The lights-off event planned for Sunday can lead to disruptions in power supply when everyone switches off their lights from 9pm and switch on after nine minutes. Electricity authorities have studied power consumption patterns across India and the share of lighting in it to come up with a plan to handle the expected dip and surge in consumption that day. When everyone switches off their lights, the power plants will be impacted. The situation can be compared to a bicycle climbing upward. When the lights go off all at once, it is akin to the cyclist suddenly reaching the peak and continuing to pedal as before during the climb down. The bicycle speed will then ramp up and could lead to the cyclist losing his balance. The voltage in the grid and the frequency will surge. The frequency can be understood as the electrical equivalent of the bicycle’s speed. The bicyclist losing his balance is like our power plants stopping operation as a result of these sudden changes. If the bicyclist an...

More than 2,000 people who were at the markaz in Delhi’ Nizamuddin area have been identified. The building has emerged as one of the biggest Covid-19 hot spots in the country. Officials across the country began a frantic search for thousands of people who had been to the headquarters of a religious group in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area that has now emerged as the single-biggest source of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infections in the country, leading to at least eight deaths and 117 confirmed cases. The discovery of the hot spot at the six-storey building of the Tablighi Jamaat - called a markaz - triggered alarm in several circles of the government. Here’s a timeline of the event as reported by news agency ANI: March 13: Around 3,400 people came together to be part of the religious gathering at the Nizamuddin markaz March 13: The congregation began even after an order by the Delhi government on the same day, which said that no religious, social, political gatherings of more t...