Every day we come across several pictures and videos that inform us about wildlife and animals. These videos are often intriguing to watch and may even capture the attention of many. Now, another wildlife-related clip is going viral. It shows a hornbill collecting fruits for its family.
Hornbill picking fruits for family.(Twitter/@Parveen Kaswan)
“As soon as you enter #Forest. This hornbill is collecting fruits. It’s nesting time for them. Females are with kids in nests,” wrote Indian Forest Service officer Parveen Kaswan on Twitter. He also shared a video where you can see a hornbill picking fruits.
Watch the video below:
This post was shared just a day ago. Since being posted, it has been viewed more than 20,000 times. The share has also received over 700 likes and several comments.
Check out a few reactions below:
An individual wrote, “Nature never stops to amaze. I have heard that during the nesting period female hornbill don’t leave the nest for 3 months and it’s the male who feeds.” A second added, “I didn’t know hornbills were seen in India purely because of how exotic they looked to me. Thanks to you I have now focused more towards the forests and seen a few migrating towards Kerala ig. Their distinctive flight makes them a bit easier to spot high in the sky! Tysm!” A third posted, “Wow, the sounds of the forest are so peaceful and calm.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Russia will attack European countries next if measures like security guarantees to Kyiv are not taken.
In A Meeting Held In The Presence Of The Deputy Chief Constable At The Surendranagar Collector’s Office, Necessary Suggestions Were Made To Prevent The Suffering Of Patients In The Government Hospital.
Thousands of people on Thursday marched in Jerusalem’s Pride parade — an annual event that took place for the first time under Israel’s new far-right government, which is stacked with openly homophobic members.
People take part in an annual LGBTQ Pride parade in Jerusalem, Friday.(REUTERS)
The march in the conservative city is always tense and tightly secured by police, and has been wracked by violence in the past. But this year, Israel finds itself deeply riven over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. The plan has torn open longstanding societal divisions between those who want to preserve Israel’s liberal values and those who seek to shift it toward more religious conservatism.
Jerusalem’s march is typically more subdued than the one in gay-friendly Tel Aviv, where tens of thousands of revelers pour into the streets for a massive, multicolored party. But Thursday’s parade, amid tight security, drew bigger crowds than usual in a show of force against the government and its plan to reshape the legal system.
“There isn’t one struggle in Israel for democracy, and another one for LGBTQ rights,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a speech to the crowd. “It’s the same struggle, against the same enemies, in the name of the same values.”
Other opposition politicians and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, joined Thursday’s march. “I don’t find this controversial one way or the other,” Nides said. “This is about the rights and human rights, and this is what brings America and Israel together.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is made up of ultranationalist and ultra-religious parties who openly oppose homosexuality, although the Israeli leader has promised to protect LGBTQ rights and a member of his party who is gay is the Knesset speaker.
The country’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has in the past declared he was a “proud homophobe.” Before entering politics, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who now oversees the police, was a fixture at Pride parades, joining a group of protesters who oppose the march. Avi Maoz, a deputy minister with authorities over some educational content, has said he wanted the legality of the Jerusalem Pride parade examined.
Ben-Gvir said Wednesday there would be a “massive” police presence guarding the marchers and that he supported the freedom of expression manifested by the parade. Israeli police said more than 2,000 officers were deployed along the parade route.
“It will be the police’s duty to protect, guard and ensure that even if the minister disagrees with the parade, the safety of the marchers is above all else,” Ben-Gvir said.
At one point during the parade, Ben-Gvir was jeered with chants of “shame” as he walked on the sidelines for what he said was a visit to monitor security.
Hagar Ponne, of Jerusalem, called the march a “happy occasion” but also said it was the “antithesis” to the national climate.
“There are people who are very much homophobic and very much transphobic who are in the government today and hold positions of power and budget and are working against us actually right now,” she said.
People carried a flag that read: “There is no pride without democracy.”
Like other years, a small group of anti-LGBTQ activists attended Thursday’s parade. At the parade in 2015, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli man stabbed 16-year-old Shira Banki to death and wounded several others.
Israel is generally tolerant toward the LGBTQ community, a rarity in the conservative Middle East, where homosexuality is widely considered taboo and is outlawed in some places. Members of the LGBTQ community serve openly in Israel’s military and parliament, and many popular artists and entertainers are openly gay.
Yet activists say there is a long road toward full equality. Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties, which wield significant influence over matters of religion and state, oppose homosexuality as a violation of religious law, as do other religious groups in Israel.
The conservative make-up of Netanyahu’s government sparked new fears in the LGBTQ community, which had seen gains under the previous, short-lived administration led by Netanyahu’s rivals. Those fears were exacerbated when the government pushed ahead on its plan to overhaul the judiciary, a plan that was put on hold in March after a burst of spontaneous mass protests.
The plan would weaken the judiciary and limit judicial oversight on laws and government decisions, what critics say poses a direct threat to civil rights and the rights of minorities and marginalized groups.
