Hong Kong is giving away 5,00,000 airline tickets worth more than €250 million in an effort to woo tourists back to the region. On February 1, Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee launched the $2 billion (€1.8 bn) 'Hello Hong Kong' campaign. Under the campaign, flight tickets will be given away beginning March 1, going on for about six months, with tickets distributed in phases. The city has rolled back several COVID-19 travel restrictions in recent months, including mandatory isolation on arrival. It now hopes to bounce back from the massive impact that the pandemic had on its tour
India has jumped 26 spots globally in case of median mobile speeds, from rank 105th in November 2022 to rank 79th in December 2022, said a report by Ookla. Ookla released an update on the Speedtest Global Index for the month of December 2022. In its report, the network intelligence and connectivity insights provider said median mobile download speeds in India increased from 18.26 Mbps in November to 25.29 Mbps in December. However, the country fell in overall median fixed broadband speeds category to 81st position from 80th. Its performance in fixed median download speeds witnessed a sligh
India and South Africa (SA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to translocate more than 100 cheetahs to India over the next decade, said the SA government on January 26, 2023, in a press release. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment release said that 12 big cats may arrive in India sometime in February. The plan is to translocate 12 cheetahs every year for the next eight to 10 years to establish a healthy and genetically diverse cheetah population in India. The terms of the MoU on Cooperation in the Re-introduction of Cheetah to India will be reviewed e
The Egyptian Army contingent marched on the Kartavya Path for the first time on Thursday on the occasion of India’s 74th Republic Day. The contingent, with 144 soldiers, was led by Colonel Mahmoud Mohamed Abdel Fattah El Kharasawy. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was the chief guest of this year’s Republic Day celebrations. It was for the first time that an Egyptian leader was invited on India’s Republic Day. The Egyptian contingent carried the legacy of one of the oldest regular armies known to humanity. The history of the Egyptian army goes back to 3200 BC when King Narmer
Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida has vowed to take urgent steps to tackle the country's declining birth rate. On Monday, he pledged to take urgent steps, saying it was “now or never” for one of the world’s oldest societies. In Japan, births plunged to a new record low last year, dropping below 800,000 for the first time. It was a defining moment that came eight years earlier than the government had expected. The country has the median age of 49 years, which is the second highest in the world after Monaco’s 55 years. Japan is the third-most-expensive country globally to rais
A team of Indian scientists from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) have found the first evidence of the presence of solitary waves around Mars. These solitary waves are distinct electric field fluctuations in the Martian magnetosphere that control particle energisation, plasma loss, and transport through wave-particle interactions. IIG researchers identified and reported the solitary waves in the Martian magnetosphere with the help of high-resolution electric field data recorded by Langmuir Probe and Waves instrument on Nasa's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecr
Spare, the memoir of Prince Harry, has become the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time, confirmed by the Guinness World Records on Friday, after the book sold 1.43 million copies on its first day. The sales outperformed Penguin Random House’s previous first-day non-fiction record, for US President Barack Obama’s memoir, A Promised Land, in 2020, and Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming in 2018. A Promised Land had sold 8,87,000 copies on the debut day. Penguin Random House (PRH) UK said the book had sold 7,50,000 copies in the UK across all formats – h
A rare green comet, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has appeared in the night sky for the first time in 50,000 years and was spotted from the Abu Dhabi desert at dawn on Saturday, said the International Astronomy Centre (IAC) based in the UAE capital. The comet, first identified in March 2022, has not visited Earth or the inner solar system since the last Ice Age. The last time it passed Earth was during the Upper Paleolithic period, when Neanderthals walked the Earth, according to Space.com. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) reached its closest point to the Sun (perihelion) on January 12, and will be visible for nearly
The total number of Indian passport holders will cross the 10 crore mark soon, said Regional Passport Officer Ashish Middha said at an interactive session with the Bharat Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. The waiting time for passport interviews has been reduced to “next working day” for Tatkaal and “three working days” for normal ones, informed the official. “Now, 9.6 crore people have valid passports in India and the figure would cross the 10 crore mark very soon,” he added. By 2023, issuance of e-passports is expected to be fully operational and currently e-passports are on
Swedish government-owned mining corporation LKAB has discovered the largest deposit of rare earth elements in Europe. The deposits were found in the company’s existing iron ore mines. The deposits, Per Geijer, are located in Sweden’s northern Lappland province near the Arctic Circle. Per Geijer is estimated to contain more than 1 million tonne of rare earth oxides. The useful rare earth elements such as cerium, yttrium, lanthanum and neodymium are used in everything, from smartphones to semiconductor chips to other high-tech products. These elements are vital for manufacturing items