Saving planet Earth

Hello,

Looks like PhysicsWallah (PW) is having a good run. As a growth strategy, PW is planning to invest $10 million (about Rs 82 crore) in phases in its school-integrated programme Vidyapeeth School, currently available in 39 schools.

PW is looking at rolling out the Vidyapeeth School programme in 300 schools by 2025-26 in Tier III and IV cities, Vice President Imran Rashid said. 

Read our coverage on how the three-year-old startup is growing faster than its competitors, projecting a 3x revenue growth for FY22-23. 

Moving on. Another company has fallen prey to cyberattacks. This time it is the broking firm Angel One. 

Angel One reported a data breach, saying client holding data may have been accessed. The company is verifying the breach, including its source, and taking relevant action, it said in an exchange filing. 

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit on robust growth across the board in its energy-to-consumer businesses. Net income rose 19% year-on-year to $2.4 billion in the quarter ended March 31.

Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, reported its slowest profit and revenue growth in five quarters due to higher expenses and a lack of recent tariff hikes. Its net profit rose 13% to $574.8 million in the three months ended March 31.

ICYMI: The man who popularised hashtags on Twitter, Chris Messina, has quit the platform after how the company handled the verification business. 

Speaking of taking down the blue ticks, several Indian politicians, celebrities, and sportspersons have also lost their verified status. Here’s what Amitabh Bachchan had to say! 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Saving planet Earth
• Aditi Rao Hydari on stardom
• Immersing in Van Gogh

Here’s your trivia for today: How many languages are written from right to left?

Climate

Saving planet Earth

Young people globally are becoming important drivers of climate change. They are conservationists, climate activists, and social entrepreneurs passionate about making the earth a better planet to live in. Meet young changemakers from India who have been featured in One For Change 2.0, a series of short films to be aired on National Geographic on Earth Day.

For Earth:

• Fifteen-year-old Bodhisatva Khanderao from Yavatmal, Maharashtra, has increased around 80% of forest cover in his area with a simple solution—Magic Socks.
• At 17, Haaziq Kazi is effecting change with the ERVIS ship—a prototype ocean cleaner ship capable of sucking out plastic from the ocean’s surface, which he designed when he was in Grade IV.
• Similarly, nine-year-old Thaaragai Aarathana is collecting discarded plastic on the beaches of Chennai and, so far, has scooped up 800 kg of waste.

Interview

Aditi Rao Hydari on stardom

A patient, life-changing journey to stardom is the best way to describe Aditi Rao Hydari’s time on the silver screen. Petite, elegant, and a breath of fresh air since her debut in Hindi movies in 2011, Hydari has always been one set to become a popular heroine.

After the success of Prime Video’s Jubilee, Hydari talks about living her dream and achieving unmatched success in the OTT era.

Heroine for all: 

• Hydari has been working in Hindi films for 12 years, having dealt with the pitfalls of becoming a leading woman as an outsider within an insular industry. 
• Her fortunes changed with Mani Ratnam’s Kaatru Veliyidai (2017), where she was cast opposite Karthi, a Tamil star.
• Hydari’s classic looks and mysterious eyes brought her validation and opportunities to do quality films. Be it Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat (2018) or the Telugu film Sammohanam (2018)—one can see the evident shift in her body of work.

Art and Culture

Immerse yourself in Van Gogh

After a successful debut in Mumbai, the Van Gogh 360° showcase is enthralling residents of Delhi-NCR. Organised by Festival House Inc., it brings over 300 of Van Gogh’s works, including Almond Blossom, Wheatfield with Crows, Irises, and Sunflowers, in a dynamic show. 

Painting blue:

• This space represents everything about Van Gogh’s life and works through large pictorial slides, complemented with literature that details the different turning points in his life.
• The Starry Night, an oil-on-canvas magnum opus by the post-impressionist Dutch painter is perhaps one of the most recognisable artworks in the world. For the painter, “The night was more alive and richly coloured than the day.” 
• The interest in Van Gogh among the younger lot can be attributed to Netflix’s popular series Emily in Paris, where the Van Gogh exhibit is captured on camera. 

News & updates

• Lawsuits: Investors representing over 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of Credit Suisse bonds have sued the Swiss regulator after their investments were wiped out during a government-orchestrated rescue. The move was the first step to seek redress for clients whose assets had been expropriated during Credit Suisse's takeover by UBS.
• Explosive: Elon Musk’s personal fortune took a hit of almost $13 billion as the world watched a SpaceX rocket explode, even as Tesla delivered underwhelming earnings. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Musk’s net worth was depleted by $12.6 billion.
• Callback: Maruti Suzuki India Ltd said it would recall 7,213 units of its Baleno RS hatchback over a possible defect in the vacuum pump that assists its brake function. The affected vehicles were manufactured between October 27, 2016, and November 1, 2019.

How many languages are written from right to left?

Answer: 12. These are—Arabic, Aramaic, Azeri, Divehi, Fula, Hebrew, Kurdish, N'ko, Persian, Rohingya, Syriac, and Urdu.

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