PM security breach: SC stays Centre, Punjab govt probes; forms inquiry panel

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CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia on Tuesday claimed that Punjab

Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and the ruling Congress government had let the security breach

during Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s recent visit to the state happen to "embarrass" the PM and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)."

“The Chief Minister was never stopped for 20 minutes anywhere. If roads could be cleared for the Chief Minister, why not for the Prime Minister? Because a plan was made in the chief minister`s office to embarrass the Prime Minister and BJP," the SAD leader said while speaking to media persons.

World Bank warns global economy faces grim outlook

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The global economy faces a "grim outlook", World Bank president David Malpass has warned, as the aftershocks of the pandemic continue to weigh on growth - especially in poor countries.

His organisation's latest forecast predicts global growth will slow to 4.1% this year from 5.5% in 2021.

It attributed the slowdown to virus threats, government aid unwinding and an initial rebound in demand fading.

But Mr Malpass said his greatest worry was widening global inequality.

"The big drag is the inequality that's built into the system," he told the BBC, noting that poorer countries were especially vulnerable to economic damage from efforts to fight inflation.

"The outlook for the weaker countries is still to fall further and further behind. That causes insecurity."

Helicopter makes emergency landing on farmland near Erode

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COIMBATORE: A private helicopter hired from Bengaluru by a couple to reach Kochi in Kerala made an emergency landing on farmland in Erode district of Tamil Nadu on Saturday morning due to bad weather. Police sources said the pilot experienced bad weather while flying over the Sathyamangalam forest around 10.30am

Thalapathy's MASTER One Year Of Release

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John Durairaj, an alcoholic professor, gets enrolled to teach at a juvenile facility, unbeknownst to him. He soon clashes with a ruthless gangster, who uses the children as scapegoats for his crimes.

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Initial release: 13 January 2021
Director: Lokesh Kanagaraj
Box office: est. ₹230–300 crore
Budget: ₹135 crore
Produced by: S. Xavier Britto

KollyWood Biggest Blockbuster Thalapathy's MASTER

first big viral trend of 2022

Wordle has been trending all across Twitter with little green, yellow, and grey-coloured square emojis being a part of many tweets over the past few weeks. And the social media platform has confirmed that the game is the first big viral trend of 2022. The word guessing game has caused quite the stir with people sharing their achievements on social media, tutorials, and strategies being discussed as well stories about its origins.

Twitter has revealed that since its release in October 2021, ‘Wordle’ has been mentioned a total of 840,000 times across the platform. November saw a spike in the usage of yellow and green coloured box emojis, with 773,000 tweets being used to reference the blocks within the game.

Numbers also show that Indian Twitter seems to have found Wordle as their new passion in 2022. In India, 96 percent of Wordle conversations on Twitter took place in January 2022. Among Indians, the obsession has since grown steadily, with a 48 percent daily average growth in Wordle discussions within the country.

NASA’s New IXPE Mission Begins Science Operations

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NASA’s newest X-ray eyes are open and ready for discovery!

Having spent just over a month in space, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is working and already zeroing in on some of the hottest, most energetic objects in the universe.

A joint effort between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, IXPE is the first space observatory dedicated to studying the polarization of X-rays coming from objects like exploded stars and black holes. Polarization describes how the X-ray light is oriented as it travels through space.

“The start of IXPE’s science observations marks a new chapter for X-ray astronomy,” said Martin Weisskopf, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “One thing is certain: we can expect the unexpected.”

IXPE launched Dec. 9 on a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit 370 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth’s equator. The observatory’s boom, which provides the distance needed to focus X-rays onto its detectors, was deployed successfully on Dec. 15. The IXPE team spent the next three weeks checking out the observatory’s maneuvering and pointing abilities and aligning the telescopes.