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When Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Annadurai enthralled students at Yale University There is an apocryphal story that testifies to the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai’s [1909-69] command of English language. Anna, as he is fondly called, was at America’s Yale University as a Chubb Fellow in 1968 when he was asked to construct a sentence in English using the word “because” three times consecutively. Anna was said to have famously replied: “No sentence ends with because, because, because is a conjunction.” This clever response, along with his speeches in the Rajya Sabha and his travel accounts from the…

SC orders DISCOMs to clear their regulatory assets | Explained The story so far: The Supreme Court recently directed the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) and distribution companies (DISCOMs) to clear the existing regulatory assets within four years and liquidate any new assets within three years. The court also advised capping the regulatory asset at 3% of a DISCOM’s Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) and instructed regulators to set out transparent roadmaps for recovery, along with conducting intensive audits of DISCOMs that continue without recovering these assets. What are regulatory assets? Regulatory assets constitute the unrecoverable revenue gap due to the…

How dead birds, old maps are helping scientists track biodiversity loss The Nilgiri mountains in the Western Ghats are a biodiversity hotspot, home to a diverse array of birds, mammals, plants, and other life forms. Called the ‘blue mountains’ because of the blooming of Strobilanthus flowers, the Nilgiris are home to many species that are endemic and of conservation concern, including the Nilgiri pipit, the Nilgiri sholakili, and the Nilgiri laughingthrush. In a study recently published in Global Change Biology, Vijay Ramesh and a team of scientists from institutes in India, the UK, and the US explored how changes in…

Deputy CM hands over appointment orders under sports quota Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin distributed appointment orders to sports personnel . A total of eight sports personalities got jobs obtained through the sports quota . Read full story: Source

CRDA to acquire 1,800 acres in Amaravati for capital development P. Narayana appealed to small group of farmers in Amaravati to part with their lands under the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) He said land pooling would provide them significantly higher long-term benefits compared to land acquisition . Read full story: Source

Which came first — Madras or Chennai? Madras and Chennai were first mentioned in Venkatadri Nayak’s land grant of 1639 . Madras was to the north of the fort, Chennapatnam was the name of the land on which Fort St. George came to be built . In 1672, a fresh grant was needed, this time from the new power, namely Golconda . By 1802, a Marathi manuscript reversed history and the fort became Madras . Read full story: Source