| | | Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the Bharat Ratna Award, the country’s highest civilian honour, to be conferred to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) patriarch Lal Krishna Advani. | THE DAILY QUIZ Shanmukham Chetty presented the first one in 1947. CD Deshmukh printed the first in Hindi in 1950. Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel gave the shortest one in 1977. Manmohan Singh, the lengthiest one in 1991. Nirmala Sitharaman delivered a record six, including one interim. What? a. Snail mail
b. Republic Day address
c. Budget speech
d. Paintings TAKE THE FULL QUIZ | | THE BIG STORY Advani to receive Bharat Ratna honour, says PM Lal Krishna Advani will be conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday, adding that the award was being bestowed on the Bharatiya Janata Party veteran for his “monumental” contribution to India’s development. Advani, 96, accepted the honour with “utmost humility and gratitude” and said in a statement that it was not only an honour for him as a person but also for the ideals and principles that he strove to serve throughout his life. “Ever since I joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as its volunteer at the age of 14, I have sought reward in only thing - in dedicated and selfless service of my beloved country in whatever task life assigned to me. What has inspired my life is the motto ‘This life is not mine. My life is for my Nation...’” the statement read. Read more. | | A LITTLE LIGHT READING New levels in play: The climate crisis enters the videogame world Picture a player two-thirds of the way through Civilization VI, the empire-building strategy videogame. Things are looking good. They’re swimming in gold, their fleets rule the oceans, and victory is just around the corner. Then, disasters strike, one by one. Floods take out their most productive industrial zones. A Category 5 hurricane wipes out an entire naval fleet. The seas begin to encroach on their territory, the rising tides submerging prime districts one by one. The climate crisis is setting in, in the gaming world too. Read more. | | THE WEEKEND FIX The great defrost: Mridula Ramesh, on the perils of a melting Antarctica Antarctica — the continent of extremes and contradictions — tells the story of how climate affects life on Earth. It is the world’s coldest and driest continent. Yet, it holds most of the planet’s fresh water, frozen in the giant, kilometres-thick ice sheet that covers its land. This water is, and should remain, largely frozen, because from our perspective, the problem starts when it begins to melt. To understand why, let’s go back in time. For much of the time between 270 million years ago (mya) and today, forests grew in Antarctica. A 2016 United States Geological Survey report describes coal deposits in East Antarctica, which are essentially the fossilised remains of ancient forests. Seed fossils of the genus Glossopteris, an extinct plant that grew between 290 and 250 mya, have been discovered there. Fossil remains of the Lystrosaurus, a hardy herbivore that resembled a cross between a Komodo dragon, a turtle and a pig, have also been found. Read more. | | | | ALWAYS AT THE MOVIES BY ANUPAMA CHOPRA A Teen Marvel: Girls Will Be Girls An unusual high-school tale from India won big at the Sundance Film Festival recently. Sundance, which concluded in Utah last week, is one of the world’s most prestigious celebrations of independent cinema. This year was a milestone, with the 40th edition receiving a record 17,435 submissions. Of which, only 91 feature length and episodic works and 53 short films made the cut for official selection. These included Shuchi Talati’s remarkable debut, Girls Will Be Girls, which is also the first feature by Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal’s production house, Pushing Buttons. Girls Will Be Girls played in the World Cinema dramatic competition and won the coveted Audience Award, and a Special Jury Award for lead actor Preeti Panigrahi. The film certainly does push buttons. It is the story of Mira, a Class 12 student and the first female prefect at her Himalayan boarding school. Mira is a model student. She gets top grades, her teachers love her, one even uses her to demonstrate the right length that skirts ought to be: to the knee, to keep boys from gazing too hard. But then a new student arrives. Sri is an enigma; for one thing, he appears to be raising himself. His parents “do their thing” and he does his, he casually explains. Read more. | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written and edited by Shahana Yasmin. Produced by Md Shad Hasnain. | | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |  | |
