US university announces furloughs amid pandemic

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US university announces furloughs amid pandemic

The University of Washington Medicine announced that it was moving forward with furloughs for about 4,000 members of its unionized workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision follows actions last week to furlough approximately 1,500 professional and classified non-union staff to help address the financial challenges caused by the pandemic, the Seattle-based UW Medicine said in a statement on Monday.

These collective actions are necessary to address the unprecedented estimated financial impact of around $500 million on UW Medicine due to COVID-19, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

The executive leaders, directors and managers are participating in furloughs along with staff across UW Medicine. Impacted employees will be furloughed from one-to-eight weeks and will maintain benefits including health insurance during the furlough period.

“This has been a very difficult, but necessary, decision to address the financial challenges facing UW Medicine and all healthcare organizations responding to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Lisa Brandenburg, president of UW Medicine Hospitals & Clinics.

UW Medicine lost substantial clinical revenue since the onset of the pandemic due to the cancellation or postponement of elective and non-urgent surgeries and procedures and the high cost of COVID-19 treatment, including diagnostic testing and personal protective equipment, the statement said.

UW Medicine previously announced a series of measures to increase revenue and reduce expenses to stabilize its financial foundation.

It has also taken urgent actions to reduce expenses, including cutting salaries of senior leaders and tight controls on spending.

These steps will achieve an estimated savings of $76.5 million, on top of about $180 million in federal funds and state commitments, UW Medicine said.

They are two different players: Pommie Mbangwa

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They are two different players: Pommie Mbangwa

Former Zimbabwe cricketer and current commentator Pommie Mbangwa has had numerous chats with some big names on Instagram Live and his latest guest was former Australia pacer Brett Lee.

One question that is a mainstay of Mbangwa’s chat is when he asks his guests to pick between two of the current greats of the game — Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. This time was no different as Mbangwa put Brett Lee on the spot and asked him the million-dollar question. Lee, to his credit, decided against sitting on the fence and while he was full of praise for both batting stars, he said “at the moment”, he would pick Smith over Kohli.

“Look, it is so hard to pick because there are a lot of qualities in both that I enjoy. I try and look at from the bowling point of view, are there any flaws that I would try and exploit and there are very little.

“They are two different players. You think about Kohli, technically sound, hits through the V. He used to knick off number of years ago, but tightened that up and doesn’t knick off as much now and is a lot more disciplined. Super fit, a great lead of his side. Kohli is definitely right up there,” the fast bowling great said of Kohli.

Steve Smith captained the Australian team until he was suspended for 12 months over a brazen attempt to alter the ball with sandpaper under his watch during a Test in Cape Town in 2018.

After a year in exile, Smith came back strongly and left his mark as Australia retained the Ashes 2019. Smith was the leading scorer in the Ashes in England with a whopping 774 runs in four matches.

“Steve Smith has been through a lot in the last couple of years, that rise back to stardom with the way he has played over the last 12 months. He is a different batsman as well, very flamboyant, he is so fidgety, ‘just relax that’s what you think to him’ but that’s what makes him the player he is,” Lee told Mbangwa.

“At the moment, I would go with Steven Smith because of what he has actually been through. You ask me this tomorrow and I might go Kohli. They are so hard to split mate, like splitting hairs and they are two great players.

“He (Smith) could have been as good as (Don) Bradman and still may be that. He’s had some time out of the game but he was talked about him doing as well as Bradman in terms of his numbers,” added the ex-Australian pacer.

Nora Fatehi is ‘grateful for being alive and healthy’ in this ‘crazy time’

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Nora Fatehi is ‘grateful for being alive and healthy’ in this ‘crazy time’

Dancer and Bollywood actress Nora Fatehi is “grateful for being alive and healthy” in this “crazy time”. On the occasion of Eid this year, the actress is praying for “peace, good health, and happiness” for everyone.

On Monday, Nora took to Instagram to share a special Eid message for her fans. Nora also mentioned that she is not celebrating Eid with her friends and family this year. Her post comes at a time when the world battles the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and India is experiencing a lockdown.

