Library:Tata Institute of Social Sciences,Guwahati

Thursday, January 07, 2021

Quote of the Day January 7, 2021

“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.”
Jack Welch

“सच्चाई का सामना ऐसे कीजिए जैसे कि वह है, न कि जैसा आप उसे होना चाहते हैं।”
जैक वेल्च

Current Affairs – January 6

India

Supreme Court clears Central Vista project

On January 5, 2021, the Supreme Court gave its nod to the New Central Vista project. The project includes a common Secretariat, Parliament building and renovated rajpat is switching between India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan.

PM CARES fund for oxygen generation

The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation fund is to be used for medical oxygen generation. Around 201.58 crores of Rupees have been allocated for this purpose.

First all women team of NDRF

An All women NDRF team was recently deployed on the banks of Ganga River for contingency duties in Uttar Pradesh to.

Swasth Vayu ventilator

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research scientists have designed and developed and non invasive ventilator called Swasth Vayu. It has been recently approved by the Director General of Health Services.

World Bank provides 105 million USD loan for waterways in West Bengal

On January 5, 2021, the World Bank and the Government of India signed a 105 million USD agreement to improve the inland water transport infrastructure in Kolkata, West Bengal.

Tamilnadu Government permits 100% Occupancy in cinema theatres

On January 4, 2021, State Government of Tamil Nadu ordered to permit 100% Occupancy in cinema theatres in the state. The decision has created high debate all over the state.

Alexander Ellis appointed new High Commissioner of UK to India

The British government recently appointed Alexander Ellis as the new high commissioner to India. He is succeeding Sir Philip Barton.

Argentine film maker will head the international jury of 51st IFFI

Pablo Caesar of Argentina was announced as the head of the international jury of International Film Festival of India. The Other jury members are present from shrilanka, Priyadarshan of India, Abu Bakr of Austria and Rubaiiyat Hossain of Bangladesh.

TRIFOOD parks in MP

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra to set up TRIFOOD park in the state of Madhya Pradesh .

Economy and Corporate

Global economic prospects report of world bank

On January 5, 2021, the World bank released the Global Economic Prospects. According to the report, the Global economic output is projected to grow by 4% in 2021. India is expected to grow at 5.4 % in 2021-22.

World Braille Day: January 4

On January 4, 2021, the World Braille Day was celebrated.

Toycathon 2021

Union Education Minister Ramesh pokhriyal nishank and the Union Minister of textiles and women and child development Smriti Irani launched Toycathon 2021. It will promote manufacturing of indigenous toys. It will also focus on conceptualising new and innovative toys using local material.

Freight Business Development Portal

On January 5, 2020 Railway Minister Piyush Goyal launched a fried Business Development portal of a one. Solution for all the needs of right customers .

PM inaugurated Kochi kottanad Bengaluru LNG pipeline

On January 5, 2021, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated of 450 km long Kochi koottanad Bengaluru LNG pipeline through video conferencing. The plan is to increase the share of Natural Gas in energy sector from 6 % to 15% by 2030.

Bharat Biotech and Sairam Institute of Technology pledge for smooth vaccine rollout

On January 5, 2021, the hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and pune-based Serum Institute of Technology issued a joint statement pledging to provide covid-19 vaccines to India and the world in a smooth way.

SIDBI and TATA Power offer rooftop solar financing for MSMEs

On January 5, 2021, the TATA Power and SIDBI announce their partnership to provide a finance scheme to the MSMEs in solar rooftop segment. According to TATA Power, easy financing is one of the barriers for penetration of solar energy in the MSME sector.

Saudi Arabia to lift Qatar Embargo

On January 4, 2021, the Foreign ministry of Kuwait announced that Saudi Arabia will open its air and land borders with Qatar. These are the first steps towards ending a diplomatic crisis that deeply divided the regional you was released since 2017. Since the mid of 2017, most of the only land border of Qatar was closed. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE had launched a blockade against Qatar accusing it of supporting islamist groups. Qatar was also accused of having warm ties with Iran .

Highest number of babies born on new year in India: UNICEF

UNICEF recently announced that more than 371,504 babies were born in India. This is the highest number of births on the new year according to UNICEF.

Pakistan supreme court orders reconstruction of vandalize Hindu temple

On January 5, 2021, the Pakistan Supreme Court ordered the Evacuee Property Trust Board to reconstruct a century year old Hindu temple. The temple was vandalized and set on fire by a mob in Karak district on December 30, 2020. The attack has caused International embarrassment to the country.

Sports

Former tennis coach Bob Brett dies at 67

The Australian coach Bob Brett who trained Boris Becker passed away on January 5, 2021.

