Fun Fact of the week:
The fear of feathers is called
Pteronophobia. It is also known as the fear of being tickled by a
feather. The "ptero" is the Greek word for feather and "phobia" is the
Greek word for fear.
Let's begin with the weekly updates for this week.
August 17, 2020 (Monday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were:
Confirmed - 26,47,663
Recovered - 19,19,842
Deceased - 50,921
:::Dr.John Craig Venter
received "The Edogawa NICHE Prize" for the year 2020, towards his
contribution to research and development that pertains to the human
genome. Gary Levy, Chair of Edogawa NICHE Awards committee, said that
the honor reflects his lifetime accomplishments in the power of genomics and in the identification of the human genome which has
radically transformed healthcare. Dr.John Craig Venter is an American
Bio-technologist who has earlier been listed in
'Time's 100 List of the most Influential People in the World' in
2007-2008 and 'World's most Influential Figures 2010' by the British
magazine New Statesman. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October
14, 1946. He is currently Seventy-Three years young.
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| Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images |
Edogawa NICHE
Awards was instituted in 2008 to honour physicians and/or scientists who
are chosen by a joint committee of Jinseisha and Nichi-In Centre for
Regenerative Medicine (NCRM). The joint committee chooses a candidate
based on his/her contribution to development of a novel situation that
enables prevention or diagnosis or treatment of any disease, which is a
result of an inter-disciplinary interaction among different fields of
science.
:::Epic Games sued Google and Apple after both
the companies removed Fortnite from their respective app stores. Google
and Apple issued a statement saying that the game was removed as it
violated the in-app payment guidelines. Epic Games has decided to file
federal antitrust lawsuits in order to challenge their rules.
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| Image credit: gamerant.com |
The
representatives of Epic Games said that they do not seek money, but
rather injunctions that would end many of the companies' practices
related to their app stores.
:::A female Facebook Official
approached the Delhi Police to file a complaint against people on
social media who threatened and abused her after The Wall Street Journal
published a report claiming that the platform favors Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP). She has alleged harassment based on the death threats she
received on various social media platforms and the circulation of her
photograph on social media with defamatory comments.
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| Image credit: www.independent.co.uk |
The case is
currently being investigated by the Delhi Police's specialized CyPAD
Team - Cyber Prevention, Awareness and Detection Team. CyPAD was
inaugurated on February 19, 2019 by the Defense Minister Rajnath Singh (then Union Home
Minister). CyPAD also deals with crypto-currency frauds.
:::Forest Research Institute spotted Eupetaurus cinereus
at Gangotri National Park in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand. Eupetaurus
cinereus is a technical name for "Woolly Flying Squirrel". The institute
spotted this squirrel in thirteen of the eighteen divisions of the
state during a survey.
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| Image credit: Steve Gettle Wilderness Images |
The squirrel uses the fur of her claw as a parachute.
It was considered extinct Seventy years ago in the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list.
August 18, 2020 (Tuesday)
:::The figures of Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu app were:
Confirmed - 27,02,742
Recovered - 19,77,779
Deceased - 51,797
:::The Supreme Court refused to direct the transfer of contributions made to Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations
(PM CARES) to National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF). The PIL, filed by
an NGO 'Centre for Public Litigation', sought the transfer of funds and
direction to the Government to prepare, notify and implement a national
plan under the Disaster Management Act (DMA) to deal with the Covid-19
pandemic. However, the bench headed by Justices Ashok Bhushan, R.S.Reddy
and M.R.Shah concluded the hearing saying that DMA was already
sufficient with all the actions and plans in place to deal with the
pandemic.
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| Image credit: www.pmcares.gov.in |
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the ex-officio Chairman of the
fund while the ministers of defense, home and finance are its ex-officio
trustees.
:::Air India cancelled its flight that was
scheduled to fly from Delhi to Hong Kong in the wake of the ban imposed
by the Chinese Government on all the Air India flights for two weeks.
It is being alleged that the Air India flight, which flew from Delhi to
Hong Kong on August 14, 2020, had Eleven passengers who were Covid-19
positive. Due to the ban imposed, the return flight from Hong Kong to
Delhi did not operate as well. This hit thousands of Hong Kong bound
passengers stranded in India.
