Uddhav chairs first cabinet meet; assures concrete farm aid

Agencies
November 29, 2019

Mumbai, Nov 29: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday night chaired the maiden meeting of his cabinet which sanctioned Rs 20 crore for conservation of the Raigad Fort as he promised concrete assistance for farmers after reviewing existing schemes instead of any piecemeal aid.

Thackeray, sworn in the CM here hours earlier, chaired the first meeting of his cabinet at Sahyadri Guest House in south Mumbai.

He said the first decision of the cabinet was to approve a sum of Rs 20 crore for conserving the Raigad Fort, which was the capital of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the 17th century.

Addressing his first press conference after taking over as CM, Thackeray said he has asked the chief secretary to review all existing government schemes for farmers to understand how much they have actually helped the community.

"We can paint a better picture if we know the reality.

We have sought inputs. Farmers have not got anything, but only assurances. We want to provide concrete help to farmers," he said after the meeting.

"I have asked the chief secretary to provide a realistic picture about the number of schemes aimed at helping farmers and how much they have benefited them.

"Once I get the real picture, we will be able to come up with solution," Thackeray said.

The CM said he is not looking at piecemeal approach to resolve issues related to cultivators, who suffered crop losses in unseasonal rains in October.

"I don't want to provide any negligible assistance but whatever we will do, it will be a grand and satisfactory provision for farmers," Thackeray said.

"So far farmers have been given false promises and they have not benefited actually. I have seen farmers were given certificates of loan waiver but they did not benefit in reality," he said, said hitting out at the erstwhile Devendra Fadnavis government which had announced a mega farm loan waiver in June 2017.

"Even the crop insurance scheme has failed to address farmer issues. The Sena has taken their issues to the streets.

We want to provide some meaningful help to farmers," said Thackeray, who is also president of the Sena, a key member of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the governing coalition also comprising the Congress and the NCP.

"We want to ensure an atmosphere in the state wherein nobody will feel terrorised," he said.

Before the swearing-in ceremony, the three parties unveiled their common minimum programme (CMP), which will guide the three-party government.

Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his disappointment over the programme, saying it does not talk about other parts of the state such as north Maharashtra and Marathwada.

Asked about it, Thackeray said, "The cabinet is of entire Maharashtra and the person who is making such comment was chief minister for five years. A cabinet is not of a particular region, but it represents the entire state." "He should study and tell us to which region our cabinet belongs to," Thackeray said sarcastically.

Elaborating on the first decision taken by the cabinet related to conservation of the Raigad Fort, he said, "The total cost of the project is Rs 606 crore of which Rs 20 crore was disbursed by the previous government.

"I am happy the first decision in my cabinet was sanctioning (Rs 20 crore) for the second round of the ongoing work."

At the media briefing, Thackeray was accompanied by his cabinet colleagues Chhagan Bhujbal, Jayant Patil, Nitin Raut and Balasaheb Thorat.

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News Network
April 17,2020

New Delhi, Apr 17: With 1,076 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and 32 deaths, India's total count of coronavirus cases has surged to 13,835, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.

The total cases are inclusive of 1,766 cured and discharged patients, one migrated and 452 deaths. At present, there are 11,616 active COVID-19 cases in the country.

Before the lockdown, the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases was about three days, but according to the data of the past 7 days, the doubling rate of cases now stands at 6.2 days, said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health and Family Welfare.

"Before the lockdown, doubling rate of COVID-19 cases was about three days but according to the data of past 7 days, the doubling rate of cases now stands at 6.2 days," Aggarwal said during the daily briefing on COVID-19.

Aggarwal said that as many as 5 lakh rapid antibody testing kits are being distributed to States and Districts where a high case burden has been observed.

"A total of 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1.73 lakh isolation beds, 21,800 ICU beds readied in India," he added. 

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Agencies
May 28,2020

Several India-based firms are spoofing the World Health Organisation (WHO) by creating fake Gmail accounts and luring business leaders in disguise of informing them of latest COVID-19 announcements and hack their personal and financial information, Google has warned.

These "hack-for-hire" firms, many based in India, have been creating Gmail accounts spoofing the WHO, largely targeting business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations within numerous countries including, the US, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK.

"The lures themselves encourage individuals to sign up for direct notifications from the WHO to stay informed of COVID-19 related announcements, and link to attacker-hosted websites that bear a strong resemblance to the official WHO website," security researchers from Google's Threat Analysis Group said on Wednesday.

The sites typically feature fake login pages that prompt potential victims to give up their Google account credentials, and occasionally encourage individuals to give up other personal information, such as their phone numbers.

On any given day, Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said it is tracking more than 270 targeted or government-backed attacker groups from more than 50 countries.

Last month, it sent 1,755 warnings to users whose accounts were targets of government-backed attackers.

"Our team of analysts and security experts is focused on identifying and stopping issues like phishing campaigns, zero-day vulnerabilities and hacking against Google, our products and our users," said the tech giant.

Google continues to see attacks from groups like Charming Kitten on medical and healthcare professionals, including WHO employees.

"We're seeing a resurgence in COVID-related hacking and phishing attempts from numerous commercial and government-backed attackers," said the company.

Government-backed or state-sponsored groups have different goals in carrying out their attacks: Some are looking to collect intelligence or steal intellectual property; others are targeting dissidents or activists, or attempting to engage in coordinated influence operations and disinformation campaigns.

Google said that since March, it has removed more than 1,000 YouTube channels that were part of a large campaign and behaving in a coordinated manner.

"These channels were mostly uploading spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted primarily Chinese-language political content similar to the findings of a recent Graphika report," said the company.

Several cybersecurity firms have seen a spike in COVID-19 related scams and hacking attempts. Hackers are also creating scam sites similar to COVID-19 relief packages.

Researchers at Check Point Software Technologies revealed in mid-May that they have seen 192,000 coronavirus-related cyber-attacks per week over the past three weeks, a 30 % increase compared to previous weeks.

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News Network
June 20,2020

New Delhi, Jun 20: A rare celestial event, annular solar eclipse, which is popularly known as the "ring of fire" eclipse, will be visible this Sunday in India.

It will be the first solar eclipse of this year takes place on the summer solstice, which is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere.

While people living along the path annular eclipse passing through Anupgarh, Suratgarh, Sirsa, Jakhal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Dehradun, Tapowan and Joshimath will be able to see the annular phase, people in rest of India can witness a partial eclipse, said the Ministry of Science and Technology.

When Moon comes between the Sun and Earth, the shadow falls on the surface of the Earth. The Sun is entirely covered by the Moon for a brief period. Those places that are engulfed by the dark, dense umbral shadow of the Moon experience the total solar eclipse. In the regions that plunge into the soft diffused penumbral shadow of the Moon experience the partial eclipse.

"Annular solar eclipse is a particular case of the total solar eclipse. Like the total solar eclipse, the Moon is aligned with the Sun. However, on that day, the apparent size of the Moon happens to be a wee smaller than the Sun. Hence the Moon covers the central part of the Sun, and the rim of the Sun appear like a 'ring of fire' in the sky for a very brief moment" explains Samir Dhurde of The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune.

During the solar eclipse, the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun by 1 per cent, the expert said.

Allying rumours that the eclipse will mark the end of coronavirus, Aniket Sule, Chairperson, Public Outreach and Education Committee of the Astronomical Society of India, said: "Solar eclipse is caused when the Moon comes in front of the Sun for a short time. As seen from Earth eclipses occur somewhere in the Earth 2 to 5 times a year. Eclipses do not impact microorganisms on Earth. Likewise there no danger in eating of stepping out during an eclipse. No mysterious rays come out of the Sun during an eclipse."

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