India Narrative

  With Dholavira being declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, India entered the elite ‘Super 40’ Heritage Club in July 2021. Super 40 refers to a group of countries with 40 or more World Heritage sites. India is the 6th country in the world with the most World Heritage Sites. In this episode India's renowned archaeologist KK Muhammed talks about how can India increase the number of UNESCO world heritage sites and places that need to be excavated. Watch the video to know more

As a sport, water skiing is adventurous and exhilarating but how did it come into being? It was due to the inventiveness and initiative of a young man from Minnesota that humankind got this water sport as per a report in smithsonianmag.com. Ralph Samuelson while going down snowy hills on ski was struck with a thought as to why he could not ski on water just as he did on the snow. The year was 1922 and from summer of that year 18-year-old Samuelson started attempting to stand up on skis on Lake Pepin – located very close to his house. After several failed bids, he finally succeeded and then the world’s most loved water sport was born. This year marks the 100th anniversary of that momentous event and on July 2 at 4.11 p.m. the leading citizens of Lake City unveiled Samuelson’s life-sized bronze statue on the shores of Lake Pepin. It was on this day and that precise time Samuelson was on water skiing behind his brother’s boat. For the celebration held at present, Samuelson did not receive

  Amid media reports on China’s encroachment of Nepali territories, Nepal and China have agreed to jointly inspect their 1414-km border, a government spokesperson said here. Sewa Lamshal, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, said that the two sides agreed to deploy a joint team in the bordering areas during a 'consultation meeting on border affairs' between the Nepali and Chinese foreign ministries which took place last week virtually. "The consultation meeting on border affairs was long due. Various matters relating to boundary and border management were discussed. It has been agreed that the joint inspection will begin soon, where the two sides will see many aspects related to boundary matters including the status of border pillars," the spokesperson told a media briefing on Wednesday. She did not share specific dates about when the two sides begin the joint inspection. According to spokesperson Lamshal, the two sides were agreed to initiate

After his three-year-long tryst with terrorism and being in jail for three years, the pioneer of Kashmir's unceasing gun culture and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Maqbool Bhat's successor, Yasin Malik, enjoyed "the freedom of the both worlds" for 25 years-- from 1994 to 2019. From the day Malik, then a 28-year-old school dropout and the son of a government bus driver, was permitted to address his first press conference from the Principal Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar Dr. Ghulam Qadir Allaqaband's chair in 1994 to the day of the 40 CRPF men's killing in a major terror attack in 2019, all criminal cases against him were virtually dumped. He was left free to grow as a politician, visit the world, marry in Pakistan and hold campaigns and demonstrations across the country for "Kashmir's freedom from India" and against the Indian security forces. While in Pakistan, Malik shared stage with the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba ideolo

New Zealand’s Lake Taupo with its azure serene waters and surrounding mountains and peaks reflects peace and serenity which people visiting the area can immediately feel. Yet, deep below these calm waters, as per a sciencealert.com report there is a geological unrest. This is what has been stated by a new paper published in the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. The lake, which is situated in the centre of New Zealand’s north island, enjoys the distinction of being the largest freshwater lake in Australasia. The past of this lake has been violent. It is in the lap of a prehistoric caldera which has derived from the Spanish word for cauldron or boiling pot and came into being during Earth’s last super-eruption which took place 25,400 years ago – the Oruanui eruption. During the release of magma during a supervolcano occurring in an eruption like the Oruanui one, the depleted magma vents cave in, the surface of the earth sinks resulting in a permanent change in the landscape

 “The winter is coming” may have become an overplayed phrase from the fantasy series Game of Thrones. But, with the spectre of gas shortages looming on account of the Ukraine-Russia war, Europe, particularly Germany should be bracing for  real-life difficulties, especially when a harsh winter is closing in.  A host of factors have contributed to a grim energy situation, used for heating , transportation and electricity in Europe. When the rest of Europe was reeling under energy related pressure, Germany was relatively well positioned because of established and uninterrupted channels of energy imports from Russia as well as the size of its economy which allowed it to sustain large energy imports unlike other European economies. However, rapidly changing metrics of global security, the lingering impact of the pandemic leading to disrupted supplies, a pent-up demand, climate policies of countries to shift away from traditional sources of energy and above all, the Russia-Ukraine war have a

Russian energy major Rosneft has announced the discovery of a huge oil deposit on the shelf of the Pechora Sea flowing from the Ural Mountains to the Arctic Ocean in the northwest of Russia. Containing an estimated 82 million tonnes of oil, it is believed to be one of the largest discoveries on the Russian shelf in recent times. “The field was discovered based on the results of drilling a prospecting and appraisal well at the structure of the same name in the Medynsko-Varandeysky license area. The work was carried out by specialists from RN-Bureniye and RN-Shelf-Arktika (part of Rosneft) using advanced Russian equipment and in accordance with the highest standards of industrial safety and environmental protection. The resulting oil is light, low-sulfur, low viscosity," the company said in a statement recently. As geological explorations continue in the region, the latest discovery comes at a time when the Western countries remain committed to phase out dependency on Russian energy

The Indian economy will eventually pick up despite inflation and challenges like domestic strife. On the other hand, there is a looming global unrest as public resentment against governments rise over food and fuel inflation. At Canary Wharf, one of London's premium destinations, India Narrative catches up with Supriya Ravishankar, working as a risk analyst with Sibylline, a strategic advisory firm, that identifies opportunities and forecast risks for the corporate sector. As the South Asia analyst, Ravishankar is constantly monitoring South Asian countries to provide analytical information to Sibylline’s clients which could include organisations ranging from the hospitality industry to publishing and media, finance and defence as well as international development organisations. She says that her job as a risk analyst involves constant monitoring of news, cross-verifying information, breaking-down complex events and presenting these to clients. “It is as much a communications job a

While the 43-day long annual Amarnath Yatra commenced formally amid tight security from the traditional base camps of Nunwan (Pahalgam) and Baltal (Sonmarg) on Thursday, more than 35,000 local Muslims are as usual engaged with different arrangements and services of the pilgrimage. Officials of Pahalgam Development Authority (PDA), besides Tourism and Revenue departments of the Union Territory government, revealed to INDIA NARRATIVE that the first batch of the pilgrims, comprising 15,000 devotees, had darshan and attended prayers at the Amarnath cave-shrine on Thursday. "On day one today, yatra operated from both tracks-- Pahalgam and Baltal. The helicopter services too operated smoothly as the weather remained pleasant", a senior officer asserted. According to him more than 35,000 Kashmiri Muslims were currently associated with different arrangements and services to the pilgrimage. Most of the service providers, estimated to be around 20,000, are pony owners from Anantnag, Ku

Russian President Vladimir Putin has again batted for the "speedy launch" of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) to improve the transport and logistics architecture of the Eurasian region. At this week's Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, Putin spoke in detail about the 7,200 km-long, multimodal trade corridor which will start from Mumbai, with nodes in West Asia, Central Asia, Caucasia and Russia covering large swathes of territory in landlocked Eurasia. "The speedy launch of this corridor is intended to be facilitated by the agreement between the Caspian states on cooperation in the field of transport, which came into force last year, which is aimed at turning the Caspian Sea region into a major international logistics hub," Putin told the gathering which comprised of Presidents of Azerbaijan (Ilham Aliyev), Iran (Ebrahim Raisi), Kazakhstan (Kassym-Jomart Tokayev) and Turkmenistan (Serdar Berdimuhamedov). The Russian President highlighted active