Junior Digest

LONDON/BERLIN ,Oct 29,2020: Britain resisted pressure on Thursday to impose a second nationwide lockdown after France and Germany ordered sweeping restrictions on social life to contain a surge in coronavirus infections that has pushed health services to their limits.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has so far tried to avoid a nationwide lockdown, opting instead for a tiered system of local controls intended to tighten measures in affected regions while leaving others less restricted.

A new study by Imperial College in London underlined the dire situation facing Britain, the country with the largest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, showing cases in England doubling every nine days.

Steven Riley, the author of the study, said the government should decide quickly if it wanted to follow France and Germany.

“And sooner is better than later for these,” Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics, told the BBC.

However Housing Minister Robert Jenrick said he did not think it was inevitable that the UK would follow France and Germany in imposing nationwide restrictions.

“The judgement of the government today is that a blanket national lockdown is not appropriate, would do more harm than good,” he told Times Radio.

Europe’s economies were plunged into their deepest recession on record by the blanket lockdowns imposed at the start of the crisis in March and April and the latest restrictions have snuffed out the faint signs of recovery seen over the summer.

Financial markets steadied somewhat on Thursday after a brutal selloff a day before as the prospect of a double dip recession came ever more clearly into view.

Governments have been desperate to avoid a repeat of the spring lockdowns but have been forced to move by the speed of new infections and a steadily increasing mortality rate across the continent.

‘WINTER WILL BE HARD’

While the French and German lockdowns will leave schools and most businesses open, they severely restrict social life by closing bars, restaurants, cinemas and the like and impose strict limits on people’s movements.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who addressed parliament on Thursday, said her government had moved quickly to prevent intensive care facilities being overwhelmed.
After heavy criticism of a lack of coordination and planning in the initial phase of the crisis, European Union leaders aim to make progress on common testing and vaccination strategies at a video conference on Thursday.

London, Oct 29,2020: Authorities in the UK confirmed on Thursday that nearly 100,000 people are getting infected by the coronavirus everyday, leading to an unprecedented rise in the number of COVID cases, in the second wave, even as experts warn that the UK is fast approaching the peak in infections seen in the spring.

The study, carried out by the Imperial College London, said that the pace of the epidemic is accelerating and estimates that the number of people infected is now doubling every nine days.

Unlike France and Germany the government in the UK is not going for a nationwide lockdown, but is sticking to its regional strategy.

The React-1 study is highly influential because it is the most up-to-date assessment of Covid-19 in the country, with the last swabs taken only on Sunday and nearly 86,000 volunteers taking part.

The study shows that cases are rising in every age group and in every region of England.

While the North currently leads in the number of cases, infections are surging more rapidly in the South now.

Chandigarh (Punjab) , October 29,2020: BJP national president JP Nadda on Wednesday blasted the political parties opposing the agriculture laws and said all of them were opposing the three farm laws “purely for political reasons”.
Delivering the first Kamal Sharma memorial address, the BJP president said all parties were beguiling the Punjab farmers after they had failed to deliver anything reformative to them.
Lambasting the Punjab Congress and Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Nadda said that the Congress was, in fact, opposing the commitments it had made in its 2017 election manifesto that had now been implemented by the Modi government.

The Congress had promised to do away with Mandis and promote contract farming and this is what the Modi government bills have ensured.
“Will Congress say that it made wrong promises in its manifesto?” Nadda asked.
He said the Congress, which never worked for the welfare of farmers, was playing petty politics to “fool the farmers”.
Nadda fired the UPA government that was in power for 10 years yet did not implement the Swaminathan Commission report. “The Modi government has not only implemented the suggestions made in the report but had delivered for farmers by promising them one and a half times more price on the cost of a crop”, he added.
He said the three farm laws would not only empower the farmers in the country but would also release them from the age-old bondage that they were tied to. While assuring that there would be no change in the MSP system, under the new provisions farmers in Punjab can now sell their crop beyond the local mandis.

Washington [US], October 28,2020: A team of researchers has shown that regularly consuming foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, from both animal and vegetable origins, strengthens the membranes of the heart and helps improve the prognosis in the event of myocardial infarction.
The study was conducted by researchers from from the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and Research Institute (IGTP) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM).
To arrive at these conclusions, they used data from 950 patients. The omega-3 levels in the blood of these individuals were determined when they were admitted to hospital to be treated for the heart attack. This measurement indicates, very accurately, how much of these fats the patients had eaten in the weeks prior to the sampling, in other words, before the heart attack.
The patients were monitored for three years after being discharged, and the researchers observed that having high levels of omega-3 in the blood at the time of the infarction, which had been consumed in the weeks leading up to the heart attack, was associated with a lower risk of complications.
The results of the study have just been published in the prestigious Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) is a type of omega-3 fatty acid found in oily fish. When we eat oily fish on a regular basis, EPA is incorporated into the phospholipids in the membranes of the cardiomyocytes, protecting them from a wide variety of heart stressors. This enrichment of the myocardial membranes limits the damage caused in the event of a heart attack.
The major novelty of this study is that it also focused on another omega-3 fatty acid, of vegetable origin, known as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). This fat, which is found in walnuts as well as soybeans and their derivatives, is far less well studied than marine omega-3s.
The researchers observed that EPA and ALA do not compete, but are complementary to one another. While high levels of EPA are associated with a lower risk of hospital readmission from cardiovascular causes, higher levels of ALA are associated with a reduced risk of death.

