All-India Council of Technical Education has given approval to 545 new technical educational institutions to offer courses from 2010-11 academic session. The decision was taken at a executive council meeting of the body.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has beefed up a detailed plan to relocate 1,000 primitive Chenchu tribal families from the core area of the Nagarjungsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve.

Senior officials and consultants of a Mumbai-based subsidiary of Dow Chemical of USA, which took over the Union Carbide Company after the 1984 Bhopal gas leak tragedy, kept on bribing a member of the Central Insecticides Board for five years continuously in order to get their three products — Pride, Dursban 10g and Nurelle D — registered in India.

Even as ruling Congress opted to tread a middle path by asking all the stakeholders to “exercise maximum restraints” in the wake protest and firing by security forces in the Kashmir valley, the government on Tuesday claimed that there are reliable reports to suggest that anti-national elements are trying to exploit the situation in the troubled state.

The GoM on caste census headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to hold its first meeting on July 1. The meeting is going to take place following a war cry made by the Yadav-troika (Mulayam, Lalu and Sharad) that the government is backing out on its promise.

Around 12 per cent monsoon deficiency in June has set the alarm bells ringing in the government circles keeping in mind the drought of 2009.
Though it is the initial phase of the Kharif sowing season, the government is keeping a close watch on the monsoon movement hoping to maximise crop production this y

Canada, from where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned Tuesday, is debating a new legislation to repeal its existing Nuclear Liability Act.
It proposes to increase a nuclear plant operator’s liability to Rs 3,000 crores at current conversion rate — which is not only six times the cap of Rs 500 crores contained in the Civil Liability for nuclear damage bill 2010, currently being debated by an Indian parliamentary standing committee, but it also exceeds the “maximum amount of liability” of about Rs 2,300 crores set out in the bill.

The NDA and Left parties on Tuesday announced a 12-hour Bharat Bandh and nationwide strike on July 5 to protest against the recent hike in the petroleum products by the UPA government, while demanding a rollback of the hike. The parties have stated that the bandh from 6 am to 6 pm would be peaceful and rail and road traffic would not be disturbed.

The much-anticipated meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the late Y.S.R. Reddy’s son Jaganmohan finally took place here in the capital on Tuesday. Mr Jaganmohan Reddy, who came along with his family — mother, wife and sister — refused to interact with the media after the meeting. He made a quiet exit through the second gate without anyone noticing it.

Despite claims by the BJP that it is not under RSS tutelage, the latter had told the saffron party that it should work out a formula to bring in former expelled leader and saffron sanyasin Uma Bharti as well as sangh pracharak and former BJP general secretary, Mr Sanjay Joshi. The RSS, it was learnt, had also criticised BJP for not taking up issues like misuse of the CBI, growing threat of Naxalism and Bhopal gas tragedy issue “aggressively”.