Browsing: India

(Top row, from left) Pradeep Chauhan, alleged ringleader and IT head of the examination centre; Arun Kumar; and Vivek Kumar. (Bottom row, from left) Sandeep Bhati, Nishant Raghav, Shakir Malik; and Amit Rana. Noida: As NEET, India’s main medical entrance exam, finds itself in choppy waters after a paper leak, yet another exam fraud has come to light, this time in UP.The special task force (STF) has arrested seven members of an organised racket involved in sophisticated manipulation of the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) online recruitment examinations. The accused were allegedly helping candidates clear competitive exams by giving answer writers…

Chandigarh: With just three days left before Punjab heads to the civic body polls, the state election commission (SEC) announced that a total of 7,555 candidates have been cleared to contest the upcoming municipal general elections. The state is gearing up for a high-stakes, multi-cornered contest scheduled for May 26.Leading the charge is incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has fielded 1,801 candidates, followed by the Congress with 1,550 candidates, closely rivalled by 1,528 Independent candidates. The BJP has fielded 1,316 candidates and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is in the fray with 1,251 candidates. Additionally, the BSP has put…

Lucknow: Four members of a family, including three children, were killed and a woman critically injured after a speeding dumper truck ran over them while they were sleeping outside their home in Barabanki early Saturday.The accident occurred in Jhansa village of Fatehpur Kotwali area.Police said the family was sleeping on the roadside due to a power outage. The speeding truck rammed into a tree and then crushed the family.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the loss of lives.Neeraj, 35, and his son Anurag, 13, died on the spot, while Neeraj’s wife Aarti, 32, and Anshika, 10, and Anshu, 6,…

Patna: Intach Patna chapter and the Bihar Puravid Parishad on Saturday urged the state govt to immediately register historically and archaeologically important buildings as protected monuments during a seminar on Patna’s heritage structures.Inaugurating the event, Intach’s Prem Sharan appealed for preservation of the historic Sultan Palace, saying demolition of heritage structures damages cultural identity. He also released a book on Patna Kalam and described the art form as an important source for historical research.Professor Kamini Sinha of NIT Patna said conservation efforts require public participation and warned that destruction of heritage buildings weakens Patna’s 3,500-year-old historical continuity.Professor Anushree Barman presented…

Jaisalmer: Union Home minister Amit Shah is scheduled to arrive in for a two-day visit on May 25 and May 26, during which he will outline plans for a ‘Smart Border Project’ and a ‘New Border Security Strategy’ focused on hybrid warfare and drone warfare along the international border with Pakistan.The proposed ‘Smart Border Project’ will be equipped with drones, radar, modern cameras and other technologies aimed at creating an impenetrable border grid. During the visit, Shah will meet BSF jawans deployed on the India-Pakistan international border to boost their morale. He will also hold a high-level review meeting on…

Ranchi: A considerable number of people visited various polling stations across the state, including Ranchi, on Saturday to check the list of unmapped voters and confirm whether their names were included or not.The office of the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO) had released the list containing names of voters whose mapping could not be completed in the run-up to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, scheduled to begin in June.CEO K Ravi Kumar said that the unmapped voter list will be displayed at all polling booths for the next two weeks from Saturday. Voters can visit their…

Varanasi: Three days after dividing their property among family members, an elderly couple was found dead inside their house in Gomadih village under Gambhirpur police station in Azamgarh district on Saturday. Their daughter alleged that they were poisoned to death by relatives.The deceased were identified as Shyamlal (80) and his wife Basanta Devi (70).After taking stock of the incident site, Azamgarh CO (Lalganj) Bhupesh Pandey on Saturday said that prima facie, the deaths appeared to be caused by consumption of a toxic substances. Police and forensic teams collected evidences before the bodies were sent for postmortem examination while further investigation…

Thiruvananthapuram: Even as the CPM leadership rejected the reports about criticism against former chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM state secretary M V Govindan in the post-election party committee meetings, area committees continues to witness harsh criticism against both the functionaries for the huge setback the party suffered in the assembly election.CPM is holding discussions in the lower-level party committees, giving opportunities to party workers to freely express their opinion as part of analyzing the reasons that led to the debacle in the election. Interestingly, the criticism against Vijayan and Govindan are also coming from those who celebrated Vijayan as…

Kolkata: The Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) recent mandate requiring a third language at the secondary level has triggered concern among parents, students and school administrators, particularly over mid-session implementation and the impact on those who have been studying a foreign language as their second language.The revised policy states that students must study three languages at the secondary level, with at least two being native Indian languages, including options such as Hindi and Sanskrit. Families said the change increases curriculum burden and forces many children to switch tracks after years of learning a foreign language.Parents argued that the transition…

We condemn corruption in public, but justify it in private at what cost to our collective soul? SAAD ASLAM In our hurried, hyper-connected world, we like to believe that we are more advanced than any generation before us. We carry the sum of human knowledge in our pockets, speak across continents at the touch of a button, and watch events unfold in real time from anywhere on the globe. Yet, despite all this progress, a nagging question haunts our public and private lives: have we grown in ethics and morality, or merely in cleverness and convenience? Across our social and…