Junior Digest

A Tinder spokesperson said the feature would roll out in the coming days in the United States and connect users to “trained dispatchers who contact authorities on behalf of the user.”

The new safety feature “acts as a silent bodyguard in situations when you’re alone or meeting someone for the first time,” said Brittany LeComte, co-founder of Noonlight.

Tinder is also adding photo verification, to compare using artificial intelligence a posed photo taken in real-time to profile photos.

Members with authenticated pictures will get a “badge” that verifies their images are authentic. The photo feature is being tested “in select markets” and will be widely available later this year.

Tinder, known for giving users the option to “swipe” right or left to accept or reject a date, is the largest of the apps in Match Group, operating in 190 countries, claiming to facilitate one million dates per week.

To help allay concerns on personal risks, Tinder said it is launching a safety center within the app to keep users informed of its resources.

This feature is being launched in the United States, Britain, France and Germany and will be “localized” for additional markets throughout the year.

Tinder and its online dating siblings including PlentyOfFish, OkCupid and Hinge, which make up the Match Group, will be spun off as an independent company this year, according to parent firm IAC.

New Delhi, Jan 23,2020: The Centre on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court for fixing a seven-day deadline for executing death penalty of condemned prisoners.

The plea of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) assumes significance in view of the the death row convicts in the sensational Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case of 2012 filing review, curative and mercy petitions, which has delayed their hanging.

The MHA’s plea sought a direction from the top court in fixing the deadline for filing of curative pleas after the rejection of review petitions.

It also sought a direction that “if the convict of death sentence wants to file mercy petition, it would be mandatory for a convict of death sentence to do so only within a period of seven days from the date of receipt of death warrant issued by the competent court”.

The MHA submitted that the top court should “mandate all the competent courts, state governments, prison authorities in the country to issue death warrant of a convict within seven days of the rejection of his mercy petition and to execute death sentence within seven days thereafter irrespective of the stage of review petition/curative petition/mercy petition of his co-convicts”.

The top court, on January 20, had rejected the plea of a death row convict in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case challenging the Delhi High Court order which had dismissed his claim of being a juvenile at the time of offence saying he cannot re-agitate the issue by filing fresh application.

A Delhi court has recently issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts — Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31), Mukesh Kumar Singh (32) and Pawan (26) — in the case after their hanging got delayed from January 22 due to pending petitions.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road.

Jan25,2020:Two anti-government protesters were killed in clashes with security forces in the Iraqi capital on Friday, hours after thousands of supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr rallied separately to demand the ouster of US troops.

Four NGO workers, three of them French nationals, were also reported missing in Baghdad, rocked since October by a youth-dominated protest movement demanding a government overhaul, early elections and more accountability.

More than 470 people have died in protest-related violence since October, most of them demonstrators, and violence has spiked this week.

On Friday, one protester was struck in the neck by a live round while another died after being hit with a military-grade tear gas canister in clashes with security forces, medical and police sources told AFP.
It marked a sudden and bloody turn as thousands of men, women and children had gathered in Baghdad earlier the same day without incident to demand US troops withdraw.

A vowed enemy of US troops, Sadr had called for “a million-strong” rally but did not attend himself.

Jan25,2020:A powerful earthquake has killed at least 18 people and injured hundreds in eastern Turkey, as rescue teams searched through the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors early on Saturday.

At least 30 people were missing following the magnitude 6.8 quake, which had its epicentre in the small lakeside town of Sivrice in the eastern province of Elazig.

“It was very scary, furniture fell on top of us. We rushed outside,” 47-year-old Melahat Can, who lives in the provincial capital of Elazig, told AFP.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said all steps were being taken to aid people affected by the quake, which caused widespread fear.

“We stand by our people,” Erdogan said on Twitter.

People who fled their homes in panic were lighting fires in the streets to stay warm in freezing temperatures.

The Turkish government’s disaster and emergency management agency (AFAD) said the quake hit Sivrice at around 8.55 pm (1755 GMT). Turkey lies on major faultlines and is prone to frequent earthquakes.

