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Oil surges as Hormuz tensions deepen
Oil prices climbed sharply on Monday after a United States seizure of an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman reignited doubts over a fragile ceasefire and revived fears that the struggle over the Strait of Hormuz could harden into a deeper threat to global energy flows. Brent...
Tehran hardens line on US talks
Iran has pulled back from a planned second round of talks with the United States, hardening a standoff that is now being shaped as much by shipping pressure and military risk as by diplomacy. Tehran’s state media said it would not join the next meeting, arguing that Washington’s demands...
Nashik TCS inquiry widens – Newspack Live!
Panel opens Nashik TCS probe A fact-finding committee set up by the National Commission for Women has begun an on-ground inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment and religious coercion linked to Tata Consultancy Services’ office in Nashik, with advocate Monika Arora saying on Saturday, April 18, that the panel...
Court sets Sonia Gandhi reply deadline
A Delhi court has asked Sonia Gandhi to file written submissions within a week in a criminal revision petition that challenges her alleged inclusion in the electoral roll before she acquired citizenship, pushing the politically charged dispute into its next phase and listing the matter for 16 May. The...
Nagarathna draws a hard line on judicial greed
Supreme Court judge Justice B V Nagarathna used a judicial officers’ conference in Bengaluru on Saturday to deliver an unusually blunt message on integrity, saying judges who cannot live within their known sources of income and fall prey to greed and temptation should be removed from the system, a...
Court order revives Rahul Gandhi case
Rahul Gandhi, Congress Member of Parliament from Rae Bareli and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has suffered a legal setback after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court directed that a first information report be registered over allegations linked to dual citizenship. The order, passed...
Shah offers written seat rise pledge
Union Home Minister Amit Shah told the Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Friday that the government was willing to put its assurances on delimitation into a formal amendment, sharpening a tense debate over women’s reservation, parliamentary expansion and the political balance between states. Shah said he was ready...
TCS suspension deepens Nashik case
Tata Consultancy Services has suspended Nida Khan, an employee linked to its Nashik unit, as a widening police investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and forcible religious conversion places one of the country’s largest IT employers under unusual scrutiny. Khan, who police have described as absconding, has moved a...
YSRCP backs quota push as bill falls
YSR Congress Party’s decision to support the Centre’s push on women’s reservation and delimitation has sharpened fault lines in Parliament, but it did not deliver the legislative breakthrough the government was seeking. On April 17, the constitutional amendment tied to expanding legislatures and reserving one-third of seats for women...
Tech Mahindra pushes back on Goregaon row
Tech Mahindra has moved to contain a controversy over workplace practices after a viral image carrying the words “Footwear Free Zone” triggered allegations of religious bias at its Goregaon office in Mumbai. The company said an internal review found the claims circulating on social media to be “inaccurate and...
Lenskart row puts dress codes under glare
Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal has rejected claims that the company’s current grooming rules permit a hijab while barring a bindi, tilak or kalawa, after a document titled “Lenskart Staff Uniform and Grooming Guide” triggered a political and social-media backlash on April 16. Bansal said the circulating document did not...
Razzak exit jolts Trinamool in Bengal
Trinamool Congress has suffered a conspicuous pre-poll embarrassment in Murshidabad after Abdur Razzak, the outgoing MLA from Jalangi, resigned from the party days before West Bengal votes in a two-phase Assembly election, sharpening attention on dissent inside the ruling camp at a point when Mamata Banerjee’s organisation is seeking...
Assam row deepens over Sarma remarks
Opposition parties in Assam have sharpened their attack on Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after a television interview in which he spoke about Bangladesh, so-called pushback operations and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, prompting rivals to question his judgment and accuse him of eroding constitutional norms ahead of a highly...
Hormuz shock tests India’s energy shield
Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz moved to the centre of India’s diplomatic and energy agenda on Wednesday, with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar telling a Japan-led emergency forum that attacks on merchant shipping were unacceptable and that maritime commerce must remain unimpeded. His intervention came as the...
Rahul Gandhi attacks quota rollout plan
Rahul Gandhi has accused the government of trying to turn women’s political reservation into a broader exercise in electoral restructuring, saying Congress fully backs the constitutional promise of reserving seats for women but opposes what he described as a “power grab” through the proposed implementation route tied to delimitation....
Xi lays out a Beijing peace pitch
China’s President Xi Jinping has used a meeting in Beijing with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to present a four-point plan for peace in the Middle East, stepping into a diplomatic gap after weekend talks between the United States and Iran in...
Trump ties Hormuz pledge to China
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he was “permanently” opening the Strait of Hormuz, framing the move as a benefit for China as well as the wider world, as Washington presses ahead with efforts to restore shipping through one of the most critical energy chokepoints on the...
Hormuz blockade draws legal rebuke
Arsenio Dominguez, head of the UN’s International Maritime Organization, said no state had a legal right to obstruct shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sharpening international pressure over a waterway that has been largely paralysed six weeks into the US-Iran war. Speaking in London on Monday, the IMO chief...
