Chagas disease, also known as "silent or silenced disease", affects mainly poor people without access to health care or people without a political voice. The disease progresses slowly and often shows an asymptomatic clinical course. The World Chagas Disease Day was celebrated for the first time in 2020.
The theme for 2025 is Prevent, Control, Care: Everyone’s role in Chagas disease. Chagas disease is prevalent among poor populations of continental Latin America but is increasingly being detected in other countries and continents. An estimated 10,000 people die from Chagas disease every year, and over 100 million people are at risk of acquiring the disease.
An indigenously developed Integrated Generation, Transmission and Storage Expansion Planning Model with Demand Response – a vital Resource Adequacy Tool, has been launched on 11.04.2025 by Shri Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairperson, Central Electricity Authority (CEA).
The software has been developed entirely in India with the active guidance of CEA, ensuring complete transparency. CEA will update and upgrade this tool based on further suggestions from the users (Discoms/ load despatchers) of this software. The launch event highlighted the collaboration between CEA, The Lantau Group (TLG) and the ADB under the Technical Assistance Program
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly has been re-appointed as the chairperson of the ICC men’s cricket committee and his longtime national teammate VVS Laxman too has been picked again as one the panel members. Ganguly, who led the Indian team with distinction for five years from 2000 to 2005, was first appointed as the committee’s chair in 2021.
Ganguly, 52, has replaced compatriot Anil Kumble, who stepped down after serving a maximum of three, three-year terms. Joining Ganguly and Laxman on the men’s committee are former Afghanistan cricketer Hamid Hassan, West Indies legend Desmond Haynes, South Africa’s Test and ODI captain Temba Bavuma, and former England batsman Jonathan Trott.
India wrapped up its campaign at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 with a creditable four medals, including a silver in the men’s recurve team event and a bronze by rising star Dhiraj Bommadevara in the individual recurve category, in Auburndale, USA.
India’s medal tally from the tournament stood at four -- gold in the compound mixed team, bronze in compound men’s team, silver in recurve men’s team and bronze in recurve men’s individual (Dhiraj).
Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate and a giant of Latin American letters, died Sunday (April 13, 2025). He was 89. He was a prolific author and essayist with such celebrated novels as “The Time of the Hero” (La Ciudad y los Perros) and “Feast of the Goat,” and won myriad prizes, including the 2010 Nobel.
Vargas Llosa published his first collection of stories “The Cubs and Other Stories” (Los Jefes) in 1959. But he burst onto the literary stage in 1963 with his groundbreaking debut “The Time of the Hero,” a novel that drew on his experiences at a Peruvian military academy and angered the country’s military.
Betting big on housing demand in smaller towns, HDFC Capital will invest Rs 1,500 crore in Eldeco Group's upcoming 18 residential projects across tier II-III cities with a total revenue potential of about Rs 11,000 crore. The total development area in these 18 projects will be more than 10 million square feet with a "combined revenue potential of about Rs 11,000 crore.
The towns where these housing projects will come up include Panipat and Sonipat in Haryana; Rudrapur (Uttarakhand); Ludhiana (Punjab); Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh); and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). HDFC Capital is the investment manager to four Sebi-registered Category II Alternative Investment Funds.
According to real estate data analytics firm PropEquity, 15 major tier-II cities saw a 20 per cent increase in housing sales last calendar year to Rs 1,52,552 crore from Rs 1,27,505 crore in the preceding year. These funds combine to create a USD 4.2 billion platform targeting the development of affordable and mid-income housing in India.
State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) has announced reduction in lending rate linked to repo rate by 25 basis points in line with the Reserve Bank's key policy rate. The bank's repo-linked lending rate (RLLR) has now been reduced from 9.05 per cent to 8.80 per cent, BoM said in a statement.
Since all retail loans offered by the bank are linked to the RLLR, this reduction would benefit customers availing home, car, education, gold and all other retail loan products, it said. The home loan offered by the bank would start from 7.85 per cent per annum while car loans will be priced from 8.20 per cent per annum, which are among the lowest in the banking industry.
Incumbent Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa has secured a second four-year term in the country’s presidential elections. He won 55.85 percent of the vote against his left-wing challenger, Luisa González. The 37-year-old right-wing leader hailed his victory as historic and reaffirmed his commitment to continuing Ecuador’s war on drugs.
More than 13 million people were eligible to vote, which is mandatory for adults up to age of 65. It is options for people aged 16 and 17 and over 65. Failure to vote results in a $46 fine. Ecuador has one of the highest homicide rates in South America.
Telangana government issued an order on the implementation of Scheduled Castes (SC) categorisation, making it the first state in the country to do so, Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said. Telangana government had earlier appointed a commission headed by retired High Court judge Justice Shameem Akther on SC categorisation,
which made recommendations that the 59 Scheduled Caste (SC) communities be divided into three groups viz I, II, and III for the total reservations of 15 per cent in government jobs and education. According to the commission report, group-I one comprising 15 socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged SC communities, are given one per cent reservation.
Group-II, including 18 moderately benefited SC communities, are provided a nine per cent quota while the Group-III comprising 26 significantly benefited SC communities, are given five per cent reservation. The Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservation) Bill, 2025 was passed in month of March.