y Eve Bohnett, University of Florida
TALAHASSE: (Feb 9) In late 2025, Interpol coordinated a global operation across 134 nations, seizing roughly 30,000 live animals, confiscating illegal plant and timber products, and identifying about 1,100 suspected wildlife traffickers for national police to investigate.
Wildlife trafficking is one of the most lucrative illicit industries worldwide. It nets between US$7 billion and $23 billion per year, according to the Global Environment Facility, a group of nearly 200 nations as well as businesses and nonprofits that funds environmental improvement and protection projects.
People buy and sell a wide range of items, including live animals, plant powders and oils, ivory carvings and musical instruments.
COLOMBO: (Feb 8) Kamindu Mendis’ scintillating 19-ball 44 and Kusal Mendis’ unbeaten half-century lifted Sri Lanka to 163 for six after a slow start in their T20 World Cup match against Ireland here on Sunday.
Wicketkeeper Kusal made 56 off 43 balls with the help of five boundaries and added 67 runs for the fifth wicket with Kamindu, who smashed four fours and two sixes, to lift Sri Lanka after they were struggling at 86 for four in the 14th over.
Sri Lanka were also helped by a few dropped catches by the Irish fielders in the floodlit R Premadasa Stadium.
THANE: (Feb 8) At least seven godowns stocked with materials like paper products and plastic items were destroyed after a fire broke out in an industrial hub in Maharashtra’s Thane district on Sunday, an official said.
No one was injured in the incident at the godown complex in Bhiwandi’s Mankoli area, said Chief Fire Officer Nitin Lad from the Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation.
After being alerted about the fire, which started around 2.30 pm, three fire engines were rushed to the spot, he said.
Mumbai, February 7, 2026:
India and the United States have taken a major step forward in strengthening their strategic and economic partnership with the signing of an Interim Trade Pact, setting the stage for an ambitious $500 billion bilateral trade target in the coming years.
The agreement, signed within days of its announcement, underscores the seriousness both nations attach to expanding trade ties. The interim pact significantly reduces import duties from as high as 50% to zero on several key Indian export sectors, including gems and jewellery, pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, smartphones, and auto components.
Welcoming the announcement, Dr. Vijay Kalantri, Chairman of World Trade Center Mumbai and President of the All India Association of Industries (AIAI), described the deal as a “transformational moment” for India’s global trade positioning.
“With today’s joint statement, it is amply clear that this trade deal will support India’s long-term vision of Viksit Bharat, strengthening our role in international trade while cementing our geopolitical and geoeconomic partnership with the United States,” Dr. Kalantri said.
The broader contours of the agreement were outlined in a joint statement by both countries, followed by a press conference addressed by Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who indicated that the final Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) is expected to be completed by March 2026.
According to trade experts, the immediate reduction in tariffs gives Indian exporters a significant competitive advantage over other global players, particularly benefiting MSMEs, job creation, and export-led growth.
Dr. Kalantri further highlighted that unlike several other trade agreements signed with regions such as the EU, UK, and New Zealand—whose benefits will materialize gradually—the India–US interim pact delivers immediate economic impact.
“The provisions on technology transfer and investment cooperation will boost India’s startup ecosystem, innovation capacity, and access to critical ICT products. This will not only accelerate economic growth but also strengthen national security,” he added.
Importantly, the pact reassures domestic stakeholders that India has not compromised on sensitive and strategic sectors, addressing political and economic concerns while ensuring broad acceptability of the agreement.
Trade analysts view the interim pact as a strong foundation for a comprehensive long-term trade framework, positioning India and the US as key economic partners in an increasingly competitive global landscape.
NAGPUR: (Feb 4) The Yavatmal district of eastern Maharashtra recorded 21 farmer suicides in January, an activist said on Wednesday, accusing the government of failing to deal with the agrarian crisis.
Kishore Tiwari, former chairman of the state government’s Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission (VNSSM), shared an official list of the farmers who allegedly died by suicide in the district last month.
NEW DELHI: (Feb 3) US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent augurs well for the country as it will boost exports, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Tuesday.
“So, actually our exports will pick up now, that is my expectation… along with having found new markets where they will continue to operate,” she said in an interview to PTI Videos.
“It is a good augury for them (exporters),” Sitharaman said.
Trump’s steep 50 per cent tariffs last year dented Indian exports by raising landed costs, squeezing exporter margins, and eroding competitiveness in the American market. Sectors such as steel, aluminium, textiles, engineering goods and some agricultural products were hit as higher duties led US buyers to shift orders to alternative suppliers.