CHENNAIOct 29,2020: The United States wants India to explore manufacturing a cheaper alternative to silicon solar cells, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said on Wednesday, amid high dependence on Chinese technology.

Brouillette, who was addressing a virtual press conference at the conclusion of the India energy forum at the IHS CERA Week, said India was “perfectly positioned as a potential manufacturer” of perovskite cells, on which the U.S. was conducting research at its national laboratory in Colorado.

“We have seen recently with this pandemic, supply chain issues have arisen with countries like China and in certain cases we have become overly dependent upon one country,” Brouillette said.

India has an ambitious plan to increase its renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts (GW) by 2022, nearly three-fifths of which will be solar power.

The energy hungry nation, which imports over 80% of its solar cells and modules from its neighbour, wants to increase domestic manufacturing but has so far had little success.

“It is a technology we want to share with India, we think it is better done there than other parts around the world,” Brouillette said.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are considered by scientists as a potential cheap alternative to silicon cells.

“PSCs offer a much lower production cost compared to silicon solar cells and its efficiency has improved dramatically,” said Sandheep Ravishankar, a scientist researching PSCs at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.

“However, PSCs are still not stable enough to be considered as a commercial competitor of silicon,” Sandheep said.

Scientists are also exploring using perovskite in tandem with silicon to increase efficiency, and research on the technology is being carried out in countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Germany.

Washington [US], October 29,2020: The United States on Wednesday called out China for breaking its “promises” to Hong Kong and Taiwan and asked Beijing to be transparent and allow an investigation in the COVID-19 emergence from Wuhan province.
Speaking to ANI, US State Department’s spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus, said that China is the strategic competitor of the US on many levels.
Tensions between the US and China have escalated in the recent months over a range of issues including COVID-19 emergence, Hong Kong security law, Washington support to Taiwan, Indo-Pacific region.
“China, we have made no secret in the Trump administration that they are a strategic competitor on many levels. There are some areas in which we do have to work with China and we have been able to work with them, especially on establishing the new phase one trade agreement. But for the most part, you know again we have seen that there are global challenges and challenges in Asia, where the Chinese Communist Party quite frankly have broken their promises. They have broken their promises in Hong Kong. They have broken them in Taiwan,” she said.
“We know that this COVID-19 virus that we’re all dealing with, you know, is something that emanated from China. We continue to call on them and to be transparent to be open to allow scientists and doctors in to investigate. That’s something that still hasn’t happened and something that we are going to continue to call for because we have to fight these global pandemics together,” she added.
Recently, Chinese foreign ministry announced that the country will impose sanctions on Lockheed Martin, Boeing Defense, Raytheon and other U.S. companies it says are involved in Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan

Beijing considers Taiwan a wayward province it has vowed to bring under control, by force if necessary.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, China imposed the new national security law after repeated protests there demanding more democracy and less Chinese influence. The US has expressed its discontent with the law and the Chinese Communist Party’s actions in the city.
The new law targets secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments of up to life in prison. With the imposition of the law, China has broken its promise to Britain on the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 to preserve the concept of “one country, two systems” for 50 years.
Speaking about the recently held 2+2 India US inter-ministerial dialogue, Ortagus said that Washington and New Delhi have reaffirmed that they are committed to the free and open Indo-Pacific region and that is “really important” in the era of global competition.
“So we know that both of our countries reaffirmed that we are committed to the free and open Indo-Pacific, and that’s really important as we enter this era of global competition. One of the things that are going to be crucial and fundamental is freedom of navigation, freedom of the seas, free flow of trade of goods, and exchange of ideas,” Ortagus said.
During 2+2 dialogue, India and US welcomed the growing understanding on the Indo-Pacific among like-minded countries and emphasized that the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea should not prejudice the legitimate rights and interests of any nation in accordance with international law.
A Joint Statement on the third India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue said the two countries reiterated their commitment to maintaining a free, open, inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region built on a rules-based international order.
India and US signed five key agreements during the 2+2 India-US ministerial-level dialogue including Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) which will allow India real-time access to precision data and topographical images from the United States military satellites.

Chennai, Oct 29,2020: Actor Rajnikanth on Thursday hinted that he might not take the political plunge citing his health condition.
A day after a letter, purportedly written by him in this regard created buzz in the social media, the actor in a tweet today said the letter in his name which claimed that he might not enter politics as promised on the 2018 New Year eve due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic and due to his age and
present health condition as he underwent kidney transplant, was not written by him.
But he confirmed that the contents in it about his health condition was true.

‘As far as my political plans are concerned, a decision will be taken after consulting the members of Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM)’, the actor said.

Stating that the letter like a statement issued by him was fast spreading in the social media, he said everyone knew that it was not issued by him.

‘But, the contents in it about my health condition and the advise given to me by the doctors are all true’, Rajini said and added that he would pronounce his political stand to the people at an appropriate time after consulting his RMM members.

Rajinikanth, in the letter in question, tries to point out to his fans
the travails they would face in case he falls sick in view of the pandemic and the kidney transplant underwent by him after formally making the political foray.

The letter in the name of Rajini said that he was not worried about his life, but was concerned about the people’s welfare.
He was willing to take the political plunge which involved extensive travelling. But what would happen if anything happened to his health condition after entering politics due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of kidney transplant underwent by him, it said, hinting that the actor
was dropping his plans to float his own party.