B E N N E T T, C O L E M A N & C O. LT D. | E S TA B LI S H E D 183 8 | T I M E S O F I N D I A . C O M | N E W D E L H I

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FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2020

An Indian Army officer and awoman peacekeeper, who hasserved with the UN Mission in

South Sudan (UNMISS), and a Brazil-ian woman commander have been se-lected for the prestigious United NationsMilitary Gender Advocate of the Year

Award (2019). UN chief Antonio Guter-res described Major Suman

Gawani and Brazilian Naval Of-ficer Commander Carla Mon-teiro de Castro Araujo as “pow-erful role models.”

This is the first time thatthe UN Military Gender Ad-vocate award has gone to anIndian peacekeeper.

Social network-ing giant Face-book has

launched anothergroup calling appcalled CatchUp. Theapp, devel-oped byFacebook’s NPETeam (new productexperimentation),is being tested in theUS on iOS and An-droid operating sys-tems. NPE apps aremeant to be newproduct experi-ments, whichmeans they are sub-ject to change.

CLICK HERE: WWW.TOISTUDENT.COM

LONGUEUR: Means a dull and tedious passage or sec-tion (as of a book, play, or musical composition). An earlyexample of longueur used in an English text goes back to an18th-century writer Horace Walpole, who wrote in a letter,"Boswell's book is gossiping; . . . but there are woefullloonngguueeuurrss, both about his hero and himself."

DID YOU KNOWTHIS DAY: MAY 29

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF UNITED NATIONSPEACEKEEPERS: May 29 is observed as theInternational Day of United Nations Peacekeeping opera-tions across the globe to pay tribute to all the men andwomen who have served and continue to serve in UNpeacekeeping operations. It was first celebrated in 2003.

FACEBOOK’S CATCHUP IS DIFFERENTFROM WHATSAPP

NEWSIN

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WORD WATCH

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillaryand Tenzing Norgay reached thesummit of Mount Everest,becoming first climbers to scalethe highest peak in the world

'PHIR TERA TIME AAYEGA': Celebsunite for a lockdown song

Veteran singer Hariha-ran, along with variousother artistes, have

teamed up to release an an-them, ‘Phir tera time aayega’to uplift the spirit of people inthe time of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The song features playbacksingers Roopkumar Rathod andSunali Rathod, Mika Singh,Neeti Mohan and Ishaan Dutta,along with MasterChef Ran-veer Brar, Sanjeev Kapoor,among many others. The songis written by Vinod Nair andcomposed by Hariharan, his sonAkshay Hariharan and Im-manuel Berlin. Led by Hariha-ran, the band call themselves,‘The SurViralists.’

Created in 2016, the United Nations’ Military GenderAdvocate of the Year Award recognises the dedicationand effort of an individual military peacekeeper in pro-moting the principles of UN Security Resolution, andworking towards promoting gender equality in differentparts of the world

HONOUR

INDIAN ARMY MAJOR TO BE HONOUREDWITH PRESTIGIOUS UN AWARD

WHAT:After Pakistan, In-dia is battling thedesert locusts in thestates of MadhyaPradesh, Rajasthanand Uttar Pradesh.The locusts, whichbred and matured inIran and Pakistan’sB a l o c h i s t a n ,reached Ra-jasthan recently.It is expected toreach Delhi soon.

WHY: Locust at-tacks in

India usually last tillNovember but thisyear the swarmsstayed till February,which scientists be-

lieve was due to the cli-mate crisis. Last year’s

extended monsoon,which began six weeks

earlier in July in western In-dia and lasted till November,

produced natural vegetation forlocusts to feed on and created ideal

breeding conditions for them.

● The app that allows its users toengage in group calling with up to eightmembers, tells its users when other usersare available to talk● It shows who all are available to talk on thebasis of a user’s contact list, and doesn’t requireanyone to have a Facebook account

TECH BUZZ

HUMAN DESTRUCTION COULD WIPE OUT50 BILLION YEARS OF EVOLUTION!

Yes, you heard it right. If a lateststudy is to go by, human activityis destroying more than 50 bil-

lion years of evolutionary history. Ac-cording to a report published in ‘DailyMail’, an ever-increasing human foot-print with people encroaching on moreof the planet, has led to the destructionof millions of species and their evolu-tionary heritage.The collective loss ofevolutionary history from millions ofdifferent species led to the 50 billionyears figure — almost four times longerthan the age of the universe.

ENVIRONMENT

Researchers say manyregions, home to thegreatest amount ofunique evolutionaryhistory, are facingunprecedented humanpressure. Theseinclude the Caribbean,the Western Ghats ofIndia, and large partsof Southeast Asia.Using extinction riskdata for around25,000 species, theresearchers also calculated the amountof evolutionary histo-ry — branches on thetree of life — currentlythreatened withextinction

FACTOID

50°C: The temperature recordedat Churu, Rajasthan, onTuesday. This was the sec-

ond-highest temperature recorded in the monthof May in the last 10 years, according to IMD,

Jaipur. The city had recorded 50.2 degreesCelsius on May 19, 2016, the meteoro-

logical department added

With an interestinghip-hop rapsection thrownin the middle,the song extolsthe gutsinessand resilienceof the humanrace, all thewhile reaffirm-ing faith in thenever-say-dieattitude

Thanks to the lockdown, homeshave doubled up as schools, of-fices and fitness centres, if notmore. With cancelled vaca-

tions and a deep desire to travel, ‘home-cations’ might be the new way to un-wind for the summers, feel experts.‘Homecation’, a vacation at home thatallow families to make memories byturning home gardens or backyard intoa holiday destination, is becoming pop-ular among the youngsters. So, get readyto have some homecation moments withyour family and friends...

