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The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR The High Court of Karnataka on Friday sought a response from the State government on the suggestion made by amicus curiae that certain measures indicated in the draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for crowd management could be incorporated in the proposed the Karnataka Crowd Control (Managing Crowd at Events and place of Gathering) Act, 2025.Senior Advocate S. Susheela, who is acting as amicus curiae in the PIL petition suo motu initiated by the court on the issue of stampede that occurred outside M. Chinnaswamy stadium on June 4,…

Gurdeep Lal flips through a small booklet issued to him in 2015 by the Haryana Building and Other Construction Workers Board, which lists 22 welfare schemes aimed at providing for every eventuality in life and also death. In the nine years that he has been enrolled with the programme, he laments, he has not been able to access any of these schemes.Mr. Lal, 39, belongs to the Baazigar community and runs a grocery store in Chapra village in Haryana’s Shahbad Assembly constituency. As a Scheduled Caste voter, he has emerged as a prime target for the major political parties in…

In vegetables, inflation was 6.78% in January as against deflation of 3.50% in December. | Photo Credit: PTI Wholesale price inflation extended upward momentum for the third straight month, at 1.81% in January, driven by an uptick in prices of food, non-food articles, and manufactured items on a month-on-month basis, government data showed on Monday (February 16, 2026). Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was 2.51% in January last year, while in the previous month (December 2025), it was 0.83%.Also Read | What causes inflation in India: Demand or supply issues? | Data “Positive rate of inflation in January 2026 is…

USK captain Monank Patel in action against Namibia. | Photo Credit: R. RAGU The ICC T20 World Cup is the best chance for the emerging teams to show how much progress they have made in the two years since the previous edition. Unlike the ODI World Cup, which occurs every four years, the T20 World Cup is a biennial affair and is one tournament where the Associate nations have a good chance of surprising the full member teams.It hasn’t quite happened in this edition so far. Yes, Zimbabwe beat Australia, but they are not only a full member team, but…

A few years ago, Sunil Kaushik, an Indian innovation consultant, along with Japanese artist-writer Yuka Yokozawa, undertook an ambitious 500-day cycling journey from Thailand to Portugal. As they travelled across 17 countries and 38 borders, the duo faced numerous challenges, including getting lost in an Iranian desert, experiencing the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, and encountering a terrorist incident in Maçka, Turkey. However, the duo kept at it, and Yuka documented their travels in a memoir, Golden Hearts On The Road. Sunil Kaushik | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement “After completing our cross-continental journey, we settled in the forested region of Wayanad,…

Despite repeated humiliations, Pakistan is not done embarrassing itself on the world stage when it comes to Kashmir. Since 1990, on February 5 each year, Pakistan observes Kashmir Solidarity Day to show support and unity with the people of Jammu and Kashmir, attempting to present itself as the injured party in a dispute it has long reduced to propaganda.The smokescreen is one of showing solidarity with Kashmiri people, but what rarely enters these theatrics is the uncomfortable fact that the Kashmiris who actually live in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) enjoy neither meaningful political power nor control over their own land and…

For representative purposes. The story so far: Bio-based chemicals are industrial chemicals produced using biological feedstocks like sugarcane, corn, starch, or biomass residues, often through fermentation or enzymatic processes. Examples include organic acids (such as lactic acid), bio-alcohols, solvents, surfactants, and intermediates used in plastics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Enzymes are biological catalysts widely used in detergents, food processing, pharmaceuticals, textiles, pulp and paper, and increasingly in biomanufacturing. Enzymes often work at lower temperatures and pressures, reducing energy use and emissions.Why does India need such chemicals?India has strong fundamentals for scaling bio-based chemicals and enzymes: a large agricultural base, deep expertise…

Kurra Appa Rao taking charge as the chairman of the Guntur Mirchi Yard on Friday. | Photo Credit: T. Vijay Kumar The Andhra Pradesh government will accord a priority to the development of the Guntur Mirchi Yard (Agriculture Market Committee), one of the most significant market committees in Andhra Pradesh, Agriculture Minister K. Atchannaidu said on Friday.Addressing the oath-taking ceremony of the newly nominated market committee in Guntur, the Minister said the government was committed to the comprehensive development of the yard. He noted that chilli farmers had faced severe hardships under the previous regime and assured measures to curb…

Recently, the Tamil Nadu government made a gazette notification that heatwave is a state disaster, clubbing it with 13 other eventualities such as deaths caused by electrocution, thunderstorm and lighting, floods and snakebite. Families of victims including relief workers who died due to heatwave, would be eligible for an ex-gratia of ₹ 4 lakh. These are significant steps as greater onus is now on the State Government to take various measures to reduce heatwave-related causalities in the State (remember, heatwaves are not yet notified as a disaster at the national level under the existing disaster relief policies). Anup Kumar Srivastava, former senior…

RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra encouraged MSMEs to pursue formalisation, maintain credit discipline and adopt digital payments to build their long-term resilience and competitiveness, the RBI said. File Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Sanjay Malhotra on Monday (February 16, 2026) emphasised that improving access to timely and adequate formal credit for MSMEs remains a key policy priority of the Reserve Bank.He also outlined several policy and regulatory measures undertaken for the sector by the Government of India and the Reserve Bank at a meeting with select MSME representatives in Mumbai on Monday (February 16).Also Read: Bridging the credit gap for…