Free Indo-Pacific a priority for India and Japan: Modi

A "free and rules-based Indo-Pacific" is a common priority for India and Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday while welcoming his Japanese counterpart, Sanae Takaichi. Mr. Modi said India and Japan would jointly develop technologies that would help in maintaining maritime security and "regional peace". "India and Japan are among the biggest economies of the world. A free, prosperous and rules-based Indo-Pacific is our shared priority. We will jointly pave the way for peace, stability and progress for the entire region," Mr. Modi said.

SC sets aside NCLT order for relying on Al-crafted case law

Observing that the use of non-existent or Al-generated hallucinated judicial precedents is "catastrophic" to the judicial process, the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside an order of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) after finding that it relied on fictitious Al-generated case law.

VB-G RAM G scheme rolled out from village in A.P.

The little-known Mukkavaripalli village in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh shot to fame on Thursday with the nationwide launch of the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar Ajeevika Mission Grameen (VB-G RAM G) scheme. 

Bengal approves panel to examine draft UCC Bill

The West Bengal Cabinet on Thursday approved the constitution of a committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai to examine the draft Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill. "The Cabinet has approved the formation of a committee to examine the West Bengal Uniform Civil Code, 2026, draft Bill. The committee will have four weeks to examine it, after which it will be placed in the Assembly," Ms. Paul told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

Vikram-1, India's first-ever privately developed orbital rocket, gears up for launch

India's first privately developed orbital-class rocket is all set for its maiden launch. On Thursday, private space launch company Skyroot Aerospace, based in Hyderabad, announced that the launch window for Vikram-l's first test flight, named Mission Aagaman, is between July 12 and August 4.

The Himalayas as a battleground of belief

At an altitude of nearly 5,500 metres in the western Himalayas, where India's frontier dissolves into Tibet and Ne-pal, rises Om Parvat. The mountain is famous for a natural snow formation that resembles the sacred Hindu symbol Om, which many devotees regard as a manifestation of Lord Shiva. The remote valley is inhabited by the indigenous Rung community who believe in the divinity of Om Parvat.

Unwelcome surge

The buoyancy in GST collections is spurred by imported inflation

India's June GST collections rose 13.9% year-on-year to 1.95 lakh crore, driven largely by import IGST, which surged 34.6% compared with June 2025, up from 17.2% growth in May. Domestic GST collections grew by a more modest 6.5%, suggesting that the sharp increase in over-all collections owes less to a broad-based improvement in domestic value addition. Some economists have argued that this reflects stronger imports of capital goods and industrial inputs.

The right to a fair trial at the crossroads

As proceedings in the 2020 Delhi Riots cases show, endless imprisonment without trial raises urgent questions about liberty and justice

A hold on AI

The UN's Preliminary Report of the Inde-pendent International Scientific Panel on Al drives at a few fault lines in the rapid investment into and proliferation of AI technologies: the Global South-Global North divide, with the latter poised to take the lion's share of the benefits of the diffusion of advanced Al models in different industries; and the challenge poorer countries face in regulating models far more advanced than what their own Al ecosystems can develop. These divides force emerging countries to choose between capital-intensive undertakings to get a seat at the table, or to accept the hand dealt to them by the half-dozen companies whose decisions shape Al access and use.

Navy foils piracy attempt in Gulf of Aden; three vessels still in captivity, IMO warns

 The Indian Navy successfully respond-ed to a piracy at-tempt on the merchant vessel MV Golden Arsenal in the Gulf of Aden, with stealth frigate INS Trikand swiftly intercepting and se-curing the ship after the attack.

The operation comes even as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) issued an urgent ap-peal for the release of the crews of three other vessels still held by Somali pi-rates, warning that the humanitarian situation aboard one of them, which has one Indian crew member, had turned critical. Five Indian nationals are among the crews of two of those three vessels.

Maharashtra Assembly passes women farmers' Bill

In a landmark move, the Maharashtra Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed the Women Farmers Empowerment Bill aimed at recognising women farmers so they get access to welfare schemes which have traditionally benefited men.

The Bill gives recognition to women who are engaged in agriculture and al-lied activities like fisheries. livestock rearing, poultry farming and collection of forest produce.

Centre amends drug rules to ensure uniform regulations

Aimed at strengthening regulatory oversight of advanced and emerging medical technologies, the Central government has amended the Drugs Rules, 1945 to bring stem cell derived products, gene therapeutic products, and xenografts under the ambit of the Centrally License Approving Authority (CLAA) framework. These include vaccines, large volume parenterals and r-DNA based medicines. This set is being expanded with this amendment to cover additional emerging technologies, said Ministry on Thursday.

PF Rules notified; no word on hike in minimum pension, allege unions

The Union Labour Ministry published on June 29 and 30 the Rules for the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme, 2026, the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS), 2026, and the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance (EDLI) Scheme, 2026, replacing the old Rules of 1952. The new Rules were re-quired after the implementation of the Code on Social Security in November 2025. The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) had ap-proved the draft Rules in its 239th meeting on March 2.

Railways sees 4% growth in freight

The Railways registered steady growth in both freight transportation and passenger services during June 2026, as compared with the corresponding month last year, the Rail-way Ministry said in a statement. The Railways loaded 142.21 million tonnes of freight during June 2026, compared with 136.71 mil-lion tonnes in the corresponding month last year, registering a growth of 4%.

Indian, Japanese PMS inaugurate Maruti Suzuki's fourth plant

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday inaugurated Maruti Suzuki's fourth vehicle manufacturing facility at Kharkhoda in Haryana. Two-thirds of Suzuki's cars are made in India and exported to more than 100 countries from New Delhi, Mr. Modi said during the launch at the India-Japan Joint Economic Forum.

Coal imports decline 13% to 21.13 million tonnes in April

India's coal imports in April this year declined about 13%, or 3.14 million tonnes (MT), to 21.13 MT, the Union Ministry of Coal informed on Thursday. This was particularly led by the decline in imports of power sector and plants that rely on imported coal. Power plants' coal imports dipped about 24.9% to 3.51 MT in April this year. Plants designed to run on imported coal observed the steepest reduction of 27.45%.

Submarine cable project linking India, Malaysia, Singapore unveiled

A consortium comprising Microsoft, Singtel, Tata Communications and AI connectivity platform Lightstorm will build a sub-marine cable system connecting India, Malaysia and Singapore. "The facility is designed to cater to the rapidly-growing demand from hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers and enter-prises running Al training and inference workloads across the India-Southeast Asia corridor," Lightstorm said announcing signing of contracts to launch the building of the cable system. No details of the pro-posed investment on the project were shared.

Russian attack kills 21 in Kyiv as Ukraine hits Moscow's oil sector

Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 21 civilians in the ci-ty and injuring more than 90 others in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.

'Ukrainian state ordered Nord Stream sabotage'

German prosecutors said on Thursday that the Ukrainian state ordered a 2022 bomb attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, complicating relations bet-ween Kyiv and its key military backer Berlin. The sabotage, never claimed by any actor, destroyed three of the four Baltic seafloor pipelines of the major energy link from Russia to Germany and re-leased huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Can space oncology revolutionise cancer treatment?

Space oncology is a rapidly emerging field, investigating how microgravity and cosmic radiation impact cancer progression and treatment. Space is a natural laboratory for studying cancer biology. Space-based environments are studied to accelerate tumour modelling and drug discovery.