Protests have continued even though the government and opposition are in talks to find a compromise on the plan and demonstrators are expected to show up in Jerusalem to lend their support to the community.
The government says the judicial plan is meant to rein in what it says is an overly interventionist Supreme Court and restore power to elected legislators. Critics say it will grant the government unrestrained power and upend the country’s system of checks and balances.
An ageing Kiran trainer aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF), flown by one of India’s finest test pilots and with a woman flight test engineer aboard, crashed on the outskirts of Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar on Thursday, putting the spotlight on the decades-old plane and the pressing need to replace it with a modern aircraft, officials said.
Local residents at the site where a Kiran trainer aircraft crashed, in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district, on Thursday. (PTI)
Both aircrew ejected from the doomed trainer and were airlifted to Command Hospital Air Force, Bengaluru, for treatment. The air force did not release the names of the pilot or the engineer.
The aircraft and the aircrew are from the premier Bengaluru-based Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) that conducts flight testing of aircraft and airborne systems, said one of the officials cited above, asking not to be named.
IAF has launched a probe into the accident.
“A Kiran trainer aircraft of the IAF crashed near Chamarajanagar, Karnataka, today, while on a routine training sortie. Both aircrew ejected safely. A court of inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident,” the IAF said in a statement.
The test pilot is an air commodore while the flight test engineer is a squadron leader, said a second official cited above, who also asked not to be named. Only a handful of women officers in the IAF serve as flight test engineers – professionals who are responsible for evaluating aircraft and airborne systems. Squadron Leader Aashritha V Olety was the first woman officer to qualify for the role in May 2021, and till last year, there were only three women flight test engineers in the IAF.
The air force plans to retire the Kiran trainers by 2025, said a third official.
The much-delayed Sitara intermediate jet trainer (IJT), being developed by state-owned plane maker Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), was planned as a replacement for the IAF’s Kiran fleet to carry out stage-II training of fighter pilots. The IJT project is several years behind schedule and testing activity is still on.
Rookie IAF pilots go through a three-stage training involving the Swiss-origin Pilatus PC-7 MkII planes, Kiran trainers and finally the British-origin Hawk advanced jet trainers before they can fly supersonic fighter jets. The Kiran trainers were first inducted into the IAF in the 1960s.
The crash on Thursday took place at Bhogapura, about 10 km from Chamarajanagar town, local police said. Somashekar, a local resident and eyewitness, said: “The plane came from the Bengaluru side, turned around, then turned upside down and finally came crashing down. It crashed around half a kilometre from our gram panchayat building.”
A helicopter from HAL flew the senior test pilot and the flight test engineer to Command Hospital Air Force. “Both landed around half a kilometre from where the plane crashed. The pilot complained of back pain and the flight test engineer suffered minor injuries,” said a police officer.
The replacement of the Kiran aircraft is long overdue, said Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), director general, Centre for Air Power Studies. “It has played a critical training role for decades and served the IAF well. It is about time that it be replaced with a new intermediate jet trainer to meet important stage-II training requirements of the IAF,” Chopra added.
The IJT or the HJT-36 single-engine aircraft has completed a raft of crucial trials, but the testing process is still on, the officials said. The inordinate delay in the IJT programme, conceived almost 25 years ago, upset the IAF’s calculations and forced it to fly the Kiran trainers longer than it would have liked, the officials added. The project was sanctioned in July 1999 with a grant of ₹180 crore. The IJT was expected to get initial operational clearance by 2006.
In January 2022, HAL announced that the IJT had successfully demonstrated the capability to carry out six turn spins, a key requirement for trainers and the most crucial phase of flight testing. The capability to enter and recover from a spin is a necessity for a trainer aircraft to familiarise trainee pilots with departure from controlled flight and the actions required to recover from such situations.
To be sure, the IJT project is no longer backed by the IAF, and HAL had to dig into its internal funds to carry out critical trials after the project suffered a critical setback during spin testing in 2016 and brought the programme to a temporary halt.
The future of the IJT project looks uncertain and the IAF could lease trainer aircraft to meet its requirements after the Kirans retire, the officials said.
To be sure, at Aero India 2023, held at the Yelahanka airbase in Bengaluru in February, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari led the “gurukul” formation in the light combat aircraft Tejas. The HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft, the IJT and the Hawk-i aircraft were part of the four-aircraft formation.
Apart from intermediate jet trainers, the IAF also needs basic trainer aircraft to meet stage-I training requirements. In March, the defence ministry signed a ₹6,838-crore contract with HAL for 70 HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft. The new trainer aircraft, a longstanding need, will provide a boost to the ab initio training of air force pilots. Just like the Pilatus PC-7 MkII planes, these indigenous basic trainers could also be used for stage-II training if needed, the officials said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arun Dev is an Assistant Editor with the Karnataka bureau of Hindustan Times. A journalist for over 10 years, he has written extensively on crime and politics. …view detail
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
On a perpetual voyage of learning so that I can write stories that make sense …view detail
A video of a very dramatic dog was recently shared on Reddit. The clip captures how the dog refuses when its human asks it to shake its paw. It is one of such videos that will leave you chuckling and may also make you say ‘Aww’.
