SUNDAY FEATURE

New Delhi: Treasured most during the bone-chilling winters, Kashmir's traditional knee-length robe called 'phiran' is adding colour to the season's fashion.
This apparel, with new designs, is retaining its charm among the people in the Valley as it scores over the modern winter costumes due to its ease and warmth.
Pheran and Poot is the term given to the traditional Kashmiri attire worn by the Kashmiri men and women. Pheran (also called Phyaran) is a long coat or cloak made of wool or tweed, worn both by women and men. Pheran & Poots together make two sets of cloak or gown worn one above the other.

New Delhi: Cockfights, a common and age-old 'sport' looked forward to during the Hindu New Year festival of Sankranti in South India, has been in the midst of several controversies over the years.

Cockfights are a traditional ritual in the Godavari and Krishna districts which takes place for three-days. Although there is a ban on the ‘sport’, as it is cruelty against animals. Every year; businessmen and celebrities from all parts of the country, flock to Andhra Pradesh to participate in cockfights during theSankranti festival.

New Delhi: Cosmic rays from supernovae – or exploding stars – can influence Earth’s cloud cover and its climate, scientists have foundfor the first time.

Conducted by Dr. HenrikSvensmark, from DTU Space, senior researcher Martin BødkerEnghoff, from DTU Space, Professor NirShaviv at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Ph.D. student Jacob Svensmark at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark; the study claimed that the discovery helped fill in a mysterious gap in our knowledge of our climate and may help to explain unusual periods of warmth and cold during the past 2,000 years.

New Delhi:In a new research; Astronomers, using data collected from European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopeshave discovered two exoplanets larger than Earth orbiting a red-dwarf star located about 111 light-years away in the constellation Leo. 

The research team who discovered the planet K2-18b back in 2015, noted that it lies with the habitable zone. Since K2-18b is likely rocky, this means the planet could have liquid water on its surface, which is one of many conditions for supporting life.

But if that weren’t exciting enough the team then realised that their newly discovered super-Earth wasn’t alone and in fact had a neighbour.

New Delhi:It is probably a common conception that marine debris consists of just a few pieces of rubbish scattered along the strand line of beaches and is of no harm to anyone. Unfortunately this is not the case. Marine debris has become a pervasive pollution problem affecting all of the world’s oceans. It is known to be the cause of injuries and deaths of numerous marine animals and birds, either because they become entangled in it or they mistake it for prey and eat it.

The rise in plastic refuse in the ocean and on beaches is killing turtles of all species, with a disproportionate impact on hatchlings and young turtles, research by the University of Exeter shows.

A recent worldwide survey covering the major oceans where turtles live revealed on Tuesday that over 1,000 marine turtles each year get entangled in Marine plastic debris. Marine debris is manmade waste that is directly or indirectly disposed of in oceans, rivers, and other waterways.