New Delhi, Sep 26 : India’s top court has upheld the government’s policy of issuing a 12-digit identification number to every Indian, but says it can’t be made mandatory for services such as bank accounts, cellphone connections or school admissions. The Supreme Court says the government can use it for tax purposes and providing benefits under welfare schemes like subsidized ...

London, Sept 25 : Britain’s main opposition Labour Party announced Tuesday it will reject Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed divorce deal with the European Union when it comes to a vote in Parliament and might support a new Brexit referendum. One official said May’s government was offering the country a choice between “really bad and even worse.” If Britain ...

Dhaka, Sept 25 : Facebook authorities have selected Bangladeshi entrepreneur Razib Ahmed as fellow of its ‘Community Leadership Program’ for his group ‘Search English’ where members help each other to become more fluent in English. Razib Ahmed, former president of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), will receive a grant of US$ 50,000 for further development of the project. The ...

Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain in parts of north India led to the death of at least 22 people in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have issued a red alert, report  The Indian Express. Water levels in rivers rose across the region, with the level in Pong Dam nearing danger mark. ...

At least 45 people who had gone for trekking in upper reaches of northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh were reported missing, local media said Tuesday. The trekkers included 35 students from India’s Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee.   The group had gone for trekking in mountainous Lahaul-Spiti district. They were reported to be missing after heavy snowfall hit ...

A statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at the UN headquarters on Monday to honour the South African President’s 100th birth anniversary. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the ceremony that Mandela “embodied the highest values of the United Nations — peace, forgiveness, compassion and human dignity”, Xinhua news agency reported.   His fight against apartheid “marks a landmark in ...

British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York Tuesday, where she will press him to release a British-Iranian women imprisoned in Tehran, a senior government official told reporters. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation — the media organisation’s philanthropic arm — was arrested at Tehran airport on April 3, 2016.  She ...

An Indian soldier and five suspected militants have died in fighting in Kashmir, the army said Monday, just days after high-level talks with Pakistan were cancelled over tensions in the disputed territory.   Colonel Rajesh Kalia said two suspected rebels died Sunday when the army detected a group trying to cross the de facto border dividing Kashmir into Indian and ...

Tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and Google are joining forces with international organisations to help identify and head off famines in developing nations using data analysis and artificial intelligence, a new initiative unveiled.   Rather than waiting to respond to a famine after many lives already have been lost, the tech firms “will use the predictive power of data to trigger ...

London, Sep 23 : Britain’s Labour Party opened its annual conference on Sunday facing a huge choice — whether to change policy and call for a new referendum that could halt the country’s departure from the European Union. The support of the main opposition party would be a major boost to campaigners for a second vote on Brexit. Ever since ...