Google celebrates bees on 50th anniversary of Earth Day

Kolkata: Earth Day, an annual event, is celebrated  around the world on April 22, honouring the achievements of the environmental movement and raising awareness of the importance of long-term ecological sustainability.

On the 50th anniversary of the Earth Day on Wednesday, famous search engine Google has dedicated its doodle to one of the smallest and most critical organisms of the earth- the bees.

The doodle features a bee along with a "play" option button. As soon as the user clicks on it, 

a small video is played which highlights the importance of bees as they contribute two-thirds 

of the world's crops by the method of pollination.

Further, there is a small game in which the user can guide the bee to pollinate flowers while learning fun facts about bees and our planet that they help to sustain.To mark this day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said planet is going through one of the biggest crises in human history - the Corona Pandemic.

"Today is #EarthDay. Our planet is going through one of the biggest crises in human history 

- the #CoronaPandemic. But a bigger threat is staring at us - climate change," she wrote on his Twitter handle."We must all act together to fight these challenges and preserve our beautiful planet," she added.

Today's Doodle art was led by Doodler Gerben Steenks, with engineering by Doodlers Jacob Howcroft & Stephanie Gu.While sharing some thoughts on the making of the doodle, the creators said, "The most fun challenge was to generate an infinite world. The player can keep pollinating forever, so we needed to create an environment that was randomly generated, but still felt natural."

They said, "Since the game goes on as long as you want it to, you can end seeing thousands 

of flowers, trees, and bushes. Optimizing our code to make sure we could include all this content was definitely challenging!"

'We hope people understand the importance of bees to the earth and to humanity. For those 

who want to take action, anyone can have a positive impact by growing pollen-producing plants!" they further added.

Fifty years ago, on April 22, 1970, people around the world marked the first Earth Day.Thousands gathered to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our beautiful 

planet for future generations.

The 50th anniversary of Earth Day was destined to be a worldwide celebration.It still will be ? just virtually.Under normal circumstances, people around the world would be honoring the Earth with Earth Day celebrations and Earth Day festivals. But instead, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to stay home.

And while this pandemic continues to remind us that our human health is deeply connected to the health of our environment, it also gives us the opportunity to think of creative ways to come together at home to celebrate Planet Earth.

The theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action. The enormous challenge - but also the 

vast opportunities - of action on climate change have distinguished the issue as the most 

pressing topic for the 50th anniversary.Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable.(UNI)

PM expresses gratitude to Mother Earth

New Delhi:Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed gratitude to Mother Earth on International Earth Day.

"On International Day of Mother Earth, we all express gratitude to our planet for the abundance of care and compassion. Let us pledge to work towards a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous planet. A shout out to all those working at the forefront to defeat COVID-19", the PM said in a tweet.(UNI)