Premlata first Indian woman to climb 7 peaks

June 1, 2013

Premlata

New Delhi, Jun 1: Ace woman mountaineer Premlata Agrawal has become the first Indian woman mountaineer to scale the seven continental peaks after climbing Alaska's McKinley Peak.

With this, she became the first Indian woman mountaineer to step on the highest peak of North America. She was felicitated for this momentous achievement on her return to India, here in the capital today.

On each of the seven continents, there is one peak that stands above the rest.

The Seven Summits present different challenges that have to be overcome with extreme and testing fortitude. Summiting all of them is regarded as one of the world's biggest mountaineering challenge.

Seven Summits has become the dream of many climbers, but only a select few have succeeded. Premlata now proudly belongs to this group.

"I am extremely proud to have accomplished this achievement on behalf of my country and all the women who live here with courage and determination. This experience has again taught me that if you have the will and focus, no matter where you come from, you can conquer the world," Premlata said.

The unassuming housewife worked towards her passion for heights starting at the age of 35 when she undertook the Dalma (hill) trek 13 years ago.

That was the starting point that led to the now famous Thar Camel Expedition, the ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro before setting foot on the world's highest peak, Mt Everest, on May 20.

Just before Premlata embarked on the ascent of McKinley Peak to cap off her seven continental peaks' successful climbs, the Government of India awarded her The Padmashree Honor for her trail-blazing achievements.

"Even when foul weather thwarted my initial attempt of planting my National Flag atop Mt Denali, my determination to climb this peak did not fizzle out; instead, it re-bolstered my will to start anew and ascend Denali," she said.

"What egged me on in overcoming the toughest of obstacles during my ascents was the fire covering my spirit to achieve in the form of our Tricolour wrapped around me, which, I have planted atop each of the seven Continental Peaks with the pride of being an Indian woman," she added.

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Agencies
July 18,2020

New Delhi, Jul 18: India's national cybersecurity agency CERT-in, has warned people of credit card skimming spreading across the world through e-commerce platforms.

Attackers are typically targeting e-commerce sites because of their wide presence, popularity and the environment LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) said in a notice on Thursday.

Recently, attackers targeted sites which were hosted on Microsoft's IIS server running with the ASP.NET web application framework, it said.

Some of the sites affected by the attack were found to be running ASP.NET version 4.0.30319, which is no longer officially supported by Microsoft and may contain multiple vulnerabilities, CERT-In said.

The notice also included a list of best practices for website developers including the use of the latest version of ASP.NET web framework, IIS web server and database server.

The advisory is based on research by Malwarebytes which found that this skimming campaign likely began sometime in April this year.

Credit card skimming has become a popular activity for cybercriminals over the past few years, and the increase in online shopping during the pandemic means additional business for them, too, Malwarebytes said in a blog post, adding that attackers do not need to limit themselves to the most popular e-commerce platforms.

Researchers from global cybersecurity and anti-virus brand Kaspersky had warned in December last year that more cybercriminal groups will target online payment processing systems in 2020. 

It said that over the past couple of years, so-called JS-skimming (the method of stealing of payment card data from online stores), has gained immense popularity among attackers. 

Kaspersky researchers in their report said they are currently aware of at least 10 different actors involved in these type of attacks.

Their number will continue to grow during the next year, the report said, adding that the most dangerous attacks will be on companies that provide services such as e-commerce as-a-service, which will lead to the compromise of thousands of companies.

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News Network
February 21,2020

London, Feb 21: Scientists have discovered a new species of land snail, and have named it Craspedotropis Greta Thunberg in honour of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg for her efforts to raise awareness about climate change.

According to the study, published in the Biodiversity Data Journal, the newly discovered species belongs to the so-called caenogastropods -- a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes, and forest degradation.

The scientists, including evolutionary ecologist Menno Schilthuizen from Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, said the snails were found very close to the research field station at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei.

They added that the snails were discovered at the foot of a steep hill-slope, next to a river bank, foraging at night on the green leaves of understorey plants.

The effort aided by amateur scientist J.P. Lim, who found the first individual of the snail said, "Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create."

"And it's a promise that people from all generations will join her to help," Lim said.

The researchers said they approached Thunberg who said that she would be "delighted" to have this species named after her.

The study work including, fieldwork, morphological study, and classification of identified specimen was carried out in a field centre with basic equipment and no internet access, the scientists said.

According to the study, the work was done by untrained ‘citizen scientists’ guided by experts, on a 10-day taxon expedition.

"While we are aware that this way of working has its limitations in terms of the quality of the output (for example, we were unable to perform dissections or to do extensive literature searches), the benefits include rapid species discovery and on-site processing of materials," the researchers wrote in the study.

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Agencies
March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: Excise duty on petrol and diesel was on Saturday hiked by ₹3 per litre as the government looked to mop up gains arising from fall in international oil prices.

Special excise duty on petrol was hiked by ₹2 to ₹8 per litre incase of petrol and to Rs 4 incase of diesel, an official notification said.

Additionally, road cess on petrol was raised by ₹1 per litre each on petrol and diesel to ₹10.

The increase in excise duty would in normal course result in a hike in petrol and diesel prices but most of it would be adjusted against the fall in rates that would have necessitated because of slump in international oil prices.

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