Month: August 2025

New Delhi: The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is set to consider a major restructuring of tax rates in its upcoming meeting on September 3 and 4. The plan includes moving all food and textile products into the 5% slab, lowering taxes on cement and popular services, and reducing levies on individual health and life insurance. According to sources, the levy on cement may be slashed from 28% to 18% a relief that the construction and infrastructure sectors have been demanding for years. The move could lower costs for end consumers, but the government expects the cement industry to pass on the benefits rather than hold prices high. The council is also reviewing services such as salons and beauty parlours. While small neighbourhood salons are already exempt, mid- and high-end service...

    Overnight rains left Mumbai submerged, schools shut, and residents stuck indoors. But the chaos wasn’t limited to the financial capital. Just days earlier, Gurugram, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai faced similar scenes of waterlogged streets and stranded commuters. From luxury neighborhoods to crowded markets, Indian cities seem to have one weakness in common: even moderate rainfall can turn urban roads into rivers. For residents like Nikunj Sabharwal in Juhu, Mumbai, monsoon means more than getting wet it’s a daily struggle. “I commute along SV Road to Andheri West regularly. During the rains, parts of this road become chest-deep waterways. I’ve seen NDRF boats evacuating people when flooding gets out of hand. Honestly, the Koli fishermen from nearby Versova could...

Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains is becoming a hub for cutting-edge wildfire research, where aerial imagery is helping scientists understand how fire transforms ecosystems. Spanning nearly 1,200 acres the preserve is offering a unique testing ground to merge traditional land practices with modern technology. For Ph.D. student Daniel Neamati, who studies aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford, a bird eye view is essential. “That top-down view is really important,” he explained. “My research would not be possible without it.” Neamati, a TomKat Center Graduate Fellow for Translational Research, is applying his expertise in GPS accuracy and 3D modeling to wildfire management. After prescribed burns at Jasper Ridge last year, his team be...

    Only 10 vaquitas (Phocoena sinus) — the world’s rarest marine mammal remain alive, according to a damning new report by the North American Environmental Commission (CEC). The tiny porpoise, endemic to the Upper Gulf of California is now perilously close to extinction. The CEC an environmental body established under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has squarely blamed the Mexican government for failing to enforce its own wildlife protection and trade laws failures that have allowed illegal fishing and wildlife trafficking to flourish in the vaquita’s last refuge. Illegal Gillnets, Totoaba Trafficking at the Heart of Crisis At the core of the vaquita decline is illegal gillnet fishing for totoaba a large fish whose swim bladder is highly prized i...

Ireland rugged western coastlines largely composed of hard limestone, are more resistant to pounding waves from the North Atlantic. Yet in regions of rapid retreat the combination of rising sea levels and wave action is eroding away glacial deposits left behind thousands of years ago. “What you're seeing, particularly where we have the most rapid retreat, is we've got a rising sea level, and we've got waves then eating away at material that was dumped there during the last glacial period,” explained Robin Edwards, assistant professor of geography at Trinity College Dublin, who studies physical indicators of sea level change. “We’ve been mapping Ireland for hundreds of years so it’s not a mystery where the stuff is or why it’s eroding away. The challenge is what you do with it.” Resea...