<p>London, Apr 16 (PTI) Buckingham Palace on Friday released further details of the bespoke Land Rover, designed by Prince Philip over a 16-year project, which will double up as a hearse to carry his coffin to St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle for the royal ceremonial funeral on Saturday.</p>
In this article Dr Ravivarman has answered questions about Remidisvir, Sputnik V and the lancet report which confirmed that COVID-19 is air-borne.
<p>Houston, Apr 17 (PTI) A 39-year-old nurse in the US state of Florida has been arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Vice President Kamala Harris, according to media reports on Saturday.</p>
Islamabad [Pakistan], April 18 (ANI): Frits Veerman, a professional photographer in Amsterdam, was one of the first to ring warning bells about Pakistan stealing nuclear documents, materials and technology to build its own nuclear bomb.
Selected candidates will get paid between Level 3 (Rs 21,700 basic pay) and Level 12 (RS 78,000 basic pay) of the pay matrix accordingly
Dhaka [Bangladesh], April 17 (ANI): At least five people were shot dead on Saturday as police opened fire at workers of a Chinese-backed power plant in Banshkhali Upazila of Chittagong.
Nitish Kumar announces month's salary as a bonus to all health sector workers.
The Indian leader’s autocratic tendencies do not seem to have posed great ethical difficulties for Facebook and Twitter Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2015. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images For decades, India was a poster child for democratic development: a poor, sprawling, ethnically diverse country that nevertheless had regular elections and peaceful transfers of power – the hallmarks of a functioning democracy – albeit with the flaws inherent in such a system, including a single dominant party – the Congress party. And then, in May 2014, Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP, was elected, swept to power on a standard-issue neoliberal platform of modernisation, privatisation and liberalisation of the economy, slashing welfare budgets, lowering corporate taxes, abolishing wealth taxes, etc. Modi’s election, wrote the august journal Foreign Policy, marked a critical milestone in his country’s development. He was “the first leader since independence to command a lower-house parliamentary majority that did not belong to the Congress party of India’s founders Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. After 65 years, a dynastic founding party was subsumed by new blood.” But in the six years since his first election (he was re-elected in 2019), the journal continued, “it has become clear that his style of leadership poses an existential threat to the world’s largest democracy. Through his wildly successful promotion of Hindutva ideology, Modi is poised to remake India into a Russian-style ‘managed democracy’ – one retaining all the trappings of democracy while operating as a de facto autocracy.” Quite like Hungary, in fact. Looking at his record, Modi seems to have been following the playbook of Viktor Orbán, that country’s prime minister, except that Modi has added religious and ethnic dimensions to his programme. But the formula seems pretty similar, based as it is on a thumping electoral majority and weak parliamentary opposition. The formula is to promise economic reform and then, when that falters, suppress opposition, control mainstream – and then social – media and undermine the judicial system. To this Modi has added his own distinctive flourish: radical and sustained use of internet shutdowns to hamper the mobilisation of opposition. And, so far, the strategy seems to be working: last year, Freedom House, an organisation that continually monitors the health of democracies, had judged India to be a “free” society. This year, the country’s rating is “partly free”. All of which impales American tech giants, especially Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, on the horns of an ethical dilemma. For them, India represents a huge market – bigger than China, in a way, because of the firm grip that the Communist party has on the operations of tech companies in its jurisdiction. The Indian market, being less centrally controlled, has enormous potential for growth. But in order to thrive there the companies must reach an accommodation with an authoritarian government that doesn’t brook criticism, never mind opposition. In February, Modi’s administration announced sweeping new rules to regulate social media firms, streaming services and digital news outlets. Companies will be required to acknowledge takedown requests of unlawful and violent content and misinformation within 24 hours and deliver complete redress within 15 days. In sensitive cases such as those surrounding explicit sexual content, firms will be required to take down the content within 24 hours and will also be required to appoint compliance, contact and resident grievance officers whose names and contact details will be shared with New Delhi to address official concerns. Each will also be required to set up a local office in India, which means they will have employees on the ground who can be arrested and jailed. For Facebook, with its long history of accommodating tyrants, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. A recently revealed internal memo released by Sophie Zhang, a former employee who was a data scientist on the company’s “site integrity fake engagement” team, reveals how relaxed Facebook was about the activities of supporters of Donald Trump and foreign autocrats from Honduras, Azerbaijan and Ukraine on its platform. Zhang also observed “a lack of desire from senior leadership to protect democratic processes in smaller countries”. So Facebook’s boss and India’s prime minister will doubtless get along fine. After all, they’re both autocrats. Twitter, for its part, had a brief flirtation with defiance of the ruling regime. But in the end it seems to have bowed to the facts on the ground. At any rate, after it was pulled up by the government for non-compliance, the company blocked 1,398 of 1,435 accounts that had been flagged by the IT ministry for allegedly spreading misinformation about the farmers’ protests that had been enraging the government. In the end, of course, all of the US tech companies agree with Donald Trump on one thing at least: principles are for losers. What I’ve been reading Climate clashA truly remarkable and far-sighted essay by Helen Thompson on the Engelsberg Ideas site looks at the coming geopolitical fight over sustainable energy between China, the US and Europe. You dirty ratPut away the bleach: you can stop playing in the hygiene theatre. A terrific essay by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic on why you shouldn’t be obsessive about cleaning surfaces. Cruise controlA salutary piece by Zeynep Tufekci on her Substack blog on what we failed (refused?) to learn from the Diamond Princess cruise liner.
The 300millionyearold sharks teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species.
In last 24 hours, around 24,000 fresh cases of COVID-19 have been reported. Within a day, the number rose from 19,500 to 24,000.
<p>Washington, Apr 17 (PTI) US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga have pledged to work with India and Australia to strengthen the Quad to build a free, open, accessible, diverse and thriving Indo-Pacific, as the two leaders discussed the impact of China’s actions on peace and prosperity in the region.</p>
The Czech Republic is expelling 18 Russian diplomats over suspicions that Russian intelligence services were involved in an ammunition depot explosion in 2014, its government said on Saturday.
Israel's coronavirus czar, Nachman Ash, said on Sunday that removing the mask requirement outdoors and reinitiating in-class studies was a calculated risk.
To deter crowds from gathering during the pandemic, the entire procession and funeral will take place within the grounds of the castle.
The victim’s family alleged that the hospital management did not take any action and instead assaulted them.
<p>Washington, Apr 16 (PTI) Ten Democratic Senators led by influential Bernie Sanders have urged US President Joe Biden to support India and South Africa's proposal to the WTO to temporarily lift certain intellectual property barriers and allow countries to locally manufacture COVID-19 diagnostics and vaccines, arguing that this is key to end the pandemic and a strong American recovery.</p>
SpaceXs most international crew of astronauts yet arrived at their launch site Friday.
In a series of tweets, Union Minister Piyush Goyal lashed out at the Maha Vikas Aghadi government for trying to create a narrative around the supply of oxygen.
Rajnath Singh is in constant touch with UP CM Yogi Adityanath over the serious situation in Lucknow which has nearly 45,000 active cases presently.
The WHO panel also suggested all countries to conduct safety surveillance on all available Covid-19 vaccines and share the information with local authorities and the WHO global database which is needed to support evidence-based recommendations on these life-saving vaccines.
