Category: Current Affairs

The Chenab Bridge is the world’s highest railway bridge

February 20, 2024 saw the opening of the magnificent Chenab Bridge in Jammu & Kashmir, an engineering marvel 20 years in the offing. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with a slew of infrastructural projects in the region. This also includes flagging off the first Electric Train in the valley, train service between Sangaldan and Baramulla station, and the inauguration of AIIMS Jammu and IIM Jammu.

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Here’s three quick facts on the Chenab Bridge:

> It is 1.3km long and stands at the height of 359m above the river, which is 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

> It is part of the Rs 35000 crore Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Link (USBRL) project which aims to boost connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir, through one of the most difficult terrains in the world. The project to build the bridge was approved in 2003 but was delayed due to fears of stability and safety. In 2008, the contract for construction was awarded.

> The bridge will have a lifespan of 120 years and will be able to withstand winds with speeds up to 260 kmph.

India shines once again at the Grammy Awards

The 66th Grammy Awards, held on February 4, 2024, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, were a memorial night for Indian music. The fusion band ‘Shakti‘, featuring vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, John McLaughlin, percussionist V Selvaganesh, Zakir Hussain, and violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, bagged the ‘Best Global Music Album’ award for their latest album, ‘This Moment’.

Zakir Hussain has also won in two further categories in 2024, in Best Global Music Performance and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, both along with Rakesh Chaurasia.

Apart from Shakti, Falguni Shah, the singer-songwriter popularly known as Falu, was nominated for the Best Global Music Performance for Abundance in Millets, a song that featured the voice of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The song was pat of her album Foras Road, which was inspired by her childhood in Mumbai. Falu is based in New York and blends classical Indian music with pop, rock, and jazz.

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>The first Indian to win a Grammy was the legendary sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar, who won the award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 1968 for his album West Meets East, a collaboration with violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

>The most nominated Indian musician is the renowned conductor Zubin Mehta, who has been nominated 18 times for various categories.

>The only Indian to win an Oscar and a Grammy is A.R. Rahman, who won two in 2010 for his work on the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. He won the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media and the Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for the song Jai Ho.

> Zakir Hussain first won the Grammy in 2009 in the Contemporary World Music Album category for his collaborative album Global Drum Project with Mickey Hart, Sikiru Adepoju & Giovanni Hidalgo.

> Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a slide guitar player, won the Best World Music Album in 1994 for his album A Meeting by the River with guitarist Ry Cooder. In recent years, Ricky Kej won the awards thrice, in 2015, 2022 and 2023.

Super Bowl 2024 was entirely powered by renewable energy

In a historic first, the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home to the Las Vegas Raiders and host of Super Bowl LVIII, was fully powered by solar power harnessed from a Nevada desert solar farm, thus achieving a significant green milestone.

Due to a 25-year agreement between the stadium and NV Energy, more than 6,21,000 solar panels found in a barren area of the Nevada desert with the capability to power close to 60,000 residential customers became the source of all the glitter and shine as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers.

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>The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the US National Football League (NFL), a federation of professional gridiron football teams. It is played by the winners of NFL’s American Football Conference and National Football Conference championships and is hosted by a different city each year.

>More than 100 million viewers watch the Super Bowl every year. This is in addition to the very expensive tickets, which are also very hard to get. The event has come from a long way since the first Super Bowl in 1967, which had 30000 empty seats.

> The Super Bowl also provides for some of the most sought-after space for brands. A 30-second ad spot comes with a $7-million price tag, or about $233,333 per second.

> The two teams of this year’s Super Bowl have interesting origin. While the Kansas City Chiefs were reportedly named after Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle, who was nicknamed “The Chief” and helped lure the franchise from Dallas in 1963, the San Francisco 49ers are named after the people who came to California during the famous Gold Rush of 1849.

2024 sees highest number of Bharat Ratna in a single year

Five people will be awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2024, the highest ever since 1999, when four people were bestowed with the prestigious honour. The awardees include Karpoori Thakur, L.K. Advani, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh and M.S. Swaminathan, out of which four are posthumous.

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>Karpoori Thakur: A former Chief Minister of Bihar, he was known as ‘Jan Nayak’ (people’s leader) for his efforts to uplift marginalized communities.

>Lal Krishna Advani: A veteran politician and former Deputy PM of India, the nonagenarian played a pivotal role in shaping the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

>PV Narasimha Rao: The 9th PM of India, he introduced economic reforms and steered India towards liberalization and globalization. He was a polyglot, who was conversant in 15 languages.

>Chaudhary Charan Singh: A former PM of India, he is often referred to as the “Champion of India’s peasants”. The international airport in Lucknow is officially named after him.

>MS Swaminathan: A renowned agricultural scientist and the “Father of Green Revolution in India”, he made significant contrubutions to improving crop productivity and food security.

Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted first brain chip in human

Neuralink, the neurotechnology company co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016, has finally put its first brain chip in human to test its implants in people, after receiving an approval from regulators in 2023. Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm that initial results show promising neuron spike detection.

The entrepreneur further added, the first product is Telepathy, aptly called so as it enables control of the user’s phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal,” wrote Musk.

The startup aims to create a direct connection between the human brain and computers. It uses a device called the Link, which is implanted in the brain through surgery. The Link can record and stimulate neural activity, and send information to a Neuralink app, which can translate it into actions and intentions. The technology could help people with paralysis, neurological disorders, or enhance human capabilities.

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>The Link is a coin-sized device that is placed inside the skull, with thin wires or threads that connect to the brain tissue. It can communicate wirelessly with a smartphone or computer, and can be charged without wires.

