SUBHADITYA NEWS CHANNEL PRESENTS NEWS OF THIS WEEK DATED 27/4/2024: SCIENCE, POLITICAL,SPORTS ,MOVIE AND BOOK NEWS THIS WEEK

 

1) Glowing octocorals have been around for at least 540 million years By Jake Buehler

The findings push the earliest origin of bioluminescence back by nearly 300 million years

More than half a billion years ago, the deep, dark ocean was aglow with the eerie light of bioluminescent corals, new genetic and fossil analyses suggest. The findings push the origins of bioluminescence back by nearly 300 million years, researchers report April 24 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“Our study presents the oldest published record for the appearance of bioluminescence on Earth, and more than doubles the previous record for when bioluminescence first appeared,” says Danielle DeLeo, an integrative biologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The previous record, reported in 2022, was set by the 267-million-year-old ancestor of sea fireflies — small, seed-shaped crustaceans.

The ability to produce light has evolved at least 100 times across the tree of life, in everything from fishes to corals to fungi (SN: 4/27/17). Chemical reactions generate the light, which can help the organisms hunt prey, attract mates or even hide from predators (SN: 6/7/16).

DeLeo and colleagues wanted to understand how the trait developed in a coral subgroup called octocorals. These species — including soft corals, sea pens and sea fans — often live in the deep sea, have 8-fold symmetry and many are luminous. Analyzing the DNA of 185 octocoral species revealed genetic similarities that the team used to create an evolutionary tree, showing how the species are related to one another. Researchers then used octocoral fossils to estimate when lineages split into separate branches. Finally, based on when glowing species evolved and where in the tree they reside, the team calculated the probability of coral ancestors being bioluminescent. “It turns out the ancestor to all octocorals was bioluminescent,” DeLeo says. That ancestral species lived roughly 540 million years ago, the team calculates. Octocorals’ bioluminescence is surprisingly old given the trait’s evolutionary volatility, says Todd Oakley, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara who led the 2022 sea fireflies study. “It seems to originate pretty easily, and it seems to be lost pretty easily.”

Evolutionary biologist Jessica Goodheart of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City wants to know if the evolution of bioluminescence had a role in driving the diversification of octocorals as a group.DeLeo says bioluminescence may have originated as a byproduct of other, more ancient cellular chemical reactions. These reactions could have been retained because they were co-opted into signaling and communication, offering animals an advantage.

It’s possible that other, more ancient bioluminescent organisms — such as bacteria, algae and comb jellies — could have evolved their glow even earlier than octocorals. But, DeLeo says, limitations in the fossil record make it challenging to date when bioluminescence first arose in those groups.

2) Monkeypox virus: dangerous strain gains ability to spread through sex, new data suggest By Max Kozlov

A cluster of mpox cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo sparks worries of a wider outbreak.A virulent strain of the monkeypox virus has gained the ability to spread through sexual contact, new data suggest. This has alarmed researchers, who fear a reprise of the worldwide mpox outbreak in 2022.

Evidence from past outbreaks indicates that this strain, called clade I, is more lethal than the one that sparked the 2022 global outbreak. Clade I has for decades caused small outbreaks, often limited to a few households or communities, in Central Africa. Sexually-acquired clade I infections had not been reported before 2023.

But since then, a clade I strain with an apparent capacity for sexual transmission has caused a cluster of infections in a conflict-ridden region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in Central Africa. A preprint1 posted on 15 April reports that 241 suspected and 108 confirmed infections are connected to this outbreak — and these numbers are probably a vast undercount because of limited testing capacity. Almost 30% of the confirmed infections were in sex workers.

Adding to the challenges, the region is facing a humanitarian crisis, and the DRC is contending with the aggressive spread of other diseases, such as cholera. The combination means there is a “substantial risk of outbreak escalation beyond the current area”, says Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked on mpox outbreaks in the DRC since 2002.

Unheeded warnings

Monkeypox virus can cause painful, fluid-filled lesions on the skin and, in severe cases, death. (While the disease was renamed ‘mpox’ in 2022, the virus continues to be called ‘monkeypox virus.’) The virus persists in wild animals in several African countries, including the DRC, and occasionally spills into people.

The first large reported outbreak with human-to-human transmission, which was in 2017 in Nigeria, caused more than 200 confirmed and 500 suspected cases of the disease. Researchers warned at the time that the virus might have adapted to spread through sexual contact.Their warnings were not heeded; in 2022, a global outbreak driven in part by sexual contact prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a public health emergency. That ongoing outbreak is caused by a strain of monkeypox virus called clade II, which is less lethal than clade I, and has infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 180.Although mpox infections have waned globally since 2022, they have been trending upwards in the DRC: in 2023 alone, the country reported more than 14,600 suspected infections and more than 650 deaths. In September, 2023, a new cluster of suspected cases arose in the DRC’s South Kivu province. This cluster especially concerns researchers, as it has been spreading largely among sex workers, suggesting that the virus has adapted to transmit readily through sexual contact.

This could lead to faster human-to-human spread, potentially with few symptoms, says Nicaise Ndembi, a virologist at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention who is based in Addis Ababa. “The DRC is surrounded by nine other countries — we’re playing with fire here,” he says.

Health officials are so concerned that representatives of the DRC and 11 nearby countries met earlier this month to plan a response and to commit to stepping up surveillance for the virus. Only about 10% of the DRC’s suspected mpox cases in 2023 were tested, due to limited testing capacity, meaning health officials “don’t have a full picture of what’s going on”, Ndembi says.

Genetic analyses of the virus responsible for the outbreak show mutations such as the absence of a large chunk of the virus’s genome, which researchers have previously noted as a sign of monkeypox viral adaptation. This has led the study’s authors to give a new name to the strain circulating in the province: clade Ib.

Making matters more fraught, South Kivu borders Rwanda and Burundi and is grappling with “conflict, displacement, food insecurity, and challenges in providing adequate humanitarian assistance”, which “might represent fertile ground for further spread of mpox”, the WHO warned last year.

Vaccines and treatment needed

In 2022, many wealthy countries offered vaccines against smallpox, which also protect against mpox, to individuals at high risk of contracting the disease. But few vaccine doses have reached African countries, where the disease’s toll has historically been highest.

While the DRC weighs regulatory approval for these vaccines, the United States has committed to providing the DRC with enough doses to inoculate 25,000 people, and Japan has said it will also provide vaccines, says Rosamund Lewis, technical lead for mpox at the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. But a vaccination drive in the DRC would require hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of doses to inoculate individuals at high risk of infection, she says.It’s not clear how much protection these vaccines will provide against clade I mpox, but Andrea McCollum, a poxvirus epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, says that data from tests in animals are promising. Researchers are also conducting a trial in the DRC of tecovirimat, an antiviral that is thought to be effective against mpox. Results are expected in the next year, McCollum says.The WHO and CDC have helped to procure equipment that will allow for more rapid diagnosis of the disease in the DRC, especially in rural areas, Lewis says. She adds that says the rapid mobilization of African health officials gives her hope that the outbreak can be controlled before clade Ib mpox starts spreading elsewhere.

3) DNA from ancient graves reveals the culture of a mysterious nomadic people By Michael Eisenstein

Hundreds of genomes shed light on the marriage habits and social norms of the Avar people of central Europe.Most people know about the Huns, if only because of their infamous warrior-ruler Attila. But the Avars, another nomadic people who subsequently occupied roughly the same region of eastern and central Europe, have remained obscure despite having assembled a sprawling empire that lasted from the late sixth century to the early ninth century. Even archaeologists have struggled to piece together their history and culture, relying on spotty and potentially biased contemporaneous chronicles that, in many cases, were authored by the Avars’ adversaries.

A deep dive into 424 genomes collected from hundreds of Avar graves is filling in crucial gaps in this story, revealing a wealth of insights into the Avars’s social structure and culture1. “These people basically didn’t have a voice in history, and we are kind of looking into them this way — through their bodies,” says Zuzana Hofmanová, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and one of the study’s lead authors.Nine generations

The researchers focused on four cemeteries in Hungary that were once at the heart of the khaganate, as the former Avar empire was known. Importantly, all four sites were fully excavated, giving the researchers access to DNA from every grave and enabling them to use genetic data to map relatedness for entire Avar communities.

This effort got an important boost from a computational method called ancIBD, which can connect even distant family members on the basis of their shared chromosomal sequences2. Co-lead author Johannes Krause, an archaeogeneticist at Max Planck, says that scientists have generally struggled to reassemble DNA-based family trees that extend past third-degree relatives, such as first cousins or great-grandparents. But by using tools such as ancIBD, Krause and colleagues were able to chart much more convoluted Avar family trees, including a massive nine-generation pedigree comprising 146 family members.