Sharing a beautiful photograph of herself, the actress wrote: “Eid Mubarak to everyone today thank u so much for the wishes! Its a crazy time right now and although i am not celebrating with my friends and family. I am definitely very very grateful for being alive and healthy. I pray that we all get out if this soon. I pray for peace, good health and happiness for everyone.”

Recently, Nora took to social media to express that she is “done with 2020”. The “O Saki Saki” dancer shared a TikTok video on Instagram, which she captioned: “I’m ready to quit 2020… Make it stop.”

Raj’s Churu sizzles at 47.5 degrees, heatwave to abate after May 28

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Raj’s Churu sizzles at 47.5 degrees, heatwave to abate after May 28

Churu in Rajasthan recorded the highest temperature of the season at 47.5 degrees Celsius on Monday, followed by Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh where the mercury soared to 47.1 degrees.

Region-wise, Palam area in the national capital recorded the highest temperature at 46.2 degrees Celsius, mercury in Haryana’s Narnaul soared to 45.8 degrees, and Punjab’s Bathinda recorded 44.9 degrees Celsius. On Sunday, Churu had recorded 47.4 degrees.

Earlier on Monday, the India Meteorological Department had warned of heatwave conditions in Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, east Madhya Pradesh, and Vidarbha till May 28.

“Due to prevailing dry north-westerly winds over plains of northwest India, central India and adjoining interior parts of eastern India, present heatwave conditions very likely to continue to prevail over these areas till May 28 with peak intensity on May 25 and 26,” the IMD said in its daily bulletin.

It, however, emphasized that dust and thunderstorms will bring some to respite to northern India from the blistering heat on May 29 and 30.

Dr Kuldeep Srivastava, Head of the Regional Weather Forecasting Centre, said the nation will get respite from the blistering heat from May 28 night when the western disturbance will affect northwest India and easterly winds will also prevail in lower levels.

“Dust storm and thunderstorm accompanied with strong gusty winds of 50-60 kmph likely to occur on 29 and 30 may over Delhi NCR,” he added.

The western disturbance is a cyclonic storm that originates in the Mediterranean Sea and travels across Central Asia. When it comes in contact with the Himalayas, it brings rains to the hills and the plains.

IMD has four color-coded warnings — green, yellow, amber and red. Green indicates normal conditions while red denotes extreme weather situations.

The IMD had, on Sunday, issued a red alert for heatwaves in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Rajasthan for the next two days.

The weather bureau has warned that due to the weather condition, people might develop heat illness and heat stroke and said that extreme care should be given to vulnerable people.

Heat wave is considered if the maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 40 degrees Celsius or more for plains, 37 degrees Celsius or more for coastal stations and at least 30 degrees Celsius or more for hilly regions.

Sri Lankan police have detained international cricketer

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Sri Lankan police have detained international cricketer

Sri Lankan police have detained international cricketer Shehan Madushanka on a charge of possessing heroin, officials said Monday. Madushanka, 25, who took a hat-trick of wickets on his international debut in 2018, was remanded in custody for two weeks by a magistrate.

He was carrying just over two grams of heroin when detained in the town of Pannala on Sunday, a police official said.

Madushanka was stopped while driving with another person in a car during a nationwide coronavirus curfew, police said.

The right-arm pace bowler took a hat-trick against Bangladesh on his one-day international debut in January 2018. He also played two T20 matches against Bangladesh in 2018, but has not played an international since due to injuries.

Sri Lanka is due to relax its curfew from Tuesday, but police have arrested nearly 65,000 people for breaking the restrictions imposed on March 20.

Coronavirus has indefinitely postponed the Chinese Super League

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Coronavirus has indefinitely postponed the Chinese Super League

Coronavirus has indefinitely postponed the Chinese Super League (CSL) season but it has given the national team time to bond under coach Li Tie, the side’s goalkeeper Yan Junling said on Monday.

China are approaching the end of a two-week training camp in Shanghai and on Tuesday will face CSL side Shanghai Shenhua behind closed doors, having defeated former champions Shanghai SIPG 4-1 in another warm-up match. The CSL is on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic but the national side have been together on and off for several weeks this year, both at home and abroad.

“I think actually for our team, because of the epidemic, we’ve had a longer time to train together and become more familiar with each other,” said Shanghai SIPG stopper Yan.”We can also get to fully understand what the coach wants and in fact the team has become more united.”

