several coastal districts to safety. In West Bengal, the cyclone is set to bring heavy rainfall in several southern West Bengal districts, including Kolkata, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
In the first quarter (Q1) of the ongoing financial year ending June 30, Westlife Foodworld, which operates McDonald's outlets in the South and West, reported an 88 per cent drop in net profit. While net sales remained flat, its same-store sales growth (SSSG) fell by 6.7 per cent, impacted by "subdued in-store business, although the off-premise segment saw positive same-store sales", the company said.
A senior Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader has blamed an 'ecosystem of former diplomats, bureaucrats, politicians, and think tanks' for creating a 'bogeyman' to mislead the Indian establishment into believing that Indo-Bangla relations would deteriorate without the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League.
An invasion of wolves is keeping the forest authorities on their toes in Bahraich, where the animal is suspected to have killed at least six people and wounded several, all within a very short span.
'Tax officials view most taxpayers as evaders.' 'The I-T department has a perverse incentive to raise unreasonable demands since the one-fifth tax collected counts towards officials' collection targets,' observes Harsh Roongta.
'I would think that India faces less damage from opinions voiced overseas compared to the damage it suffers if the right to free speech of its citizens is curtailed in the name of image management,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
'In the larger cities, we can see that 12%-20% of the population making use of the metros. I don't think it is happening in the smaller cities.'
The conditions that lead to landslides, including soil texture, soil moisture and slope are known, and it is important to put all this knowledge into an operational system, he said.
Barbados is set to become operational in the next six to 12 hours, ending the shutdown forced by a category 4 hurricane.
The government proposes to cut custom duties on Trastuzumab Deruxtecan, Osimertinib and Durvalumab from 10 per cent to nil.
Aseem Chhabra lists his favorite 2023 films -- a healthy blend of Bollywood, Hindi indies and some of the best work that is being done in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali cinema.
They realised that the Portuguese were better prepared to defend Daman than Dadra and Nagar Haveli. If reinforcements from Daman were to reach Silvassa, there was no chance of defeating the Portuguese. They decided that cutting Daman's communication lines would have to be their top priority before attacking Silvassa. A fascinating excerpt from Neelesh Kulkarni's new book, Uprising-The Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Younger people, who usually have a longer investment horizon which allows them to handle the interim volatility, may go for them.
In the last 12 months, over 7,500 Indians have applied for a resident permit.
'Don't be surprised if the Census forms come with a caste box.' 'I will be surprised if it doesn't. It will be a point conceded to Rahul Gandhi and his allies,' asserts Shekhar Gupta. The BJP machine could take all 3 in its stride, but this election has changed that, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Sources within the Congress, including those who have been members of the teams that drafted its 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha poll manifestos, said the Karnataka government decision lacked any empirical basis.
The ban is also estimated to have prevented 18 lakh men in the state from becoming overweight or obese, it said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has expressed readiness to join hands with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to "properly handle" issues related to the situation on the ground in the border areas, amid the protracted border row in eastern Ladakh.
India is poorer than the world average and so naturally has a greater percentage of poor people and a lower percentage of rich people. Yet using absolute numbers, India has more of almost everything, which is misleading, says Debraj Ray and Maitreesh Ghatak.
'Except that the population was much less.' 'I remember my uncle and family moving away from the base of a hill whenever it rained for more than a couple of days without a dry day in between.' 'Perhaps the older generations knew if it rained for more than a certain time, they must pack up to a camp or to a relative.' 'As some of the interviews of the survivors on the Malayalam television channels show, the elderly people had a premonition a tragedy would happen, and those who acted on those premonitions survived.'
'Days ago, India witnessed the horror of the brutal rape and murder of a woman doctor on night duty at the R G Kar hospital in Kolkata.' 'The crime was so outrageous that any self-respecting chief minister should have resigned, bearing moral responsibility.' 'But then the terms 'self-respect' and 'moral responsibility' do not exist in the modern Indian political lexicon,' argues Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd).
'Food inflation is important and if that is controlled, then consumption will go up.'
Questions that the state had come to recognise over time but consistently delayed treating seriously because doing so requires an overhaul of perspective and lifestyle, notes Shyam G Menon.
Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh's interim government, has said that former prime minister Sheikh Hasina making political remarks from India is an 'unfriendly gesture', asserting that she must remain silent to prevent the discomfort to both countries until Dhaka requests her extradition.
'Healthcare is not an industry.' 'The government is only encouraging insurance as they are not able to provide healthcare to people.' 'Opening new medical colleges is not what is needed.' 'You have to invest in public sector hospitals.' 'You cannot hand over healthcare to the private industry.'
'INDIA will easily cross 50 seats out of 90 in Jammu and Kashmir.'
Kerala has had 202 fatalities in 2024 so far. In July alone, there were 202,122 episodes of fever, 2,250 cases of dengue, 1,850 cases of mumps and several other illnesses. 10,000 cases of dengue have been reported from Karnataka. 1,000 swine flu cases have been documented in Rajasthan.
Reliance on technical intelligence has not been fruitful as terrorists use online activity to mislead authorities. Officials feel that there is an urgent need for heightened surveillance to counter foreign terrorists, especially in the Jammu region.
The average age of the 125-billion strong Indian population will be 29 years in 2020, even younger than China and the US.
Inequality in India has skyrocketed since early 2000s, with the income and wealth share of top 1 per cent population rising to 22.6 per cent and 40.1 per cent, respectively, in 2022-23, according to a working paper. The paper titled 'Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj' said between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration.
'Tiger reserves were created to protect areas from developmental activities.' 'If we go ahead with these projects, then it is a complete mockery of our institutions and our laws, it is against everything we have stood for, our Forest Conservation Act, our Wildlife Biodiversity Act.'
Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, has received the backing from more than the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to win the Democratic Party's nomination on the first ballot, CNN reported on the first full day of her campaign.
33 per cent of all road accidents and 35 per cent of fatal accidents took place on national highways and expressways.
Shaheed Maqbool Sherwani changed the course of Indian history forever, but himself lies forgotten in the town he saved.
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