The data suggest that, after migrating to Europe, the Avars retained many cultural practices from their place of origin on the northeast Asian steppes3. For example, the Avars were very strict about avoiding inbreeding. There were no observed instances of marriage between relatives — even at the level of second cousins. Krasue says that was surprising, given that unions between first cousins were not unusual during much of European history. “It’s really remarkable that they can keep track over nine generations who is related to whom, and who can have children with whom,” he says.

On the other hand, there was also limited intermarriage with non-Avar neighbors: about 20% of the genomic sequences in the sampled Avar DNA could be traced to central European ancestry.The researchers recorded several examples of ‘levirate unions’, in which a widow married a male from the family of her deceased spouse, such as a brother. Such marital patterns were atypical in much of Europe, but were established features of Asian steppe-dwelling cultures, notes co-lead author Tivadar Vida, an archaeologist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. “It was archaeologically very interesting to see the conservativism in the Avar society, lasting nine generations,” says Vida.

The Avars were also strictly patrilineal, with men acting as heads of family and daughters leaving their communities to join their husbands’ households. At the largest cemetery sampled, in the village of Rákóczifalva, Hungary, Hofmanová notes that there was only a single instance of both a mother and her adult daughter being interred.

Power play

The kinship data reveal what seems to be a shift in local political power that would have been difficult to detect with sparse DNA sampling. In the graves at Rákóczifalva, the researchers found that one male lineage predominated early in Avar history, but was displaced by a different Avar bloodline by the late seventh century. Intriguingly, archaeological evidence collected from those graves suggests that the subsequent family had different diets and burial rituals than did the displaced one, indicating that Avar culture shifted over time despite relatively modest levels of intermarriage with non-Avar individuals.

Carles Lalueza-Fox, a palaeogenomicist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain, says that this work demonstrates the richness of the insights that can emerge when researchers have the opportunity and resources to broadly survey and analyse DNA at sites of historical interest. “Only this scale of analysis would allow you to obtain a reliable picture of kinship and social processes,” he says, adding that his group is now embracing a similar approach in their archaeogenomic research. “I think ancient genomics is moving toward this direction to obtain a more democratic and nuanced view of the past.”

4) Record-breaking heat and humidity predicted for tropics this summer :by University of California - Berkeley

A new statistical analysis of the interaction between El Niño and rising global temperatures due to climate change concludes that the approaching summer in the tropics has nearly a 7 in 10 chance of breaking records for temperature and humidity.The prediction, by climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, applies to a broad swath of the world straddling the equator, including India and the bulk of Africa, Central and South America and Australia, but also includes Florida and Texas.

Long-term predictions like this can help regions prepare for extreme heat events and protect humans, livestock and crops, said William Boos, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and an author of the study, which was led by UC Berkeley Miller Postdoctoral Fellow Yi Zhang."Humanitarian aid and outreach, preparation for medical care and advising and distribution of crops and agricultural equipment can all be adjusted in ways that can account for that prediction," Boos said.While temperatures around the globe have been setting records nearly every year, the combination of high heat and high humidity is a double whammy that can be deadly. While most healthy people can handle a dry heat, humid heat is much more stressful for the body. The more humid it is, the less sweat evaporates, which reduces sweating's cooling effect and makes it harder to keep the body's core temperature within normal range.

"If you can't cool your body to below 98.6°F, or 37°C, then you'll die," Boos said. "Sweat is the main way we have to cool ourselves when it gets hot. So if sweating will not allow you to cool below your core body temperature, that's the survivability limit."

The prediction was published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. It is based on scientists' current understanding of El Niño's impact on tropical heat and humidity, in particular, that atmospheric temperatures several kilometers above the ground control how hot and humid it can get at ground level. These upper-level temperatures are at their warmest about five months after El Niño peaks. The most recent peak occurred in December 2023."It's commonly known that the Earth is warming, and El Niño is a warm episode of a natural climate oscillation, so we expect the two to constructively interfere—that El Niño will compound the effects of global warming," Boos said.

"Over the long term, global warming brings increased temperature, as well as increased humidity—that is, increased water vapor content of the air. Together with El Niño, this allows the heat and humidity to build up to greater levels at a given location in the tropics."

The researchers concluded from their analysis that the "strong‐to‐very‐strong El Niño" at the end of 2023, which was rated a 2.0 on the Oceanic Niño Index, suggests a 2024 tropical land mean maximum wet bulb temperature of 26.2°C (79.2°F) and a 68% chance of breaking existing records.

The wet bulb temperature—basically the temperature you can maintain when covered in sweat or a wet T-shirt in the presence of a strong wind—is a better indication than temperature alone of how humans feel under humid heat conditions. In warm-humid environments like the tropics, wet bulb temperatures above 30°C could lead to irreversible heat stress.

According to Boos, some areas that frequently suffer under humid heat stress, such as northern India, have a 50% chance of suffering record heat and humidity this summer. The Sahel region in Africa, however, has a 35% chance of record humid heat.

Effects of El Niño are ratcheted up by global warming

El Niño is a periodic weather pattern associated with a warming of the ocean surface in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which in turn pumps heat and moist air into the upper atmosphere that spreads around Earth's equator. El Niño conditions, which alternate with the cooler La Niña conditions in what is called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern, are one of the major drivers of tropical weather, Boos said. The heat and humidity in the upper atmosphere reach the ground during thunderstorms via the gusts of air we associate with these events.

"The gusty, cool wind that kicks in during a thunderstorm is actually cold air coming down from higher up in the atmosphere, cooling down the surface," Boos said. "When El Niño happens, the upper atmosphere gets warmer, which means that these downdrafts won't be as cold. So your surface overall will move to a higher heat and humidity content."

For their study, Boos and his colleagues, including lead author Zhang, took data on heat and humidity extremes throughout the tropics over the past 45 years and correlated them with El Niño warming in the Pacific, then combined these data with the increased temperature and humidity accompanying global warming. The continual rise in global average temperature compounds the effects of El Niño, Boos said.He noted that the statistical nature of the analysis allows a long-term prediction that is difficult to reliably make with current computer weather models, which are good at short-term predictions but bad at predicting weather several weeks out.

"What we've done in this work is come up with a simple statistical model, and we've validated it well against the observational data by training it on some part of the data while holding back other parts of the data, making sure that it performs well on the data it wasn't trained on," he said. "I think it provides a pretty good bar for the supercomputer models that are predicting climate on a seasonal time scale."

Zhang noted that the five-month lead time for the prediction is based on the current state of ENSO. If weather centers could forecast ENSO conditions six to 12 months in advance, the lead time for wet bulb temperature predictions could be extended to approximately a year, allowing even more preparation time for societies across the tropics.

Boos acknowledged that natural events could throw the prediction off. A volcanic eruption can cool Earth's climate, as happened after the eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 and El Chicon in 1982. A sudden descent into cooler La Niña conditions in the Eastern Pacific—essentially the reverse of El Niño—could also offset temperature and humidity increases. But barring such events, the prediction could help countries prepare for a potentially deadly combination of high heat and high humidity.

"We're quantifying the combined influences of El Niño and global warming on this humid heat stress metric. That's new," Boos said. "We're also quantifying the probability of a record-breaking event. That combination of things has not been done before."

5) Announcing the birth of QUIONE, a unique analog quantum processor

by ICFO

Quantum physics requires high-precision sensing techniques to delve deeper into the microscopic properties of materials. From the analog quantum processors that have emerged recently, quantum-gas microscopes have proven to be powerful tools for understanding quantum systems at the atomic level. These devices produce images of quantum gases with very high resolution: They allow individual atoms to be detected.

Now, ICFO researchers (Barcelona, Spain) Sandra Buob, Jonatan Höschele, Dr. Vasiliy Makhalov, and Dr. Antonio Rubio-Abadal, led by ICREA Professor at ICFO Leticia Tarruell, explain how they built their own quantum-gas microscope, named QUIONE after the Greek goddess of snow. The group's quantum-gas microscope is the only one in the world imaging individual atoms of strontium quantum gases, as well as the first of its kind in Spain.

The team's research is published in the journal PRX Quantum.

Beyond the impactful images in which individual atoms can be distinguished, the goal of QUIONE is quantum simulation. As Prof. Tarruell explains, "Quantum simulation can be used to boil down very complicated systems into simpler models to understand the open questions that current computers cannot answer, such as why some materials conduct electricity without any losses even at relatively high temperatures."

The singularity of this experiment lies in the fact that the team has managed to bring the strontium gas to the quantum regime, place it in an optical lattice where the atoms could interact by collisions, and then apply the single atom imaging techniques. These three ingredients altogether make ICFO's strontium quantum-gas microscope unique.

