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For about 60 million years during the Eocene epoch, the Indian subcontinent was a huge island. Having broken off from the ancient continent of Gondwanaland, the Indian Tectonic Plate drifted toward Eurasia. During that gradual voyage, the subcontinent saw a blossoming of exceptional wildlife, and when the trove of unique biodiversity finally made contact with bigger Eurasia, the exchange of animals and plants between these areas laid the foundations for countless modern species. "Today, mainland Asia and India have all this unique biodiversity -- but did the mainland Asian biodiversity come from India, or did the Indian biodiversity come from...

The mysterious fall of the largest of the world's earliest urban civilizations nearly 4,000 years ago in what is now India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now appears to have a key culprit — ancient climate change, researchers say. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia may be the best known of the first great urban cultures, but the largest was the Indus or Harappan civilization. This culture once extended over more than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Seato the Ganges, and at its peak may have accounted for 10 percent of...

Professor VD Mishra said that new researches have revealed that agricultural practices in India started in Mesolithic period (6-7,000 BC), much before the Neolithic period (4000 BC) as is generally believed. This discovery has proved that agriculture in India started simultaneously with other parts of the world. He said that Sativa rice, discovered from excavations at Chopni in Belan valley, has proved that India did not lag behind in agriculture... Joshi said that encroachments around historical monuments should be stopped because it harms our heritage. Citing an example, he said that Gwalior Fort could not be declared World Heritage due...

The recent International Conference on Harappan Archaeology produced an unexpected announcement from archaeologists BR Mani and KN Dikshit, both of the Archaeological Survey of India, who claim that new dates from excavations show the Harappan culture began around 2000 years earlier than previously thought.The ruins of the Harrapan city of Mohenjo-daro remained undocumented for over 3,700 years, until their discovery in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. He was led to the mound by a Buddhist monk, who reportedly believed it to be a stupa. Image: Wikimedia commons Redating of Harappan culture Based on...

Excavations reveal 7,000 year-old Harappan sites Staff Report PESHAWAR: Gandi Umar Khan, around 55 kilometres west of Dera Ismail Khan, is the most important archaeological site of the Indus Valley civilization in the North Western Frontier Province. Gandi Umar Khan is spread over an area of 220 by 200 meters and has a maximum height of 8.5 metres. The site was discovered in 1997 by the University of Peshawar. The Directorate of Archaeology and Museum NWFP conducted an extensive survey of the Gomal Plain in March 2003 and discovered 95 sites out of which exist 53 sites of different periods...

Lost civilisation from 7,500 BC discovered off Indian coast Archaeologists have found a civilisation dating back to 7,500 BC off India's western coast. The find is 5,000 years older than any previously unearthed civilisation in the subcontinent. Researchers uncovered pottery, beads, sculptures, a fossilised jaw bone and human teeth at the Gulf of Cambay site.(DNA tests?) Previously, the oldest known civilisations were the Harrapan and Indus Valley communities - which date from around 2,500BC. Murli Manohar Joshi, minister for human resources and ocean development, told The Times of India: "The findings buried 40 metres below the sea reveal some ...

The defunct underwater wing of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is set for a revival with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the government keen to establish the scientific veracity of Dwarka, the mythological submerged capital of Lord Krishna's kingdom, and the Rama Setu, a set of limestone shoals believed to date back to the Ramayana... "The National Institute of Oceanography has the expertise. They will be training our fleet of young divers," said Dr RS Fonia, ASI joint director general. The ministry of culture, the nodal ministry for ASI, is also looking at options to bring on board...

"The sea, which had been beating against the shores, suddenly broke the boundary that was imposed on it by nature. The sea rushed into the city. It coursed through the streets of the beautiful city. The sea covered up everything in the city. Arjuna saw the beautiful buildings becoming submerged one by one. He took a last look at the mansion of Krishna. In a matter of a few moments it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the beautiful city, which had been the favourite haunt of all...

A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea. Nautical archaeologist Dr Tom Vosmer and seven other sailors had set off from Oman for a two-week voyage in the Magan, a 12-metre-long sailing boat made of reeds, rope and wood, but capsized within hours. "Water leaked into the Magan causing it to capsize, but a support ship from the Omani royal navy accompanying the boat intervened and rescued the sailors," a source from Oman's culture and national heritage ministry which organised the trip...

At the U.N. General Assembly in New York last September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set aside time for a critical meeting. But it wasn't President Barack Obama he was keen to see. It was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since Modi came to power in May, ties between Israel and India have been in overdrive, with the two signing a series of defence and technology deals that have underscored their burgeoning commercial and political relationship. The same month as the UN meeting, Modi's cabinet cleared a long-delayed purchase of Israeli missiles for its navy. In October, India closed a...

