In India, air pollution is most severe in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (northern India), where topography and meteorology concentrate pollution from energy, mobility, industry, agriculture, and other activities, the researchers said.

The gunfire erupted during a lunch reception honouring a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that has services at Geneva.

The resolution was adopted by a vote of 33 in favour, China and Eritrea voting against and 12 abstentions, including India, Armenia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

The turning point in his career was undoubtedly Nepal where he was sent as ambassador and acted with a cool head.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a plea of the wife of an Indian Army officer seeking repatriation of her husband and other Army officers believed to be held under illegal detention as prisoners of war by Pakistan since the 1971 war.

The 193-member UN General Assembly on Thursday voted to adopt a draft resolution moved by the US to suspend Russia from the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) over allegations that Russian soldiers killed civilians while retreating from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Abstaining in the UN General Assembly on a vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, India on Thursday asserted that if it has 'chosen' any side, it is the side of 'peace and it is for an immediate end to violence.'

India on Thursday abstained in the UN General Assembly on a vote moved by the US to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over allegations that Russian soldiers killed civilians while retreating from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Known to be having extensive expertise in dealing with India's neighbourhood as well as the US, China and Europe, the 1988-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer pipped nearly half-a-dozen others in the race for the coveted post including Indian High Commissioner to UK Gaitri Issar Kumar (1986-batch IFS) and Ruchira Kamboj (1987 batch IFS).

The World Health Organisation said in its latest update that the XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2) was first detected in the UK on January 19 and more than 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since then.

'Even if the government does not implement an all-India NRC before 2024, it will be part of the party's long-term project.'

'They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.'

'I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing ..., which is just brutality, half the children of Ukraine.'

Fresh cases of Covid-19 are again spiking globally, especially in parts of Asia, after several weeks of decline and this rise is "just the tip of the iceberg", World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned.

Russian invaders are not getting the support of locals in Ukraine and thus they are resorting to instilling terror, said the Ukrainian FM.

The first attempt to evacuate students on March 7 failed, despite ceasefire and planning.

The countries voting in favour included France, Germany, Japan, Nepal, The United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday warned that a third World War, should it break out, will be "nuclear and devastating", amid spiralling tensions with the West over Moscow's ongoing massive military operation against Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said India has also approached the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva and requested it to be cognizant of the security interests of the Indian citizens and escort them out, wherever possible, when it starts its operation in Ukraine.

Indian evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest. The government is not charging the rescued citizens for the evacuation flights.

India's permanent mission in Geneva, in a tweet, said advancing a "misleading narrative" only "tarnishes" the reputation of the UN mission.

India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.

Russia and China have a broad consensus today on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, which is unprecedented in modern history, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.

The marchers -- many wrapped in the red, yellow and blue flag of Tibet and dressed in traditional robes -- chanted and played drums, holding a minute of silence for their "martrys" before starting a "peace march" along Lake Geneva.

'The term 'pro-growth' must be qualified somewhat because, while a rising tide will lift all boats, it will not necessarily do so equally.'

He said more than one crore children have sent him 'their Mann Ki Baat' via postcards which have come from many parts of the country and even from abroad.

A fracture of interstate relations could be India's biggest risk coming out of the pandemic. This topped a list of critical risks for India over the next two years, according to Geneva-based World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey (EOS), whose results were released on Tuesday. Other top risks include a debt crisis in large economies, widespread youth disillusionment, failure of technology governance and digital inequality.

The reduced severity of Omicron is good news for now, but it is the result of an "evolutionary mistake" as Covid-19 is transmitting very efficiently and there is no reason for it to become milder, indicating that the next variant could be more virulent, a leading Indian-origin scientist from the University of Cambridge has warned.

The number of new COVID-19 cases increased exponentially by 71 per cent globally during the week December 27-January 2 as compared to the previous week, while the number of new deaths decreased by 10 per cent, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday, as the new Omicron variant led the spike.

The new and highly transmissible Omicron variant of the deadly coronavirus has increased immune escape compared with the Delta variant and appears likely to become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain globally in 2022, according to Singapore-based experts.

The World Economic Forum on Monday said it has decided to defer its Annual Meeting 2022 in the Swiss Alpine ski resort town of Davos in the light of continued uncertainty over the Omicron outbreak. The Annual Meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland between January 17-21, 2022, is now planned for early summer. The World Economic Forum (WEF) held its last Davos summit, attended by top leaders from across the world, in January 2020, just before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, while the 2021 meeting could not take place due to the outbreak.

A technical advisory group of the UN health agency which met on Tuesday has sought "additional clarifications" from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to conduct a final "risk-benefit assessment" for Emergency Use Listing of the vaccine.

The World Health Organisation's technical advisory group will meet on October 26 to consider the Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of Covaxin, a vaccine developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech protecting against COVID-19, the global health agency's chief scientist said.

Ambassador Pankaj Sharma, Permanent Representative of India to the Conference on Disarmament (CD), Geneva, said India has been drawing the attention of the world towards these threats and the need to strengthen international cooperation to address them through its annual consensus UNGA resolution titled 'Measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction'.

'Vaccination is the only safe way to get immunity.'

India on Wednesday hit out at Pakistan and the OIC for raising the Kashmir issue at the UN Human Rights Commission and said the grouping has 'helplessly' allowed itself to be held 'hostage' by Islamabad.

Marking a key milestone in the Indian government's fight against black money allegedly stashed abroad, India will get this month the complete information on flats, apartments and condominiums owned by Indians in Switzerland as also on earnings made from such properties to help it look into tax liabilities associated with those assets.

The world's attention is on the new Taliban and the imminent announcement of an inclusive government in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar briefed the leaders on the latest situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban captured power there last week.

'We hope that the situation in Afghanistan does not pose a challenge to its neighbours and its territory is not used by terrorist groups'