Acid clouds fall-out likely killed dinosaurs Formation of sulphuric acid clouds after an asteroid impact may have blocked the sunlight, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs, a study says.
Posts
Kerala Tourism on Wednesday signed an agreement with a Kochi-based prominent tour operator handling chartered tourists from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries to operate chartered flights from Ukraine to God’s Own Country. The agreement was signed by Director of Kerala Tourism U.V. Jose and Managing Director of the Concorde Exotica Voyager James Kodianthara at the Secretariat here in the presence of Minister for Tourism Kadakampally Surendran. EoI invited The tour operator was selected by Kerala Tourism on the basis of the response to expression of interest (EoI) floated by it. Under this, seats will be earmarked for the chartered tourists in regular flights from January to May this year in the Ukraine-Kerala sector. First phase The selected tour company will take care of the travel, accommodation and travel in the State. In the first phase, the authorities expect 500 chartered tourists to reach here. The Tourism Minister said Kerala Tourism would come ...
Describing the influx of refugees from Myanmar to southeast Bangladesh as a “forgotten crisis”, Sarat Dash, chief of mission of the International Organisation for Migration in Bangladesh, has said the crisis is worsening in the Rohingya refugee camps. Mr. Dash, who visited the camps in Cox’s Bazaar district with the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Bangladesh, said “34,000 refugees” had moved from Myanmar to Bangladesh since the recent spate of ethnic violence in Rakhine state of Myanmar. While at least half-a-dozen international humanitarian agencies were working in the area, the situation was worsening with the advent of winter, Mr. Dash said. Difficult times “With severe crisis of shelter and food [as] the winter is approaching, there is a serious need of winter clothes; also an urgent need of medical assistance and psycho-social help,” Mr. Dash said. He said a “lot of the refugees are visibly depressed [as] they had traumatic experiences”. Since the beginning of an anti-...
Irish journalist claims in documentary the liner’s hull was fatally weakened by blaze in coal bunker The real reason for Titanic’s tragic sinking that claimed over 1,500 lives in 1912 was a fire in the ocean liner’s boiler room and not simply a collision with a giant iceberg, a new documentary has claimed. The Titanic’s hull was fatally weakened by a fire that had been smouldering in the coal bunker in the boiler room since it left the shipyard in Belfast, Irish journalist and author Senan Molony has claimed in the documentary. Photographs of the ship with a dark mark on her hull before it left Southampton — at the same spot the iceberg struck — support the theory, Mr. Molony, who has spent 30 years researching the disaster, was quoted as saying by The Times . He claimed that J Bruce Ismay, president of the company that built the ship and the man forever branded a coward for taking one of the few lifeboat places, knew about the fire but downplayed its significance in the after...
Researchers found wood fibres in a 1.2-million-year-old tooth found in Europe Bits of wood recovered from a 1.2-million-year-old tooth found at an excavation site in northern Spain indicate that the early ancestors of humans may have use a kind of toothpick, scientists say. Toothbrushes were not around yet, if the amount of hardened tartar build-up is anything to go by, according to the study. An analysis of the tartar has yielded information about what these early men ate and the quality of their diet. Study leader Karen Hardy of the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain says the study found they ate food raw, and that 1.2 million years ago, hominins did not use fire to prepare food. The teeth investigated by Ms. Hardy’s team come from one of the two oldest hominin remains in Europe. The piece of jawbone found in 2007 at the Sima del Elefante excavation site in Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains is between...
The drug, banned in India, is needed to immobilise the animals to shift them from their present enclosure to a new protected area The plan to replicate one of the country’s most successful rhino rehabilitation programme at the Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh is stuck for want of a sedating drug that is banned in India. The state’s forest department has now sought to obtain no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Central government to acquire — Etorphine (M99) and its antidote — a drug banned in India and produced in some African countries, the officials said. “The drug is used to immobilise large animals like the rhino. It is required to shift some of them from their present enclosed area to the new one, and to do tests,” Dudhwa National Park Director Sunil Choudhary said. The plan is to rehabilitate three rhinos in an enclosed area of 14 sq.km in the Belraya Range of the forest, some 15 km from the present 24 sq km Sonaripur Range’s enclosure where 34 rhinos thrive. Abode to a ...
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday issued notices to authorities in Delhi for not providing relief to Hindu migrants from Pakistan who were left homeless after a fire. About 500 Hindus from Pakistan had come to India in 2013-2014 and were temporarily settled at Majnu ka Tilla in north Delhi. About 30 makeshift dwellings of these migrants at Majnu ka Tilla were gutted when a fire broke out on November 27. The NHRC observed that the families affected by the fire were left homeless and are now living on the streets as temporary living arrangements promised by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate have not been provided so far. “The victims have complained that they do not even have food, clothes and basic amenities, which are necessary for a human being... The contents of the news reports raise a serious issue of violation of their right to life and dignity,” said the NHRC. Seeks detailed report Taking suo motu cognisance, the NHRC issued notices to the D...
With demonetisation leading to a currency crisis in the country, the first pay day after the move has led to speculations of how the government is going to handle the cash distrubution. The Centre has asked all employers and contractors to ensure that wages are paid to all employees, including casual and contract workers, through cheques or electronic transfers into a bank account. The Chief Labour Commissioner, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, has also asked firms to get bank accounts opened for all those workers who do not have one already, and report on the compliance status with the details of the new bank accounts opened by December 2, 2016.
“By taking despotic action and saying we had promised but won’t fulfil our promise, you hit at the root of this”. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has called the Narendra Modi government’s demonetisation move “despotic action that has struck at the root of economy based on trust.” “It (demonetisation) undermines notes, it undermines bank accounts, it undermines the entire economy of trust. That is the sense in which it is despotic,” Prof. Sen told to a TV channel. He further said his immediate point of view on demonetisation is on its economic aspect. “It’s (demonetisation) a disaster on economy of trust. In the last 20 years, the country has been growing very fast. But it is all based on acceptance of each other’s word. By taking despotic action and saying we had promised but won’t fulfil our promise, you hit at the root of this,” Prof. Sen said. Noting that capitalism has many successes that have come from having trust in businesses, he said if a government promises in...