The results of India's election, which are rapidly appearing today, seem to show a huge win for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A victory had been expected, but this looks like a massive landslide. The next prime minister is almost certain to be Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, a state in western India. He is known for his economic agenda, which is seen to be relatively business-friendly (expect stocks to react very positively to the news), and his controversial brand of Hinduism. Modi's ideology is certainly going to be important over the next several years, but his...

Narendra Modi is the only person ever denied a U.S. visa based on a little-known law on religious freedom.Well-intentioned U.S. policies sometimes work out in absurd ways, but this is hard to top: In a few weeks, India, the world's largest democracy, will probably elect as its next prime minister a politician who for nearly a decade has been prohibited from setting foot on U.S. soil. The banned Indian official is Narendra Modi, a longtime Hindu nationalist who is the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. Nine years ago, U.S. officials denied Mr. Modi a...

The nine-phase ballot begins on Monday and concludes on 12 May. Votes will be counted on 16 May... A new anti-corruption party, the AAP, is also contesting the elections after a spectacular result in local polls. The AAP (Aam Aadmi, or Common Man's Party) made a strong showing at the state assembly polls in the capital, Delhi, and is standing for all the seats in the parliament. ..The Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) has 543 elected seats and any party or a coalition needs a minimum of 272 MPs to form a government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already...

Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist chief minister reviled for failing to stop the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, was hailed as a candidate for India's next prime minister after a landslide victory in the state elections. [...] Britain announced it would end its boycott in October and sent its High Commissioner to meet Mr Modi as part of its drive to increase trade with India, while the United States said he would be eligible to apply for another visa. Both decisions were driven in part by the possibility that Mr Modi could be India's next prime minister.

Man falls into ancient cellar AMIT MUKHERJEE TIMES NEWS NETWORK HMEDABAD: All Praveen Mehta, a retired bank employee of Ahmedabad, can think of these days is a dark underground chamber, guarded by three disfigured statues of dancing girls. The chamber, with six hidden air ducts, was discovered after the January 26 earthquake of Gujarat. Believed to be a secret cellar of a bygone era, the chamber could have been used for performing secret yagnas. It could even be the outer chamber of a secret treasure trove. The house, which was purchased by Mehta’s grandfather Giridharilal in 1898, suffered considerable ...

Evidence of an ancient "lost river civilisation" has been uncovered off the west coast of India, the country's minister for science and technology has announced. Local archaeologists claim the find could push back currently accepted dates of the emergence of the world's first cities. Underwater archaeologists at the National Institute of Ocean Technology first detected signs of an ancient submerged settlement in the Gulf of Cambray, off Gujarat, in May 2001. They have now conducted further acoustic imaging surveys and have carbon dated one of the finds. The acoustic imaging has identified a nine-kilometre-long stretch of what was once a ...

In its search to find the 'mother ship' of the terrorists who have attacked Mumbai, India on Thursday apprehended two Pakistani merchant vessels off the coast of Gujarat in a joint operation carried out by the Navy, Coast Guard and the water wing of the Border Security Force (BSF). "We have apprehended two cargo ships in a joint operation near the Gujarat coast while they were sailing to Karachi. They are suspected to be the ships that ferried the terrorists near to Mumbai coast yesterday," Home Ministry sources told PTI in the Capital. The three sea-guarding forces were put on...

Mumbai: At least 15 people have been injured in gunfights between two groups in at least three places in Mumbai on Thursday night. Details are sketchy but it is believed that two gangs fired at each other at outside CST Railway Terminus, Hotel Oberoi and the popular Café Leopold restaurant in Mumbai. The first shooting took place near the CST police station

Experts survey seabed off Gujarat for Dwarka evidence New Delhi, Aug 17 : A group of archaeological experts and Indian Navy divers have conducted the first scientific survey off the Gujarat coast to establish whether or not the ruins on the seabed are of the mythological city of Dwarka, the capital of Hindu god Krishna. "The area off the Samudranaraya temple at (present day) Dwarka is known to contain structures which have been widely reported and interpreted by renowned scholars. However, no scientific study of the area had been conducted so far," Alok Tripathi of the Archaeological Survey of India...

Polish love story in Gujarat Raja Bose [ 17 Sep, 2006 0121hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ] AHMEDABAD: When about 500 children, all Polish refugees from slave labour camps in then USSR, reached the erstwhile Nawanagar state (now Jamnagar) in 1942, shaken and traumatised, it was a maharaja's welcome that awaited them. A recent study has traced a large number of these people, now settled across the world, who still get together and raise a toast to Jamsaheb Digvijaysinhji, the then maharaja of Nawanagar. "Do not consider yourselves orphans. You are now Nawanagaris and I am Bapu, father, to all Nawanagaris,...