Mepco bill

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav speaks during a plenary session at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, on November 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. | Photo Credit: AP India will declare its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) as well as issue its Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) by December end, Environment Minister, Bhupender Yadav said in Belem, … Read more

An image of Caenorhabditis elegans worms. | Photo Credit: Megha Rai/Special arrangement Animals often meet the same threats across generations. A central question in biology is whether experience with a threat can be passed from parents to offspring in a way that changes the latter’s behaviour. In the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, one such experience is … Read more

Several medical treatments, particularly for genetic ailments, rely on symptomatic management instead of correcting the causative issue. Precision biotherapeutics bring together genetic science, molecular biology, and data analytics to design therapies that identify and rectify the cause of illness. What are precision biotherapeutics? Precision biotherapeutics refers to medical interventions—drugs, therapies, or biological products—that are designed … Read more

Image for representation. | Photo Credit: Reuters According to the Global Inequality Report, 83% of countries experience high income inequality, representing 90% of the world’s population. A high level of income inequality corresponds to a Gini coefficient above 0.4. A Gini coefficient of 0 indicates perfect equality, while a value of 1 represents perfect inequality. … Read more

Time for us is a constant, relentlessly moving forward. The ticking of a clock on the wall, the steady march of seconds on a digital display — they’re such familiar concepts that we rarely stop to consider the physical processes that underpin them. At its heart, any clock is a physical system that evolves in … Read more

Drilling microscopic holes in brittle materials like glass and ceramics, essential for smartphones, medical devices, and microfluidic chips, has long posed a challenge for manufacturers. Conventional methods often crack the material or fail when debris clogs narrow, deep holes. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have demonstrated how ultrasonic-assisted electrochemical discharge machining (UA-ECDM) … Read more

In 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space. This coronal mass ejection (CME) travelled at over 1,450 km per second. This event is depicted in this representative image. | Photo Credit: NASA Astronomers have said they have detected a powerful storm … Read more

File photo of ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan | Photo Credit: PTI ISRO is gearing up for one of its busiest times with seven more launches planned this financial year, even as India’s first human spaceflight remains scheduled for 2027, its Chairman V. Narayanan said. In an interview with PTI, he said ISRO is preparing for … Read more

Let us begin with a basic truism. Every age wants to believe that it is uniquely doomed. There is narcissistic self-love disguised as loathing, as well as an exaggerated projection of achievement bordering on destruction in that belief. Poets, writers, film-makers, culture-pundits, all invest various vocabularies of panic to creatively design doom stories, the more … Read more

When laughter is shared in a social setting, it becomes louder and more frequent. | Photo Credit: Sabbir Bhuiyan/pexels In a study conducted by the German paediatric surgeon Winfried Barthlen, clowns were asked to interact with hospitalised children awaiting surgery. Not surprisingly, these children showed less anxiety after a happy session with a clown. An … Read more

Argha Manna. Photo: https://csd.iitgn.ac.in/ From cancer to comics, from scientist to artist, from MIT to IIT — it has been an unusual journey for Bengal boy Argha Manna, who spent a chunk of his youth peering into the microscope but who later realised it was more fun spreading science through graphic art. On Saturday (November … Read more

The story so far: On November 10, New Delhi witnessed a massive explosion near the Red Fort complex. An i20 car parked at the signal of the complex exploded, destroying several nearby cars, buses, and the people inside them. As of now, 13 people have been confirmed dead. What do forensic experts do? Experts of … Read more

Space is the vast area beyond the earth’s atmosphere, filled with stars, planets, and galaxies. In this airless environment, one of the most critical differences from life here is the absence of atmospheric pressure. Why is pressure important? The atmosphere is a thick layer of gases held around the earth by its gravity. It protects … Read more

For millions worldwide, waking up with stiff, aching fingers that take hours to loosen is a daily battle — one waged by their own immune system. This is rheumatoid arthritis, a condition where the body’s defences mistakenly attack the joints they’re meant to protect. Currently affecting about 18 million people worldwide, the Global Burden of … Read more

