India and France on Thursday concluded negotiations on the Short Range Surface to Air Missile nearly worth of $6 billion during the talks between French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also said talks on $10-billion deal for Rafale fighter aircraft are "progressing well".

A complete ban on mining activities in areas of national parks, tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries could be on the anvil if the government agrees to the recommendations of a high-level environment ministry panel.

Greenpeace activists forced a temporary shut down of Shell petrol pump near the WEF meeting venue in Davos this morning and called for the energy giant to be suspended from the influential annual global economic meet being held in Davos.

Indian and global construction companies vying for Rs 12,000 crore worth of civil works for Dedicated Freight Corridor.

Has Odisha's Ganjam district become a graveyard for elephants? One can presume so going by the number of jumbo deaths this year.

Harnoor Channi-Tiwary travelled to Madhya Pradesh and returned with these memories.

Hitherto considered as the unchallenged leader of ruling Biju Janata Dal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was jolted by a whiff of revolt in 2012, as the year also witnessed a spate of abductions in Odisha with Maoists using them as a new weapon to clinch their demands.

Continued presence of terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan undermines security of bordering Afghanistan and poses an enduring threat to the US-led international forces in the war-torn country, the Pentagon report submitted to the US Congress has noted.

The mining scam had first rocked Karnataka and now Goa. While the mess in Karnataka is well known, the scenario in Goa is no different. The Central Empowered Committee in its interim report on illegal mining in Goa has found various illegalities in its detailed report, a copy of which is with Rediff.com.

We bring you the best pictures from Sanctuary Asia Wildlife Awards 2012. Text and Photograph courtesy Sanctuary Asia magazine.

Berating New Delhi for abandoning the cause of democracy in Myanmar ignores the strategic compulsions for doing so, says Harsh V Pant

Rediff reader Mridula Dwivedi sent us these pictures of her visit to Lakshman Sagar in Rajasthan, a 19th century hunting lodge which is now a resort.

The Pakistani Taliban has staged a bloody comeback in Malakand division by killing three peace committee chiefs, reports Tahir Ali.

Khaleda Zia, former prime minister of Bangladesh and the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition party leading the 18-party alliance in Bangladesh, has drastically changed her party's anti-India stance.

The 'World Heritage' site Kaziranga National Park and the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park in Assam will re-open on Thursday, while Manas National Park will welcome visitors from November 4.

Shaida Abdali, the 33-year-old ambassador to India believes that Delhi and Kabul have to do much more to secure the region, says Jyoti Malhotra

Corporations are still hard-wired for the old 'brown' economy which aims to generate only shareholder value not stakeholder value.

Earlier, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy inaugurated the summit which was attended by Mayors and other delegates from various cities world over.

Yet another rhinoceros has been found dead in Kariranga National Park in Assam. A forest guard was injured in an exchange of fire with poachers in a separate incident in the sanctuary. The carcass of a female rhino, with its horn removed, was found by forest guards near Difloo camp in Bagori range of the park, park officials said on Monday.

Union Minister for Environment and Forest Jayanthi Natarajan has announced that the central government would provide an un-manned remote-controlled aircraft and an electronic surveillance system for protecting the rhino and other wildlife in Kaziranga National Park in Assam that recently witnessed a spurt in killing of flood-hit rhinos by poachers on the prowl.

A female rhino, aged about 30 years, that had been swept ashore a sandbar near Sualkuchi in Assam by flood waters on September 30, was finally tranquilised and shifted to the safety of Assam State Zoo in Guwahati for treatment of its injuries before it is being released in the wild of its original habitat, Pabitora Wildlife Sanctuary.

No strong indicators from Romney on his policy towards India, the Pakistani use of terrorism against India and the Indian interests in Afghanistan, says B Raman.

Mining operations in all the 90 mines in Goa were ordered to be halted by the Supreme Court on Friday on the basis of the Justice M B Shah Commission report which estimated a whopping Rs 35,000 crore loss to the exchequer due to illegal mining in the last 12 years.

The environment ministry has rejected the Navy's proposal to set up a missile testing site at Tillanchong Sanctuary in Andaman and Nicobar islands, saying the firing range would destroy the habitat of endangered bird species Nicobar Megapode.

The death of 39 rhinos in and around the world-famous Kaziranga National Park in less than 10 months has brought to the fore the threat faced by the endangered animal.

The Indian Air Force is expected to use one of its choppers to airlift a full-grown one-horned rhinoceros that is stranded on a sandbar near Sualkuchi in Assam in the bosom of the mighty Brahmaputra River.

Noted American experts and analysts argue that Foreign Terrorist Organisation designation of the Haqqani Network is meaningless unless Pakistan's intelligence agency is reined it. Aziz Haniffa reports

We bring you prize-winning images from the Wild Maharashtra Photography Contest held last week.

India on Monday hit out at Pakistan for making an "unwarranted" reference to Jammu and Kashmir at the United Nations, asserting that the state was an integral part of the country.

The formal establishment of a liaison relationship between China and Afghanistan would enable the two countries to exchange intelligence regarding the activities of the extremist organisations of the Xinjiang province of China and the Central Asian Republics, notes B Raman.

The flood situation in Assam has deteriorated with 15 districts reeling under its impact, as large parts of Dibru-Saikhowa and Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary submerged and five deaths reported so far, official sources said on Sunday.

For his pains, he has over 350 criminal cases filed against him that include charges of sedition and waging a war against the nation. At the moment, he has an unbailable warrant out in his name.

Barely a year after the killing of young IPS officer Narendra Kumar, allegedly by a member of the mining mafia, an unsuccessful attempt to run over a trainee IAS officer posted at Sabalgarh in Madhya Pradesh was made by the sand mafia on Wednesday.

The population of the endangered Gangetic river dolphin is on the rise at the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary, India's only dolphin sanctuary, located in Bihar. It was revealed by a latest census study conducted by a team of experts at the Vikramshila Biodiversity Research and Education Centre, officials said on Wednesday.

Only punitive pressure against Pakistan can help in neutralising the Haqqani Network, says senior analyst B Raman

Relief camps in Assam's Kokrajhar and Barpeta districts have 4,615 new refugees, while 376 have left for home in Chirang district since Sunday. In Kokrajhar, 4,587 people have sought refuge where 60,252 are housed in 50 camps while in Chirang, there are 31,442 refugees in 24 camps, official sources said on Monday.

The government on Friday expressed deep concern over terrorism "emanating" from territory under Pakistan's control, saying it has consistently stressed the issue with its neighbour to honour its commitment in this regard.

Insurgent groups like ULFA and NSCN-K have been using Myanmar as safe sanctuary and have set up bases there, despite that country's repeated assurances not to allow its territory for activities inimical to India, Government said on Tuesday.

As part of a project undertaken by Aaranyak, a society for biodiversity conservation in north-east India recognised by the government of India, 43 rhinos have been identified through genetic analysis of dung samples, collected from the park in April 2011.

Maria Sharapova has launched her own line of candy, titled Sugarpova, in New York.