Category: Life & Style

Skywatchers in Europe, Asia and North America were treated on the night of April 23 to witness the most widespread displays of the aurora borealis (northern lights or) since the autumn solar storms of 2003. Similar impressive shows of the aurora australis (southern lights) were seen in Australia and New Zealand. The widespread international display of lights was due to a severe solar storm.

An intense solar storm has the northern lights gracing the skies farther south than usual. A blast of superhot material from the sun recently threw sweltering gases known as plasma towards Earth at about 3 million kph. This led to auroras across parts of Europe, North America and Asia.

This was the third severe geomagnetic storm since the current 11-year solar cycle began in 2019, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The agency expects the cycle to peak in 2024.

The farther north has the better chance of a show, as the energised particles interact with the atmosphere closer to Earth. In farther south, the curvature of the Earth cuts off the possibility for dazzling scenes as the particles interact higher in the atmosphere. The NOAA said that there could be more opportunities to witness auroras, as the solar cycle ramps up.

India’s first water-based metro, Kochi Water Metro recorded a footfall of 6,559 passengers on the first day of service.

The water metro was formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, April 25. The commercial operations started at 7 am on Wednesday and closed at 8 pm. Initially, the service — an eight electric-hybrid boats — will ply on two routes of High Court-Vypin and Vyttila- Kakkanad. On its first day, the water metro operated every 15 minutes in the High Court-Vypin route from both terminals. The service on the Vyttila-Kakkanad route began on Thursday.

A one-of-its-kind project connecting Kochi’s islands, the metro fare is economical. The single journey ticket fare for the High Court-Vypin route is Rs 20. The fare for Vyttila- Kakkanad route is Rs 30. Other than single-journey tickets, Kochi Water Metro will also have weekly, monthly and quarterly passes. As an inaugural offer, commuters can enjoy discounts on the purchase of various trip passes.

A weekly trip pass with 12 trips is priced at Rs 180, while the monthly trip passes are valid for 30 days, enabling 50 trips at a cost of Rs 600. The quarterly pass is priced at Rs 1,500 and would enable passengers to avail 150 trips within the period of 90 days.

Commuters would also be able to use the ‘Kochi One Card’ for travelling in the Kochi Water Metro. The Mobile QR tickets could be booked through Kochi One app.

A portrait by Anglo-Hungarian painter Philip de Laszlo of two Indian soldiers who fought in World War-I was placed under a temporary export bar by the government of the United Kingdom. It has been done to allow time for a UK institution to acquire the work to prevent it leaving the country. The ₹6.6-crore unfinished painting depicts cavalry officers Jagat Singh and Man Singh.

The unfinished portrait is valued at around GBP 650,000. The painting is extremely rare in depicting active Indian participants in the First World War. It shows cavalry officers Risaldar Jagat Singh and Risaldar Man Singh – junior troop commanders in the British Indian Army’s Expeditionary Force who served at the Battle of the Somme in France and supposed to have died in action.

Around 1.5 million Indian soldiers were deployed during World War I and according to records, the two soldiers in the painting sat for the artist in London two months before being sent to France to fight in the trenches. It is seen as a fine example of a portrait, capturing an important moment in British history as soldiers from across the British Empire came to fight in Europe. The art work appears to have been created for de László’s own collection and it remained in his studio until he died in 1937.

Japan, South Korea and the United States have conducted a joint missile defence exercise directed at countering North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal. South Korea and the US also launched separate bilateral drills on April 17 with about 110 warplanes, including advanced F-35 fighter jets, that will go on through April 28.

North Korea had recently conducted one of its most aggressive weapons displays in years by flight-testing for the first time an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) powered by solid fuel. It is considered a more movable, harder-to-trace weapon and could directly aim at the continental US.

South Korea and the US in March conducted their biggest field exercises in years and held separate naval and aerial drills with an aircraft carrier battle group and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.

North Korea’s growing nuclear threat has also led South Korea and Japan to increase their security cooperation and mend ties strained by history and trade disputes. The neighbours recently held their first security meeting of senior diplomats and defence officials after five years. During the meeting, Seoul and Tokyo discussed North Korea’s nuclear programme and trilateral cooperation with the US.

On April 15, a South Korean naval vessel fired warning shots to repel a North Korean patrol vessel that temporarily crossed the countries’ disputed western sea boundary while chasing a Chinese fishing boat.

The Government of South Korea is looking at imposing tourism fees at Jeju Island, a destination famous for its blue skies and canola blossoms to never-ending coastal roads. The proposal is yet to be passed at the National Assembly of South Korea.

Jeju Island has long been touted as the “Hawaii of Asia.” An increasingly popular holiday destination for domestic and foreign tourists, its booming tourism has also led to an overload of garbage and sewage. This has threatened the island’s marine ecosystem and the livelihood of its residents. Under the new plan, tourists are expected to pay an average of 8,170 won (S$8.20) each day for entering Jeju. The fees will include 1,500 won for each night of stay on the island. The visitors renting a car or minivan will be charged 5,000 won and 10,000 won, respectively, for each day. Tourists who rent a bus will be charged 5 per cent of the rental fee. The fees are now under review, according to the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province.

If the proposal is passed, the fees will add 141 billion won to government coffers after the first year, and 167 billion won in the second year, says the authority’s forecast in the report.

New York City topped a new list of the world’s wealthiest cities in 2023, according to the list compiled by London-based consultancy Henley & Partners. The US city is followed by Japan’s Tokyo and Silicon Valley’s Bay Area. Mumbai featured at the 21^st position in the list, while Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad too made to the list.

