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Strongly disapproving requests for “regulatory forbearance” in cases of asset quality stress made by lenders and corporates, Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan told bankers on Friday not to find “artificial fixes” for the problem.

If you thought weather prediction was a recent phenomenon, you would be in for a surprise if told that weather prediction was done in ancient Egypt some 3,500 years ago! A new translation of a 40-line inscription on a six-foot-tall 3,500-year-old calcite block from Egypt — called the Tempest Stela — describes rain, darkness and “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses”.

An Aedes aegypti mosquito. Vector-borne diseases are adding to the vicious cycle of poverty and have a significant impact of socio-economic status of communities, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. While countries in South-East Asia have made substantial economic progress, dengue and malaria fuel a vicious cycle of poverty and are still killing thousands of people. On World Health Day — April 7 — the WHO has impressed upon countries to prevent and control vector-borne diseases including dengue, kala-azar, lymphatic filariasis and malaria, among others. Forty per cent of the global population at risk of malaria lives in the WHO South-East Asian region — home to a quarter of the world’s population. Malaria is endemic in 10 of the 11 countries of the region: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste. Maldives is the only country that has remained free of malaria since 1984. Sri La...

On a roll in the ongoing ICC World Twenty20 where his team has entered the finals, Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has another reason to smile as he has won the 2014 Asian award for outstanding achievement in sports here.