German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz received a notice from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), accusing the company of violating environmental pollution rules, according to a report by NDTV.

“Sub-divisional officers of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board had inspected Mercedes Benz’s Chakan plant. Several pollution rules were found to be violated in it. Therefore, the company has been issued a notice and asked to respond within 15 days,” said Jagannath Salunkhe, the regional officer of the state pollution control board was quoted as saying in the report.

The report revealed that the the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board issued the notice after Chairman Siddesh Kadam, along with other officials, visited the Mercedes facility at Chakan near Pune last month for a surprise inspection.

The notice cited, among other reasons, the clarifiers and centrifuge units in the sewage treatment plant not working and the company’s failure to comply with the requirement to install emission control devices for diesel engines as the reason for the pollution control board scrutiny.

“The company is not following pollution control rules. Clarifiers and centrifuge units in the sewage treatment plant are not working. It has also not complied with the request for (the) installation of emission control devices for diesel engines. The sewage treatment plant is not properly operated and maintained,” said the notice.

The board has asked the company to respond within 15 days of the notice, reported the news portal after reviewing the notice issued on Friday, September 20.

Mercedes-Benz India’s response

Mercedes-Benz India has confirmed that the company has received a notice from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board and said that, “The issues in this notice will be studied and responded to. Our role is to cooperate with government agencies.”

The company’s Chakan facility in Pune was set up in 2009 and covers an area of more than 100 acres, as per the report.

Houston, Texas – It’s another setback for popular Third Ward restaurant, The Turkey Leg Hut.

The Alameda Road, restaurant, closed, after the Houston Health Department found several violations.

In an email sent to KPRC 2, the health department said they ordered the closure on September 19th due to serious health code violations. An inspection revealed 35 violations, which the department says include conditions that “pose an imminent threat to public health.”

The restaurant will remain closed until all the issues have been resolved, a follow up inspection is done and the restaurant is up to safety standards.

The Turkey Leg Hut’s Instagram account had a post saying they were closed over the weekend for renovations.

This comes after the restaurants filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, earlier this year.

More than 700 migrants crossed the English Channel in 11 small boats yesterday, government figures show.

The figure is significantly higher than the 292 migrants who arrived on Sunday last week.

Home Office data shows 707 people were detected coming across yesterday – one of the highest daily figures this year.

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April 3, 1982 was a red letter day in the history of Indo-Russian joint space programs.

Rakesh Sharma, then a 35-year-old Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jet pilot, flew aboard the Soyuz T-11 with two cosmonauts from the Soviet Union – Commander Yury Malyshev and Flight Engineer Gennady Strekalov – to the Salyut-7 space station to become the first Indian to travel to space. During the next eight days, Sharma photographed India from space and performed yoga exercises to study the effects on the body during weightlessness.

Sharma was chosen for the space program in 1982 along with backup Ravish Malhotra, another IAF officer. The two trained for two years in Russia before Sharma lifted off.

Four decades later, Sharma, now 75, lives in the picturesque hill town of Coonoor in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He vividly remembers how language and harsh Russian winters troubled him during the preparatory training for the challenging journey.

“Ravish and I did not know even a single word of the language, though the entire training was conducted in Russian. We found it difficult in the beginning but everything became easy once we learnt the language,” he told RT in an exclusive interview. 

“Adjusting to the extreme weather was the other issue. We spent two winters there and the temperature came down to -30C,” he said, adding: “Our Russian colleagues always made us feel at home. People of Russia are much like Indians. They are emotional in their approach and they are simple folks as we are.”

Sharma said he could not hide his excitement when the Soyuz T-11 finally reached the Salyut-7 station and was greeted by the five Russian cosmonauts already aboard. Though Sharma had interacted with them before, their first physical meeting happened in space. 

“With our arrival, the space shuttle had eleven cosmonauts. It was the first time that such a large number of space travelers orbited the Earth together,” he said.

Salyut space stations, which served as living quarters and scientific laboratories for the cosmonauts, bore testimony to the Soviet Union’s commitment to exploring the cosmos.

The first such station was launched in 1971. Salyut-7, in which Sharma orbited the Earth, was launched in 1982, which continued in orbit until 1991. “We were there in the station for a short period, but the resident crew of the Salyut-7 continued on to establish a record,” Sharma said.

The stint was enough for Sharma to gain philosophical insight. “When you go up to space and look down at Earth, you won’t see the boundaries.”

Time for collaboration

This realization may have prompted him to become an advocate for collaboration between countries in space programs. He believes these joint initiatives will remove the root causes of conflict on Earth.

“Inequitable distribution of wealth is the reason for conflict on planet Earth. This conflict will be exported to space if countries compete to extract resources,” he said.

Sharma predicts that countries will try to mine helium and rare metals from asteroids in space as Earth is running out of resources. 

“But if we continue to go there with our national flags on our shoulders and if we start bringing stuff back for the exclusive use of our people, then conflict will affect space too,” he said.

Sharma’s solution to this is joint space exploration. “If countries cooperate and explore space together and share the resources with everybody back on Earth, it would remove the root cause of conflict. Otherwise we are going to end up building a society which is as exploitative as Earth’s is today.” 

Another reason he advocates international collaboration is his belief that no single nation has the means to go it alone, but each enjoys supremacy in certain areas. 

