Free Republic

Apple will manufacture iPhones at a new plant in India, officials said Friday, as the US tech giant seeks to ramp up its India production and diversify away from China. The flagship mobile's global supply chain is based mainly in China, where strict Covid policies last year and ongoing diplomatic tensions with the United States have hurt production. "Apple phones to be built in the state soon," Karnataka state chief minister Basavaraj S Bommai tweeted on Friday. "Apart from creating about 100,000 jobs, it will create a whole lot of opportunities for Karnataka," he added. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India's minister of...

Amid widespread protests over a ban on hijabs in schools, an Indian court has temporarily prohibited all forms of religious dress in schools while it considers a legal challenge to the hijab ban. The current conflict began in September 2021 when a girl’s preparatory school in the Indian state of Karnataka moved to ban hijabs, saying the Muslim headscarves violated the school’s dress code. In the months and weeks since, students at various schools in the region have protested the ban by wearing their hijabs and demanding to be let back into school. At the same time, mobs of Hindu...

While FASTag was seen as a transformative step to overcome various toll hurdles, the initiative doesn't have everyone's blessings. Ever since, FASTag was made mandatory for vehicles, there have been frequent commotions between locals and toll companies over concession. There has also been a growing demands of locals wanting a toll-free service as another option. However, as such a drastic rule change seems far from simple, it has led to people taking matters into their own hands. Tired of paying toll tax, villagers in coastal Karnataka, used a bulldozer to construct a 'parallel' road to bypass the booth. The residents...

Of the identified 429 signs, "a man with jar cup", a symbol unique to the Indus civilisation and other compound letters testified to remnants of the Harappan culture, spanning from 2300 BC to 1700 BC, in South India, Varier, who led the excavation at the caves said. The "man-with-the-jar" symbol, an integral remnant commonly traced in parts where the Indus Valley civilisation existed, has even more similarities than those traced in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, he said. The 'man-with-the-jar' has been a distinct motif of the Indus valley symbols. The Edakkal engraving has retained its unique style as the engraver...

The Norwegian archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad's famous identification, in 1961, of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, from just after A.D. 1000 is, of course, a notable exception, no longer in dispute. But that discovery has so far gone nowhere. The Norse settlers, who may have numbered as many as 160 and stayed for three years or longer, seem to have made no lasting impression on the aboriginal skraellings that, according to Norse sagas, they encountered, and to have avoided being influenced in turn. The traditions of the Micmac people, modern-day inhabitants of the area, have...

JALPAIGURI (Indo-Nepal-Bhutan-Bangladesh Border), July 24: Over 165 Maoist cadres are being trained in Bhutan at present, as Bhutan has been included in the future Maoist country, ‘Dandkaranya Desam’. The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO) are imparting the training. A senior leader of the Standing Committee of a Maoist outfit confirmed this to the South Asia Tribune.