On Tuesday, the Maharashtra Police arrested some of India’s finest human rights activists from five cities across the country on completely fabricated charges under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the IPC. The activists arrested are Sudha Bharadwaj, a civil rights activist and labour lawyer from Chattisgarh, presently teaching at the National Law University, Delhi, Gautam Navlakha, former president of the People’s Union for Democratic Reforms, Varavara Rao, a poet-activist, Vernon Gonsalves, human rights activist, and Arun Ferreira, a civil rights activist and lawyer based in Mumbai.

Residences and offices of other activists were raided, and laptops and mobiles seized. These include pro-democracy activists who have been leading peoples’ resistance movements for several years, such as Father Stan Swamy, an Adivasi rights activist based in Ranchi, Anand Teltumbde, a management expert, intellectual and writer, and Susan Abraham, civil liberties lawyer and a member of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights. The arrests and raids are outrageous attempts to stifle voices of dissent and curb peaceful struggles against this government’s anti-people ideology. Democracy is under siege in India.

In what was a surprising revelation, a video footage from a drone introduced us to the members of an isolated Amazon tribe that had no known contact with the outside world and were not discovered till the footage was noticed.

The video showed a land with felled trees in the Javary River valley, near Brazil’s border with Peru, and people walking through it. One of them is seen carrying a spear or pole. The images were captured by an expedition by a government agency called Funai. Funai also released photos taken by a team on the ground – photos of canoes made of palm tree trunks and an axe with a stone blade tied to a wooden handle, along with an aerial photo of a thatched hut.

Kochi airport, which had been rendered non-functional since August 14 due to flooding and torrential rains in Kerala, reopened around 2 pm today. Indigo flight 667 from Ahmadabad to Kochi, was the first flight in two weeks to land at the CIAL. A number of 33 flights are scheduled to arrive and 30 others are scheduled to depart from the airport on Wednesday. The number includes both domestic and international flights.

Due to flooding of key areas of the aerodrome such as runway, taxiway, parking bays and apron, the Kochi airport has lost almost 2,600 meters of the perimeter wall. The airport suffered an estimated loss of over Rs 220 crore due to floods.

The airport was scheduled to commence operations on August 26, but extended the date by three days after most stakeholders, including airlines and ground handling agencies, expressed concern over mobilising manpower by that date.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is on a two-day tour of flood-affected areas in Kerala. On Tuesday, he visited flood relief camps in Chengannur, Chalakudy and Paravur, some of the worst affected areas. Addressing nearly 200 people at the St Francis Assissi school in Athani, Rahul said, “I want all of you to know that you are not alone, we are with you. We are not in government either in Delhi or in Kerala. We cannot do very big things, but we are going to do whatever we can. In its own limited way, the Congress is collecting funds to help you.” He is scheduled to visit several places including Kochi today.

The Punjab Assembly today passed the Police (Amendment) Bill 2018, which would pave way for setting up of a State Security

Commission for selection of the director general of police.

The Punjab Police Act 2007, enacted on February 5, 2008, which this Bill amends, did not provide for selection of the DGP from the panel as prepared by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

The development assumes significance as the present Director General of Police Suresh Arora is set to retire by end of the next month.

The National Sports Day is celebrated every year on August 29 on the birth anniversary of Indian hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to one of the greatest field hockey players of all time and urged people to give priorities to sports and fitness related activities.

Every year on this day, Arjuna and Khel Ratna awards are conferred by the President of India to celebrate the achievements of exceptional athletes in the country. This year, though, the date has been postponed to September 25 so the Indian athletes could return from Asian Games 2018 taking place in Indonesia.

Often called a ‘magician’ on the Hockey field, Dhyan Chand had such an aura that even Adolf Hitler offered him money to play for Germany. The man known for his extraordinary goal-scoring skills, has won three Olympic gold medals during the time Indian hockey was the most dominant.

The central government on Tuesday constituted a new 21-member advisory panel on science, technology and innovation under the chairmanship of Principal Scientific Advisor, K VijayRaghavan, that will also co-ordinate the implementation of programmes through various bodies.

“This gives a fresh direction to the country’s science and technology sector. The council will advise the PM on science, technology, as well as innovation, but also coordinate the implementation of the PMs vision,” said VijayRaghavan.

The council must “actively aid in the formulation and timely implementation of major science and technology missions” and “evolve interdisciplinary technology development programmes,” the government order announcing its formation said.

The new council has nine members, including Dr VK Saraswat, member of NITI Aayog and former director general of Defence Research and Development Organisation, Dr AS Kiran Kumar, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, and Maj Gen Madhuri Kanitkar, dean of Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.

The government, World Bank and state-owned EESL today inked a USD 220 million loan agreement and a USD 80 million guarantee pact to push energy efficiency programme in India. To be implemented by EESL, the programme will help scale up the deployment of energy saving measures in residential and public sectors, strengthen EESL's institutional capacity, and enhance its access to commercial financing.

The USD 220 million loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ..

New Delhi: The process for selecting three astronauts for India’s first manned space flight will begin at the earliest to give them enough time to train for the 2022 mission, which is slated to cost less than ₹10,000 crore.

“We need to select our astronauts at the earliest as they would require at least three years for training. They could be from the air force or Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation), or even a common man. Since it’s our first mission, we would prefer a pilot. The initial training will be done at the Institute for Aerospace Medicine in Bengaluru,” Isro chairman K. Sivan said at a press conference that was attended by the minister of state for atomic energy and space, Jitender Singh.

“We are confident and we have had a good start. We will try to execute the project within 40 months. Prior to this we will send two unmanned missions, the first in next 30 months,” Sivan said.

The second unmanned mission will be undertaken six months after the first, he said.

he Government of India, the Government of Rajasthan and the World Bank igned a $250 mn development policy loan (DPL) to support the state improve the performance of its electricity distribution sector under the state’s 24x7 Power for All program.

The Second Programmatic Electricity Distribution Reform Development Policy Loan for Rajasthan is the second in the series of two operations planned for a comprehensive turnaround of Rajasthan’s electricity distribution sector. The first loan closed in March 2017.

The electricity distribution utilities (DISCOMs) in Rajasthan provide electricity to about 9.5 mn customers.

The key areas that the program will support include: strengthening governance in the distribution sector in the state by establishing annual performance MoUs between the DISCOMs and the state government; putting in place a performance management system; providing incentives to employees for improving performance; financial restructuring and recovery in the sector by transferring considerable amounts of the DISCOMs debt to the state; bringing in more discipline in the revenue requirements of DISCOMs; taking initiatives in reducing the costs of energy procurement; and improving the operational performance of the DISCOMs through initiatives like publishing feeder level energy audits and increased usage of IT among others.

Manjit Singh won the gold in the men's 800 metres event while Jinson Johnson clinched the silver medal in men's 800 metres on Tuesday. With these two medals, India's medal tally now stands at 49 with 9 gold, 18 silver and 22 bronze. Manjit Singh finished the race in 1:46.15 minutes while second-placed Jinson Johnson clocked 1:46.35 minutes. Qatar's Abdalla Abubaker came third with a time of 1:46.38 minutes. Manjit was trailing early on but he sprinted real fast in the final stages to win the race. Johnson also kept pace throughout the race and eventually finished second. India also added to their medal tally after bagging two medals in Kurash, a form of wrestling indigenous to central Asia, with Pincky Balhara and Malaprabha Yallappa Jadhav winning silver and bronze respectively in the women's 52kg category. 19-year-old Pincky lost 0-10 to favourite Gulnor Sulaymanova of Uzbekistan in the gold medal clash to settle for the silver