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A Gulf of Mexico storm rapidly intensified early today spinning into potentially the biggest hurricane to hit the mainland United States in 12 years and taking aim at the heart of nation's oil refining industry. The US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory that hurricane Harvey has strengthened to a category 2 storm, packing winds of 160 km per hour as it moved northwest about 355 km off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas. The storm is forecast to make landfall late today or early tomorrow, packing winds of up to 201 km per hour. The storm could bring a surge in sea levels as high as 12 feet and dump up to 35 inches of rain over parts of Texas. Flood warnings are in effect for northern Mexico and Louisiana. The threat has triggered evacuations and canceled the first day of school in communities along the south Texas coast, which is home to 5.8 million people from Corpus Christi to Galveston. Energy companies shut coastal refineries, pulled workers from Gulf of Mexico offsho...

Indian Space Research Organization ISRO has scheduled its next satellite launch on the 31st of this month. A release from the national space agency has said it would put into orbit the IRNSS-1H satellite at 18:59 hours on the day using the rocket PSLV-C39 from Sriharikotta. The release has further said, the payload would augment the capacity of India’s seven-satellite ‘NavIC’ constellation in space. The NavIC constellation provides spatial information on moving and non-moving objects in and around the country. It is considered to be the Indian equivalent of the GPS or the Glonass. The first satellite in the series, IRNSS-1A developed a technical snag earlier, as its rubidium atomic clock failed in space. The latest satellite is expected to take up the mantle of the first payload in the series after its launch.

Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu moved up a spot, while Kidambi Srikanth slipped two places in the latest BWF World ranking released a day ago. Sindhu reached the World No. 4 spot while Srikanth was placed at 10. Women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy rose a place to be placed at 24th spot, while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy were static at the 20th place. Among other Indians, Saina Nehwal (16th), B Sai Praneeth (19th), H S Prannoy (15th) and Ajay Jayaram (17th) remained static in their respective positions. There were no Indian pair in the top 25 of men's doubles rankings.  

Finance Minster Arun Jaitley today unveiled NITI Aayog's three Year Action Agenda which is an integral part of the 15 year Vision Document of India. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Jaitley said the action agenda has the potential to trigger much more economic activity and development than what the country has today. He said the document can be a good govt textbook which will be useful in the economic planning of the country. NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said the major impediment in job creation is that entrepreneurs of the country do not invest in labour intensive activities. Mr Panagariya said the document has been divided into seven parts including how to double farmers' income and civil services reforms among others.

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court today declared the right to privacy a fundamental right under the constitution. A nine-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar ruled that right to privacy is an intrinsic part of the Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution. The bench unanimously overruled the two earlier judgements of the apex court that the right to privacy is not protected under the Constitution. Several petitioners had challenged the validity of the Aadhaar scheme on grounds of it being violative of the right to privacy. The court had also voiced concern over the possible misuse of personal information in the public domain. The question whether Aadhaar violates right to privacy will be dealt with by the five-judge bench which has been hearing the petitions since 2015. Government and parties across political spectrum have welcomed Apex Court's verdict. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hailed the ...

A two-day Meeting of Heads of Governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States will begin today at Cholpon Ata in Kyrgyz Republic. The meeting will focus on prevention and elimination of emergency situations. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is leading the Indian delegation which includes senior officers from Home and External Affairs Ministries and National Disaster Management Authority. During the visit, the Home Minister is likely to have bilateral meetings with the Ministers of some of the SCO Member States. India got the full membership of SCO this year and Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended SCO's annual Summit meeting held in Astana, Kazakhstan in June this year. The participation of India as SCO Member will open additional opportunities for giving new impetus to the development of international cooperation in the field of protecting the population and territories from emergency situations within the framework of the SCO. impetus ˈɪmpɪtəs/ noun   the for...

The government today gave its go ahead to the RBI to issue 200 rupee notes that will ease pressure on lower-denomination currency bills. Finance Ministry, in a notification, said that on the recommendations of the Central Board of Directors of the RBI, government has notified bank notes of 200 rupees. The new 200 rupee notes are likely to be in circulation shortly . This is the fourth new note to be announced since November when 1000 and 500 rupee notes were demonetised. The introduction of the new notes is expected to ease the problems faced by people due to high-value 2,000 rupee notes.

