Archery body initiates visa process for Oly qualifiers in France

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Archery body initiates visa process for Oly qualifiers in France

The Archery Association of India (AAI) has initiated the process for procuring a visa for the team to compete at next month’s Olympic qualification event and World Cup in Paris.

“We submitted online visa application forms on Friday to avoid the last-minute rush. The national women’s recurve team is aiming to win a quota place in Paris (France),” an AAI official told IANS.

The top three teams in the Olympic qualification event will earn quota places.

The Indian men’s recurve team qualified for Tokyo Olympics at the 2019 World Championships in the Netherlands.

The women’s team is yet to make the cut for the Olympics though Deepika Kumari has won an individual quota place.

“Recently the team of Deepika, Ankita Bhakat, and Komalika Bari won the World Cup gold in Guatemala City. We hope they are able to repeat their performance in Paris too,” said an archery team coach.

According to an AAI official, the Olympic qualification event will take place on June 18 and 19 in Paris while the Archery World Cup Stage 3 is scheduled from June 21 to 27 at the same venue.

The participants of the World Cup and Olympic qualification event will not have to undergo a mandatory 10-day quarantine.

“Since women’s team has to compete in the Olympic qualification event, they will leave on June 16 while those competing in the World Cup will go later,” said the official.

$50,555 raised from Anand & 4 GMs Covid relief fund matches

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$50,555 raised from Anand & 4 GMs Covid relief fund matches

A sum of $50,555 was raised by online chess game site www.chess.com towards Covid-19 relief in India by organizing chess games featuring five-time World Chess Champion Grandmaster (GM) V.Anand and four other GMs Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, Nihal Sarin, and R.Praggnanandhaa recently, said an official.

The five GMs played simultaneous games online against those who had paid the necessary fees ($150 to play against Anand and $25 to play against others).

During the course of the games, donations poured in, taking the total to $50,555 against an earlier target of $15,000.

A big surprise of the day was when International Master Levy Rozman (@GothamChess) donated $10,000, the Chess.com official said.

While 70 percent of the funds raised will be given to Red Cross India the balance 30 percent will be given to All India Chess Federation (AICF), a Chess.com official had told IANS earlier.

Recently the AICF Secretary told IANS that a sum of Rs 60 lakh has been raised to date under the Checkmate Covid initiative to provide financial assistance to chess community members affected by Covid-19.

According to AICF’s list of donors include former Tamil Nadu State Chess Champion and businessman S.Kailasanathan leads the table donating Rs 5 lakh and is followed by GM Arjun Erigaisi donating Rs 1 lakh.

The AICF has provided Rs 11 lakh and Maharashtra Chess Association has contributed Rs 5 lakh while the names of other state associations including the cash-rich ones were missing from the donor’s list.

According to AICF, Rs 30 lakh has been committed by various entities and the amount is yet to be credited to its bank account.

Meanwhile, financial assistance was rendered to nine players or their families out of the collected Checkmate Covid fund by AICF.

India needs stricter action as WhatsApp privacy policy goes live

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India needs stricter action as WhatsApp privacy policy goes live

With the controversial WhatsApp privacy policy coming into effect from Saturday for its over 2 billion users including more than 400 million in India, industry experts emphasized that the government must implement stricter data privacy rules and restrain the Facebook-owned app as was done while banning Chinese apps to protect the sovereignty of the country.

Giving an interim solace for those who do not accept the new policy, WhatsApp has said that its users will not immediately lose their accounts or face curtailed functionalities on the platform on May 15, but they will have to eventually go through limited functions if they fail to accept the new norms in the due course of time.

On Thursday, a senior Ministry of Electronics and IT official said during an Assocham event that the government is pro-actively looking at the best possible action over the new WhatsApp privacy policy.

MeitY Special Secretary and Financial Advisor Jyoti Arora stated that the ministry is aware of the fact that Germany has banned the privacy policy of WhatsApp.

“There is no judicial order in favor of WhatsApp. In view of the unlawful nature of this privacy policy, the government should restrain WhatsApp as was done while banning Chinese apps to protect the sovereignty of India,” said Advocate Virag Gupta, who is arguing K.N. Govindacharya’s matter before the Delhi High Court for disclosure of details of designated officers of social media companies.

WhatsApp has said that after giving everyone time to review the privacy policy from May 15, after a period of several weeks, the reminder people receive will eventually become persistent.

After persistent reminders, the users will encounter limited functionality on WhatsApp until they accept the updates.

The users won’t be able to access the chat list. After a few weeks of limited functionality, they won’t be able to receive incoming calls or notifications and WhatsApp will stop sending messages and calls to their phones.