Why do we celebrate New Year on January 1?

The first time January 1 came to be considered as the beginning of the new year was back in 45 BCE. The Roman calendar before that began in the month of March and consisted of 355 days. An additional 27-day or 28-day intercalary month would sometimes be inserted between February and March.

It was Roman dictator Julius Caesar who reformed the calendar soon after coming to power in the late first century BCE. But even as the Julian calendar gained popularity, large parts of Europe did not accept it till well into the mid-16th century CE. With the advent of Christianity, January 1 as the beginning of a new year was seen as pagan, while December 25, with its religious connotations regarding the birth of Jesus, was considered more acceptable.

There was also the issue of misplaced calculation on the part of Caesar due to which the new year day often kept shifting. It was only after Pope Gregory reformed the Julian calendar and standardised January

Calendar made by Julius Caesar

The early Roman calendar was conceived by Romulus, the founder of Rome in the 8th century BCE. Numa Pompilius, who came to power a year later, made it a 12-month year by adding the months of Januarius and Februarius.

But this calendar, which followed the lunar cycle, frequently fell out of sync with the seasons. Moreover, the pontifices, or the member of council of priests assigned with the duty of overseeing the calendar, were often accused of adding days in order to interfere with election dates or extend a political term. 1 as the first day of a new year that it slowly acquired currency across the world.

After Julius Caesar came to power in 46 BCE, he attempted to reform the calendar for which he took the advice of Alexandrian astronomer, Sosigenus. Sosigenus suggested doing away with the lunar cycle and following the sun instead, the way the Egyptians did. Accordingly, the year was calculated at 365 and ¼ days.

Interestingly, Caesar added 67 days to the year 46 BCE so that the new year in 45 BCE could begin on January 1. The date was chosen to honour the Roman God of beginnings, Janus, who is believed to have two faces- one looking back into the past and the other to the future. Thereafter, ancient Romans celebrated the day by offering sacrifices to Janus and exchanging gifts with one another.
However, with the spread of Christianity, the celebration of a Roman God was seen as a pagan ritual in many parts of Europe. Accordingly, in medieval Europe Christian leaders attempted to celebrate the beginning of a new year on a day with more religious significance, like December 25 (Christmas) or March 25 (the feast of Annunciation).

There was also an error made by Caesar and Sosigenus in calculating the number of days in a solar year. The actual number of days in a solar calendar is 365.24199 as opposed to the 365.25 that Caesar had calculated. Consequently, there was a gap of 11-minutes every year, which added up to about 11 days by the year 1582. “This defect was of principle concern to the pope; if the Julian calendar had continued in service, Easter would eventually have been celebrated in the summer,” writes historian Gordon Moyer, in his article, ‘The Gregorian calendar’. Thereafter began the effort to standardise a calendar, most suitable to the Christian life of the middle ages.

The calendar made by Pope Gregory XIII

The reform was not easy. Pope Gregory assembled an eminent body of astronomers, mathematicians and clergymen for the purpose. The main challenge it faced was that afflicting almost every civil calendar, that of dealing with a fraction of a dangling at the end of the year.

In order to fix the miscalculation of the Julian calendar, Aloysius Lilius, the Italian scientist who worked on the Gregorian calendar, devised a new system whereby every fourth year would be a leap year, but century years that were not divisible by 400 were exempted. For instance, the years 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but not 1700, 1800 and 1900. These revisions were formally instituted by the papal bull of February 24, 1582, setting off a furious debate among religious leaders and scholars.

The religious opposition to the reform was in essence against Catholicism. “This was the age of Reformation; Protestant countries rejected the new calendar, denouncing it as a papal scheme to bring their rebellious fold back under the jurisdiction of Rome,” writes Moyer. He adds that the accusation was not entirely unfounded since Gregory XIII was a ruthless promoter of counter Reformation.

Consequently, the Catholic countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal were quick to adopt the new system. Protestant countries like England and Germany held off till about the end of the 18th century. Some accounts suggest that a riot took place in the streets of England in the year 1752 when the country went on to adopt the new calendar. The last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar was Greece in 1923.

While the European colonies in the Americas adopted the new calendar when their mother countries did, large parts of the non-European world too began adopting it over the course of the 20th century. Japan for instance, replaced its traditional lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian one in 1872, while China adopted it in 1912.

There are some countries, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mynamar, Israel, where the traditional calendar is used alongside the Gregorian one. In India, the Saka calendar which begins with the Chaitra month (March 21/22) is used along with the Gregorian calendar for most official purposes.