>The company has demonstrated the Link device in pigs and monkeys, showing that they can control a computer or a video game with their minds.

>It also faces many challenges and risks, some of which include, the safety and ethics of brain surgery and implantation, the reliability and durability of the device and the threads, the compatibility and security of the wireless communication and the app, the potential side effects or complications of brain stimulation or manipulation, the social and psychological impact of having a brain-computer interface, to mention a few.

Sir Elton John joins the rare EGOT Club

Sir Elton John, the legendary singer-songwriter, has achieved the rare feat of winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony award (collectively known as the EGOT), becoming the 19th person overall and the first British musician to attain this status. These awards honour exceptional achievements in television, recording, film, and Broadway theatre, respectively, and achieving the EGOT has been referred to as the “grand slam” of American showbiz.

He completed his EGOT collection by winning the Emmy for outstanding variety special (live) for his show Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium. He had previously won five Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award, two Oscars for best original song, and a Tony for best original score. Elton John is widely regarded as one of the most influential and successful artists of all time, with more than 300 million records sold worldwide.

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>In 1962, Richard Rodgers became the first person to win all four awards.

>In 1977, Helen Hayes became the second person and first woman to win all four awards.

>In 1977, Rita Moreno became the third person and first Hispanic American to win all four awards.

>In 1991, John Gielgud became the fourth person to win all four awards, the oldest (at age 87), the first LGBTQIA+ person, and the first non-American.

>In 1994, Audrey Hepburn became the fifth person to win all four awards, and the first to do so posthumously.

Here’s a complete list of all 19 EGOT winners:

Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, Viola Davis, Jennifer Hudson, Alan Menken, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Richard Rodgers, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Robert Lopez, Scott Rudin, Tim Rice, Rita Moreno, Jonathan Tunick, Marvin Hamlisch, John Legend, Helen Hayes.

Bengaluru’s beloved Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR) turns 100

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, or MTR, is a legendary restaurant chain that has come to represent authentic vegetarian South Indian cuisine. Founded in 1924 by Parampalli Yagnanarayana Maiya and his brothers as a small eatery near Lalbagh Fort Road, it has become a gastronomical icon, continuing to be a favourite among Bengalureans and food lovers across the world even after a good hundred years.

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>During WWII, when rice was scarce, Rava Idli was cooked in the kitchens of MTR, using semolina instead of rice. It became a staple in South Indian cuisine.

>MTR also introduced the drive-in service in the city (arguably among the earliest such service in the world), allowing customers to enjoy its food from their jatkas (horse-driven carts) and cars.

>In 1951, Yagnanaryana Maiya, the youngest brother, travelled to Europe and studied how restaurants functioned abroad. He incorporated the hygiene standards, the service and presentation, and so on – into the new restaurant – at the current location on Lal Bagh Road, which came into existence in 1960.

>In 1975, during Emergency when the Food Control Act mandated low prices for food items, MTR, facing a crippling loss, decided to close its restaurant while diversifying to selling masala and instant mixes from a building next door. The restaurant reopened in 1981. In 2007, the packaged foods business was acquired by a Norwegian conglomerate, Orkla Brands, for an estimated Rs. 384 crore.

Uranus and Neptune reveal their true colours

In a recent study, a team at Oxford University found that the true colours of Uranus and Neptune are very similar and not starkly different as was believed earlier. Scientists used data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to reveal that the ice planets are the same shade of greenish blue.

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>Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in 1781, when he noticed a star-like object that moved with respect to the background stars. It was the first planet to be discovered since ancient times and was only possible with the invention of telescope.

>Neptune was discovered by Johann Gottfried Galle in 1846, following the calculations of Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams, who predicted its location based on the perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Neptune was the first planet to be discovered by mathematical prediction rather than observation.

>The well-known depictions of the difference in shades of blue as seen in Uranus and Neptune stem from the images sent by Voyager 2 in the previous century. The blue colour is caused by the absorption of red light by methane in its upper atmosphere.

Government of West Bengal declares Poila Boisakh as State Day and Banglar Mati Banglar Jal as State Song

The West Bengal government has declared ‘Poila Boisakh‘, the first day of the Bengali New Year, as the State Day and ‘Banglar Mati Banglar Jal‘ penned by Rabindranath Tagore as the State Song. This notification after September last year, when West Bengal Assembly passed a resolution declaring the same.

The State Day will be named ‘Bangla Divas‘. The State Song, 1 minute and 59 seconds long, shall compulsorily be played in all state government functions at the start of the function and the National Anthem shall be played compulsorily at the conclusion of it.

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>Poila Boisakh, also known as Bengali New Year, marks the traditional New Year’s Day for the Bengali community. It is celebrated in mid-April. Many shopkeepers practice the inauguration of a new ‘haal-khata‘, an accounts copy, and distribute sweets.

>In 1905, when Lord Curzon decided to partition undivided Bengal, Tagore’s Banglar Mati, Banglar Jal  became a hymn for Bengali unity and harmony. Amar Sonar Bangla, which later became the national anthem of Bangladesh, too was written at this time.

ISRO’s new year begins with XPoSat, India’s first ever mission to study black holes

On 1st January 2024, ISRO announced the successful launch of XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite), India’s first dedicated polarimetry mission to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 60th mission, lifted off at 9.10 a.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

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>The XPoSat carries two payloads, namely POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays) and XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing). While POLIX has been developed by Raman Research Institute (RRI), XSPECT is a product of Space Astronomy Group of U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), both located in Bengaluru.

>India became the second nation (after the USA) to send an observatory to study celestial sources, such as black holes, neutron stars, among others. In 2021,  NASA launched its Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).

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