“WhatsApp’s new terms requiring users to accept them by a cut-off date to continue to avail full functionality has brought clickwrap contracts and their intended manner of operation under the glare. Clickwrap contracts require a user to click ‘yes’ or ‘ok’ to the terms, which constitutes legal consent for availing a service,” said Raj Ramachandran, Partner, J Sagar Associates.

Given the substantial user base and the apparent network effect, it literally leaves little room for users to make a choice.

“Germany has temporarily banned the update raising privacy concerns and EU may also looking into it closely. It is time for India too to implement effective data privacy rules, which has been pending for quite some time now,” Ramachandran said in a statement.

In March this year, MeitY filed an affidavit that the new privacy policy of WhatsApp violates the Information Technology Rules of 2011.

“In January 2021, the ministry wrote a letter to WhatsApp exposing key objection of non-voluntary nature of the new privacy policy. The government also warned WhatsApp by quoting a Supreme Court of India judgment on privacy delivered in 2017,” informed Gupta.

It also said that data exchange between Facebook and WhatsApp is untenable because data collected from one service cannot be used in another service.

“Instead of justifying its privacy policy, WhatsApp in its affidavit has exposed many other Internet-based applications and websites with similar policies and that some even collect more data. In light of this fact, the government must ensure the physical presence of WhatsApp and other foreign Apps in India,” Gupta reiterated.

Apple to discontinue space gray iMac accessories

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Apple to discontinue space gray iMac accessories

After the discontinuation of the iMac Pro, Apple is discontinuing space gray “Magic” accessories that it sold separately alongside the iMac Pro.

Space gray Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad will now be available only for a limited time — till the stock lasts.

The aCEiMacaCE Pro was the only Space Gray Mac, and Apple-designed special matching accessories for it, MacRumors reported.

When existing supplies of the space gray Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad are exhausted, Apple will only have these accessories available in a silver color option.

Following the 2017 release of the aCEiMacaCE Pro, Apple began offering standalone versions of the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, and Magic Trackpad 2 for users who purchased the aCEiMacaCE Pro and wanted matching accessory options.

Now that there is no longer a Space Gray aCEiMacaCE Pro available, Apple does not plan to continue making the Space Gray peripherals, the report said.

The new M1 aCEiMacaCE comes in seven different colors, complete with matching trackpads, mice, and keyboards, and right now, those accessories are only available when purchasing one of the new iMacs.

Delhi reports less than 7k new Covid cases, lowest since April

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Delhi reports less than 7k new Covid cases, lowest since April

Delhi reported 6,500 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest since April 7, the day when the city reported 5,506 cases in a day.

The positivity rate – the proportion of samples tested that return positive for Covid -19 — continued its sharp decline to 11 percent, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday.

The Capital has been witnessing a sharp decline in daily positive cases and positivity rates for around two weeks.

During the peak of the second wave of the Covid pandemic, on April 20, Delhi’s daily positive cases were reported at 28,395, while the highest daily positivity rate was 36 percent on April 22.

On Friday, the city had reported 8,506 cases in a day, which was the first time Delhi’s daily positive case fell below 10k since April 10. On Thursday, it had registered 10,489 new cases. Before that, the number of cases on Wednesday was 13,287, 12,481 on Tuesday, 12,651 on Monday, and 13,336 on Sunday respectively.

Similarly, the daily positivity rate has declined since the last few days in the city. On Friday Delhi’s positivity rate was reported at 12.40 percent. Before that, the positivity rate was reported at 14.24 percent on Thursday, 17.03 percent on Wednesday, 17.76 percent on Tuesday, 19.10 percent on Monday, and 21.67 percent on Sunday.

Kejriwal said on Saturday that in the last 15 days, the Delhi government had put in place around 1000 new ICU beds for Covid patients. “I would like to thank all medical staff, health officials, engineers, and others who relentlessly worked to establish new Covid care centers which have added 1,000 new ICU beds in the last 15 days,” Kejriwal said.

Actor Ram Pothineni : Happy Birthday Energetic Star Ram Pothineni

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Actor Ram Pothineni : Happy Birthday Energetic Star Ram Pothineni

Actor Ram Pothineni, who is called an energetic star in the Telugu industry, is celebrating his birthday today. He has crossed 33 years old.

Ram has started his movie carrier with the musical blockbuster movie devadasi in 2006. With the devadasi movie, he had got a big hit in the industry and then continues 15 years still.

After 2008 proven himself in the industry, He performed as a mass in kandireega movie(2011), Vunnadi Okate Zindagi (2017), as a lover boy in the movie Hello Guru Prema Kosame (2018).

In the 2019 year, Ram got a big hit with the movie “iSmart Shankar” which was got collections at the box office. We all are wishing you ram to have a great future.