New Delhi, Jan 21 ,2020: Uttar Pradesh’s Peace Party on Tuesday filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court to immediately reconsider its five-judge bench judgement in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case, pronounced on November 9, 2019, as well as on review plea on December 11, last year.
It creates rights based on illegal acts, plaintiff Mohammad Ayub asserted.
Peace Party submitted that the issue had affected the sentiments of large number of persons of a community and religion.
It was not a party to the original suit.
The Ayodhya judgment, which had cleared the decks for the construction of a magnificent Ram Temple at Ayodhya and a mosque outside the disputed site, Peace Party contended, had several errors apparent on the face of the record which go to the root of the matter.
“The issue had affected the sentiments of large number of persons of one community and religion,” the plaintiff stated, adding, “The plea should be considered by Apex Court and it should modify its earlier order.”

Washington D.C. , Jan 23,2020: The results of a study  published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry claims that they have identified a protein in foxtail millet bran can help stave off atherosclerosis  disease.

The experiment was conducted on genetically prone atherosclerosis mice. An annual grass known as foxtail millet, during the milling process loses the bran from the hard outer layer of the grain from the seed.
The crop is widely grown in parts of India, China, and Southeast Asia.

Atherosclerosis, or narrowing of the arteries because of plaque buildup, is the leading cause of heart disease and stroke. Plaques form when immune cells called monocytes take up oxidized low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (ox-LDL) in the artery wall.
These cells then secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines, causing aortic smooth muscle cells to migrate to the site. Eventually, a plaque made up of cholesterol, cells and other substances forms. Drugs called statins can treat atherosclerosis by lowering LDL levels, but some people suffer from side effects.
Zhuoyu Li and colleagues previously identified a protein in foxtail millet bran that inhibits the migration of colon cancer cells. They wondered if the protein, called foxtail millet bran peroxidase (FMBP), could also help prevent atherosclerosis.
To find out, the researchers treated human aortic smooth muscle cells and monocytes in Petri dishes with FMBP.
The millet protein reduced the uptake of lipids by both cell types and reduced the migration of smooth muscle cells. In monocytes, FMBP treatment blocked the expression of two key proteins involved in atherosclerosis.
Next, the team fed mice that were genetically predisposed to atherosclerosis a high-fat diet. Mice that were then treated with either FMBP or a statin had far fewer plaques than untreated mice.
The FMBP-treated mice also had elevated blood levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), the “good cholesterol.” Based on these results, FMBP is a natural product with great potential in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis, the researchers say.

The academic and former education minister, who was little-known in Lebanon until last month, insisted in his first comments as premier that his cabinet was a technocratic one that would strive to meet protesters’ demands.

“This is a government that represents the aspirations of the demonstrators who have been mobilised nationwide for more than three months,” he said.

He said his government “will strive to meet their demands for an independent judiciary, for the recovery of embezzled funds, for the fight against illegal gains.”

The new cabinet is made up of little-known figures, many of them academics and former advisers, but protesters were quick to argue that the absence of the biggest names in Lebanon’s widely reviled hereditary political elite was but a smokescreen.

Groups of demonstrators had gathered in the streets of Beirut before the cabinet was even unveiled, blocking off a main street in the centre of the capital where violent scuffles with the police left dozens wounded over the weekend.

“We live at a transformational moment in history. The survival of open societies is endangered and we face an even greater crisis: climate change,” said the Hungarian-born billionaire.

He described the plan of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) as “the most important project of my life” and would be an international platform for teaching and research that existing universities all over the world would be able to join.

It would seek to reach out to “places in need of high quality education and in serving neglected populations” such as refugees, prisoners, the Roma and other displaced peoples like the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, he said.

“To demonstrate our commitment to OSUN, we are contributing one billion dollars to it,” said Soros in his traditional annual Davos address.

Soros, whose Central European University (CEU) was forced to leave Hungary after pressure from the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said the project was needed at a time when open society was at more risk than ever.

– ‘Revolutionary situation’ –

He expressed grief that the world’s strongest powers — the United States, China and Russia under President Vladimir Putin — were “in the hands of would-be or actual dictators and the ranks of authoritarian rulers continued to grow.”

With nationalism making further headway around the world, Soros said that the “biggest and most frightening setback” was in India, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “creating a Hindu nationalist state.”

He again slammed Trump, describing the US leader as a “conman and the ultimate narcissist” but said the current surge in economic strength for the United States may have come too soon for the US leader as he faces re-election later this year.

“Trump… has managed to overheat an already buoyant economy. An overheated economy can’t be kept at the boiling point for too long,” warned Soros, credited with correctly predicting major market swings in his career as an investor.

