NEWS

The Supreme Court on Thursday paved the way for declaration of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) results for admission to medical courses after it stayed an order of the Bombay High Court requiring the National Testing Agency (NTA), the agency which conducts NEET, to hold the re-examination for two students on account of a mix-up of test booklets.

“We cannot delay the results for 16 lakh students,” said a bench of justices L Nageswar Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai while issuing notice to the two students on an appeal filed by NTA challenging the Bombay high court order of October 20.

Further, the bench said, “There shall be stay of the impugned order passed by the high court, until further orders.”

PM Narendra Modi will address the leaders' summit at UN climate change conference (CO) in Glasgow on Monday and along with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson jointly launch the ambitious trans-national solar grid initiative - One Sun One World One Grid - the next day while taking forward India's multi-pronged strategies to decarbonise energy sector.

India's ambitious 450 GW renewable energy goal by 2030, its hydrogen mission, plan to move Indian railways to 'net-zero' emission by 2030, land degradation neutrality and massive programme to increase forest cover (natural carbon sink) would be the key points the country will seek to drive home at CO.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), trying to put out the pressure it faces due to farmers’ stir, virtually kicked off its election campaign in Punjab by coining the slogan ‘Nawa Punjab BJP de naal’ (New Punjab with the BJP) and announcing that the centre was again ready for talks with the farmers. The top brass of the state unit met in Chandigarh with election in-charge and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who held a strategy session with the leaders from across constituencies in the state.

The meeting comes at a time when former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is expected to announce his new political outfit soon and has been talking about resolution to the farmers’ stir.

New and updated climate commitments fall "far short" of what is needed to meet the Paris Agreement goals, leaving the world on track to a global average temperature rise of at least 2.7 degrees C in this century compared to the pre-industrial level (1850-1900), said the UN Environment Programme's report released on Tuesday, while noting that the "vague" 'net-zero' promises are not enough to save the planet from catastrophic heating.

The report - Emission Gap Report 2021: The Heat Is On - underlined that the countries' updated climate action pledges, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), would take an additional 7.5% off predicted annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, compared to the previous round of commitments. But this is not enough as there is a need to reduce 30% to stay on the least-cost pathway for 2C and 55% for 1.5C. Calculation shows that annual GHG emissions are currently 60 GtCO2e (Giga tonnes of CO2 equivalent). "Less than one week before CO in Glasgow, we are still on track for a climate catastrophe," UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said reacting to the report's findings.