NEWS

New Delhi: Five workers were killed and seven injured in a blast that occurred in the maintenance dock of Cochin Shipyard on Tuesday morning. The blast took place inside ONGC ship Sagar Bhusan which was under maintenance in the dock. All the injured workers have been admitted to hospital. The condition of one injured is reportedly critical. 

Meanwhile Cochin Shipyard Chairman and Managing Director Madhu S Nair has announced ten lakhs rupees each ex-gratia to the next of kin of the bereaved families. He said, the Company will also bear the cost of the treatment of the injured.

New Delhi: The BJP and the Congress are locked in verbal duel over Rahul Gandhi's "temple run" in poll-bound Karnataka, with the former accusing him of practising "soft Hindutva" and the latter staunchly defending it.

Taking a potshot at Rahul's visits to temples while on the campaign trail in Karnataka, BJP leader and Union minister PrakashJavadekar said the Congress party is espousing "pseudo-Hinduism" in order to win elections.

"They are now on temple spree. Now their advertisements are also in saffron. Earlier they were pseudo-secularists, now they are pseudo-Hinduism. People understand which is election gimmick and which is true devotion," he said.

New Delhi: Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said seven central forensic labs will be notified in three weeks so that they could provide electronic evidence in courts.

"Under section 79 (A) of the Information Technology Act, my department notifies forensic laboratories which can give electronic evidence in court,” he said.

"In three weeks, we will notify seven central forensic laboratories which will also include Gujarat University. Experts from these laboratories can depose in court as expert electronic witnesses," Prasad, minister of Electronics and Information Technology, said here on the sidelines of a conference on forensic science.

NEW DELHI: Union minister Harsh Vardhan has asserted India is continuously improving its rank in the science sectorand exuded confidence that one day it would lead all other countries.

About budgetary allocations to the science and technology ministry led by him, the minister hailed the "upward trend" in fund provisions to different departments under it.

Speaking to reporters, he claimed the NDA government's efforts have ensured that "brain drain" has started to convert into "brain gain" for the country as over 250 scientists have returned to India since the BJP-led alliance came to power and implemented schemes encouraging the change.