India Narrative

With 48 hours to go for the first phase of the crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP in Lucknow released its much-awaited election manifesto named 'Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra'. Home Minister, Amit Shah, chief minister, Yogi Adityanath were among the BJP  heavyweights who released the manifesto at Indira Gandhi Pratishthan at Gomti Nagar in Lucknow.  While keeping an eye on the farmers, the manifesto did not lose sight of its core Hindutva constituency  The manifesto promised "free electricity" for the farmers, but also offered a 'Ramayan University" at Ayodhya and "stricter Love Jihad Law." The BJP manifesto rolled out 10 years jail term and an Rs one lakh fine for an accused arrested under the "Love Jihad" law.  The party also promised the renovation of the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple.  The 13-month long farmers' unrest in states has somewhat disturbed the BJP's applecart in UP.  The party, which won a triumphal majority in 201...

Jammu and Kashmir is the first among all States and Union Territories across the country to be integrated with the National Single Window Clearance System (NSWS). The country’s youngest but largest UT achieved this pioneering distinction when Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha launched the Jammu and Kashmir Single Window Clearance System through the cyber domain www.singlewindow.jk.gov.in at Raj Bhawan in Jammu on Monday. The NSWS is linked with India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) which hosts 45 industrial parks of Jammu and Kashmir. This will help investors to discover available land parcels in the UT. A 2020 budgetary announcement of the Government of India, NSWS is a digital platform that serves as a guide for investors to identify and to apply for approvals as per their business requirements. The platform was soft launched in September 2021 by the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal. This integration will el...

  Complaints are pouring in from Athletes at the Winter Olympics in Beijing about being forced to compete in freezing temperatures due to the bad timing of events and chaotic implementation of quarantine rules. Some participants say they are living and training in dismal conditions, and want the organisers to improve arrangements, according to a BBC report. The Swedish delegation called for cross-country skiing events to be held earlier in the day to protect athletes from freezing temperatures - after Swedish athlete Frida Karlsson was seen shaking and close to collapse at the end of her women's 7.5km+7.5km skiathlon on Saturday, the BBC report said. Under the International Ski Federation rules, competitions are not allowed to take place when temperatures plunge below -20C (-4F). Read More

A team of Indian scientists has developed a new technology platform for fluorometric detection of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) that is more reliable than the existing techniques, according to information provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.  The technology platform detects viruses by measuring the fluorescent light that is emitted and can also be used to detect other DNA/RNA pathogens such as HIV, influenza, HCV, Zika, Ebola, bacteria, and other mutating pathogens. Scientists from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, an autonomous institute of the government, along with scientists from IISc (India Institute of Science), have demonstrated a noncanonical nucleic acid-based G-quadruplex (GQ) topology targeted reliable conformational polymorphism (GQ-RCP) platform to diagnose Covid-19 clinical samples. This work has been published recently in the journal ‘ACS Sensors’ and the team has also filed a patent for the novel technology. Read More  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a scathing attack on the Congress in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, blamed the party’s “dynastic politics” for many crises that the country had to face since independence. "Some members asked- if there was no Congress, what would happen... I would like to say, if there was no Congress there would be no Emergency, there would be no caste politics, Sikhs would never have been massacred, the problems of Kashmiri Pandits would not have happened, if Congress would not have been there, there would've been no incident of daughters being thrown in 'tandoor'," said PM Modi, in his reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address. "It was said here, 'Congress na hoti, toh kya hota'. It's a result of the thinking, 'India is Indira, Indira is India.' Mahatma Gandhi knew what would happen if they continue to be and he wanted to disband them beforehand," he added. "Had Congress ceased to b...

 External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's visit to the Philippines starting this weekend is set to cement special ties between New Delhi and Manila riding of their recent BarhMos missile deal, widely touted as a game-changer in the South China Sea. The two countries are now looking at working together in the fields of maritime security, intelligence-sharing, military training, procurement and logistics.  The Philippines' Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and BrahMos Aerospace Director General Atul Dinkar Rane had signed the contract worth PHP 18.9 billion in a virtual ceremony at the DND headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City on January 28. Calling it a landmark move, the western Pacific Ocean country said it realises the importance of the contract considering escalating regional tensions, especially China's strategic expansion into the South China Sea. "Equipping our Navy with this vital asset is imperative as the Philippines continues to protect the integrity o...

  Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chains KFC and Pizza Hut have both apologised after they faced an outrage on social media over posts from the twitter handles of their franchises in Pakistan supporting Kashmiri separatists. Several screenshots of posts by KFC Pakistan surfaced online in which the fast-food chain had claimed support for "Kashmir Solidarity Day". In a social media post, a verified account of KFC had supported the separatists in Kashmir and posted "Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris." Similarly, an Instagram post from the verified account of 'Pizzahutpak' had said, "We stand with you. Kashmir Solidarity Day." This triggered a huge backlash as #BoycottKFC and #BoycottPizzaHut started trending on Twitter after which both fast-food chains issued statements to apologise and distance themselves from their Pakistani counterparts. "We deeply apologize for a post that was published on some KFC social media channels outside the country. We hono...

 A recent study has found that there is an almost 27 per cent increase in heart disease risk in postmenopausal women who experience both high levels of social isolation and loneliness. The study has been published in the 'JAMA Network Open Journal'. The findings of the prospective study revealed that social isolation and loneliness independently increased cardiovascular disease risk by 8 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively. If women experienced high levels of both, their risk rose 13 per cent to 27 per cent compared to women who reported low levels of social isolation and low levels of loneliness. "We are social beings. In this time of COVID-19, many people are experiencing social isolation and loneliness, which may spiral into chronic states," said first author Natalie Golaszewski, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California San Diego. "It is important to further unders...

Neelum Valley:  The main source of livelihood of some local farmers residing in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) is under threat due to a surge in the import of Chinese walnuts, placing the lives of 30,000 families at stake. There is strong competition for organic Kashmiri walnuts in the market with the arrival of Chinese walnuts. Although walnuts coming from China have soft shells and white kernels, Pok walnuts are organic and better in taste. Unfortunately, they are outnumbered by the Chinese nuts in volume. Writing for the Dawn newspaper, Pakistani Prof Sajid Mir said growing organic walnuts at home provided easy seasonal income for villagers in PoK. However, climate change and lack of government attention are turning opportunities into a challenge. According to Mir, there is a general downturn in the walnut business due to several reasons including the unusual phenomenon of rains over the last decade. This has led to drop in dry fruit rates to a quarter of their price over the l...

The Pakistani army has publically accused the Taliban government of giving shelter to terrorists who are carrying out attacks on Pakistan from Afghan soil. "Terrorists from inside Afghanistan across the international border, opened fire on Pakistani troops in Kurram District. Pakistani troops responded in a "befitting" manner causing heavy causalities to terrorists, however, as a result of the exchange of fire, five Pakistani soldiers were martyred," read a statement issued by the Pakistani army’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday. Though the Taliban has denied the firing had come from within Afghan territory, the Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said that the attack was launched by militants of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who are given shelter by the Taliban in Afghanistan. He told the media that till now Pakistan has been down playing the incidents but now the situation has gone out of control. “Pakistan is running out o...