New Delhi: Plastic is not a 100 per cent biodegradable product and if any manufacturers claim otherwise it will tantamount to misleading advertisement, a top BIS official said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has suggested the Environment Ministry not to certify biodegradability of plastics as it has not been established and research…
Beijing: The death toll from a major fire at a hospital building in the Chinese capital rose to 29, including 26 patients, officials said here on Wednesday, as 12 people have been detained including the medical facility’s head and her deputy. The fire which broke out at the Beijing Changfeng Hospital on Tuesday was extinguished within…
London: An 86-year-old British-Sikh woman imprisoned for the murder of her daughter-in-law in a so-called “honour killing” 25 years ago has been released from jail after 16 years. Bachan Kaur Athwal was found guilty of ordering the murder of her 27-year-old daughter-in-law, Surjit Kaur Athwal, after being lured to India in 1998. According to The Sun…
Kathmandu: Deteriorating air quality and hazardous levels of particulate matter (PM) in several South Asian countries, including India and Nepal, poses a severe risk to human health and must be addressed urgently, a Kathmandu-based intergovernmental knowledge centre warned on Wednesday. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a knowledge and learning centre working on…
Singapore: The deep mutual suspicion and fundamental distrust between the United States and China will not improve anytime soon and it will mean “big trouble” for the rest of the world, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Wednesday. Lee, who made an official visit to Beijing earlier this month, said that the Chinese public…
Dubai: Anxious relatives of several Indians stuck in Sudan following the fighting between the Army and paramilitary forces are eagerly waiting for information about their relatives and appealed to the government to evacuate them from the strife-torn African country as soon as possible. Fighting erupted in Sudan on Saturday, leaving at least 185 people, including an…
Beijing: China on Wednesday sought to downplay India overtaking it as the world’s most populous nation with 142.86 crore people, saying that it still has a “quality” workforce of close to 900 million people to provide a strong impetus for development. According to the latest United Nations Population Fund data, India surpassed China to become…
Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Kerala on April 24 for a two-day visit and attend a host of programmes including the flagging off of the much-awaited Vande Bharat Express train here. The BJP state unit, which is making all arrangements to accord a grand reception to the PM, shared a poster on…
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said she will resign if it is proven that she dialled Union Home Minister Amit Shah after TMC lost the national party status. Banerjee, who was speaking to reporters at West Bengal’s state sectretariat, said that her party’s name will remain All India Trinamool Congress. “I will…
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will embark on a nine-day trip to Guyana, Panama, Colombia and the Dominican Republic beginning Friday to explore bilateral cooperation in new areas. It will be Jaishankar’s first visit as the external affairs minister to these countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)…
