Weekly Update: August 24, 2020 - August 28, 2020

My blog is about to complete one month and i do not have words to thank all of you for making this possible. I have received a good number of viewership and i hope that this continues to happen. You may believe it or not but every view and every feedback helps me to improve a lot.

Now let's start with the fun fact and updates for this week.

Did you know that firefighters use chemicals to make water wetter? The chemicals that they use reduce surface tension of plain water so that it spreads and gets soak into objects easily. This is why it is known as wet water.

August 24, 2020 (Monday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were reported as follows:
Confirmed - 31,06,348
Recovered - 23,38,035
Deceased - 57,542

:::In order to help increase compliance and double the tax payer base to 1.24 crore, the Finance Ministry reduced GST rate at which people have to pay tax. The businesses with annual turnover of Rs.40 lakh are now exempt from GST. The limit for GST exemption was Rs.20 lakh earlier. The manufacturing businesses with turnover up to Rs.1.5 crore can now opt for the Composition Scheme and pay only 1% tax, as compared to the tax of 2% with turnover up to Rs.75 lakh earlier. The housing sector has been placed in 5% slab with GST reduced to 1% on affordable housing.

Image credit: Business Today

The Finance Ministry also remembered Arun Jaitley, who held the finance portfolio in the first term of the Modi Government since 2014 and contributed towards the successful implementation of GST.

:::Samsung designed Samsung Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition. It is a special phone for the United States Federal Government and Department of Defense Operations. The phone features a pro-grade 64MP camera and supports 8k video recording, tactical radios, drone feeds, laser range finders & external GPS. It offers Stealth Mode that allows to disable LTE and mute all RF broadcasting for a complete off-grid communication. The phone is built on Samsung Knox. Samsung Knox is a defense-grade mobile security platform that protects the device from hardware through software layers. The DualDar architecture further secures the device with two layers of encryption even when the device is powered off or in unauthenticated state.

Image credit: https://news.samsung.com/

Samsung has said that this is the only end-user device that one would need for mission planning, training, operations and daily use. The phone is not meant for the general public and it is available only through a very specific government channel.

:::Garuda Prakashan decided to publish "Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story". Sankrant Sanu, CEO of Garuda Prakashan, issued a formal statement saying that they are committed to an authentic ancient and contemporary narrative of Indian history. The authors, Advocate Monika Arora and Delhi University teachers Sonali Chitalkar & Prerna Malhotra, thanked Garuda Prakashan for agreeing to publish their book and for supporting the freedom of speech. The book was earlier supposed to be published by Bloomsbury India, but it later withdrew to publish the book as it faced a massive backlash on an advertisement of the book launch that featured BJP leader Kapil Mishra as a guest honour.

Image credit: https://www.newslaundry.com/

Bloomsbury India too, issued a statement and said that it has a deep sense of responsibility towards the society & that it supports freedom of speech.

:::Shares of PVR and Inox jumped by 80% despite the multiplexes being shut for almost a period of 4 months. The investors hope that the cost cuts & sufficient liquidity will aid the companies to ride through the disruption and that the multiplexes will remain a preferred choice for big launches for the buzz & experience they provide even though many producers have been driven to OTT platforms for their new release due to prolonged stay-at-home order.

Image credit: https://www.youtube.com/c/MayapuriCut/

Anurag Dayal and Amit Sachdeva, analysts with HSBC, said that they expect this fiscal year to be largely disrupted due to COVID-19, but they are encouraged by the initial response that they have seen in other markets where theaters have opened again.

:::TikTok sued the U.S Government over Donald Trump's efforts to ban the app. It also accused Donal Trump of misusing the "International Emergency Economic Powers Act". The act lets the president regulate international commerce during a national emergency. TikTok also sued the U.S Department of Commerce & Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in the federal court in Los Angeles and accused them for politicizing the dispute by calling for a ban on TikTok in an August 06, 2020 executive order.

Image credit: https://www.gulte.com/

Donald Trump had earlier ordered ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, to sell its U.S business in ninety days.

