Guwahati : President Ram Nath Kovind said that the Centre is making sincere efforts to develop the state as well as the entire northeastern region during his Tripura visit. Speaking at an event organised by the Tripura government in Agartala on Thursday evening, Kovind said, no region can develop without peace. During the event, he also declared the ‘Queen’ variety of pineapple as the state food of Tripura.

The President appreciated the youth of the state and cited many names of famous sportspersons in this context. Talking about women empowerment, Kovind said, Tripura is ahead in empowering them. He also emphasised that Tripura can play an important role in boosting the trade with the ASEAN countries.

• Jakhar set a junior national record en route to winning a gold in the men's hammer throw event

• Indian athletes clinched four medals, including a gold, on the opening day of the Asian Junior Championships

• Suresh and Sonune won bronze medals in women's triple jump and women's 5000m race respectively

World Oceans Day was officially established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2008 to be celebrated worldwide on 8th of June annually to resolve the ocean issues and save ocean water.

They are the lungs of our planet, providing most of the oxygen we breathe. The purpose of the Day is to inform the public of the impact of human actions on the ocean, develop a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean, and mobilize and unite the world’s population on a project for the sustainable management of the world's oceans.

World Oceans Day is celebrated annually aiming to save the oceans and honour the ocean's creatures for maintaining the balance of life on the earth.

Day to day increasing human populations and modern advanced technologies with various lots of byproducts are the main reasons spoiling the precious ocean.

Action focus for 2018 is preventing plastic pollution and encouraging solutions for a healthy ocean.

An Olympic medallist is now entitled to a pension of Rs 20,000 per month with the Sports Ministry doubling the amount following a revision in is pension policy. A medal winner at Paralympics will also be entitled to the same amount as an Olympic medallist. A gold medallist in a World Cup or at the Asian Games will get Rs 16,000, a silver medallist Rs 14000 and a bronze medal winner will get Rs 12,000.

“The rate of pension of medal winners in the Para-Olympics Games and Para Asian Games will be at par with the medal winners in the Olympic Games and Asian Games respectively and only a World Championships held once in four years will be considered for pension,” a press release said.

• India cricketer Mithali Raj has become the first batter from the country to score 2000 runs in T20Is

• Mithali is the seventh woman batter to score 2,000 runs in T20Is

• Mithali recently broke the record for the most ODI appearances by a woman cricketer

Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora said Thursday that the state government was committed to ensuring 100% refund of long-pending VAT to industrialists by the end of this year. The minister was speaking at a meeting with industrialists here to launch “Business First Portal”, which is aimed at facilitating speedy regulatory approvals.

At the meeting, some of the industrialists were vocal in raising their grievances. Gursharan Singh, Convener of Traders Union, said that government was not looking after the interests of the industry, as was promised before the elections.

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made changes in the Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS) to make it more attractive.

The revamping of the scheme is aimed at enabling people to open a hassle-free gold deposit account.

The short-term deposits should be treated as bank's on-balance sheet liability, the RBI said in a notification.

"These deposits will be made with the designated banks for a short period of 1-3 years (with a facility of roll over). Deposits can also be allowed for broken periods (e.g. 1 year 3 months; 2 years 4 months 5 days; etc.)," it said. 

NEW DELHI: Ten months after a controversial move to merge the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) with the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), the Centre has overturned its decision and de-merged the two organisations.

The ministry of home affairs has, in fact, referred the matter to the Madhukar Gupta Committee for examination and advice on the merger of central research and data collection organisations.

MHA had, in August 2017, merged the two organisations for better research and data collection related to crimes, police, paramilitary forces etc.

NCRB, which, over the years, has been the principal source of reference by policy makers, police, criminologists, researchers and media – both in India and abroad, was not happy with the decision.

BPRD was given charge of NCRB on the ground that there should be more research based and methodological data collection in future as data collection by NCRB as of now was mostly taken from states and is sometimes inaccurate.

The Election Commission of India today launched an online RTI portal to help applicants seeking information under the Right To Information Act. The portal can be accessed on the home page of the commission's website 'eci.nic.in', an official statement said.

There is also a gateway for making online payment of requisite fees under the RTI Act. The portal also facilitates online reply to applications and also for making first appeal and reply thereto.

There will be timely notification alerts to the RTI applicant via SMS and email, the statement said.

Malcolm Turnbull says he would welcome Facebook being compelled to testify in front of the Australian parliament’s intelligence and security committee and “would love to see the boss”, Mark Zuckerberg.

The deputy chairman of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, Labor MP Anthony Byrne, told The Australian last night Facebook and its 34-year-old founder owed answers to the social network’s 15 million ­Australian users, following revelations of its “backdoor deal” with Huawei, the Chinese technology giant with links to the Communist Party.

Mr Byrne has been backed by the Turnbull government’s chairman of the committee, Liberal MP ­Andrew Hastie, in a bipartisan ­response to revelations that Facebook had shared personal data with Huawei, which has been banned from government contracts in Aus­tralia, including the NBN, on the ­advice of ASIO.