Lucknow, May 17 (IANS) After dealing with the second Covid wave successfully, the Uttar Pradesh government is gearing up to stop the third wave of the pandemic. For this, not only beds are being increased in hospitals, but oxygen concentrators have also been arranged in rural areas.

New Delhi, May 15 (IANS) Award-winning childrens author Vaishali Shroff belongs to a family of wildlife enthusiasts. While her husband and children look for interesting sightings and topographies to photograph, she looks for stories and lessons to be learnt, like for instance, that life in a forest evokes empathy for all living beings.

New Delhi, May 10 (IANS) Author and gastronomist Veena Sharma has always believed that ones kitchen is ones best pharmacy, providing us with the particular admixtures and combinations that help uplift both our physical and mental constitutions.

New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) In 1998, Ray McLennan, who till then had been importing into the UK "all sorts of things" from India like musical instruments, saris, tilak, Tulsi malas and agarbatti, purchased Motilal Books, a small Oxford-based distributor focusing on academic bookshops and university libraries.

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), a perennially controversial body, provided the Indian Premier League (IPL) accreditation cards to two individuals who were hired by an agency as part-time workers during the tournament, says BCCI Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief Shabbir Hussain Khandwawala. The two individuals were allegedly providing match/other information to undesirable people on phone from inside the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) It began as a tale of a mother and a daughter, two Indian Americans who are gold thieves, but expanded into a magical realist story about two immigrant families and about the costs of ambition, says Atlanta-based author Sanjena Sathian, of her debut novel, "Gold Diggers" (HarperCollins).

New Delhi, May 4 (IANS) The leopard is the reigning rock star of the wildlife world. It's a species that is obscure and largely overshadowed by the tiger, especially in India, scientist, conservationist and author Sanjay Gubbi writes in "Leopard Diaries".

New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) Do you remember an Indian Army recruitment campaign that went along the lines of "Do you have it in you"? Then, during the Kargil War of 1999, the late Captain Vikram Batra raised this to a new peak with his oft repeated quote: "Yeh dil maange more".

New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) UK India Business Council (UKIBC), an advocacy group that works with businesses and governments in the UK and India with an objective to strengthen bilateral trade and investment ties, is hoping for great synergy between the two countries in the upcoming virtual meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his UK counterpart Boris Johnson.

New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) Hollywood heartthrob Michael B. Jordan tells you choosing the right script is like choosing the right move in a game of chess. Self-confessedly "a pretty calculated person", Jordan's game plan has clearly clicked so far.

Lucknow, April 24 (IANS) Bhojpuri actress Amrapali Dubey, who has been praised for her acting, has been constantly trying to raise the bar for Bhojpuri cinema. She says that Bhojpuri cinema is going through difficult times but the industry has gone through worse and now there is a ray of hope. The only battle is to take the industry to the multiplexes.

New Delhi, April 22 (IANS) Ace photographer Raghu Rai was only five years into the profession when the Bangladesh liberation struggle erupted in March 1971. He was dispatched post-haste by The Statesman newspaper to record the exodus of refugees, they would eventually number some 10 million, as they streamed into West Bengal and neighbouring states to escape the atrocities being committed by the Pakistani Army.

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) Archimedes' discovery of the relationship of weight, volume and density of materials, Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, Samuel Morse devising the Morse code, Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone and Charles Goodyear devising the process of vulcanising rubber all occurred during serendipitous moments they recognised and seized.

New Delhi, April 17 (IANS) When a community decreases in numbers, its traditional food becomes a memory and it is to ensure that this memory prevails that award winning author Esther David set out to chronicle the dietary habits of the 5,000-odd Jews residing in five areas of the country � down from a peak of about 30,000 in the 1940s � discovering that despite 2,000 years having passed since the community first arrived in India, their food might have imbibed regional influences but observes a strict dietary law to this day.

New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) Without legacy systems of the past, Indian businesses are uniquely positioned to leverage the new digital media, says Will Page, former Chief Economist of music streaming app Spotify, in his new book "Tarzan Economics" (Simon & Schuster), extrapolating the global music industry's journey in coping with the threat of online piracy to present eight principles for pivoting through today's ubiquitous disruption in almost all industries -- much in the manner in which the 'ape man' swings from vine to vine to attain his goals.

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) Indian actor Adarsh Gourav earned global spotlight with his nomination at the 74th British Academy of Films and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for his performance of Balram Halwai in "The White Tiger", in the Leading Actor category. Although he did not win, he is not upset.

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The Jallianwala Bagh massacre propelled Mahatma Gandhi to assume centre stage and encouraged him to launch his non-violent movement, says Nonica Datta, an Associate Professor of History at JNU in a new introduction to her late father V.N. Datta's book, "Jallianwala Bagh - a groundbreaking history of the 1919 massacre" that was published on its 50 anniversary in 1969 and has been updated on the 102nd anniversary, April 13, of the horrific slaughter in which, according to the author's research, over 700 unarmed civilians were killed.

New Delhi, April 10 (IANS) Hero or hurdle? That's the question one is left wondering after reading "The Gopichand Factor" (Westland) given author Abhijeet Kulkarni's praising sky high only the second Indian to win the All-England badminton title but also grudgingly admitting how he has been an impediment to the game while being the Chief National Coach for the past 14 years while simultaneously running his private training academy -- leading to repeated charges of a huge conflict of interest.

New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) The physical manifestations of diseases in our present life can be linked to cellular memories from the past, including even childhood or early stages of our present life � especially when the stored memories area negative or traumatic, says Natwar Sharma, a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health who has trained at the Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, in his new book, "Metaphors of Memory" (Westland).

New Delhi, April 6 (IANS) The new chief of BCCI's Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), Shabir Hussein Khandwawala, is a former top cop of Gujarat Police with huge interest in cricket having played and organised police tournaments at the state level.

New Delhi, April 5 (IANS) Ace Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav was part of India's recent series victories over Australia and England, travelling with the team in the bio-bubble.

New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) Ten years ago on this day, Gautam Gambhir had played one of the best knocks by an Indian batsman in a World Cup, scoring 97 in the final against Sri Lanka to help India win the second title after 28 years.

New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) was not only Urdu's first great poet but also the most prolific one with around 13,500 couplets to his name. He is credited with giving shape and structure to the Urdu language itself, is counted among the five major poets of the language along with Mirza Ghalib, Mir Anees Allama Iqbal and Josh Malihabadi and is often mentioned as 'Khuda-e-Sukhan' (God of Posey or poetry).

New Delhi, March 31 (IANS) A biography of the last Maharaja of Travancore that attempts to provide an "authentic" account of his accession and his legacy is, however, silent on the shenanigans of his Dewan, Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, to retain the independence of the province in 1947 and his deal with the British to export the states valuable mineral resources, while the author obfuscated on the two issues in an interview with IANS.

New Delhi, March 31 (IANS) Faisal Kapadia is "celebrating right now". The singer of the iconic rock band Strings, which last week announced its break-up after going strong for 33 years, reveals a bittersweet tone of voice as he speaks. It wasn't an "easy decision" for him, or Bilal Siddiqui -- the other half of the original band -- to "end the journey". But, as Faisal puts it, the timing couldn't have been better.