Shiva Jayashankar

[Tennis Channel @TennisChannel]

Martina Navratilova presents 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Leander Paes 💪

Together, Navratilova and Paes won the 2003 Wimbledon and Australian Open mixed-doubles titles 🏆 🏆

[Zach Lowy @ZachLowy]

Spain’s squad announcement for the Euros is simply incredible:

1) Getting one of the greatest Spanish athletes of all time (Rafael Nadal) to narrate it

2) Getting each of the players’ family members to announce their selections

10/10, no notes.

[Omar Abdullah @OmarAbdullah]

There’s almost nothing Ms Ranaut says that I agree with but I don’t think there is any justification for physically assaulting her. Her views on the farmer protest were highly objectionable but they were her views & she’s entitled to them. Those celebrating this slap will also have to celebrate them when it’s the bakhts doing the slapping & the sensible people are on the receiving end.

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

@raja_subramani 😂

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

@ramnathshreya Achiever, much deserved 👏🏼

[Nigel Farage MP @Nigel_Farage]

If we vote to Remain on June 23rd it is the end of the steel industry in this country. Simple as that. We must Leave EU.

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

Top-tier thread 👏🏼👏🏼

[Shrug Life @shekfu]

Trying to keep track of this amazing back and forth Twitter thread between a novelist and the guy who was temporary CEO at Open AI for a hot second.

It all started when CEO dude starts pontificating about redistribution of wealth...

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

Spectacular!

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Masterpieces of Hindu & Buddhist sculpture @ngma_delhi

Ten days ago, while giving a lecture @ngma_delhi I stumbled across an extraordinary exhibition there called Routes & Roots, originally put up to entertain G20 delegates. Its only up for ten more days and is full of masterworks from public collections across India, but hasn't been advertised at all. Don't miss it!

1. Parvati, Kodiakkatu near Nagapattinam, 10thC

[Kyle Porter @KylePorterNS]

This is incredible.

[Alison Fisk @AlisonFisk]

Wow, a 3,400 year-old ancient Egyptian paint box containing its original pigments!

(Looks similar to a modern-day set!)

The preserved cake pigments are red (red ochre), blue (Egyptian blue), green (a mixture of Egyptian blue, yellow ochre, and orpiment) and two of black (carbon black, from charcoal).

An inscription on the wooden paint box tells us it belonged to Amenemope, who was Vizier during the reign of king Amenhotep II. As a member of the elite, he would have used it for painting for leisure.

📷 The Cleveland Museum of Art

Read more: https://t.co/YSIRI47exp

#Archaeology

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

Fantastic interview with @satyanadella

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Emmett Shear, the new CEO of OpenAI on a recent podcast.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Rescuing two young seals that were entangled in a net in the West Coast National Park in South Africa.

A very tangible reminder of how important it is to ensure plastic and things like this are not in our oceans.

[📹 James Suter]
https://t.co/OWqWbpsP6J

[Varsha Sriram @sriram_varsha]

"I lost count of the number of times I got groped yesterday. After a while, I gave up and didn't try to defend myself."

What could have been a night of unforgettable music, turned into a traumatic night for many women. Read!

#ARRahman #MarakkumaNenjam

https://t.co/nU9aOhAhDW

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

12 Reasons Why Cities Need More Trees:

1. Temperature Control

One large tree is equivalent to 10 air conditioning units, and the shade they provide can reduce street temperature by more than 30%.

2. Noise Reduction

Trees can reduce loudness by up to 50%. In urban areas filled with the sound of cars, construction, sirens, aeroplanes, and music, trees are essentially the best way to block noise and keep cities — along with the homes and workplaces in them — quieter.

3. Air Purity

Trees remove an astonishing amount of harmful pollutants and toxins from the air. In urban areas air quality is often disastrously bad — with severe consequences for our health. Trees make the air we breathe much cleaner.

4. Oxygen

And, while absorbing all those pollutants, trees also put more oxygen back into the urban environment. Oxygen levels are significantly lower in cities compared to the countryside; trees help to solve that problem.

5. Water Management

Trees do more than just shelter us and our buildings from rain — which is, in fact, extremely important. They also absorb huge quantities of water, reduce run-off, neutralise the severity of flooding, and make flooding more unlikely altogether. Not to forget that their roots absorb pollutants and prevent them from feeding back into a city's water supply.

6. Psychological Health

Studies have proven what we instinctively know to be true: that human beings are significantly happier when surrounded by nature rather than sterile urban environments. Our emotions, behaviour, and thoughts are shaped by the places we spend time — and trees have a profoundly positive effect on our psychology. The consequential benefits of being happier and more peaceful — as individuals and as a society — are immense.

7. Physical Health

Beyond all the other ways in which trees improve air quality and the urban environment, much to the benefit of our health, they also encourage people to go outside. Cycling, running, and walking are all more common in urban areas with plenty of trees. A knock-on effect of people spending more time outdoors is also social integration and stronger communities.

8. Privacy

A simple point, but not inconsequential, is that trees provide privacy.

9. Economics

The total economic benefit of urban trees is hard to calculate. There are costs, of course, including the repair of infrastructure damaged by roots and maintaining the trees themselves. But the total economic benefit — a consequence of everything else in this list and more — far outweighs the expenditure. Trees make cities wealthier.

10. Wildlife

Trees are miniature cities all of their own, serving as a habitat for hundreds of different species, including birds and mammals and insects.

11. Light Pollution

Trees don't only block the light shining down, therefore keeping us and our cities cooler — they also disrupt light shining up, from street lighting, cars, houses, and billboards. Skies are clearer in cities with more trees.

12. Aesthetics

And, finally, trees are beautiful. They break up the potential monotony of urban environments — the sharp geometry, the greyscale roads and buildings, the endless rows of cars — with their trunks, boughs, canopies, and flowers.

Just think: the gold and red of falling leaves in autumn, the white and pink blossom of spring, the vast green canopies of summer, and the branches lined with hoar-frost in winter. Every single tree is a myriad of intricacy and texture, of colour and scent, of dappled light on the pavement, mottled bark, knotted roots, of clustered leaves and delicate petals and stern boughs.

Few streets would not be improved by the kaleidoscopic aesthetic delights of a tree, not to mention the many different species of tree, all over the world, whether willow, oak, lime, cherry, aspen, maple, birch, horse chestnut, dogwood, hornbeam, ash, sycamore... the list goes on.

There are some drawbacks to urban trees, most of them context-specific, and they are not — of course — universally appropriate. But it seems fair to say that many cities would benefit from at least a few more trees here and there.

[Wimbledon @Wimbledon]

A new name. A new reign. 🇪🇸

@carlosalcaraz, your 2023 Gentlemen's Singles champion

#Wimbledon

[Jonathan @jonathanmb32]

After rewatching The Dark Knight last night I remembered that immediately after Ledger's death, Nolan wrote a piece for Newsweek about working with Ledger. I found it on the rotting remains of their website and man it still hits hard (I copy/pasted it to a Word doc due to ads)

[Wimbledon @Wimbledon]

"Ladies and gentlemen... if you are opening a bottle of champagne, don't do it as the players are about to serve" 🍾

The most #Wimbledon warning ever from umpire John Blom 🤣

[Shiva Jayashankar @adyarite]

Brexit was Johnson and Johnson was Brexit. Now that he has gone, Britain must think again | Martin Kettle | The Guardian https://t.co/ebC14OBelL

[Chennai Super Kings @ChennaiIPL]

Salaam, Rocky Bhai! 🔥

#IPL2023Final #CSKvGT #WhistlePodu #Yellove 🦁