The Covid-19 pandemic continued to weigh heavily on international air passenger and cargo markets in May with the travel and tourism sectors crippled by widespread lockdowns and travel restrictions
NASA collaborates with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to document planet-wide changes in the environment, society during the Covid-19 lockdown
Survey to aid comprehensive analysis of Covid-19 in Delhi and prepare a broad strategy to combat the pandemic
Thirty-four senior bureaucrats have been made nodal officers to assist states and supervise the implementation of Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi scheme in the country, officials sai
Current Affairs : Thirty-four senior bureaucrats have been made nodal officers to assist states and supervise the implementation of Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi scheme in the country, officials said on Thursday.
The scheme, to be implemented from July 1, is aimed at providing affordable loans to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that had been hit due to lockdown.
Under the scheme, vendors can avail a working capital of up to Rs 10,000, repayable in monthly instalments in one year. On timely/early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy @7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on six-monthly basis.
“The nodal officers will be responsible for supervising the implementation of the scheme and also assist states in resolving issues that may arise,” a Personnel Ministry order said.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will provide the charter of duties of the nodal officers, contact details of stakeholders in the states/union territories/cities and all the necessary support, it said.
All nodal officers, except Niranjan Kumar Singh of Indian Forest Service, belong to the Indian Administrative Service. They all are of joint-secretary level.
Singh has been made the nodal officer for Gujarat, M C Jauhari for the northeastern region states, Neerja Sekhar for Haryana, Hukum Singh Meena for Bihar, Rajat Kumar Mishra and Tanmay Kumar for Rajasthan and Rajesh Kumar Sinha for Kerala.
Kamran Rizvi, Leena Johri, Amit Kumar Ghosh and Partha Sarthi Sensharma have been appointed nodal officers for Uttar Pradesh, the Personnel Ministry order said.
Amit Agrawal will be nodal officer for Chhattisgarh, Rakesh Kumar Verma and Alaknanda Dayal for Punjab and G Jayalakshmi for Telangana, it said.
Over 50 lakh people, including vendors and hawkers, in different areas/contexts are likely to benefit from this scheme. The goods supplied by them range from vegetables, fruits, ready-to-eat street foods, tea, pakodas, breads, eggs, textiles, apparel, footwear, artisan products, books/stationaries etc. The services include barber shops, cobblers, pan shops, laundry services etc.
The company is also expanding its distribution channels to tier-IV and V towns
Current Affairs : Chinese cell phone creator Realme on Tuesday said it will employ 7,500 individuals in India before the year’s over, and will include a huge number of IoT (Internet of Things) items like brilliant toothbrush, clearing machine and savvy locks as it grows its item portfolio in the nation.
The organization, which contends with players like Xiaomi and Samsung in India, laid out its ‘1+4+N’ item technique, saying it will help Realme further upgrade its cell phone and IoT item portfolios.
The center cell phone business will be the primary focal point of Realme’s environment, alongside savvy centers (Smart TV, Smart Earphone, Smart Watch and Smart Speaker) and IoT items (in-vehicle chargers, rucksacks, gear cases, to keen home devices), Realme Vice-President and India CEO Madhav Sheth said in an announcement.
He included that the organization will very before long present items in the savvy speaker class, alongside brilliant watches, top of the line TVs and keen earphones taking into account financial plan to premium value fragments.
“In the midst of the entirety of this, our center has never been changed. We intend to build our nearby workforce quality (at the office) to 10,000 in India, before the current year’s over,” he said.
The number presently remains at around 7,500 staff.
Moreover, the organization is additionally extending its dissemination channels to level IV and V towns, and will recruit in excess of 5,000 deals colleagues.
It as of now has 1,800 individuals as a major aspect of its business group.
Sheth said the organization will before long beginning assembling a portion of its IoT items in India as a component of its ‘Make in India’ endeavors.
