A hoax bomb threat sent via email to the regional passport office in Calcutta on Thursday triggered a security sweep and mass evacuations. The disruption affected the head office, Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs), and post office PSKs, halting operations for several hours. ADVERTISEMENTSources said an email that was sent to the regional passport office email id mentioned a bomb threat, mentioning that “10 cyanide gas-infused RDX IEDs have been planted in the office that would blast at 1.15pm.”Passport officials alerted Kolkata Police. Many who had appointments scheduled at the Kasba PSK office on Thursday were evacuated. We understand that many people were inconvenienced, but adherence to protocol was necessary,” said a senior officer from the regional passport office in Calcutta.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday that markets have miscalculated the AI threat to software companies, hours after the chip behemoth issued an upbeat sales forecast on strong AI demand. “I think the markets got it wrong,” Huang told CNBC, pushing back on fears that AI agents will cannibalise the enterprise software industry. ADVERTISEMENTInstead, he expects a broad swath of software firms to use agentic AI to develop their software and boost efficiency. In what he described as “counterintuitive”, Huang said that AI agents won’t replace these software tools, but will use them instead. He cited the internet browser and Microsoft’s Excel as examples of tools that AI agents will use.

The presidential order in the United States of America facilitating medical and investigational use of psychoactive plant cannabis would have gratified Sir W.B. Countries got together, often led by the US, and built international collaborative legal frameworks to control narcotic and psychoactive substances of which cannabis provides the largest share. Already Canada, the European Union, and some American states have legalised medical marijuana. Arguing that personal substance usages are not crime but preventable health problems, they have also decriminalised substance use. ADVERTISEMENTPortugal decriminalised the use of narcotic substances in 2001 and has reported positive results in many metrics, including spending less on policing and more on health.

A genetic study on mosquitoes from northeastern India and Southeast Asia has traced the evolution of human-biting preferences in certain species to around 1.8 million years ago. Scientists have found that the malaria-transmitting Anopheles species developed a taste for humans around 2 million years ago, a period overlapping with the arrival of Homo erectus, an extinct ancestral hominin species, into southeast Asia 1.8 million years ago. The mosquitoes’ shift away from feeding on tree-dwelling monkeys to feeding on humans, the study suggests, involved a two-stage process. Then, evolutionary changes leading to a preference for human body odour occurred after Homo erectus arrived in the region 1.8 million years ago. Scientists have known from evidence based on prehistoric stone tools that Homo erectus lived in southeast Asia around 1.8 million years ago.

He met his Indian counterpart commerce minister Piyush Goyal, days after the US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff, slowing down progress on bilateral trade agreement. Engaged in very fruitful discussions to expand our trade and economic partnership,” Goyal said in a social media post. Chief negotiators of both sides were scheduled to meet this week in Washington to finalise the legal text for the pact, but it was postponed after Supreme Court order. After the court order, Trump has warned countries to honour the deals agreed so far and has threatened higher tariffs on goods from nations that “play games”. The Supreme Court order was a major setback to Trump’s pivotal economic agenda in his second term.

Whether you’re tired, stressed, or have been staring at a screen too long, your hands go up and you start rubbing your eyes. It’s a sensation many are familiar with, but few understand why it feels so comforting. There are mechanical, neurological, and even emotional reasons why rubbing your eyes feels so good. But what exactly happens when we rub our eyes that makes the sensation feel so satisfying? Rubbing can momentarily improve tear flow, which lubricates dry eyes and clears irritants like dust or allergens.”

Three men who allegedly sheltered the shooters of 27-year-old promoter Mohammad Shafique, gunned down in Howrah’s Pilkhana early on Wednesday morning, were arrested on Thursday. The trio — Mohammad Bilal, Mohammad Dildar, and Wakil Hussain — have been booked on charges of harbouring criminals and criminal conspiracy. The prime accused, Harun Khan and Rohit, remained at large till Thursday evening. “We are trying to trace the location of the main accused,” a senior officer of Howrah city police said. Two men shot him in the head and then fired multiple rounds to ensure he was dead, before fleeing, the police said.

लेखक के बारे में अभिजात शेखर आजाद अभिजात शेखर आजाद नवभारत टाइम्स डिजिटल में असिस्टेंट न्यूज़ एडिटर हैं, जिन्हें पत्रकारिता में 16 वर्षों से अधिक का गहन अनुभव है। वे अंतरराष्ट्रीय राजनीति (International Politics), वैश्विक कूटनीति (Global Diplomacy) और रक्षा रणनीति (Defense Strategy) के विशेषज्ञ माने जाते हैं।अभिजात ने अपने करियर में अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति चुनाव, रूस-यूक्रेन युद्ध और मध्य पूर्व (Middle East) के भू-राजनीतिक संकटों का सूक्ष्म विश्लेषण किया है। उनकी विशेषज्ञता केवल समाचार रिपोर्टिंग तक सीमित नहीं है, बल्कि वे जटिल अंतरराष्ट्रीय संबंधों को भारतीय दर्शकों के लिए सरल और प्रभावी ढंग से समझाने के लिए जाने जाते हैं।प्रमुख उपलब्धियां और विशेषज्ञता:रक्षा और सैन्य विश्लेषण: राफेल डील से लेकर अत्याधुनिक मिसाइल टेक्नोलॉजी और वैश्विक शक्ति संतुलन पर सैकड़ों विश्लेषणात्मक लेख।चुनाव कवरेज: कई भारतीय लोकसभा चुनावों और प्रमुख वैश्विक चुनावों की ग्राउंड और संपादकीय रिपोर्टिंग।पुरस्कार: पत्रकारिता में उत्कृष्टता के लिए दो बार प्रतिष्ठित ENBA अवार्ड से सम्मानित।इंटरव्यू: वैश्विक नीति निर्माताओं, पूर्व राजनयिकों और रक्षा विशेषज्ञों के साथ विशेष संवाद।अभिजात का लक्ष्य वैश्विक घटनाओं के पीछे छिपे 'असली कारणों' को उजागर करना है, ताकि पाठक केवल खबर न पढ़ें, बल्कि उसके दूरगामी प्रभावों को भी समझ सकें।... और पढ़ें