August 25, 2020 (Tuesday)
:::The figures for Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu app were as follows:
Confirmed - 31,67,323
Recovered - 24,04,585
Deceased - 58,390

:::MG Motor India (MG) launched a Certified Pre-Loved Car vertical, called MG-Reassure, in India. An owner can now exchange his/her used MG car for a new MG car without any obligation. MG will assess all the pre-loved vehicles through more than 160 quality checks and conduct all the necessary repairs before its resale. It will also undertake a methodical evaluation for pricing of a used vehicle. Customers who buy a pre-loved vehicle will get an unlimited kilometers warranty & roadside assistance for three years and three free services.

Image credit: https://www.v3cars.com/

Gaurav Gupta, Chief Commercial Officer at MG, said that the initiative will enhance customer retention and empower their patrons to stay within the MG family while enjoying a flexible ownership.

:::Four China banks, led by Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), kicked off their autumn campus hiring, instead of November as compared to the previous year. The banks together employ around 1.6 million people. They are mostly looking to hire for customer service, wealth management and information technology. ICBC is planning to hire Eighteen Thousand graduates while China Construction Bank Corp is planning to hire Sixteen Thousand graduates. Bank of China Co. is looking to hire more than Ten Thousand graduates. The Agricultural Bank of China has already hired Four Thousand & Five Hundred candidates.

Image credit: https://www.investopedia.com/

The Chinese Government has repeatedly pledged support for jobs and rolled out measures for the same; however, a report published by Zhaopin.com (one of China's biggest recruiting website) showed that more than a quarter of recent graduates were still looking for a job in June 2020, a period during which most of them would have typically landed a job in the past.

:::Delhi High Court has sought a response from Centre, Reserve Bank of India and Google India by issuing a notice to them. The Court has sought a response on a plea that seeks action against "Google Pay" for allegedly violating the central bank's guidelines related to data localization, storage and sharing norms. The notice also seeks an undertaking from Google India Digital Service, where it states that it will not store data on its app under UPI ecosystem and that it will not share the data with any third party including its holding or parent company.

Image credit: Lex Insider

The notice was issued by a bench of Chief Justice D.N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan.

:::Sarv Sampradaya Hindu Temple and Cultural Centre was inaugurated in Walkinstown, that is located six kilometers away from Dublin City Centre. It was established by Vedic Hindu Cultural Centre Ireland (VHCCI). This is the first Hindu temple in Ireland. It is now open for the visit; however, as a part of its precautionary measures for COVID-19, people are required to pre-book their visit via the web-portal of VHCCI. The temple is a dream come true for many Hindus living in Ireland as they earlier had to rely on temporary locations such as town halls and other centres to hold a religious event.

Image credit: Sarabangla In

The temple will also hold yoga classes, language & vedic classes, music & dance workshops and many other activities.

:::Neelakanta Bhanu Prakash won a gold for India in the 'Mental Calculation World Championship' at Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) and broke the record of Shakuntala Devi by becoming the fastest human calculator. MSO is held every year in London and it is considered as the most prestigious international competition designed for mental skills and mind sports. Bhanu Prakash is twenty years young.

Image credit: Hindustan Times

He is a student of Mathematics (Hons) at Delhi University's St-Stephen College. He holds fifty Limca records for his fastest ever Mathematics calculations. The record was earlier held by Scott Flansburg and Shakuntala Devi.

:::AstroSat detected an extreme ultraviolet light from AUDFS01. It is a galaxy that is located 9.3 billion light years away from earth. The discovery, published by 'Nature Astronomy', was made by an international team that consisted of scientists from India, France, Switzerland, the United States of America, Japan and the Netherlands. The team was led by IUCAA's Dr.Kanak Saha. IUCAA is an autonomous institution based in Pune and it stands for Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Image credit: https://www.insightsonindia.com/

AstroSat is India's first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory with five unique x-ray and ultraviolet telescopes working in tandem.

