Liverpool forward Sadio Mane tests positive for Covid-19

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Liverpool forward Sadio Mane tests positive for Covid-19

Liverpool forward Sadio Mane has tested positive for novel coronavirus, the Premier League club has confirmed.

The forward, who started and scored in Monday’s 3-1 victory over Arsenal, has “displayed minor symptoms” of the virus but feels in good health overall.

“Sadio Mane has tested positive for Covid-19 and is currently self-isolating according to the necessary guidelines,” Liverpool said in a statement late Friday.

Earlier, midfielder Thiago Alcantara was diagnosed with Covid-19.

“However, like with Thiago Alcantara, Liverpool football club are – and will continue to – follow all protocols relating to Covid-19 and Mane will self-isolate for the required period of time,” the club further said.

Thiago had missed the Arsenal game after his own positive test and he and Mane will be absent for Sunday’s Premier League trip to Aston Villa.

SRK remembers value of truth on Gandhi Jayanti

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SRK remembers value of truth on Gandhi Jayanti

On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti on Friday, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan urged everyone to encourage children to follow the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

“If this Gandhi Jayanti there is one ideal we would like our children to follow, in good times, bad times and all the time….it should be Hear no bad…see no bad….speak no bad! Remembering the value of truth on Gandhiji’s 151st Birth Anniversary,” SRK wrote on Instagram.

The actor is currently in the UAE along with his family for the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). Shah Rukh, who owns the Kolkata Knight Rider (KKR) team in the league, was recently spotted attending matches there, with wife Gauri and son Aryan.

He was dressed in smart casuals — blue jeans, a white and purple KKR buttoned hoodie and a KKR mask — and, as usual, fans were gushing on social media.

“He looks so good,” a user commented.

“Boss in the stadium,” another fan wrote.

Focus on out-of-form Kohli in RCB-RR clash (IPL Match 15 Preview)

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Focus on out-of-form Kohli in RCB-RR clash (IPL Match 15 Preview)
All eyes will be on Virat Kohli, captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), who has failed to fire so far in the 13th IPL when his team clashes with Rajasthan Royals (RR) here on Saturday. He has managed just 18 runs in three matches and it is high time he played a big knock. Will it be a ‘Saturday Special’ innings from him?

With two wins each from three games, both RCB and RR will aim to outdo each other when they square-off at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium here on Saturday. Despite having an equal number of points (four), the Steve Smith-led RR is sitting at the fourth spot, a place above the Kohli-captained RCB (run rate -1.450), thanks to their better net run-rate (-0.219).

RR won their first two games that they played in Sharjah, the smallest of the three venues being used, and then they faltered against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their previous match in Dubai.

After the first two convincing wins, KKR handed RR a reality check, and their top-order with the likes of Sanju Samson, skipper Smith, and Jos Buttler failed to keep the momentum flowing. Young sensation Rahul Tewatia, too, disappointed and the same was the case with Robin Uthappa, who has completely failed to fire in this season so far, having managed just 16 runs from three games.

It’s not that RR doesn’t possess a quality batting attack; they just failed to adapt to the conditions in Dubai, which has a far bigger boundary than Sharjah, and Smith’s team will look to learn from their mistakes to muscle out RCB on Saturday.

Against KKR, Jofra Archer was quite impressive after bagging two for 18 runs and he needs to start from the left. However, the other RR bowlers — Ankit Rajpoot, Jaydev Unadkat, Tom Curran, and Shreyas Gopal — had a below-par outing and they need to tighten their seat belts against a side which boasts of explosive hitters like AB de Villers, Aaron Finch, Shivan Dube, and Devdutt Padikkal.

Coming to RCB, their biggest weapon has undoubtedly been their batting. Barring their campaign opener against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), the RCB bowlers haven’t been up to the mark in the other two games. And looking at RR’s top-order, who will be desperate to put their campaign back on track, they need to dish out their best on Saturday.

