| | | The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was set to execute the final manoeuvre on Saturday for India's first solar mission Aditya-L1. This landmark mission marks India's foray into space-based solar observation, positioning the spacecraft at a crucial vantage point in the Sun-Earth system. | THE DAILY QUIZ Because she’s worth it? Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is the first $100-billion-woman. She heads a cosmetics giant founded by her grandfather Eugene Schueller in 1909. She also owns Lancôme, Maybelline and Garnier. Name the brand, which means beauty in Ancient Greek. a. L'Oréal
b. Tira
c. YSL
d. Vichy TAKE THE FULL QUIZ | | THE BIG STORY India's star rises At 4pm on Saturday, India made history by parking its observatory — Aditya-L1 — in an orbit around Lagrange Point 1, about 1.5 million kilometres from us, setting the stage for at least five years of observations. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) performed a series of manoeuvres to place the craft in its intended halo orbit on Saturday, 126 days after the mission was launched on September 2 last year. “Halo-Orbit Insertion (HOI) of its solar observatory spacecraft, Aditya-L1 was accomplished at 4pm on January 6,” the space agency said after the insertion. Read more. | | A LITTLE LIGHT READING Infinite scrawl : A Tamil manuscript in Venice unlocks stories of ancient India As rain finally poured over Madurai, ending a period of drought, a group of young Tamil catechists returned to their spiritual exercises: meditation, contrition, confession. It was the monsoon of 1718, at a Jesuit mission. The youngsters were studying under Michele Bertoldi (1662-1740), a senior Italian missionary who would spend most of his life here. His specialty was helping young people who were interested in Christianity prepare to act as guides to others in their community. More than 300 years later, the text he framed to help them — handwritten in Tamil on strips of dried palm leaf — would turn up in an Armenian monastery in Venice, found and identified only because a Tamilian scholar from Delhi wouldn’t stop knocking on the monastery’s doors. Read more. | | THE WEEKEND FIX Your turn...: New Indian board games are playing on climate, ecology, politics It takes a certain ruthlessness to be good at Monopoly, and that’s part of the reason the game was created. Patented in the US in 1935, it was born amid the Great Depression, to highlight the exploitative greed of landlords (with roots in something similar called Landlord’s Game, created in 1904). Going back to the ancient world, board games have been used to explore complex realities. The Indian game Moksha Patam, a precursor to Snakes and Ladders, for instance, was designed as a way to explore ideas of dharma and karma. Read more. | | ALWAYS AT THE MOVIES BY ANUPAMA CHOPRA Screen sweep: 2024 in film It’s a new year and hope springs anew, that 2024 will bring a slew of movies that dazzle, transport and entertain. Here are a few that I’m looking forward to. First, there’s Merry Christmas, due for release next week. The combination of director Sriram Raghavan and stars Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi is mouth-watering in itself. The trailer gives us two strangers meeting on Christmas Eve. Romance ensues and then some sort of hell breaks loose. Sriram’s last film was the deliciously twisted Andhadhun (2018), so the bar is high. The trend of A-list women actors going out on a creative limb promises to yield exciting results in 2024. Last year, we had Kareena Kapoor Khan collaborate with Sujoy Ghosh on Jaane Jaan (about a single mother who will do anything to protect her daughter from the shadows of her troubled former life). This year, the actor goes a step further with The Buckingham Murders, in which she plays a British policewoman battling with a personal tragedy. (This was the opening film at the 2023 Jio MAMI festival, but is due for a theatrical release this year). We will also see Alia Bhatt in Vasan Bala’s prison-break thriller, Jigra. Read more. | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written and edited by Shahana Yasmin. Produced by Md Shad Hasnain. | | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |  | |
