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.

View this post on Instagram

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”.

Chhetri named brand ambassador of Twelfth Man fantasy football

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Chhetri named brand ambassador of Twelfth Man fantasy football

India football captain Sunil Chhetri was on Monday named as the official brand ambassador of fantasy football platform ‘Twelfth Man’.

According to the makers, Twelfth Man is a premier ‘football-only’ fantasy gaming platform that allows users to compete in a large variety of contests against other users for free or by paying entry fees to join a prize pool.

“I’m very happy to be a part of the Twelfth Man team. They are doing a commendable job at presenting this platform to the football lovers of the country, and I think our common love for the game is going to result in some impressive developments for the football community,” Chhetri said in a statement.

“When you think ‘Indian football’, you think of Sunil Chhetri. I was clear from the very beginning that, if we want to grow Twelfth Man as an overall football community, he has to be the face of the app,” Kush Desai, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, NxGn Sports Interactive Pvt. Ltd., said in a statement.

“It has been a wonderful experience working with India’s best football icon on this venture. I’m looking forward to an exciting journey ahead as we enable Indian football fans to truly live the game through fantasy football!”

As per the creators, Twelfth Man is a response to the rapidly growing football community in India. It gives the fans an opportunity to actively engage with the game. They can create a team of their favorite players and make transfers, sign fresh talent, and compete in national as well as international leagues.

Memorial Day puts US reopening efforts to the test

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Memorial Day puts US reopening efforts to the test

Memorial Day gatherings have put local plans around the US to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions to the test as various states allowed the public to visit beaches and enjoy other outdoor activities while continuing to adhere to social distancing and other protective measures.

At a time when the country is approaching the grim milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, Americans were preparing for the summer season, which is traditionally marked by the Memorial Day holiday to honor the country’s war dead, reports Efe news.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump and several of his officials once again fired off verbal salvoes at the Chinese government over its handling of the pandemic.

Trump appeared on the TV program “Full Measure” where he said that the coronavirus emerged in China and insisted that Beijing could have halted its spread then and there but incompetently failed to do so.

Also, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien mentioned the issue in an interview with NBC News, saying – without any apparent evidence – that China had unleashed the virus and then hid that fact.

“The cover-up that they did of the virus is going to go down in history, along with Chernobyl. We’ll see an HBO special about it 10 or 15 years from now,” he added, apparently suggesting that a television miniseries would be made about the matter.

Deborah Birx, one of the leaders of the White House working group on the coronavirus, insisted on Sunday that people must maintain social distancing, warning about the danger of the “asymptomatic spread” of the virus and recommending the use of facemasks in cases where social distancing could not be maintained.

Birx, who has appeared wearing a facemasks at some of the coronavirus press conferences held by Trump did not suggest that new quarantines would be imposed in the US, saying that it’s difficult to know whether they would be necessary.

This weekend, California’s Los Angeles County took various measures to ease confinement restrictions, including opening up bike paths on local beaches, where since May 13 people have been allowed to swim, surf, run and walk, although gatherings and other events involving larger numbers of people have not been authorized.

Local authorities around the US also have been allowing stores located in shopping centers and malls to resume their activities, although often only for pickup services in established areas to guarantee that people maintain social distancing.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County on Saturday reported 41 new Covid-19 deaths and 1,032 newly confirmed coronavirus cases.

The Washington Post on Sunday posted a video on Twitter in which can be seen a large group of people congregating outdoors at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri without adhering to social distancing recommendations.

It also reported remarks by Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who said Saturday that a group of people participating in a high school’s pool party ended up becoming infected with the coronavirus although they evidently thought that they were taking part in an inoffensive activity.

He told “Fox News Sunday” that positive virus cases resulted directly from the pool party and recommended that people better manage the risk of such activities.

Currently, the US has the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 1,643,098 and 97,711, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University.

8 bn Internet records on millions of Thai users leaked

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8 bn Internet records on millions of Thai users leaked

A security researcher alerted Thailand’s national computer emergency response team, known as ThaiCERT, after he found a database exposing over eight billion Internet records on millions of Thai internet users.

Although it is not clear who owns the database, the researcher, Justin Paine, believes that a subsidiary of a major Thailand-based mobile network operator named Advanced Info Service (AIS), likely controlled the database.

The database, containing DNS queries and Netflow data, was lying on the internet without a password.

“Using this data it is quite simple to paint a picture of what a person does on the Internet,” Paine wrote in a blog post on Monday.

According to a report in TechCrunch, Paine alerted AIS to the open database on May 13. After not getting any response for a week, Paine reported the matter to ThaiCERT on May 21. The database was secured on May 22.

“Based on data available in BinaryEdge this database was first observed as exposed and publicly accessible on May 1, 2020. I discovered this database roughly 6 days later on May 7, 2020,” Paine wrote in the blog.

Although DNS queries do not carry sensitive information like passwords and private messages, they can give away which websites and apps a user uses.

Share list of 125 Shramik trains, Goyal tells Thackarey

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Share list of 125 Shramik trains, Goyal tells Thackarey

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday questioned Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on a list of 125 Shramik Special trains requested by the Maharashtra government to transport stranded migrant workers and said a list of only 46 trains was received by the railways.

In one of a series of tweets on May 24-25 night, Goyal said: “Where is the list of 125 trains from Maharashtra? As of 2 am, received a list of only 46 trains of which five are to West Bengal and Odisha, which cannot operate due to cyclone Amphan. We are notifying only 41 trains for today despite being prepared for 125.”

His remarks came amid a war of words between the two over a television news report wherein the Maharashtra government claimed to have given a list of 200 trains to the Railways.

Earlier on Sunday night, Goyal said: “Uddhav (Thackeray)ji, hope you are healthy and good luck for your good health. Tomorrow, we are ready to deliver 125 Shramik Special trains from Maharashtra. You told me that you have a list of workers ready. So, you are requested to share all information, such as where the trains will run, the list of passengers according to the trains, their medical certificate and where the trains are to go; please give all the information to the General Manager of Central Railway in the next hour so that we can plan the timings of the trains.”

He said that hopefully, after arriving at the railway station as before, trains do not have to go back empty.

“I would like to assure you that the trains you need will be available,” Goyal said.

Goyal kept on asking the Chief Minister at regular intervals during the night to provide the list of 125 Shramik trains to be run from the western state.

Goyal tweeted: “Sadly, it has been 2.30 hours but the Maharashtra government has been unable to give the required information about tomorrow’s planned 125 trains to the GM of Central Railway. Planning takes time and we do not want trains to stand empty at the stations; so it’s impossible to plan without full details.”

He added that he expects the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra Government to “fully cooperate in the efforts made for the benefit of migrant laborers”.

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