Rahul takes potshot at Modi over dead bodies in Ganga

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Rahul takes potshot at Modi over dead bodies in Ganga

After several decomposed bodies were found floating in the river Ganga in several cities of Uttar Pradesh, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday indirectly took a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the one who said that Mother Ganga has called him, has made it cry.

In a tweet in Hindi, Rahul Gandhi said, “The one who said Ganga has called him, has made the Mother Ganga cry.”

He also attached a news report which claimed that on the 1,140 km long banks of river Ganga about 2,000 dead bodies have been found.

In the last few days, several dead bodies have been found floating in the river or buried near its banks in several districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Google fights to protect work status for immigrants’ spouses in US

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Google fights to protect work status for immigrants’ spouses in US

Google has filed a legal brief with over 40 companies including Apple, Amazon, Twitter and Microsoft to protect a work authorisation programme that allows the spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the US.

The earlier Donald Trump administration had proposed to end the issuing of work authorisation (H-4 EAD) for certain spouses of high-skilled talent who came to the US on H-1B visas as part of his anti-immigration policy.

US President Joe Biden has already permitted dependents of H-1B visa holders to continue working in the country. The development is expected to provide relief to over 1 lakh Indian nationals who had moved to the US along with their spouses for work.

Google said in a statement late on Friday that to support this important programme, “we are leading an amicus brief with over 40 companies and organisations to preserve and protect the H-4 EAD programme.”

“This builds on an amicus brief we recently joined in support of a lawsuit filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association to expedite the delayed processing time of H-4 work authorisations,” said Catherine Lacavera, VP, Legal at Google.

The H-4 EAD programme also provides work authorisation to H-4 visa-holders — more than 90 per cent of whom are women.

H-4 visas are reserved for the spouses of people with H-1B status.

“As an immigrant myself, I have been the beneficiary of a welcoming America and I hope we can ensure that same welcome for future immigrants by preserving the H-4 EAD programme,” said Lacavera.

“Ending this programme would hurt families and undercut the US economy at a critical moment,” she added.

Google said that a fair immigration system is necessary to preserve America’s laudable history of welcoming people from different places and to fuel a virtuous cycle of innovation.

“Unfortunately, an impending court case is putting both at risk at the most inopportune moment,” it added.

England team to call bio-bubble ‘team environment’ for positivity

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England team to call bio-bubble ‘team environment’ for positivity

The England cricket team has been urged to use the term ‘team environment’ instead of ‘bio-bubble’ when it gathers at the end of this month for a home Test series against New Zealand. According to reports in British media, the change in nomenclature has been done to avoid the negative connotation of the term ‘bio-bubble’ and make team camp a relaxed place to live.

Though the bio-bubble won’t be as strict as the one last summer as restrictions are being lifted across the United Kingdom, the two teams will still be just limited to grounds and hotels during the Test series that begins on June 2.

“Despite a two-month gap since the end of the India Test series — and the likely absence of players who took part in the recent Indian Premier League and are currently in quarantine — Chris Silverwood’s coaching staff and the squad will still be urged to start referring to the ‘team environment’ instead of the ‘bubble’,” said a report in The Guardian newspaper.

“It is a small change but one that is hoped will help them collectively move on from a testing 12-month period that included the white-ball team pulling out of three ODIs in South Africa when panicked by an outbreak of Covid-19 in the team hotel and saw a psychologist taken on a tour in the subcontinent,” the report added.

The England players had to adhere to strict norms last summer in the bio-secure environment. They had to dine at separate tables in the hotel restaurant and even wear rubber gloves to eat.

PM Modi holds key meeting on Covid crisis

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PM Modi holds key meeting on Covid crisis

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a crucial meeting on Saturday to review the Covid-19 situation and vaccination progress across the country.

It started at 11 a.m. The Prime Minister is likely to take stock of oxygen supply in the country as the shortage of life-saving gas has been linked to deaths of patients in several parts of the country and has emerged as one of the biggest challenges, apart from discussing preparedness and plans to control Covid-19 and other issues related to management to curb the deadly disease.

Speaking on the Covid-19 situation in the country, the Prime Minister on Friday said: “The pandemic, the worst in 100 years, is testing the world at every step. There is an invisible enemy before us.”

“The pain that citizens have suffered, that many experienced, I am feeling it equally,” Modi said while addressing an online event.

The meeting is arranged at a time when India has been logging over 3 lakh Covid cases every day for over three weeks. India on Saturday reported 3,26,098 new Covid cases and 3,890 fatalities, said Union Health Ministry’s recent data.

In the past 23 days, India’s daily Covid tally has plateaued over the three-lakh mark and over 3,000 casualties for 17 days. India’s total tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 2,43,72,907 with 36,73,802 active cases and 2,66,207 deaths so far.

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