You don’t have permission to access “http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/jds-mla-hd-revanna-discharged-in-sexual-harassment-case-10067307” on this server.

Reference #18.74fdd417.1767034287.7bd5750d

https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.74fdd417.1767034287.7bd5750d

Dhruv Jurel, Ishan Kishan, and Rishabh Pant

NEW DELHI: One spot. Three contenders. And no obvious answer. The backup option for KL Rahul‘s wicketkeeper spot has quietly turned into a happy headache for the men’s senior selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar.With the T20 World Cup around the corner, the ODIs have taken a backseat. However, the race for the second wicketkeeper’s role in the three-match ODI series against New Zealand, starting January 11, has heated up, with Ishan Kishan, Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel the contenders.

In the ODI series against South Africa, Pant was slotted as the backup option, with Jurel picked purely as a batter. With Ishan bolting back into the T20 national reckoning after an exhilarating campaign in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he has emerged as a strong contender.Ishan, who led Jharkhand to their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title, hammered 517 runs and was brought into India’s squad for the T20 World Cup as a backup opener. Kishan also became only the second player to score a century (off 45 balls) in the tournament final.After a two-year absence from the national team, Ishan Kishan’s stock is rising again. The southpaw was asked to take rest by the BCCI after his blistering 39-ball 125 against Karnataka in Jharkhand’s opening fixture of the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy but has now been instructed by the selectors to play two more matches, TimesofIndia.com has learnt.“He (Ishan Kishan) has been given rest by the BCCI team. He has gone back home. He will be back on January 2,” Kumar Kushagra, Jharkhand’s stand-in captain, had said at the toss ahead of their match against Rajasthan.Kishan, who is in Patna, will join the Jharkhand squad on January 2 and will play the fixtures against Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, scheduled for January 3 and 6, respectively. “He is in the contention for sure,” a source tracking the developments tells TimesofIndia.com.The 27-year-old was very close to a return for the ODI series against South Africa, but his selection didn’t get the required support from the men who matter.“When I was not selected in the Indian team, I felt quite bad because I was doing well. But I told myself that if I am not selected with this sort of performance, then maybe I have to do more. Maybe I have to make my team win. Maybe we have to do well as a unit,” Kishan had said after the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final.If Kishan gets the nod, it could be a bit unfair to Rishabh Pant as the Test vice-captain has been warming the bench in ODIs for over a year now. He has been playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy, but the Delhi captain’s returns have been mixed: in three matches, he has managed 97 runs, including a 70.Jurel, meanwhile, batting at No. 3 for Uttar Pradesh, is in red-hot form, hammering 307 runs in three matches, including his maiden List A hundred against Baroda. He was also picked for South Africa ODIs but as a specialist batter.

Middle order muddle

Fit-again captain Shubman Gill is all set to make a comeback. This means Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored his maiden ODI century against the Proteas, will be back on the bench.Vice-captain Shreyas Iyer will also return for the New Zealand ODIs and could force Ruturaj Gaikwad out of the Playing XI. TimesofIndia.com has also learnt that the team management wants at least a couple of left-handed batters in the batting order in an otherwise right-hander-heavy line-up.In the ODI series against South Africa, India played Washington Sundar at No.6 and No.5 in the first two matches and then included Tilak Varma in the playing XI for the third game.Further down, it will be interesting to see whether selectors opt for a left-handed wicketkeeper-batter to play as a specialist in the middle-order. Against Jharkhand in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Kishan batted at No. 6 and slammed a 33-ball century.He sent a strong message to the selectors and has thrown his hat into the ring if they are looking for an in-form southpaw in the middle order. Pant, too, is batting at No. 5 for Delhi.There isn’t much separating Kishan and Pant, but Kishan is a strong fielder in the outfield, unlike India’s Test vice-captain. This gives him an edge.

Arshdeep to turn up for Punjab

Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh will represent Punjab in two Vijay Hazare Trophy fixtures on January 3 and 6. The 26-year-old missed the initial round after being asked to rest due to workload management, TimesofIndia.com has learnt.Arshdeep, who has been playing constant cricket since the Indian Premier League (IPL), last played on December 19 in the fifth and final T20I against South Africa. With Jasprit Bumrah likely to be rested for the three-match series against New Zealand, the left-arm quick, who impressed with the new ball against South Africa, is also in contention for the ODIs.The squad for the three-match ODI series against New Zealand is likely to be picked in the first week of January. The first game will be played on January 11 in Vadodara, and the ODI team is likely to assemble on January 7 or 8 in the city.

