Weekly Update: October 26, 2020 - October 30, 2020

You get older and you learn there is one sentence,
just four words long,
and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other.
It goes like this:
At least i tried.
-Ann Brashares
(July 30, 1967; American young adult novelist)

Let's start!

Here is a Fun Fact that you may not, or may, know: Tennis players are not allowed to use curse words while playing in Wimbledon.

Image Credit: https://www.essentiallysports.com/

The judges, therefore, have to learn curse words in every language so that they know when a player has violated the rule.

October 26, 2020 (Monday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were as follows:
Confirmed - 79,09,959
Recovered - 71,37,228
Deceased - 1,19,014

:::Bharti Airtel launched a cloud-based communication platform called, "Airtel IQ". Airtel IQ aims to enable the brands to deepen the engagement with their customers through timely and secure communication. It has been completely developed by Airtel's in-house engineering teams, and it runs on Pay-As-You-Go Model - cost depends on the consumption level. Airtel issued a statement and called the launch of Airtel IQ a, "game changer" for the fast evolving Indian enterprise communication segment.

Image Credit: https://www.themobileindian.com/

Some brands that have signed-up as customers for Airtel IQ in the beta phase are: Swiggy, JustDial, Urban Company, Havells, Dr. Lal Path Labs and Rapido.

:::Researchers at the Netherlands' Leiden University, 3D printed a boat that has been named "Benchy". The boat measures thirty micro-metres, which is about a third of the thickness of a hair. This is a part of an exploration, goal of which is to understand how micro-swimmers like bacteria and sperm move through liquids. The researchers wrote in their research paper that the exploration will ultimately allow a greater control & design of the behavior of synthetic micro-swimmers, useful for applications in therapeutic diagnostic & drug delivery.

Image Credit: Twitter

In order to 3D print the object, researchers used a commercial Nanoscribe 3D micro-printer and a process known as two-photon polymerization (2PP).

October 27, 2020 (Tuesday)
:::The number of Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu App were as follows:
Confirmed - 79,46,429
Recovered - 72,01,070
Deceased - 1,19,502

:::Nityanand Nayak, a noted Odia poet, was honoured with Sarala Puraskar for his poetry collection, 'Sete Bela Ku Nathibi'. He was presented with a citation, a trophy and a cash reward of ₹5 lakhs. Sarala Puraskar is an annual award that is given by Indian Metals Public Charitable Trust (IMPaCT). It was instituted by Odia industrialist Dr. Bansidhar Panda and Ila Panda in the year 1980.

Image Credit (Nityanand Nayak): https://currenthunt.com/

In the same ceremony, Shyamsundar Pattanayak and Ranjeet Kumar Nag were presented with Ila Panda Chitrakala Samman and Ila Panda Sangeet Samman respectively. Both of them received a citation and a cash reward of ₹1.5 lakhs, each.

:::Custom Officials seized over ₹13.75 lakhs ($18,600) from Syed Ali, a twenty-six years young Dubai-bound passenger, at the Chennai International Airport. He had hidden the bills in his inner-wear and in a cigarette packet. He was intercepted by the officials after he cleared immigration formalities at departure terminal.

Image Credit: https://www.dnaindia.com/

The bills were recovered and seized under the Customs Act 1962 r/w FEM (Export and Import of Currency) Regulations 2015.

October 28, 2020 (Wednesday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were as follows:
Confirmed - 79,90,322
Recovered - 72,59,509
Deceased - 1,20,010

:::Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) released the findings of National Family Health Survey-4, that was conducted in 2015-2016. According to the survey, 26.3% (as compared to 7.5% in 2005-2006) women in Assam, aged between fifteen & forty-nine years, consume alcohol. This is the highest among all states and Union Territories as the national figure stands at 1.2%. The findings also state that 35.6% men in Assam, aged between fifteen & forty-nine years, consume alcohol. The national figure for the same is 29.2%.

Image Credit: https://diligentias.com/

The survey also found that the tobacco use among men and women in Assam is higher as compared to rest of the country. Around 17.7% men consume tobacco and 60% women consume tobacco in Assam, while the figures for rest of the country stand at 6.8% and 44.5% respectively.

:::Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued two separate orders against Yashovardhan Birla, Chairman of Yash Birla Group, for fraudulent & unfair trade practices in Birla Cotsyn's GDR issue in 2009-2010, and also for inaccurate & deficient disclosures in the Birla Pacific Medspa IPO prospectus. In the first case of fraudulent & unfair trade practices in Birla Cotsyn's GDR issue in 2009-2010, SEBI investigated and found that the company facilitated subscription to its own Global Depository Receipts (GDR) by pledging the receipts from the sale of GDRs as a collateral to a loan taken by Vintage FZE, that was the only entity to subscribe to all the 9.69 million GDRs. In the second case of inaccurate & deficient disclosures in the Birla Pacific Medspa IPO prospectus, SEBI found that instead of using the IPO proceeds to set-up Evolve healthcare centres, the company had diverted around 50% to other companies of Birla Group as an inter-corporate deposits, most of which was never returned.