“If all this happened close to the election it would have assured his election. His problem is that the election is still 10 months away and, in a revolutionary situation, that’s a lifetime.”

– ‘New kind of human’ –

But Soros also expressed particular alarm over Xi, who he said had broken with Communist Party tradition by concentrating power around himself, with the Chinese economy losing its previous flexibility.

While Xi Jinping “became a dictator as soon as he gained sufficient strength” his “success is far from assured” as demographics caused by the one child policy work against China.

He said that most troublingly, Xi was seeking to bring into existence “a new type of authoritarian system and a new type of human being who is willing to surrender his personal autonomy in order to stay out of trouble.”

“Once lost, personal autonomy will be difficult to recover. An open society would have no place in such a world.”

Ranchi (Jharkhand) , Jan 22,2020:  Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday announced that January 23 will be a public holiday in the state to mark the 123rd birth anniversary of late freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
“Chief Minister Hemant Soren has ordered to declare a public holiday on January 23 to mark the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose,” read a tweet in Hindi from Jharkhand Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
Soren said that Jharkhand has been the ‘karambhoomi’ of Bose and his contribution to the freedom struggle will never be forgotten.
“Jharkhand has also been the ‘karambhoomi’ of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His contribution to ensuring independence to India can never be forgotten. We all should take inspiration from his life. The youth should contribute to the state and country service by following the footsteps of Netaji,” Soren said in a follow-up tweet.

Davos , Jan 24,2020:  The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement was an unbalanced agreement, which was not fulfilling the guiding principles on which the pact was initiated, said India’s Industry and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal here on Thursday.
“RCEP was an unbalanced trade agreement, which was not fulfilling the guiding principles on which the RCEP was started. Therefore, India chose not to participate in it,” Goyal said in a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020 here.
“India is not willing to engage with the RCEP unless we see a greater degree of transparency, open government, regulatory practices and greater market access for Indian goods and services on a reciprocal basis,” he stated.
Last year, India decided not to join the RCEP agreement as its key concerns were not addressed.
The key issues behind India’s decision not to be part of RCEP included inadequate protection against import surge, insufficient differential with China, possible circumvention of rules of origin, keeping the base year as 2014 and no credible assurances on market access and non-tariff barriers.
The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the ten member-states of ASEAN and FTA partners.
“Trade negotiations are very complex issues. We are not negotiating trade with deadlines and in a hurry. The FTAs that were entered into from 2009-12, sadly did not have as many stakeholder consultations as our government is doing,” said Goyal.
Goyal is leading the Indian delegation to the 50th WEF summit at Davos which is being held from January 20 to January 24.

Jan21,2020: Intelligence services have identified the new leader of the Islamic State (IS) group as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, British newspaper The Guardian reported on Monday.

The paper, citing officials from two unnamed spy services, described him as one of the terrorist group’s founding members and said he had led the enslavement of the Yazidi minority in Iraq.

The organisation had named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi as its new head just days after its previous leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a raid by US special forces in October.

But some analysts suggested the group were caught off guard by Baghdadi’s killing and that the true identity of its new leader remained uncertain.

The Guardian said Salbi was selected within hours of the death and that Quraishi was a nom de guerre not recognised by other senior leaders or intelligence agencies.

The newspaper described him as “a hardened veteran in the same vein as Baghdadi, unflinching in his loyalty to the extremist group”.

It said he was born into an Iraqi Turkmen family in the town of Tal Afar, and is one of the few non-Arabs among the group’s leadership.

Holding a degree in Sharia law from the University of Mosul, he rose through its ranks in part thanks to his background as an Islamic scholar, the paper added.

Salbi gave religious rulings that underwrote the attempted genocide of Yazidis by IS, it said.

In 2004 he was detained by US forces in Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq where he met Baghdadi, according to The Guardian report.

“We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds – not hours, or even minutes,” said Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in announcing the change.

The decision on the clock is taken by panels of experts, including 13 Nobel laureates.

It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight, and the previous worst — two minutes to midnight — held from 2018 to 2019 as well as 1953. The furthest it has ever been is 17 minutes, following the end of the Cold War in 1991.

– Scrapped treaty –

On the nuclear front, the arms control boundaries that helped prevent catastrophe over the last half century are being dismantled and may be gone by next year, said subject expert Sharon Squassoni.

