The Indian 4x400m mixed relay team comprising Muhammad Ajmal, Jyothika Sri, Amoj Jacob and Subha Venkatesan broke the national record at the Asian Relay Championships 2024 on Monday.

The team won gold in the event clocking 3:14.12, shaving 0.22 seconds off the previous NR.

Ajmal and Subha were a part of the Indian side that held the previous national record of 3:14.34, achieved at the Asian Games 2023.

Sri Lanka and Vietnam won silver and bronze in the event, respectively.

India’s Ekta Bhyan secured the gold medal with a season’s best throw of 20.12m in the women’ F51 club throw competition at the World Para Athletic Championships here.

A day after Deepthi Jeevanji clinched the gold medal in women’s 400m T20 category race, Indian athletes continued their impressive run with Ekta producing the goods to finish in the top, while Kashish Lakra took the silver with an effort of 14.56m.

Ekta, a Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer, had won a bronze medal in the Asian Para Games China.

The 38-year-old, who took up sports after her selection in the Haryana government as HCS officer, also won gold medal in the club throw event at the 2018 Asian Para Games in Jakarta. She had also qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

European Union member states on Tuesday gave final agreement to the world’s first major law for regulating artificial intelligence, as institutions around the world race to introduce curbs for the technology.

The EU Council said it had approved the AI Act — a groundbreaking piece of regulatory law that sets comprehensive rules surrounding artificial intelligence technology.

“The adoption of the AI act is a significant milestone for the European Union,” Mathieu Michel, Belgium’s secretary of state for digitization said in a Tuesday statement.

“With the AI act, Europe emphasizes the importance of trust, transparency and accountability when dealing with new technologies while at the same time ensuring this fast-changing technology can flourish and boost European innovation,” Michel added.

State-owned Bank of Maharashtra recorded the highest growth rate last fiscal in terms of total business and deposit mobilisation among public sector lenders at a time when most banks are facing difficulty in achieving double-digit growth.

The Pune-headquartered lender has registered a 15.94 per cent rise in the total business (domestic) in FY24, followed by State Bank of India (SBI) with 13.12 per cent growth, according to published financial numbers of the public sector banks (PSBs).

However, SBI's total business (deposit and advances) was about 16.7 times higher at ₹79,52,784 crore compared to ₹4,74,411 crore of Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) in absolute terms.

Pakistan's Sirbaz Khan scaled the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, without using any supplementary oxygen.

Sirbaz Khan, an ace mountaineer from Pakistan, achieved yet another feat when he scaled Mount Everest without any supplementary oxygen, reported local media platform Geo TV.

Sirbaz Khan reached the top of the world's highest mountain at 12:30 pm local time, and became the only second Pakistani to scale the mountain without using oxygen.

Khan had previously scaled the 8849-metre peak using bottled oxygen. The only other person in Pakistan to achieve this feat is mountaineer Sajid Sidpara.

International Day of Biodiversity 2024: Biodiversity, the incredible variety of living organisms that inhabit our planet, is the foundation upon which human existence and well-being depend. This concept, first coined by Walter G. Rosen in 1985, encompasses the diversity of all life forms.

However, in recent decades, biodiversity has faced numerous threats, including habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, invasive species, and climate change, which is being driven by human activities and has led to the extinction of many species and the degradation of ecosystems worldwide.

To address this pressing issue and raise awareness about the importance of preserving biodiversity, the United Nations established the International Day for Biological Diversity. Here is all you need to know about the day.

Reigning world champion Nikhat Zareen and Minakshi clinched gold medals as the Indian team concluded their Elorda Cup 2024 campaign with 12 medals in Astana, Kazakhstan on Saturday.

Besides Nikhat and Minakshi’s gold medals, Indian boxers won two silver and eight bronze medals to better their last edition’s record of five medals.

Nikhat (52kg) continued her dominance in the ongoing prestigious tournament as she outclassed Zhazira Urakbayeva of Kazakhstan with an unanimous 5-0 scoreline to add yet another gold medal to her coveted medal tally.

Minakshi started the day for India with a bang when she defeated Uzbekistan’s Rahmonova Saidahon 4-1 in the women’s 48kg final to give India its first gold medal of the competition.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated the the Chinese pair of Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi 21-15, 21-15 in the final of the Thailand Open. It’s a tournament that has a special place in the careers of Satwik and Chirag as they won the title in 2019 for their first Superseries / Super 500 level victory. And on Sunday they clinched their Thailand Open title.

With the win, Satwik-Chirag are also set to reclaim the world No 1 ranking.

In the summit clash, the Indians continued their dominance that was seen all week, as they finished tournament without dropping a game.

The the world number three Indian pair, who are also the top seeds in this tournament, won their second World Tour title of 2024, to give with the win at French Open in March.

The Indian team picked up its first medals in the World Para Athletics Championships with high jumper Nishad Kumar and 200 metres runner Preethi Pal winning a silver and bronze in Kobe, Japan today.

Kumar, a Tokyo Paralympics silver medallist, cleared 1.99 metres to finish second in the men’s T47 high jump final and pick up India’s first medal on the third day of competitions. American Roderick Townsend won the gold with a jump of 2.05 metres.

Lai Ching-te took office as Taiwan's new president on Monday, facing an angry and deeply suspicious China that believes he is a "separatist", and a fractious parliament with an opposition champing at the bit to challenge him.

Lai was sworn in at the Japanese-colonial-era presidential office in central Taipei, taking over from Tsai Ing-wen, having served as her vice president for the past four years.

Lai will express goodwill towards China in his inauguration speech on Monday morning, and call for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to pursue peace, according to a senior official briefed on the matter.

Lai wore a purple tie, representing a butterfly native to Taiwan, and a yellow pin on his lapel of mustard flowers, a common plant in fields across the island.