GS-III

For over a week now, more than 100 Forest Department officials, guards, tranquillising experts, shooters, trackers, rescue teams, veterinarians and two elephants, brought from Madhya Pradesh, have been carrying out a massive hunt for a tigress in the Ralegaon area of Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. What happened? They are looking …

Congress chief calls for clarification from Modi after Hollande’s statement Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday, “We are absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt. This question is clearly settled into minds of people that Desh Ka Chowkidar Chor Hai (the country’s watchman is a thief),” …

Per capita alcohol consumption in India has more than doubled from 2005 to 2016, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The consumption of alcohol has increased from 2.4 litres in 2005 to 5.7 litres in 2016 with 4.2 litres being consumed by men and 1.5 litre …

In their fight to get Abu Zubaydah released from the U.S. military detention facility, lawyers are trying to collate details of his stay in Karnataka More than 27 years after he abandoned his undergraduate studies in Mysuru to wage jihad against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, Zainalabdeen Mohammad Hussein Abu …

Meet Ushakumari, the lifeblood of a school in a forest settlement in south Kerala At 7 a.m., even before the sleepy Amboori village in southern Thiruvananthapuram is fully awake, R. Ushakumari begins her day. The only teacher of the Kunnathumala Agasthya Eka Adyapaka School (one-teacher school) inside the Agasthyavanam biosphere, …

The battery is made from lithium metal, carbon and an electrolyte that the researchers designed Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new battery made partly from carbon dioxide captured from power plants. While still based on early-stage research and far from commercial deployment, this battery could …

Animal poop may seem inconsequential but it supplies scientists with precious information: from a tiger’s identity to elephant stress levels. Most recently, faeces of Royle’s pika – a small rabbit-like mammal found in India’s Himalaya – reveal that these animals survive almost entirely on specific plants that grow only in …

A study points out that corneal blindness may no longer be the leading cause A recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report has estimated that, across the world, 19 million children are visually impaired and 1.4 million among them are legally blind. According to the National Program for Control of Blindness, …

This column writer recently had a severe attack of very bad cold and cough, and no amount of swallowing antibiotics and vitamin C helped. His wife, Shakti, then recalled her mother’s traditional treatment, ground up a little jaggery and raw ginger, and asked him to have it three times a …

Museum celebrates weird inventions A gadget to “translate” dog barks for humans, a “babypod” that plays music inside the mother’s vagina for unborn babies and the world’s first self-colonoscopy method were among the whacky inventions on show Friday at a new Tokyo exhibition. The museum celebrates weird and wonderful inventions …