They are second in their qualifying group, with only the top team guaranteed to reach the next stage on the road to Qatar 2022.China’s next qualifier, against the Maldives, has been postponed because of the pandemic but could now take place this autumn.

The players emerged from their team bus wearing face masks on Monday before former Everton midfielder Li put them through their paces in humid conditions — minus masks.

Yan said that Li, who took over from Marcello Lippi when the Italian World Cup-winning coach quit following defeat to Syria in November, has made clear that the friendlies against SIPG and Shenhua are essential to their preparations.

“One of the requirements that the head coach has been saying is that we have to take this training and these two games as getting in rhythm for the World Cup qualifiers,” said the 29-year-old Yan.

“There is no way out for us — we must win these two games.”Li has named three naturalised players in his squad, the first time that has happened in Chinese football history.

They are London-born midfielder Nico Yennaris and Brazilian-born strikers Elkeson and Aloisio.China hopes they can boost a team that has reached the World Cup only once, in 2002, and sits 76th in the FIFA rankings, sandwiched between Bolivia and Uganda.a

Harbhajan believes that the IPL is the most difficult competition

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Harbhajan believes that the IPL is the most difficult competition

Ace spinner Harbhajan Singh believes that he is fit and ready to play T20I cricket for India. The off-spinner had last played for India in 2016 as he featured in a T20I game in the Asia Cup.

“I am ready. If I can bowl well in IPL, which is a very difficult tournament for bowlers because the grounds are smaller, and all the top players in world cricket play in the IPL,” ESPNCricinfo quoted Harbhajan as saying.

“It is very challenging to bowl against them and if you can do well against them in IPL, you can do well in international cricket. I have bowled predominantly in the powerplay and middle overs and got wickets,” he added.

Harbhajan has represented Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League.The off-spinner is the joint third-highest wicket-taker in the IPL with an economy rate of just more than seven runs per over.

Harbhajan believes that the IPL is the most difficult competition in terms of T20 cricket and said that after performing in this tournament, he believes that he can make a comeback into the Indian side.

“In international cricket, not all teams have quality players like IPL teams, where every team has a top-six which is good. Yes, Australia, England, India have all got very good batting line-ups,” Harbhajan said.

A 50-year-old Indian teacher has died of coronavirus in the UAE

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A 50-year-old Indian teacher has died of coronavirus in the UAE

A 50-year-old Indian teacher has died of coronavirus in the UAE, according to a media report.Anil Kumar, a Hindi teacher at Sunrise School in Abu Dhabi, died on Sunday morning, the Gulf News reported. Kumar was detected with COVID-19 on May 7.

In a statement, the Sunrise School said, “The sad and shocking demise of Mr Anil Kumar, a senior Hindi teacher of Sunrise School on May 24, has left the entire Sunrise family in a pall of gloom.

“The bond that he had developed over the years, just as how we have with each faculty, makes the loss unbearable. The entire school is shaken and finds it hard to come to terms with this most saddening news,” the daily quoted the statement.

Kumar is survived by his wife and two children. His wife Rajini teaches mathematics at the Sunrise School.

The coronavirus, which first emerged in China’s Wuhan city in December last year, has killed 245 people with nearly 30,000 confirmed cases in the UAE. The virus has so far killed over 3,45,000 people across the world.

Corona virus positve cases in Assam

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Corona virus positve cases in Assam

The number of coronavirus cases in Assam rose to 466 on Monday after 74 more people tested positive for the disease, state Health and Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

Fifty-three cases were reported from Golaghat district, six from Kokrajhar, five from Karimganj, four from Dhemaji, two each from Tinsukia and Sivasagar, and one each from Jorhat and Nagaon, he said.

Of the total 466 patients in the state, 57 have recovered, while 402 are undergoing treatment. Four people have died due to the disease and three have migrated out of Assam.

The minister said most of the latest COVID-19 patients are returnees from outside Assam.”It is clarified that all swabs are collected from people soon after they arrive from outstation. Subsequently they are transferred to the quarantine centres. Therefore most of the positive cases in Assam are imported and not home-grown!” he tweeted.

