Pop superstar Beyoncé broke the record for most career wins at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards on February 5. British singer Harry Styles won the prestigious album of the year award. Music composer Ricky Kej, based out of Bengaluru, has won his third Grammy Award for the album Divine Tides. Beyoncé added four Grammys to her collection. Her lifetime total now stands at 32, surpassing the tally of late classical conductor Georg Solti. The US singer was nominated for nine awards this year. She won the all-time Grammy record with her award for best dance/electronic album for Renaissance, and t
The Biodiversity Management Committee, the panchayat of Chumathang village, and SECURE Himalaya Project have resolved to declare Yaya Tso as Ladakh’s first biodiversity heritage site (BHS) under the Biological Diversity Act. Yaya Tso is among the most beautiful lakes in Ladakh. It is known as birds’ paradise for its beautiful lake located at an altitude of 4,820 metres. A nesting habitat for a large number of birds and animals, such as the bar-headed goose, black-necked crane and brahminy duck, it also has the distinction of being one of the highest breeding sites of the black-necked c
Long-haul carrier Emirates successfully flew a Boeing 777 on a test flight on January 30 with one engine entirely powered by sustainable aviation fuel. The test flight comes as carriers worldwide try to lessen their carbon footprint. The fuel powered one of Boeing’s two General Electric Co. engines, with the other running on conventional jet fuel for safety. Flight No. EK2646 flew for just under an hour over the coastline of the United Arab Emirates. It took off from Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, and headed out into the Persian Gulf before c
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