“We are likewise putting resources into a total creation line to construct TV items and to set up very good quality SMT (surface-mount innovation) lines for TV motherboards, which is a genuine jump regarding neighborhood fabricating and a genuine test that numerous other driving brands haven’t had the option to take till date,” he said.
Various cell phone players have extended their portfolio to incorporate items like savvy TVs, power banks, headphones and TWS (True Wireless Stereo) earbuds to take advantage of the developing interest for tech items in the nation.Continue Reading
The sectors that were targeted were telecom, pharma, media companies, smartphone makers, construction, and tyre firms
Current Affairs : After the ongoing fringe conflict, Chinese programmers have siphoned up their endeavors to hack numerous Indian elements, says India Today.
A few Indian organizations, government services, and media associations were focused by programmer bunches connected to China, as per the report.
A Singapore-based digital danger insight firm Cyfirma Research said Chinese programmer bunches are focusing on substances like the Defense Ministry, Reliance Jio, Airtel, BSNL, Micromax, Cipla, Sun Pharma, MRF, and L&T, as per the report.
The parts that were focused on were telecom, pharma, media organizations, cell phone creators, development, and tire firms.
The hacking could be an endeavor to ‘discolor’ the notoriety of the elements by keeping an eye on touchy data, including competitive advantages, said Cyfirma Research.
The programmers focused on three focal government services including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, said the exploration firm.
A note discharged by the firm stated: “In the programmers’ discussions, IP [Internet protocol] addresses were shared and talked about.
Our investigation of these IP tends to credited Gothic Panda and Stone Panda to be behind these potential hacking efforts. These are two productive hacking bunches with close relationship with the Chinese Government.”
Cyfirma said the two gatherings have been effectively associated with focusing on association in nations like India, Japan, Canada, and Brazil.
A portion of the basic assaults endeavored by these two firms included destroying sites utilizing vulnerabilities in web applications, keeping an eye on information utilizing particular malware, disavowal of administration and imitating sites of organizations and propelling vindictive phishing efforts.
The US recorded a one-day total of 34,700 new Covid-19 cases, just short of the nation’s late-April peak of 36,400, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University
Current Affairs : Clinic heads and human services specialists cautioned frantically Wednesday that pieces of the US are nearly turning out to be overpowered by a resurgence of the coronavirus, bemoaning that legislators and a tired-of-being-cooped-up open are allowing a debacle to disaster.
The US recorded a one-day aggregate of 34,700 new Covid-19 cases, barely shy of the country’s late-April pinnacle of 36,400, as indicated by the check kept by Johns Hopkins University.
While new cases have been declining consistently in early US problem areas, for example, New York and New Jersey, a few different states set single-day case records this week, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas. Some of them additionally broke hospitalization records, as did North Carolina and South Carolina.
“Individuals got self-satisfied,” said Dr Marc Boom, CEO of the Houston Methodist emergency clinic framework. “Also, it’s returning and gnawing us, truth be told.”
The securities exchange slid pointedly Wednesday as the infection’s resurgence obfuscated speculators’ desires for a moderately brisk financial turnaround. The infection in the US has been accused for more than 120,000 passings the most noteworthy cost on the planet and over 2.3 million affirmed contaminations.
Florida’s single-day tally of new affirmed cases flooded Wednesday to 5,500, a 25 percent bounce from the record set a week ago and triple the level from only fourteen days back.
About a dozen different vaccines are in various stages of testing worldwide, including in Britain, China and the US
Current Affairs : Who might be the first to get a COVID-19 immunization? Most likely individuals in the nation where the primary successful antibody is created.
Around twelve unique immunizations are in different phases of testing around the world, remembering for Britain, China and the US.
This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US irresistible malady master, said he is circumspectly hopeful there will be a COVID-19 immunization before the year’s over or mid 2021.
A few well off nations have just arranged a great many dosages of those trial antibodies.
