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Assembly elections: Counting begins in four states

December 8, 2013

New Delhi, Dec 8: The results of the Assembly elections to four key heartland States — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi — to be announced on Sunday will set the stage for the 2014 general election.

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BJP leaders, cheered by exit polls predicting the party winning three of the four States and emerging as the single largest party in Delhi, are nevertheless keeping their fingers crossed. A senior leader said on Friday: “I would like to wait till Sunday to accept congratulations.” BJP president Rajnath Singh held a “strategy session” at the party headquarters with senior functionaries.

If the BJP, out of power at the Centre for nine years, has much at stake in these polls, so has Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, now the prime ministerial candidate, who addressed a number of election rallies in all four States. The BJP’s much-publicised “Modi Magic” will face the first litmus test in the verdict in the four States, the polls being dubbed “semi-finals” to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Not surprisingly, a day ahead of the results, the mood in the Congress was downbeat, with its leaders hoping the party would fare better than what the exit polls had suggested.

Congress leaders said if the party failed to win at least one of these four States (counting for Mizoram will take place on Monday), it would not just set the tone for next year’s Lok Sabha elections, it would also make it very difficult for it to persuade the Opposition to cooperate with it in the ongoing Parliament session, in which it has a heavy legislative agenda.

The government is keen on pushing through not just a slew of anti-corruption laws, including the Lokpal Bill and the Whistle-blowers’ Bill but also the key Bill on Telangana. Indeed, if Telangana is created before next year’s elections, the Congress believes, it will give the party an electoral boost in the region. On the other hand, if the new State does not become a ground reality, the party will face the prospect of getting wiped out in both Telangana, and Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

Publicly, the Congress maintains that the Assembly elections are fought on local issues and the results will have no impact on the general election. “The BJP should be cautious in celebrations, even if opinion and exit polls are true. We won all these 4 States in 1998, 1999. The Lok Sabha results were an eye opener for us,” Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said on Twitter.

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News Network
June 8,2020

New Delhi, Jun 8: India on Monday reported the highest single-day spike of 9,983 more COVID-19 cases and 206 deaths in the last 24 hours.

With this, the country's coronavirus count has reached 2,56,611, including 1,25,381 active cases, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

1,24,094 patients have been cured/discharged so far and 7,135 succumbed to the deadly virus. While one patient has migrated.

With 85,975 cases, Maharashtra is the worst-affected state in the country followed by Tamil Nadu at 31,667 cases.

A total of 1,08,048 samples were tested for coronavirus in the last 24 hours and overall 47,74,434 samples have been tested till now.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

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News Network
May 22,2020

Bengaluru, May 22: Amazon.com Inc’s India unit said it would hire 50,000 temporary workers to meet a surge in online shopping in the country, where customers have been stuck indoors for two months in a lockdown to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

E-commerce firms faced massive disruption in the initial days of the lockdown in India, but a slow easing of the stringent regulations has allowed them to resume large parts of their operations.

"We want to continue helping customers all over India get everything they need so they can continue to practice social distancing," Amazon senior executive Akhil Saxena said in a statement on the company's blog. (bit.ly/2A1Wv7O)

“(The move) will also keep as many people as possible working during this pandemic while providing a safe work environment for them,” said Saxena, Amazon’s VP for customer fulfillment operations in APAC, MENA & Latam.

The temporary hires will work in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and as part of its delivery network, the company said, making the announcement at a time when various other companies in the country have been forced to cut jobs as they try to tide over the health crisis.

Amazon itself has pushed its annual global Prime Day event, traditionally a summer affair, to September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In India, where the Jeff Bezos-led company faces stiff competition from Walmart Inc’s Flipkart, Amazon earlier said it plans to create 1 million jobs by 2025.

The company also said on Thursday it plans to enter the food delivery business in India, pitting itself against well-established startups such as Swiggy and Zomato.

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