Category: Life & Style

Twelve South African cheetahs arrived in India on February 18 as part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted cats in the south Asian country. It is the second batch to arrive in the country after eight cheetahs from Namibia last year. The latest arrival is part of an agreement signed between India and South Africa in January to transfer more than 100 cheetahs to the Asian country over the next decade.

The South Africa cheetahs will join their Namibian cousins at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Quarantine enclosures have been created at the reserve for the newly arriving cheetahs, officials said. Their resettlement “provides space for the expansion of the cheetah within its historical range,” said the Environment Ministry.

India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah, but the animal was declared extinct in the country by 1952, primarily due to habitat loss and hunting. Efforts to reintroduce the animal gathered pace in 2020 when the Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be brought into the country on an experimental basis.

The planet’s fastest land animal is also one of the oldest big cat species, dating back about 8.5 million years. It once roamed widely throughout Asia and Africa in great numbers, with around 7,000 surviving today in the African savannahs. It is listed globally as “vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Climate change and more intense and frequent weather events have been cited by Singaporeans as the top challenge facing the South-east Asian region in 2023. This meanwhile is different for their Asean counterparts, who suggest unemployment, inflation, a commodities crunch, and rising cost of living to be the biggest worries in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The findings of the survey were published in the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s The State of South-east Asia 2023 report. The survey results indicated that 59.5% of the 1,308 survey respondents polled across the 10 Asean member states ranked unemployment and economic recession as a more pressing concern than climate change – the second-biggest challenge at 57.1%. The widening of socio-economic gaps and rising income disparity is the third most tied challenge.

More than 60% of the Singaporean respondents called climate change the biggest problem, after the United States-China decoupling, and widening socio-economic gaps and income disparity. The respondents had people from academia, think-tanks, research groups, businesses, civil society, media and non-governmental organisations, besides governments.

A key finding was that 82.6% of the overall respondents saw Asean as a slow and ineffective body unable to cope with fluid political and economic developments, making it irrelevant in the new world order.

South Africa became one of the top tourist destinations for India in 2022 due to its strong recovery efforts and promotion of a variety of destination options. The African nation exceeded its target of bringing 33,900 or more visitors set at the beginning of the recovery year by receiving about 50,000 Indian visitors last year through November. The tourism board wants to surpass last year’s goal by 72% this year.

India has become South Africa’s sixth-largest foreign source market as the two countries commemorate 30 years of diplomatic relations. South African Tourism expects a 35% rise in MICE visitors in 2023. To capitalise on this momentum, the tourism board held consumer events at DLF Mall in Saket on February 11 and 12 and roadshows in important Indian cities including Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai between February 13 and 16.

At the annual travel and tourism exhibition, SATTE2023, Neliswa Nkani, Hub Head – Middle East, India and South East Asia, South African Tourism expressed her gratitude to the Indian trade fraternity for their support which helped the country to achieve a 200% increase in Indian arrivals to South Africa. She said, the board is optimistic that India will maintain its recovery trajectory and continue to be one of the source markets for travel to South Africa due to enhanced connectivity, alluring travel deals, and a wide range of experiences available in the country.

The five female and seven male cheetahs will be transferred from the Gwalior air base, where they will land Saturday morning, to Kuno National Park in an MI 17 helicopter

Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav Thursday announced that 12 more cheetahs would be flown in from South Africa on Saturday (February 18) and that ten quarantine enclosures have been created for them at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, where eight such felines were brought from Namibia last year.

A military C 17 aircraft left the Hindon air base in Uttar Pradesh at 6 am Wednesday for South Africa to pick up the cheetahs. A team of South African and Indian veterinarians and wildlife experts will accompany them on the way back.

The five female and seven male cheetahs will then be transferred from the Gwalior air base, where they will land Saturday morning, to Kuno National Park in an MI 17 helicopter.

An MoU was signed between India and South Africa in January this year for the translocation of the 12 cheetahs and subsequent translocations of 10-12 cheetahs annually until a sustainable cheetah population is established in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the first batch of eight cheetahs at Kuno National Park on September 17, 2022. They have completed their quarantine period in bomas (quarantine enclosures for animals) and have been released into a wider 6-sq km enclosure in which they have been hunting prey every three-four days – a promising sign that they are adapting to India, said ministry officials Wednesday.

Officials added that an additional ten enclosures of 50×30 metres had been built at the park to accommodate the cheetahs.

Three of the South African cheetahs are coming from Phinda Wildlife Reserve, while the other nine are from Rooiberg, where they had been kept in quarantine for the last year in anticipation of the move. These cheetahs range from 18 months to four years of age.

Indian-American schoolgirl Natasha Perianayagam has made it to the “world’s brightest” students list for the second consecutive year by the US-based Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth. The list was based on the results of above-grade-level tests of over 15,000 students across 76 countries.

Perianayagam, 13, is a student at Florence M Gaudineer Middle School, New Jersey. She also took the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY) test in Spring 2021, when she was in Grade 5. Her parents hail from Chennai. The school girl said she loves doodling and reading JRR Tolkien’s novels in her spare time. Her results in the verbal and quantitative sections levelled with the 90th percentile of advanced Grade 8 performance, which helped her into the honours list that year. This year, she was honoured for her exceptional performance on the SAT, ACT, School and College Ability Test, or similar assessment taken as part of the CTY Talent Search, the university said in a press release.

CTY used above-grade-level testing to identify advanced students globally. Less than 27 percent of its participants qualified for the CTY ceremony, receiving either high or grand honours based on their test scores. In her latest attempt, Perianayagam scored the highest grades among all candidates.