Image Credit: https://www.bloombergquint.com/

Yashovardhan Birla got banned from the securities markets two times in one month after SEBI issued these two separate orders.

October 29, 2020 (Thursday)
:::The number of Corona Cases as reported on Aarogya Setu App were as follows:
Confirmed - 80,40,203
Recovered - 73,15,989
Deceased - 1,20,527

:::According to LinkedIn's Labour Market Data, the competition for jobs in 2020 is 30% higher as compared to the previous year. The data also states that the professionals in Recreation & Travel sector are 3.8 times more likely to switch their job to another sector in the year 2020. The professionals in Retails and Corporate service are 1.5 times and 1.4 times, respectively, more likely to switch their job to another sector.

Image Credit: PTI

Hiring, however, continued to recover at the rate of 12% in August 2020.

:::Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Tech Mahindra signed a contract to support, "Project Parivartan". The project is a comprehensive business transformation exercise initiated by HAL through technology enhancement and centralized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Sujit Baksi, President of Corporate Affairs and Business Head of Emerging Markets at Tech Mahindra, said in a HAL statement that the project would transform ERP system of HAL to serve the armed forces in an effective and efficient manner.

Image Credit: https://www.ciol.com/

The contract to implement ERP is worth ₹400 crore and it would be completed over a period of nine years.

:::Scientists at National Institute of Health in the United States of America discovered, "VEXAS Syndrome". It is an inflammatory disease that is caused by mutations in the UBA1 gene. The disease only affects men and causes symptoms like blood clots in veins, recurrent fever and pulmonary abnormalities. Scientists discovered the disease by searching the genetic make-up of 2,500 people for variations that could be linked to the wide-ranging symptoms of their undiagnosed inflammatory conditions.

Image Credit: https://www.nih.gov/

The discovery is being hailed by medical and scientific professional as it has paved the way for future discoveries, therapeutics and a lot more.

October 30, 2020 (Friday)
:::The number of Corona Cases were as follows:
Confirmed - 80,88,851
Recovered - 73,73,375
Deceased - 1,21,090

:::The Finance Ministry issued Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the 'scheme for grant of ex-gratia payment of difference between Compound Interest and Simple Interest' to clarify that the agriculture & allied activity loans were not eligible for interest-on-interest waiver. The Ministry further added that crop & tractor loans were not a part of the classes eligible under the scheme. The relief covers: MSME loans, education loans, housing loans, consumer durable loans, credit card dues, automobile loans, personal loans to professionals and consumption loans.

Image Credit: http://ddnews.gov.in/

The scheme was announced on the direction of the Supreme Court and it is likely to cost ₹6,500 crore to the exchequer.

:::KT Rama Rao and Ajay Kumar, Telangana Ministers, launched 'Electric Vehicle and Energy Storage Policy'. As per the policy, the Telangana Government will offer 100% exemption on road tax and registration fee for first two lakh electric two-wheelers that are purchased & registered within Telangana. The policy will be effective from 2020 to 2030, and it would also be applicable to first five thousand electric four-wheeler private vehicles.

Image Credit: iStock

The policy aims to make Telangana a major base for EV & ESS (energy storage system). The policy also aims to attract investments worth $4 billion and create employment for 1,20,000 people by the year 2030 through EVs in shared mobility, charging infrastructure development & EV-ESS manufacturing activities.

In this week's Special Section, i will talk about "Acoustic Gaane", a musical YouTube channel by Sagar Patnesha and Prajakta Patnesha.

Image Credit: https://www.facebook.com/AcousticGaane

Acoustic Gaane is a perfect example of taking a small step towards success. Sagar started the YouTube channel on October 22, 2018 after his wife, Prajakta, motivated him. He uploaded his first tutorial video titled, "Radha Krishna Flute Music Guitar Tutorial", and it received more that 25,000 views & 700 likes.

The success of his first tutorial video motivated him further and he asked his wife to join him too. Both of them took charge of the departments that they were masters of: Sagar decided to play guitar and Prajakta decided to sing. Both of them tried their hands and uploaded their first video on December 26, 2019. They made their debut with a wonderful song, "Agar Tum Saath Ho" from the Hindi movie, "Tamasha".

Both of them, since then, continue to spread their magic by making cover songs and guitar tutorials. What we see looks easy, but it never is. This applies to Sagar and Prajakta too, and their story is such that everyone can relate to. They faced various hurdles like sound quality, video editing and preparing a video to upload it on their YouTube channel. They could have given-up and lived a simple life but they decided to not give-up. They explored and decided to get everything in-house. They bought a new condenser mic for better recording quality, learned to edit a video and learned to prepare a thumbnail. To make sure that there is no disturbance while recording the song, they schedule their recording session in their home studio between 12:30am and 1:30am. They shoot the video using a mobile phone.

You may click here to visit their YouTube channel.
You may click here to visit their Facebook page.

That is all for this week.

Do follow my blog to get the updates. You can connect with me on Instagram @sachdev_ankur.

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. The blogger is not responsible for any transaction that happens between the reader and the brand.