Assam has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases after inter-state movement through road and rail was allowed during the lockdown period.

With domestic flight operations resuming in the country from Monday after a gap of two months, health officials are expecting this spike to be sharper in the coming days.

To screen all the people returning to the state by road and rail networks, the administration has set up five zonal screening camps and similar facilities are already existing in the district headquarters and at local levels.

Kokrajhar has the zonal screening camp for Lower Assam districts, Tezpur for the northern part of the state, Jorhat for Upper Assam, Guwahati for central Assam and Silchar for Barak Valley.

Assam has so far tested 66,444 samples for COVID-19 in seven laboratories in the state and the National Institute of Virology in Pune, the state”s health and family welfare department said in its daily bulletin on Sunday night.

Prabhas’ next film tells a unique story

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Prabhas’ next film tells a unique story

Recently there was speculation that Radha Krishna Kumar’s Prabhas, Pooja Hegde and Bhagyashree starrer #Prabhas20 will have multiple music composers like Saaho did. While it was initially announced that music composer Amit Trivedi will be composing the music for this one, reports now suggest otherwise. However there has been no confirmation from the filmmakers and fans seem to be getting anxious to know more.

Many take to social media since Saturday to request an update. The fans proclaim to want at least the title of the film to be announced. #Prabhas20 was initially titled Jaan, however upon Dil Raju’s request, they let go of the title for his 96 Telugu remake to be named Jaanu. A new title hasn’t been announced for the film yet and it remains to be seen what it’ll be named.

Earlier in April, when fans had done the same, asking for updates about the film on social media, the production house had made it clear that due to the on-going pandemic, all work has been halted and keeping in mind the current situation, they would not like to provide any updates. They had written, “We are amidst a global pandemic and many lives are at stake due to the current situation. Owing to the current situation, we have paused all our activities. After all this is over, we promise to come up with many more updates.

Prabhas’ next film after Saaho is touted to be a periodic film that tells a unique story. Nothing much about the film is known as despite giving interviews during lockdown Pooja Hegde and Bhagyashree have remained mum about the film. The film’s shoot was in progress in Georgia when pandemic hit and the team returned back to India without completing the schedule. There’s speculation that Bhagyashree will be playing either Prabhas or Pooja’s mother in the film, however that remains to be seen. Prabhas will also soon be working with Nag Ashwin for a film.

TDP chief wanted to travel Vizag

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TDP chief wanted to travel Vizag

A few days before the lockdown was imposed in March, Chandrababu Naidu had come to Hyderabad and since then Chandrababu is stuck in the city. He tried to travel to Amaravati and Vizag but he was denied permission and this morning, the TDP chief wanted to travel Vizag as flight operations resume.

However with AP government delaying fight service to recommence, Chandrababu’s plans turned upside down. But immediately the opposition leader made changes in his plans and decided to go to his residence in Undavalli, Amaravati. So Chandrababu took the road to reach Andhra Pradesh.

Before this Chandrababu had sort the permission of AP DGP Gautham Sawang and as soon as the police gave permission, Chandrababu in a special convoy started to Undavalli. Visuals of Chandrababu’s convoy was spotted on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

TDP leaders have been eagerly waiting for Chandrababu’s arrival so that they can get down with the real work. Hope this will re-energize them.

This startup aims to make massive supercomputers affordable for all

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This startup aims to make massive supercomputers affordable for all

Think about accessing a supercomputer at an affordable cost to process your massive computing needs. To make this happen, two Indian-origin researchers have come up with a plan and a model for making supercomputers available for scientists, engineers and designers to further their research in a jiffy.

Saurabh Kumar Vij, a scientist who worked with the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN and his brother Gaurav Vij who is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher, have founded a company called Q Blocks that believes next innovation will be via supercomputers.

The focus markets for Q Blocks are the US, Canada and India – especially Bengaluru where they have connected with multiple data scientists and ML engineers.

“On our way to developing exa scale-level capabilities, our first stop was to make high-performance GPUs virtually stackable and remotely accessible by others. Though the idea of using someone else’s computer to fund own research is not new in the scientific world, with The Folding@Home project leading the race with our 1Exaflops of computing power,” Saurabh told IANS.

