In the time that you read these words, the internet will have consumed about a petabyte of data. That’s a thousand terabytes, or a million gigabytes, or a billion megabytes.. The internet set information free and the smartphone gave citizens a window-seat view of this flight. But the ride has only grown more turbulent. For decades, journalism was guided by a basic tenet – Comment is free, facts are sacred. In the century since the phrase was coined, comment is still free, but facts are now alternative. In the post-truth era, where somebody’s six can be another’s nine, there are no gatekeepers and few guard-rails. Add a dash of AI, and it’s a toxic cocktail. But in this swarm of misinformation and disinformation, Hindustan Times has focussed on scientific, factual, nuanced and honest reportage.. Today, HT pushes this envelope with a new version of its mobile app.. The refreshed app fuses the quality and tactility of print with the speed and agility of digital. Its expansive news coverage condenses the local, national and global, with equal heft and rigour. Its smart processes pick up on your preferences, curating news stacks, stories and alerts to suit your day and your needs. An upcoming, polished AI assistant will step in when you need to cut through complex ideas and add value to the conversation.. Video, fluid visuals and interactive stories breathe life into the user experience.. HT’s signature offerings, including HT Wknd, HT Brunch, Number Theory, and Pick of The Day find their unique spaces on the app, tailored and touched up for the mobile screen.. But at its heart is a balance – a century of trust, with a dab of the future. A venerable journalistic legacy meets the promise and possibilities of the AI age. An experienced newsroom shakes hands with the sophistication of the modern digital audience.. To thank you, our valuable reader, the app will begin with unfettered access to premium stories and the ePaper for some time, before it adds app-exclusive content going forward. Tune into the first voice. Stay for the last word. 

 Slots under the National Overseas Scholarship (NOS) scheme for Scheduled Caste (SC) students will double from 125 to 250 from 2026–27, while those for Scheduled Tribe (ST) students will increase from 20 to 50, the Union ministries of social justice and empowerment and tribal affairs informed the Parliamentary standing committee.. SC overseas scholarship slots to rise to 250 and ST quota to 50 from 2026–27; parliamentary panel questions funding for expanded NOS scheme. (Representative photo). However, the 31-member committee on social justice and empowerment, chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker P. C. Mohan, raised concerns over the funding and utilisation of the amount allocated to the NOS scheme in its demands for grants report for the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA).. Under the NOS scheme, meritorious SC and ST students receive government grants to pursue higher education in the top 1,000 ranked universities abroad.. The MoTA spent ₹21.95 crore on 68 ST students under the NOS scheme between 2021–22 and 2024–25. The scheme has been allocated ₹20 crore for Financial Year (FY) 2026–27.. The panel, however, expressed dissatisfaction that only ₹8,757.04 crore of the revised estimate of ₹10,824.18 crore for 2025–26 had been utilised by February 23, 2026 — roughly 19% less than the allocation for MoTA. The committee also noted that the ministry has been allocated ₹15,421.97 crore for 2026–27 against a proposed demand of ₹17,223.47 crore — about 10.5% less than sought.. According to the committee report tabled on Wednesday, the annual maintenance allowance for ST students will increase from $15,400 to $19,250 in the upcoming Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) cycle for 2026–27 to 2030–31.. The MoTA also informed the panel that it will consider raising the family income ceiling for ST students from ₹6 lakh to ₹8 lakh, bringing it in line with the eligibility criteria for SC students.. However, the committee flagged funding concerns in the NOS scheme for SC students. The budget estimate for the NOS scheme for SC students in 2026–27 is ₹125 crore, down from ₹130 crore in 2025–26, despite the proposal to double the number of slots. “The Committee is unable to understand how the Department will provide scholarships for 250 slots within the budget meant for 125 slots,” the report said. Currently, SC students receive $15,400 per year as a maintenance allowance for studies in the US and other countries, and £9,900 in the United Kingdom.. The panel also pointed out issues with the Post-Matric Scholarship (PMS) scheme for SC students, implemented by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment under MoSJE through states and Union Territories.. The number of beneficiaries fell to 36.07 lakh in 2025–26 against a target of 76.55 lakh — an achievement of less than 50%. The scheme covered 47.38 lakh students in 2023–24 and 48.04 

 New Delhi, A bill seeking to give a precise definition of the term “transgender” and provide graded punishments that reflect the gravity of the harm inflicted upon such persons was introduced in Lok Sabha on Friday.. File photo of proceedings in the Rajya Sabha in Parliament in New Delhi. (Sansad TV). It also underlines that a transgender person “shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities”.. The Transgender Persons Amendment Bill was introduced by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar.. It notes that it is imperative to give a precise definition for proper and definitive identification and protection of transgender persons, to whom the benefits of the present law must reach.. The protection and benefits that are provided under the present 2019 law are vast in nature, and therefore, care has to be taken that “such identification cannot be extended based on any acquirable characteristics or personal choice or claimed self-perceived identity of an individual”.. The bill also contains provisions for “designation of an authority” which will have the option to seek “expert advice” if required.. A new clause defines “authority” as a medical board headed by a chief medical officer or a deputy chief medical officer appointed by the central government, state government or a Union territory administration.. The bill noted that over the course of time, during the implementation of transgender protection law, “certain doubts and difficulties have arisen and are likely to arise” regarding the “expanse of the definition” of transgender persons.. It inserts a new sub clause to define a transgender person as the one having socio-cultural identities as ‘kinner’, ‘hijra’, ‘aravani’ and ‘jogta’, or eunuch, or a person with intersex variations or a person who, at birth, has a congenital variation in one or more sex characteristics as compared to male or female development will be defined as a transgender.. Also, any person or child who has been, by force, allurement, inducement, deceit or undue influence, either with or without consent, compelled to assume, adopt, or outwardly present a transgender identity, by mutilation, emasculation, castration,. amputation, or any surgical, chemical, or hormonal procedure or otherwise will be included in the definition.. “Provided that it shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities,” it underlined.. It said the present law prohibits discrimination and abuse against transgender persons but its penal provision addresses only general wrongs and criminal offences and prescribes a maximum of two years’ imprisonment.. It does not adequately address offences of. “exceptional gravity” that have been documented in practice.. The abduction of adults and children, the infliction of reversible or irreversible bodily harm upon them through mu 

