January 15, 2026

ECI Rejects West Bengal's Madhyamik Admit Card for Voter Roll Verification

The Election Commission of India has refused West Bengal's chief electoral officer's request to accept Class 10 madhyamik admit cards as valid verification documents during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

January 15, 2026

AI Error Sends Untrained ICE Agents to Field Amid Recruitment Surge

An AI mistake led many new ICE recruits without proper law enforcement experience into field duty with insufficient training. ICE is fixing this by retraining officers and manually reviewing résumés amid a major hiring push.

January 15, 2026

Henley Passport Index 2026: Singapore Tops, India Climbs to 80th Spot

Singapore leads the 2026 Henley Passport Index with visa-free access to 192 countries. India improves to 80th, with entry to 55 nations without prior visa.

January 15, 2026

EVM Glitches Reported in Pune PMC Polls, Replacement Machines Deployed Fast

EVMs faced glitches in Pune's PMC polls on January 15, 2026. Some machines shut down or lagged. Officials replaced them quickly. Voter turnout was 23% till afternoon.

January 15, 2026

Tamil Nadu Celebrates Thai Pongal Festival with Joy and Religious Fervour

Tamil Nadu burst into festive cheer on January 15, celebrating the vibrant Thai Pongal festival. The state embraced the harvest festival with lively rituals and happiness.

January 15, 2026

Greenland Melts Into Geopolitical Spotlight as Arctic Ice Retreats and New Routes Open

Greenland’s melting ice sheet is turning it into a critical Arctic hotspot. New shipping lanes and rare minerals boost its global importance. The US, Russia, China, and NATO eyes the island closely as Arctic tensions rise.

January 15, 2026

52 Maoists with ₹1.41 crore bounty surrender in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district

Fifty-two Maoists, including 21 women and many with bounties totaling over ₹1.41 crore, surrendered in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh. They joined under the state's rehabilitation plan, continuing a strong trend of surrenders in January 2026.

January 15, 2026

Australia Blocks 4.7 Million Under-16 Social Media Accounts After December Ban

Australia banned social media for users under 16 in December. Over 4.7 million accounts were removed or restricted in days. Meta deactivated nearly 550,000 accounts. The government says platforms are trying to comply, but opposition raises concerns over age checks and account reactivations.

January 15, 2026

Iran Faces Water Day Zero as Drought Pushes Tehran Toward Crisis

Iran's cities face 'water day zero' amid a six-year drought. Tehran, with 10 million people, risks water supply collapse, causing blackouts and protests. Government mismanagement and climate change worsen the crisis.

January 15, 2026

Abu Dhabi’s Falcon-H1 Arabic AI Tops Global Arabic Language Benchmarks

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute has launched Falcon-H1 Arabic, a new AI model built specifically for Arabic. The 34-billion-parameter model leads the Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard, beating even larger global AI models like Meta’s Llama-3.3 and Alibaba’s Qwen2.5 on Arabic comprehension and dialect tasks.