Author: Indmedia

The crop is cultivated over a period of 100 to 105 days between April and July. Chennai: Inadequate irrigation supply has forced farmers in the Cauvery delta to scale down kuruvai, the short-duration paddy crop, by nearly one lakh acres this season, with Nagapattinam, Ariyalur, Trichy, Thiruvarur and Thanjavur among the worst-affected districts. Against the average coverage of 4.4 lakh acres recorded over the past five years, kuruvai cultivation has been taken up on only 3.47 lakh acres this year, said sources from agriculture department. The crop is cultivated over a period of 100 to 105 days between April and…

Ahmedabad: With a change of jurisdiction for criminal courts in the city, the special courts for cheque return cases will hear only those complaints filed by financial institutions. Individual complainants will have to approach the regular criminal courts at Gheekanta.An office order issued by chief judicial magistrate (CJM) D H Khambhat on Wednesday states that due to enormous pendency of institutional complaints before special Negotiable Instruments Act courts, “it has become administratively necessary to rationalise the distribution of judicial business so as to ensure balanced allocation of work, effective utilisation of available judicial resources and expeditious disposal of cases”.The CJM…

Saxena has previously worked with international conservation bodies, including IUCN and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and was a lead author of the 2018 IPBES Global Assessment on Land Degradation and Restoration. GURGAON: When countries seek UNESCO World Heritage status for forests, national parks and other natural sites, their nominations undergo an independent scientific review before reaching the World Heritage Committee.For the 2027 round of nominations, one of those reviewers will be Haryana’s Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer, Dr Vivek Saxena.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), UNESCO’s advisory body on natural heritage, has selected the 1991-batch…

Shillong: An unattended bag and trolley at a parking area in Khyndailad’s busy Police Bazaar triggered a bomb scare on Wednesday morning.Police rushed to the spot, cordoned off the area and stopped vehicles as a precaution.Before a bomb disposal team arrived, the owner returned and claimed the items, ending the scare. Police said he parked the trolley and bag while heading to the MUDA complex for work and forgot to pick them up.After verifying his identity and recording his statement, police found nothing suspicious in the bag and reopened the road to traffic.City police have urged the public to promptly…

Jhansi: Sub-inspector (Armed Police) Kamlesh Kumar, posted at the Reserve Police Lines in Jhansi, died here on Wednesday after his health suddenly deteriorated.According to police, Kumar, 59, felt unwell in the morning and was immediately taken by his family members to the district hospital for treatment. However, doctors declared him dead upon examination. Following the incident, the mandatory inquest and post-mortem procedures were carried out as per rules.As per CO city Ramveer Singh, the deceased S-I was accorded with a ceremonial farewell with full state honours. Senior police officers and personnel paid tribute to the deceased officer with a guard…

The gang collected processing fees for jobs which the victims never got Ghaziabad: Twenty people, 17 of them women, were arrested for allegedly operating a fake call centre out of Sahibabad on Wednesday.According to the police, the main accused, Abhishek Jain, cheated hundreds of people last year across the country.DCP (Trans-Hindon and City) Dhawal Jaiswal, told TOI that during interrogation, Abhishek revealed that he, along with his relatives — his wife Hina; uncles Sunil Jain, Piyush Jain among others — and an associate, Salim was running a fake call centre in a firm registered as Jainson International.“The accused provided the…

Moshi’s waste-to-energy plant Pune: Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Wednesday suspended chief engineer of the environment department Sanjay Kulkarni and executive engineer Yogesh Alhat for alleged negligence in the July 8 Moshi waste-to-energy plant tragedy that claimed nine lives.Municipal commissioner Vijay Suryawanshi ordered a departmental inquiry against the two after rejecting their replies to the show-cause notices issued on Monday. He termed their explanations “unsatisfactory, illogical and not in accordance with municipal rules” in the suspension order.The order alleged that the two officers failed to act against the illegal construction and violations of environmental norms at the Moshi waste…

Chandigarh: The FBI on Tuesday added 26-year-old Indian national Nitish Kaushal alias Lala to its Most Wanted list, accusing him of carrying out violence, kidnappings and assaults for the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria gang.”Kaushal is wanted for his alleged involvement in a transnational criminal organisation engaged in murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, extortion, weapons trafficking, money laundering and human smuggling,” the FBI stated. The agency said a federal court in Los Angeles issued an arrest warrant for Kaushal on June 25, charging him with “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations” conspiracy. Prosecutors use these charges to target entire criminal enterprises—from street-level thugs to top…

The searches were carried out on July 16, 2026, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in connection with ECIR No. ECIR/LKZO/14/2024. LUCKNOW: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Lucknow Zonal Office, on Thursday conducted simultaneous search operations at 13 premises across West Bengal, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other locations as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation into an alleged terror funding and illegal infiltration network.The searches were carried out on July 16, 2026, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in connection with ECIR No. ECIR/LKZO/14/2024.According to the…

Patna: A day after a marine engineer from Gopalganj district was killed when Iranian cruise missiles struck two UAE tankers near the Strait of Hormuz late Monday, Gopalganj district magistrate Sameer Saurabh said the administration had begun helping the family with the repatriation process. He said a govt representative had been sent to the family’s residence to assist them with the required documentation and formalities for bringing Rohan’s body back to India.The youngest of three brothers, Rohan had gone back to work slightly more than a month ago after spending time with his family. He had reportedly left for a…