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Archive News of November 21, 2024

Rising chill brings air pollution worry for Bhopal citizens

As the mercury dips in Madhya Pradesh, the air quality in Bhopal and surrounding areas has been worsening continuously for the last ten days as the AQI crossed the 300 mark, putting it in the ‘very poor’ category.

Winter is making its presence felt in Madhya Pradesh with night temperatures in several parts dipping below 10 degree Celsius.

The minimum temperature in the capital city Bhopal was 11 degree Celsius, three degrees below the normal mark on Wednesday.

As always, the state's only hill station, Pachmarhi recorded the lowest temperature at 7.8 degree Celsius on Wednesday.

Temperatures in Shajapur, Shivpuri and Rajgarh were also recorded between 8.7 degree Celsius and 9.6 degree Celsius.

Delhi-Darbhanga Special Train derailed in West Champaran; no casualties

The Delhi-Darbhanga Special Train (number 04068) got derailed at Harinagar railway station in Bihar's West Champaran district in the early hours of Thursday.

The incident occurred as the train was entering track No.4 of the station, resulting in four wheels of coach number 153735/GSLRD coming off the tracks. This led to panic among passengers; however, no casualties were reported.

Following the derailment, the down line was temporarily closed, while the up line remained operational. The derailed coach was removed, and after a delay of approximately four hours, the train resumed its journey to Darbhanga around 4 a.m.

One killed as 'bomb cyclone' hits Washington

A 'bomb cyclone' hit Washington, leaving one person dead and half a million without power.

Damage from fallen trees and downed wires was reported throughout the region. A woman died after a large tree fell onto a homeless encampment in Lynnwood during Tuesday night's storm, according to the South County Fire, news agency reported.

More than half a million customers in Western Washington were without power for most of Tuesday night.

As of early Wednesday morning, more than 474,000 customers with the Puget Sound Energy were still in the dark. By 10 a.m., crews had managed to lower the number to 388,200.

Seattle City Light reported 112,600 customers without power late Tuesday in the city.

Malian Prime Minister dismissed after 'muscular outburst'

Mali's Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga and his government were dismissed, according to a decree issued by President Assimi Goita.

"The duties of the Prime Minister and the members of the government are terminated," said the decree, which was read out by the Secretary General of the presidency, news agency reported quoting the state television station ORTM.

The decision came after the head of government's "muscular outburst" against the transition at a meeting of the "Movement of June 5 - Rally of Patriotic Forces" (M5-RFP) last Saturday.

On Tuesday, demonstrators in the capital and many cities in the country called for Maiga's resignation.

NIA raids multiple locations in Jammu in terrorist infiltration case

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday was conducting raids at multiple places in the Jammu division of J&K, said officials here, adding that the action is being taken as part of probe in fresh cases registered by the agency.

Sleuths of the NIA assisted by CRPF and J&K Police started the raids at over a dozen places in Doda, Udhampur, Kishtwar and Reasi districts.

Official sources said these raids are being carried out in connection with new cases registered by NIA pertaining to over-ground workers (OGWs) of terrorist outfits and recent cases of infiltration into the union territory from across the border.

The OGWs are unarmed over-ground workers of terrorist outfits that provide logistic support to the terrorists. These otherwise unarmed civilians work as the eyes and ears of the terrorists. They provide information about the movement of the army, security forces and police to the terrorists.

India’s economic activity growth reaches 8-month high in October: Report

The growth in economic activity in India improved markedly to an eight-month high of 10.1 per cent in October from 6.6 per cent in September, despite an unfavourable base, according to a report on Thursday.

The strengthening in growth momentum was led by the favourable impact of the departure of monsoon on sectors like mining and electricity, healthy demand during the festive season that boosted vehicle registrations, fuel consumption, air travel and the surge in exports, said the report by credit rating agency ICRA.

“The early data for November appears upbeat, with a base-effect led rise in electricity demand growth and a continued festive boost in vehicle registrations,” the report mentioned.

46 killed in 'paramilitary attacks, epidemics' in Sudan

At least 46 people have been killed in a village in Sudan due to alleged attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and spreading diseases, a medical source and a volunteer group said.

