Category: Life & Style

Indian philanthropist and art collector Kiran Nadar was recently conferred Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by French Ambassador to India Emmanuel Lenain in recognition of her outstanding contribution in the field of art.

Nadar, Chairperson, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) – a philanthropic initiative in art – and a trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation has been recognised for her commitment to providing greater access to culture both nationally and internationally, and playing a vital role in advancing Indo-French cultural ties, and artistic cooperation.

“It is an absolute privilege for me to be conferred ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’Honneur’ and I am deeply grateful to the French Government for this great honour,” Kiran Nadar said in a statement. “KNMA has a longstanding relationship with France in the cultural space. Our partnership with France has been instrumental in bringing together diverse perspectives and promoting cultural exchange,” the statement added.

In 2022, KNMA joined hands with Alkazi Foundation and the French Institute in India to create “Converges”, the largest exhibition of original pictures from French photographers ever shown in India. This exhibition was brought to India as part of Bonjour India 2022, a six-month cultural festival organised by France across India as a present for India’s 75th Independence anniversary.

US’ Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that it will return 15 sculptures that were illegally taken away from India. All of the works were sold by Subhash Kapoor, a convicted Indian-American antiquities smuggler who is currently imprisoned in India. The sculptures include an 11^th-century sandstone celestial dancer (Apsara) from Madhya Pradesh and 1st century BCE Yakshi Terracotta from West Bengal, copper and stone, a ceramic pot from Chandraketugarh, a stone bust of Kamadeva from the second half of the 8th century C.E, and a Svetambara enthroned Jina.

The museum added that it will stick to responsible purchase of antiquities, and has set in place strict standards for new acquisitions and its existing collection. It is presently vetting the details of works acquired from suspicious dealers. Respecting its long association with the Indian government, the Met is pleased to take action in the incident. The museum has also now removed three Turkish pieces from its Greek and Roman galleries.

In October 2022, the US restored 307 archaeological items, worth nearly 4 million dollars stolen by multiple trafficking rings, to India. The items were handed over during a repatriation ceremony at the Indian Consulate in New York attended by India’s Consul General Randhir Jaiswal.

The family of industrialist JP Taparia has bought a sea-view luxury triplex apartment worth around Rs 369 crore in south Mumbai in likely the most expensive residential property deal in the country. The sale deed was registered on March 29, 2023, and signed from listed real-estate developer Macrotech Developers.

The triplex is in the super-luxury residential tower Lodha Malabar, located on Walkeshwar Road, Malabar Hill. The total area of the residential units, located on the 26th, 27th and 28th floors, is 27,160.6 sq ft. The consideration amount was Rs 369.55 crore, and a stamp duty of Rs 19.07 crore was paid. The units come with 20 car parkings. The value of the triplex makes the per-sq ft cost almost Rs 1.36 lakh per sq ft, and is perhaps the most expensive residential property deal.

JP Taparia is the founder of the contraceptive products firm Famy Care. Until 1990, the senior businessman was engaged in his family business of hand tools and engineering. He later started his own business with Famy Care, which is a leading manufacturer of female oral contraceptives and Copper-Ts.

Earlier, on March 13, Bajaj Auto Chairman Niraj Bajaj purchased a sea-facing luxury triplex penthouse of over 18,008 sq ft on the top three floors of the Lodha Malabar Hill project for Rs 252.50 crore, setting the record for the costliest penthouse in the city. The transaction was at a rate of Rs 1,40,277 per sq ft on the total area.

About 14 storeys beneath the bustling city of Tokyo, or 42 m underground, lies a cavern of tunnels and vaults that temporarily stores swelling rainwater to prevent flooding above ground. Under a 6.6 trillion yen (S$66 billion) plan, the capital of Japan is planning to strengthen its resilience against flooding, alongside plans to raise coastal sea walls and river embankments.