Exascale computing refers to computing systems capable of at least one exaFLOPS, or a billion (a quintillion) calculations per second. Such capacity represents a thousandfold increase over the first petascale computer that came into operation in 2008.

Q Blocks aims to provide access to affordable supercomputer experience and has built on technologies such as distributed and peer-to-peer computing.

Such an access will especially be useful for high-performance computing applications such as ML model training, running simulations, or big data analytics, among other computer-intensive applications, according to the company.

The founders aim at bringing supercomputing access to more than 5 million data scientists and designers and they expect that this affordability would further expand this market.

The company said it is launching subscription packages that would help users instantly launch their Jupyter Notebooks with pre-configured AI frameworks. This would include information on learning and testing more data science models.

Q Blocks is one of the 10 startups that successfully completed the mentorship-driven Techstars Bangalore Accelerator’s 2020 programme recently.

“Techstars programme helped us in meeting people and companies which would have otherwise taken years to connect with. It’s truly an accelerator from a networking and growth standpoint,” said Saurabh.

Malls lose Rs 90k cr in 2 months, SCAI seeks adequate relief

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Malls lose Rs 90k cr in 2 months, SCAI seeks adequate relief

The Shopping Centres Association of India (SCAI) on Monday said the sector has lost over Rs 90,000 crore in the last two months, owing to the lockdown, and market players need much more than the repo rate cut and the loan moratorium extended by the RBI.

In a statement, the industry body said that the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) relief measures are not adequate to support the liquidity needs of the industry.

According to the SCAI, there is a common misconception that the shopping centers’ industry is centered around metros and large cities with investments only from large developers, private equity players and foreign investors.

“However, the fact is that most malls are part of the SMEs or standalone developers. i.e. more than 550 are single owned by standalone developers out of the 650-odd organized shopping centers across the country and there are 1,000+ small centers in smaller cities,” it said.

Amitabh Taneja, Chairman of SCAI said: “The organized retail industry is in distress and has not earned anything since the lockdown and their survival is at stake. While the extension of the loan moratorium talks about some relief on repayment but won’t help the industry in liquidity.”

He said that a long term beneficial plan from the government is much required to revive the sector.

“Being the safest, accountable, and controlled environment, unfortunately, malls have not been permitted to open which will lead to job losses and might even shut shops for a lot of mall developers,” Taneja said.

In its representations to the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India, the association has also pointed out that, in absence of financial package and stimulus from the RBI, over 500 shopping centres may go bankrupt, which may lead to the banking industry staring at NPAs of Rs 25,000 crore.

The industry body has put forward its recommendations and requests to the government. It had sought moratorium till March 2021 at the least in terms of repayment of bank loans, interest, EMI and so on, without levy of any penalties or penal interest.

It has also sought a one-time loan restructuring with lower rates of interest, permitted for shopping centres and a facilitative and forward-looking support provision of short-term financing options for a period of six to 12 months, at lower interest rates, to meet the increased working capital requirements.

Among other relaxations it had also appealed for GST rebates to offset the losses on account of and for the period of closure of the business.

It also said that interest rates should be brought down to “manageable levels” of 5-6 percent in view of the precarious financial situation.

Vijay Deverakonda is a ‘hot mess’ in new pic

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Vijay Deverakonda is a ‘hot mess’ in new pic

Telugu superstar Vijay Deverakonda has shared a new photograph amid lockdown and called his appearance in the photo a “mess”.

In the picture, Vijay, who is wearing a white, yellow and black vest, is seen flaunting his long hair and a rugged beard.

“Mess”, he captioned the image, which has got over a million likes.

A fan instantly corrected his caption and wrote in the comment section: “correction: a “hOT” mess.”

“Yes, hot mess,” agreed another.

Another wrote: “I still love you.”

One fan said: “Oh stop it.”

Vijay’s next is tentatively titled “Fighter”.

He will also be seen alongside actress Ananya Panday in a multilingual film that will mark his Bollywood debut. The film is directed by Puri Jagannadh.

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Mess.

