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It’s good to discover, in reading the tributes to Angela Lansbury — who died on October 11 at age ninety-six — that the beloved actor reportedly considered herself “a proud socialist.”

Annie Ernaux, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last week, was not on the other end of the telephone when the committee rang to deliver the news. Last year, she received a prank text telling her she had won the illustrious award, which might be one reason why her first response when the committee did get through to her was incredulous: “Are you sure?”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born surgeon turned-Jihadi known as al-Zawahin who assured the leadership of al-Qaeda after killing of Osama bin Laden led a life steeped in secrecy, betrayal, conspiracy and violence, after the September 11 attacks against U.S. in 2001. While bin Laden, who was killed by a US raid in 2011, was widely seen as the terrorist mastermind of these attacks, many counter terrorism experts considered al-Zawahiri more responsible.. The surgeon cum mastermind of al-Qaeda finally died in bombing.

Economists have ennobled their discipline by turning some basic common sense into highly esoteric and exotic body of intellectual exercise. Common housewife is the best economist for Aristotle. Economics for the Greeks was the knowledge of running a household’s balances.

Svante Paabo the Swedish Nobel Prize winner in Medicine in2022 had proved through his work that modern humans shared some of their genes with the ancient and now extinct Neanderthals. This meant early humans had come into contact with these human-like species, the Neanderthals, and they interbred.

By now the Netflix film Blonde is notorious for its length, it’s NC-17 rating, and its cruelly narrow view of film star Marilyn Monroe (Ana de Armas) as a relentlessly abused and exploited waif from early childhood through her death of a drug overdose at age thirty-six.

With Earth’s Orbits getting crowded, the risks of Kessler syndrome – a catastrophic and irreversible chain reaction of on-orbit collisions between debris and operational satellites –is becoming high, even though according to the most recent projection by Merrill Lynch/Bank of America the space economy would grow to $2.7 by 2040, while the global commercial revenues reached an estimated $271 billion in 2020. The monetary losses in case of Kessler Syndrome have been estimated to $191.3 billion.

Karl Marx’s French translation of “Capital” was first published on September 17, 1872. In February 1867, after more than two decades of herculean work, Karl Marx told his friend Friedrich Engels that the first part of his long-awaited critique of political economy was finally complete. Marx travelled from London to Hamburg to deliver the manuscript of Volume I (“The Process of Production of Capital”) of his magnum opus and, in agreement with his editor, Otto Meissner, it was decided that Capital would appear in three parts. Brimming with satisfaction, Marx wrote that the publication of his book was, “without question, the most terrible missile that has yet been hurled at the heads of the bourgeoisie.”

As we approach August 6, we remember 8.15 am on that day in 1945 when the US exploded first ever nuclear weapon on human population at Hiroshima in Japan. This was followed by another attack on Nagasaki on 9th August. Over two lakh people died on these two days in these two cities. Number of people injured, rendered destitute, homeless and orphaned far exceeds this number. Effect of radiations on the generations after that is still felt. That was the time of unprecedented humanitarian crises and agony never heard of before.

Aparna Sen, 76, has just received the Icon Award at the London Indian Film Award for her contribution to cinema. Her latest film, The Rapist, a complex look at how impact the perpetrator, the survivor and her husband has been winning Awards and accolades across the Indian and International festival circuits.