NCDEX, formerly the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange, on Thursday launched two indices, NDEX and FINNDEX, marking its entry into the equity and equity derivatives markets.

NDEX is a benchmark comprising 20 large and liquid Indian equities selected from a universe of the top 60 NSE-listed companies. FINNDEX comprises 15 financial sector stocks, excluding insurance companies, drawn from the top 40 eligible companies.

Stocks are ranked on a composite score that gives 30 per cent weightage each to free-float market capitalisation and average daily traded value, and 20 per cent each to beta and volatility. The methodology seeks to combine company size, trading activity and a stock’s sensitivity to the market.

Indian para-archers Sheetal Devi and Toman Kumar clinched the gold medal in the compound mixed team event at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday, securing India’s first archery gold of the ongoing edition.

The Indian pair, who are also world championship bronze medallists, defeated their Indonesian opponents 151-148 in the final to claim the top honours.

This was Sheetal’s second medal at the Aichi-Nagoya Games, having earlier won silver in the women’s compound doubles event alongside Payal Nag.

Sheetal and Kumar entered the competition in impressive form, setting a new world record in the mixed team qualification round in Okazaki.

India will begin their title defence at the ICC U19 Women's T20 World Cup 2027 against the West Indies in Kirtipur on January 22, as the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the schedule for the third edition of the tournament, to be co-hosted by Bangladesh and Nepal from January 21 to February 6.

Sixteen teams will compete in 41 matches across four venues in Chattogram, Sylhet and Kathmandu, with the final scheduled for February 6 and February 7 designated as the reserve day.

India will be aiming for a third consecutive title after winning the inaugural edition in South Africa in 2023 and retaining the trophy in Malaysia in 2025. India, led by Niki Prasad, defeated South Africa in the final of the previous edition to underline their dominance in the competition.

India have been drawn in Group A alongside Ireland, the West Indies and hosts Nepal. They will open their campaign against the West Indies at the TU International Cricket Stadium in Kirtipur before taking on Nepal on January 24 and Ireland on January 26.

Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will launch the nationwide ‘Khet Bachao Abhiyan-Rabi 2026’ from Karnal in Haryana today. The campaign will continue until November 30. The initiative is aimed at promoting sustainable agriculture, improving soil health and encouraging the judicious use of agricultural resources.

The campaign aims to create awareness among farmers about the balanced and judicious use of fertilisers and other agricultural inputs based on soil testing. It will promote crop diversification through oilseed, pulse and horticulture missions, encourage the effective utilisation of fallow fields after paddy harvesting and promote proper crop residue management.

The campaign will also focus on training farmers in the appropriate use of organic and bio-based agricultural products and promoting natural farming through awareness programmes, training sessions and field demonstrations. As part of the campaign, farmers’ conferences, Kisan Chaupals, training sessions and field demonstrations will be organised at the state, district, block and Gram Panchayat levels. Agriculture departments, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, ICAR institutes and agricultural universities will work together to ensure wider participation to strengthen public outreach.

Vummidi Ethiraj, the jeweller who helped craft the historic sengol presented to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 and later installed in the new Parliament building, died in Chennai on Wednesday. He was 99.

President Droupadi Murmu, Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were among the leaders who paid tribute to Ethiraj, whose family owns the 125-year-old Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers.

Born on November 25, 1926, Ethiraj was 20 when he helped make the gold-plated silver sceptre at the time of Independence.

Nehru received the sengol from priests of Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam on the night of August 14, 1947. PM Modi ceremonially installed it in the new Parliament building on May 28, 2023.

It is Ayudha Pooja day and Tiruchy Road in Coimbatore is at its busiest. Even as makeshift shops selling flowers and puffed rice do brisk business, in the skies above, something magical unfolds. We first spot them here and there: blue tiger and dark blue tiger butterflies, and a few common crows float above us. Soon, there are more. They seem to be everywhere. That is when we realise we are right on the migratory route of lakhs and lakhs of butterflies flying from the Eastern Ghats towards the Western Ghats to escape the North-East monsoon that is battering Chennai and its surrounding districts.

Butterfly watchers in cities along their path are on high alert. This is the moment they have been waiting for all year. Alerts on the WhatsApp group Butterfly Migration India invite men and women in places such as Salem, Erode, Tiruppur, Coimbatore, and Madurai, apart from Kerala, to step outside and count the butterflies.

Two previously unknown subterranean fish species have been discovered in wells in Assam's Goalpara district, state environment and forests minister Jayanta Malla Baruah said on Wednesday.

Scientists have identified Gitchak nakana, a tiny, transparent and blind loach, and Rakthamichthys anchi, a transparent, eel-like fish, marking a significant contribution to biodiversity research, Baruah said in a social media post.

Gitchak nakana measures around two centimetres and has a reddish appearance because its transparent body reveals its blood and internal organs.

Tuticorin International Container Terminal (TICT) has been declared a 'green terminal ' after fully electrifying 100 per cent of its operational equipment, an official statement said on Thursday.

During a review meeting of ongoing projects valued at ₹18,000 crore this week, Union Shipping Secretary Vijay Kumar officially designated the terminal at Tuticorin's VOC Port as a green facility.

In a statement, VOC Port said: "TICT was declared a Green Terminal, with 100 per cent of its operational equipment electrified."

The Secretary on Tuesday also flagged off 13 electric Internal Transfer Vehicles (E-ITVs) to support cleaner and more energy-efficient container handling operations.

Following mixed fortunes with its two missions in 2026, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is set to return to the launch pad on October 30 to launch a navigation satellite, NVS-03, on board the GSLV Mk II, which delivered this year’s only successful mission in September.

Isro Chairman Dr V Narayanan indicated on Thursday that the NVS-03 launch, which had been slotted tentatively between October 15 and 20, was cleared for a launch attempt on October 30 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

Since the second successive failure of Isro’s workhorse PSLV rocket on January 4, 2026, the space agency has adopted a cautious approach to launches—to understand and rectify the anomalies that caused the PSLV launch failures on May 18, 2025 and January 12, 2026.

Indian scientists have discovered that one of the brightest X‑ray pulsars, Centaurus X‑3, is gobbling up material through an accretion disk — a rare behaviour for pulsars of its kind, an official statement said on Wednesday.

The finding was made by researchers at the Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institution of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), led by Kinjal Roy.

The study has implications in developing better-informed models of the system, which is one of the most widely studied binary pulsars that has drawn the attention of scientists because of its intense brightness.

Further, it will lead to enhanced understanding of binary pulsars in general.

An X-ray binary pulsar consists of a pulsar— a highly magnetised neutron star, and a Sun-like star bound in a gravitational dance. A neutron star is a celestial body with the mass of our sun crunched into a ball the size of Bangalore.