The city started out building conventional in-ground reservoirs after land scarcity and sky-high land prices drove urban planners to dig deep. The current system of 28 so-called “regulating reservoirs”, with a capacity enough for 1,056 Olympic-size pools, comprises 16 in-ground reservoirs, nine underground vaults, and three underground tunnels.

Plans are now under way to further grow this operational reservoir capacity to 3.6 million cubic metres – from the current 2.64 million cubic metres – by the end of this decade, with the construction of more underground facilities. An additional 1.5 million cubic metres of reservoir storage is expected to be under construction in 2030, with the city aiming for a total planned capacity of 5.1 million cubic metres, which is enough for 2,040 Olympic-size pools.

Tokyo is sharing its expertise of using underground space to manage flooding risks with regional capitals such as Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. Singapore’s national water agency PUB is also exploring the use of underground space to combat inland and coastal flooding.

The buttressing of anti-flooding measures is one of five pillars under the Tokyo Resilience Project announced by the city’s Governor Yuriko Koike in December 2022.

Teenage cyclist Liam Garner, over the course of nearly one and a half years, rode through 14 countries, covering more than 32,000 km in the journey of a lifetime.

Hailing from Long Beach, California, Garner believes he is the youngest person to have completed the feat of cycling through the Americas from Alaska to Argentina. “I always felt pretty much my entire life that I wanted to do or needed to do some big adventure,” he said in an interview.

Garner set off on his journey on August 1, 2021, from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States accessible by road. His final destination was Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost point of South America. He had just his mountain bike, a tent, a sleeping bag, around a day’s worth of food and water, some portable batteries, a medical kit, and extra parts for his bike.

Surviving on a budget of about $430 ($573) a month, Garner’s journey was self-supported. He was also able to seek accommodation in hostels, was invited into people’s homes along the way, and camped in tents when such options were not available. On his way, he also survived robberies – at least five times – and had his passport stolen, illness, and bad injuries. On Jan 17, 2023, after passing through Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, he finally reached his destination.

“After 527 days, 20,000 miles and 14 countries, I, Liam Garner, am now the youngest person to have ever biked from Alaska to Argentina,” he declared in a video.

Vienna’s Leopold Museum, under an initiative called A Few Degrees More has tilted 15 paintings by the number of degrees unchecked climate change could affect the landscapes depicted. Developed together with the research network Climate Change Center Austria, the action runs until late June.

The initiative comes after climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting a Klimt piece at the museum. “We want to contribute to raise awareness of the dramatic consequences of the climate crisis,” said Leopold Museum Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger.

Paintings by Klimt, Schiele and Richard Gerstl are among those chosen for the initiative. Gustav Klimt’s well-known Attersee lake painting has been tilted by two degrees, while Egon Schiele’s painting of a tree in late autumn is being rotated by five degrees.

The tilted paintings drew varied reactions from visitors. Some of the guests were sad being reminded of what’s going to be lost with the tilted paintings, while others were less impressed, suggesting that the representation “trivializes climate change” and was too easy to get used to the tilted works.

The Leopold Museum, with its 6,000 artworks, houses one of the world’s most important collections of Austrian art, focusing on the second half of the nineteenth century and subsequent Modernism.

The Director of Aviation in the United Kingdom’s department of transport has lauded India on the number of female pilots and the implementation of Digi Yatra.

Rannia Leontaridi, the Director of Aviation and Director General of Civil Aviation (UK), was sharing her views on March 22 on ‘designing a future-proof aviation & airports system’ at the CAPA India Aviation Summit 2023 in New Delhi.

Digi Yatra app links a traveller’s boarding pass to a facial recognition system that confirms their identification. It was developed by the Digi Yatra Foundation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to support contactless passenger identification at airports.

Leontaridi said the Digi Yatra is a phenomenal step by the government. She also said, “I am jealous of the number of female pilots in India. We are a little behind.”