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| Image credit: Business Standard |
The passengers took to the social media to
get their travel plans rescheduled.
:::Gulshan Sinku got
arrested from his Gitilpi residence near Chaibasa, for his involvement
in a scam of Rs.97 lakhs during his tenure as a bank manager in
Jharkhand State Co-Operative Bank (JSCB). He was sent to jail after he
was produced in the court. Majhgoan PS OC Akil Ahmed registered the FIR
on September 27, 2019 after an internal inquiry by the bank found
Gulshan Sinku guilty.
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| Image credit: Hindustan Times |
He is accused of irregularities in Kisan Credit
Cards distribution and loan disbursement, and transferring public money
from bank account to his personal account and in his son's and
daughter's account.
:::China demolished a mosque in Atush
in order to construct a public toilet. The directive to destroy the
mosque is being considered as a part of the Mosque Rectification Campaign
that was launched by China in 2016. The Communist Party of China (CCP)
has destroyed around 70% of the
mosques across Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) till now. Some
observers believe that the campaign is aimed at breaking the spirit
of Uyghur Muslims and they have started to approach the Government and
other Muslim organizations to take action against China for this
desecration.
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| Image credit: theconversation.com |
China is apparently a home to Twenty-Two million Muslims,
including some Eleven million Uyghurs.
:::Nippon Foundation,
a non-profit organization, installed transparent toilets in Japan that
become opaque when the lock is closed. This helps a prospective user to
inspect the cleanliness and availability of a public toilet from the
outside. The toilets light up like a lantern at night.
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| Image credit: interestingengineering.com |
These toilets
have been made by Shigeru Ban Architects, a firm run by Pritzker prize
winning architect - Shigeru Ban. The installation of these transparent
toilets is a part of the 'Tokyo Toilet Project' that is organized by Nippon
Foundation.
August 19, 2020 (Wednesday)
:::The number of Corona Cases reported were:
Confirmed - 27,67,273
Recovered - 20,37,870
Deceased - 52,889
:::Mumbai
Police to hand-over all the evidence collected by them to the CBI as
the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe into the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput.
The Supreme Court also concluded that CBI is competent to probe every
FIR registered by the Mumbai Police and the Bihar Police. The Mumbai
Police had limited power as it registered the report under accidental
death while the Bihar Police covered Six sections of IPC in their report
namely:
Section 306 - Abetment of suicide
Section 341 - Punishment for wrongful restraint
Section 342 - Punishment for wrongful confinement
Section 380 - Theft in dwelling house
Section 406 - Punishment for criminal breach of trust
Section 420 - Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property
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| Image credit: Indian Express |
The Supreme Court also said that Sushant Singh Rajput died before his potential could be realized.
:::Chhattisgarh Government's Industry Department signed an MOU with M/s ATMASTCO Ltd
to establish the first manufacturing unit of a Defense Category
Industry at Birebhant Village of Durg district. M/s ATMASTCO Ltd will
manufacture bulletproof jackets and helmets for the Government of India's
armed forces, infantry, BSF, CRPF and State Government's armed forces.
The MOU was signed by Manoj Kumar Pingua (Principal Secretary of the
Industry Department) and S.Swaminathan (Managing Director at M/s
ATMASTCO Ltd).
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| Image credit: http://www.atmastco.com/ |
The production for the first batch of One lack
bulletproof jackets and One lakh helmets will start by November 2020.
The company has brought in a capital investment of Rs.87.50 crore and it
will provide employment to around 150 people.
:::Ibrahim Boubacar Keita
(The President of Mali) resigned and dissolved the parliament along
with Boubou Cisse (The Prime Minister of Mali) and other top officials
in a brief address broadcast on state television. They were earlier
detained at a military base in Kati outside the capital Bamako at
gunpoint.
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| Image credit: AFP |
The country has been facing jihadist insurgency and mass
protests and their resignation and dissolution of the Parliament has
plunged it deeper in the crisis.
:::Apple became the first
publicly traded U.S company to hit a $2 trillion market cap. Its revenue
grew across every category and all of its geographical regions in the June
quarter despite the Corona crisis. Apple is followed by Microsoft &
Amazon at $1.6 trillion each and Google at $1 trillion market cap.