Why strontium?

Until now, these microscope setups relied on alkaline atoms, like lithium and potassium, which have simpler properties in terms of their optical spectrum compared to alkaline-earth atoms such as strontium. This means that strontium offers more ingredients to play with in these experiments.

In fact, in recent years, the unique properties of strontium have made it a very popular element for applications in the fields of quantum computing and quantum simulation. For example, a cloud of strontium atoms can be used as an atomic quantum processor, which could solve problems beyond the capabilities of current classical computers.

All in all, ICFO researchers saw great potential for quantum simulation in strontium, and they began to build their own quantum-gas microscope. This is how QUIONE was born.

QUIONE, a quantum simulator of real crystals

To this end, the team first lowered the temperature of the strontium gas. Using the force of several laser beams, they reduced the speed of atoms to a point where they remained almost motionless, barely moving, their temperature reduced to almost absolute zero in just a few milliseconds. After this point, the laws of quantum mechanics ruled their behavior, and the atoms displayed new features like quantum superposition and entanglement.

After that, with the help of special lasers, the researchers activated the optical lattice, which keeps the atoms arranged in a grid along space.

"You can imagine it like an egg carton, where the individual sites are actually where you put the eggs. But instead of eggs, we have atoms, and instead of a carton, we have the optical lattice," explains Buob, the first author of the article.

The atoms in the egg cup interacted with each other, sometimes experiencing quantum tunneling to move from one place to another. This quantum dynamics between atoms mimics that of electrons in certain materials. Therefore, the study of these systems can shed light on the complex behavior of certain materials, which is the key idea of quantum simulation.The researchers took the images with their microscope as soon as the gas and the optical lattice were ready and could finally observe their strontium quantum gas atom by atom. At this point, the construction of QUIONE had already been a success, but its creators wanted to get even more out of it.Thus, in addition to the pictures, they took videos of the atoms and were able to observe that while the atoms should remain still during the imaging, they sometimes jumped to a nearby lattice site. The phenomenon of quantum tunneling can explain this.

"The atoms were 'hopping' from one site to another. It was something very beautiful to see, as we were literally witnessing a direct manifestation of their inherent quantum behavior," says Buob.

Finally, the research group used their quantum-gas microscope to confirm that the strontium gas was a superfluid, a quantum phase of matter that flows without viscosity.

"We suddenly switched off the lattice laser, so that the atoms could expand in space and interfere with each other. This generated an interference pattern due to the wave-particle duality of the atoms in the superfluid. When our equipment captured it, we verified the presence of superfluidity in the sample," explains Dr. Rubio-Abadal."It is a very exciting moment for quantum simulation," remarks Prof. Tarruell. "Now that we have added strontium to the list of available quantum-gas microscopes, we might be able to simulate more complex and exotic materials soon. Then, new phases of matter are expected to arise. And we also expect to obtain much more computational power to use these machines as analog quantum computers."

6) Researchers detect a new molecule in space :by Danielle Randall Doughty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team's open-access paper, "Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-Methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I," was published in the April 12 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.Zachary T.P. Fried, a graduate student in the McGuire group and the lead author of the publication, worked to assemble a puzzle comprised of pieces collected from across the globe, extending beyond MIT to France, Florida, Virginia, and Copenhagen, to achieve this exciting discovery.

"Our group tries to understand what molecules are present in regions of space where stars and solar systems will eventually take shape," explains Fried. "This allows us to piece together how chemistry evolves alongside the process of star and planet formation. We do this by looking at the rotational spectra of molecules, the unique patterns of light they give off as they tumble end-over-end in space.

"These patterns are fingerprints (barcodes) for molecules. To detect new molecules in space, we first must have an idea of what molecule we want to look for, then we can record its spectrum in the lab here on Earth, and then finally we look for that spectrum in space using telescopes."

Searching for molecules in space

The McGuire Group has recently begun to utilize machine learning to suggest good target molecules to search for. In 2023, one of these machine learning models suggested the researchers target a molecule known as 2-methoxyethanol.

"There are a number of 'methoxy' molecules in space, like dimethyl ether, methoxymethanol, ethyl methyl ether, and methyl formate, but 2-methoxyethanol would be the largest and most complex ever seen," says Fried.

To detect this molecule using radio telescope observations, the group first needed to measure and analyze its rotational spectrum on Earth. The researchers combined experiments from the University of Lille (Lille, France), the New College of Florida (Sarasota, Florida), and the McGuire lab at MIT to measure this spectrum over a broadband region of frequencies ranging from the microwave to sub-millimeter wave regimes (approximately 8 to 500 gigahertz).

The data gleaned from these measurements permitted a search for the molecule using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations toward two separate star-forming regions: NGC 6334I and IRAS 16293-2422B. Members of the McGuire group analyzed these telescope observations alongside researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Charlottesville, Virginia) and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark."Ultimately, we observed 25 rotational lines of 2-methoxyethanol that lined up with the molecular signal observed toward NGC 6334I (the barcode matched), thus resulting in a secure detection of 2-methoxyethanol in this source," says Fried. "This allowed us to then derive physical parameters of the molecule toward NGC 6334I, such as its abundance and excitation temperature. It also enabled an investigation of the possible chemical formation pathways from known interstellar precursors."

Looking forward

Molecular discoveries like this one help the researchers to better understand the development of molecular complexity in space during the star formation process. 2-methoxyethanol, which contains 13 atoms, is quite large for interstellar standards—as of 2021, only six species larger than 13 atoms were detected outside the solar system, many by McGuire's group, and all of them existing as ringed structures.

"Continued observations of large molecules and subsequent derivations of their abundances allows us to advance our knowledge of how efficiently large molecules can form and by which specific reactions they may be produced," says Fried.

"Additionally, since we detected this molecule in NGC 6334I but not in IRAS 16293-2422B, we were presented with a unique opportunity to look into how the differing physical conditions of these two sources may be affecting the chemistry that can occur."

1) 'Rajiv Gandhi scrapped inheritance law to save family property as...': PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi scrapped the inheritance law during his tenure to save the assets and family property that was to be taken by the government after the death of his mother Indira Gandhi.Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Gandhi family of scrapping laws and making extensive efforts to ‘accumulate wealth over four generations’ during a poll rally on Thursday. The Congress party, he told people in Madhya Pradesh, wanted “to loot your wealth" if they were elected to power in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The BJP leader claimed that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had scrapped an inheritance law during his tenure in order to save the family's wealth.

“The facts relating to Inheritance Tax are eye-opening. When former PM Indira Gandhi died, her children were going to get her property. But there was a rule earlier, that before the property goes to the children some part of it was taken by the government. Congress had formulated a law on this. To save the property so that it does not go to the government, the then PM Rajiv Gandhi scrapped the inheritance law. After accumulating wealth over four generations, now they want to loot your wealth," Modi told people during a poll rally in Morena.

The PM insisted that he was a 'wall' standing between the people of India and the Congress' plan to ‘loot you’. Modi has repeated accused the Congress of wanting to confiscate people's jewellery and small savings by conducting an X-ray of their properties and valuables.

2) Mamata Banerjee questions 7-phase Lok Sabha Elections in 'scorching heat', prays for Nitin Gadkari: 'Can you imagine...'

Union minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari fainted while speaking during a poll campaign in Maharashtra's Pusad on Wednesday. He said he felt “uncomfortable due to the heat”.West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioned the three-month long Lok Sabha Elections 2024 while praying for the "quick and complete recovery of senior Union Minister and BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader Nitin Gadkari".

In a post on X, Mamata Banerjee said, "Electioneering in the scorching heat of this cruel summer is indeed unbearable. Today is 24 April, and, can you imagine, our 7-phase elections will continue till 1st June??!!, she tweeted.Meanwhile, speaking at an election rally, Banerjee asked why the Lok Sabha polls are being conducted in seven phases amid severe heatwave across the country. She said on Wednesday that the Election Commission is conducting the polls in seven phases to help the BJP.

She also alleged that the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections was designed to "satisfy the BJP", news agency PTI reported. "Earlier, the poll process used to be over by May 2 or 3, but this year they have stretched it for three months, amid severe weather conditions," Banerjee said while addressing the election rally for TMC's Bolpur candidate Asit Mal.

She added, “The Election Commission has planned the polls for three months to satisfy the BJP." She further emphasised that her motto was "to defeat the BJP" in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024.

3) PM Modi’s Rajasthan rally remarks spark political firestorm

Opposition leaders criticize PM Modi for suggesting Congress aims to redistribute wealth to Muslims, calling it hate speech and a ploy to divert attention.A massive political row erupted on Monday as Opposition leaders from across parties — including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge — targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for comments that he made in a public rally on Sunday, suggesting that the Congress intended to redistribute public wealth to Muslims.

