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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A Microsoft executive made a compelling pitch to mountaineer and physics professor Chetan Nayak in 2000: Join the Redmond, Wash., company and together they would scale nearby Mount Rainier—and build a quantum computer. He summited Washington’s highest peak within two years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Bengaluru: On 16 January, Refex Industries Ltd, a manufacturer of refrigerant gases, informed the stock exchanges that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Refex Green Mobility, had agreed to buy 2,997 electric cars from Gensol Engineering Ltd. Refex Green Mobility would take over Gensol’s existing loan of ₹315 crore as part of this transaction.

Amit Shah has said that there will be no mercy for drug cartels. Congratulating the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for seizure of a massive consignment of methamphetamine tablets worth Rs 88 crore and arresting 4 members of the international drug cartel, Union Home Minister said in an X post that drug haul is a testament to the stellar performance of the bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom approach to investigation. In his post Shah said, “No mercy for drug cartels. Accelerating the Modi govt's march to build a drug-free Bharat, a massive consignment of methamphetamine tablets worth Rs 88 crore is seized, and 4 members of the international drug cartel are arrested in Imphal and Guwahati zones. The drug haul is a testament to the stellar performance of the bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom approach to investigation.

Ministry of Home Affairs has sought an umbrella probe in the cases of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants staying in the country. A senior officer informed that in a recent meeting, instructions have been passed to all states and UTs to investigate the cases of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants as umbrella cases and identify the persons who have helped the illegal immigrants in obtaining documents to generate Aadhar and other documents pertaining to the citizenship of India. The officer added that in some cases, it has been found that the documents were prepared for the purpose of travel to European countries or the Middle East, and the persons didn't stay for long in India. The investigation officers have been instructed to also identify the persons who have helped the illegal immigrant in generating documents and make them accused in the case. During the investigation, it has been instructed to identify the loopholes used to generate documents. All suspicious aadhar cards have been sent for re-verification, which includes scrutiny of the documents submitted for aadhar generation. In a meeting with Aadhar officials, they have been asked to pass instructions to all aadhar centers to inform the police in case they find any person trying to modify or generate aadhar on suspicious documents. In case of confirmation of illegal Bangladeshi nationals, the persons will be kept in the detention centre, and FRRO will be informed to facilitate their safe return as per protocols.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Where is a Toyota Camry or iPhone made? There is a label that identifies the country in which the final product assembly takes place, but it says nothing about where the product is actually ‘made.’ It is unable to do so because for goods that have inputs (material or intellectual) that are traded across international borders, the answer is never a single country.

Xi Jinping has declined an invitation to visit Brussels for an summit to mark the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic ties, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Beijing told EU officials that Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission instead of Xi, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter whom it did not identify. The Chinese premier usually attends the summit when it is held in Brussels, while the president hosts it in Beijing, but the EU wants Xi to attend to commemorate half a century of relations between Beijing and the bloc, the newspaper said. Tensions between Brussels and Beijing have grown since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the EU accusing China of backing the Kremlin, the FT said. Last year, the European Union also imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports. «Informal discussions are ongoing, both about setting the date for the EU-China summit this year and the level of representation,» an EU official told the newspaper, while the Chinese ministry was quoted as saying it did not have any information to provide on the matter.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Chandigarh have jointly developed 32-bit Microprocessors — Vikram 3201 and Kalpana 3201-- for space applications, the space agency has said. Vikram 3201 is the first fully Indian-made 32-bit microprocessor qualified for use in the harsh environmental conditions of launch vehicles. The processor was fabricated at the 180nm (nanometer) CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) semiconductor fab of SCL. This processor is an advanced version of the indigenously designed 16-bit Vikram 1601 microprocessor, which has been operating in the avionics system of ISRO's launch vehicles since 2009, ISRO said in a statement released late on Saturday. A «Make-in-India» version of the Vikram 1601 processor was subsequently inducted in 2016 after the 180nm semiconductor fab was established at SCL, the statement said. Kalpana 3201 is a 32-bit SPARC V8 (Scalable Processor ARChitecture, version 8) RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) microprocessor and is based on the IEEE 1754 Instruction Set Architecture, the space agency said. This microprocessor has been designed to be compatible with open-source software toolsets along with in-house developed simulators and IDE (Integrated Development Environment), and has been tested with flight software, it said.