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| Image credit: Ken Felepchuk; John T, Wasan Ritthawon, Camera Papa – Shutterstock |
Overall, Apple became the second company to hit $2 trillion as Saudi
Aramco, an oil major, was the first publicly listed company in the world
to hit the mark of $2 trillion in December 2019. Apple became the first
publicly listed U.S company to hit $1 trillion stock market value two
years ago.
August 20, 2020 (Thursday)
:::Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu App were:
Confirmed - 28,36,925
Recovered - 20,96,664
Deceased - 53,866
:::Safety protocols were finalized for JEE (Main) and NEET
aspirants. Candidates are now required to carry a self-declaration
regarding their health status. Candidates will only be allowed in a
batch of Fifteen girls and Fifteen boys with a face mask, a pair of
gloves, personal transparent bottle, small hand sanitizer and documents
like admit card & identity card. Candidates with body temperature
higher than the recommended body temperature of 99.4 Fahrenheit will
only be allowed to take tests in isolated rooms.
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| Image credit: India TV |
The exams will be
conducted by the National Testing Agency between September 01, 2020 to
September 13, 2020 for around Twenty-Five lakh aspirants.
:::BlackBerry
granted OnwardMobility (a Texas based start-up) the right to develop,
engineer and bring to market a BlackBerry 5G mobile device with a
physical QWERTY keyboard. Peter Franklin, CEO of OnwardMobility, has
called this an incredible opportunity. The launch of BlackBerry 5G
device is scheduled for 2021.
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| Image credit: OnwardMobility |
BlackBerry exited the business in 2016 due
to a decline in its sale as iPhone and Android smartphones rose in
popularity.
:::Bombay High Court granted bail to Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan.
The Wadhawan Brothers, promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Limited
(DHFL), are the accused in the Yes Bank fraud case that is being
investigated by the CBI. Yes Bank allegedly invested Rs.3,700 crore in
short-term non-convertible debentures of DHFL between the period of
April 2018 and June 2018. It has also been alleged that Rana Kapoor,
promoter of Yes Bank, received Rs.600 crore as kickbacks from DHFL in
terms of loan and advanced to; DOIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd,
where 100% stocks are held by his three daughters; and, Morgan Credits, a
company that is fully controlled by his wife.
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| Image credit: The Economic Times |
Justice Bharati Dangre
has granted bail to both the brothers in lieu of Rs.1 lakh bond each and
on a condition that they will surrender their passport to the
investigators.
:::Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) tied-up with, "N.S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning"
(NSRCEL) for innovative mobility solutions. NSRCEL is a start-up hub by
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. As per this tie-up,
start-ups will get MSI's support for need assessment, access to domain
experts, investor connect, mentoring, guidance to regulations and
demo-day to catalyze its growth. The program is spread across a total
duration of nine months out of which three months will be pre-incubation
and six months will be incubation. The select start-up will then get a
chance for potential partnership with MSI to fast-track growth of their
venture.
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| Image credit: Cars24 |
This tie-up is the first-of-its-kind initiative by an automobile
manufacturing company to help early stage start-ups become large scale
businesses.
:::The results of Swachh Survekshan 2020 were
declared and Indore won the title of India's Cleanest City for the
fourth consecutive time. It is followed by Surat, Navi Mumbai,
Vijayawada, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam and
Vadodara.
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| Image credit: www.mygov.in |
Jalandhar cantonment from Punjab bagged the title of India's
cleanest Cantonment Board. Varanasi won the Best Ganga Town award, while
New Delhi Municipal Corporation won the Cleanest Capital City Award.
Bhopal won the title of Best self-sustainable capital city and Lucknow
received the title of Faster Mover Capital City.
:::Turtle born with a golden shell
was found in Dhanushadham Municipality in Nepal. It gets its coloration
from chromatic leucism, an ultra-rare genetic mutation that alters its
pigmentation. According to the Nepal Toxinology Association (NTA), this
is only the fifth species in the world.
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| Image credit: www.smalljoys.tv |
It is identified by Mithila
Wildlife Trust as an Indian flap shell turtle. Kamal Devkota, a reptile
expert, believes that the turtle has significant religious and cultural
value.
