Monthly Archives: December 2018

Caring for the treasured jumbos

The month began on a sad note for Sri Lanka’s wildlife enthusiasts, when an 11-year-old tusker was shot dead in Udawalawe National Park, about 160 km southeast of Colombo. The results of the post-mortem examination pointed to a fatal bullet injury in the animal’s head. Caretakers in the park told …

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Finding Rabindranath Tagore in Japan

It was mid-summer in 1916. The Indian philosopher-poet, Rabindranath Tagore, opened the window of the Shofukaku or Pavilion of Wind Swept Pines that he was lodging at, in the Sankeien gardens of the Japanese port city of Yokohama. A salty breeze wafted up the bluff that overlooked the ocean, holding …

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Trade, tariffs and opioid addiction

About a week ago at the G20 meetings in Buenos Aires, over a dinner that featured sirloin steak, caramel-rolled pancakes and glasses of Malbec, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly talked trade, tariffs and fentanyl. The first two have grabbed headlines internationally, but the third has …

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The Valley of AI draws the ire of students

The authorities’ plan to turn Tübingen, a small city in southern Germany best known for its eponymous university, into an investment hub for artificial intelligence (AI) met with a hurdle last week when students and activists organised a demonstration. Some of the companies that are making investments in this initiative, …

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Cloud over key Tibetan meet

Since 1999, when the Karmapa and his sister fled to Dharamshala, the government has hosted him and allowed him to set up his congregation. Since then he has grown in prominence and is now considered as a possible successor to the Dalai Lama’s political clout over the Tibetan refugee population …

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In Manipur, panic over dead livestock

More than a month after unknown predators began killing livestock in six districts of Manipur, experts roped in from Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India (WII) identified stray and domesticated dogs as the culprits. But the mystery of the nocturnal attacks was far from solved in some parts bordering Myanmar; the …

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‘India lagging in information warfare’

Ex-Generals call for indigenisation Lieutenant-General Vijay Oberoi (Retd.) said on Saturday that despite major advancements in the field, India was still banking on imported information warfare techniques, which could be fatal. He was speaking at a discussion on “Information warfare: the new face of war” at the Military Literature Festival …

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Gujarat stares at acute water crisis

Following a deficit monsoon, Gujarat is staring at an acute water crisis as the 204 dams and reservoirs that supply water for drinking and irrigation to various parts of the State are drying up even before the winter ends. Kutch, parts of Saurashtra and north Gujarat are likely to face …

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Trainspotting from the steam age to the Metro era

With a collection of coaches, locos and other memorabilia, the Railway Museum in Howrah is a delight for train enthusiasts A locomotive carrying coal from East Pakistan crossed over to the Indian territory when the war with Pakistan broke out in 1971. The single-coach, green-coloured locomotive, with clear markings in …

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