How to make it happeningFor a fun homecation, take your elders’help; put up tents in your backyard, readadventure novels under a lantern-light,or add on a singing spree with your fam-ily. You could also make delicious sand-

wiches and summer coolers for a brunchpicnic, play board games, and hear sto-ries from your parents or grandparents.For a change, surprise your elders byrecreating the atmosphere of a city orregion you or your parents wish to go,or visit some cities virtually.

A 'HOMECATION' this summer?

TIPS

➤ Turn off your phone. Letyour friends know you aretaking time off for your fami-ly, even if you are not leavingyour home.

➤ Help your elders in knocking outany household chores, so they'renot a distraction. It's hard tounwind, especially for your mom, if she is staring at a mountain ofdirty laundry.

➤ Plan something special. Invitefriends or family over via video call,relive your memories and enjoy yourday with them.

➤ Take pictures. Like any other vaca-tion, make sure to take lots of pho-tos; post your pictures on socialmedia, if you are into that or shareyour pictures with your near anddear ones.

X-PLAINED

Locusts can destroy standing cropsand devastate livelihoods of peoplein the agricultural supply chain.Locust attacks could pose a threatto food security, the Food andAgricultural Organisation(FAO) has

warned. In fact, according tothe FAO, one square kilo-metre swarm of locusts,with about 40 millionlocusts, can eat as much

food as 35,000 people in aday. The pests may also damage thenurseries of fruits and vegetables

The desert locust is one of the 12species of short-horned grasshop-pers. Locust swarms can travel up to130 km in a day, and each locust canconsume about two grams of freshvegetation that is equivalent to itsown weight

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT

WHAT ARE LOCUSTS

LE

ARNING WITH

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TIM E S NI E

ENTERTAINMENT

In the past 69 years, India has seen a recessiononly thrice— in fiscals 1958, 1966 and 1980. Thereason was the same each time – a monsoon shockthat hit agriculture, then a sizeable part of theeconomy. CRISIL said the recession in the currentfiscal (April 2020 to March 2021) is different asagriculture could soften the blow this time with anormal monsoon forecast

ECONOMY

India's fourth re-cession since In-dependence, the

first since liberali-sation, and perhapsthe worst till date,is here, CRISIL, therating agency, saidas it predicted theeconomy to shrinkby 5 per cent in thecurrent fiscal, courtesy coronavirus lockdown. “Thefirst quarter (April to June 2020) will suffer a stag-gering 25 per cent contraction," it said in its as-sessment of India's GDP.

SHORT ISBEAUTIFUL

Check out these short films with your

family online on You Tube

Family Time

A manned railway crossing inthe middle of nowhere, and itslone gatekeeper. The onlymoments of buzz in his life arethe trains passing by, and thequantum of solace he finds inthem. What if he tries breakinginto that monotony with otherways? Comprising only twoactors with no dialogues, thisaward-winning short film willmake you value people that youotherwise take for granted

THE GATEKEEPERDirected by AtanuMukherjee (Hindi)

Through a non-melodramaticexploration of grief anddeath, this short film, quitenonchalantly, charts theevents in the life of a Parsiwoman, after the death ofher sick husband. Perhaps it’sthe masterful way the film-maker has captured everynuance that grows on you,but this film will remain inyour mind for a long time

AFTERGLOWDirected by Kuashal OzaMultilingual)

Set in Mangalore, this shortfilm by Ganesh Shetty tells atale of a rural couple strug-gling with a noisy supernatu-ral force that haunts theirarea every night. An epicthriller, the movie is grippingtill the end.

PAROKSHDirected by GaneshShetty (Tulu)

Locust attack: What doesit mean for the economy

Photo: Representational image

COVID may create a'LOCKDOWN GENERATION'

Economic fallout from COVID-19 is hit-ting young workers so hard that theyrisk becoming a “lockdown generation”scarred for life, the United Nations said.

A study by the UN's International Labour Or-ganisation pointed to the ‘multiple shocks’ youngpeople now faced worldwide — losing work, edu-cation and training, income and the possibility ofeither finding or changing jobs. The impact is evenworse for young women, many employed in frag-ile sectors, such as garment making and food serv-ices, it said, conjuring up the image of a genera-tion stymied for life.

More than one in six young people globallyhave stopped working since the new coron-avirus hit, and those still in jobs have had theirhours cut by nearly a quarter, it said

About half of young students expect a delayin completing their studies; one in 10 expectsnot to finish at all

In the long term, disrupted education andtraining could reduce opportunities and futureearnings, and the collapse of businesses willmean fewer jobs on offer, the UN warned

India facing its worst recessionin current fiscal: CRISIL

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images