Kharge described Modi’s comments as “hate speech”, and said that he had “lowered the dignity of political discourse”.The Congress complaint highlighted one part of Modi’s speech in which he said: “When they (Congress) were in power earlier, they said that Muslims have the first right to the country’s resources. So, who will they redistribute resources to? Those who have more children. Those who are infiltrators. Will your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? Will you accept that? The Congress manifesto says they will take stock of the gold owned by our mothers and sisters, and then they will redistribute that wealth. And distribute it to those who, according to the Manmohan Singh government, have the first right on resources — Muslims. This is Urban Naxal thinking, and mothers and sisters, they will not even spare your Mangalsutra. They will stoop to this level.”

“Today Modi ji’s panic-filled speech showed that INDIA is winning in the first phase results. What Modi ji said is not only a hate speech but also a well thought out ploy to divert attention... The 140 crore people of the country are no longer going to fall prey to this lie. Our manifesto is for every Indian. It talks about equality for all. It talks about justice for all. The judiciary of the Congress is based on the foundation of truth, but it seems that the throne of the dictator in the form of Goebbels is now shaking. In the history of India, no Prime Minister has lowered the dignity of his post as much as Modiji has,” Kharge said on X.The Election Commission of India (ECI) declined comment on Modi’s speech, which the Congress said violates several sections of the Indian Penal Code and also the Model Code of Conduct, and has prompted a flurry of complaints to the poll panel.

Modi himself struck a more conciliatory note on Monday in Aligarh, and said: “The Congress ‘shahzade’ (prince) says if his government comes, they will investigate who earns how much and how much property they have. Not only this, he further says the government will take over the property and redistribute it. This is what their election manifesto is saying.”

However, Union home minister Amit Shah, in a rally in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, reiterated Modi’s Sunday comments, sharply targeting the Congress. “Congress says that the first right over resources belongs to minorities; we say that the first right belongs to the poor, the tribes, and Dalits,” he said, according to a statement from his office.On Monday, a Congress delegation, led by Manu Abhishek Singhvi, submitted to ECI that Modi’s speech was “illegal”, and accused the BJP of repeatedly using religious iconography in its Lok Sabha campaign.

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, “His remarks have resonated with people as for the opposition INDIA bloc those who have illegally entered the country are more important than citizens if they happen to be Muslims.” The opposition is in pain as Modi has showed them the mirror about its past, he said.

According to the Model Code of Conduct, a voluntary set of guidelines that all political parties have been adhering to during the election season since 1960, “No party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.”Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Saket Gokhale called Modi’s remarks “hateful and divisive” against the Muslim community and urged people to lodge complaints about the speech with India’s electoral authorities. “This is your chance to use your voice & to play your part in these elections beyond just voting. 1 short email. 1000 Indians. They can’t ignore your collective voices,” he said.CPI(M) has also urged individuals to send a letter saying, “You (CEC) would agree that the latest speech of Shri Narendra Modi is aimed at creating tension and enmity between Hindus and Muslims and instigating Hindus to see Muslims as infiltrators and their enemies. It is a clear violation of MCC. We request you therefore to censure Shri Narendra Modi and impose a ban on his campaign because it has the potential of tearing apart the social fabric of India.”

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav asked the Prime Minister to focus on “real issues”, talking to the media in Patna on Monday said, “With folded hands, I appeal to him to quit politics of hate and talk about issues. The country’s youngsters, the elderly, traders, farmers, the women, all sections have only one issue – poverty, inflation, unemployment and a poor economy. This is the real issue.”

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav criticised PM Modi, saying, “Not only the country but the whole world also knows Prime Minister Narendra Modi lies, the way how he spread lies about the Congress’s ‘Nyay Patra’ and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is an example of dirt.”

All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi wrote on X, “Modi today called Muslims infiltrators and people with many children. Since 2002 till this day, the only Modi guarantee has been to abuse Muslims and get votes. If one is talking about the country’s wealth, one should know that under Modi’s rule the first right to India’s wealth has been of his wealthy friends. 1% of Indians own 40% of the country’s wealth. Common Hindus are made to fear Muslims while their wealth is being used to enrich others.”In an address at a meeting of the National Development Council in December 2006, former PM Singh had said, “We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on our resources.”

4) Lok Sabha polls 2024: Akhilesh Yadav to contest election from Kannauj, file nomination tomorrow

Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections 2024 from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj. He will be filing his nomination papers on April 25.Speaking to India Today TV, his uncle Ram Gopal Yadav said there was no confusion regarding Akhilesh Yadav's candidacy.

Earlier in the day, when he was asked about the speculations on his nomination, Akhilesh said, “When nomination happens then you will come to know. The question is of Kannauj's historic victory...The people have made up their minds that the INDIA alliance is coming as the future and the BJP will be history in this election…"

Akhilesh had won the Kannauj seat in 2000. Later, he represented the seat in 2004 and 2009. He left the seat after he became chief minister in 2012, and his wife Dimple Yadav won the by-election unopposed. Later, Dimple won the seat in 2014 but lost to the BJP's Subrat Pathak in 2019.Earlier, the SP had declared Tej Pratap Yadav as its candidate for the seat.

When asked whether he will contest from the seat or Tej Pratap will remain the party's candidate, Akhilesh told reporters, "See, when there are nominations, you will get to know. Maybe you will get to know before nominations also."

When asked whether party workers of Kannauj wanted him to contest from the seat, Akhilesh said, "The question here is of historic victory from the seat. The BJP will become history in this election as people have made up their mind for the INDIA bloc. People are going to vote against the NDA. PDA (picchde, Dalit, alpsankhyak) will defeat the NDA this time."Kannauj will go to the polls on May 13.

4) Rahul Gandhi promises multiple farmloan waivers, farmers’ commission

Loan waivers need not be one time but can be done multiple times, Rahul Gandhi said.Nagpur: It was raining promises for the farmers at Paratwada in Amravati district. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi promised them multiple farmloan waivers and the setting up of an agriculture commission to solve farmers’ problems if the INDIA bloc is voted to power.

Addressing a massive rally at Paratwada for the Congress candidate, Balwant Wankhede, who is pitted against the sitting MP of Amravati, Navneet Rana of the BJP, Gandhi said that whenever farmers in any state require loan waiver, this commission will recommend the loan waiver to the government that will announce it. Loan waivers need not be one time but can be done multiple times, he added. He said that Prime Minister Modi has not waived farmers’ loans even once in the last 10 years, but when the INDIA bloc comes to power, they will immediately waive farmers’ loans.

Gandhi continued, “There is no dearth of wealth in this country. You look at the country’s crorepati industrialists; see their houses, cars and you will realize that there is no shortage of wealth in the country. If the loans of crorepati industrialists can be waived, then the loans of poor farmers should also be waived. The central government is waiving loans of industrialists. Loans of farmers should also be waived off. Otherwise, nobody should be given a loan waiver in the country.”Lashing out at the BJP government at the centre, Gandhi accused them of making 20-25 people crorepatis. “We are going to make crores of people lakhpatis,” said Rahul Gandhi.

Read the Congress manifesto, he said as he explained many points from it during his 20-minute speech. “First thing, we will bring Mahalakshmi Yojana. We will also make a list of every poor family. Millions of people live below the poverty line in India. Their list will be prepared. One woman’s name will be selected from each poor family. The government of the INDIA block will directly deposit ₹1 lakh in the bank account of this woman every year,” he said and asserted that the government will also ensure that crores of women in the country become lakhpatis.The Congress leader claimed that the Narendra Modi-led BJP wanted to change the Constitution because it did not want 90% of the population, which comprises backwards, tribals, Dalits and minorities, realize their true potential. The 2024 general election is for the protection of democracy and Constitution, which the BJP is eying to change. “BJP is the first political party in India which has dared to attack the Constitution,” Gandhi said and charged that NDA, RSS and BJP are bent on ending the Constitution. “The Constitution is the voice of backward classes. No force in the world can change the Constitution. I wonder what gave the BJP confidence to even think of doing so,” he said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a veiled attack on the prime minister Narendra Modi over the electoral bonds scheme that was scrapped by the Supreme Court terming it unconstitutional. Indicating action after coming to power, Gandhi said that the theft in the scheme was to such an extent that Modi would be in trouble after the polls.

He made the remarks while holding a campaign rally for the Congress candidate Praniti Shinde and NCP (SP) candidate Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil in Solapur on Wednesday.

“Theft in the electoral bonds scheme is at such a level that after polls he (PM Modi) would be in trouble hence he is nervous and making false claims,” Gandhi said addressing a huge gathering. “PM Modi is scared and wants to distract your attention. He knows that he is losing the polls. The people have understood the reality that Modi is the leader of the crorepati and not of the poor class,” he added.