A post shared by Vijay Deverakonda (@thedeverakonda) on

Akshay Kumar mourns demise of hockey legend Balbir Singh Senior

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Akshay Kumar mourns demise of hockey legend Balbir Singh Senior

Actor Akshay Kumar expressed his grief through a Twitter post on the demise of legendary hockey player Balbir Singh Senior, and remembered his “amazing personality”.

With his social media post, Akshay also shared a picture where he is seen sharing a moment with the late sportsman.

“Saddened to hear about the demise of hockey legend #BalbirSingh ji. I have had the good fortune of meeting him in the past, such an amazing personality! My heartfelt condolences to his family,” Akshay wrote.

A three-time Olympic gold medallist, Balbir Singh Senior died this morning at a private hospital in Mohali. The 96-year-old was undergoing treatment at Fortis Hospital Mohali and was in a “semi-comatose condition”. He was hospitalized on May 8 with high fever and breathing trouble. His COVID-19 test had come negative.

“Nanaji passed away this morning,” his grandson Kabir said in a statement.

In January last year, Balbir Singh Senior was discharged from PGI after spending more than 100 days in the hospital, where he underwent treatment for bronchial pneumonia.

The legendary center-forward was part of the Indian teams that won gold at the 1948 London Olympics, Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956.

His record for most individual goals scored in an Olympic men’s hockey final remains unbeaten. Balbir had set this record when he scored five goals in India’s 6-1 win over the Netherlands in the gold medal match of the 1952 Games.

He was the head coach of the Indian team for the 1975 men’s World Cup, which India won and the 1971 men’s World Cup, where India earned a bronze medal. He was also conferred with the prestigious Padma Shri in 1957.

Strict action against those who destroyed film set: Kerala CM

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Strict action against those who destroyed film set: Kerala CM

Reacting sharply to the vandalizing of a film set by “fanatics”, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said strict action will be taken against the culprits.

The Perumbavoor Police has registered a case. Five people have been charged and a probe has begun.

“Kerala will never be a place where fanatics of any kind would be allowed to go scot-free. All of you can be rest assured that all those who destroyed the film set near Kochi will be tackled as per law. What’s wrong if a film set remains there, as we all know that due to Covid-19, all film shooting came to a sudden halt. These acts will not be tolerated and of late, some fanatics are creating issues in movie halls and other places,” said Vijayan.

Hari Palode, general secretary of a group called Antharashtra Hindu Parishad (AHP) had posted on Facebook that the film set of a church was erected despite several complaints against it.

Palode had also thanked activists of Rashtriya Bajarang Dal who helped to take it down and had posted photos of the film set being pulled down.

The film set was put up for the shooting of the movie ‘Minnal Murali,’ starring actor Tovino Thomas when the Covid-19 pandemic struck forcing all film activities to a standstill.

Condemning the act, acclaimed film director Shaji N.Karun who is also president of the Progressive Kalasahitya Sangh, said this act was in no way acceptable.

“During Covid times, these fanatics are trying to drive a wedge in society that is united. Moreover this has taken place at a time when the film industry is passing through its toughest times. We demand that strict action should be taken against these elements,” said Karun.

Samsung confirms June 4 launch of Galaxy A31 in India

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Samsung confirms June 4 launch of Galaxy A31 in India

Samsung on Monday confirmed that it will launch its new mid-range smartphone Galaxy A31 in India on June 4.

The phone will feature a quad-camera set up at the rear backed by a 48MP main sensor.

The smartphone will come with a 6.4-inch super AMOLED display and a 5,000mAh battery with 15W fast charging, Samsung revealed in a teaser.

According to industry sources, the phone will be powered by MediaTek octa-core processor in India and may cost around Rs 23,000.

Galaxy A31 is likely to come in just one 6-128 GB variant.

The device, featuring a 20MP front camera, will sell across all of Samsung’s online and offline platforms and will also be available across e-commerce platforms, sources told IANS.

Galaxy A31 is the third A series device to launch in India this year.

To date, Samsung has launched two Galaxy A devices in the country. While Galaxy A51 was launched in January, Galaxy A71 – the premium device in the Galaxy A line-up – went on sale in February.

