Citizenship decisions must be 'fair, reasoned', says SC

The Supreme Court on Monday held that the determina-tion of citizenship and foreigner status must be undertaken through a "fair, lawful, and reasoned" process, as it set aside a batch of 27 Gauhati High Court judgments declaring the appellants to be foreigners, and remanded the cases to the Foreigners' Tribunals concerned for fresh adjudication.

Retail inflation climbs past RBI target to 4.4%

India's retail inflation has crossed the Reserve Bank of India's 4% target for the first time since January 2025, touching 4.4% in June. It stood at 3.93% in May. Inflation, as measured by the new series of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), was driven by rising food and fuel prices amid the crisis in West Asia as well as a weaker-than-normal monsoon. Food infla-tion touched 5.05% in June, the highest in the new series of the CPI.

Holding the Court accountable amid democratic strain

The higher judiciary's handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls raises questions about judicial scrutiny and India's democratic future

The right path for India's nuclear power development

International sanctions were imposed on India after its peaceful nuclear test of 1974.

The India-United States civil nuclear deal, which was signed in 2008, ended the restrictions on the import of uranium and of nuclear power plants, with some critical exceptions. The free import of natural uranium has enabled India to grow its nuclear programme. Negotiations with major western nuclear power plant suppliers were started but had to be given up as their plants were far too expensive.

Can biogas aid India's energy security?

Biogas is a mixture of methane, CO2 and small quantities of other gases produced by anaerobic digestion of organic matter. It can be processed and compressed to get Compressed Biogas (CBG)

In 2023, the National Biofuels Coordination Committee approved a mandatory blending obligation. Gas distributors have been mandated to blend CBG into their supply from FY26. It would start at 1% and rise to 5% by FY29.

What is the India-Australia uranium supplies agreement?

The story so far:

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Australia last week, India and Australia "finalised the administrative arrangements" required to enable export of uranium from Australia to India. These exports will be "exclusively for peaceful purposes and under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watch" under the Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, 2015.

How genetic history reveals why some languages are so unique

Hindi and Tamil differ in far more than just vocabulary. Languages differ in how they are organised, and these differences are not spread evenly around the world. In some regions, neighbouring languages like Basque and Spanish differ dramatically from one another. In others, they share many of the same features, like Tamil and Kannada.

A new study by researchers from Europe and Japan has found human history itself gives shape to the pattern. After analysing thousands of languages alongside genetic data from populations around the world, the researchers found that places that were relatively isolated for a long time tended to harbour more linguistic features. On the other hand, regions shaped by migration and sustained contact contained languages that were more alike.

All Ladakh districts to get autonomous hill councils

The Ladakh administration on Monday announced 17 new tehsils "to strengthen grassroots governance" in the Union Territory and said the Ladakh Autono-mous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Act will be extended to all seven districts of the region.

Kuki group calls for Centre's intervention on blockade by Nagas

As Naga groups continue to block the supply of essen-tials to Kuki-Zo areas in Manipur's Kangpokpi, the Ku-ki-Zo Council (KZC), an apex body of the tribes, met Director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Mahesh Dixit and senior officials of the Union Home Ministry on Monday seeking the Centre's intervention to the crisis and expedition of political solution.

India, Japan review defence ties, prepare ground for 2+2 dialogue

India and Japan on Mon-day reviewed the entire spectrum of their expand-ing defence cooperation and agreed to deepen col-laboration in emerging do-mains such as defence industry, cybersecurity, space and advanced tech-nologies during the eighth India-Japan Defence Policy Dialogue held in Tokyo.

User data exposed due to flaws in UMANG portal: researchers

Multiple vulnerabil-ities in the UMANG, or Un-ified Mobile Application for New-age Governance, portal that aggregates hun-dreds of public services offered by the Union and State governments are leaving data of potentially millions of Indians ex-posed across a variety of databases, including those from the Employees' Provi-dent Fund Organisation (EPFO), according to two security researchers who shared their findings with The Hindu. The vulnerabilities, which have likely existed for years, affect several ser-vices tested on the UMANG portal, which has onboard-ed over 2,400 services. It stems from the architec-ture of the portal itself, said the researchers, Akshay C.S. and Viral Vaghela. "Almost everything is broken by design," Mr. Vaghela said.