August 26, 2020 (Wednesday)
:::The number of Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu app were as follows:
Confirmed - 32,34,474
Recovered - 24,67,758
Deceased - 59,449

:::While hearing a plea filed by Gajendra Sharma, a resident of Agra, the Supreme Court took note of Centre's alleged inaction on the waiver of interest on interest for deferred payments of installments for loans, during the moratorium period announced due to the coronavirus lockdown, despite having ample powers available with it under the Disaster Management Act.

Image credit: S. Subramanium

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R.Subhash Reddy and M.R.Shah have asked the Centre to make its stand clear and have posted the matter for hearing on September 01, 2020. The Court had earlier said that there was no merit in charging interest on interest.

:::Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued "show-cause" notice to Vodafone-Idea Limited (VIL) over the contentious priority plan, RedX. RedX claims to offer a priority 4G network with faster data speed. TRAI is of the view that the claim of VIL made in RedX is not in compliance with the extant regulatory framework. TRAI also said that the offer is misleading and it lacks transparency. The regulatory agency has asked VIL to 'show-cause' by August 31, 2020 as to why appropriate action should not be initiated against it for violating the framework.

Image credit: The Indian Express

Bharti Airtel, too, was under the radar; however, show-cause notice was not issued to Bharti Airtel as it voluntarily decided to abide by what TRAI said and modified its platinum offering suitably.

:::Google introduced several features including tabs that load 10% faster, let you organize and find them easily in the Chrome browser. Google has also introduced a new touch-friendly tab for tablet mode to make it easier to find the page that a user is looking for. A user can now hover over a tab and quickly see a thumbnail preview of the page. It has improved URL sharing for the android users, to help them to copy and send a link through other apps quickly. One can now print a page or generate OR code to scan or download  the page.

Image credit: LightRocket via Getty Images

In future, Google will be rolling out the feature on its desktop version, and the users would be able to access it from a new QR icon in the Chrome address bar. In the coming time, users would also be able to fill out a PDF form and save them with their inputs directly from Chrome, and if the user opens it later then he/she will be able to pick-up from where they left.

:::England won its first test series at home against Pakistan in ten years. The series consisted of three matches and England won by 1-0, as the third match ended in a draw. James Anderson became the first fast bowler in history to take six hundred wickets. Zak Crawley slammed his maiden double ton and Buttler slammed a ton after forty-three innings. The last test series that England won at home against Pakistan was in 2010, where it won by 3-1.

Image credit: https://www.icc-cricket.com/

England's victory in the series has not changed India's position in the World Test Championship 2019-2021 points table. India is still at top with 360 points, followed by Australia and England with 296 and 292 points respectively. Bangladesh is yet to open its account on the points table.

August 27, 2020 (Thursday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were:
Confirmed - 33,10,234
Recovered - 25,23,771
Deceased - 60,472

:::Audi launched SUV - Audi RS Q8 Sportsback in India, a year after it made its global debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The car is powered by a V8 twin-turbo 4.0TFSI engine and it goes from 0-100 in 3.8 seconds. It offers a peak torque of 800 Nm and features cylinder-on-demand (COD) technology. The COD technology saves fuel as it turns off the cylinder when less power is needed. Audi's Drive Select Dynamic Handling System lets you achieve a driving manner as per your preference. Audi RS Q8 offers seven drive modes to choose from, to suit any kind of driving style or road condition.

Image credit: https://carbuzz.com/

Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India, is confident that it will have a magnetic pull for luxury sports car enthusiasts. Audi RS Q8 is priced at Rs.2.07 crore, and it can be booked with an initial amount of Rs.15 lakh.

:::Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, became first person with a net worth of over $200 billion. His net worth according to Forbes is $204.6 billion and $202 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Jeff also owns an aerospace company Blue Origin, the Washington Post and some other private investments and yet, his 11% stake in Amazon makes up over 90% of his massive fortune.