The list covered 97 cities across nine regions worldwide (Africa, Australasia, CIS, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia) and has four Indian cities. It ranked the cities based on the number of resident millionaires as of December 31, 2022. It was dominated by cities in the United States and China. From Europe, only London made to the top 10. Bengaluru got a special mention as one of the fastest-growing cities in the Asia Pacific. New York City topped the list with 58 billionaires. Tokyo is home to 290,300 HNWIs. The USA’s The Bay Area is third on the list, probably due to the well-paid tech workers in Silicon Valley.

The World’s Wealthiest Cities Report 2023 is based on the data from wealth intelligence firm, New World Wealth, which tracks the movements and spending habits of high-net-worth individuals with the work titles like Founder, Chairperson, CEO, and Director. It also considered the number of highly-priced homes in the area.

India is now the world’s most populous country, according to the United Nations.

The country has surpassed China in population, says the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report titled ‘The State of World Population Report, 2023’. The report found India’s population to be 1.4286 billion, while China’s population stands at 1.4257 billion, making a difference of 2.9 million. Since 1950 when the UN started to collect population data, it is the first time that India’s population has overtaken China’s population.

New Delhi is the most populated city in India with 30 million inhabitants in and around NCR. The Indian capital could have been the 50th most populated country in the world if it were a nation. Delhi is followed by Mumbai (20 million), Kolkata (15 million) and Bengaluru (12 million) in terms of population.

The UN report shows that 25% of India’s population falls within the age group of 0-14, 18% in the age group of 10-19, 26% in the age group of 10-24, 68% in the age group of 15-64, and 7% above the age of 65. What’s interesting to experts is the country’s demographic diversity among states, which provides unique opportunities to reap the benefits of demographic dividends. The different states are in various stages of demographic transition, and an aging population in southern India can meet its labour demands from the greater proportion of the youthful population in the northern and eastern parts of the country through favourable policies on inter-state migration, said the UN report.

While India’s population growth rate has been declining since 1980, it has twice as many new babies as China, with double the total fertility rate. This factor means that India’s population will be much more substantial than China’s in the long run.

There were a total of 1,93,230 Indian visitors to Singapore in the first three months of this year, which is about 3.5 times more than the 54,530 who arrived in 2022, according to Singapore Tourism Board (STB. Singapore arrivals are now at two-thirds pre-Covid levels as Indian visitors surge 350% from last year.

The STB announced that the number of visitors to Singapore was far beyond expectations, with over 2.9 million arrivals in the first quarter of this year, which is 62 per cent of 2019’s first three months.

Indians accounted for the fourth-largest source of tourist arrivals in the first quarter of this year after Indonesians (523,300), Malaysians (278,910) and Australians (265,730). Americans were the fifth-largest at 168,960.

Meanwhile, China, which was the largest source of tourists for Singapore with over 3.75 million visitors in 2019, has yet to fully return to Singapore and made up the ninth largest group of tourists in Q1 with only 1,24,560 coming to Singapore. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese tourists made about 170 million trips abroad in 2019. Based on data from travel booking site Fliggy, in February, international flights out of China were at less than 10 per cent of 2019 levels.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) plans to restore and carry out developmental activities at 69 lakes out of 201 lakes under its control in 2023-24.

The civic body has sought ₹67 crore from Karnataka government to develop and rejuvenate these 69 lakes falling under its jurisdiction. It has already begun developmental work for rejuvenation of 25 lakes and will rejuvenate 44 more lakes this financial year. BBMP said that it has restored 63 lakes for ₹345.85 crore between 2019 and 2022, according to reports. Out of the 44 lakes, it will float tender for the development and rejuvenation of 13 other lakes.

The development work includes desilting, fencing, sewage diversion, bund formation, inlet and outlet construction, and pathway formation. The civic body is also carrying out regular maintenance to keep these lakes alive and functional. In the last financial year, 41 partially developed lakes and 26 undeveloped lakes were improved. Boundaries of 100 lakes were demarcated and secured by fencing. All the remaining lakes will now be fenced with proper demarcation, to avoid encroachment and dumping. BBMP also plans to install sluice gates at all major lakes of the city to avoid local flooding. Its other priorities are biodiversity and the ecosystem of the lakes.

India is now home to at least 3,167 tigers, says the latest national tiger census summary report released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Mysuru, Karnataka on April 9.

The number of tigers has seen a jump of about 6.7 per cent from the last tiger census in 2018 when the census recorded 2,967 tigers. The number is increasing in comparison to other tiger-range countries, as people and wildlife have a long history of coexistence, said Prime Minister Modi while releasing the report.

As per the results of the 2022 tiger census – the fifth census after tiger population monitoring efforts began in 2006 – some areas like the Shivalik and Gangetic floodplains have recorded a “substantial” increase in minimum tiger populations, while the Western Ghats landscape and northeastern hills have witnessed a decline, says the census. It also highlighted the local extinction of tigers in areas like Kawal Tiger Reserve in Telangana.

The Central Indian and Eastern Ghats landscape is home to at least 1,161 tigers, also up from the last census (the estimate in 2018 was 1,033). Tiger occupancy in the Western Ghats landscape – spread over six states, including Karnataka – declined from estimated 981 tigers in 2018 to only 824 unique tigers captured in photographs in 2022. Though the estimated tiger numbers in the northeastern hills and Brahmaputra plains were 219 in 2018, the 2022 census photographed only 194 unique individuals in the region.

India estimates tiger numbers every four years, combining data from camera-trap-based surveys and sign surveys. The 2018 census made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest camera-trapping exercise in the world.