Universities call for clear framework for disbursal of grants under VBSA Bill

Appearing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, institutes and universities across the country have sought a clear framework from the Centre to continue the grant disbursal commit-ments currently under the University Grants Commission.

SC questions the misuse of POCSO in teen relationships

The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the in-vocation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Of-fences Act against teenag-ers involved in voluntary sexual relationships. A Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Maha-devan observed that pa-rents often resort to crimi-nal proceedings to protect their so-called "honour" when teenage girls elope with their partners.

Trade deficit jumps fourfold in June on surging imports

India's trade deficit grew over fourfold to $15.3 billion in June 2026 primarily due to high growth in merchandise im-ports, which were skewed by a spurt in the value of imports of crude oil, elec-tronic and electrical goods, and gold, according to official data.

'Deal with U.S. ready but comparative advantage aspect still being worked out'

The framework deal, or the interim agreement on trade, between India and the U.S. is "ready" and will be signed at the "right time", Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said on Monday, however, ad-ding that the key aspect of providing India a comparative advantage over its competitors was still being worked on.

Regarding a timeline, he indicated that the deal could be signed even be-fore the U.S. investigations on its trade partners are completed.

Higher Russian oil imports a deliberate strategy, says govt.

The Indian government's decision to import more oil from Russia is part of a lon-ger strategy it deployed fol-lowing the start of the West Asia crisis and was part of a broader strategy to diversi-fy sources of oil, the Minis try of Petroleum and Natu-ral gas said in response to an editorial by The Hindu.

Restraining minors' access to porn is essential: SC

The Supreme Court on Monday said a plea high-lighting the easy accessibil-ity of pornographic con-tent on the Internet, especially for minors, has raised an issue of "para-mount public importance" which requires the "due consideration" of the Un-ion government. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the government must treat the petition filed by advocate B. L. Jain, represented by advocate Varun Thakur, as a representation.

Trump restores Iran blockade, says U.S. will be 'paid' to guard Hormuz

President Donald оп resident Trump said Monday the U.S. was reinstating its block-ade of Iranian ports and "taking over" the Strait of Hormuz, where it would levy charges on shipping. The President's declara-tion came after U.S. and Iranian attacks of a scale unseen since an April ceasefire, adding to doubts about efforts to bring a per-manent end to the war that has curtailed shipping through the strait.

Sri Lanka's minority parties launch common platform

Prominent political parties representing Sri Lanka's Tamil-speaking ethnic mi-norities have launched a platform to voice shared concerns around the pend-ing political solution to the island's national question, and the persisting chal-lenges to their communities' land rights.

For Iran, Hormuz is the key to deterrence and dominance in Persian Gulf

The memorandum of un-derstanding (MoU), signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 17, promising to ex-tend the ceasefire and launch talks on Iran's nuclear programme and Western sanctions, is fall-ing apart. U.S. President Donald Trump has de-clared that the "ceasefire is over". Both sides have ac-cused each other of violat-ing the MoU.

Why engineering evolution is a contest between cure and chaos

Humans have acquired great power in the ability to manipulate cells and organisms. This capacity has helped, and will continue to help, address major problems. Yet our abilities are still modest compared to what nature itself has achieved over billions of years. Manipulating nature in a predictable manner is not straightforward: it involves trade-offs. Understanding nature's journey over evolutionary time is both illustrative of what an engineered future can look like and a cautionary tale about the complexities that human-driven genetic engineering will face.

Study finds efficient way to filter nuclear wastewater

In 2023, Japan began a decades-long and controversial process - it began releasing treated wastewater from the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The water had been filtered to remove most heavy radioactive elements, yet one particular contaminant remained: tritium.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. When it bonds with oxygen, it forms tritiated water, or HTO. Because tritiated water is chemically almost identical to regular water, it is extremely difficult to separate the two. For many decades, officials in the global nuclear industry have opted to dilute tritiated water, i.e. mixing it in large quantities of regular water.