Image credit: Bloomberg

He is followed by Microsoft co-owner Bill Gates, whose net worth is $116.1 billion according to Forbes and $124 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

:::Delhi Forest Department and PWD issued a notice to Station Headquarters of the Army (Delhi) for damaging forty-five trees by carrying out trenching activity for construction of a boundary wall along the Ring Road on the periphery of the Rajputana Rifles Regiment Centre and Army Environmental Park & Training Area (AEPTA). The notice issued by PWD's horticulture department said that the trenching activity within one meter radius of a tree trunk was a violation of National Green Tribunal's 2015 order as well as of the Forest Conservation Act 1980.

Image credit: Amal KS/HT PHOTO

The area of 4389 sq. meter is a deemed forest land where no construction can be carried out without seeking prior permission from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

:::Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He is a twenty nine year young Australian who admitted to fifty one charges of murder, forty counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act during the 2019 shooting rampage at two Christchurch mosques which he live streamed on Facebook. Tarrant said that he wanted to instill fear in those he described as invaders.  He also admitted that he had carefully planned the attack to cause maximum carnage. Tarrant, who represented himself, said through a lawyer in the court that he did not oppose the prosecution's application for a life imprisonment without parole sentence.

Image credit: BBC

Cameron Mander, the High Court Judge, said that even if he were to be detained until death, it would not exhaust the requirements of punishment and denunciation. This is for the first time that such a sentence has been handed down in the country.

:::Shares of Transglobe Foods surged over 4300% and shares of Shree Precoated Steels jumped over 1300% this year amid a market rally in penny stocks, despite both of them making zero sale and having zero revenue in 2019-2020. Transglobe Foods is an Indian fruit-jam maker and Shree Precoated Steels is a real-estate services firm. Sumeet Rohra, Fund Manager at Smartsun Capital, issued a statement saying that out-performance of retail-driven small stock raises the risk of a pull back and some contagion to broader markets. He also said that the investors should stick with quality stocks which have not participated, rather than chasing small caps.

Image credit: The Financial Express

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, India's overall equity market value has increased by nearly $770 billion from the March low.

August 28, 2020 (Friday)
:::The number of Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu app is as follows:
Confirmed - 33,87,500
Recovered - 25,83,948
Deceased - 61,529

:::National Consumer Commission ordered a builder to refund Rs.5 lakh plus an interest of Rs.14.5 lakh to Samuel Dorman, a customer, for not handing over the possession of a flat that he had booked in 1995. After booking the flat, Dorman learnt that the builder had entered into an agreement with another person to complete the construction. He sent the builder a legal notice to seek clarification but he did not respond. The customer said that despite him making a payment of Rs.8 lakh in two transactions, the builder did not handover the flat to him within the promised timeline. The builder has claimed that only Rs.5 lakh were paid to him and the other Rs.3 lakh paid in cash was a false claim. The builder justified his act by saying that the total price of the flat, when booked, was Rs.12.7 lakh and since Dorman did not pay the total amount, the possession was not given to him.

Image credit: DNA India

National Consumer Commission, however, has awarded Dorman a compensation of Rs.25,000/- and has asked the builder to refund the amount of Rs.5 lakh with the interest of Rs.14 lakh, which is attracted from the time the amount was paid and not when the consumer filed the complaint.

:::The Supreme Court upheld the position of University Grants Commission (UGC) that there will be no degrees without an exam. The Court gave the order on petition which demanded that exams should be cancelled and that students should be promoted on the basis of internal assessment.

Image credit: https://www.oneindia.com/

The Court said that only the states under Disaster Management Act could postpone the exams in view of the pandemic.