COVID-19 high testing rate in AP

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COVID-19 high testing rate in AP

After two months of lockdown, it is pretty clear that coronavirus pandemic can’t be faced without massive testing to find out who have contracted COVID-19. If some leading nations have managed to keep their Corona cases and deaths tolls low, it is all because of high testing rate.

While the low testing rate in several states is one of biggest challenges India is facing during this pandemic time, Andhra has set an example by testing a record 3+ lakh people till date. According to state health secretary Jawahar Reddy, Andhra Pradesh has achieved a milestone by conducting 3,04,326 COVID-19 tests and took top position when it comes to testing.

‘Mega bank mergers working smoothly without heartburns’

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‘Mega bank mergers working smoothly without heartburns’

The amalgamation of 10 public sector banks into four has been working smoothly for the past two months without any heartburns as the employee benefit schemes have been extended to all the employees, said a top official of All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA).

The AIBEA is the largest union in the banking sector representing the workmen category.

According to C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, while the information technology (IT) systems of the ten banks that were amalgamated into four are yet to be integrated, the amalgamation is working smoothly till now.

“Each bank had its own employee benefit schemes. The scheme that is most beneficial to the employees was extended to all the employees of the amalgamated entity. This way heartburns were not created,” Venkatachalam told IANS.

“The next step is to draw up the career, transfer and other policies of the amalgamated entities taking into account the policies of individual banks. Till now bank branches have not been closed. But post lockdown there will be a rationalization of branches,” Venkatachalam said.

He said the merger of State Bank of India (SBI) and its five associate banks has been working smoothly and the same is expected to happen in the other bank mergers.

“The amalgamation has happened in a friendly manner and not in a hostile way,” Venkatachalam added.

According to him, at the bank level there may not be a bias towards the employees of amalgamated entities as the policies will be properly drawn.

On the pending wage talks with Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), Venkatachalam said the Covid-19 has resulted in an emergency situation for the country and the people and the priority is to safeguard the interest of the people.

Venkatachalam also wondered about the fate of reserves built by Indian companies out of profits and why companies were not able to pay wages to their contract workers during the two month-long lockdown.

“The migrant workers’ problem would not have arisen had only the corporates paid them even half their wages during the lockdown period. The Indian business stands exposed now,” he said.

UK PM aide’s row overshadows plans to ease lockdown

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UK PM aide’s row overshadows plans to ease lockdown

Pressure was mounting on UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to act over his senior aide Dominic Cummings’ lockdown trip, as the cabinet is slated to met on Monday to discuss plans to ease the country’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Cummingss, the former Vote Leave chief who was the architect of Johnson’s Brexit strategy, is facing calls to resign after it emerged that he traveled from London to his parents’ home in Durham with coronavirus symptoms during the lockdown, reports the BBC.

Speaking at Sunday’s Downing Street briefing, Johnson said he believed Cummings had “no alternative” but to make the journey at the end of March for childcare “when both he and his wife were about to be incapacitated by coronavirus”.

The Prime Minister said he held “extensive” discussions on Sunday with Mr. Cummings, who he said, “followed the instincts of every father and every parent – and I do not mark him down for that”.

However, the BBC report said that the Prime Minister was finding it difficult to shift the political focus away from his key adviser.

Speaking to the BBC, Acting Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said that the row over Cummings was “preventing the government from getting on and doing its job, and doing it better”.

He said that Johnson should sack Cummings “so the government has more credibility in what it says about public health”.

“The instruction the Prime Minister gave us all to stay at home has been breached by his top adviser and that’s what you can’t get away from in this story, its pretty simple.

“I hope the prime minister will come to his senses, recapture his judgment and reinstall authority on this crisis by acting,” he told the BBC.

Meanwhile, some of the scientists that advise ministers were also concerned that Johnson’s decision to back Cummings would undermine the message on controlling the virus.

Stephen Reicher, a professor of social psychology who has advised the government on behavioral science during the pandemic, told the BBC that trust was vital to maintaining public health measures, adding: “You can’t have trust if people have a sense of them and us, that there’s one rule for them and another rule for us.”

Also responding to the row, Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Nick Baines, said Johnson was treating people “as mugs” and the Bishop of Bristol, the Right Reverend Vivienne Faull, accused the Prime minister of having “no respect for people”.

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