The RCB team management made three changes in their last game after including Isuru Udana, Adam Zampa, and Gurkeerat Mann in the XI and the trio is most likely play again against RR.

While Udana and Navdeep Saini will share the pace workload, Zampa, experienced Yuzvendra Chahal, and Washington Sundar will have the responsibility to get breakthroughs in the middle overs.

In batting, the major cause of concern will be the silence of skipper Kohli’s bat, which has produced just 18 runs from three games. The run-machine needs to get going as soon as possible which will surely inspire the other batters in his side, besides strengthening their middle-order.

Squads:

RCB:
Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Aaron Finch, Josh Philippe, Chris Morris, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Shahbaz Ahmed, Devdutt Padikkal, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Pavan Deshpande, Adam Zampa
RR:

Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson, Andrew Tye, Kartik Tyagi, Steven Smith (captain), Ankit Rajpoot, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Mahipal Lomror, Oshane Thomas, Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, Akash Singh, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Shashank Singh, Varun Aaron, Tom Curran, Robin Uthappa, Aniruddha Joshi, Jofra Archer

Covid vaccine to be available from January, says Sharad Pawar

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Covid vaccine to be available from January, says Sharad Pawar

Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar on Friday said that the Covid-19 vaccine being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune would be made available by the end of January 2021.

The 79-year-old leader’s brief comments came after a visit to the SII facility to get a dose of the BCG vaccine to increase immunity.

This was Pawar’s second visit since August to the SII which is currently under the global spotlight for its plans to produce vaccines against coronavirus.

SII Chairman Dr. Cyrus S. Poonawalla and his son and CEO Adar Poonawala share a close rapport with the Pawar family.

SRH win toss and choose to bat against CSK

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SRH win toss and choose to bat against CSK

SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) have won the toss and chosen to bat against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

While SRH has gone with an unchanged team, CSK, who is coming from a six-day break, has made three changes to the squad. Veteran West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo will play his first match of the season while Ambati Rayudu makes a comeback after an injury. Shardul Thakur has also been included in the XI.

The players who go out are Murali Vijay, Ruturaj Gaekwad, and Josh Hazlewood.

Chennai Super Kings: Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (captain & wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (captain), Jonny Bairstow (wicketkeeper), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, 5 Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Priyam Garg, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Khaleel Ahmed

UP software engineer held in Goa on drug charge

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UP software engineer held in Goa on drug charge

A 26-year-old computer engineer from Uttar Pradesh was arrested in the South Goa beach village of Palolem on the charge of possessing marijuana valued at Rs 12,000, police said on Friday.

Accused Ashish Sharma from Baghpat district was ‘working from home’ at the village for a software company based in Chennai, a police statement said.

A Canacona police station team raided his premises and seized 60 gm marijuana from his possession. Sharma was arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

“The accused works in a software company in Chennai. He is in Goa since March 1, 2020. Due to the lockdown, he was working online as per the company directive,” the statement added.

RailTel files draft papers for IPO with SEBI

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RailTel files draft papers for IPO with SEBI

State-run RailTel Corporation has filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India for an initial public offer of up to 8.66 crore equity shares.

The IPO will be a complete offer for sale by the Centre. The Book Running Lead Managers (BRLM) for the IPO are ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital Market and Securities, and SBI Capital Markets Ltd.

Industry insiders said the company is likely to raise Rs 700 crore through the IPO.

As per the prospectus, the company has established a consistent track record of financial performance and growth.

“We have been profitable since Fiscal 2007 and have consistently declared and paid dividends since Fiscal 2008,” it said, adding that the company’s net worth has been positive since incorporation and has been consistently growing.

RailTel’s operations have been funded entirely by internal accruals since the fiscal year 2013 and it is a debt-free company, as per the prospectus.

RailTel Corporation is a “Mini Ratna (Category-I)” PSU and is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country owning a pan-India optic fiber network on exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along the railway track.