:::Mehul Choksi, uncle of diamantaire Nirav Modi, filed a petition through his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal seeking pre-screening of "Bad Boy Billionaires". Delhi High Court refused to grant him a preview as there is no regulation to control the content being streamed on OTT platforms. He, however, can file a civil suit and again seek permission. "Bad Boy Billionaires" is a series that will be aired on Netflix from September 02, 2020. The series focuses on fraud committed by many high-profile business tycoons in India. Netflix has apparently taken down the trailer

Image Credit: https://1kmovies.net/

 

The promotional poster released by Netflix showed Nirav Modi (Mehul Choksi's nephew), Vijaya Mallya (Chairperson of now defunct Kingfisher airlines), Subrata Roy (Sahara Group) and Ramalinga Raju (former Chairperson and CEO of Satyam Computer Services).

:::World Bank paused the publication of "Doing Business Report", which carries "Ease of Doing Business" (EODB) rankings. The publication has been paused in the wake of a number of reported irregularities regarding changes to data in 2018 and 2020 reports published in October 2017 and October 2019 respectively. The World Bank has said that it is conducting a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business Report. Union Ministries of Finance and Commerce said that the review would make the report robust and credible. It also issued a formal statement saying that the review would neither halt nor deter India's commitment towards ease of doing business.

Image credit: https://www.investopedia.com/

The EODB ranking is based on ten factors, namely:

1) Starting a business
2) Dealing with construction permit
3) Getting electricity
4) Registering property
5) Getting credit
6) Protecting minority investors
7) Paying taxes
8) Trading across borders
9) Enforcing contracts
10) Resolving insolvency

:::SkyDrive Inc. successfully carried out a test flight of its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle with one person onboard. It can so far fly for just five-ten minutes and it offers a quick point-to-point personal travel, at least in principle. Tomohiro Fukuzawa, head of SkyDrive Inc., hopes that the flying car can be made into a real-life product by 2023. He also acknowledged that making it safe is very critical. Some other potential challenges to commercialize them are battery size, air traffic control and infrastructure.

The SkyDrive project began as a volunteer project called Cartivator in 2012. During its initial days, it received funding from automaker Toyota Motor Corp, electronics company Panasonic Corp and video-game developer Bandai Namco. Lilium of Germany, Joby Aviation in California and Wisk - a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Kitty Hawk Corp. - are also working on eVTOL projects.

This week in the Special Section, i would like to share a few things about VCARE - Vadodara Center for Animal Rescue and Emergency.

Image credit: VCARE

VCARE is a private not-for-profit organisation. It was founded on November 25, 1997 with an aim to  provide an effective means for prevention of cruelty and the alleviation of pain, fear and suffering in as many animals and birds it can reach.Their office/shelter is located at Lakdikui village on the outskirts of the city. Their shelter has various features such as:

1) Aashiyana Pet Kennel
2) Donkey Shelter, that is funded by International Donkey Protection Trust, U.K
3) Bird Shelter funded by United Way of Baroda
4) A large dog run where stray dogs can run around freely
5) A cat house
6) An operation theater

VCARE also offers expert pet care tips, advice and guidance to help pet owners plan ahead for their pets health and happiness and to stop unwanted litters. The volunteers at VCARE help the organization with animal surgery, shelter outreach and adoptions, to name a few. The volunteers also work with schools to sensitize children towards animal welfare and cruelty issues.

Image credit: Image credit: https://www.facebook.com/VCAREpeople/

In the recent times of lockdown, VCARE took up the responsibility to feed stray dogs and it still continues to feed them on a daily basis. They are restarting the Sunday Mobile Van Service, in which their van goes to an area with medicines and wet to treat an injured animal in that area & also to deworm and vaccinate the dogs of that area against rabies.

Image credit: https://www.facebook.com/VCAREpeople/

The organization is in constant need of food and medicines for the animals at their shelter, Aashiyana. One can make the donations either personally or by getting it delivered to their office. The donations can be in cash or kind.

For more details, please visit their website.
You may also connect with them through their social media account.

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.

*Disclaimer: The information has been presented in this blog after reviewing various news articles. In case you find any article, or if you have any article, that states some facts differently, then share them in the comment section. Please keep the publishing date of the article in mind as it may be an update on the article which was published previously, or it may contain outdated information if it was published before the date mentioned in this blog.