Rahul said that the electoral bond scheme was brought in claiming that PM Modi wanted to eliminate corruption and clean up political funding but he started misusing it as an extortion racket. “It came to light only after the SC forced the State Bank of India to reveal the list of donors under the scheme, which subsequently revealed that the companies were forced to donate funds to the BJP by the means of raids (by the central investigation agencies),” he accused.There are cases where companies donated funds to the BJP days after a CBI raid and the case was closed after receiving donation. He has started an extortion racket of international level,” he further charged.

5) ECI issues notices over MCC violation complaints against Modi, Kharge, Rahul

The notices came days after Modi’s comments at an election rally in Rajasthan on Sunday suggesting the Congress intended to redistribute public wealth to Muslims sparked a political row The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday issued separate notices seeking responses by 11am on Monday to complaints of violations of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress chief Mallikaarjun Kharge and Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi, underlining campaign speeches of star campaigner need to be judged “at a higher threshold of compliance”.

The notices came days after Modi’s comments at an election rally in Rajasthan on Sunday suggesting the Congress intended to redistribute public wealth to Muslims sparked a political row. Opposition leaders targeted Modi over the comments. Kharge called the remarks “hate speech”, and said that Modi had “lowered the dignity of political discourse”.

In the notice to the BJP chief JP Nadda, the ECI cited the representations of the Congress, the Communist Party of India (CPI), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation or CPI (ML). “You [Nadda] are also directed, as President of the National Party to bring to the notice of all your star campaigners to set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of MCC in letter and spirit,” the notice said.The notice to Kharge referred to the BJP’s representation. It sought a response to the complaint against Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Kerala. The BJP accused Gandhi of “derisive and obnoxious utterances” against Modi.

EC’s notices did not mention relevant sections of MCC or the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that have been violated even as the attached complaints do. Neither notice mentions Modi or Gandhi by name.

The poll watchdog has sent show causes to individual star campaigners, including Congress’s Priyanka Gandhi. It has never sent such a notice to Modi individually despite the multiple complaints against him over the years.

In its complaint, the Congress highlighted a part of Modi’s speech in which he said when the party was in power it said Muslims have the first right to the country’s resources. Modi questioned who will they redistribute resources to. “Those who have more children. Those who are infiltrators. Will your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? Will you accept that? The Congress manifesto says they will take stock of the gold owned by our mothers and sisters, and then they will redistribute that wealth. And distribute it to those who, according to the Manmohan Singh government, have the first right to resources — Muslims. This is Urban Naxal thinking, and mothers and sisters, they will not even spare your Mangalsutra. They will stoop to this level.”In December 2006, then-Prime Minister Singh said, “We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on our resources.”

The Congress maintained Modi’s comments violated sections of the IPC and the MCC, a voluntary set of guidelines for political parties during the election season. MCC says no party or candidate shall include in “any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.”

Modi’s comments prompted a flurry of complaints to the poll watchdog over the MCC violation. On Monday, a Congress delegation submitted to ECI that Modi’s speech was “illegal”. It accused the BJP of repeatedly using religious iconography in its Lok Sabha campaign. The Congress focussed on Modi’s speech and use of religious iconography. “...the Prime Minister’s statements to the voters is not only violative of the Representation of People Act, 1951, the Model Code of Conduct, Indian Penal Code, Hon’ble Commission’s instructions but also forms a part of [a] larger and grossly problematic strategy of maliciously create enmity on grounds of religion and also tarnish the principal opposition party based on rank falsehoods with a view to adversely impact the minds of the voters.”

The Congress said coming from a person holding the high office of the Prime Minister, any voter would be influenced. “Hence, the gravity of the offence is even more serious/egregious given that it is the Prime Minister of India who is making these false and reckless statements.”

The Congress listed Modi’s five MCC violations during the ongoing general campaign. The five instances related to Modi accusing Congress, the opposition bloc, and Rahul Gandhi of being against Hindu culture, and of appealing to voters to vote against the Congress as it is a party of sinners who oppose a particular religion.

In its complaint, the CPI on Tuesday called Modi’s statements “inflammatory and illegal” It said they promoted ill-feeling among communities” by referring to Muslims as “ghupetiye (infiltrators)” and “jinke jyada bachhe hain”.The CPI (ML) in its complaint on Sunday said that Modi “has engaged in blatant lies, crudity and communal dog-whistling against the Muslim community”.

The ECI notices underlined star campaigners were expected to contribute to a higher quality of discourse by providing an all-India perspective, which sometimes gets distorted in the heat of the contests at the local level. “Thus, the expectation from Star Campaigners is to provide corrective action or a sort of healing touch, when [the] intensity of local campaign disrupts or inadvertently crosses over such boundaries.”

The ECI said that political parties will have to take primary and increasing responsibility for the conduct of their candidates in general and star campaigners in particular. It added national parties were expected to be the standard bearers in political and campaign discourse. “...as such [they] should also set high standards of compliance of the model code of conduct. ...the individual star campaigner would continue to remain responsible for speeches made.”

6) Lok Sabha elections 2024 phase 2 voting on April 26: Full list of 89 constituencies going to polls

Lok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2 voting: As many as 89 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 13 states and UTs will vote in the Phase 2 of the general elections on April 26Lok Sabha elections 2024 are underway and on April 26, as many as 89 constituencies spread across 13 states and Union Territories (UTs) will vote in the Phase 2 of the general elections. The voting in Phase 2 of the Lok Sabha elections across 89 seats will begin at 7 am and continue until 5 pm. A total of 109 seats had participated in the Phase 1 of the polling, which was scheduled on April 19.

The top contenders in the Phase 2 of the Lok Sabha elections include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. A number of regional parties, too, have fielded their candidates across the 89 constituencies.LIST CONSTITUENCIES GOING TO POLLING IN PHASE 2

Assam: Karimganj, Silchar, Mangaldoi, Nawgong, Kaliabor

Bihar: Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, Bhagalpur

Chhattisgarh: Rajnandgaon, Mahasamund, Kanker

Jammu and Kashmir: Jammu

Karnataka: Udupi Chikamagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Chikballapur, Kolar

Kerala: Kasaragod, Kannur, Vatakara, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ponnani, Palakkad, Alathur, Thrissur, Chalakudy, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Mavelikkara, Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Attingal, Thiruvananthapuram

Manipur: Outer Manipur

Madhya Pradesh: Tikamgarh, Damoh, Khajuraho, Satna, Rewa, Hoshangabad, Betul

Maharashtra: Buldhana, Akola, Amravati, Wardha, Yavatmal Washim, Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani

Rajasthan: Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota, Jhalawar-Baran

Tripura: Tripura East

Uttar Pradesh: Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura

West Bengal: Darjeeling, Raiganj, Balurghat

KEY CANDIDATES who are contesting in the Phase 2 of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 include Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon, DK Suresh from Bangalore Rural, Shobha Karandlaje from Bangalore North, Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South, HD Kumaraswamy from Mandya, Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad, Anil Antony from Pathanamthitta, Shashi Tharoor and Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram.Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, Vaibhav Gehlot from Jalore, Hema Malini from Mathura, Arun Govil from Meerut are among the candidates contesting the Phase 2 of the Lok Sabha elections 2024.

7) Lok Sabha Elections 2024: BJP's K Sudhakar booked for bribery after EC seizes ₹4.8 crore cash in Karnataka

Lok Sabha elections 2024: Bharatiya Janata party's candidate from Chikkaballapura has been booked in an alleged bribery case after Election Commission's flying squad seized ₹4.8 crore cash The Election Commission seized ₹4.8 crore worth of cash in Chikkaballapura Constituency a day before the second phase voting of Lok Sabha elections 2024. An FIR has been registered against K Sudhakar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from from the constituency.

“The FST of Chikkaballapura seized cash worth 4.8 Crores. An FIR also has been lodged by the SST team of Chikkaballapura Constituency against K Sudhakar, BJP Candidate on 25.04.2024 at Madanayakanahally Police Station," read a social media post by Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka on Friday, April 26.

8) SC rejects pleas seeking 100% cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips | Highlights from April 26

The Court has also declined a plea to bring back paper ballots for the voting process. The Supreme Court on April 26 rejected a batch of petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of vote count in electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper slips. It has also declined a plea to bring back paper ballots for the voting process.

The main opinion of Justice Sanjiv Khanna was concurred with by Justice Dipankar Datta in a separate opinion. The pronouncement of the verdict coincides with the second phase of polling for the General Elections to the Lok Sabha. However, the Bench has issued a series of directions to strengthen the existing system. It has ordered sealing of the Symbol Loading Units (SLUs) after the symbol loading process on or after May 1, 2024. The sealed SLUs will be kept in the strong room along with the EVMs for 45 days after polling.