Hato , the 13th typhoon to hit China this year, made landfall today in the city of Zhuhai in the southern Guangdong Province, bringing gales of up to 45 metres per second. The National Meteorological Center said Hato will move west and scale down to a tropical storm passing through Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region tonight. No casualties were reported in Guangdong Province. So far, 13 cities and counties in Guangdong have issued red alerts for the typhoon. Gales and downpours have suspended work, classes, and production in the cities of Zhuhai, Jiangmen and Zhongshan. Several expressways have also been closed. Initial investigation showed that the typhoon blew down over 2,000 trees, damaged signs, railings and fences on roads in the province. Power supplies were disrupted in some areas but had been partially restored. Flights were disrupted in Guangxi and rail services delayed or cancelled in Yunnan Province. The provincial flood control headquarters warned the typhoon will also bring h...

Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in Petroleum Ministry, Rajiv Bansal has been given additional charge of Chairman and Managing Director of Air India. This came following the appointment of incumbent Ashwani Lohani as the new Chairman of Railway Board. Mr. Bansal has been given charge for a period of three months.

The National Sports Museum will be established in New Delhi. Sports Ministry said in a release that the Museum will showcase India’s achievements in sports and also focus on the traditional sports within the country. Sports Minister Vijay Goel said, the aim of the Museum is to popularise the sports as a way of life within the country. Accordingly, the proposed Museum would go beyond the classical approach of a collection of memorabilia to become an interactive venue of interest for all age groups. In addition, the Sports Minister said, it will display achievements of the Indian greats in sports and also act as an educational hub and offer opportunity for the young to delve into some sporting activity. Mr Vijay Goel has appealed to all past and present sports persons and members of public to contribute any memorabilia held by them for permanent display in the National Sports Museum. He said such contribution will be recognized and acknowledged. The Museum will have audio-visual displ...

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce tomorrow its judgement on whether the right to privacy can be held as a fundamental right under the Constitution.  A nine-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J. S. Khehar had reserved its verdict on 2nd of this month after hearing marathon arguments. During the hearing, submissions were advanced in favour and against the inclusion of the right to privacy as a fundamental right. The contentious issue had emerged when the apex court was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes. During the arguments, the bench had earlier observed that the right to privacy cannot be an absolute right and the state may have some power to put reasonable restrictions. The Attorney General had also contended that right to privacy cannot fall in the bracket of fundamental rights as there were binding decisions of larger benches that it was only a...

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA has approved the renaming of the new Central Sector Scheme - SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) for the period of 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle. Earlier, the CCEA in its meeting in May this year had approved the SAMPADA with same allocation and period. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY). Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) for the period of 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle. Objective: The objective of the scheme is to supplement agriculture, modernize processing and decrease Agri-Waste. Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana with an allocation of 6 thousand crore rupees is expected to leverage investment of 31,400 crore rupees, handling of 334 lakh MT agro-produce valuing 1 lakh 4 thousand 125 crore rupees, benefit 20 lakh farmers and generate over 5 lakh 30 thousand direc...

Ahead of his main engagements tomorrow, visiting Prime Minister of Nepal Sher Bahadur Deuba met Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. In a tweet, Mr Modi said, he is happy to welcome Mr Deuba. The Prime Minister said, he is looking forward for more extensive talks with his Nepalese counterpart tomorrow. The Nepalese Prime Minister arrived New Delhi this afternoon on a 5-day visit to India. He was received by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. He will be accorded ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan tomorrow morning and thereafter he will visit Rajghat to pay tributes to father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. Mr Deuba will call on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. This is Mr Deuba's first visit abroad after assuming the office of Prime Minister of Nepal in June this year. A high-level delegation is accompanying the Nepalese Prime Minister. Apart from official engagements in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of Nepal will visit Hyderabad and Bod...

Ashwani Lohani will be the new Chairman of Railway Board, the appointment of Mr Lohani, an officer of the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers, IRSME, was cleared by Appointments Committee of the Cabinet today. He is presently serving as the Chairman and Managing Director of Air India. He has previously served as DRM, Delhi Division, Director of National Rail Museum and Chief Administrative Officer of Rail Alternate Fuel. Incumbent Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal today resigned owning moral responsibility for Muzzafarnagar train accident which had claimed over 20 lives. Earlier, the Rail Ministry had suspended four officers and transferred one and sent on leave its three top officials, including a secretary-level Railway Board official on the basis of prima facie evidence in connection with derailment of Utkal Express.

58th edition of Subroto Cup International Football Tournament began today in Delhi. Manipur defeated Haryana by 5-0 in the opening match of the Tournament. A total of 99 teams from India and abroad are participating across three categories in this edition of famous inter-school football tournament. Teams from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Afghanistan and Singapore are participating in this edition. The one month long football carnival will be played in three categories Sub-Junior boys (Under-14), Junior Girls (Under-17), Junior Boys (Under-17). This season seems to be more promising with a special emphasis on ''BETI-BACHAO, BETI-PADHAO, BETI-KHILAO''. Some of the key highlights of this edition will be special awards in different categories, an increase in cash awards, special initiatives like Delhi Darshan for participants.

