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On December 24, 2024, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is set for a historic journey, edging closer to the Sun than any other man-made object before. Achieving record-breaking speeds of 195 km/s (435,000 mph), it will be the fastest artificial object in history. The probe aims to approach the Sun at a distance of just 6.1 million km (about 3.8 million miles), a feat unparalleled in human engineering. Dr. Nour Raouafi, who leads the project, told BBC that this mission is akin to virtually touching a star, highlighting its extraordinary significance.

Australian by birth, John Pilger died on December 30 2023, at the age of 84. He initially rose to fame for his international reporting on the Vietnam war, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Burma, East Timor, Australia and the Middle East.

Revolutionaries are seldom unarmed. Peter Magubane was no exception; but instead of a machine gun or a machete, he carried a camera and clicked with it to fight his cause. Like a prophet, not honoured at home, but feted worldwide, Magubane was a Black South African photographer whose snapshots cruelties and images of apartheid won plaudits worldwide. The man who caught apartheid in celluloid passed away at 91.

Famous as the first ‘Showman’ of Indian cinema, had Raj Kapoor been alive today, he would have celebrated in grand style his turning 100 this month. Facing the movie cameras after putting on the grease-paint and an attire which was a take on that of the inimitable Charlie Chaplin, he essayed the part of a hero when the country had just assumed its seat among newly independent nations.

MicroStrategy's unwavering commitment to Bitcoin, evident in its recent $615 million purchase and overall holdings of $5.9 billion, has ignited a fiery debate. While supporters applaud CEO Michael Saylor's visionary leadership, critics like Peter Schiff paint a picture of reckless obsession.

Fallouts of a triangular love affair often lead to bloodshed and retaliatory violence. But that of Amrita Pritam, one of the most significant authors from Punjab, who was loved by poet-painter Indrajeet Chitrakar, better known as Imroz, and Sahir Ludhianvi, was an unusual love story.

No one is born a Marxist — not even Karl Marx. Before he formulated his famous ideas about the centrality of class struggle to social change, young Marx surrounded himself with liberals who sought to abolish the religious authoritarianism of the old regime and bring about a new state that guaranteed greater liberty. His political evolution occurred in two stages: the first took him beyond liberalism to social democracy, and the second gave him faith in the self-emancipation of the working class.

A country with relatively unrestricted trade will face two problems: the first is a balance of payments problem because its exports are insufficient relative to its imports. And the second, the creation of unemployment, and more generally of domestic resources remaining idle, because domestic goods cannot compete with imports.

In countries where recipients of titles like Rai Bahadur and Khan Bahadur were once much looked upto and in another country where holders of knighthood and peerage still enjoy a status of their own have a common link- the English language. Small wonder, heads turn to have a better look at a man, a noted English language poet when he refused to accept Order of the British Empire (OBE) from none other than the British Prime Minister and the Queen.

As a singer Anup Ghoshal’s name was never taken in Bengal on the same breath as Hemanta Mukhopadhyay or even Dwijen Mukherjee; nor did his songs enjoy the popularity of Manna De or Shyamal Mitra. Yet Ghoshal who passed away in Kolkata on December 15, attained a unique distinction which none of the artistes of Bengal enjoyed. He was 78.