Month: April 2020

Amid the lockdown till May 3, that is expected to extend more, for coronavirus outbreak, the news is the worst phase is yet to come ahead. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus claimed that the virus could get even worse from the current phase.   He and others, however, have previously pointed to the likely future spread of the illness through Africa, where health systems are far less developed.   “Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us,” Tedros told reporters from WHO headquarters in Geneva.   “Let’s prevent this…

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s father Anand Singh Bisht passed away on April 20. Bisht was admitted in AIIMS hospital for undergoing treatment at the gastroenterology department. He was admitted when his health was deteriorated and he went under critical condition, as per the reports.   “Honourable CM’s father left for his heavenly abode at 10.44 am. Our deepest condolences,” Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said in a statement. Leaders from political parties sent their condolences messages to the UP CM as they got to know the news.   A senior bureaucrat…

The government has announced stringent restrictions on foreign direct investments (FDIs) from countries sharing land borders with India, especially the recent episode by Chinese companies functioning in India. The sources said, within China, the Chinese private sector, and particularly tech firms, work closely with the government and the Communist Party in pursuing many of its goals at home. It is quite obvious true that more Chinese companies investing in India ,as India attempts to gain market access in China for its information technology, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries have hit a…

The Pentagon is reconsidering its awarding of a major cloud computing contract to Microsoft after rival tech giant Amazon protested what it called a flawed bidding process. U.S. government lawyers said in a court filing this week of March 13, 2020 that the Defense Department “wishes to reconsider its award decision” and take another look at how it evaluated technical aspects of the companies’ proposals to run the $10 billion computing project.   The Pentagon’s process for awarding a highly lucrative cloud computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was…

Ashoka University and ThoughtWorks today announced a research collaboration to develop the first ultra-large-scale agent-based simulation model for the spread of COVID-19 in India. The model, called BharatSim, builds on EpiRust, an open source framework developed and released recently by ThoughtWorks.   In BharatSim each individual is simulated as an “agent” on a computer. The properties of agents are chosen to match those known from district and state-level demographic studies, including age distributions, sex ratios, population densities and health indicators. The model will also include geographical information.   The model will…

Cognizant , the New-Jersey headquartered IT services provider said that it had faced a Maze ransomware attack and has caused disruptions to its clients, resulting in service disruptions for some of its clients.   Ransomware is a type of malicious program used by hackers to take control of files in an infected system and then demand hefty payments to recover them. The information technology services provider said it was taking steps to contain the incident, with the help of cyber defense companies, and has also engaged with law enforcement authorities.…

COVID-19 will have a short-lived positive impact on gaming, but not all companies will benefit. Sony is the most exposed, because games such as The Last of Us Part II and Iron Man VR have been delayed indefinitely, and the upcoming PS5 is expected to miss the holiday season in 2020, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.   Rupantar Guha, Senior Analyst of Thematic Research at GlobalData, comments: “The lockdown in China caused a 39% increase in global mobile game downloads in February 2020, according to Sensor Tower.…

The tax department confirmed that, it has till date issued nearly 14 lakh refunds up to Rs 5 lakh each in order to help taxpayers in Covid-19 pandemic situation. Keeping its focus on providing relief to the small businesses in MSME sector, CBDT will further issue refunds of Rs 7,760 crore earliest possible.   Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) today said that Income tax refunds to nearly 8.2 lakh small businesses worth Rs 5,204 crore have been issued since April 8th 2020. These income tax refunds would help MSMEs to carry on their business…

Strengthening support towards relief efforts in the state, Ola Group, which operates Ola, India’s largest mobility platform, has committed ₹50 Lakhs to the Haryana Chief Minister’s Fund. The Ola Group comprises various business arms including Ola Mobility, its ride-hailing arm, Ola Financial Services, Ola Electric, as well as Ola Foods. The contribution aims to support the state’s efforts across enabling aid at the ground level, strengthening emergency response and also facilitating longer-term COVID-19 relief and recovery initiatives.   Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola Group said, “As India continues to address the…