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R K Mathur sworn-in as Ladakh governor

October 31, 2019

Leh, Oct 31: Former defence secretary R K Mathur was on Thursday sworn-in as the first Lt Governor of strategically located Union Territory of Ladakh, which came into existence after the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.

Mathur, who will be turning 66 later this month, was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court Gita Mittal at a function held at Sindhu Sanskriti auditorium at Tisuru.

The warrant of appointment was read by a senior official at the function after which the oath ceremony took place.

Mathur, an IAS officer of 1977 batch from Tripura, later inspected a guard of honour of local police.

A post graduate in Industrial Engineering from IIT, Mathur retired as Defence Secretary in 2015 and was appointed as Chief Information Commissioner in December the same year. He completed his tenure in November last year after attaining the age of 65 years.

Ahead of the swearing-in, the Union Home Ministry revoked notification of December last year of imposition of President's rule in the undivided Jammu and Kashmir.

The Centre on Wednesday night appointed Umang Narula, an IAS officer of 1989 batch, as advisor to Mathur besides posting S S Khandare, an IPS officer of 1995 batch, as 'Head of Police' in Ladakh.

With a population of nearly three lakh, Ladakh is strategically located as it shares borders with Pakistan as well as China.

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May 18,2020

New Delhi, May 18: Very severe cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’, over central parts of South Bay of Bengal, has intensified into extremely severe cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday. The weather department has warned that ‘Amphan’ may turn into a “super cyclonic storm’.

According to experts, North Odisha coast will face the maximum impact of cyclone Amphan when it makes landfall.

“Wind speed expected to be 110-120 kmph, gusting up to 130 kmph. Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj dist can be affected on 20 May (when it makes landfall), IMD Bhubaneswar scientist Umashankar Das told news agency ANI.

The IMD has said that ‘Amphan’ will cross West Bengal - Bangladesh coasts between Digha (WB) and Hatiya island - in the afternoon/evening of May 20 as very severe cyclonic storm.

Earlier, the IMD had warned that ‘Amphan’, over central parts of South Bay of Bengal, will intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm on Monday.

“Very Severe Cyclonic Storm (VSCS) ‘AMPHAN’ over central parts of South Bay of Bengal near latitude 12.5°N and longitude 86.4°E, about 870 km nearly south of Paradip (Odisha). To intensify further into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm (ESCS) in the next six hours,” the IMD said in a tweet on Monday.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has sent its 10 teams to Odisha and seven teams to West Bengal in view of the approaching Cyclone Amphan, news agency reported.

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Agencies
July 29,2020

New Delhi, Jul 29: Coronavirus infections in India continue to mount as the country's total case tally crossed the 15-lakh mark.

India added 48,513 fresh cases in 24 hours, taking the total tally to over 15.3 lakh, according to the Health Ministry’s 8 a.m. update on July 29.

Key Figures

Total number of confirmed coronavirus cases: 15,31,669
Active cases: 5,09,447
Cured/discharged/migrated: 9,88,029
Deaths: 34,193
Number of fresh cases in 24 hours: 48,513
One-day recoveries: 35,175
One-day deaths: 768
India’s coronavirus epidemic is growing at the fastest pace in the world, increasing 20% over the last week, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Tracker. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are among the states where the maximum number of daily cares are being reported.

Fresh cases continued to come in at a heightened pace, hovering just below 50,000 for the last six days.

Moderna Inc.’s vaccine candidate against Covid-19 protected against the virus in a trial that inoculated 16 monkeys, an encouraging step on the path to a defense for humans against the pandemic. Pfizer Inc., however, is preparing for the novel coronavirus to endure, leading to long-term demand for a seasonal shot to protect against Covid-19.

“There is a likely scenario that either the vaccine’s immunity will not be lasting forever,” said Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla in an interview Tuesday, “or that the virus will mutate, or that the virus will find ways to come back again and again.”

Even as the transmission rate of Covid-19 remains high in India, the pace of recovery has risen too. On Wednesday, India reported its third day of over 35,000 recoveries.

Global Update

Flare-ups in virus cases from Hong Kong to Europe are proving difficult for policy makers to wrangle. The U.S. neared 150,000 deaths from Covid-19, even as daily infections slowed in some hard-hit states. China reported 101 new cases, up from 68 a day earlier, with 98 of the total from local infections, mostly in Xinjiang.

Philippine health authorities warned that hospitals and infirmaries risk getting overwhelmed.

Globally, confirmed Covid-19 cases have topped 16.6 million with over 658,000 dead.

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Agencies
July 23,2020

Expressing concern over the ban imposed on TikTok by the government of India, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly called the development in the south Asian country “worrisome”.

TikTok was amongst the 59 Chinese apps that were banned in India but why it hogs the maximum limelight because TikTok had the second-largest user base in India with over 200 million users.

As per The Verge writer Casey Newton, Zuckerberg was worried about TikTok’s India ban. Although it soon cashed into the opportunity and released a TikTok clone “Reels”, the government’s reason behind banning the app in India wasn’t received well by Mark Zuckerberg. 

He had said that if India can ban a platform with over 200 million users in India without citing concrete reasons, it can also ban Facebook if something goes amiss on the security and privacy front.

Why Mark finds it particularly worrisome because Facebook is already involved in a lot tussle with the governments across the world involving national security concerns. 

“Facebook already faces fights around the world from governments on both the left and the right related to issues that fit under the broad umbrella of national security: election interference, influence campaigns, hate speech, and even just plain-old democratic speech. Zuckerberg knows that the leap from banning TikTok on national security grounds to banning Facebook on national security grounds is more of a short hop,” the report by Casey read.

Facebook till now has not faced any kind of issue in India but considering the debacle with the other governments, it is not entirely wrong to worry about its future in India if any national security issue arises. Back in 2016, Facebook’s Free Basics service, which means a free but restricted internet service, was banned in India by the telecom regulators. 

The TRAI had said that the Free Basic services were banned in India because it violated the principles of net neutrality. With Free Basics services, Facebook had planned to bring more unconnected users online. But since 2016, there has been no major tussle between the Indian government and Zuckerberg due to national security issues.

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