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Mumbai: Yohan Blake, the world’s youngest 100m world champion, feels that marathon runners don't get the utmost respect that they deserve.

Pune: Seher Atwal carded a flawless 3-under 68 to emerge a sole leader in the opening leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Poona Club Golf Course here on Thursday.

About 35 per cent of the strength of management boards across the public sector banks in India remains vacant. No initiative has been taken by the bank management to appoint workmen directors on the board management, as per a recent study carried out by the New Delhi based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).

Last week, the University Grants Commission (UGC) released draft regulations for reputed foreign universities to open campuses in India. In other words, India’s higher education sector is opening up to foreign direct investments. In the past, similar attempts met with stiff opposition. As per a study, Indian students would spend $75-85 billion annually by 2024, from $28 billion in 2021. The number of Indian students going abroad for higher education is expected to rise to 1.8 million by 2024.

From Jagdeep Dhankar to Ravindra Narayana Ravi, Narendra Modi’s governors specialize in terrorizing state governments with chief ministers for target practice. Show the Dravidian stock of Tamil Nadu ‘Get Out Ravi’ posters and they will spit, and stomp on them in bottled fury. If nobody isn’t, Governor RN Ravi is the most unpopular man in Tamil Nadu. He wants Tamil Nadu renamed 'Tamizhagam' and the popular reaction is "Ah'Chi".

It appears that nothing short of a total disaster will convince authorities, especially under the present government, that reckless development without addressing environmental or social issues, does not lead to progress. The unfolding tragedy in Joshimath, considered a holy town for being the gateway to the hill shrine of Badrinath, is but the latest in a long series of disasters in the Uttarakhand Himalayas caused by unrestrained construction, infrastructure and urbanisation in these fragile mountains. These human-induced calamities, in the western Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, have been in the recent past, exacerbated by the effects of human-induced climate change like extreme rainfall leading to floods, landslides and so on.

The IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva has now openly admitted that the year 2023 will witness the slowing down of the world economy to a point where as much as one-third of it will see an actual contraction in gross domestic product. This is because all the three major economic powers in the world, the US, the European Union, and China, will witness slowdowns, the last of these because of the renewed Covid upsurge. Of the three, Georgieva believes, the US will perform relatively better than the other two because of the resilience of its labour market; indeed the greater resilience of the US labour market provides some hope for the world economy as a whole.

There is one thing common among the Indian CEOs of global IT giants: all of them completed their higher education from a leading foreign university. Such exposure decidedly put them into the big league and the corollary is that the lack of a foreign degree is as good as a disqualification for their fellow Indians.

'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' of RSS-BJP mould has decided to open its doors before foreign universities to “come, see and conquer” India. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has published the 'proposed regulations for establishing and running campuses of foreign higher education institutions' in the country. Now any foreign university ranked within 500 in the world or any foreign higher education institution with good standing in home country may apply to the UGC for their entry to India. The regulation notifies that there will be a clearance process of 90 days. After that such universities/ institutions can start their campuses in India. They will have the freedom to decide the content and structure of the education in their campuses. The fee structure, curriculum, syllabus, examinations and awarding of degrees will all be under the control of those foreign institutions.

Joshimath has been sinking for months, but could grab attention of the governments at the Centre and the State only recently that too after the subsidence started dangerously manifesting itself. Warnings served in 1976, 2001, and 2013 were grossly ignored. Human greed continued to explore the natural resources hastening the sinking not only of the holy city of Joshimath but the entire mountain range that houses it and a host of other towns and villages.