Two lynched, beheaded, set afire in Assam over black magic allegations

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Two lynched, beheaded, set afire in Assam over black magic allegations

Nine people, including three women, were arrested by the Assam police for lynching two persons including a woman on suspicion of “witch-craft”, police said on Friday.

Superintendent of Police Debojit Deuri said that two persons, including a woman, were hacked to death, beheaded, and set afire by a mob over suspicion of practicing witch-craft (black magic) in Central Assam’s Karbi Anglong district.

“On suspicion of witch-craft a mob lynched Ramawati Halua, 50 and Bijoy Gour, 45, following the death of a teenage girl in Rohimapur village under Dokmoka police station area earlier this week,” the district police chief told the media.

After the death of the teenage girl in Rohimapur, another girl in the same village also accused the duo of performing ‘black magic’ on her, leading to her falling sick.

According to the police, after the illness of the second girl, the agitated villagers killed the duo and took their bodies to a nearby hill before beheading the bodies near a burial site and setting them afire.

Police continued their search to nab the remaining accused involved in the murder, which took place on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

The Rohimapur village is dominated by the Adivasi (or tea tribe).

Witchcraft (black magic), an unscientific social belief, claims a dozen lives in Assam’s tea belt and tribal areas every year on an average.

The killings have not stopped despite mass awareness campaigns by the state government and various NGOs.

In 2017, the Gauhati High Court had observed that branding a person as a witch and then resorting to witch-hunting is a dehumanizing act and one of the worst forms of human rights violations.

It was under the same Dokmoka police station where two youth was hacked to death by an angry mob after it suspected them of being child-lifters in 2018.

Since 2018, the Assam Witch Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) Act, 2015, has been in force. According to the act, witch-hunting is a cognizable, non-bailable, and non-compoundable offense and it provides jail term up to life imprisonment.

The Assam government informed the state legislative assembly last year that in 18 years, as many as 161 people have been murdered in the state in cases of witch-hunting.

Facebook makes managing groups easier

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Facebook makes managing groups easier

Facebook has announced new tools and programs to help users manage their groups on the social networking platform more efficiently.

These include the “Admin Assist” tool that allows one to set rules so Facebook can help moderate posts in your group for you.

For example, you can decline posts with certain keywords or from people who have not been in the group very long or whose posts have been reported in the past.

More than 1.8 billion people use Groups every month, and there are tens of millions of active communities on Facebook where people come together to talk about their interests, learn new things, be entertained, and make connections, Facebook said on Thursday.

Other tools that Facebook announced for group admins include “New Topics” which can help one organize content by topic with hashtags and pin a topic to the top of the group to highlight it for everyone.

One can also use the “Brand Collabs Manager” to make money from Public groups by connecting with brands looking to promote their products and services.

These tools were announced during the Facebook Communities Summit which was held digitally.

“Admins are at the heart of every community, whether they are Public or Private. In fact, there are more than 70 million people involved in building and running Facebook groups active in the past month,” Fidji Simo, Head of Facebook App, wrote in a blog post.

Facebook also introduced new group features like chats, prompts, and Q&A to help you spark discussions.

People with Parkinson’s disease at higher death risk from Covid-19: Study

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People with Parkinson’s disease at higher death risk from Covid-19: Study

In a study of approximately 80,000 patients, researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have found that Parkinson’s disease (PD) have a 30 percent higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than people without the neurodegenerative condition.

The study, published in the journal Movement Disorders, suggests that Parkinson’s disease is an independent risk factor for dying from Covid-19.

The research team identified the Cpvod-19 patient cohort as of July 15 and analyzed the mortality data eight weeks later. They found that 5.5 percent (4,290 out of 78,355) of Covid-19 patients without PD died compared to 21.3 percent (148 of 694) Covid-19 patients who also had PD.

“However, the patients with PD were generally older, more likely to be male. All of these factors also increase the risk of death from Covid-19,” said study researcher Nandakumar Narayanan from the University of Iowa in the US.

