GS-III

Does an old military truck or a dismantled part of an old car or a broken bicycle have any place in a restaurant or a lounge bar where one would go to enjoy food or wine? Shouldn’t these things belong to the junkyard and stay there?No, if you ask 44-year-old …

The U.S. is our biggest customer. There, one sees a GDP growth of around 2% and that is a very refreshing change compared to the previous years. E-commerce is getting an upside. With the GDP growth, customers are coming out to retailers to buy.Departmental stores are struggling but tier two …

Slowing inflation is likely to prompt the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to hold the key policy rate or the repo rate in the fifth bimonthly monetary policy review of 2018-19 scheduled for Wednesday.The retail inflation rate — the yardstick used by the RBI …

While much of the slowdown in economic growth in the second quarter can be attributed to systemic and structural issues such as a base effect and the impact of rising oil prices, the impact of election season and the corresponding uncertainty on investment sentiment cannot be ruled out, according to …

Thirty-four years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, survivors continue to demand proper rehabilitation, adequate compensation and proper medical treatment for ailments caused by the toxic leak.In what is termed as the world’s worst industrial disaster, over 15,000 people were killed after methyl isocyanate leaked on the intervening night of December …

Muthupet in Tiruvarur district was among the coastal towns that faced the wrath of Cyclone Gaja. But considering the extent of the damage elsewhere, this town seems to have been spared the worst, thanks to its mangrove forests.“They functioned as a shield and broke the velocity of the wind. In …

Rotavirus infection is one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis in children under five years By studying the complex interplay between the sugars and microbes in mother’s milk and the baby’s gut microbes, an international team of researchers has tried to understand neonatal rotavirus infection. Rotavirus infection is one of …

The isolation of single sheets of carbon, known as graphene, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010. This discovery has ushered in an era of two-dimensional materials. It offers immense possibilities in building electronics using similarly thin films. A family of materials that have been investigated in this area are …

At a time when tiger deaths dominate national news, a new study offers hope for wild tiger populations across countries by showing that under optimal conditions, tiger numbers can triple in 18 sites across the world, including eight in India. These are Anamalai-Vazhachal (in Tamil Nadu-Kerala), Sathyamangalam (Tamil Nadu), Balaghat …

A novel anode developed by researchers at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune for use in lithium-ion batteries has five times more capacity than carbon-based electrodes and can be fully charged in about 15 minutes. The team led by Satishchandra Ogale from the Department of Physics at …