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AP India's Virat Kohli celebrates their win over South Africa in the ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup semi-final match in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Friday. Ashwin, with figures of three for 22, repays captain’s faith in him; du Plessis, Duminy bat well for South Africa This was a target and an opponent harder than any previously encountered at the tournament, but India has turned into such a lord of the run chase in these conditions that no mountain is too high.

The Reserve Bank of India’s in-principle approval to two applicants, IDFC Limited and Bandhan Financial Services Ltd., to set up banks comes four years after the then Finance Minister, Pranab

The impressive gain by rural households in spite of the favouritism towards non-primary activities appears real The Indian economy has moved on a high growth path since the mid-1980s. After a blip in growth between 1990-92, liberalisation, initiated for aligning the Indian economy with the world in 1991, not only put the economy back on a higher growth path but also sustained this growth till the 2000s. During the last few years, India has been the second fastest growing economy in the world. Despite the high growth over the past two decades, concerns have been raised over the growth not being equally distributed. Policy makers responded to these concerns arguing for inclusiveness in the 11th Five Year Plan in 2007. How has the rapid growth during the 11th Five Year Plan period helped in improving the income levels of the most vulnerable Indian households? Sharing of growth The aggregate estimates routinely brought out by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) sh...

AP Afghan policemen take positions a day before the elections in Kabul on Friday. Thousands of Afghans lined up at polling centres in Kabul from early morning to cast their ballots. Afghanistan began voting Saturday for a new president amid fears of violence and insecurity.Thousands of Afghans lined up at polling centres in Kabul from early morning to cast their

The Indian middle class now owns more gadgets and is a little better educated, but is still not as prosperous as has been believed to be, says data from the 2011-12 round of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) conducted by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER). The data, collected from 42,000 families, shows that with rising incomes — the real median income grew from Rs. 28,200 per year in 2004-05 to Rs. 37,500 in 2011-12 — asset ownership of the middle class has also increased. Purchase of air-conditioners, colour TVs, refrigerators, cars, laptops and credit cards has doubled over the last seven years, and cellphone ownership has exploded from 7 per cent of the population in 2004-05 to 82 per cent. The Hindu is reporting exclusively from the findings of India IHDS 2011-12, the largest independent nationally representative sample survey . The annual income of the middle class remains relatively low. If the Indian population is divided into five classes o...

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.

Ever wondered what causes the variety of patterns we see in nature — a zebra’s stripes, the leopard’s spots or the alternating arrangement of leaves on a plant’s branches? How do cells which are identical to start with, differentiate and form regular patterns? There indeed is a scientific explanation for it, and it has been now validated by experiments, too.

Special Arrangement The new online farm calculator. Getting a crop loan from a bank and after repaying the entire amount getting back the land or house papers submitted as collateral security for availing the loan are not easy tasks. “Farmers know well how hard it is to get a bank loan today. In several cases they are often in the dark about their eligibility for applying or interest calculated on their loan amount disbursed.

A Japanese government-funded laboratory said on Tuesday it found that data in a widely heralded stem cell research paper was falsified, holding the lead researcher responsible for the fabrication.The research results from the Riken Centre for Development Biology in Kobe, western Japan, were seen as a possible groundbreaking method for growing tissue to treat illnesses such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease using a simple lab procedure.

Olive Ridley turtle hatchlings at Rushikulya rookery in Ganjam district. Photo: Lingaraj Panda Mass hatching of Olive Ridley turtle eggs at Rushikulya rookery in Odisha, a major nesting site of these endangered marine turtles, is expected to start soon.Forest officials have completed preparations for the mass hatching to reduce turtle deaths. Local villagers and conservation organisations are also working to protect the turtle eggs buried in the sand for incubation.Speaking to  The Hindu , Divisional

PTI Sriharikota: India successfully launched its first mission to Mars on board PSLV C25 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Indian science’s bureaucratic mentality values administrative power over achievements “Getting funding [for research] is easy in India,” said Dr. Mathai Joseph “because there is no competition here. Money is not scarce [though R&D spending is less than 1 per cent of GDP]. But

The new banking licences issued to IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services Private Limited and the Reserve Bank’s intention to consider the application of Department of Posts separately in consultation with the Central Government are likely to widen the scope for financial inclusion.