The research team used two approaches: logistic regression with age, sex, and matching each PD patient with five non-PD patients with the exact age, sex, and race, and performing a conditional logistic regression. In both cases, the researchers found that the risk of dying from Covid-19 was 30 percent higher for patients with PD.

“We recognize the limitations of this study; it is retrospective data from a single database, but we are confident that these data show that Parkinson’s disease is an independent risk factor for death in Covid-19,” Narayanan said.

“We believe this observation will be of interest to clinicians treating patients with Parkinson’s disease, and public health officials,” he added.

The researchers said that the findings should also inform patients with PD, and their physicians, of the increased importance of preventing Covid-19 infection in these patients.

The team noted that physicians should also weigh the increased risk of death from Covid-19 when considering how to care for PD patients in person during the pandemic.

Andhra CM asks people to pay tributes to village volunteers

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Andhra CM asks people to pay tributes to village volunteers

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has called on people in the state to pay tributes to all the village and ward volunteers by giving them a round of applause as the state’s village secretariat system has completed a year on Friday.

“On this day last year, we invigorated Gandhiji’s ideas of gram swaraj with the establishment of gram sachivalayams (secretariats) to make our villages self-reliant,” said Reddy.

He said the village secretariats are meant to bring non-corrupt governance to people’s doorsteps.

For every 50 households, the government has appointed a volunteer to take government schemes such as old-age pensions and others.

The Chief Minister called on people to clap for the services of the volunteers on Friday 7 p.m., taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s similar request while fight the COVID pandemic earlier.

India’s 1328th butterfly species found in Rajasthan

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India’s 1328th butterfly species found in Rajasthan

India’s 1328th butterfly species have been discovered in Rajasthan during the ongoing “Big Butterfly Month”, which is being celebrated from September 5. Butterfly expert and teacher Mukesh Panwar, a resident of Sagwara in Dungarpur district, discovered this species named Spealia Zebra.

Panwar, a member of the Vagad Nature Club who has been researching butterflies for the last 15 years, saw the Spealia Zebra at Dhanraj Farm House in Sagwara on November 8, 2014. He clicked a photo and sent it to the Butterfly Research Institute in Bhimtal, Uttarakhand, for identification. After a nearly six-year-long research process, institute Director Peter Smetachouk announced that it is India’s 1328th butterfly.

Smetachouk said that this butterfly, which flies at a high speed, has a width of 2.5 centimeters. The Spialia Zebra species is normally found in Pakistan.

Panwar, who is doing research on butterflies of Rajasthan, has seen and identified around 111 species of butterflies.

Soldier shoots himself in J&K’s Uri

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Soldier shoots himself in J&K’s Uri

A soldier shot himself dead with his service rifle in Jammu and Kashmir’s border town of Uri on Friday, police said.

The deceased was identified as Rakshet Kumar of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry and hailed from Samba district of the Union Territory.

“An FIR has been registered in this incident and legal formalities are being completed,” a police officer said.

New Google tool lets you turn everyday sound into music

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New Google tool lets you turn everyday sound into music

Google has created a new machine learning tool called Tone Transfer that allows people to transform every sound like whistling into something like a violin, or a saxophone, or a flute.

“We created a tool called Tone Transfer to allow musicians and amateurs alike to tap into DDSP (Differentiable Digital Signal Processing) as a delightful creative tool,” Nida Zada, UX Lead, Google Research, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.

An open-source technology, DDSP is a new approach to machine learning that enables models to learn the characteristics of a musical instrument and map them to a different sound.

Developed by Google Research’s Magenta team, the process can lead to many creative, quirky results.

For example, one can try replacing a capella singing with a saxophone solo, or a dog barking with a trumpet performance.

“This development is important because it enables music technologies to become more inclusive,” Zada said.

Machine learning models inherent biases from the datasets they are trained on, and music models are no different.

Many are trained on the structure of western musical scores, which excludes much of the music from the rest of the world.

Rather than following the formal rules of western music, like the 12 notes on a piano, DDSP transforms sound by modeling frequencies in the audio itself.

