MUMBAI, India — The war of words on social media among India’s celebrities over farmers’ protests against three recent agriculture laws has escalated. The sparks were ignited this week after Indian film actor Kangana Ranaut reacted sharply on Twitter to pro-farmer tweets from pop star Rihanna and environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Ranaut’s colleagues Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and Suniel Shetty, and cricket icons Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, meanwhile, are backing the Ministry of External Affairs with hashtags such as #IndiaTogether and #IndiaAgainstPropaganda. Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava tweeted on Feb. 3 that the “reformist” farm laws had been passed by…
Author: zenger.news
NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia – A ram raid at the Leeton Club in Australia caused extensive damage when the raiders fled with the cash machine and destroyed the property. A CCTV footage of the club shows two men climbing out of a white Toyota Hilux utility, painted in camouflage design at around 4.30 a.m. on Jan 28. “Detectives release CCTV as investigations continue into ram raid – Leeton” read the caption of the video released by NSW police on Twitter. The video shows how the truck entered smashing the wall of the club, causing extensive damage to the property. In…
PUNE, India — India has taken up the task to renovate one of its biggest railway stations at an estimated cost of INR 6,500 crore ($890 million). Nine domestic and international companies have been shortlisted to refurbish the station located in the capital, New Delhi. Among the contenders are Arabian Construction Company, GMR, Adani group, and Tata Consultancy Services. “The railway station is at the center of the national capital and is a hub of political, commercial, and tourism activities. It would provide private players strong potential for commercial development,” said Shubham Jain, an infrastructure analyst at ICRA. “Furthermore, this station is one…
PUNE, India — Hollywood hit film Legally Blonde (2001) made Reese Witherspoon the star she is today. The verdict scene in the film left everyone in awe of her comic timing and screen presence, but little did she know that her famous twinning scene with her onscreen pet would make a comeback in the future. In her latest Instagram post, Indian actress Priyanka Chopra took the pet twinning game to a new level. Captioning the pic as ‘The White Tiger and her cub’ Priyanka slayed the cream white one-piece with a tiger print. Her dog, Diana Chopra Jonas, with an…
Four Israelis have changed film production. The quartet won an Oscar in the scientific and engineering category for technology developed by the firm Amimon. The company’s chipset, used throughout the global film industry, transmits high-quality video from many cameras to monitors on a film or television set, without delay. It allows a director to see all shooting angles on a set simultaneously in real time. Amimon was started in 2004 by Tel Aviv University Professor Meir Feder and his former student, Zvi Reznic, and Tel Aviv University graduate Noam Geri, based on technology developed at the university. The Academy Award…
As shots rang out on the packed floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, some Congress members mistook the sound of bullets firing for fireworks. By the time it became clear the Capitol was under attack, five people had been shot. While this incident may draw comparisons to the Jan. 6 insurrection as lawmakers certified the 2020 presidential election, it happened over 60 years ago. On March 1, 1954, four armed Puerto Rican Nationalists walked into the Capitol behind a group of sixth-grade students from Maryland and brandished their weapons. Their issue was Puerto Rican independence and freedom from colonialism.…
A new technology is protecting the elderly. A smart nursing-home technology from Israel’s Pangea IT integrates thermal imaging, video analytics, machine learning and biometric access control to protect the health, security and safety of residents and staff. Pangea, which specializes in digital identity, security and e-payment solutions for governments and businesses, launched the new multisensory solution at a time when COVID-19 is taking a heavy toll on residential facilities for seniors. The integrated system can handle a large variety of scenarios — from tracing contacts that might spread COVID-19 infections to preventing unauthorized access to the homes to detecting falls…
NAHARIYA, Israel — During the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, we’ve all had to become well-versed in the ins and outs of video conferencing. But finding the right setup for a virtual meeting on your computer, smartphone or tablet remains a challenge for many. The screen is often too high or too low and all the other side can see is a chin or a nose close-up. An Israeli startup has an almost cartoon-like solution for angle awkwardness: Zeppi affixes the video screen to a helium-filled balloon that floats to exactly the right position for the perfect not-quite-live face-to-face interaction. Zeppi also can…
Microplastics, a serious threat to marine life created as plastic litter in oceans breaks into smaller bits, are traveling farther than originally believed. A new study at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science found that microplastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters are swept up and carried on the wind to far-flung parts of the world. The minuscule fragments can stay airborne for hours or days before landing back in a body of water, including those that are virtually unpolluted like glacier-fed freshwater in Antarctica. “A handful of studies have found microplastics in the atmosphere right above the water near shorelines,” said…
Solar power is a hot commodity in the arena of distributed renewable energy. Wind power, on the other hand, hasn’t picked up as much speed. What’s stifling smaller-scale distributed wind energy? “Many small wind turbines are loud, inefficient and interfere with each other when placed in groups. Furthermore, the larger ones are big and clunky — fine for an industrial zone but not so nice for a residential zone,” says Daniel Farb, inventor of the Israeli-developed Wind Tulip by Flower Turbines. Already generating energy at installations in Colombia and The Netherlands, Wind Tulips’ unique aerodynamic design makes them quiet, efficient…