On Monday, Trump agreed to slash US tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 50 per cent in exchange for India lowering trade barriers as well as stopping its purchases of Russian oil and instead buying oil from the US and potentially Venezuela.
On implementation, the deal would bring tariffs on India in line with most other Asian countries of around 15-19 per cent.
Sitharaman said while the details of the agreement will be announced soon, the cut in tariffs is a “good auguring” for exporters.
Taken together with the new markets exporters had tapped after becoming uncompetitive in the US, the “exports will pick up now,” she said.
Earlier punitive US tariffs caused India’s bilateral trade surplus with the US to shrink by USD 2.5 billion each month on average in September-December 2025 (versus the monthly average in January-August 2025), according to HSBC Global Investment Research.
There have also been USD 14 billion of equity outflows by foreign investors since July 2025 amid weak sentiment.
The new 18 per cent levy undercuts tariffs on key regional competitors such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, both facing duties of 20 per cent, restoring India’s price advantage in the US market. The move offers significant relief to a broad range of labour-intensive exports, including apparel, footwear and jewellery makers, which had been hit by punitive 50 per cent tariffs imposed in August, sharply denting competitiveness and order flows.
Earlier in the day, Sitharaman had in a post on X called the tariff reduction announcement “Good news for #MadeInIndia products. They will now face reduced tariff of 18%.”
Trump’s announcement via a social media post late Monday night is part of a general agreement under which India has apparently agreed to stop buying Russian oil, reduce “their tariffs and non-tariff barriers against the United States to zero”, and India buying an incremental USD 500 billion of “US energy, technology, agricultural, coal, and many other products” over the next five years.
The commitment to stop buying Russian oil nullifies the additional 25 per cent punitive tariff previously levied, and thereby reduces the effective applied tariff on Indian exports to the US to 18 per cent from 50 per cent.
ALIGARH (UP): Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday met here the family members of those who lost their lives in the stampede in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, according to Congress leaders.
Gandhi left from Delhi on Friday early morning by road for Hathras and was accompanied by state Congress chief Ajay Rai, state Congress in-charge Avinash Pande, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate and other office bearers.
The senior Congress leader landed in Pilakhna village in Aligarh around 7.15 am after he left by road from Delhi. Later, Gandhi is scheduled to meet families of the stampede victims in Hathras’s Vibhav Nagar area.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is preparing for a record third interim chairman as no full-time head of India’s most profitable company has yet been selected in 17 months since the post fell vacant, sources said.
ONGC is without a regular chairman and managing director since April 2021. Subhash Kumar, the senior-most director on the company board and the director for finance, was named officiating head after Shashi Shanker superannuated on March 31, 2021. And when Kumar retired on December 31, 2021, Alka Mittal, Director for Human Resources, was given an additional charge.
Mittal will superannuate at month-end and unless she is given an extension, the next senior-most director, Rajesh Kumar Srivastava, Director (Exploration), is likely to be named as interim head, two officials with knowledge of the matter said.
The third interim chairman – a record for ONGC – is being talked about as the government is yet to even identify a full-time head.
A search-cum-selection committee, which was in February this year tasked to identify suitable candidates, began work only this month after terms of reference were finalised.
The panel has shortlisted nine candidates on the basis of higher eligibility age limit proposed by the oil ministry, which brought most existing directors – who otherwise were ineligible to even apply, in the zone of consideration, they said.
The shortlisted include Mittal and Srivastava as well as three other directors on the ONGC board – Om Prakash Singh, Director (Technology & Field Services); Pankar Kumar, Director (Offshore) and Anurag Sharma, Director (Onshore).
The other shortlisted candidates are outside of ONGC and include heads of oil marketing companies, the officials said.
The panel will interview the candidates and send recommendations to the oil ministry, which will forward it to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister for final vetting and approval.
The committee shortlisted candidates on the basis of the oil ministry’s revised eligibility criteria that raised the eligibility age.
The ministry proposed that any candidate to be eligible for consideration should not be more than 60 years of age on the date of occurrence of vacancy, according to the ministry’s office memorandum sent to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on June 17.
The vacancy arose on March 31, 2021.
Prior to this change, the minimum age prescribed for being eligible for the top job is 45 years. Besides, internal candidates needed to have two years of residual service as on the date of vacancy and three years for external candidates.
What the ministry proposed was that any eligible candidate who is not more than 60 years of age at the time of occurrence of vacancy which was April 1, 2021, should be considered eligible. This essentially meant that the current acting chairman, Alka Mittal, who otherwise would retire in August-end and was ineligible, would come under the zone of consideration.