The medical source from a hospital near Wad Ashib village in Gezira State told that "during Tuesday and Wednesday, the hospital received bodies of 21 people who were killed in an RSF attack on the village. The attack was repeated on Wednesday," news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Nidaa Al-Wasat Platform, a volunteer group monitoring rights violations in central Sudan, said in a statement that the village "has been besieged by the RSF, which prevented medical and food supplies, leading to the death of 25 people so far."

The RSF has not commented on the alleged attacks.

Blanket of smog continues in Delhi, AQI 'very poor'

A layer of smog blanketed Delhi on Thursday morning, as the air quality index (AQI) was at 389 at 7.15 a.m., falling into the "very poor" category. However, some areas continued to have severe air pollution levels.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, in 12 areas of Delhi, the AQI level remained between 400 and 500. It was 408 in Alipur, 405 in Anand Vihar, 414 in Ashok Vihar, 418 in Bawana, 401 in Dwarka Sector 8, 435 in Jahangirpuri, 413 in Mundka, 411 in Nehru Nagar, 407 in Punjabi Bagh, 407 in Rohini, 412 in Shadipur, and Wazirpur remains at 436 level.

Whereas in 26 areas of the national capital, the AQI level remained above 300 and between 400. It was 369 in Aya Nagar, 339 in Chandni Chowk, 343 in Mathura Road, 368 in Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, 360 in DTU, 370 in IGI Airport, 341 in Dilshad Garden, 365 in ITO, 354 in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Jaipur's air quality slips into 'very poor' category

The air quality in Jaipur on Thursday slipped into the 'very poor' category as the AQI level reached 344 in the Mansarovar area. The air remained in the 'poor' category in other areas of the city where the quality index was over 200.

Besides Jaipur, the air quality index (AQI) stayed 'poor' in other cities of Rajasthan like Jhalawar, Sikar, Sawai Madhopur and Sri Ganganagar.

On Thursday, Jhalawar had 245 AQI, Sikar had 279, Sawai Madhopur had 204, Tonk had 324 and Sri Ganganagar had 242. Kota in Shrinath Puram had an AQI level of 294, said Central Pollution Control Board officials.

Nvidia reports strong revenue growth at $35.1 billion in AI era

World’s largest company Nvidia reported strong results for its third quarter (ended October 27) at $35.1 billion, up 17 per cent from the previous quarter and up 94 per cent from a year ago.

Nvidia has been a leader in AI, making it the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalisation of over $3.6 trillion.

“The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to Nvidia computing. Demand for Hopper and anticipation for Blackwell — in full production — are incredible as foundation model makers scale pretraining, post-training and inference,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia.

Despite a 94 per cent revenue growth in third quarter, the figure is still lower for the fourth quarter in a row, having grown 122 per cent, 262 per cent and 265 per cent in the three previous quarters. For the fourth quarter, Nvidia expects sales to be $37.5 billion plus or minus 2 per cent.

Samsung introduces 2nd generation AI model ‘Gauss 2’

Samsung Electronics on Thursday unveiled Gauss 2, the second generation of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, at an annual tech conference.

During a keynote address of the online Samsung Developer Conference Korea 2024, the company highlighted the improved performance, efficiency and various application possibilities of its latest AI model.

Samsung Gauss, first introduced last year, is aimed at enhancing the work efficiency of workers by facilitating tasks, such as composing emails, summarising documents and translating content, reports news agency.

The second-generation version offers improved performance and efficiency in simultaneously handling various data types as a multimodal model integrating language, code and images.

Stock market opens in red amid rising Russia-Ukraine tensions

The Indian stock market opened in red on Thursday amid rising Russia-Ukraine war tensions. Heavy selling was seen in the PSU bank sector in early trade and Nifty PSU Bank was down by more than 4 per cent.

In early trade at 9:43 a.m., Sensex was trading at 76,968.28 after slipping 610.10 points or 0.79 per cent. Nifty was trading at 23,308.85 after falling 209.65 points or 0.89 per cent.

Market trend remained negative. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 445 stocks were trading in green, while 1560 stocks were trading in red.

Nifty Bank was at 50,299.40 after falling 397.10 points or 0.78 per cent. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 54,377.85 after falling 170.40 points or 0.31 per cent. The Nifty Small cap 100 index was at 17,582.85 after falling 94.50 points or 0.53 per cent.