A recommendation to include an electronic machine for counting paper slips and bar codes along with symbols for political parties has also been made. However, it rejected pleas advanced by the petitioners to give voters access to VVPAT paper slips to put physically into the ballot boxes. Notably, candidates can get 5% of the EVMs — ballot units, control units and VVPATs — of any given constituency verified by the engineers of the manufacturers following a written request to this effect. The request should be made within seven days of the declaration of the election results.

During the proceedings, the petitioners, including the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), pointed out that both EVMS and VVPATs have a “programmable chip” and that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has previously denied sharing their “source code” on the ground that they constitute the intellectual property of the manufacturers.

The VVPAT machine is attached to the ballot unit of the EVM and prints out a slip of paper with the voter’s choice once the vote is cast. The slip is visible for seven seconds for the voter to verify if their vote was cast correctly before it falls into a compartment kept underneath. Polling officials use these slips to verify votes cast. However, not all votes are verified – the VVPAT slips are used to verify votes cast only in five randomly selected polling booths per constituency.

Defending the existing system, the ECI said that it matched EVM votes with more than 4 crore VVPAT slips and asserted that no discrepancies have been recorded till now. It further assured that it is impossible to manipulate EVMs.It also submitted that counting 100% VVPAT slips would pose a “great difficulty” as it would take an hour to count the slips from one VVPAT alone. The Court was also apprised that the EVM manufacturers did not know which button would be allocated to which candidate, or the constituency to which the machine would be sent.

1) How ‘ambitious’ Gukesh won Candidates 2024 and got closer to conquering the world

If the men’s Candidates winner beats Ding this year, he will become India’s second world chess champion.For more than a decade, Viswanathan Anand remained the world chess champion. In the space of 12 years, Anand won five times and became one of the greatest players to have played the game. Strangely, only a handful of Indians watched Anand in action as he went about collecting world titles in three different formats. Even shooter Abhinav Bindra and cueist Pankaj Advani scaled great heights in their illustrious careers in the absence of live images of their conquests in India.

For more than a decade, Viswanathan Anand remained the world chess champion. In the space of 12 years, Anand won five times and became one of the greatest players to have played the game. Strangely, only a handful of Indians watched Anand in action as he went about collecting world titles in three different formats. Even shooter Abhinav Bindra and cueist Pankaj Advani scaled great heights in their illustrious careers in the absence of live images of their conquests in India.

As a welcome move, in recent years, more and more live broadcasts of sporting disciplines have become available, and chess is one of the biggest gainers. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic proved a boon for chess since it caught the attention of those confined indoors with access to the internet. As a result, young Indians like R. Praggnanandhaa, D. Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, and Nihal Sarin, among a few others, benefitted immensely. The live images, coupled with their consistent performances, have helped grow the chess community. From the 2022 Chess Olympiad to the 2023 World Cup to the FIDE Candidates 2024, some stupendous Indian performances were hailed.

Till the other day, the biggest gainer was World Cup runner-up Praggnanandhaa. Today, notwithstanding the ongoing IPL, Gukesh’s sensational triumph in the Candidates tournament becomes the talking point. Many stayed awake all night to keep track of the final round once it became known that Gukesh had the best chance to win, ahead of three of the top-four players in the world. India woke up to the news of Gukesh, 17, becoming the youngest to win the Candidates and earn the right to challenge the reigning world champion Ding Liren in the world title clash scheduled to begin in late November this year.

2) Gukesh wins Candidates 2024: Social media reacts as Viswanathan Anand, Kramnik, Humpy and others congratulate Indian youngster on title win

The media’s urge to immediately reach out to the champion was understandable. Unlike the days when Anand was in his prime, news and visuals travel almost in real-time. No wonder, players like Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and a few others are lucky to reap the benefits of this ever-improving technology. Gukesh, younger than Praggnanandhaa by a year, has been in the news since he broke his Chennai mate’s record of being the youngest Indian Grandmaster. Given his exploits in cash-rich online chess in the past few years and his triumphs over World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen on a few occasions, Praggnanandhaa has become the face of the new generation of Indian chess champions. For those following the rise of these two youngsters, it is quite evident that Gukesh steadily rose in the classical time format of the game while Praggnanandhaa was busy sharpening his skills in the shorter duration formats suited for online chess. Gukesh’s rise began in March 2022, days after Praggnanandhaa hit the headlines for stunning Carlsen in online chess. Gukesh came in second to Erigaisi in the National Championship in Kanpur. This was the first time Gukesh played after the pandemic and showed a glimpse of the hard work he had done during the long period of lockdown. Interestingly, around 25 months after taking the top two spots in the country’s flagship event, Gukesh and Arjun found themselves among the top 10 players in the world. When the new FIDE rankings are released on May 1, 2024, Gukesh will be ranked sixth, two ahead of Arjun. Going back to the days when Gukesh began his ascent, he had to contend with coming second to Arjun in the 2022 International Open.

Gukesh produced a series of title-winning performances in Spain, where he won a hat-trick of titles by beating the field in the La Roda tournament, the Menorca Open, and the Sunway Formentera International tournament. This boosted Gukesh’s ratings and confidence, and soon he reached the brink of the top 50. More than the rise in rating, what helped Gukesh catch the attention of the chess world was his stupendous showing in the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram. Playing on the top board, he won the first eight rounds, with World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana being his most illustrious victim. He went on to win the gold medal and collect the team bronze. Last year, Gukesh became the youngest to reach 2750 in ratings and soon overtook Anand in the world rankings.

It was the first time in 37 years that Anand was second to an Indian in the rankings. The year also saw Gukesh’s long-time coach, Vishnu Prasanna, assume the role of mentor and pave the way for the youngster to take the services of Polish Grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski, as suggested by Anand. In the World Cup, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, and Erigaisi produced what was the biggest advertisement for Indian chess by reaching the quarterfinals. Eventually, Praggnanandhaa reached the final and qualified for the Candidates.

What followed was a tough phase for Gukesh. His form deserted him. The youngster was desperate to meet the rising expectations of qualifying for the Candidates, but the pressure took its toll. Keen to take one of the qualifying spots for Candidates from the Grand Swiss, Gukesh tried too hard, but the event proved a disaster. Starting as the fifth seed, armed with a rating of 2758 in a very strong field, Gukesh finished 81st. His performance rating was 2578, and he lost 26 rating points. This was also the event where Vidit performed exceptionally well to win and qualify for the Candidates. In the London Chess Classic, Gukesh started as the top seed in the 10-player field and eventually finished third. By this time, his live rating had plummeted to 2715. Finally, all the hard work with Gajewski started bearing fruit with the hurriedly organised Chennai Grand Masters in December.

In this eight-player invitational event, organised to help Gukesh boost his ratings and qualify for the Candidates based on being the highest-rated on the FIDE Circuit, he went on to win the tournament and moved to second on the Circuit. Since topper Caruana had already qualified by coming third in the World Cup, Gukesh got the lone qualifying spot from the FIDE Circuit for the Candidates. What makes Gukesh such a formidable force in world chess is his amazing ability to find the best moves, calculate accurately in quick time, and stay ambitious in search of victory. Unlike his peers, Gukesh did not use computer-aid or engine analysis to find the best continuation. This helped his natural abilities to sense danger and prepare accordingly. Armed with a ticket to the Candidates, Gukesh produced another stellar performance in the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee. He punched above his weight to tie for the title and eventually finished second to Chinese Wei Yi following tie-break games.

For more than a decade, Viswanathan Anand remained the world chess champion. In the space of 12 years, Anand won five times and became one of the greatest players to have played the game. Strangely, only a handful of Indians watched Anand in action as he went about collecting world titles in three different formats. Even shooter Abhinav Bindra and cueist Pankaj Advani scaled great heights in their illustrious careers in the absence of live images of their conquests in India.

As a welcome move, in recent years, more and more live broadcasts of sporting disciplines have become available, and chess is one of the biggest gainers. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic proved a boon for chess since it caught the attention of those confined indoors with access to the internet. As a result, young Indians like R. Praggnanandhaa, D. Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, and Nihal Sarin, among a few others, benefitted immensely. The live images, coupled with their consistent performances, have helped grow the chess community. From the 2022 Chess Olympiad to the 2023 World Cup to the FIDE Candidates 2024, some stupendous Indian performances were hailed.