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken strong exception to the inclusion of a section on “Corruption in the Judiciary” in the NCERT Social Science textbook for Class 8, sources said Thursday. Expressing his anguish, Modi, at a Cabinet meeting held Tuesday, was said to have asked Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to find out who was responsible for this and who should be held accountable. Modi took up the issue at the Cabinet meeting, the first to be held at Seva Teerth, the newly-constructed PMO. According to sources, the Prime Minister was said to have asked why Class 8 students were being taught such chapters and who was monitoring the content in textbooks.

One of the two prime suspects in the Howrah murder, Harun Khan, and the man he allegedly killed, 27-year-old Mohammad Shafique, were once friends, neighbours said. Shafique started working under a man named Akash Singh, while Harun got patronage from a local political leader,” said a Pilkhana resident familiar with both men. ADVERTISEMENTPolice searching for Harun and his associate Rohit said Harun’s father was from Afghanistan, but Harun grew up in Howrah. Sources said he tried to project himself as a man helping the poor through social media videos and reels. “North Howrah MLA Goutam Chowdhury began promoting Harun as a philanthropist, including at a recent NGO event on January 26,” he said.

ADVERTISEMENTThe Vice-President’s strong advocacy for dietary freedom has come amid periodic tensions in the country over food choices. “They were all very surprised by the reception — what we are (were) giving, and I asked our people to serve all the non-vegetarian food to them. We have to accept the sentiments (of people fond of non-vegetarian food). Radhakrishnan’s remarks seem to be a rebuff to those seeking a ban on non-vegetarian food. For many Kashmiris, “vegetarian wazwan” sounded like a “cultural invasion”.

AdvertisementCentral assistance is capped at 25 per cent of project cost, and cities must mobilise at least 50 per cent from market sources. The rest may come from states, urban local bodies or other channels. Access to central assistance is contingent on reforms. States, urban local bodies, financial institutions, credit rating agencies and private developers are expected to engage through a competitive challenge-based process that rewards readiness and innovation. By embedding market discipline, reform incentives and measurable outcomes into its design, it seeks to drive the next phase of India’s urban transformation.

लेखक के बारे में अभिजात शेखर आजाद अभिजात शेखर आजाद नवभारत टाइम्स डिजिटल में असिस्टेंट न्यूज़ एडिटर हैं, जिन्हें पत्रकारिता में 16 वर्षों से अधिक का गहन अनुभव है। वे अंतरराष्ट्रीय राजनीति (International Politics), वैश्विक कूटनीति (Global Diplomacy) और रक्षा रणनीति (Defense Strategy) के विशेषज्ञ माने जाते हैं।अभिजात ने अपने करियर में अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति चुनाव, रूस-यूक्रेन युद्ध और मध्य पूर्व (Middle East) के भू-राजनीतिक संकटों का सूक्ष्म विश्लेषण किया है। उनकी विशेषज्ञता केवल समाचार रिपोर्टिंग तक सीमित नहीं है, बल्कि वे जटिल अंतरराष्ट्रीय संबंधों को भारतीय दर्शकों के लिए सरल और प्रभावी ढंग से समझाने के लिए जाने जाते हैं।प्रमुख उपलब्धियां और विशेषज्ञता:रक्षा और सैन्य विश्लेषण: राफेल डील से लेकर अत्याधुनिक मिसाइल टेक्नोलॉजी और वैश्विक शक्ति संतुलन पर सैकड़ों विश्लेषणात्मक लेख।चुनाव कवरेज: कई भारतीय लोकसभा चुनावों और प्रमुख वैश्विक चुनावों की ग्राउंड और संपादकीय रिपोर्टिंग।पुरस्कार: पत्रकारिता में उत्कृष्टता के लिए दो बार प्रतिष्ठित ENBA अवार्ड से सम्मानित।इंटरव्यू: वैश्विक नीति निर्माताओं, पूर्व राजनयिकों और रक्षा विशेषज्ञों के साथ विशेष संवाद।अभिजात का लक्ष्य वैश्विक घटनाओं के पीछे छिपे 'असली कारणों' को उजागर करना है, ताकि पाठक केवल खबर न पढ़ें, बल्कि उसके दूरगामी प्रभावों को भी समझ सकें।... और पढ़ें

Carney will land in Mumbai and later visit New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, before wrapping up his trip on March 2. Trudeau said he had taken up the issue with Prime Minister Modi during his visit for the G20 Leaders’ Summit in September. Story continues below this adA former central banker, Carney was keen to reset ties with India, a major economic partner. The pillars of the relationshipNotwithstanding the relatively brief strain in ties, India and Canada have typically enjoyed strong cooperation in sectors such as politics, business, investment and people-to-people relationships. According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Canada is the 17th largest foreign investor in India.

That would put CNN under the same roof as Paramount's CBS and combine two of Hollywood's last five remaining studios. Paramount's CBS has seen significant editorial shifts, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss at CBS News, under new Skydance ownership. And beyond CBS, it owns networks like MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as the Paramount+ streaming service. Netflix, Warner and Paramount have spent the last couple of months in a heated, public back and forth over whose deal has a better regulatory path - and offers more value for Warner shareholders. Beyond increasing its proposed purchase price for Warner, the company also agreed to a regulatory termination fee of USD 7 billion.