August 21, 2020 (Friday)
:::Aarogya Setu App showed the followed figures for Corona Cases:
Confirmed - 29,05,823
Recovered - 21,58,946
Deceased - 54,849
:::Centre eased norms to offer a 50% of the salary for three months as an unemployment allowance.
The allowance will be provided to lakh of workers who are the members
of Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and who lost their jobs
due to Covid-19 pandemic for the period starting from March 24, 2020 to
December 31, 2020. Following are some of the eligibility criteria:
1) The employee should have been a part of ESI from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2020.
2)
The employee should have contributed at least for Seventy-Eight days
during the period from October 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, and also in
one of the other six monthly contribution periods from April 1, 2018.
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| Image credit: India TV News |
V.Radhakrishnan,
a member of ESIC board and the national executive member of Bharatiya
Mazdoor Sangh, issued a statement saying that the move will benefit
around thirty-thirty five lakh workers and provide relief to those who
have lost their jobs. The modern scheme has been introduced by modifying
'Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana Scheme'.
:::The Income-Tax department
issued a total of Rs.88,652 crore as a refund to over 24.64 lakh
taxpayers. The refund consisted of Rs.28,180 crore processed to 23.05
lakh taxpayers as Personal Income Tax refund and Rs.60,472 crore
processed to 1.58 lakh taxpayers as Corporate Tax refund.
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| Image credit: News On Air |
Income Tax and
Corporate Tax are administered by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
:::HSBC launched a 'green deposit'
to finance Eco-friendly projects like renewable energy projects. It is
available only to corporations in a term deposit format that will go to
finance projects that promote the transition to a low carbon, climate
resilient and sustainable economy.
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| Image credit: AffairsCloud.com |
HSBC had previously launched a
similar product called 'green bond' which could be subscribed by the
investors who were committed to such themes. HSBC had also taken a move
to disincentivize funding for polluting projects through moves like
higher provisioning requirements.
:::The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice NV Ramana dismissed the bail application of Malkit Singh
who had applied for bail on health grounds. He had earlier sought bail
contending that he was falsely implicated and that he was a patient of
diabetes. Malkit Singh is an accused of the Tarn Taran Blast that happened
in September 2019.
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| Image credit: The Hindu |
The blast killed two and injured one when the victims
were reportedly digging a pit to retrieve a concealed explosive
consignment.
:::International team of scientists extracted
ten eggs from Fatu and Najin, world's only two remaining northern white
female rhinos living at OI Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The eggs have
been sent to Avantea, a medical lab in Italy, and they hope to create
embryos that would be transferred into surrogates.
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| Image credit: Getty Images |
This is the third
round to be taken since August 2019. If the lab successfully creates
embryos, then it would save the subspecies from extinction as the last
male (Sudan) died in 2018.
:::Netflix apologized after it
faced backlash for sexualising young girls in the promotional poster of
"Cuties". An online petition, that was signed by thousands, called the
film disgusting for sexualising an eleven year young girl. Netflix later
removed the post and updated it with a revised picture & a new
description.
The French film was originally titled, "Mignonnes". It
premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, where the
French-Senegal filmmaker Maimouna Doucoure won the 'Best Director Award'
in the World Cinema Dramatic Section. It is now set to release on
Netflix on September 9, 2020.
Before I wrap-up, I would like to talk about "Life+".
Life+ is a life saving mobile application that connects a voluntary
blood donor with the person who needs blood. The app has been designed
and developed in Vadodara. This is a unique initiative by Happy Faces
Vadodara and it is currently only restricted to the residents of
Vadodara. They have organized several campaigns in which many of the
users of their app have donated blood. Even during the Covid-19
pandemic, the team is actively conducting their campaign of donating
blood. Life+ was launched two years ago and it has benefitted over
three thousand people.
Here is a video that tells a bit more about it:
To download Life+ mobile application on your android device, click here.
You can visit their Facebook page by clicking here.
That is all for this week. I hope that the blog was useful and it helped you in catching up
with what happened. If you have anything to contribute, then please feel
free to comment. Do share this blog with everyone you know and help them too.
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