Para Athlete Devendra and Hockey player Sardar Singh have been selected for this year's Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Cricketer Cheteshwar Pujara, Women Cricketer Harmanpreet Kaur and shooter P. N. Prakash are among the 17 sportsmen who will be given Arjuna Awards for their outstanding performance. Seven persons have been chosen for Dronacharya Awards for producing medal winners at prestigious International sports events. They include late Dr. R. Gandhi in Athletics, Brij Bhushan Mohanty in Boxing and P.A. Raphel in the filed of hockey. Dhyan Chand Award will be given to Bhupender Singh in Athletics, Syed Shahid Hakim in Football and Sumarai Tete in Hockey for their life time contribution to sports development. The awardees will received their awards from the President Ram Nath Kovind in a special function at Rashtrapati Bhawan on 29th of this month.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley chairs 17th meeting of FSDC The Council discussed the issues and challenges facing the Indian economy and stressed the need to keep constant vigil to manage any external and internal vulnerabilities. The Council noted that India has macro-economic stability today on the back of improvements in its macro-economic fundamentals, structural reforms with the launch of the GST and long-term positive consequences of demonetization. The FSDC also took note of the developments and progress made in setting up of Computer Emergency Response Team in the Financial Sector (CERT-Fin) and Financial Data Management Centre. Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. Arvind Subramanian made a presentation on the state of economy. RBI Governor Urjit Patel was also present in the meeting.

NITI Aayog will launch the Mentor India Campaign, a strategic nation building initiative to engage leaders who can guide and mentor students at Atal Tinkering Labs . More than 900 such labs have been established across the country as a part of the Atal Innovation Mission and by the end of the year 2000 such labs will be in place. An official release said, CEO NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant will unveil the online nationwide initiative in the national capital tomorrow. Atal Tinkering Labs are non-prescriptive by nature, and mentors are expected to be enablers rather than instructors. NITI Aayog is looking for leaders who can spend anywhere between one to two hours every week in one or more such labs to enable students experience, learn and practice future skills such as design and computational thinking. Atal Tinkering Labs are dedicated works spaces where students from Class 6th to Class 12th learn innovation skills and develop ideas that will go on to transform India. NITI Aayog’s Atal Inno...

The 10th round of negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement between India and Canada started in New Delhi today. The commerce ministry said both sides discussed issues relating to goods market access. The previous round of negotiations was concluded in New Delhi in March 2015. The negotiations for the agreement, officially dubbed as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), were launched in November 2010 to boost bilateral trade and investments. Liberalisation of norms for the services sector and phasing out of taxes on maximum number of goods traded between the countries are some of the contentious issues in the proposed pact. The 10th round was earlier scheduled to be held in Canada, but could not take off because of elections there and lack of traction on some key issues.

The board of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, ONGC, has given 'in-principle' approval to acquire government's 51(point)11 per cent stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd. The ONGC board at its meeting in New Delhi on Monday constituted a committee of directors to examine various aspects of the acquisition and to provide its recommendations to the board of directors. The government last month had approved sale of its 51.11 per cent stake in oil refiner HPCL to India's largest oil producer ONGC. The deal will be completed within a year. The government had also constituted a committee - headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan and road minister Nitin Gadkari to work out the modalities of the sale. Jaitley had in his Budget for 2017-18 talked about creating an integrated oil behemoth.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Union Ministry of Health today inked a pact with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) , South Korea to collaborate on vaccine research and development. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Director General of ICMR and Secretary, Department of Health Research, Manoj Jhalani, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Dr Jerome H Kim, Director General of IVI, South Korea. The ICMR is the apex body in the country for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research. An official statement said in New Delhi today that with a long history of scientific collaboration with IVI, India officially became a signatory to the treaty of the Seoul-based organisation in 2012. The IVI has 35 signatory countries. With this partnership, India is committing an annual contribution of USD 5,00,000 to IVI and joins Sweden and South Korea as financially contributing signatories to IVI

Navy inducts landing craft utility ship  The Navy has inducted a landing craft utility ship which will be deployed for a variety of activities including transporting battle tanks and other heavy weapons systems. The Navy said in a statement in New Delhi today that LCU L52 is the second Landing Craft Utility (LCU) Mk-IV class to be inducted into the Indian Navy. The ship has been indigenously designed and built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata. It said the primary role of LCU MK-IV ship is to transport and deploy main battle tanks, armoured vehicles, troops and equipment from ship to shore.

