Ahead of the arrival of a Naval ship here with stranded Indians from Maldives, a top police officer on Saturday said all arrangements were in place in the southern state to facilitate safe stay of those repatriated comprising over 400 Keralites and people from other parts of the country. INS Jalashwa, participating in Indian Navy's "Operation Samudra Setu" to bring home Indians stuck in foreign countries due to COVID-19 pandemic, has departed from Male port for Kochi with 698 Indian nationals on board on Friday night. This is the Indian Navy's first massive evacuation exercise during the COVID-19 lockdown. The ship is expected to arrive at the Cruise Terminal of the Cochin Port Trust on Sunday between 9.30-10 am, a Defence source said here. Inspector General of Police Vijay Sakhare said 440 people traveling via ship are from Kerala. Rest of the passengers are from other parts of the country including Tamil Nadu (187 people), Goa (1), Haryana (3), Andhra Pradesh (8), ...

After announcing on Friday that it was reinstating pay cuts of up to 25 per cent for its senior employees, IndiGo airlines said it would take a decision on restoring original salary "closer to the end of this financial year". The country's largest domestic airlines had on Friday announced pay cut ranging between 5 and 25 per cent, in addition to its leave-without-pay programme for May, June and July, for senior employees. The announcement, made through internal emails, came after a series of flip-flops on the matter as India's largest domestic airline struggled to stay afloat amid grounding of all commercial passenger flights due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. In the emails accessed by PTI, the airline said the salary cut will be effected from May till the end of the 2020-21 financial year. It has already paid full salary of April to its employees. The airline had first announced its decision to cut salaries on March 19 when the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic was ...

What is the best thing about the Budget?The allocations made for the new AIIMS facilities will provide better access to health care. I am also intrigued to see how the government will provide basic sanitation, as I know that access to hygienic ...

It is all on the line for the two finalists in the DJ FX Frenzy championship: the pride and glory of being named the first global winner of this bracket-style foreign-exchange competition.

At the world's biggest ship-recycling yard at Alang, India, life is becoming harder as fewer ships arrive. Here's why. Photo: Karan Deep Singh/The Wall Street Journal

Tackling the globalization of waste requires new partnerships that span national boundaries and different sectors of society, says Ravi Agrawal.

Except a standout municipality in AP, none of the other towns and cities in India are complying with a Supreme Court directive on waste management. Surekha Sule reports.

Who decides if livelihoods or habitat should be the focus of conservation efforts? In a remote island in the Sunderbans, fisherfolk whose seasonal dry-fishing dates back many generations find themselves competing with mangroves and the Environment Ministry's changing stance on national security. Sunita Dubey reports.

The governing body meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Brazil in March. Since being one of the most pro-active countries in the formulation of the CBD, India has been gradually losing its leadership role in the last few years. Kanchi Kohli elaborates.

Many of the institutions or departments who have sent in applications for IPR consideration to the NBA are also represented on the committee which evaluates the applications, reports Kanchi Kohli.

The new coastal zone regulation reads as a compendium of the myriad exceptions to the few rules - a move away from managing the coastal natural resources based on principles to one based on discretion. Kannan Kasturi reports.

As India celebrates her 69th year of Independence, we take a look at the ramifications of the Supreme Court's ruling on allowing an unwed mother to be the sole guardian of the child without the consent of the child's father, a dissent note on the final draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill which the government wanted to pass in the latest parliament session, why the modern parents and the school authorities lack mutual trust and respect, the conundrum of energy deficit and energy surplus in different parts of India, how the old fishing villages in Mumbai are in danger of disappearing, and more.

In this edition, we celebrate the International Women's Day by bringing out inspiring stories of Soni Sori and the girl footballers from Chennai. We also look into why India's solar mission is in dispute with WTO, the Good Samaritan guidelines that are made compulsory now, and more.

As the justice delivery system gets farther from the people, a serious attempt like the Lok Adalat to make justice accessible to a large chunk of the poor has been appropriated by powerful vested interests. The search for an equitable justice system has come to an end, writes Girish Patel.

The ship-breaking yard of Alang in Gujarat, which brings millions of dollars into the state, wreaks heavy environmental damage and endangers thousands of labourers. Ramesh Menon, who first visited the yard in the early eighties, finds very little has changed over the decades.

World's largest ship-breaking yard at Alang is crumbling as the EU Commission and the Supreme Court are now putting pressure to get them to create modern environmentally friendly facilities. If they do not do it, the graveyard of ships will die says Ramesh Menon.

With Tamilnadu being a high-ranking state in the Educational Development Index in the country, one would expect children in government-run schools in metros like Chennai to be ahead of their counterparts elsewhere. Wrong. Krithika Ramalingam did a reality check.

Swiss biotech corporation Syngenta has tightened its monopoly control over rice. Seeking global patents over thousands of genes in rice, the multinational based in a country that produces no rice itself, is set to own the world's most important staple food crop, says Devinder Sharma.

As debates around genetically modified (GM) mustard pick up in India, Shalini Bhutani takes a look at the neglected diversity of the oilseed mustard crop on native farmers’ fields and points to the bias of the existing law.

Water quality must become a very serious concern for our public agencies, says Lalitha Sridhar.

Fifth in the series of articles on civil society and governance Jayaprakash Narayan assesses the challenges from where a process of transformation must emerge.

As poverty in Karnataka acquires a larger urban face, municipal administrations must reorient themselves to meet basic needs, says Kathyayini Chamaraj.

