Philip Marlowe. He first appeared in The Big Sleep. Chandler had been writing for a popular periodical entitled Black Mask for some years when he wrote his first novel The Big Sleep in 1939. It met with great success, so much so that Chandler continued Philip Marlowe’s bleak adventures in Farewell My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the …

It is Father Brown and his exiting adventures were written by Gilbert Keith Chesterton who was born in London, May 29, 1874. Next to Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown is probably the most original and eccentric detective in English fiction. He is timid and absent minded, and in his appearance is short and dumpy, with a round innocent face. He carries …

The Kuppuswamy scale was proposed by Kuppuswamy in India in 1976. It is widely used to measure the socio-economic-status of an individual in the urban community and is based on three variables — education, occupation and income. Marks are provided for different levels of qualifications, occupations and family incomes per month. According to the scores obtained, the socio-economic classes are divided …

The Hubbert peak theory posits that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil. The theory is named after American geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who created a method of modeling the …

Sudoku was first designed in the 1970s by a retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, Howard Garns. The puzzle was first published in 1979 in New York by Dell Magazines and was titled ‘Number Place’. In 1984, the puzzle was introduced in Japan by puzzle magazine ‘Nikoli’ and titled ‘Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru’ which in Japanese meant, “the numbers …

The attorney general of India is the Indian government’s chief legal adviser, and its primary lawyer in dealing with the Supreme Court of India. The attorney general for India is appointed by the President under Article 76(1) of the Constitution. The solicitor general of India is appointed to assist the attorney general along with four additional solicitors general.

A Noogler is a “new Googler,” or a new employee of Google. Former Google employee, or Xoogler, Doug Edwards claims to have invented the term. From 1999 to 2005, Doug Edwards was director of consumer marketing and brand management for Google. Other work experience includes stints as online brand group manager for the San Jose Mercury News, communications director for …

Infoganda – a portmanteau of information and propaganda – has found currency to describe a news item or a literary piece of work that is informative and also has an underlying agenda. Infoganda is often used by governments and religious bodies to promote a certain message. The word has a negative slant to it.

A take-off from moonlighting – which means taking up a second job in the evening – sunlighting means taking time off from one’s day job to fit in other work and be paid for it. Sunlighting has a slightly adverse meaning: a person takes up a second job, and it begins interfering with the first job. Sometimes, moonlighting stretches into …

Children who are hooked to the television show an inability to concentrate in class during an in-depth lesson, say some teachers. They blame it on ‘soundbite TV’ – the fast pace of television. Fed a diet of sound and visuals, these children display very short attention spans and struggle to focus in class. Teachers also complain that such children are …