The founder of Sulabh International, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, has been honoured with the Nikkei Asia Prize in Japan for his contribution to Asia's development, an official statement said today.

Pathak is among the three who have been conferred with the award.

According to an announcement made by the Nikkei Asia Prize Secretariat this morning in Tokyo, he has been described as "an Indian social reformer tackling two of his country's biggest challenges -- poor hygiene and discrimination".

NEW DELHI: With Karnataka heading for a hung assembly, the ball is now in the court of state governor Vajubhai Bala.

Even as the BJP emerged the single largest party in the state, it failed to cross the halfway mark. The Congress, learning from its past mistakes in Manipur and Goa where it reacted late, sprung a surprise when it offered support to the JD(S). Deve Gowda's party has accepted the offer of support and will stake claim to form the government in Karnataka.

According to the usual practice, the governor of a state calls the leader of the single-largest party or pre-poll alliance to form the government, and in the event of a hung assembly, asks him to prove the majority on the floor of the House.

New Delhi: Aadhaar card is not mandatory for central government employees to get their pension, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh has said.

In the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of Voluntary Agencies in New Delhi recently, he said Aadhaar is an additional facility to enable the use of technology for submission of life certificate without the need for visiting banks.

His assertion assumes significance as there were reports of some retired employees facing difficulty in getting the pension in the absence of Aadhaar linkage with their bank accounts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a comprehensive plan to eliminate industrially-produced artificial trans fats from the global food supply by 2023.

Elimination of trans fats is key to protecting health and saving lives, the WHO said. The global health body estimates that every year, trans fat intake leads to over 5,00,000 deaths worldwide from cardiovascular diseases.

Ever since the launch of Reliance Jio in 2016, telecom sector in India has witnessed a major upheaval, leading to consolidation in the industry.

While Idea and Vodafone are set to join hands in their joint bids to counter Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio, Airtel on Monday completed the acquisition of the Telenor, Indian subsidiary of Norwegian telecom company.

On Monday, Bharti Airtel, and Telenor South Asia announced the completion of their transaction, wherein, Airtel has acquired the operations of Telenor (India) Communications Private Limited.

NEW YORK: India was the largest remittance-receiving country in the world, with migrant workers from the country sending home $69 billion in 2017, according to a report which said remittances to the Asia-Pacific region amounted to $256 billion last year.

The report 'RemitSCOPE - Remittance markets and opportunities - Asia and the Pacific' said India ($69 billion), China ($64 billion) and the Philippines ($33 billion) are the three largest remittance-receiving countries in the world in 2017. Pakistan ($20 billion), and Vietnam ($14 billion) are also in the top 10.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said his dominant Spanish Grand Prix victory had revitalised him after a difficult start to the season.

Briton Hamilton led from pole and now has a 17-point advantage in the championship over Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who finished fourth.

The world champion had struggled for competitiveness in the previous three races, despite a win in Azerbaijan.

"It has been a rejuvenating experience," Hamilton said.

"It's the greatest feeling to come here and have that kind of performance and have a convincing win.

Hannover: Indian shooter Heena Sidhu clinched the gold medal while compatriot P Shri Nivetha settled for bronze in the women's 10m air pistol at the International Shooting Competitions of Hannover (ISCH) ahead of next week's ISSF Munich World Cup.

Heena was in rollicking form in the final where she was tied with France's Mathilde Lamolle on 239.8 points. She won the tie to win the gold ahead of Mathilde. While Shri Nivetha finished on 219.2.

The finish marks a strong build-up to next week's ISSF World Cup in Munich.

New Delhi: Paytm on Monday introduced automatic recurring payments, a new feature that lets users configure the payments app to pay for periodic recurring expenses automatically.

Similar to standing instructions for bank accounts, the ‘My Payments’ feature can be used for high-value payments for a variety of cases.

“Our customers make regular recurring payments such as house rent, maid/driver’s salary, milk or newspaper vendor payments online. This has led to a major surge in our bank transfer service. We have now simplified these payments with ‘My Payments’ and are expecting 6X growth owing to this rapid shift in consumer behaviour in favour of going cashless,” said Paytm’s senior vice president Deepak Abbot.

NEW DELHI: A woman can lodge a complaint under the domestic violence law against the excesses committed by her ex-husband even after the dissolution of marriage, the Supreme Court has said.

The top court refused to interfere with the order of the Rajasthan high court which held that the absence of subsisting domestic relationship in no manner prevents a court from granting relief to the aggrieved woman.

The high court had passed the order while adjudicating a matrimonial dispute.