On the first day of January 2025, the Indian Meteorological Department [IMD] announced that 2024 was the hottest year on record. A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water shows that nearly eight out of ten Indians live in districts that are at risk of either a flood, a cyclone, or a drought. Nearly twenty three States in India are heatwave-prone. __________________________. In the summer of 2024, India recorded more than 44,000 cases of heatstroke and over 300 heat-related mortalities, as per the bulletin of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Water reservoirs and the energy demand that keeps India powered are impacted too. During a ten-day long heatwave in Delhi, peak power demand was 16% higher than the previous year.

The concept of the ‘Villa’ and other European ideas came to Lucknow with foreign soldiers, travellers and adventurers. For the Nawabs of Lucknow, architecture became the physical manifestation of their new status, and a way of proclaiming their alignment to the new power bloc. ___________. Villas, hence, provided an ideal substitute. Europeans sold to the Nawabs the idea of villas, based on designs in publications carried by them, and often aided by memory. The building chosen as the prototype for the famous Dilkusha Kothi was a country house in Northumberland.

Postponed from last year, the Tokyo Olympics are set to begin this year. The locals are wary, the athletes are anxious, training sessions are truncated, and restrictions are extensive. _________. Yet Japan, in many ways is seen as a safe choice, because of its past experience of hosting big events. It has an impeccable reputation for discipline and the ability to deliver the goods.

The pursuit of a career in sports offers individuals opportunities for personal fulfilment and professional success. ______________________________. Athletes must therefore undergo rigorous training regimens to maintain peak physical condition and hone their skills. Additionally, competition in the sports industry is fierce, requiring dedication, perseverance, and mental resilience to succeed. Despite the challenges, successful athletes can enjoy lucrative contracts, endorsements, and global recognition for their achievements.

Most artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the fields of healthcare, industry, finance, transportation, and writing, rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. However, while AI systems can mimic existing styles and patterns, there is an ongoing debate about whether AI can truly possess creativity in the same sense as humans. ______________________________.

__________________________________________. In Southeast Asia, for example, climate and lifestyle factors mean that people spend much more time in shopping malls than Europeans do, who might go shopping once a fortnight. Then there are gender variations in the way we shop. As descendants of hunter-gatherers, accumulating is in our blood, but how you go about it depends on whether you are male or female.

An island in Japan boasts of numerous dairy farms that own nearly one million cows, and supplies 70% of the milk sold in the country. These dairy farms have now begun to use cow manure to produce hydrogen. The methane from cow manure mingles with steam in a high temperature environment to produce hydrogen, which is used to electrify the local zoo. __________________________.