England and the US, for instance, have put resources into an immunization up-and-comer being created by Oxford University and delivered by AstraZeneca. On the off chance that it works, UK government officials have said Britons will be inoculated with it. The US hopes to begin accumulating it this fall and furthermore has put resources into other antibody up-and-comers.
Gatherings including the antibody coalition GAVI are additionally attempting to purchase dosages for helpless nations and AstraZeneca has consented to permit its immunization to India’s Serum Institute for the creation of 1 billion portions. The World Health Organization is drafting rules for the moral dissemination of COVID-19 antibodies.
How antibodies are conveyed inside a nation will shift. A week ago, U.S. authorities said they were building up a layered framework for that. The framework would probably organize bunches at most serious danger of extreme confusions from COVID-19 and key laborers.
The AAP government has strongly been opposing the new system which Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal equated with “detention” of Covid-19 patients
Current Affairs : The Delhi Disaster Management Authority will hold a vital gathering later in the day wherein a choice is probably going to be taken to correct guidelines requiring each coronavirus patient to visit Covid care community for clinical appraisal, sources said on Thursday.
The AAP government has firmly been contradicting the new framework which Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal compared with “detainment” of Covid-19 patients.
Lt Governor Anil Baijal is the director of Delhi Disaster Management Authority while the main clergyman is its bad habit administrator.
“The DDMA is booked to hold a gathering at 5.30 pm on Thursday. In the gathering, a choice to change new standards is probably going to be taken,” a source said.
Another source said the specialists may consider giving clinical appraisal to affirmed Covid-19 cases at antigen focuses.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal had mentioned the Center to pull back the new framework requiring evaluation of each Covid-19 patient at an administration run office, saying the request was “not right”.
He said that if the organization and police coercively take patients to Covid care communities for their clinical evaluation, it will resemble 15-day confinement for them.
Prior this week, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had kept in touch with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the lieutenant representative, mentioning them to scrap the framework.
He had mentioned the LG to assemble an earnest conference of the DDMA to scrap the framework as individuals were confronting a ton of issues.
The AAP regulation has been requesting the usage of the past framework under which clinical groups of region organization will visit the place of contaminated people to keep an eye on them.
Sisodia on Wednesday had said that there were two models in Delhi – Shah’s model which requires each Covid-19 patient to visit a Covid care focus and Kejriwal’s model under which clinical groups of region organizations go to the homes of contaminated people to keep an eye on them.
This isn’t a battle between Shah’s model and Kejriwal’s model, he stated, including that there ought to be a framework where individuals don’t confront issues.
The Chief Minister said there is no lockdown in the entire city, adding only in a few areas it has been imposed and would continue
Current Affairs : Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Thursday requested that individuals coordinate by following the measures set up for the control of Covid-19 on the off chance that they don’t need another lockdown or fixing in Bengaluru.
In the midst of discusses re-forcing lockdown in the city following the ongoing spike in cases, the Chief Minister said he will have conversations on Thursday and Friday with respect to the severe estimates that should be taken to control the infection.
“Covid pandemic is expanding, we are putting forth all attempts and we have even fixed a few regions. Today evening at Krishna (the CM’s home office) I have assembled a conference with Ministers and authorities and will examine the exacting measures to be taken to control Covid,” Yediyurappa said.
Addressing columnists here, he stated, “Tomorrow early afternoon I have assembled a conference of administrators of every single ideological group from Bengaluru and all Ministers from the city to examine with them, look for their assessment and take tough measures.”
Refering to an expansion in cases, Health Minister B Sriramulu on Tuesday had said the legislature may need to consider forcing lockdown in the city if the circumstance proceeds.
Following this few Ministers in the state bureau on Wednesday had stated, any choice on re-forcing lockdown in the city will be taken simply in the wake of counseling specialists.
A few reports had even recommended that a choice on lockdown is likely at the bureau meeting booked today.
The Chief Minister said there is no lockdown in the whole city, including just in a couple of regions it has been forced and would proceed.
Aditi Mehta 