The great Indian election season is drawing to a close. Today is the last of the seven phases, which will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency
Varanasi
going to the polls.
The PM is on a meditation break at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari. He will fly out this evening. However, his spiritual sojourn has left
Bharatiya Janata Party’s rivals seething
.
The other big story is the summer of 2024. Several parts of India are gripped by an intense heatwave. Delhi recorded its highest temperatures at 52.9 degrees Celsius earlier in the week. The soaring mercury has claimed more than 50 lives and led to a rise in hospitalisations. We tell you how this impacts your health.
The
Porsche drink driving case
involving a 17-year-old boy continues to unravel. And a new report says that more teenage girls in India are taking to smoking.
In our weekly roundup of stories from India, we take a deep dive into the news that matters.
1. It’s a big day for PM Modi, as Varanasi goes to polls. The prime minister has been praying and meditating at the
Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari
for the past two days. He will head back to Delhi this evening, just hours before exit polls are to be released.
It’s become a tradition of sorts for Modi to take a meditation break after a hectic Lok Sabha campaign. In 2019, he went to Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath. This year, he headed to the southernmost tip of the country. So why did the PM pick the Kanyakumari monument?
We explain
.
2. The world is getting hotter. India is battling a cruel summer with temperatures in some parts crossing the
50 degrees Celsius mark
. But how hot is too hot? How much heat can your body tolerate?
The answer is not that simple. The recorded temperature is not all that matters. Humidity has a big role to play. Read on to
find out more
.
3. The scorching sun is making days unbearable. But in Indian cities, there seems to be no respite even at night. According to a new study, hotter nights are only adding to people’s misery. The high temperatures even after sunset are because of what experts call the “urban heat island”. Here’s
what it is and how it impacts your life
.
4. The Pune Porsche case continues to grab the nation’s attention. The affluent family of the 17-year-old boy who killed two techies did everything in their power to hide the crime. They bribed doctors to manipulate the blood reports of the teen who was reportedly drunk; they also reached out to politicians to intervene. But all attempts to cover up the case have failed. We bring you the
complete story
.
5. Friday was No Tobacco Day. But sadly India’s teens are not shunning it. A report by the Union health ministry revealed some shocking details. More adolescents, those between the ages of 10 and 16, are consuming tobacco – teenage girls more than boys. Smoking has gone up more than two-fold in young girls.
Between 2009 and 2019, the smoking rate among girls surged by 3.8 percentage points, reaching 6.2 per cent. In contrast, the smoking rate among boys rose by 2.3 percentage points during the same period. Here’s a
look at the report
.
6. Our last story is one of India’s big dreams. A Chennai-based space start-up AgniKul Cosmos successfully launched the Agnibaan SOrTeD rocket from Sriharikota on Thursday. It was a big relief as this came following four earlier attempts, which failed due to technical glitches.
The mission saw the first-ever 3D-printed semi-cryogenic rocket launched from a private launchpad. Here’s
why it’s a big deal
.
Hope you enjoyed our recommendations for the week. If you like how we explain the news, please return for
more
.
PS: By next Saturday, we will have an answer if PM Modi wins his third term. We have been closely following the elections; you can find our complete coverage
here
.
Link to article –
This Week in Explainers: Can temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius kill you?