Suggesting ways on how the UK and Indian governments can collaborate to accomplish goals, she said, “Regulation and policy should be about consumers more because aviation is for customers… Customer charter to inform pax about rights was the first thing that came out of COVID in the UK. Other critical things were Digitisation, innovation, and decarbonization. We realised we have a difficult future ahead of us.”

Customer-centric plans, digitisation of services such as innovation and technology, and decarbonisation are other key learnings during the pandemic and recovery path for the aviation industry, Leontaridi said.

A geologist of Federal University of Parana, Fernanda Avelar Santos and her team have discovered rocks made from plastic debris on Brazil’s Trindade island. Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island. “This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology,” Santos said.

Trindade Island, a remote volcanic outcrop a three to four-day boat trip off the coast of Brazil, is best known as a nesting site for green turtles. On the island, the researchers have discovered a new kind of igneous rock, plastistone, formed almost completely from plastic.

Plastic rocks have been previously found in various parts of the world. Researchers documented plastiglomerates – rock, sand and other debris fused together by melted plastic – in Hawaii in 2014, and pyroplastics, rock-like pebbles formed out of burnt plastic, on the southwest coast of England in 2019.

Santos first found the plastic rocks in 2019, during her travel to Trindade Island to research a doctoral thesis on landslides, erosion and other “geological risks.” She was intrigued by the peculiar-looking blue-green rocks and took some back to her lab. On analysis, she and her team identified the specimens as the new kind of geological formation, merging the materials and processes the Earth has used to form rocks for billions of years with plastic trash. “It fits in with the idea of the Anthropocene, which scientists are talking about a lot these days: the geological era of human beings influencing the planet’s natural processes,” she said.

Hyderabad’s L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) has been ranked 8th globally in the area of Ophthalmology (Health category) for 2023 by Scimago agency, a Spanish global ranking organisation. The ranking is based on research, technology innovation and social impact of the research output.

The institute has been listed with reputed institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard University, Moorfields of London in the top 10 list. The LVPEI is the first Indian medical institute to find a place in the top rankings in the field of research productivity.

Scimago Agency analysed data for the past five years of the best medical institutions to arrive at the 2023 rankings. The list is headed by Moorfields Eye Hospitals NHS Trust (UK), Johns Hopkins Medicine (US), Singapore National Eye Centre, University of Miami Health System (US), Singapore Eye Research Institute, UCLA Health System, (US) and National Institutes of Health (US) and LVPEI (India). The next two are the US Department of Health & Human Services and Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicare (France).

LVPEI has served approximately 34.14 million patients so far. Of them 16 million were served free of cost. It has trained about 56,759 personnel and its scientists or researchers have 4,099 publications. It also has to its credit 57 PhDs, 5 Bhatnagar Award winners, and 3 Padma Shri awardees.

To expand its reach, the LVPEI has set up a few satellite centres, and has been able to reach 12,193 villages. It has so far performed 1.93 million surgeries, 2029 stem cell based procedures, reached 4.92 million children, and established a Cornea Bank with 1.19 lakh corneas of which 69, 964 transplants have been done, says the institute.

Participants of an international donor conference in Brussels raised €7 billion ($7.5 billion) for the victims of the earthquakes on February 6 in Turkey and Syria. The massive earthquakes killed more than 57,300 people.

The “Together for the people of Turkey and Syria” conference was hosted by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson on March 20. Over 60 delegations met in Brussels to mobilise support for the people affected by the massive earthquakes. A total of 6.05 billion euros will be provided in the form of grants and loans for Turkey, and 950 million euros in grants for Syria, the European Commission said.

More than 50 per cent of the grants (3.6 billion euros) will come from the European Commission and European Union Member States, as well as the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

“Today is a very good day for international solidarity,” von der Leyen said after the event. “We have shown to the people in Turkey and Syria that we are supporting those in need. Together we have exceeded expectations with pledges worth 7 billion euros. We will continue to work together to support those affected by the earthquakes… We now need to support the survivors to rebuild their lives. I invite all nations to contribute,” she added.