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India lunar rover Pragyaan takes a walk on the Moon
India’s Moon rover has taken first steps on the lunar surface a day after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the south pole.
Chandrayaan-3’s rover “ramped down” from the lander and “India took a walk on the Moon!”, the space agency said.
The Vikram lander successfully touched down as planned on Wednesday evening. With this, India joins an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.
The 26kg rover called Pragyaan (the Sanskrit word for wisdom) was carried to the Moon in the Vikram lander’s belly.
After the dust raised by last evening’s landing had settled, panels on one side of Vikram opened to deploy a ramp to enable Pragyaan to slide down to the lunar surface. It will now roam around the rocks and craters, gathering crucial data and images to be sent back to Earth for analysis. Pragyaan is carrying two scientific instruments which will try to find out what minerals are present on the lunar surface and study the chemical composition of the soil.
Pragyaan will communicate only with the lander which will send the information to the orbiter from Chandrayaan-2 – which is still circling the Moon – to pass it on to the Earth for analysis.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has said that the rover will move at a speed of 1cm per second – with each step it will also leave on the Moon’s surface the imprint of Isro’s logo and emblem embossed on its six wheels.
The landing coincides with the start of a lunar day – a day on the Moon equals a little over four weeks on Earth and this will mean the lander and rover will have 14 days of sunlight to charge their batteries. Once night falls, they will discharge and stop working. It is not yet clear whether they will come back to life when the next lunar day starts.
The lander is also carrying several scientific instruments which will help find out what goes on the Moon’s surface and above and below it. Moon is thought to hold important minerals but one of the major goals of Chandrayaan-3 is to hunt for water – scientists say the huge craters in the south pole region which are permanently in shadow hold ice which could support human habitation on the Moon in future.
It could also be used for supplying propellant for spacecraft headed to Mars and other distant destinations.
(BBC)
US President Donald Trump has filed a $5bn (£3.7bn) lawsuit against the BBC over an edit of his 6 January 2021 speech in a Panorama documentary.
Trump accused the broadcaster of defamation and of violating a trade practices law, according to court documents filed in Florida.
The BBC apologised to Trump last month, but rejected his demands for compensation and disagreed there was any “basis for a defamation claim”.
Trump’s legal team accused the BBC of defaming him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech”. The BBC has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
Trump said last month that he planned to sue the BBC for the documentary, which aired in the UK ahead of the 2024 US election.
“I think I have to do it,” Trump told reporters of his plans. “They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
In his speech on 6 January 2021, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In the Panorama programme, a clip showed him as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC acknowledged that the edit had given “the mistaken impression” he had “made a direct call for violent action”, but disagreed that there was basis for a defamation claim.
In November, a leaked internal BBC memo criticised how the speech was edited, and led to the resignations of the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness.
Before Trump filed the lawsuit, lawyers for the BBC had given a lengthy response to the president’s claims.
They said there was no malice in the edit and that Trump was not harmed by the programme, as he was re-elected shortly after it aired.
They also said the BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama programme on its US channels. While the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was restricted to viewers in the UK.
In his lawsuit, Trump cites agreements the BBC had with other distributors to show content, specifically one with a third-party media corporation that allegedly had licensing rights to the documentary outside the UK. The BBC has not responded to these claims, nor has the corporation with the alleged distribution agreement.
The suit also claims that people in Florida may have accessed the programme using a VPN or by using streaming service BritBox.
“The Panorama Documentary’s publicity, coupled with significant increases in VPN usage in Florida since its debut, establishes the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed,” the lawsuit said
(BBC)
The Situation Report issued by the Disaster Management Center at 06:00AM on 16th December 2025 shows that 70,297 persons belonging to 22,338 house holds are still being housed at 731 safety centers established by the government.
The number of deaths due to the recent disastrous weather stands at 643 while 183 persons are missing.
Latest News
Bondi Beach gunmen who killed 15 after targeting Jewish celebration were father and son, police say
New South Wales Police say 15 people, including a 10 year old girl were killed in a shooting at Bondi Beach on Sunday – their ages range from 10 to 87
The attack happened while an event was being held to mark the start of Hanukkah – police say they’re treating it as a terror incident
The two gunmen were father and son, police say. The 50-year-old man also died at the scene while the 24-year-old remains in hospital in critical condition
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls the attack “an act of pure evil” that “deliberately targeted” the Jewish community
(BBC)
Trump files $5bn defamation lawsuit against BBC over Panorama speech edit
UK and South Korea strike trade deal
Rob Reiner’s son Nick arrested for murder after director and wife found dead
70,297 persons still in safety centers
Showers will occur at times in the Northern, North-Central, Eastern, Uva and Central provinces
MEPA to crack down on marine polluters
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
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