This opens up machine learning technologies to a wider range of musical cultures, Zada said.

South Central Railway zone arranges 2 more UPSC specials

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South Central Railway zone arranges 2 more UPSC specials

The South Central Railway (SCR) zone will operate two more special trains in Andhra Pradesh between Kadapa and Anantapur and Kurnool and Anantapur to help civil services examination candidates appear for the exam.

“Train number 07245, Kadapa-Anantapur UPSC special, will depart Kadapa at 3:30 p.m. and arrive at Anantapur at 7:30 p.m. on the same day,” said a railway official.

The return train bearing the number 07246 will depart Anantapur at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday and arrive at Kadapa at 10:30 p.m. on the same day. Enroute, the UPSC special will halt at Yerraguntla, Tadipatri, Gooty, and Kalluru stations.

The second train is between Kurnool and Anantapur.

“Train number 07243, Kurnool city-Anantapur UPSC special, will depart Kurnool at 4 p.m. on Saturday and arrive at Anantapur at 8 p.m. on the same day,” he said.

While returning, train number 07244 will depart Anantapur at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday and arrive at Kurnool at 11:30 p.m. on the same day. Enroute, the train will halt at Dhone, Pendekallu, Guntakal, Gooty, and Kalluru stations.

The civil services examination is scheduled on Sunday.

Punjab CM slams Akalis for ‘political theatrics’ over farm laws

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Punjab CM slams Akalis for ‘political theatrics’ over farm laws

Formally launching the Congress signature campaign in the state against the ‘black’ farm laws, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday slammed the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for their “political theatrics” over Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s resignation from the Union Cabinet, which they were projecting as a big sacrifice instead of a duty towards Punjab.

Recalling that he himself had resigned from Parliament twice to uphold the interests of the state and its people, he said he had done it out of a sense of duty and never as a “sham sacrifice”, as had been done by Harsimrat Kaur.

Trashing the SAD protest over the agriculture laws as a “complete failure”, Amarinder Singh termed it as an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere of Punjab.

“Where were they when the state government moved a resolution in the Vidhan Sabha on August 28 seeking withdrawal of the anti-farmer ordinances and demanding that the Centre make MSP a statutory right,” he asked.

“Their gimmicks now would not help the Akalis woo the farmers, whose lives they themselves were party to destroying as allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” he said, reiterating that his government will challenge the new laws constitutionally.

“This is not a political fight about the BJP or the Congress, but a fight about our Kisani, about Punjab, our vajood (existence),” the Chief Minister said while addressing the state’s sarpanches virtually, on the sidelines of the virtual inauguration of three projects to mark the birth anniversaries of the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi and former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri from the Civil Secretariat here.

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Sunil Jakhar and Punjab Youth Congress (PYC) president Brinder Singh Dhillon were present at the launch of the signature campaign against the farm laws.

Pointing out that despite being just two percent of the country’s population, Punjab has fed the entire nation for over six decades, Amarinder Singh said soon after the promulgation of the three farm ordinances by the Central government on June 5, he had written to the Prime Minister to convey his government’s strong reservations and concern.

However, the Centre did not address the state’s concerns but went ahead to enact the anti-farmer agricultural laws through brute majority, he added.

Noting that agriculture is a state subject, the Chief Minister said the Centre had encroached on the states’ powers with these laws, which would devastate the farm sector, and reiterated his commitment to the farmer unions of the full support of the state government in their fight against the “draconian laws”.

Andhra CM begins process to distribute 3 lakh acres of land to tribals

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Andhra CM begins process to distribute 3 lakh acres of land to tribals

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy initiated the process of distributing land through Recognition of Forest Right (RoFR) to 1.53 lakh tribals from 3 lakh acres of forest land on Friday.

Reddy launched the distribution of documents (pattas) through a video conference on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

Each of the eligible tribals will get ownership of at least two acres of land, which will be distributed through digitized surveys.