One month ago, on June 27, Vadodara and surrounding areas received the first monsoon rains after a 15-day delay. Citizens spent the first two days of rains in jubilation. On the third day, things went wrong. Surekha Sule assesses the recent floods that devastated one of Gujarat's leading cities.

The present government completed one year in the office in May this year. It came to power by promising to bring achhe din for the Indians, who were frustrated with high inflation, corruption and policy paralysis during the last government. Pradeep Baisakh objectively analyses the performance of the Modi government in its first year.

September 28 is being observed as the Right to Know day by the Freedom of Information Advocates Network, a global group of NGOs working for better transparency in governments. An India Together report on the recent strides citizen activity has made in India on the right to information.

Hasmukh Dhumadiya describes the ordeal of residents of Bakshipunch Housing Society in Dwarka, Gujarat, and their efforts in overcoming it.

Victoria’s Secret became a powerhouse lingerie retailer thanks to the vision of executives at its parent company. But amid changing consumer tastes, sexual harassment accusations and ties to Jeffrey Epstein now under scrutiny, the once iconic brand’s stock has been tumbling and it has signaled it may be looking for a buyer. Photo: Getty Images

Malaysian palm-oil producer Felda Global plans to raise $3.2 billion this month in what's likely to be this year's second-biggest IPO. Leslie Josephs reports on Markets Hub. Photo: Reuters.

Jennifer Catron boarded Carnival’s Costa Luminosa on March 5 for a transatlantic cruise. Her video diaries provide a window into life on board the ship as the coronavirus scare became a full-blown pandemic.

Huawei is headed to battle against Apple and Samsung Electronics in the smartphone arena, and its weapon of choice is a camera.

Many people in their 20s find themselves on the road for work but aren't sure how to behave. Emily Glazer on The News Hub discusses the protocol for work travel. Photo: Getty Images.

Outside the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, WSJ's Andy Jordan takes a look at the modern, yet "ancient" customs of the Apple iPhone circus of official iPhone announcments, and takes a look at the features of the new iPhone 5.

With Avis Budget's announcement that it is acquiring Zipcar, WSJ's Andy Jordan looks at Zipcar's "personalization" strategy, which encourages users to refer to the cars by name and see them as their own.

The coronavirus pandemic means we must wear masks. It also means unlocking an iPhone with Face ID is a challenge. WSJ’s Joanna Stern tracked down a woman who created a mask to get around it.

The new iPhone SE may seem like a sad, recycled phone but it's more than that. WSJ's Joanna Stern (with the help of an animator) brought the budget phone to life to explain how its performance and camera tricks make it a worthy option—even compared to its expensive, bigger iPhone 11 siblings.

More and more women in Tripura are participating in NREGA works, ensuring success of the scheme. The challenge lies in involving the menfolk too and implementing NREGA in insurgency-hit regions. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

India is well on its way to a low-carbon economic future, but its global image suffers because we lack the public discourse to bolster our argument, unlike China and the Western countries, writes Darryl D'Monte.

As Uttarakhand reels in the aftermath of devastating floods, Ammu Joseph underlines the need for greater awareness of the gender dimensions of such calamities and recognition of the special and diverse needs of women and other disadvantaged sections of society.

Instead of imposing top-down controls on behaviour from the Supreme Court downward, would a better solution to our problems be to shift norms from the family outward, asks Rajesh Kasturirangan.

Taking a 360-degree view of the Union Budget 2013, Shankar Jaganathan points out that despite 'inclusive and sustainable development' being a stated goal, the emphasis has primarily been on growth and finances.

The Government of India's draft community radio (CR) policy proposes to allow NGOs and other non-profit organisations to run low power radio stations with limited advertising. The policy is expected to go to the Cabinet for approval soon, but CR advocates and broadcasters are keeping their fingers crossed, notes Surekha Sule.

Our economic and political leaders do not have much faith in the free market, or in trickle-down economics, despite their apparent support for both, says Ashwin Mahesh.

Does the World Bank advocate development, or is it simply a money-lender pushing its loan packages? For too long, the distinction has been blurred, allowing the Bank to make self-serving recommendations. Sudhirendar Sharma notes the latest instance of this as the Bank pushes into water sector reforms in India.

A persistent push to develop large-scale rubber plantations as a livelihood alternative to slash-and-burn cultivation by tribals has resulted in a major economic upswing in Tripura. With market prices for rubber well above sustenance levels, the future looks bright too. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

It is nobody’s case that there is no crisis. But when remedies are prescribed, the diagnosis and the investigation have to be beyond dispute. P N Venugopal critiques a report from the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

The ruling by the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s dispute settlement body (DSB) in a complaint filed by USA against elements of India’s solar mission is again in the news. Shalini Bhutani helps to piece together the sequence of events and points out how the global trade architecture keeps domestic laws and policies under intense scrutiny.

The official line is simple. Since we cannot afford to feed all the hungry, there must only be as many hungry as we can afford to feed. The truth is the government seeks ways to spend less and less on the very food security it talks about, writes P Sainath.

Reviewing recent High Court and Supreme Court rulings, Videh Upadhyay comments on judicial recipes for protecting urban water bodies

The Court of Appeals in Philippines has recently passed an order, prohibiting field trials of GM Bt Brinjal. As the Indian government seeks to push through the BRAI Bill, Neha Saigal exposes its loopholes and argues why we should go the Philippines way.

What does state sovereignty really stand for? Does it downplay the role and status of the individual by making him a 'subject' of the state? Watch Usha Ramanathan, as she deconstructs the complex entity of the state in the Daksh Constitutional Day Lecture.