Till the other day, the biggest gainer was World Cup runner-up Praggnanandhaa. Today, notwithstanding the ongoing IPL, Gukesh’s sensational triumph in the Candidates tournament becomes the talking point. Many stayed awake all night to keep track of the final round once it became known that Gukesh had the best chance to win, ahead of three of the top-four players in the world. India woke up to the news of Gukesh, 17, becoming the youngest to win the Candidates and earn the right to challenge the reigning world champion Ding Liren in the world title clash scheduled to begin in late November this year.

The media’s urge to immediately reach out to the champion was understandable. Unlike the days when Anand was in his prime, news and visuals travel almost in real-time. No wonder, players like Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and a few others are lucky to reap the benefits of this ever-improving technology. Gukesh, younger than Praggnanandhaa by a year, has been in the news since he broke his Chennai mate’s record of being the youngest Indian Grandmaster. Given his exploits in cash-rich online chess in the past few years and his triumphs over World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen on a few occasions, Praggnanandhaa has become the face of the new generation of Indian chess champions. For those following the rise of these two youngsters, it is quite evident that Gukesh steadily rose in the classical time format of the game while Praggnanandhaa was busy sharpening his skills in the shorter duration formats suited for online chess.

Gukesh’s rise began in March 2022, days after Praggnanandhaa hit the headlines for stunning Carlsen in online chess. Gukesh came in second to Erigaisi in the National Championship in Kanpur. This was the first time Gukesh played after the pandemic and showed a glimpse of the hard work he had done during the long period of lockdown. Interestingly, around 25 months after taking the top two spots in the country’s flagship event, Gukesh and Arjun found themselves among the top 10 players in the world. When the new FIDE rankings are released on May 1, 2024, Gukesh will be ranked sixth, two ahead of Arjun. Going back to the days when Gukesh began his ascent, he had to contend with coming second to Arjun in the 2022 International Open.

Gukesh produced a series of title-winning performances in Spain, where he won a hat-trick of titles by beating the field in the La Roda tournament, the Menorca Open, and the Sunway Formentera International tournament. This boosted Gukesh’s ratings and confidence, and soon he reached the brink of the top 50. More than the rise in rating, what helped Gukesh catch the attention of the chess world was his stupendous showing in the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram. Playing on the top board, he won the first eight rounds, with World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana being his most illustrious victim. He went on to win the gold medal and collect the team bronze. Last year, Gukesh became the youngest to reach 2750 in ratings and soon overtook Anand in the world rankings.

It was the first time in 37 years that Anand was second to an Indian in the rankings. The year also saw Gukesh’s long-time coach, Vishnu Prasanna, assume the role of mentor and pave the way for the youngster to take the services of Polish Grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski, as suggested by Anand. In the World Cup, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, and Erigaisi produced what was the biggest advertisement for Indian chess by reaching the quarterfinals. Eventually, Praggnanandhaa reached the final and qualified for the Candidates.

What followed was a tough phase for Gukesh. His form deserted him. The youngster was desperate to meet the rising expectations of qualifying for the Candidates, but the pressure took its toll. Keen to take one of the qualifying spots for Candidates from the Grand Swiss, Gukesh tried too hard, but the event proved a disaster. Starting as the fifth seed, armed with a rating of 2758 in a very strong field, Gukesh finished 81st. His performance rating was 2578, and he lost 26 rating points. This was also the event where Vidit performed exceptionally well to win and qualify for the Candidates. In the London Chess Classic, Gukesh started as the top seed in the 10-player field and eventually finished third. By this time, his live rating had plummeted to 2715. Finally, all the hard work with Gajewski started bearing fruit with the hurriedly organised Chennai Grand Masters in December.

In this eight-player invitational event, organised to help Gukesh boost his ratings and qualify for the Candidates based on being the highest-rated on the FIDE Circuit, he went on to win the tournament and moved to second on the Circuit. Since topper Caruana had already qualified by coming third in the World Cup, Gukesh got the lone qualifying spot from the FIDE Circuit for the Candidates. What makes Gukesh such a formidable force in world chess is his amazing ability to find the best moves, calculate accurately in quick time, and stay ambitious in search of victory. Unlike his peers, Gukesh did not use computer-aid or engine analysis to find the best continuation. This helped his natural abilities to sense danger and prepare accordingly. Armed with a ticket to the Candidates, Gukesh produced another stellar performance in the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee. He punched above his weight to tie for the title and eventually finished second to Chinese Wei Yi following tie-break games.

Significantly, Gukesh bounced back from losing to world champions Liren and Anish Giri in the third and fourth rounds to post a hat-trick of wins, beginning with the conquest of Ian Nepomniachtchi and two Dutchmen, Jorden van Foreest and Max Warmerdam. He continued his campaign without losing any more games. He beat German Alexander Donchenko and Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo. The gain of 18 rating points from this event played its part in Gukesh returning to his best. Gukesh entered the Candidates very well prepared, but without carrying any burden of expectations. Seeded sixth among eight players, Gukesh, at 17, was only the second youngest to play in the Candidates. The record for the youngest player in the Candidates Tournament stands in the name of the legendary Bobby Fischer, who played as a 16-year-old in 1959. What unfolded at Toronto’s The Grand Hall was a story for the ages. Showing great maturity, Gukesh started slowly, was a touch lucky to beat Praggnanandhaa in the second round, and suffered a heartbreak in the seventh round, where he lost to Alireza Firouzja after holding a very promising position.

“I was really disappointed with the way I lost in time pressure. All along, I thought I was winning after a point. After I reached my room and analysed the position, I discovered that, though I felt I was in a winning position, with correct play, Firouzja could still draw. I made some of the best logical moves, but as computer analysis later suggested, it was not enough for me to win. Then I felt a little better,” Gukesh said.

3) DC vs GT, IPL 2024: Delhi Capitals beats Gujarat Titans in high-scoring thriller to maintain playoff chances

After the heroics of Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel helped the host put up 224, B. Sai Sudharsan and David Miller kept DC on its toes but the visitor fell four runs short of scaling the total. It was a day to rejoice for the left-hand batters at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday where the Delhi Capitals beat the Gujarat Titans by four runs in a nail-biting finish to maintain its playoff qualification hopes.

It was a day to rejoice for the left-hand batters at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday where the Delhi Capitals beat the Gujarat Titans by four runs in a nail-biting finish to maintain its playoff qualification hopes.

After the heroics of Rishabh Pant (88, 43b, 5x4, 8x6) and Axar Patel (66,43b, 5x4, 4x6) helped the host put up 224, B. Sai Sudharsan (65, 39b, 7x4, 2x6) and David Miller (55, 23b, 6x4, 3x6) kept DC on its toes but the visitor fell agonisingly short of scaling the total.

The Titans’ chase faced an early setback when captain Shubman Gill lofted one to Axar at mid-on, but Wriddhiman Saha and Sai Sudharsan kept the pressure on, scoring at a fair clip in the PowerPlay.

Sai Sudharsan used the favourable match-up against Axar to keep the runs flowing after the introduction of spin. Saha perished for a 25-ball 39, trying to hit Kuldeep Yadav over cover and Azmatullah Omarzai departed soon after, falling to Axar.

Pacer Rasikh Salam then dented GT’s hopes further by removing Sudharsan and the dangerous Shahrukh Khan – the latter falling to a brilliant catch by Pant. However, Miller’s blitzkrieg and cameos from Rashid Khan and R. Sai Kishore ensured the butterflies in the crowd’s gut remained till the last ball.Earlier in the day, DC opener Jake Fraser-McGurk continued his modus operandi of blistering starts, taking the attack to Sandeep Warrier.

The Tamil Nadu bowler stuck to his plans – the astute positioning of the square leg fielder bringing out the Australian’s downfall. Warrier ensured GT would finish the PowerPlay on top, removing Prithvi Shaw and Shai Hope. 

With the Afghan spin twins coming into play, Pant and Axar ensured they weren’t pinned down, counter-attacking the duo en route to the 113-run stand. Axar eventually fell to Noor Ahmad, handing a simple catch to Sai Kishore while trying to loft one over long-on.

4) AFC U23 Asian Cup: Indonesia, Japan advance; South Korea out of contention for Paris Olympics

The top three teams will qualify for the Paris Games, and Indonesia reached the last four by winning the shootout 11-10 after the score remained tied 2-2 through extra time

South Korea will miss the men’s football tournament at the Olympics for the first time since 1984 after losing a penalty shootout to Indonesia at the Under-23 Asian Cup quarterfinals on Thursday.The top three teams will qualify for the Paris Games, and Indonesia reached the last four by winning the shootout 11-10 after the score remained tied 2-2 through extra time.

Rafael Struick put Indonesia ahead after 15 minutes only for Komang Teguh’s own goal to level the scoreline after 45 minutes. There was still time before the break, however, for Struick to score again.