And despite initial hopes US President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to North Korea may produce results, no real progress ensued, said Squassoni, with Pyongyang instead vowing to press ahead with a new strategic weapon.

– Climate hope? –

On climate, two major UN summits fell dismally short of the action required to limit long-term warming to the goals laid out by the Paris Agreement that scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophe.

The effects were already apparent in the record-breaking heat waves and floods India faced in 2019, and the wildfires that raged from the Arctic to Australia.

“If humankind pushes the climate into the opposite of an ice age,” said Sivan Kartha, a scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute, “we have no reason to be confident that such a world will remain hospitable to human civilization.”

Yet the experts took heart in mounting climate activism spearheaded by a youth movement that is spurring some governments to action.

Misinformation campaigns and fake news catalyzed by deepfake videos are potent threats to social cohesion, while the rise of AI weapons like drones that attack targets without human supervision create new uncertainty.

Russia meanwhile has announced a new hypersonic glide missile and the US is testing its own weapons that severely limit response times of targeted nations.

Space, long an arena for international cooperation, is also becoming increasingly militarized with multiple countries testing projectile and laser anti-satellite weapons and the US creating a new military branch, the Space Force.

“We ask world leaders to join us in 2020 as we work to pull humanity back from the brink,” said Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders leadership group and former president of Ireland.

“Now is the time to come together — to unite and to act.”

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu — both staunch Putin supporters and major policy figures — held on to their positions, as well as the finance and energy ministers, Anton Siluanov and Alexander Novak.

But he replaced several officials in charge of social affairs, including the ministers of health, education, labour and economic development.

Meeting the cabinet of new Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin for the first time, Putin said its most important task was to “increase the welfare of our citizens and strengthen our state”.

“I sincerely wish you success… it is in the interests of the entire country,” Putin said during a televised meeting.

Mishustin said the cabinet would meet right away with a focus on boosting economic growth and “improving people’s living standards”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres reaffirmed his dire warnings about the risks of climate change, telling business leaders that the world was losing the war against global warming and urging rapid action to prevent humanity being “doomed”.

Mnuchin had earlier advised Thunberg, who has been bitterly critical of US policy during her stay at Davos, to study economics before giving out lessons.

“My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1.5 degrees carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up,” she wrote.

“So either you tell us how to achieve this mitigation or explain to future generations and those already affected by the climate emergency why we should abandon our climate commitments,” she added.

– ‘Not winning this war’ –

Guterres lamented the “lack of political will” to reach targets on climate change and urged a “meaningful shift of assets” from investments in polluting substances into the green economy.

“The planet will not be destroyed. What will be destroyed is our capacity to live in this planet,” he said.

“We need to act in order to make sure we are not doomed,” he said. “It is essential to recognise that climate change is an existential threat to us all.

“We are not winning this war and we absolutely must do it,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday also said in a keynote address that governments were obliged to act on the younger generation’s concerns over climate change.

In her speech to the forum, Merkel said that older politicians had to use the “positive manner and constructive impatience of young people”, who she said “have a completely different horizon” in terms of time.

She did not however in her speech mention Thunberg, who other than Britain’s Prince Charles has met relatively few top leaders at the forum.

– ‘We want this done now’ –

In a speech on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump had castigated the “prophets of doom” and those that predicted a climate “apocalypse”, in comments widely seen as an attack on Thunberg who sat in the audience.

But either by accident or design, there was no meeting between Trump and Thunberg before the US leader left the Swiss ski resort on Wednesday declaring he would have “loved” to have met the climate activist, Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

“We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now,” she said. Thunberg is to hold a “school strike” demonstration in Davos on Friday.

Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, told AFP during the forum that governments were still failing to act on climate change.

Attending the summit was like being at a “crime scene where all of the criminals are right there in front of you,” she said.

“But these are the targets. These are the people who have to change.”