JWST observation of Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. (This article forms a part of the Science for All newsletter that takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Subscribe now!) 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed interstellar object to pass through the Solar System, after 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. It was first … Read more

For many decades now, scientists and biologists have been trying to understand how the mesmerising patterns in animal coats emerge from a group of underdeveloped cells. The British mathematician Alan Turing proposed in the early 1950s that as cells and tissue develop, they produce certain molecules or chemical agents that diffuse into their surroundings, react … Read more

The new species was discovered while surveying an endangered wildflower. [email protected]_performer As if deadly snakes, spiders and sharks were not enough, Australia now has a new creepy critter: a “lucifer” bee with devil-like horns. The species — dubbed Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer — was found in the state of Western Australia, Curtin University announced on Tuesday … Read more

In November 2020, as the world battled the COVID-19 pandemic, a different kind of breakthrough captured global attention. Google DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold model had solved the protein-folding problem, one of biology’s most stubborn puzzles. The announcement was hailed as the scientific equivalent of a moon landing. Newsrooms called it a revolution that could … Read more

Were you able to read this without yawning? | Photo Credit: Sander Sammy/Unsplash A: Yawning may spread because our brains are tuned to mirror others. When we see or hear a yawn, circuits involved in social mirroring and empathy may prime the throat and face muscles to mirror it. This may have helped groups of … Read more

File photo of a Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Three Chinese astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed by space debris hitting their vessel last week will return to their landing site on Friday (November 14, 2025), the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement. The … Read more

By November, as the festival lights of Diwali fade and winter approaches, Guwahati usually enjoys cooler evenings, lower humidity, and a calm that signals the close of the tea-harvesting season. But in recent years, this rhythm has grown uncertain. Persistent heat, delayed rainfall, and muggy air now linger well past October, blurring the boundaries of … Read more

Supporters gather at a rally by LoP in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, unseen, during Bihar Assembly elections, in Kishanganj One of the most closely watched trends in the Bihar 2025 Assembly Elections was the Congress party’s performance within the Mahagatbandhan (grand alliance). In the 2020 elections, the party had recorded the … Read more

Chinese astronaut Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie meet the press before the upcoming Shenzhou-20 spaceflight mission, at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Friday, state TV footage showed, after a delay caused by their spacecraft being struck by … Read more

LoP in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Bihar Congress President Rajesh Ram during the second leg of ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, in Bihar In the 31 Assembly Constituencies of Bihar where the Mahagatbandhan (Grand Alliance) conducted its 1300 km Voter Adhikar Yatra across more than 20 districts, … Read more

Science Quiz: Kindness in the animal kingdom Visual: Name these ants famed for their size, their termite-feeding behaviour, and for carrying injured mates back from termite nests. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Name these ants famed for their size, their termite-feeding behaviour, and for carrying injured mates back from termite nests. 2 / … Read more

The COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, in Belem, Brazil. The report warns that the world is critically under-investing in health systems needed to withstand climate impacts | Photo Credit: AP   As COP30 begins on Monday (November 10, 2025) in Belém, Brazil, a new international report from adelphi, Europe-based independent think‑and‑do tank, has spotlighted a critical … Read more

(1) NDA and INDIA bloc release their manifestos for upcoming Bihar Elections 2025 The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) released its joint manifesto for the upcoming Bihar Assembly election on Friday (October 31, 2025). Urging voters to choose Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister, the NDA’s slew of promises include creation of one crore jobs, freebies in power, ration, … Read more

India’s geographical diversity and growing climate vulnerabilities place it squarely in the path of a wide array of natural hazards — most of them weather-related. From cyclones and floods to thunderstorms, lightning, and heat waves, the country faces year-round meteorological challenges that differ by region and season. In recent years, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) … Read more

Last week, online retail giant Amazon announced that it would reduce its global corporate workforce by about 14,000 people. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had already flagged the possibility of job cuts in June, saying the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and agents would lead to more corporate job cuts. A week before Amazon’s … Read more