Dr Pinaki Panigrahi, a US-based doctor has discovered an inexpensive prevention technique against sepsis. He along with members of his team has found that feeding babies with probiotic bacteria dramatically reduces the risk of sepsis in newborns. This is a breakthrough study and going to be an inexpensive treatment that could possibly save hundreds of thousands of newborns from a top killer- Sepsis. Sepsis is a life-threatening illness caused by your body’s response to an infection. In early infancy it results in one million annual deaths worldwide, most of them in developing countries. No efficient means of prevention is currently available. All the sudden the baby stops being active. It stops crying and breastfeeding, says Dr. Panigrahi, a pediatrician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health. Sepsis is primarily caused by bacterial infections. While other infections can trigger sepsis further, it is mainly caused by infections like pneumonia, kidney infe...

Foreign direct investment, FDI, into the country grew by 37 per cent to 10.4 billion US Dollar during the first quarter of the current fiscal. According to the figures of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, DIPP, India had received around eight billion FDI US Dollar during the same period last year. The main sectors which attracted the highest foreign inflows include services, telecom, trading, computer hardware and software and automobile. Bulk of the FDI came in from Singapore, Mauritius, the Netherlands and Japan. The government has announced several steps to attract foreign inflows. The measures include liberalisation of FDI policy and improvement in business climate. Foreign investments are considered crucial for India, which needs around one trillion US Dollar for overhauling its infrastructure sector such as ports, airports and highways to boost growth. A strong inflow of foreign investments will help improve the country’s balance of payments situation and strengt...

Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the second round of the World Championship in men's singles with a straight game win over Russia's Sergey Sirant in the competition which began in Glasgow, Scotland today. The eighth seeded Indian, defeated Sirant 21-13, 21-12 in less than 30 minutes. Srikanth will now take on France's Lucas Corvee in the second round tomorrow. World No.8 Srikanth had won the Indonesia Super Series Premier and Australian Super series Open in June. India has sent its largest contingent comprising 21-shuttlers to the event with Rio Olympic Silver medalist PV Sindhu leading from front.

Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik and Asian champion Bajrang Punia will spearhead the Indian challenge at the World Wrestling Championships, starting in Paris today. Asian Championship Silver medalist, Sakshi will be on the mat on Thursday in 58kg category. Vinesh Phogat, another silver medallist at the Asian Championship, will also fancy her chances in women's 48kg. Meanwhile, Bajrang who had won bronze in the 2013 Budapest edition, in 60kg freestyle, has now climbed up a division to 65kg. Besides Bajrang, India will pin hopes on Olympian Sandeep Tomar in 57kg as he has performed consistently in the last couple of years. Among other freestyle wrestlers, Amit Dhankar in 70kg, Praveen Rana in 74kg and Satywart Kadiyan in 97kg category are also expected to bring in laurels for the country.

Teenager Shapath Bharadwaj today won a bronze medal in the double trap event while Lakshay Sheoran and Manisha Keer combined to win a bronze in the mixed team trap competition at the ISSF Junior Shotgun World Cup in Porpetto, Italy. The 15-year old Bharadwaj, from Meerut, shot a 48 in the final to finish behind gold-medal winning Briton James Dedman and silver medalist Finland's Miki Ylonen. This was India's first medal in the competition apart from the bronze won by Sheoran and Keer in the mixed team trap competition yesterday, which had the status of a test event. The competition concludes tomorrow with the junior men's skeet finals.

Prime Minister of Nepal Sher Bahadur Deuba will be on a five day visit to India from 23rd of this month. In a release, the External Affairs Ministry said today that this is Mr Deuba's first visit abroad after assuming the office of Prime Minister of Nepal in June this year. A high-level delegation will accompany the Nepalese Prime Minister. During his stay in India, the visiting dignitary will call-on the President and Vice President of India and will hold talks with the Prime Minister. The External Affairs Minister and other Ministers will call on the Prime Minister of Nepal.

The Constitution offers all citizens, individually and collectively, some basic freedoms. These are guaranteed in the Constitution in the form of six broad categories of Fundamental Rights, which are justiciable. Article 12 to 35 contained in Part III of the Constitution deal with Fundamental Rights. These are: Right to equality, including equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment. Right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association or union, movement, residence, and right to practice any profession or occupation (some of these rights are subject to security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency or morality). Right against exploitation, prohibiting all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic in human beings. Right to freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion...

The nation is remembering former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his 73rd birth anniversary today. Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra paid tribute to Rajiv Gandhi at his Samadhi, Vir Bhumi in the national capital. Several programmes are being organised in different parts of the country on the occasion. Mr Rajiv Gandhi served as the Prime Minister from 31st October 1984 to 2nd December 1989. He was assassinated on 21st May, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu during a poll campaign.