The Centre has lowered import costs for a range of components and capital goods used in electronics and battery manufacturing by issuing three customs notifications providing basic customs duty (BCD) exemptions on select inputs and machinery.

The notifications, issued on July 8, extend duty relief for components used in display assemblies and wireless charging modules while expanding the list of machinery eligible for concessional duty for lithium-ion cell manufacturing. The move aims to improve cost competitiveness and support domestic value addition in electronics and electric mobility.

According to one notification, the government has exempted five components used in manufacturing display assemblies for automotive, medical and industrial applications from BCD until March 31, 2029. These include cells, flexible printed circuit assemblies (FPCAs), backlight units, frames and anisotropic conductive film (ACF).

The Gujarat government on Thursday launched the ‘Viksit Gujarat – Data Centre Policy 2026-29’, aimed at attracting investments in hyperscale data centres, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and digital services, with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel unveiling the policy booklet at an event in Gandhinagar.

Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi, Science and Technology Minister Arjun Modhwadia, Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Das, senior government officials and representatives from the technology sector attended the launch programme.

Speaking at the event, Science and Technology Department Secretary P. Bharathi said the policy was designed to create the infrastructure required to support India’s expanding digital economy.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that a new chapter has been added to India’s education sector with the approval for the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore to establish an overseas campus in Indonesia. The proposal was approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Indonesia. He added that the establishment of an overseas campus of such a prestigious institution marks a significant step towards globalising India’s knowledge traditions and education system.

Four states along the Narmada River, including Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, on Tuesday signed a landmark agreement in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah to resolve decades-old disputes over rehabilitation and land compensation for families displaced by the Narmada Project.

The agreement settles long-pending issues related to the rehabilitation of people living in flood-affected areas and compensation for land acquired under the multi-state river project, officials said. The pact marks a significant step in the Centre’s push to help states resolve long-standing disputes through dialogue and consensus.

The Narmada agreement follows a series of recent breakthroughs on water-sharing and river infrastructure projects involving multiple states.

A mega drive to plant 70 lakh trees in the Capital and a campaign to revive the Ridge were launched on Tuesday by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, among other initiatives, in the presence of Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta to realise what he called “a vision of a greener and more sustainable Delhi”.

‘Mission 70 Lakh Plantation’ campaign, he said, has been in the Capital under Centre’s ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’ initiative in 2024 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Home Minister planted trees at the Central Ridge and Nanakpura Ridge, marking the beginning of the Delhi Ridge Rejuvenation Campaign.

He said that the Centre and Delhi government have resolved to develop 6,300 hectares of green Ridge area into forest land over the next four years and give legal protection to it to conserve its biodiversity, soil, water and Delhi’s environment.

The Environment Ministry has designated the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Mizoram as a designated repository, making it the 21st such repository in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

Designated repositories constitute an important component of India's biodiversity governance framework by preserving authenticated biological specimens accessed under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.

"Based on the recommendation of the National Biodiversity Authority and after due examination of the proposal, the central government notified the institution as a designated repository on June 19, 2026," a senior ministry official said.

"With this notification, NHM becomes India's 21st Designated Repository, further strengthening the country's biodiversity conservation and scientific infrastructure," the official said.

The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs has unveiled a renewed vision for strengthening Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs) as centres of knowledge, innovation and evidence-based policymaking for tribal development.

Inaugurating a national workshop in Bhubaneswar, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Jual Oram called for integrating indigenous knowledge with modern technology to preserve tribal heritage and promote inclusive growth.

The two-day National Workshop on Strengthening Tribal Research Institutes began in Bhubaneswar this morning, bringing together policymakers, researchers, academicians and technology experts from across the country.

The government on Tuesday approved the pan-India roll-out of the Rs 60,000-crore Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs (PM-SETU) scheme across 200 Industrial Training Institute (ITI) clusters, while also clearing strategic investment plans worth Rs 1,237.58 crore.

The decision was taken by the 4th National Steering Committee (NSC) chaired by Debashree Mukherjee, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

The approved plans include Jindal Naveen Avasar Limited in Odisha and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India in Gujarat as anchor industry partners, along with Apollo Medskills and two other approved ITI clusters in Telangana.

China’s DeepSeek is developing its own chip to help power artificial intelligence systems, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.

The chip is designed for inference — the stage in AI when models are trained and begin generating responses to users’ queries — rather than for building new models themselves, Reuters reported on Tuesday. DeepSeek didn’t respond to a request for comment on the report.

Nvidia Corp. shares fell 2.2 per cent in early trading on Tuesday.

Virtually every major AI developer is said to be developing its own chip in an effort to gain an edge by tailoring hardware that’ll work most efficiently with their systems. Just last month, OpenAI unveiled its first custom chip developed in partnership with Broadcom Inc. Amazon.com Inc. is in talks to sell custom chips for use in other companies’ data centers. Alphabet Inc. has seen significant demand for its own chips known as tensor processing units, or TPUs for short.

The second Joint Defence Cooperation Committee (JDCC) meeting between India and Rwanda took place in New Delhi on July 6-7, 2026. The two sides decided to expand the partnership in the field of military training, military exercises, medical cooperation and defence industries, an official statement said.

An implementation plan with timelines for the action items emanating from the meeting was also agreed to during the meeting.

The meeting was co-chaired by Joint Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of India Amitabh Prasad and Chief for Joint Force Development, Training and Doctrine (Chief J7- RDF HQ) Brig Gen Louis Kanobayier. The Indian delegation comprised representatives from Department of Defence, Department of Defence Production, Defence Research & Development Organisation, Ministry of External Affairs, Armed Forces Medical Services, Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff and the Services.