Jeong Sang-bin equalized with 14 minutes remaining despite Korea being reduced to 10 men minutes earlier when Lee Young-jun was shown a red card.Lee Kang-hee missed in the shootout, leaving Pratama Arhan to score the winner.Earlier, Japan knocked out host Qatar 4-2 after extra time to stay on course for an eighth straight Olympic appearance.Fuki Yamada scored early for Japan but Ahmed Al-Rawi and Jassem Gaber netted to put Qatar ahead.

Seiji Kimura made it 2-2 midway through the second half and after the tie went into extra-time, Mao Hosoya put Japan ahead once more and Kotaro Uchino scored after 113 minutes to secure the win for Japan.

On Friday, defending champion Saudi Arabia faces Uzbekistan, while Iraq meets Vietnam.

5) Who can succeed Sunil Chhetri as India’s striker — a deep dive into what the numbers say

With Sunil Chhetri, the leading goalscorer for the Indian national football team, now 39 years old, the country will have to look for his replacement sooner rather than later.

The inability to score goals has been the Indian football team’s Achilles heel for quite some time now. The last time Igor Stimac’s men won a game with a goal off a striker from open play was in June 2023, a 2-0 win against Nepal in the SAFF Championship

The inability to score goals has been the Indian football team’s Achilles heel for quite some time now. The last time Igor Stimac’s men won a game with a goal off a striker from open play was in June 2023, a 2-0 win against Nepal in the SAFF Championship.

And now, having lost five of its last six games, the morale of the team as well the fans has deteriorated further after a drop in its FIFA World ranking.

At the AFC Asian Cup 2023 in Qatar, India conceded six goals but failed to score a single one. Amongst 24 teams, it was second from bottom in the xG (expected goals) table, just above Kazakhstan.

The most important reason for this goal drought is the lack of Indians playing as centre-forwards in the Indian Super League (ISL), the top division of men’s football in the country.

With Sunil Chhetri — India’s leading goalscorer and the regular striker for the national team — having his playing days numbered at 39 years of age, it becomes imperative to find his replacement sooner rather than later.This is not to say that teams without strikers have never succeeded before. Pep Guardiola did wonders with Barcelona and Manchester City in club football, winning league titles with both sides.

But this structure is hard to replicate in international football, where coaches get their players for a limited time in the national camp and depend primarily on strikers for goals.

So has been the case with India, which has had strikers like Mohammed Rafi, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Robin Singh and Chhetri over the past decade.Under the previous coach, Stephen Constantine, the Blue Tigers had taken the long-ball approach, playing with a typical British formation of 4-4-2.The strategy seemed to have worked well during Constantine’s second stint (2015-2019), as the team scored 72 goals in 42 matches, winning 23 of them. It also won the 2015 SAFF Championship and the 2018 Intercontinental Cup.

India also performed relatively better at the Asian Cup during this period compared to the 2023 edition, winning one game (4-1 against Thailand) with a three-goal margin.Under Stimac though, the team shifted to a more modern approach, adopting a 4-2-3-1 shape for most of its games. The build-up of play in this case started at the back, with more dependency on crosses and set-pieces to find a breakthrough.

In both cases, however, the striker’s role as the head of the attack has been paramount. But game-time for Indian strikers in the top division has been very low as compared to that of foreign forwards.ISL teams have started Indians as one or both strikers in about one-fourth of their games this season (62 of 234 – total games are 117 and two teams in each game gives a sample size of 234 considering each team’s matches individually).

That falls to one-fifth (46) if Chhetri is taken out of the equation. On the contrary, foreign players have started as strikers in over half of the matches (172) in the league.

6) Shanghai 2024: Finals for both Indian compound teams at season opener

The Indian men’s and women’s compound teams got off to a great start to the Hyundai Archery World Cup season, both securing gold medal match appearances at the season opener in Shanghai.

On Saturday morning the men will face the Netherlands and the women Italy for the top step of the podium.

“Our coordination was good today and we read the wind well,” said the experienced Abhishek Verma, who’s partnered with World Cup first-timer Prathamesh Bhalchandra Fuge and reigning under-21 world champion Priyansh.

“The semifinals are always tight matches. We were prepared to shoot well and happy to make it to gold.”

After seeding fourth, the squad beat the Philippines and Denmark before displaying ominous form to upset top qualifiers Korea, 235-233. Tied at even after two ends, the Indians grabbed a point after the third and finished with a 59 to secure the final.

“We played alongside players that we used to watch on YouTube,” said Priyansh, who trains with Verma in New Delhi. “We could have shot even better.”

The Indian women are the reigning world champions – and seeded first in Shanghai.

Through two matches and 48 arrows they dropped just 10 points, defeating first Türkiye and then Estonia to confirm their status as the leading team in the division.“We maintained our shooting process and it worked well,” said an elated Aditi Swami, the reigning under-18 and senior World Archery Champion. “I hope we can repeat the success of the World Cup in Paris last year where both the Indian men and women won the team gold medals.”But the squad is without the coach that architected so many of their successes last season, Italian import Sergio Pagni. He is currently at a camp in India.

In the final, the Indian women will face Italy, who overcame Kazakhstan in a semifinal shoot-off after the scores were tied at 227 points in regulation.“We made some errors but it was a good match,” said Marcella Tonioli.The 10th seeded Dutch men also won a tiebreak – against France – to book their ticket to the final. Mike Schloesser, Sil Pater and Stef Willems shot three perfect X-ring 10s, compared to their opponents’ standard 10s, to survive the match.“We have stepped up our game compared to yesterday and we’re super happy,“ said world number one Schloesser, calling the result a surprise after entering the bracket as underdogs.Kazakhstan’s women and the Korean men’s team secured bronze medals at the end of the session.Competition continues this afternoon in Shanghai with recurve qualifying.

Finals: Shanghai 2024

Compound men team: India versus Netherlands

Compound women team: India versus Italy

TILLU SQUARE – NETFLIX

Watch Siddhu Jonnalagadda reprise his role of Bala Gangadhar Tilak aka Tillu in the sequel of DJ Tillu (2022). Titled Tillu Square, the Telugu film delves into the life of the main protagonist (Tillu) whose life takes an unexpected turn when he becomes a part of a murder investigation. As the story progresses, he develops feelings for a young woman (essayed by Anupama Parameswaran), a secret Special Forces Agent, who is adamant about solving her mission. The events that unfold next will keep you on the edge of your seat.

RUSLAAN – THEATRES

Aayush Sharma has teamed up with Sushrii Mishraa, Jagapathi Babu and Vidya Malvade for filmmaker Karan L Butani’s action-packed film titled Ruslaan. It will lock horns with Challengers and

ADV. ACHINTA AICH – HOICHOI

Adv. Achinta Aich is a courtroom drama that follows a lawyer who defends the prime suspect of a high society murder case that involves many renowned personalities. The Bengali drama stars Ritwick Chakraborty, Saswata Chatterjee, and Surangana Bandopadhyay in prominent roles. Another exciting drama on the list of new OTT releases releasing this Friday that deserves to be on your watchlist.

CRAKK – DISNEY+ HOTSTAR

High on action, this film centres around a stuntman who journeys from the slums of Mumbai to the world of underground extreme sports to unravel the mystery of his brother’s disappearance. The ensemble cast of the film includes Arjun Rampal, Vidyut Jammwal, Nora Fatehi, and Amy Jackson.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE – THEATRES

Watch the new Ghostbusters join forces with the OG Ghostbusters to protect New York City from an ancient evil force in the fifth film of the popular supernatural comedy franchise. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire serves as a sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), and features Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Bill Murray, and Finn Wolfhard, among others.

KUNG FU PANDA 4 – BOOKMYSHOW STREAM

Apart from Tillu Square, The Beekeeper, Crakk, and other titles, the list of new OTT releases arriving later this week includes Kung Fu Panda 4. The film continues to focus on Po, who embarks on a journey to search for his successor when he is chosen to become the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace. With an evil sorceress willing to go to any extent to steal Po’s staff of wisdom, will Po be able to complete his mission?

BOOK OF THIS WEEK:

Dragonfruit  BY Makiia Lucier:

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time - hope.

But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape…that of the dragonfruit itself. 

Makiia Lucier:

Makiia Lucier is the author of Year of the Reaper, the Isle of Blood and Stone duology, and A Death-Struck Year. Her stories are inspired by history and mythology and have been called “brilliant” (Booklist), “moving,” (New York Times), “masterful” (Horn Book), and “breathtaking” (School Library Journal). They can be found on many notable lists, including the Kids’ Indie Next and the American Library Association’s ‘Best Fiction for Young Adults.’

Makiia grew up on the Pacific island of Guam, not too far from the equator, and holds degrees in journalism and library science.

She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.You can visit her at www.makiialucier.com