Jaipur, July 9 (IANS) The 'Raksha Bandhan' festival this year will be celebrated with local flavour in Rajasthan, as many organisations in the state are following the Prime Minister's call for 'Vocal for Local'.   They have started making handmade 'rakhis', boycotting Chinese raw materials which till last year dominated the 'rakhi' manufacturing market.   Banswara will lead the show in this context as women there have pledged to

Nimo/Leh, July 9 (IANS) In a quaint little village with tall poplars swinging gently in the summer bloom against the bare lofty mountains, 1962 war veteran Tsering Tashi giggles with exuberance over the thought that Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his village just a week ago.   "I did not know that he, the Prime Minister of India, was right here in my village, talking to soldiers. Got to know after he left," Tashi laughs.   Tashi quickly adds, "

Dharamsala, July 6 (IANS) Reaffirming Washington's continued support to the Tibetan cause, US Ambassador to India, Kenneth Ian Juster, on Monday greeted Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on his 85th birthday by admiring his tireless efforts to seek freedom for Tibetans and bringing an end to strife and hostility around the world.   "Your Holiness, it is a special privilege to know you and to be the chief guest at this celebration of your 85th birthday," J

By Aarti Tikoo Singh Leh, July 6 (IANS) Around 30,000 troops of Indian Army are in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LoC) in Ladakh, following the additional deployment of three brigades since the violent face-off last month. Highly placed sources told IANS that in normal times six brigades, that is two divisions are maintained along the LAC in Ladakh, even as troops are deployed in and out on a rotation basis. However, af

BY R. K. PACHNANDA  IANS | July 4 Union Home Minister Amit Shah made a very profound and pertinent statement that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, we shall overcome the two "jung" of COVID-19 and China and win both battles.   Our visionary Prime Minister's leadership in the battle against the unprecedented catastrophe -- COVID-19 -- has been unflinching, unparalleled and truly inspirational and needs to be emulated by other nations. Apart

BY SUMIT KUMAR SINGH New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) The controversial proposal to annex Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which is to change the semi-autonomous status of the region, is being pushed by Pakistan to help China secure the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), security agencies have told the government. India is opposing the proposed move.   The developments in Pakistan related to Gilgit-Baltistan and diminishing role of terrorist lea

New York, July 3 (IANS) There are currently 18 candidate vaccines in key clinical trials globally but despite encouraging preliminary data coming from some research labs, a Covid-19 vaccine is nowhere near while new corona cases are mounting in several countries including in India.   No vaccines have yet started their large and critical Phase-III trials in the US.   Drug maker Moderna's Phase-III trial which was supposed to start from July 7 "will likely

BY NAVNEET MISHRA AND KAMLESH SINGH New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) National General Secretary Ram Madhav is one of the BJP's high-profile faces. Since becoming spokesperson of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 2003, he has subsequently been in the news not only in the country but also in the international media as the face of the saffron party.   At that time, he was also known as something of a global ambassador of the RSS. After spending a long time in the RSS, he was

As climate change is eroding age-old certainties, a new cast of characters is searching for answers in the sky   LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - In the twilight years of past civilisations, astrologers would scour the heavens for signs of impending calamity. In an era where climate change is eroding age-old certainties, a new cast of characters is searching for answers in the sky.   A small but growing network of asset managers, academics, start-up entrepreneurs and camp

BY PUJA GUPTA New Delhi, July 2 (IANSlife) We are one of the biggest and fastest growing economies, however there is data prove that if female employment rates were equal to male employment rates, that alone will make India richer by 27 percent. The actual participation of women in both the formal and informal economies has actually shrunk from 36 percent to 24 percent in the last 10 years, points out Vinay Subramanyam - Head - Marketing - Britannia Industries.   With

Poor communities in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia have been left homeless and exposed in the midst of the pandemic, charity says   NAIROBI, July 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 40,000 people across East Africa have been forcibly evicted from their homes since March, putting them at risk of contracting the new coronavirus, said charities on Wednesday, calling for a moratorium on all evictions during the pandemic.   The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) found

As the coronavirus spreads, it has reached the western Amazon's Javari Valley, home to the world's remaining uncontacted indigenous groups   BRASILIA, June 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Dozens of indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon's Javari Valley - an area the size of Switzerland and Denmark combined - have contracted COVID-19, with experts and officials warning the disease poses a huge threat to their lives and culture.   The valley in the we

BY VISHNU MAKHIJANI  New Delhi, June 29 (IANS) Growing up in a traditional middle-class family in Ranchi, writing was "one of those things" that 29-year-old Kritika Pandey -- the Asian regional winner of the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and one of the five contenders for the top award -- did to keep herself occupied. The other was reading and these two activities proved to be the "perfect escape from being locked up at home" because they helped her

BY NISHANT ARORA  New Delhi, June 29 (IANS) The COVID-19 onslaught has accelerated the pace of IT modernisation and digital transformation via Cloud-driven solutions in the vast public sector in India and various state governments are fast embracing the Cloud technology to reduce the infection rate while efficiently managing the lockdown, a top global Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive has stressed.   According to Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public S

New Delhi, June 27 (PTI): China will have to pay a "heavy price" for decades for resorting to aggressive military behaviour towards India in eastern Ladakh as it will isolate the country globally, strategic affairs experts said on Saturday.   They said the economic cost of China's misadventure in the last couple of months in eastern Ladakh and South China will be "massive" as it has "exposed" Beijing's "real face" when the enti

Dharamsala, June 27 (IANS) The ongoing military aggression across the Himalayas is not the first by China and it won't be the last. India never shared a border with China -- it is the Indo-Tibet border. Knowing its strategic significance, India should consider the geopolitical importance of Tibet as one of its core issues.   These were the views of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) President Lobsang Sangay, globally known as Prime Minister-in-exile, regarding a Himala

BY ANINDYA BANERJEE  New Delhi, June 26 (IANS) Was the donation from the Chinese Embassy towards the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) just a tip of the iceberg or was it an aberration?   IANS has learnt that between 2004 and 2005, the Foundation, which is now run by Sonia Gandhi, had ran the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS), which in turn was linked to a body that the US government in a 'staff research report' in 2018 called a "fron

BY ANANTH KRISHNAN IANS | June 26  Yadong, on the southern edge of Tibet, is where China meets India. Getting there takes you right across the roof of the world, a day-long drive from Lhasa. As I leave Lhasa and head south, towards India, the long and winding road traverses pristine lakes, many of which are sacred for Tibetans, their banks dotted with dozens of worshippers lying prostrate, yaks in tow. Our journey ends in the Chumbi Valley town of Yadong, a small, muddy and

BY SUMIT SAXENA New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) With India vulnerable to a second wave of the Covid pandemic, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Director Randeep Guleria feels in order to contain a further surge, a limited lockdown in hotspots and extensive contact tracing, where volume of cases is high, can be considered along with a micro-plan to prevent leakage into other non-containment areas.   In an exclusive chat with IANS, Guleria said the wave of Covid cases ma

Leh, June 24 (IANS) Ringzin is 65 years old but keen to report for duty on the LAC and help the Indian Army in whichever way possible.   He is one of the many porters in Ladakh who volunteered to carry material to themountain tops during the Kargil conflict in 1999 to evict the Pakistani intruders from the heights - a feat he is proud of and ready to repeat anytime.   Ringzin had retired from the army years before the Kargil conflict, but a strong urge to serve th