In the week since two powerful earthquakes hit Turkiye and Syria on February 6, the Government of India has sent medical assistance worth ₹7 crore to the affected nations, said Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on February 14.

The 5,945-tonne emergency relief material included 27 life-saving medicines, two kinds of protective items and three categories of critical care equipment, valued at approximately ₹2 crore, the statement said.

On February 6, three truck loads of relief materials were arranged at the Hindon air base comprising life-saving emergency medicines and protective items within 12 hours, the ministry said in a statement. On February 10, a bigger batch of relief materials was arranged for both Turkiye and Syria. The consignment for Syria consisted of 72 critical care drugs, consumables and protective items of 7.3 tonnes, valued at ₹1.4 crore while relief materials sent for Turkiye included 14 types of medical and critical care equipment, valued at ₹4 crore, it said.

Turkish ambassador to India Fırat Sunel shared a picture of relief material sent by India to earthquake-hit regions in Turkey, saying, “THANK YOU INDIA!” He added, “Each tent, each blanket or sleeping bag is of vital importance for the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors.” Around 12 tonnes of relief material reached Turkey from India on Sunday.

A unique village in Singapore is using innovation to support persons with disabilities (PwDs). Called “Enabling Village” or “EV”, the first-of-its-kind community space is an all-accessible, inclusive, sensory-friendly space dedicated to integrating persons with disabilities into society.

It has a supermarket with sliding doors and wider walkways, shopping trolleys that could be pushed by wheelchairs, Braille lettering on the washroom doors, and tactile indicators on the floor, among many such features. “The tenants include social businesses that train and hire persons with disabilities, and these businesses also showcase the abilities of persons with disabilities when visitors shop or dine at EV. The social businesses, along with inclusive events and community services such as the inclusive gym, provide opportunities for persons with disabilities to interact alongside those without disabilities while providing the dignity of work to persons with disabilities,” said Ku Geok Boon, Chief Executive Officer, SG Enable in an interview.

Enabling Village has successfully introduced many first prototypes of inclusive amenities, such as the first inclusive gym and inclusive pre-school in Singapore. It also hosts several training and career fairs and CV Clinics for PwDs, bringing together disability-inclusive employers, training providers and experienced business professionals to offer jobs, training workshops and consultations on CV writing. It attracts visitors from different countries, who are keen on exploring a similar set-up or implementing takeaways for inclusive spaces.

Various places in Hyderabad were lit up in blue light on February 6 to mark the beginning of E-mobility week in the city. The week began with an electric vehicle (EV) rally event.

With the objective of showcasing Telangana’s progress in EV adoption and promoting the message of sustainable mobility, the EV rally saw thousands of EV enthusiasts riding their electric 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, and electric buses through different parts of the city. Two separate rallies, one from People’s Plaza and another from Miyapur metro station spanned the entire city and culminated at the HITEX Exhibition Centre.

Speaking on the occasion, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries & Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT), Telangana said, “The government of Telangana is offering incentives and subsidies to encourage people to shift to e-vehicles. As a result, the State is not only seeing an increase in EV users, but also becoming a hub for all-round EV R&D and manufacturing.”

The rally also saw participation from various Government organisations and industry partners, including, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation, Citreon, TVS, Ola, Ather, Uber, Gravton, Quantum, Atum Motors, Bud-e Bikes, Pure EV and Eto, among others.

The week featured top global and domestic companies exhibiting next-gen electrification technologies, innovative products and solutions in the EV and energy storage systems space. The flagship event of the Telangana Government was held from 5-11 February 2023 and culminated with India’s first Formula E-race on 10-11 February 2023.

United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said that the world food prices fell in January for the tenth consecutive month. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 131.2 points in January 2023, down 1.1 points (0.8%) from December 2022, the agency said on February 3.

“With this latest decline, the index has fallen 28.6 points (17.9%) from the peak it reached in March 2022,” FAO said.

The December figure was revised down from an original estimate of 132.4. It was the lowest reading since September 2021, and is now down about 18% from a record high hit last March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The FAO’s price index tracks the most globally traded food commodities. The index rose just 0.1% month-on-month in January to give a 4.8% increase on the year. International wheat prices declined 2.5% as production in Australia and Russia outpaced expectations. In comparison, rice jumped 6.2%, driven partly by strong local demand in some Asian exporting countries. Falls in the prices of vegetable oils, dairy and sugar helped decrease the index, while cereals and meat remained largely stable. In separate cereal supply and demand estimates, the FAO raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2022 to 2.765 billion tonnes from a previous estimate of 2.756 billion tonnes.

Scientists at the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) in Pune have discovered a new low-altitude basalt plateau in the Thane region of the Western Ghats. The plateau is now listed as the fourth plateau-type in the mountain range. It houses 76 plant and shrub species from 24 families that the scientists say can hold clues to the impact of climate change on the survival of species.

Earlier, there were three known plateau types in the Western Ghats, namely, high-altitude laterite plateaus, low-altitude laterite plateaus, and high-altitude basalt plateaus. “We have only recently discovered that there is a fourth type here, the low-altitude basalt plateau,” said Dr Mandar Datar, lead scientist of the study.

The scientists have discovered the rare low-altitude basalt plateau in Manjare village of Thane. Surveying the plateau, the team documented various species of plants and shrubs from different families. The researchers believe this is an important discovery, as the plateau shares vegetation with the three other rock outcrops, concurrently holding a few unique species. This gives a unique model system to study the species’ interactions in varying environmental conditions. The ARI team was studying how exactly these plants survived in such hostile conditions and if there was a genetic component as well to their survival.