Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg says he is planning to produce a film, a part of which will be set on the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir.   Spielberg said the script had been “finalised”, but he was still to decide on the director and the cast.   In his 40-year career, Spielberg has been behind more than 50 films.   His most recent, Lincoln, received 12 […]

Saluting the lesser-known working women and their valuable contribution on International Women’s Day. 1. It is estimated that around 1.3 million Dalits, mostly women, make their living through manual scavenging. 2.Traditional blacksmiths are usually nomads. Women from these communities indulge in hard labour just like their male counterparts, in addition to taking care of household chores. 3.Women working in the salt pans in the Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, get a […]

In Pic :Rhinoceros at the Kaziranga National Park in Guwahati, Assam, Feb. 21.   The recent surge in killings of one-horned rhinoceroses in India’s northeastern state of Assam by poachers has again shone a spotlight on the endangered animal’s fight for survival.   State authorities are fighting back. On Wednesday, two poachers “allegedly involved in the recent killings of rhinos” were shot dead by forest guards, said Niranjan Kumar Vasu, […]

In Pic :A homeless girl slept on the ground on a cold morning in New Delhi in January. My reaction to watching “Les Misérables” on stage in London in late 1985 was very different from my reaction when I saw it at the cinema in Delhi last week. In 1985 London, I was enthralled and moved by the spectacle. In 2013 Delhi, I was like, whatever. It’s true that the […]

Land on Earth was once gathered together in a supercontinent known as Rodinia, shown here as it was during its break-up 750 million years ago. Now scientists believe they have found a fragment of it buried under the Indian Ocean. Fragments of an ancient continent are buried beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean, a study suggests. Researchers have found evidence for a landmass that would have existed between 2,000 […]

Thirteen-year-old Sanjay Chhetri has a recurring fear: that one day, the dark, dank mine where he works will cave in and bury him alive. Like thousands of children in India’s remote northeast, Chhetri begins work in the middle of the night, ready to dig pits, squat through narrow tunnels and cut coal shards. At four feet six inches, the skinny teenager is the perfect fit for a job in the […]

olkata: Industry body Assocham today said the loss to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) due to the strike by central trade unions could be about Rs. 26,000 crore, higher than its initial estimate of Rs. 15,000-20,000 crore. “Against initial estimates of Rs. 15,000-20,000 crore, the GDP may be eroded by about Rs. 26,000 crore,” the industry body said in a release. “In the wake of a more than expected […]

Punch lines from Narendra Modi’s speech at SRCC Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday pitched the state’s model of growth and governance. Modi said that vote bank politics has spoilt the country and emphasised the need for good governance to make India globally competitive. According to Modi all three major sectors of the economy viz., agriculture, industry and services should be given equal importance for development. This, he said, […]