Also, Srivastava, who retires on December 31, and Sharma, who superannuates on February 28 next year, have become eligible.
Previously, only Pankaj Kumar and Om Prakash Singh were eligible.
The ministry also proposed appointment for a period of three years from the date of joining instead of the present five-year term, according to the letter.
The selection will be done through a three-member search-cum-selection committee headed by PESB chairman and composed of oil secretary and former Indian Oil chairman B Ashok (outside expert).
The panel was formed on February 4, 2022 but the terms of reference are being framed recently.
Most board-level appointments at public sector companies are done on the basis of recommendations of the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) but the government headhunter in June last year did not find anyone suitable among nine candidates, including two serving IAS officers, to head ONGC.
“Keeping in view the strategic importance and vision for the company and its future, the board did not recommend any candidate and decided to constitute a search committee,” the ministry letter said referring to PESB’s interviews on June 5, 2021.
The panel was constituted after eight months of that recommendation on February 4. The ACC approved “consideration of central government officers, including those of the armed forces of the Union and the all India services for the post on immediate absorption basis.”
“Energy security is critical for the nation. ONGC plays a pivotal role in exploration as India’s National Oil Company (NOC). Its activities need to be scaled significantly and rapidly. As an NOC, it is necessary to have a specially designed ‘sui generis’ job description for ONGC in order to attract the best talent available,” the ministry note had said.
As per the practice, PESB recommends a name for a board-level position at least three months prior to arising of the vacancy. However, in the case of ONGC, PESB advertised and interviewed candidates after the retirement of Shashi Shanker on March 31, 2021.
The committee route for appointment of PSU board members has very sparingly been used in the past. In 2016, current NTPC chairman Gurdeep Singh was appointed through the route. Last appointment using the route was that of Sanjeev Kumar as the chairman of Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL).
PESB on June 5, 2021, interviewed nine out of the 10 candidates who had applied for the post of chairman and managing director of ONGC. Those interviewed included senior bureaucrats Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma.
This was the second time in one-and-a-half decades that a suitable candidate was not found among those who had applied.
In August 2006, PESB chose R S Sharma to head the company but the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in February 2007 vetoed his appointment as it wanted the selection process to be widened by inviting candidates from the private sector.
In June 2007, PESB again selected Sharma and his candidature was this time endorsed by the ACC.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission on a PIL seeking voting rights for non-resident Indians (NRIs) in polls here.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices J K Maheshwari and Hima Kohli took note of the PIL filed by the Kerala Pravasi Association that the NRIs be given the voting rights.
The top court issued notices and ordered the tagging of the PIL with pending ones on the issue.PTI
Switch Mobility, the electric vehicle division of Hinduja group’s flagship Ashok Leyland, unveiled the country’s first electric double-decker air-conditioned bus here on Thursday.
These buses will replace the existing double-decker fleet of the BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) undertaking.
As of now, Switch is operating its twin-floor electric AC buses in the United Kingdom.
Switch India has already secured an order of 200 electric double-decker buses in Mumbai and is looking at a dominant space in the electric double-decker segment, across key regions in the country, the company said.
“We already have an order for 200 electric double-decker AC buses in Mumbai. We will deliver 50 of these buses this financial year. Many more cities are discussing with us for these buses,” Mahesh Babu, CEO Switch Mobility India and COO at Switch Mobility Ltd told PTI.
Babu said amid discussions with multiple players, “we are expecting to deliver some 150-250 buses next year.”
In April this year, Switch Mobility announced an investment of 300-million pounds to develop a range of electric buses and light commercial vehicles in India and the UK.
“Ashok Leyland was a pioneer among Indian manufacturers when it first launched the double-decker in 1967 in Mumbai and Switch is carrying forward that legacy.
“With our strong expertise in double-deckers, both in India and UK and with over 100 Switch electric double deckers in service on UK roads, we reinforce our commitment to create this form factor (design) for India and the globe,” said Dheeraj Hinduja Chairman – Switch Mobility.
The electric double-decker AC bus EiV22 is powered by a 231 kWh capacity battery pack with dual gun charging system, which allows the bus to have a range up to 250 kms for intra-city transport, according to the company.
“The Switch EiV 22 is designed and developed to meet Indian conditions. Mumbai and double-deckers are synonymous with public transport, and we are certain that EiV 22 will transform the public transport space in terms of sustainability and footprint,” said Babu.
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