SUNDAY FOCUS

The much-delayed arrival of Monsson in the National Capital Region (NCR) and its scanty spread has not left just we humans perspiring but also the birds of the city yearning for rain. In the Indian literary tradition, the rains are mainly associated with the pied cuckoo, which also finds the place of prominence in classical Sanskrit author and playwright Kalidas’ ‘Meghdootam’.

In his famous poetic treatise, the epochal poet draws a parallel between the thirst of the pied cuckoo for the rain with that of the desire of a devoted heart of unison with the divine. It finds a place of prominence in the later literary traditions too in the verses of Surdas, Tulsidas and Kabir with its local name -- Chatak, the one who lives on the drop of rain.

At the height of global shutdowns last year, 188 countries closed their schools, affecting over a billion children who have been placed at risk of falling behind on their education. Naturally, just as work-from-home was made a norm at the time, so was learning-at-home or remote learning. UNICEF noted that around 80 per cent of the countries that went for school shutdowns resorted to some kind of remote learning practice. But over a year of remote learning, it has become clear that remote learning cannot automatically be custom-fitted to take the place of learning in a school environment.

The single biggest reason for this is the considerable digital gap between students from different backgrounds and countries. UNICEF data shows that around 31 per cent or 463 million school-going children could not be reached through broadcast or digital media as they lacked the necessary infrastructure at home or because they were not targeted by policies to effectively implement remote learning. With remote learning currently failing to be as comprehensive a solution to the education problem during the pandemic, the focus once again has shifted to swiftly reopening schools and doing so safely.

he Supreme Court Friday took suo motu cognizance of the sad demise of a judge in gruesome incident of being allegedly mowed down by a vehicle while on morning jog on July 28 at Dhanbad and sought a status report within a week from Jharkhand's Chief Secretary and the DGP on the probe into the incident.

While making it clear that the proceedings before the Jharkhand High Court to monitor the probe into the death of the judicial officer would continue, a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said it was taking suo motu cognizance of the matter as incidents of attacks on judicial officers and the legal fraternity are happening across country.

The practice of wearing an English suit or a tuxedo on special occasions is increasingly becoming passe for Indian men, who are now seen donning royal ethnic attires like bandhgala and angrakha. According to designer Sabyasachi Mukherji, Indian men, particularly grooms, are "suddenly realising the importance of being Indian".

"They are not ready to wear a bandhgala with trousers any more, they want to wear them with a churidar. They want to wear achkans and angrakha," he told PTI. Bandhgala is in fact a more ruly successor of the unstructured angrakha that had its origins in ancient India (7000 BCE-500 CE) as a court outfit.

It is a known and proven fact that the day and night on Earth occurs due to the rotation of the planet. During the rotation when the light of the Sun falls on the Earth, it is called sunrise. Every 24 hours, day and night occur. However, there is a place in this world that used to miss sunlight for many months and people were facing Vitamin D deficiency there. This happened in Rjukan, a Norwegian town situated between two high mountains where residents lived without sunlight for about 6 months. Now, with an innovation, residents can get sunlight even during the winter in a particular area.

The city is located in the valley near the Telemark area of Southern Norway. The city was developed as a hydro powerhouse for all those workers working in Norsk Hydro, a  Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company. The city was built between 1905 and 1916 by its founder and entrepreneur Sam Eyde who constructed a hydroelectric power plant there. To help factory workers to provide sunlight, he dreamed of making a giant mirror to deflect the sunlight to get a bit of  rays by 1913, however it could not happen during his lifetime. As an alternative, a gondola lift, also known as an aerial tramway or cryopen, was built to take citizens into the mountains so that they could get vitamin D.