Reddy saw the problems the tribals faced during his more than 3,000 km padayatra and promised to help them.

“Tribals kept waiting all these years, fighting for their rights. For the last ten years (2009 to 2019), the previous governments did not take any steps to address their grievances. Today, we fulfilled the promise and made sure that these tribals get their land,” said Reddy.

The government will also distribute pattas to DKT lands, other than the forest lands which are also cultivated by them.

As many as 19,919 tribal families are set to benefit from 31,155 acres of DKT lands.

He said the state government would also provide financial assistance to the tribals to cultivate crops.

Deputy Chief Minister and Tribal Welfare Minister Pamula Pushpa Sreevani said Reddy is giving more land to tribals than what his late father and former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy had distributed.

“While YSR (Reddy’s father) gave RoFR pattas for 1.30 lakh acres of land to 56,000 tribals in the past, this government, under the leadership of CM Jagan, will distribute pattas for nearly 3 lakh acres to 1.53 lakh beneficiaries,” she said.

Likewise, Sreevani said the government has deposited Rs 2,136 crore into the bank accounts of 18.4 lakh tribals under 15 welfare schemes such as rythu bharosa, pension, vahana Mitra, ammavodi, and vidya deevena in the past one year.

“The government is taking every initiative to improve the living standards of tribals and setting up educational institutions and health facilities for them,” she said.

Besides RoFR, Reddy has also laid the foundation stone for a tribal engineering college at Kurupam, a medical college in Paderu, and also seven super-specialty hospitals under the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA).

“Aiming to provide better education facilities in the tribal areas, we have taken various measures in setting up a medical college which will be built at Paderu at a cost of Rs 500 crore, said the CM.

He said work on the tribal engineering college in Kurupam village will also start soon.

In addition to these educational institutions, the government has decided to begin work on the seven multi-specialty hospitals at Seethampeta, Parvathipuram, Doranala, Buttaigudem, and Rampachodavaram.

Telangana CM felicitates Governor’s husband for award

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Telangana CM felicitates Governor’s husband for award

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday visited the Raj Bhavan here to personally congratulate Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan’s husband and renowned nephrologist Dr. P. Soundararajan, who was recently selected for the Dronacharya Award in nephrology.

The Chief Minister went to the residence of the Governor in Raj Bhavan premises and felicitated Dr. Soundararajan with a shawl and bouquet and conveyed his greetings and wishes.

Rao said that the entire Telangana is proud of the achievements of Dr. Soundararajan and appreciated his illustrious career spanning more than 35 years and his research contribution in the field of nephrology and his service to the patients.

Dr. Soundararajan was one of the pioneers in the transplant of kidney collected from a brain-dead snakebite victim and he has also organized more than 1,200 kidney transplants including 200 disease donor transplants, according to to a statement from Raj Bhavan.

He has served as the head of the nephrology unit in prestigious medical colleges such as Sri Ramachandra Medical College in Tamil Nadu and published more than 200 research papers in reputed national and international medical journals.

He was recently selected for the nephrology Dronacharya award in recognition of his services and contribution to the field of nephrology by the Delhi Nephrologists Forum.

The Governor and Dr. Soundararajan thanked the CM for the personal visit. Dr. Soundararajan has also honored the CM with a shawl on the occasion.

Ahead of PM’s visit, Rajnath Singh inspects Atal Tunnel

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Ahead of PM’s visit, Rajnath Singh inspects Atal Tunnel

A day ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to inaugurate the strategic Atal Tunnel beneath the Rohtang Pass, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday inspected the tunnel to review the arrangements.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur welcomed the Defence Minister upon his arrival at the SASE Helipad near here.

Accompanied by Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur, and the Chief Minister, Singh then visited the Atal Tunnel.

They also visited the north and south portals of the tunnel and reviewed the arrangements.

Director-General of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), Lt General Harpal Singh, briefed the Defence Minister about the salient features of the Atal Tunnel and the preparedness related to the inauguration of this project of strategic importance.