The image shows the dramatic dog. (Reddit/@infini-q50)
The video is posted with a simple caption that reads, “Why would he do that?”. The clip opens to show the dog standing in front of the camera. Within moments, its human extends one of their hands and asks the dog for its paw. The doggo, however, dramatically refuses.
Take a look at the video:
The video was posted a day ago. Since being shared, it has accumulated over 5,200 upvotes and the numbers are only increasing. Additionally, the share has received various comments.
Here’s how Reddit users reacted:
“He wants to play. He’s teasing you to try to get you riled up,” suggested a Reddit user. “I dunno, but it’s too adorable,” added another. “Why wouldn’t he do that lol he has chaos in his eyes,” added a third. “He gave a hand, then decided it was way more fun to spin in circles until his eyes rolled back into his head… cracked the case. Also… Husky. They are in the, ‘Why are you like this?!’ category of dogs,” wrote a fourth.
A rare coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans came together on Wednesday in the United States (US) House of Representatives to pass the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2023, a legislation that suspends the debt ceiling limit for two years in exchange for spending cuts in the federal budget.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif. along with other Republican members of the House, speaks at a news conference after the House passed the debt ceiling bill at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP)
The passage of the bill, a product of an understanding between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, helps the US avert what would have been an unprecedented default on its obligations and an economic crisis. The bill will now go to the Senate where it is expected to pass smoothly.
Overcoming objections from far-Right Republicans, who argued that the spending cuts did not go far enough, and progressive Democrats, who argued that the spending cuts went too far and objected to debt ceiling negotiations itself, 314 Congressional representatives voted for the bill. Among them were 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats. But 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats voted against the bill.
The US had hit its debt limit of $31.4 trillion on January 19. While the Treasury Department had resorted to extraordinary measures since then, it had warned that a failure to suspend the debt limit by June 5 would result in the Us defaulting on its obligations. After prolonged negotiations, Biden and McCarthy struck a deal on Saturday.
This rested on Republicans agreeing to suspend the limit till 2025 and Democrats agreeing to add work requirements in case of certain categories of welfare recipients, returning unspent funds from the pandemic relief package, cutting additional funding for tax enforcement, and enabling easier permissions for energy projects, among other measures.
In a statement, Biden said, “The House took a critical step forward to prevent a first-ever default and protect our country’s hard-earned and historic economic recovery. This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise. Neither side got everything it wanted. That’s the responsibility of governing.”
Thanking McCarthy, Biden reiterated that his agreement with the Republicans protected “key priorities and accomplishments” of the past two years, including the spending commitments under the Inflation Reduction Act, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. “I urge the Senate to pass it as quickly as possible so that I can sign it into law, and our country can continue building the strongest economy in the world,” Biden said.
McCarthy hailed the vote as a win and claimed that he had pushed the Democrats to engineer the “greatest savings” in American history. In a statement, the House Republican leadership said, “Taxpayers will save an estimated $2.1 trillion, and Congress will spend less money next year than this year for the first time in a decade — without adding new taxes on families.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prashant Jha is the Washington DC-based US correspondent of Hindustan Times. He is also the editor of HT Premium. Jha has earlier served as editor-views and national political editor/bureau chief of the paper. He is the author of How the BJP Wins: Inside India’s Greatest Election Machine and Battles of the New Republic: A Contemporary History of Nepal. …view detail
Mount Everest has been conquered, according to a copyright message published in ‘The Times’ today.
HT This Day: June 2, 1953 — Mount Everest conquered at last
News of the successful bid of the British expedition in reaching the summit of Mt. Everest was given by announcers who broke into U.S. radio and television programmes today.
The news came as a graphic and welcome addition to the details of the Coronation which had been filling American newspapers for days.
Col. John Hunt, leader of the British Expedition, was believed to have planned the final assault on May 29 or 30.
Observers in Kathmandu had earlier thought that the expedition had again been thrown behind schedules as happened in the first abortive attempt.
Col. Hunt, leader of the expedition, had earlier reported failure of the first assault due to bad weather and snow.
Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is a peak of the Himalayas situated in Nepal. Its elevation is approximately 29,140 ft.
After a reconnaissance attempt in 1921, the first assault on the mountain was made in 1922. Brig.-Gen. C. G. Bruce was in command.
The second attempt was made in 1924. Brig.-Gen. Bruce was again in command.
Mallory and Irvine who, in 1924, reached an altitude of 28,230 feet, never returned to tell their tale.
The pre-1935 attempts were all from the north side and an altitude of about 28,000 feet was reached, after which a “yellow pass” presented a very steep and slippery approach, leading to a still more hazardous “black pass,” whose condition could not even be guessed with any measure of accuracy. Also. the route is subject to blizzards and almost impossible weather conditions. The west and south route, which was followed by the Swiss and the 1953 British expedition, is in an ice valley which is not only safe from strong winds, but also gets longer sunlight.
