The Inflation Problem
—By Charu Latha By definition, inflation is the rate of increase in prices over a given period. Inflation generally represents how much more expensive a good or service has become or how much more a person has to spend on a set of goods or services in a year. It leads...
National Family Health Survey-5
The report of the National Family Health Survey 2019–21 (NFHS–5) was released in May 2022. Before 2015–16, the District Level Health Survey (DLHS) and Annual Health Survey (AHS) were conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). Since then, the...
Geospatial Technology: Application and Future
Geospatial technology is a term which is used to describe the range of modern tools that contribute to the geographic mapping and analysis of the earth and human societies. Since the first maps were drawn in prehistoric times, this technology has been evolving in some...
Metaverse—A Stride towards Virtual World
The term ‘Metaverse’ was coined by Neal Stephenson in a science fiction novel Snow Crash in 1992 which refers to a completely developed digital environment. The metaverse is a collective and virtual open space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical...
Fighting Dengue with ‘Good Mosquitoes’
Indonesian researchers from a non-profit World Mosquito Program (WMP) have come out with a solution to fight disease-bearing mosquitoes, which generally cause dengue. Dengue is a disease that spreads rapidly due to bites by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The...
Novel Computational Model to Decode Change Blindness Developed
The researchers at the Centre for Neuroscience, and the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have developed a novel computational model of eye movement that could predict a person’s ability to detect changes in their...
Farming Practices in India
India has a very ancient agricultural history, which goes back approximately to thousands of years. Being an agricultural country, the livelihood of a majority of Indian population is agriculture. The primary source of income for about 60 per cent of India’s...
Anti-India Campaign in the Maldives
The Maldivian Parliament, People’s Majlis, on March 23, 2022, accepted an emergency motion, moved by Abdulla Jabir, a member of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), led by former president Mohamed Nasheed. The motion disallowed an opposition rally, planned by former...
Some Facets of Extreme Weather Spells in India
Climate change in India has been having tremendous effects on India. India was ranked fourth among the list of countries most affected by climate change in 2015. Rising temperature on the Tibetan Plateau are resulting in the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, which is...
Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022
The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 28, 2022 by the union home minister, Amit Shah. It was passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on April 4 and April 6, 2022, respectively. It received the...
India Abstains from Vote against Russia: Causes and Implications
India on February 25, 2022, abstained on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution, which condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It was supported by the US and Albania, and co-sponsored by about 80 countries. The resolution called for an immediate cessation of...
Sri Lanka Crisis
Sri Lanka is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948. People took to the streets protesting, even with violence, against the political dispensation in the face of shortages of essential commodities. On April 1, 2022, President...
Digital Rupee: Central Bank Digital Currency
In the Union Budget 2022–23, the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced the introduction of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that will boost the digital economy. She proposed to introduce the digital rupee, using blockchain and other technologies, to be...
Fall of Imran Khan’s Government in Pakistan
Imran Khan’s term as Prime Minister of Pakistan came to an end on April 10, 2022, following weeks of high political drama and several days of constitutional chaos. Khan became the first prime minister in Pakistan’s 75-year history to be ousted by a no-confidence vote....
Eight Rare Class of Radio Stars Discovered
Recently, a team of astronomers from National Centre for Radio Astrophysics-Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR), discovered eight rare radio stars with the help of the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT). These rare stars belong to the...
BIMSTEC Summit, 2022
The 5th BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) summit was virtually held in Sri Lanka on March 30, 2022. The theme of the summit Towards a Resilient Region, Prosperous Economies, Healthy People reflects the main...
Three New Indian Sites in UNESCO’s Tentative List
Three new Indian sites having cultural significance have been included in the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2022 taking the total to 49 on the tentative list. A tentative list is an inventory of properties which are deemed to be cultural or...
Humanitarian Corridors
As per the United Nations, humanitarian corridors are several possible forms of a temporary pause of armed conflict. These corridors are demilitarised zones in a specific area and for a specific time, to which both warring sides agree. These corridors facilitate in...
India’s First Steel Slag Road
In March 2022, Surat became India’s first city to get a processed steel slag (industrial waste) road, an innovation of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), NITI Aayog, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel...
China’s Artificial Sun Undergoes Experimental Test
China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), an artificial sun, achieved a plasma temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds (17.6 minutes) during its latest experiment in January 2022 which is the longest time of operation of its...