Mexico City offered more than music, food and booze. Amidst the usual festival fare, a booth provided free, anonymous drug testing. The initiative, known as «Checa tu Sustancia» (Check Your Substance), is one of several recent efforts by Mexican civil society to reduce risk among people taking drugs. Spearheaded by the Instituto RIA, a Mexico-based drug policy research and advocacy organization, it aims to address drug use from a public health and social justice perspective, rather than a security one. In a well-lit corner of the festival, members of the Instituto RIA used reagents and laboratory porcelain plates to test substances that some of the partygoers planned to use and recorded the data. Their analysis uses color changes to indicate what's in the drug: It can reveal the presence of adulterants but not their exact proportion. They also offered test strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl and nasal sprays of naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose. Also available were informational flyers detailing the effects of various psychoactive substances and what to do to reduce the risks associated with using them, including simple but critical measures like staying hydrated and eating well.

Five months after the assault, she lay on a mat in a displacement camp in South Sudan's capital, rubbing her swollen belly. «I felt like I wasn't heard… and now I'm pregnant,» she said. The Associated Press does not identify people who have been raped. Sexual assault is a constant risk for many women in South Sudan. Now one aid group is trying to bridge the gap with technology, to find and help survivors more quickly. But it's not easy in a country with low connectivity, high illiteracy and wariness about how information is used. Five months ago, an Israel-based organization in South Sudan piloted a chatbot it created on WhatsApp. It prompts questions for its staff to ask survivors of sexual assault to anonymously share their experiences. The information is put into the phone while speaking to the person and the bot immediately notifies a social worker there's a case, providing help to the person within hours. IsraAID said the technology improves communication. Papers can get misplaced and information can go missing, said Rodah Nyaduel, a psychologist with the group. When colleagues document an incident, she's notified by phone and told what type of case it is.

Chief Election Commissioner and an election commissioner last month, needless questions are being raised on whether they were the right individuals for these offices because the Chief Justice of India was not on the selection committee. Argument being that the CJI's exclusion has rendered the selection one-sided as the Leader of Opposition is in the obvious minority. This logic is spurious. Article 324 (2) of the Constitution that outlines the composition and appointment of the CEC and ECs reads as follows: «The Election Commission shall consist of the chief election commissioner and such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the President may from time to time fix and the appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall, subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by Parliament, be made by the President.» The President has been appointing the CEC and ECs on the advice of the executive, that is the government of the day. Parliament has not enacted any law to amend this process. The LoP's inclusion in the selection committee for the appointment of any regulatory position started with the Right to Information Act, 2005. Under this law, the President appoints central information commissioners on the recommendation of not the executive but a selection committee comprising the Prime Minister, a minister nominated by him and the LoP in the Lok Sabha. In state information commissions, the governor makes the appointment on the recommendation of a committee comprising the chief minister, a minister and the LoP of the state assembly.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. One of the worst curses of modern life is sleep deprivation, leaving hundreds of millions bleary eyed every single day. Sleep plays a critical role in our lives as our brains and bodies reset, recover and replenish so that we may function glitch-free- every day.

This troubling development comes despite legislative mandates designed to expedite trials, primarily due to the absence of sufficient dedicated courts to handle such cases. The alarming statistics were revealed in response to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by city-based activist Vihar Durve on February 6, 2025, requesting details on the pendency of POCSO-related cases in the state. A reply provided by the Bombay High Court’s Public Information Officer on March 4 disclosed that the number of pending cases rose from 32,988 at the beginning of 2023 to 41,977 by January 31, 2025. This increase occurred even as laws stipulate the fast-tracking of cases involving child victims. The backlog has been growing significantly each year. In 2024 alone, 12,838 new cases were registered, while only 7,942 were resolved, contributing nearly 5,000 additional cases to the pile. The pendency rate has risen by 11.2% in 2023 and 13.3% in 2024, with 405 new cases added to the backlog in the first month of 2025 alone.

China's securities watchdog will step up monitoring fake information in the stock market and work with the police and cyberspace regulators to crack down on those who disseminate false news, which is being made easier by AI, official media reported on Saturday. Regulators will «hit early, hit hard, and hit at the heart» of the issue, the Securities Times said. Artificial intelligence has become a new tool for creating and spreading misleading information to con investors or manipulate stocks, luring investors with the prospect of getting rich quickly, the Shanghai Securities News said in a separate article.