Earlier, the Chief Minister visited the rally venues in Solang in Kullu district and Sissu in Lahaul-Spiti district to be addressed by Modi and took stock of the preparedness for the events.

Modi will inaugurate the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel, the world’s longest highway tunnel, in Rohtang on Saturday.

The function will be held at 10 am, said a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Atal Tunnel, which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours, is a 9.02 km-long tunnel.

It will connect Manali with the Lahaul-Spiti Valley throughout the year. Earlier, the valley was cut off for about six months each year owing to heavy snowfall.

The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) above mean sea level.

The south portal of the Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 meters, while the north portal of the tunnel is located near Telling village in Sissu, Lahaul Valley, at an altitude of 3,071 meters.

It is a horseshoe-shaped, single tube double-lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 meters. It has an overhead clearance of 5.525 meters. It is 10.5-meter wide and has a 3.6 x 2.25 meters fire-proof emergency egress tunnel built into the main tunnel itself.

The Atal Tunnel has been designed for a traffic density of 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks per day with a maximum speed of 80 km per hour.

It has state-of-the-art electromechanical systems, including a semi-transverse ventilation system, SCADA-controlled firefighting, illumination, and monitoring system.

The historic decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000, when the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

The foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002.

The Border Roads Organisation worked relentlessly to overcome major geological and climatic challenges, that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-meter Seri Nalah Fault Zone.

The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017.

The Union Cabinet, under the chairmanship of Modi, had on December 24 last year decided to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel to honor the contributions made by the former Prime Minister.

Google removes hurdle to sell new Pixel smartphones in India

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Google removes hurdle to sell new Pixel smartphones in India

Google that has been very selective in picking its key markets is likely to add more countries into its list such as India which currently has previous-generation Google Pixel devices and for this, the tech giant has finally removed the hurdle that stopped Pixel 4 and 4 XL devices in India last year.

Google was not able to sell the Pixel 4 and 4 XL devices in India due to its ‘Soli Radar chip’ on the front, which utilized the 60GHz frequency band banned for commercial use in India.

“It seems Google has finally removed the Soli Radar chip and the Pixel range can now be sold in India,” said Hanish Bhatia, Senior Analyst with Counterpoint Research.

Google Store lists nine countries that will sell its newly-launched Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G devices — the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, France, Ireland, Australia, and Taiwan.

“But it may likely add more countries such as India, Singapore, Italy and Spain, which currently sell the previous generation Google Pixel devices,” Bhatia said.

Google would also be keen on capturing a pie in the European market in absence of Huawei, but it is likely to face tough competition from other Chinese OEMs.

“Google does have an edge in terms of brand equity, but it needs to build strong carrier partnerships and have a sturdy pricing and promotion strategy to capture the opportunity,” the Counterpoint report said.

After currency conversion, Pixel 5 is priced at $599 in Canada, making it $100 cheaper compared to its retail price in the US.

“We delved further into this and found out that Pixel 5 is actually a sub-6 only device for every country other than the US. Therefore, there will be some price differentiation across these markets,” the report added.

Although Google Store drives only a fraction of Google Pixel sales, the bottom line is that Google must have a sturdy pricing and promotion strategy across regions, especially in carrier channels.

On September 30, Google launched two Pixel devices — Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5.

This follows the August 3 launch of the Pixel 4a (a non-5G version), which is yet to hit the shelves in all its key markets, like India.

This means that three Pixel devices will be available for retail in most markets by mid-November, which will be a first for the Google Pixel team.

With its latest Pixel devices, Google has finally managed to make decent upgrades on the hardware.

Pixel devices bring the best-in-class Android experience along with an in-built AI neural engine that supports various features that might seem slightly distant for many smartphone OEMs.

Google has also managed to add ‘5G’ capability in its Pixel range of devices at the right time.

“The 5G capability will enable Google to upsell its content and services such as Stadia, YouTube premium, storage, and much more, going forward,” Bhatia said.

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