“India is good at satellite technology, Russia has information on how humans can survive for long periods in space, and America has the advantage in technology,” he said. “We should not be going to space as Indian, Russian, Chinese, or American citizens, but as human beings from Earth. Such a change must come, because it doesn’t make sense to go thousands of kilometers and say that I am from India, Russia, China, or America.”

Interacting often with students, Sharma has seen the enthusiasm among young people for flying into space. “They can go there as pilot, researcher or scientist,” he says. “Because these skills will come in handy when countries set up colonies initially on the Moon and later perhaps on Mars.”

But he cautions that space travel is not all fun and games. “If you are going up there, you have to stay there for long enough to be productive,” he said. “It is going to be a tough life.”

‘We are the best’

Sharma gave a beautiful description of India when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him how the country looks from far above, during a live interaction from the space station. Sharma bowled her over and conquered a million Indian hearts when he quoted renowned poet Iqbal in his reply: “Saare Jahan Se Accha,” meaning India looks better than the whole world.

Sharma says he still finds it difficult to believe that the telephone conversation happened four decades ago. “Time flies, but my thoughts about India remain the same,” he said.

On his return from orbit, Moscow honored Sharma with the most coveted Russian award – Hero of the Soviet Union. This recognition helps him retain his association with Russia, one that began years before his space sojourn. “I flew Russian aeroplanes – MiG-21, MiG-23, and MiG-27 – during my IAF career before going to space,” he added.

In the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, he flew 21 combat missions in a MiG-21. “I am alive now because of Russian technology. I was ejected out of a MiG-21 because all the safeties worked well,” he said.

The iron-willed cosmonaut, however, feels sad talking about his colleagues on the mission, Malyshev and Strekalov, who died in 1999 and 2004 respectively. “I miss them dearly. I miss them on every anniversary of the space trip. I feel their loss deeply,” he said.

Police have registered an attempt to murder case and arrested the accused. (Representational)

New Delhi:

A 21-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly stabbed his colleague and her parents at their home in west Delhi’s Khyala neighbourhood yesterday. The woman and her parents are currently in hospital and their condition, it is learnt, is stable.

Police have said the accused, Abhishek, was a friend of the woman and they worked together at a salon in Rajouri Garden. “However, in recent months, the victim started avoiding him, which irked the accused,” the police have said in a statement.

Around 9 am yesterday, Abhishek reached the woman’s house and attacked her with a knife. When her her parents came to rescue her, he attacked them too.

Abhishek now faces an attempt to murder case.

WASHINGTON: A mass shooting involving several assailants has left at least four people dead and dozens wounded in the US state of Alabama, police said on Saturday (Sep 21).

“We believe that multiple shooters fired multiple shots on a group of people” in the Five Points South district of Birmingham just after 11pm, police officer Truman Fitzgerald told local media.

Officers found two adult males and one adult female who was unresponsive on the sidewalk suffering from a gunshot wound, Fitzgerald said. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.

A fourth victim died at a local hospital, he added.

Dozens of people were wounded in the shooting with at least four sustaining life-threatening injuries, Fitzgerald said.

The others had “various injuries”, he added.

Police have not got anyone in custody over the shooting, Fitzman said, urging the public to provide any information that could help the investigation.

Several agencies are involved in the investigation, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Fire rescue services were on the scene Saturday night and had cordoned off the area.

This year, there have been at least 403 mass shootings – defined as a shooting involving at least four victims, dead or wounded – across the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

At least 12,416 people have been killed in firearms violence this year in the United States, according to the GVA.

Late last night, Saturday, the Met Office extended a yellow weather warning for rain put in place for much of the south of the country to cover Greater Manchester and more parts of the north.

The warning, which is in place all day, is in addition to a further such yellow warning in place on Monday, September 23.

The Met Office warns that communities could be cut off by flooded roads and that spray and flooding could lead to difficult driving conditions and road closures.

Power cuts are also possible, according to the weather agency, with the potential for homes and businesses to be flooded, as well as delays or cancellations to train and bus services.

Yellow weather warning UPDATED

Heavy rain across parts of Wales and England – now extended further east and north

Valid all day Sunday

Latest info https://t.co/QwDLMfRBfs

Stay #WeatherAware https://t.co/1D11Im6yUl pic.twitter.com/HcLqEm4Krq

— Met Office (@metoffice) September 22, 2024

The Met Office says: “Showers and thunderstorms are expected to merge into broader areas of heavy rain across parts of Wales, Central and Southern England during Sunday.

“Whilst the strongest signal for impactful rainfall totals appears to be centred across east Wales and west-central England, there is potential right across this highlighted region for some places to see 40-70 mm in two to three hours, with a chance that a few places could receive 80-100 mm through the course of the day.

“South West England looks likely to see some heavy rain during the early hours of Sunday morning, breaking up into slow-moving, heavy and in places thundery downpours during the day time.

“Meanwhile, the areas of heavy rain are likely to continue pushing north and west, becoming slow moving across some northern and possibly eastern reaches of the warning area during the rest of Sunday.”

According to the Met Office’s “impact matrix”, the weather event – which affects much of England and most of Wales – has a “low likelihood and a medium impact”.

A yellow weather warning is the lowest level of warning issued by the weather agency.

Higher level warnings issued by the agency are amber warnings and the rare red warnings.