Centre for Public Interest Litigation, also sought direction of the court mandating that the CAG shall be appointed by the President in consultation with an independent and neutral selection committee comprising of the prime minister, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) and the Chief Justice of India and in a transparent manner. It said that the direction for appointment of CAG should be similar to the appointment of other bodies including Information Commissions and the Central Vigilance Commission. The PIL will be taken up for hearing on Monday by a bench of justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh. The plea filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan contended that the present mode of appointment of the CAG, which is done solely by the executive i.e. by the prime minister who handpicks any individual and recommends his name to the President for appointment, is unconstitutional as it is violative of Article 14 and several basic features of the Constitution. «The appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India solely by the executive and the Prime Minister of India undermines the independence of the office of the CAG, suffers from grave conflict of interest and thereby is detrimental to good governance and democracy in India. It is also manifestly arbitrary, detrimental to institutional integrity and violates several basic features of the constitution,» the plea said.

cabinet sub-committee, which was formed last year to look into grievances against the present reservation policy in the Union Territory. The information was given by Sakeena Itoo, the minister in-charge social welfare, in a written reply to a starred question by Peoples Conference legislator Sajad Gani Lone in the House. The cabinet sub-committee headed by Itoo with ministers Satish Sharma and Javed Rana as its members was constituted in December last year and is going to submit its report to the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Reservation has become a major issue in Jammu and Kashmir following the Central government's decision to add more communities to the reserved category and expand quotas in the UT over the past five years. There are increasing objections to the Centre's move to push the reservation quota to 70 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir. «The Cabinet Sub Committee stands constituted vide Government order No. 2061- JKGAD of 2024, dated 10.12. 2024 to examine the grievances projected by a section of aspirants for various posts regarding reservation rules. However, no specific timeline has been fixed for submitting the report,» the minister said in response to Lone, who had asked whether a six months time period had been granted to the panel to review the existing reservation policy. Itoo said that a total of 5,39,306 Scheduled Tribe population — 4,59,493 in Jammu division and 79,813 in Kashmir division — have obtained ST certificates in the last two years effective from April 2023, while 67,112 certificates have been issued to scheduled caste population of Jammu region during the same period.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s Mutual Funds Sahi Hai campaign was meant to revolutionize investing. But in Manipur, the country’s least-penetrated mutual fund market, it barely registered.

The shutdown is in effect from March 14 (Friday) to March 17 (Monday). The prohibitory order, issued by the Principal Secretary, Home and Hill Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal on March 14, suspending internet and call services, cited concerns over the potential spreading of «rumours for unlawful activities.» Meanwhile, police forces have been deployed in the affected areas following reports of a stone-pelting incident in Birbhum. «Any data related message or class of message to or from any person or class of persons, to or from any telecommunication equipment or class of telecommunication equipment, or relating to any particular subject, brought for transmission by, or transmitted or received by any telecommunication service or telecommunication network under the ambit of Telecommunications Act, 2023, shall temporarily not be transmitted in the interest of maintaining public order and preventing incitement to the commission of any offence,» read the order.

Emmanuel Macron on Friday (local time) called on Russia to accept the US-brokered proposal for an interim 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, emphasizing that «atrocities must stop.» Macron criticized Russia for its «delaying statements» on the proposed deal following his discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy and UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer. «I spoke today with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then with Prime Minister Kier Starmer following the progress made during the meeting between the United States and Ukraine in Jeddah on Tuesday. Russia must now accept the U.S.-Ukrainian proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. The Russian aggression in Ukraine must end. The atrocities must stop. So must the delaying statements,» Macron wrote in a post on X. Macron assured France's unwavering support to Ukraine to achieve peace and informed that all partners will hold a video conference today to discuss the issue.

India has slammed Pakistan for its «unjustified» reference to Jammu and Kashmir in the UN General Assembly, with New Delhi asserting that such remarks will neither validate the country's claim nor justify its practice of cross-border terrorism. «As is their habit, the former foreign secretary of Pakistan today has made an unjustified reference to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,» India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador P Harish, said in remarks on Friday in the General Assembly at the informal meeting of the plenary to commemorate the International Day to combat Islamophobia.

It is happening across businesses and states, with the taxman snooping around for transaction details with organisations in financial services, hospitality, healthcare, real estate, manufacturing, and those linked to telecom and direct-to-home services. The aim is to collect evidence of tax evasion, misreporting, and racketeering by verifying various dealing records with the claims made by individuals and entities, under the scrutiny of the I-T Department. «The request for information spans multiple sectors, highlighting an increased dependence on third-party information, documents, and confirmations,» said Ashish Karundia, founder of CA firm Ashish Karundia & Co. Use of Sec 133(6) Multiplies

Infosys on Friday said it had reached an agreement with the plaintiffs of lawsuits pending against its US unit over the 2023 cyber incident. Infosys McCamish Systems has agreed to pay $17.5 million into a fund to settle all the pending class action lawsuits and resolve all allegations made in the incident. In November 2023, Infosys had disclosed that Infosys McCamish Systems was impacted by a cyber security event, resulting in the non-availability of certain applications and systems.