At least 46 people have died and 11 remain missing in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand after the worst rainfall in more than 100 years triggered flash flooding and landslides. Record-breaking rainfall caused by cloudbursts, an intense deluge of rain, over Uttarakhand’s picturesque Kumaon region led to flooding that washed away homes and vehicles. One district in the Nainital area received 340mm (13.4in) of rainfall over 24 hours on Tuesday, the highest registered since a weather station was set up there in 1897. The…
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Credit: Illustration by The Diplomat The construction of a port project in the Iranian city of Chabahar has been gaining increased attention as a potential global trading hub – and an arena for geopolitical competition. India has served as the primary investor in Chabahar port, as New Delhi sees the port as a way to access Afghan and Central Asian markets without relying on Pakistan’s land routes. Furthermore, the port could strengthen Indo-Iranian ties, which could balance out growing Sino-Pakistani cooperation. At the same time,…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also asserted that the ‘dhamma chakra’ on the tricolour is a driving force for the country. (PTI photo) Describing Lord Buddha as the inspiration for India’s Constitution even today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said Buddha resides in the soul of humanity and connects different cultures and countries. India has made this aspect of his teachings part of the journey of its growth, the prime minister said while contemporising the message of the Buddha and linking it to issues such…
NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday made it clear that it is not going to be pressured into signing new agreements at the WTO , such as those on fisheries, until its concerns are addressed and insisted that some of the “wrongs” from the earlier rounds, such as allowing developed countries to subsidise their farmers disproportionately, needed to be fixed. Government officials highlighted data to argue that developing countries were allowed to provide domestic subsidies which were a fraction of what some of the developed countries…
Gulf crisis The global energy shortage has prompted India to ask Qatar, the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas, for around 50 cargoes it deemed too expensive six years ago. State-linked importer Petronet LNG asked Qatargas to deliver the cargoes in the coming year, on top of the approximately 115 cargoes that its long-term contract stipulates for 2022, according to people familiar with the discussions. Normally, companies do not retroactively claim cargoes after initially declining them. Petronet’s unusual move underscores the desperation of buyers…
India and Pakistan last played a bilateral series in 2013 during a brief thaw in their rivalry. — AFP/File Cricket tensions between India and Pakistan have been heightened by boycott calls in India ahead of their T20 World Cup clash on Sunday. A series of killings in Indian-occupied Kashmir has set off the anger, even though the Indian board has insisted the national team cannot withdraw from the game. Decades of bitter rivalry between the neighbours often clouds their cricket encounters. India has largely refused…
With lockdowns around the world due to Covid-19, millions of hours of labour, particularly in service, construction, and manufacturing sectors, were also lost but those have not been accounted for in the study.(Rahul Raut/HT file photo) India, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, recorded the greatest losses to work hours due to heat exposure in 2020, according to the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change released on Thursday. Around 295 billion hours of potential work was lost across the globe in 2020, which is equivalent…
Huge fire in Boulder, Colorado destroys 83 condominiums Ludhiana (Punjab) [India], October 21 (ANI): Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes Vijay Sampla on Wednesday condemned that no religious practice was allowed to perform during the last rite rituals of Lakhbir Singh, whose mutilated body was found hanging on a police barricade at the farmers’ protest site near the Singhu border. Sampla has requested Jathedar of Akal Takhat to ensure the ‘bhog’ of the deceased be performed as per Sikh tradition. Speaking to ANI, he…
India is expected to cross the 1 billion Covid-19 vaccination milestone on Thursday.(Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo) India is expected to cross the 1 billion Covid vaccine dose milestone on Thursday. This comes just over nine months after the nationwide inoculation drive started on January 16, 2021. Despite the vaccination drive picking up pace, opposition parties have questioned the government over its promise to administer both the doses of the vaccine to the country’s entire adult population by December. Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said on Wednesday that…
A 1990–2019 Global Burden of Disease Study has reported substantial increases in prevalence and incidence of non-communicable neurological disorders in India. 2 The Indian workforce has fewer than 2500 neurologists, 1800 neurosurgeons, and 200 palliative care physicians for 1·38 billion people. Long-term care is challenging in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), where direct and indirect costs of medical treatment are high. Each year in India, about 55 million people become impoverished by high health-care costs and 38 million fall below the poverty line because of…