Trade deal with India is not 'imminent', says U.S. Trade Representative after talks

While negotiations on an India-United States trade deal are nearing the end, the deal itself is not "imminent", U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated on Friday. His comments followed a "constructive conversation" with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in the U.S. on the sidelines of the G20 Trade Ministerial conference.

Buxa Reserve regains its stripes with the release of a three-year-old tigress

A three-year-old tigress, T138, was released into the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal on Friday, marking the beginning of a phased programme to reintroduce tigers and establish a viable, self-sustaining popula-tion in the reserve.

Gujarat's UCC Bill gets President's assent

The Gujarat Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, 2026, has received the assent of President Droupadi Murmu, paving the way for its im-plementation, a notifica-tion published in the Gujarat government gazette has informed.

CSIR lab develops new severity score for sickle cell anaemia

Doctors may soon have a more reliable way to predict how severely sickle cell anaemia (SCA) will affect Indian patients, thanks to a new India-specific disease severity score developed by scientists at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Mo-lecular Biology (CCMB).

India's Model BIT - a decade later, amid changes

India's effort to revise its Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) comes nearly a decade after the revised model was approved in 2015. The Union Budget 2025-26 had announced that the model would be revamped and made more investor-friendly. The review comes as both India's treaty practice and the international investment regime are changing. The question, therefore, is not simply whether India should offer investors more or less protection. It is about what India has learnt from the past decade and how those lessons should shape its new model.

Centre yet to extend SoO pact with Kuki-Zo groups

A mid continuing violence between the Naga and Kuki groups in Manipur, the Union Home Ministry is yet to extend the Suspension of Operations (SoO) pact with the Kuki-Zo insurgent groups, a month after the one-year agreement expired.

Centre frames rules to standardise recruitment to various tribunal posts

The government has come out with rules for the National Tribunals Commission which seek to standardise recruitment and eligibility for various tribunal posts; establish a formal inquiry mechanism for misconduct complaints; and to prescribe service conditions and remuneration.

Global South must be paid for climate damage, but only if it prices carbon, argues economist

Rich countries should pay people in developing coun-tries for the climate dam-age their emissions cause, on condition that those countries put a price on carbon. That is the central proposal of a forthcoming book, Just Economics, by University of Chicago economist Michael Greenstone, with Nobel-Prize winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.

India standardises name of 28 places in Ladakh

The Government of India, in consultation with the Union Territory administration of Ladakh, has identified 28 places and geographical features in the region by standardised names on the official Sur-vey of India (Sol) map.

'India has no excess capacity, bans forced-labour imports'

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told the G20 Trade Ministers meet in the U.S. India did not have structural excess capacity in sectors identified by Washington and it had taken steps to ban import of goods made using forced labour.

GOBARdhan eyes 10-fold increase in CBG output: Puri

The 23,731-crore GO-BARdhan scheme aims to drive a 10-fold increase in compressed biogas (CBG) production, save more than ₹40,000 crore in fuel imports, add over ₹75,000 crore to GDP and create more than 1.5 lakh jobs, as the government seeks to turn agricultural and or-ganic waste into a new source of domestic energy.

G7 nations agree to release 100 million barrels of oil

The Group of Seven industrial nations said on Friday that they plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products in the coming weeks, starting with "substantial" amounts of diesel after the fuel recently hit record high prices in the United States.