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India’s rapid response team has reached Kuwait: S Jaishankar India’s rapid response team has reached Kuwait as a follow up to the discussion between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Kuwait counterpart Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on dealing withcoronavirus crisis, External Aairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday. On April 1, Prime Minister Modi and Sheikh Al-Sabah held a telephonic conversation and decided that officials of the two countries would maintain regular contact to exchange information and explore avenues of cooperation. Source: Deccan Herald

Stay where you are: Ambassador Sandhu tells stranded Indian students in US India’s Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu has advised the Indian students, stranded in America due to the sudden closure of universities and the ongoing lockdown back home because of the coronavirus pandemic, to stay where they are and assured them help in this crisis situation. Sandhu addressed the concerns of over 500 Indian students who attended the Instagram Live session hosted by the Indian Embassy on Saturday. The session was coordinated by the India Student Hub Team. There are an estimated 250,000 Indian students in the...

It’ll take India 9 months to come out of virus crisis: Deepak Parekh Deepak Parekh has dubbed the current crisis a human economic financial (HEF) crisis, completely different from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and said it would take at least nine months to recover fully from it. In a webinar on Friday, the chairman of HDFC recommended that India’s financial sector should be strong or else economy will collapse, and he pushed for the NBFCs (non-banking finance companies) to be regulated. The coronavirus pandemic has rattled lives and economies across the world, and India has not been spared...

Covid-19 woes: IndiGo to discontinue on-board meal service, says CEO India’s largest airline IndiGo will fill its airport buses at 50 per cent capacity when service resumes. The airline will also discontinue on-board meal services, CEO Ronojoy Dutta told employees on Friday. These along with frequent deep cleaning of aircraft are part of the multiple changes that the airline will do its protocols in order to keep crew and passenger crew safe when the airline starts operating again. India had imposed a 21-day lockdown on 25 March — one of the most drastic measure any country has taken to control the outbreak of the coronavirus.  Source: Business...

Bitcoin community shocked as Ross Ulbricht shares a bearish BTC analysis Although a common sentiment in the Bitcoin community is that the cryptocurrency needs no certain individual to succeed due to its decentralized nature, American programmer Ross Ulbricht has been deemed one of the most integral members of the industry. Ulbricht, who is also known by his online moniker “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was actually unknown by his real identity when he was operating the Silk Road, the infamous dark web marketplace known for catalyzing much of the early adoption of Bitcoin when it was trading well under $1,000. After operating the site for a...

Maharashtra extends lockdown till April 30, CM says ‘can be extended if people don’t cooperate’ Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday announced that the lockdown will continue in Maharashtra till April 30. Thackeray said that the state’s policy on allowing conducting school and university examinations, allowing industries to be operational and the steps to be taken on handling the migrant labourers issue will be explained before April 14. Thackeray was addressing the state through social media platforms after attending the video conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the strategize on lockdown and tackling of the COVID-19. “After explaining the situation in Maharashtra,...

‘May this Easter give us added strength to overcome Covid-19’: PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday wished the country on Easter, hoping the occasion “gives us strength to overcome coronavirus disease Covid-19”. “Best wishes to everyone on the special occasion of Easter. We remember the noble thoughts of Lord Christ, especially his unwavering commitment to empowering the poor and needy. May this Easter give us added strength to successfully overcome COVID-19 and create a healthier planet,” PM Modi said on Twitter. Source: Hindustan Times

We need to take lockdowns, curfews seriously: Sachin Pilot Lockdown and restrictions have to be uniform in India. There is no point in three states having the lockdown and two states not having it. What we saw in the beginning of the lockdown, lakhs of people were stranded at different state borders. We can’t have a repeat of that, said Sachin Pilot. Sachin Pilot spoke to Aurangzeb Naqshbandi about the Bhilwara containment model, the national lockdown, raising awareness among people, and getting back to business in the time of Covidd-19. Source: Hindustan Times

British actress Hilary Heath passes away aged 74 after succumbing to COVID-19 complications British actor, Hilary Heath, best known for her role in horror movie Witchfinder General, has died of complications from coronavirus. She was 74. The news of her death was confirmed by her godson, Alex Williams last week on Facebook, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Apart from acting, she had bankrolled movies such as An Awfully Big Adventure in 1995, starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman and also Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth in 1997. Born in Liverpool, England, the late actor made her big-screen debut in the Michael Reeves horror movie Witchfinder General in 1968....

Rajeev Khandelwal shares casting couch horror with top director: ‘He asked me to go to his room which I refused’ The #MeToo movement, which rocked the country in 2018, encouraged several people to come out with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. During a recent interaction with The Times of India, Rajeev Khandelwal said that men, too, were at the receiving end of inappropriate advances. Rajeev was reminded of his own casting couch experience while discussing the #MeToo movement recently. “The incident gave me flashes of a once-upon-a-time super director who had offered me a movie back then when I did not...