Acclaimed Costume Designer Bhanu Athaiya Dies at 91
India’s first Oscar-winning costume designer Bhanu Athaiya, 91, passed away peacefully in her sleep on October 15, 2020 after a prolonged illness. The last rites took place at the Chandanwadi crematorium in South Mumbai. She is survived by her daughter. Athaiya had...
Earthshot Prize
The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, in October 2020 had announced a £50 million prize, titled as the “Earthshot” prize for protection and restoration of the Earth’s environment. The objective and the title name for “Earthshot” is inspired from the “Moonshot”...
Freedom of Speech and Expression most abused in recent times, says SC
The Supreme Court (SC), on October 8, 2020, stated that “the Freedom of Speech and Expression is being abused the most, in the recent times” in response to a petition some muslim organisations seeking action against television channels for poor media coverage on the...
US Lawmakers Probe Tech Giants
The representatives of Democrats in the USA have issued a report in October 2020 explaining the strategies adopted by four big technology giants, to gain predominance in online searching, advertising, social networking, shopping, and other businesses. The...
GDP to Drop to 9.6% for Fiscal 2021
As per the World Bank, South Asia Economic Focus report of October 2020, there would be a massive dip in India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in this Fiscal Year (FY2020-2021). It states that India’s GDP would drop to 9.6 per cent, which is significantly lower than...
Louise Gluck Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature, 2000
Louise Elisabeth Gluck, an American poet and essayist born in 1943, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2020, “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”. The prize was announced on October...
Mars is Closest to Earth This Month: NASA
As per the reports in Earthsky in October 2020, Mars would be closer to Earth in October 2020 than it will be in the coming 15 years but would become fainter as Mars and Earth travelled farther away from each other in their orbits around the Sun. After this event in...
Limiting Spaces for Flamingos, a Cause for Concern
On October 10, 2020 (the world migratory bird day, 2020) organised Biodiversity by the Bay’ campaign, initiated by ministry of Mumbai’s Magic, a citizens group. On this occasion a webinar, titled ‘The Flight of the Pink—How can Mumbai Protect the Lesser Flamingos’ was...
Indian-origin Philanthropist Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award in US
Indian-origin philanthropist and president of Hindu Charities for America (HC4A), Harish Kotecha, has been awarded the prestigious Sandra Neese Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY), at its...
Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson Awarded Nobel Economics Prize
As reported on October 12, 2020, US economists Paul Milgrom (72) and Robert Wilson (83) won the Nobel Economics Prize 2020, for their work on commercial auctions, including for goods and services difficult to sell in traditional ways such as radio frequencies. As per...
India Hypertension Control Initiative Launched in Punjab
The Punjab Health Department in January 2020, launched India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI), for early identification of patients suffering from hypertension and putting them on treatment, in five districts of the state, namely, Bhatinda, Hoshiarpur,...
5G Roll out in India: Different Issues
The Indian government is going to roll out a plan for commercialising 5G in near future. Highlighting its importance, the National Digital Communications Policy 2018, it states that the convergence of revolutionary technologies will accelerate and deepen its digital...
Sal Forest Tortoise and Unprotected Habitat
Introduction Sal forest tortoise, also known as the elongated tortoise (indotestudo elongate) is one among 23 of the 29 of fresh-water turtle and tortoise, under the threatened category in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. As per the...
Assam Keelback Snake Spotted after 129 Years
As per a research study published in the June 2020 issue of journal Vertebrate Zoology, a snake spotted by a team led by zoologist Abhijit Das in 2018 was in fact Assam keel back snake. This snake was earlier sighted in 1869 by a team from the Wildlife Institute of...
Calculating a Dog’s Age in Human Years
As per the news report in July 2020, a research study led by researchers from the University of California at San Diego, on how to calculate a dog’s age in ‘human years’, was published in journal Cell Systems. As dogs have a life span shorter than humans. the study...
Technology to Covert Written Text into Speech
As per the news reports in July 2020, a group of scholars from the computer science department of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras is developing the technology to enable text-to-speech conversion for 13 Indian languages—Assamese, Bodo, Bangali, Gujarati, Hindi,...
Effect of Population Size on E.coli Bacteria
Introduction A group of evolutionary biologists from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, in March 2020 came out with research findings revealing the link between the population size of bacteria and the kind of fitness trade-offs they...
Human Sweat used as Diagnostic Tool
In earlier times, physicians used to do skin-based diagnosis to reach conclusions to treat a patient. A skin bottle than usual, means fever, a paler, one indicates dehydration, a bluish tinge, on skin implies you need more oxygen; and if it feels wet, ones need to...
Global Rating Agencies Cut India’s GDP Forecast
Based on a sharp contraction in Indian economy and worst performance in nearly four decades in the April-June 2020 period, -23.9 per cent (YoY), global rating and research houses like Fitch and Goldman Sachs have revised their estimates for growth in India’s gross...
Extinct New Guinea Singing Dogs Re-emerge
A research paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on August 31, 2020, claims that the New Guinea singing dog, a wild or half domescated dog with a unique howling style, considered extinct in the wild, still lives on. The study, based on DNA...