New Delhi , Jan 23,2020 : Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani on Wednesday said his company’s main goal is to become the world’s largest solar power firm by 2025 and the world’s largest renewable power company by 2030.
“Given our goal to become the world’s largest solar power company by 2025 and the world’s largest renewable power company by 2030, we feel confident that we will be able to lead one of the fastest global carbon offsets. We are looking forward to this transformation,” said Adani in a LinkedIn post.
“The age of renewable energy has dawned upon the world faster than most could have anticipated. India has been the founder member that initiated the Global Solar Alliance constituted of 122 countries and over the past few years, our nation has shown the greatest intent taking some of the most concrete actions for the world to look at it as one of the main beacons of hope for managing the challenge of climate change,” he added.
He said that India is expected to achieve the majority of its COP21 climate change commitments set for 2030 almost a decade earlier.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement at the 2019 UN conference to further raise India’s share of non-fossil fuel mix to 450 GW is easily one of the most ambitious global commitments ever made by any nation. We must all be proud of this,” Adani said.
The Adani Group chairman outlined that India’s energy strategy finally has a line of sight on providing consistent 24×7 electricity for all segments of the population.
“Efficient, supercritical and ultra-supercritical power plants will be needed to provide baseload power. This will be significantly complemented by capabilities such as renewable sources, natural gas, hydrogen, increasing electrification (EVs), energy efficiency technologies and innovation across the energy value chain. An optimal mix is what our nation needs and we are well on our way to achieving this perhaps better than most other large nations in the years that lie ahead of us,” he said.
“We will participate in many of these opportunities. The Adani Group has moved quickly into a position to lead this clean energy transformation not just in India but on the global stage that will see us building one of the largest integrated energy portfolios,” Adani further said.
“In 2019, we were ranked as the 6th largest solar player globally and as a part of this journey, we are well within reach to be India’s largest renewable energy company by 2020 and one of the top three global solar energy companies by 2021. Our existing portfolio of renewable power generating assets stands today at over 2.5 GW,” he said.
“This is expected to more than double by 2020, with the implementation of 2.9 GW under construction capacity and further record three-fold growth touching 18 GW by 2025. To make this happen we have committed to investing over 70 per cent of our budgeted Capex of the energy vertical into clean energy and energy-efficient systems,” Adani added.
He said that Adani Group is aiming to expand its 1.3 GW state-of-the-art solar cell and module manufacturing plant in Mundra.
“Another key project that has begun taking shape as part of this journey, is the expansion of our 1.3 GW state-of-the-art solar cell and module manufacturing plant in Mundra which will turn into a 3.5 GW manufacturing facility. We are also in discussions on ventures to enable the world’s only 100 per cent green energy-based chemical manufacturing and data center facilities,” Adani said.

The man is being “hospitalized out of an abundance of precaution, and for short term monitoring, not because there was severe illness,” said Chris Spitters, a Washington state health official.

The news came as Asian countries ramped up measures to block the spread of the new virus as the death toll in China rose to six and the number of cases surpassed 300.

China is about to embark on the Lunar New Year holiday — a huge travel time for hundreds of millions of people.

The man hospitalized in Washington state had traveled to the US from Wuhan, but did not visit the seafood market thought to be at the heart of the outbreak.

He entered the US on January 15 — two days before health screenings for those traveling from Wuhan began at airports in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco — and approached health authorities himself after reading news reports about the virus.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will now be deployed to two additional international airports, in Chicago and Atlanta.

All travelers on flights from Wuhan, either direct or connecting, will now be re-routed to the five airports with screening systems in place.

Nations across the Asia-Pacific region stepped up checks of passengers at airports to detect the SARS-like coronavirus.

Fears of a bigger outbreak rose after a prominent expert from China’s National Health Commission confirmed late Monday that the virus can be passed between people.

Bengaluru, Jan 23,2020: Ahead of the launch of India’s maiden human spaceflight venture ‘Gaganyaan’ in December 2021, the ISRO will undertake two unmanned missions in December 2020 and June 2021, its chairman K Sivan said on Wednesday.

Addressing the inaugural session of a symposium on “Human Spaceflight and Exploration – Present Challenges and Future Trends,” Sivan said the Gaganyaan mission not only aims at India’s maiden human flight to space but also setting up a new space station for ‘continuous space human presence.’

“We are doing all this (Gaganyaan) on three points – short term plan of two unmanned mission in December 2020 and June 2021, followed by human space flight demonstration in December 2021.

“We have the mid-term goal of sustaining the human space programme and continuous space human presence in space on a new space station”, he said.

In this regard, the ISRO has initiated a full-fledged astronaut training facility in close proximity to Bengaluru for meeting its future requirements.

It is also in talks with NASA and other space agencies and industries on how it can collaborate on human space flight and learn from their experience.

The Gaganyaan will also assist in ISRO’s long term goal of inter-planetary mission.

“Inter-planetary mission is also on the agenda in the long term,” the ISRO chief said.

