New Delhi: Senior bureaucrat Mandeep K Bhandari was appointed chairperson of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) following a bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre Friday. Bhandari, a 2001 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territories) cadre, is currently working as Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor...

United Nations: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar Friday sharply responded to a Pakistani journalist who asked him a question related to terrorism. "A terrorist country is asking me that question. Come on," Jaishankar said in a strong response to the question by the Pakistani journalist here. Jaishankar and Liberia's Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti delivered remarks to...

New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has postponed his visits to Uttar Pradesh to attend conferences of electoral literacy clubs, with officials saying rescheduling of dates is a routine exercise. The officials noted that similar conferences in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand were also postponed in the recent past. Kumar was to attend regional conferences of...

New Delhi: Upping the ante over the SIR row, the Congress Friday staged protests by attempting to march towards state election commission offices in various parts of the country, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's immediate arrest, removal from office, and an independent review of all decisions and electoral roll changes made under him. The opposition party...

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government Friday said that 1,741 errors were found in textbooks of Classes I to VIII, and that Rs 175 crore was spent on their printing and publication. In a written response to a question from Congress MLA Sofia Firdous, State School and Mass Education Minister Nityanand Gond said that a total of 1,075 grammatical, typological,...

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said Friday that widespread rainfall triggered by the deep depression has caused extensive damage to crops, communication, etc, in several parts of the state, while the situation is expected to return to normalcy within the next 48 hours. Briefing the media on the latest situation, the Revenue Minister...

Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Friday launched the ‘Sambandh’ mega membership drive aimed at bringing more farmers into Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) and Large Area Multipurpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPCS), and said cooperative institutions should serve as a lifeline for farmers rather than function as political platforms. Addressing the state-level launch programme at the OUAT Krushi...

New Delhi: Amid a row over the Election Commission adding a declaration to the form for new voters seeking to enrol in the electoral rolls and making the registration process difficult, poll panel officials said on Friday that as many as 2.37 crore electors in the 18-28 years age bracket were added since the Special Intensive Revision...

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government will clear pension dues of beneficiaries who have not received their old-age pension due to technical glitches by October, state minister Nityananda Gond said Friday. In a written statement to the Assembly, Gond said 20.33 lakh beneficiaries are covered under the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS). "The government is aware that,...

Thuamul Rampur: Relentless rain and strong winds over the past three days have disrupted normal life across Thuamul Rampur block in Odisha's Kalahandi district, with landslides, fallen trees and rising water levels cutting off several villages and damaging houses and public infrastructure. Sources said several families have been left without shelter after thatched and mud houses collapsed...