Source: Indian Express: 1/01/2021

New Words from 2020

For a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been full of words. A few have expectedly, been dangerous to health. A word like “unprecedented”, for instance, has single-handedly converted us into a nation with very poor liver health. It has been rigorously proven by an unscientific study that if a person took a sip of a drink every time they read or heard the word “unprecedented” this year, their liver would be shot to hell by now.

Back in 2016, President Donald Trump had famously boasted, “I know words. I have the best words.” But sadly, in this, as in other things, 2020 had him beat. So, as a public service to future historians, here is the dictionary of 2020 — all the words of the year, defined as they are really used, in one pithy, inaccurate volume:

2020 (verb): When you bugger things up beyond belief. E.g. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin 2020’d his career after he accidentally exposed himself on a Zoom work call. (PS: This is a true story. 2020 is a fabulous year for stories of 2020-ing)

Coronacoaster (noun): The ups and downs of your mood during the pandemic. E.g. If you’re loving lockdown one minute — baking bread and happy as a bug — and the next minute, you are missing the office coffee, drinking vodka at noon and weepy with anxiety, you’re on an emotional coronacoaster

Coronials (n): Babies produced after a year of lockdown. E.g: Coronials are the product of the fact that while social distancing was mandated outside, the impact in the bedroom was quite the opposite

Covidiot (n): A person with their brains in their bum when it comes to COVID-19 safety. E.g. Medical tests have proven that sadly for the rest of us, no covidiot is asymptomatic

Fitness/ workout (n): Thirty minutes of getting your heart rate up followed by 23.5 hours spent in the same position. E.g. It’s been important to keep up with one’s routine during quarantine. So, right through the year, I continued to not work out, just like before

Handwashing (v): The No.1 gap-year activity in most CVs in 2020. E.g. Future generations will be shocked to learn that the “Happy birthday” song used to actually be sung at birthdays and not just to time handwashing

Lockdown (n): A period of complete restrictions when everyone’s true hair colour was revealed. E.g. Lockdown was what was needed for a whole bunch of people to learn that “sufficient time home alone” was not the only thing needed to write a great novel

Locktail Hour (phrase): Beer o’clock in the lockdown era. E.g. Is it just me or has locktail hour started creeping earlier with each passing week?

Mid-morning coffee (n): (also known as mid-afternoon coffee) An amazing drink except with tequila, lime juice, triple sec and no coffee. E.g. Let me get my mid-morning coffee, the ideas will really begin to flow when I have that in my system

Moronavirus (n): What covidiots test positive for. E.g. Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, etc

New normal (phrase): What stinks for everyone. E.g. The new normal for this year is to continually get used to a new but much worse normal

Social Distancing (phrase): (also referred to as anti-social distancing) Using lockdown as the perfect reason to avoid everyone you don’t like. E.g. Introverts are desperate for social-distancing rules to be lifted so everyone they live with will leave the house

The Covid-19 (phrase): Refers to the 19 pounds an average person put on during this pandemic from stress-eating. E.g. Remember when everyone used to say the key to losing weight was eating more of your meals at home? The Covid 19 hadn’t struck then!

The elephant in the Zoom (phrase): The glaring issue during a videoconferencing call that everybody feels unable to mention. E.g. I did this afternoon’s meeting in a towel as nothing fits me any more. But I relied on it being the elephant in the Zoom

Toddlers (n): The fruit of your own loins with whom you played hide and seek all through the lockdown, even if they didn’t realise it. E.g. Send help to the parents, rumour has it the toddlers are winning hands down

Vaccine (n): Hope in a syringe. E.g. The vaccine should first be tested on politicians. If they are okay, the vaccine is safe, but if they aren’t, the country is safe

Work from home (Wfh) (phrase): Wearing pyjamas to snack, clean, cook, snack, answer emails, attend calls, snack, etc. E.g. For most right-thinking people, work interferes with the full enjoyment of WFH

You’re on mute! (phrase): The most used words in 2020. E.g. YOU’RE ON MUTE!

Zoom (n): The app you use to prove to your boss that you’ve managed to get out of bed. E.g. Has anyone else forgotten they are on a Zoom meeting with the video on and inadvertently started plucking lint out of their belly button? If not, then me neither

The end (phrase): Not here by any means but hopefully close. E.g. It’s the end of 2020! Things can’t possibly get any worse next year, so they can only get better!

This unprecedented dictionary for unprecedented times is available on order in a classy leatherite bound volume. You can invest in this for the coronials in your life. Meanwhile, Happy 2021. Stay safe, stay healthy and remember — keep the mid-morning coffee close at hand. You never know what the New Year has in store!

Source: Indian Express, 27/12/20

New Words from 2020

A glossary of words that this strange year threw up