On the Gaganyaan mission, Sivan said the space agency has already developed and demonstrated key technologies such as having an operational launcher with 10-tonne playload capability to lower orbit, demonstration of mission design and management and recovery system like space qualified parachutes.

“The only missing elements were human life science and life support system, which we are developing now,” he said.

ISRO, Sivan said has taken onboard many national labs, academic institutions, DRDO labs, Indian Air Force, CSIR lab as well as many industries as stakeholders for the Gaganyaan programme.

Noting that four astronauts have been selected from a pool of Indian Air Force test pilots, Sivan said the generic space flight training will commence in India shortly.

Later, speaking reporters, Sivan said the number of astronauts going to the space will be decided towards the end of the project.

“In the first mission people will be very cautious.

So, how many people will go and how many days they will be there in the first mission – that will be decided much later,” he added.

Sivan refused to share the details about the astronauts selected for the mission.

“At the right time that will be known to the outside people,” he added.

Along with the humanoid, micro gravity experiment will also fly in this unmanned mission in December 2020, he said.

A mission specific training will be carried out in India using a host of simulators and other facilities near Bengaluru, he added.

On the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the ISRO Chairman said the work has started and it is going on in full steam.

It may be launched in the beginning of next year.

The new virus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

But after two days of talks to determine the level of global concern, the World Health Organization on Thursday stopped short of declaring a so-called a public health emergency of international concern — declaration used for the gravest epidemics.

“This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

WHO had postponed its decision by a day, after Chinese authorities announced unprecedented measures to rein in the spread of the virus.

China has effectively quarantined nearly 20 million people across Wuhan and other cities, and announced measures to curb the disease nationwide as hundreds of millions of people began travelling across the country this week for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Beijing cancelled massive gatherings that usually attract throngs at temples during the New Year holiday, while the historic Forbidden City will close from Saturday.

The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum aimed for a strong focus on climate change but Trump made clear he had no time for Thunberg’s warning that “our house is still on fire.”

Instead, he touted the US economy, which he said was enjoying an “unprecedented” boom thanks to his policies.

New Delhi, Jan 22,2020: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Parliament may seriously consider amending the Constitution to substitute the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or Legislative Assemblies as arbiter of disputes concerning disqualification which arise under the Tenth Schedule.
It asked Parliament to rethink, if Speaker, who is also affiliated to a party, should decide disqualification petitions of Members of Parliament or Legislative Assemblies.
A bench, headed by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, ruled that a permanent body with a proper mechanism should be set up to adjudge the cases of disqualification of lawmakers.
Apex Court held that Parliament should think over having an independent and permanent body to decide disqualification petitions against MPs and MLAs, instead of the Speaker retaining exclusive powers.
The verdict came on a petition field by one K Meghachandra Singh.
It is time, the Supreme Court ruled, that Parliament have a rethink on whether disqualification petitions ought to be entrusted to the quasi-judicial authority of Speaker who continues to belong to a particular political party either de jure or de facto.

Mumbai,Jan23,2020:The Uddhav Thackeray Cabinet on Wednesday decided to let malls and eateries stay open through the night in Mumbai, a move that will begin from January 27 with shops in select non-residential areas in the first phase.

The exemption, however, would not apply to the eateries that serve liquor such as pubs, bars and liquor shops. The bars and permit rooms will have to follow the 1.30 am deadeline, tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray said after the state cabinet cleared his proposal.

Wednesday’s cabinet decision did not imply that people had to keep shops open the entire night; it is optional.

“London’s nightlife economy is 5 billion pounds and we expect similar growth in Mumbai. We have 5 lakh youths employed in the service sector in Mumbai. This proposal may help the number of jobs to double to 10 lakh,” Aaditya Thackeray explained.

In the first phase, the government has rolled out the 24×7 concession for gated communities such as Bandra Kurla Complex and Nariman Point. One lane each at Nariman Point and BKC have been identified to allow food trucks to do business during the night.

Thackeray said the move will give a fillip to tourism, generate jobs and boost the economy.

At the same time, it would not burden the police as establishments in gated communities have their own security arrangements.

Home minister Anil Deshmukh said Mumbai 24 hours proposal had been okayed because for now, it was limited to specified areas.

The government also warned establishments not to violate the law during the extended working hours, arguing that these would lead to permanent cancellation of licences.