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged people in Assam to punish the Congress in the upcoming assembly polls for encouraging illegal infiltrators and ignoring indigenous people.. PM Modi, who began a two-day-visit to the state on Friday, was addressing a public meeting in Kokrajhar virtually. (PTI photo). “Congress always encouraged illegal infiltrators and continues to do the same. For decades, the party didn’t provide land rights to the indigenous people of Assam and even handed over lands of Adivasis to infiltrators,” Modi said.. PM Modi, who began a two-day-visit to the state on Friday, was addressing a public meeting in Kokrajhar virtually from Guwahati.. Also Read:‘Modi govt’s reckless abdication of India’s strategic interests’: Kharge slams PM. PM Modi was to attend the meeting, but couldn’t due to inclement weather.. “The situation had become very dangerous in districts like Dhubri and Goalpara. I am happy that the present state government has launched a big drive to evict illegal encroachers and provide land rights to indigenous people.” he said.. “I would urge everyone that in the coming election punish Congress severely and send a clear message that there’s no place for infiltrators in the country now. This message from Assam will soon become the voice of the nation,” Modi added.. The PM said that Congress didn’t focus on development in Bodoland region of Assam.. “Congress is a shop of lies. Along with one lie, it gives four other super lies as gifts. But the party never had any wish to fulfill those promises. On the other hand, the double engine government of BJP and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has undertaken honest efforts to fulfill all that we have promised,” Modi said.. “All the promises made under the Bodo peace deal of 2020 are being implemented one by one continuously. Bodo language has been given the status of associate official language of Assam and a special assistance package of ₹1,500 crore was given to Bodoland,” he added.. During his visit, PM Modi will inaugurate and lay foundation stones of several projects worth more than ₹47,600 crore.. In Kokrajhar, the PM laid foundation stones and flagged off projects worth over ₹4,570 crore including foundation stones of Assam Mala 3.0, a road infrastructure project and foundation stone of six road infrastructure projects in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) area.. He laid the foundation stone of a Periodic Overhauling (POH) Workshop of railway wagons at Bashbari and flagged off three new train services aimed at improving connectivity in Assam and the North-East region. The new trains are Kamakhya-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express, the Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri Express and Narangi-Agartala Express. 

 The world, before February 28—when the US and Israel decided to attack Iran and inflicted the biggest ever oil shock in the history of capitalism—was obsessed with AI model hallucinations. In the two weeks following that, debate increasingly centres on whether our near-term future depends on the hallucinations of one person who has brought the world to its current predicament: US President Donald Trump. His statements on the origins and future direction of the ongoing conflict have swung so wildly—sometimes simultaneously—that someone on X (formerly Twitter) joked that the new left leaning mayor of New York might have taught dialectics to Trump. The joke would be funny if the economic and human costs of the war were not so high, especially the former for countries and people uninvolved in starting the current conflict.. The Iran war and Trump’s unpredictable decisions highlight a fragile world order, rising geopolitical tensions and growing economic risks for global markets. (AFP). Where does this leave the rest of the world and what some starry-eyed folks still like to call the world order? Let us begin with the most obvious answer.. There is no world order right now. Trump not only completely bypassed existing international and even U.S. rules to launch the war, but he also, most likely, ignored U.S. intelligence regarding not just Iran but also U.S. capabilities, such as munition inventories before entering the conflict. Trump’s latest admission suggests his son-in-law’s input mattered most in his decision to launch the war. The only country which can perhaps claim to have violated more international laws than Trump has recently is Israel in the aftermath of the unequivocally barbaric attacks by Hamas on innocent Israeli citizens. There is a growing consensus among foreign policy observers that US’s policy today is the proverbial dog which is being wagged by its Israeli tail.. To be sure, Trump is not the only US president who has bypassed international rules to launch a war. But he might very well be the first to drag it in a war where the US is, in a way, doing exactly what the last GOP president before Trump, George W Bush Junior warned against. “I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt”, Bush had said after he attacked Afghanistan to avenge the 9/11 attacks on the US. Trump today is firing missiles worth billions of dollars to intercept Iranian drones worth a few thousand dollars. It is no wonder the latter keep coming and the US is increasingly running out of the former and even having to redeploy them from other important geopolitical theatres, as was described in detail in this Bloomberg story.. Some would say that Trump should never even have engaged with such a decision in the first place. He was, after all, the darling of the MAGA coalition, which has been vocally against any outside military intervention by the US. Well, it turns out, this narrative might have j