April 2020

A Year On, So Many Questions Unanswered: Kumar Sangakkara on SL Easter Attacks Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara on Sunday said someone must answer to the questions which are still unanswered in regards to the Sri Lanka Easter bombing last year. “A year on we all share the pain of the families grieving lives lost, we stand with you and for you. We remember. So many questions still unanswered, but answer them someone must,” Sangakkara tweeted as people across the world celebrated Easter on Sunday. Sri Lanka celebrated a quiet Easter Sunday amid the coronavirus lockdown, while remembering the...

Turn Covid-19 crisis into opportunity, restart highways projects: Nitin Gadkari Turning ‘crisis into opportunity’, India needs renewed focus on infrastructure in the wake of the damage caused by Covid-19 and talks are on with state governments to re-start highway construction projects where migrant labourers can be gainfully employed, union minister Nitin Gadkari said. In a video-conference with PTI, the road transport, highways and MSME minister said talks are on with state governments for facilitating safe return of migrant labourers, an estimated 20 lakh of whom are in shelters pan-India. “I had a meeting with road sector officials. Work can be...

Not allow foreign interests take control of Indian corporate during COVID-19 crisis: Rahul Gandhi Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the economic slowdown has weakened Indian corporates and urged the government to ensure that no foreign interests take control of any such corporate at a time when the country is fighting the COVID-19 crisis. His concerns came following reports that some foreign institutions had bought stakes in Indian companies in the wake of the stock market downturn. “The massive economic slowdown has weakened many Indian corporates making them attractive targets for takeovers. The government must not allow foreign interests to...

Plasma therapy of cured patients’ blood can be used in fighting COVID-19: AIIMS NEW DELHI : The blood of cured coronavirus patients can be used to treat COVID-19 patients, says Delhi AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria. “Conversion plasma is a therapy that is being looked at as an option to treat the patients of COVID-19. If a coronavirus positive patient recovers, then he recovers by his body fighting the infection. To fight the infection, the body produces antibodies that stay in the blood,” Dr Guleria told ANI on Sunday. He said this is the reason the doctors can ask the cured...

Masayoshi Son’s $2 billion guarantee at risk as coronavirus hits star entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal’s Oyo Just nine months ago, Masayoshi Son publicly declared Ritesh Agarwal one of the star entrepreneurs backed by his SoftBank Group Corp. The Japanese billionaire boasted that Agarwal’s Oyo Hotels & Homes was poised to overtake the biggest hotel chains in the world just a few years after its founding. “It’s unimaginable,” Son said on stage at SoftBank World in Tokyo. “At 25, he’s going to be world’s biggest hotel king.” Today, Oyo is freezing operations around the world and furloughing thousands of employees as it struggles to survive the coronavirus...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai donates Rs 5 crore to Give India Google chief Sundar Pichai has donated Rs 5 crore to Give India, matching Google’s earlier donation to the non-profit organisation for the coronavirus pandemic. “Thank you @sundarpichai for matching @Googleorg’s Rs 5 crore grant to provide desperately needed cash assistance for vulnerable daily wage worker families…,” Give India said in a tweet. Previously, Google had announced an over $800 million commitment towards efforts to tackle Covid-19 pandemic that claimed thousands of lives globally. This includes $200 million investment fund for NGOs and banks to help small businesses access capital. Source: Hindustan Times

Covid-19: Kirana stores would see a resurgence, says Godrej Consumer CEO GCPL recently said that the March quarter would be impacted due to the pandemic and lockdown. How fast do you see the situation improving? We are trying to be as agile as possible and are adapting to the evolving situation. Both distribution and production have been significantly disrupted over the last couple of weeks, and our operations have been curtailed. This is not surprising given the unprecedented nature of the lockdown. The government is aware of the challenges and is working closely with the industry to get the supply chain back on track....

Stimulus needed for quick revival of economy: Maruti’s Bhargava India needs a fiscal stimulus to ride out the crisis caused by covid-19, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd chairman R.C. Bhargava said, as he joined a chorus of business leaders and economists calling for the government to announce a fiscal package to support businesses and create jobs. Bhargava said that the government should make consumer products more affordable as he hinted at tax cuts on automobiles. He said also that the Suzuki Motor Corp. unit will decide on its future investment plans (capex) after studying the demand for its cars in the...

US should prepare for an 18-month lockdown, says Neel Kashkari Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said the US should prepare of an 18-month shutdown to deal with the coronavirus outbreak that is wreaking havoc across the globe. “This could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us until we get to either an effective therapy or a vaccine. It’s hard for me to see a V-shaped recovery under that scenario,” said the Indian origin Kashkari in an interview with CBS. He said that the US should be looking at an 18-month strategy for the economy and...

Superhero Films Give Power to Be Who You Want the World to Follow, Respect: Florence Pugh Florence Pugh, who will be making her Marvel debut with Scarlett Johansson-led Black Widow, believes superhero movies gives actors an opportunity to be a role model. The movie features Pugh in the role of Yelena Bolova, a sisterly figure to Johansson’s Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff, and the 24-year-old actor said she was aware of the pressure which comes with franchise. “When I signed on to ‘Black Widow’, I knew that it was going to take a lot out of me. I remember thinking...