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- The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the change of colour of the iconic Taj Mahal at Agra and said the monument had become yellowish earlier and was now turning brownish and greenish.
- The Apex Court suggested that the Centre take the assistance of experts from India and abroad to first assess the damage and then take steps to restore the historic monument.
- The court perused the photographs placed before it by the petitioner and asked Additional Solicitor General, who was representing the government, as to why the colour of Taj Mahal has changed.
- The apex court fixed the matter for further hearing on May 9.
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- The World Health Organization (WHO) said on 1 May that air pollution still kills 7 million people each year, almost all of them in poor countries in Asia and Africa, and that 9 out of 10 people on the planet breathe in polluted air, following the release of its latest data on air pollution worldwide.
- According to the health institution, about a quarter of deaths from heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer can be attributed to air pollution.
- These numbers have remained unchanged in the past years, with, globally, outdoor air pollution remaining high and largely unchanged, while indoor air pollution has got worse, as people in many poorer countries continue to cook with solid fuel or kerosene, instead of cleaner fuels such as gas and electricity. Women and children are the most at risk.
- WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, director Dr. Maria Neira said, "Three billion people around the world, so almost half, 50% of the world global population, is still cooking and heating and lightening their house with solid fuels, wood, whatever they have available, which is not very clean fuels, and this is having a very negative impact on their health.
- And this is something that we need to solve. We need to increase access to clean fuels, clean energy for this very important proportion of our population."
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- Ocean sciences experts from Hyderabad and the United States of America (USA) have now linked global warming to the unchecked bloom of a special type of algae in the Arabian sea. The algal bloom is leading to the death of commercially and ecologically important fish species.
- A research study conducted by a joint team of Indian and American experts in ocean sciences revealed that harmful Noctiluca blooms in the Arabian Sea are thriving due to global warming. INCOIS is conducting more research to decode more secrets behind the fish mortality in the Arabian Sea.
- The Noctiluca algae are often reported to occur in patches or blooms in the Northern Arabian Sea. These striking green blooms often appear to glow at night due to a special phenomenon called bioluminescence, earning them the nickname 'sea sparkle', the study said adding that “unfortunately, these beautiful patches, indicate zones of decline because fish cannot thrive and sometimes die because of these blooms.”
- Noctiluca voraciously eats one of the most important planktonic organisms at the base of the fish-food chain, namely diatoms, and excretes large amounts of ammonia, linked with massive fish mortalities.
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- The Ballarshah and Chandrapur railway stations in Maharashtra have been adjudged winners of the national transporter's in-house station beautification contest, a statement from the ministry said on 2May.
- The Nagpur Division of Central Railway has beautified the two stations with paintings, sculptures and murals based on wildlife at the Tadoda National Park and local tribal art.
- The number two slot has gone to Bihar's Madhubani station, which features stunning artwork by local artists, and Tamil Nadu's Madurai station, which also depicts popular scenes from local culture on its walls, the statement said.
- The third prize has gone jointly to three stations - Gandhidham in Gujarat, Kota in Rajasthan and Secunderabad in Telengana.
- The first prize winners will get Rs 10 lakh, second prize winners Rs 5 lakh and the third prize winners Rs 3 lakh.
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- Maharashtra has become the first state to issue a crucial land ownership document online and accept a digital signature on it as valid.
- The state government's plan of digitizing the 7/12 extract is thus complete. On 1 may, it went a step ahead and generated eight lakh documents with space for digital signatures. The facility was inaugurated by the chief minister.
- The 7/12 receipt is extensively used by farmers for loan agreements, crop survey and for availing of government facilities. Till a few years ago, hand-written 7/12 receipts were prepared by talathis, who solely had the power to make changes in the documents.
- This resulted in several instances of misuse of authority. While talathis, who are local level revenue staff, would be supposed to issue the document as a matter of assistance, in reality many of them would demand bribes.
- In all, there are 2.46 crore 7/12 extracts across the state's 43,000 villages. All have been digitized. "So far, eight lakh documents have been generated using digital signatures. The remaining will be completed by August," said revenue minister Chandrakant Patil.
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- Prime Minister Narendra Modi is far ahead of other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, when it comes to popularity on Facebook, according to a new study which said 43.2 million people follow the Indian premier on the social media platform.
- President Trump, who rules the other social media platform Twitter, is in second place with 23.1 million followers, according to the new study "World Leaders on Facebook" released on Wednesday by Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
- The study analyses the activity of 650 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from January 1, 2017 using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool, it said in a statement.
- Over the past 14 months, the Facebook page of President Trump had by far the most interactions of any world leader on Facebook, with a total of 204.9 million interactions (defined as the total number of comments, likes and shares), almost twice as many as Modi with 113.6 million interactions, the study said.
- PM Modi, 67, has always encouraged use of social media platforms to stay in touch with the public. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has 46 million interactions and Cambodia's Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri follow with 36 and 33.4 million interactions, respectively.
- The study found that 175, or 91 per cent, of the 193 United Nations member states maintain an official Facebook page. In addition, 109 heads of state, 86 heads of government and 72 foreign ministers maintain personal pages on the platform.
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