Mepco bill

(L) Dire wolf pups, Romulus and Remus, take a nap on the original Iron Throne prop from ‘Game of Thrones’, (R) Jon Snow holds up his dire wolf pup “Ghost”, in a still form ‘Game of Thrones’ | Photo Credit: Colossal Biosciences/ HBO The dire wolf, the legendary beast that once prowled North America and found … Read more

Dressing up is probably one of the most annoying things. You stand in front of a mirror and try to find the right combination of clothes of various colours hoping you look more tolerable to people. This is probably one trait that distinguishes us from other animals: we spend a few good minutes every morning … Read more

(1) Waqf Amendment Bill passes Parliament A Bill to improve the functioning of the Waqf Board and streamline the process of donating waqf properties passed both Houses of the Parliament on Saturday (April 5, 2025) after several hours of debate in the Lok Sabha. The controversial Bill was accused of allowing the government to interfere … Read more

Viburnum grandiflorum flowers in bloom in Kashmir. | Photo Credit: Anzar Khuroo Kashmir’s agroclimatic conditions are distinct from the rest of the country. The valley’s long, harsh winters leave the vegetation in dormancy. When spring arrives, it breathes new life into the landscape. The mountainous region is a home to a variety of endemic plants, … Read more

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh with directors of CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (CSIR-NGRI) and CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB). | Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT Hyderabad has emerged as a thriving ecosystem for scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship with the CSIR institutions playing … Read more

Security personnel stand guard following imposition of President’s rule in the state, in Manipur’s Imphal, on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI The statutory resolution for confirming the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur was adopted by the Rajya Sabha in the early hours of April 4, 2025 (Friday) and by the Lok … Read more

Culture is what we learn from others and pass on to successive generations by practising it over and over. Scientists have found cultural traditions among humans as well as animals, the latter in the way they forage, socialise, use tools, care for themselves, and mate. Among these traditions, the characteristic patterns of behaviour that involve … Read more

A representative illustration of the earth’s Hadean protocrust as it took shape. | Photo Credit: Image created with ChatGPT The Hadean protocrust is the name for the earth’s crust — its outermost layer — when it first formed. The ‘Hadean’ prefix refers to the planet’s first geologic aeon. At this time, within 200 million years … Read more

The late 1970s provided a rare alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune that scientists wanted to use to their advantage. Gravity assists, also known as slingshots or planetary swingby, are spaceflight manoeuvres that utilise the gravitational pull of a planet to change the spacecraft’s trajectory and velocity, thereby travelling farther and faster, while using … Read more

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a rare and aggressive form of leukemia, a cancer that affects blood cells. It is caused by a genetic mutation where two genes, PML and RARA, mistakenly fuse together. The fusion of the two genes leads to the production of fewer white blood cells and platelets, which reduce the body’s … Read more

Bats do not fatally crash into each other every night, even in colonies of hundreds of thousands of them, squeezing out of caves to forage. Bats perceive their world mostly through echolocation. Many bats echolocate at once when a whole colony emerges from a cave. As a result, the calls of others are drowned out. … Read more

The shingles vaccine reduced the probability of new dementia diagnoses by around one-fifth over seven years, according to a large-scale study of a population in Wales, UK. The results were published in Nature. This finding suggests that the vaccine could be a cost-effective strategy for preventing or delaying dementia. However, further research is needed to determine whether … Read more

India has made impressive gains in adapting aquaculture for the nutritional demands of its population. It is the third largest producer overall, ranking second in the production of prawns. Andhra Pradesh is by far the largest producer, with other West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Odisha making sizeable contributions along with Gujarat. Dietary preferences too have … Read more

Blackflies are carriers of a worm causing river blindness. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT A new study involving DNA barcoding to identify species accurately is expected to lead to better management and control strategies for blackflies, which are carriers of a worm causing river blindness. The findings by a team from the Diptera division of … Read more

Science Quiz | A reference point where water meets earth The second lowest-lying lake in the world, which lies just north of the Dead Sea. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | The first step to scientifically understanding the earth’s sea level is to determine the _____ — the shape that the surface of the … Read more

File picture of Ahaetulla longirostris from Valmiki Tiger Reserve | Photo Credit: Zeeshan A. Mirza via ResearchGate A rare long-snouted vine snake (Ahaetulla longirostris) has been rediscovered in the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, marking its first documented sighting in the state and only the second recorded instance in India, forest officials … Read more

India’s original constitutional scheme envisaged redrawing the map of Lok Sabha seats after every Census | Photo Credit: Vishal Mathew 10099@Mumbai A nation state, like a family, is designed on the premise that its resources and responsibilities are collectively shared by its members in an equitable manner agreed upon by the community. The stronger individuals … Read more

With the debate over Tamil Nadu’s refusal to adopt the three-language policy still ongoing, the latest data needed to address key questions on the issue is lacking. Vital data that could help bring clarity is the list of languages currently being taught in schools across the States. Notably, DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi raised this question … Read more

Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock photo GUWAHATI A new study has found a connection between cholesterol-rich gallstones exposed to toxic metals and gallbladder cancer (GBC) in Assam, one of the most affected regions globally. The study, led by a Tezpur University team, published in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Research in Toxicology, reveals how heavy metals … Read more

Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla is also one of the four astronaut-designates selected for the Gaganyaan mission of ISRO. Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will take place in May 2025. Group Captain Shukla will be the pilot of the upcoming Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4), which is the fourth private … Read more

The story so far: The powerful earthquake in Myanmar on March 28 had its source in central Myanmar, about 20 km from Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. Mandalay, located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy river, is close to one of the most seismically active faults in the region, called the Sagaing fault, named … Read more

Rapidly reducing aerosol emissions, which are part of air pollution, without concurrently reducing greenhouse gas emissions could expose a large fraction of the world’s most vulnerable people to a sudden acceleration of warming and extreme heat in highly polluted regions like India. Researchers warned as much in a study published in November 2024 in Geophysical … Read more

This image collage shows the location of the ChaSTE instrument onboard the Vikram lander. The lander was photographed by the Pragyan rover. | Photo Credit: ISRO As the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the moon on August 23, 2023, a thermal probe tucked snugly in its panels, slowly worked itself free and stretched … Read more

A handout made available by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on April 19, 2023, shows the tunnels of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) and the current Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva. | Photo Credit: European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN)/AFP Photo Top minds at the world’s largest atom smasher have released a … Read more

An aerial view of the new Parliament building in New Delhi | Photo Credit: ANI Since 2014, the Ministry of Home Affairs made 421 assurances in the Lok Sabha and 338 assurances in the Rajya Sabha, but ‘dropped’ close to 15% and 12% of them, respectively — the highest such share among all the Ministries … Read more

Some plants, like snapdragons, can produce a wide range of colourful flowers. The difference between two flowers of different colours can be elicited by comparing their genomes and spotting the differences there, according to Daria Shipilina, a researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. As an evolutionary biologist, Shipilina is fascinated by how … Read more

Private US lander Blue Ghost captured high-definition images of a lunar sunset. To cut costs, instead of carrying material from Earth, astronauts would need to use the abundantly available lunar soil, or ‘regolith’ – a complex mixture of broken minerals and rocks – to build structures on site. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science … Read more