Mumbai: In a boost to India’s clean-energy and climate action efforts, NTPC and IIT-Bombay have successfully completed drilling the country’s first geological well in Jharkhand to test the feasibility of underground carbon dioxide (CO2) storage. The drilling of a second well in the vicinity has also commenced, primarily to monitor and study the behaviour of injected CO2 and its containment using multiple monitoring techniques. The success of the drilling project marks an important step in academia-industry collaboration in Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and will also position the country closer to developing indigenous, large-scale solutions for reducing carbon emissions in line with its net-zero commitments. IIT-Bombay is the implementation agency for the project.The collaboration, facilitated by NITI Aayog, in Nov 2022, brought together NETRA-the R&D wing of NTPC, and the Department of Earth Sciences, IIT-Bombay in building India’s first geological storage atlas for coalbed methane rich coalfields. In Sept 2025, NTPC and the Powai institute commenced the country’s first dedicated drilling in Hazaribagh till the depth of 1,200 metres, for potential CO2 storage in the vicinity of a coal mining area and completed it last month. A second well drilling was initiated on Dec 21. Studies are underway to check the potential of drilling such wells in many other regions, including Mumbai High. The project will generate detailed feasibility and risk assessments for full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) development, including a commercial deployment plan. Preliminary studies indicate significant storage potential in the North Karanpura coalfield, with the Pakri-Barwadih block alone estimated to accommodate up to 15.5 million tonnes of CO2 over a 10-year injection period, said prof Vikram Vishal, project lead from IIT-Bombay.Explaining the need and implication of the project, Prof Vikram told TOI, “India produces roughly 2.95 billion tons of CO2 annually and almost a third of it comes from the power sector. As India pursues its net-zero ambitions, certain sectors will continue to emit CO2 due to the very nature of their industrial processes. While renewable energy, hydrogen and other clean technologies will play a crucial role in reducing emissions, they cannot entirely eliminate process-related CO2 emissions. Capturing this carbon is only part of the solution. Conversion into useful chemicals is limited by market demand and scale. At the volumes India is likely to deal with, ranging from hundreds of millions to nearly a billion tonnes of CO2, geological storage becomes unavoidable. Storing CO2 deep underground is therefore essential for industries, companies and the country as a whole to meet their net-zero targets.”Prof Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT-Bombay, celebrating the landmark contribution, emphasised the role of the translational R&D in architecting the roadmap for India’s energy transition and decarbonisation.

The number of ATMs in the country declined as people shifted digital payments. The e-payments network reduced customers’ need for cash withdrawals, even as bank branches continued to expand, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report said.Private banks led the contraction, cutting their ATM network to 77,117 from 79,884, while public sector banks reduced their count to 133,544 from 134,694, mainly by shutting down offsite machines, according to the report cited by ANI. In contrast, white label ATM (ATMs set up, owned and operated by non-banks) operators expanded their presence, with the number of machines rising to 36,216 from 34,602.Public sector banks maintained a relatively balanced distribution of ATMs across rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan areas. Private and foreign banks, however, continued to concentrate their ATM networks largely in urban and metropolitan centres.Meanwhile, bank branches grew by 2.8 per cent to around 164,000, driven by a sharper expansion by public sector banks. More than two-thirds of the new branches opened by public sector banks were located in rural and semi-urban areas, compared with 37.5 per cent of new branches added by private banks.Basic savings bank deposit accounts continued to register steady growth, rising by 2.6 per cent to 72.4 crore accounts. Balances in these accounts increased by 9.5 per cent to Rs 3.3 lakh crore, with most accounts being operated through business correspondents, underlining their role in expanding banking access at the grassroots level.On deposit insurance, the report said 97.6 per cent of accounts remained covered under the existing Rs 5 lakh insurance limit at the end of FY25. However, the coverage ratio for insured deposits declined marginally to 41.5 per cent from 43.1 per cent in the previous year.The RBI attributed the decline in ATM numbers to the increasing digitalisation of payments, noting that it has reduced customers’ requirement to transact through ATMs.

SAN FRANCISCO: India is no longer a decade behind Silicon Valley in building with artificial intelligence, Elevation Capital’s AI partner Krishna Mehra said, arguing that founders in Bengaluru and other Indian hubs are now closer to the global frontier and should aim to build category-leading companies rather than “number two or three” players.“In the SaaS days… SF was maybe 10-plus years ahead in AI,” Mehra said in an interview in San Francisco. “We’ve narrowed the gap significantly… maybe we are six months behind in India or one year behind,” he said, underscoring how much the distance has reduced from earlier tech waves.Mehra, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus who has previously co-founded Capillary Technologies and food-tech startup Taro, joined Elevation in 2024 to deepen the firm’s India-US corridor focus.The sharper opportunity for Indian founders in the AI cycle, Mehra said, comes from how products are being rebuilt “from first principles” rather than incrementally improving legacy software. In previous waves, companies could build in India, replicate established product patterns and move later for go-to-market scale. With AI, he said, user workflows and product capabilities can change materially every few months, making early market feedback critical.“Products can be rethought completely,” Mehra said, contrasting older shifts such as on-premise to cloud, where interfaces and usage patterns remained broadly comparable. In AI-native software, he said, founders need faster iteration with the end market they are building for.That shift is also changing founder geography, he said. While India’s advanced tech talent can help founders build early hypotheses quickly, he said many teams are moving to the US earlier than before “pretty much at a pre-seed level” to validate and sharpen their thesis with global customers and communities.“The number of meetups and AI sessions and mixers here is crazy,” he said, describing Silicon Valley’s “talent density” and the speed at which founders can access feedback. He also pointed to a culture where “people will open their doors” for a compelling insight, including startups working closely from customer locations.Mehra’s investment lens at Elevation, he said, is shaped by a belief that the ingredients for global outcomes are stronger in India today than a decade ago: deeper product talent, better understanding of go-to-market, more sophisticated local customers even if willingness to pay is lower than in the US, more risk capital, and higher founder ambition.“If those ingredients are there, can we build some category defining companies? Absolutely,” he said, adding that India should aim for “global number one” outcomes rather than settling for smaller positions.Mehra also flagged how quickly assumptions can flip in the AI market, citing how competitive dynamics in areas like software engineering tools can change as model providers move to capture more value. The key question for investors and founders, he said, is whether value is coming purely from the underlying model or whether the application layer can build durable differentiation, even if the path to value capture becomes clearer over time.