Junior Digest

Oct 29,2020: Former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel has passed away at the age of 92 years. Keshubhai Patel, a veteran BJP leader, was the chief minister of Gujarat for two terms.

Keshubhai Patel complained of difficulty in breathing on Thursday morning when he was taken to a hospital, where he passed away.

Keshubhai Patel was Gujarat chief minister in 1995 and again during 1998-2001 before Narendra Modi succeeded him as Gujarat chief minister.

Keshubhai Patel was a member of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly six times. He quit the BJP in 2012 and floated the Gujarat Parivartan Party, which performed poorly in 2012 Assembly polls and merged with the BJP in 2014.
Born in Visavadar town of Junagadh district in 1928, Patel joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1945 as a pracharak. He started his political career as a worker for the Jan Sangh.

Stockholm [Sweden], October 29 ,2020:: With an increase of 27 per cent year over year, audio streamer Spotify has announced 144 million paid subscribers on the platform.
According to the company, the user growth was driven by marketing campaigns in India and it’s launch in Russia which they called the ‘most successful new market launch to date’.
The service’s user and subscriber growth put it comfortably ahead of rivals services from Amazon and Apple, as per The Verge.

Apple reported last year that it had 60 million paying subscribers, and does not offer a free tier outside of promotions and free trials, The Verge added.
Currently, Spotify now has 320 million monthly active users after a noticeable increase of 29 per cent respectively year-over-year, the company announced in its latest earnings release.
The audio streamer has 1.9 million podcasts available on its service, up from more than 1.5 million last quarter. Spotify said that 22 per cent of its monthly users engaged with podcast content in the third quarter (Q3), up from 21 per cent last quarter.

Oct30,2020: Former diplomat and Central Information Commissioner Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha is tipped to be appointed as the country’s next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), two months after the position at the top transparency watchdog fell vacant, sources said on Thursday.

The decision was taken after an October 24 meeting of the high-powered selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Congress Leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also a member of the panel, is learnt to have submitted a dissent note.
The Opposition leader objected to the manner in which the shortlisting process was carried out, alleging a failure to follow the Supreme Court’s transparency guidelines, issued in a February 2019 case brought by RTI (Right to Information) activist Anjali Bhardwaj. Mr. Chowdhury also objected to the fact that journalist Uday Mahurkar had been shortlisted for a Commissioner position although he had not been on the list of applicants.

Mr. Sinha is a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service and has previously served as India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and to Sri Lanka. He was appointed as a member of the Central Information Commission in January 2019.

The Commission is the highest appellate authority under the Right to Information Act, and consists of a Chief and up to ten Commissioners. It has been headless twice this year, due to a two month delay in appointing the last chief Bimal Julka, and another two month period since he retired at the end of August. It has not functioned at full strength for almost four years, and currently has only five Commissioners, leading to a backlog of almost 37,000 pending cases.

Islamabad, October 29,2020: In a sensational admission, a senior Pakistani minister on Thursday admitted that Pakistan was responsible for the deadly Pulwama terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 that brought the two countries to the brink of a war.
Humne Hindustan ko ghus ke maara (We hit India in their home). Our success in Pulwama, is a success of this nation under the leadership of Imran Khan. You and us are all part of that success,” Science & Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry said in the National Assembly during a debate.

Chaudhry, a close aide of Prime Minister Imran Khan, made the remarks a day after Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ayaz Sadiq said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in an important meeting pleaded to release Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27, 2019 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets.
In the early hours of February 26, 2019, the IAF jets bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror camps in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan and avenged the Pulwama terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel.

“Legs were shaking and forehead perspiring, and the foreign minister (Qureshi) told us, ‘For God’s sake, let him (Varthaman) go back now because India is attacking Pakistan at 9 PM in the night’”, Sadiq said, recalling the high-level meeting which was also attended by Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, and added that “India was not planning to attack…They just wanted to kneel before India and send back Abhinandan.”

Chaudhry, who was the information and broadcasting minister at the time of the Pulwama attack, criticised Sadiq’s remarks and termed them as “inappropriate”.

Oct 30,2020:The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed a Uttarakhand High Court order directing a CBI probe into corruption allegations against Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.

A Bench, led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, said it was too “drastic” for the High Court to have passed such an order without giving Mr. Rawat an opportunity of hearing.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, appearing for Mr. Rawat, said the order “caught everyone by surprise” and was against the principles of natural justice.
The case pertains to corruption allegations levelled by two journalists —Umesh Sharma and Shiv Prasad Semwal — pertaining to money transferred allegedly into the accounts of relatives of Mr. Rawat in 2016 to support appointment of a person as head of “Gau Seva Ayog” of Jharkhand when he was the in-charge of Jharkhand BJP unit.

Justice Bhushan said even the State was not arraigned as a party before the court.

Mr. Venugopal said the order could even unsettle the government. The top law officer said the Chief Minister was bound to be heard.

The High Court was entirely wrong in law when it said that it could direct lodging of an FIR without hearing the party. The High Court cannot be oblivious that it would result in the unsettling of the government, Mr. Venugopal argued.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the two journalists, said he was not opposing the stay order but there was ample evidence in support of the corruption allegation against Mr. Rawat.

Vancouver [Canada], October 29,2020: Loneliness and social isolation may increase the risk of high blood pressure and hypertension in women, suggested a study.
The research was undertaken by the researchers at the University of British Columbia and was recently published in the Journal of Hypertension.
The study has found that social isolation affects the health of men and women in different ways–including placing women at higher risk of high blood pressure.
It further discovered that middle-aged and older women who lacked social ties were much more likely than men to suffer from hypertension — a known risk factor for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death among women–and stroke.
“Among older adults, social isolation is the largest known risk factor for mortality, equal only to smoking,” said principal investigator Annalijn Conklin, assistant professor in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at UBC and researcher with the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences. “Less well known is how social isolation affects men and women differently, or how it affects biomarkers of longevity. Our research indicates that women, in particular, are more likely to be hypertensive when they experience isolation in middle and older age.”

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, these researchers analyzed the social ties of 28,238 adults aged 45 to 85, and found that women who were non-partnered, engaged in fewer than three social activities a month, or had a small social network (fewer than 85 contacts) had higher odds of hypertension. Average systolic blood pressure was highest among widowed, lone-living and socially inactive women, and the largest difference in blood pressure was between widowed and married women. Widowed women were found to have the strongest likelihood of hypertension across all categories.
Among men, the picture was quite different. Those who were single, shared a home with others, and had the largest social networks had the highest blood pressure, while those who had smaller networks and lived alone had lower blood pressure.
The researchers found that combinations of different social ties also mattered. Regular social participation appeared to have a protective effect among non-partnered women, suggesting that health care providers may want to screen for the number of monthly social activities, and include these alongside healthy diet and exercise when treating non-partnered older women.
“Among women, the increase in blood pressure that was associated with the lack of social ties was similar to that seen with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory use, increased sodium diets pollution or weight gain,” said Conklin. “This represents a significant women-specific risk factor for heart disease or stroke.”
Previous research by Conklin using the same data set found that women who were single, widowed, divorced or separated had higher odds of abdominal and general obesity, while men were less likely to be obese if they lived alone and had a smaller social network.
“Taken with our previous research, our new findings underline how social isolation affects health in men and women differently,” said Conklin. “At a time when COVID-19 is forcing us to limit our social interactions, it’s important for those working in health care and public health to encourage older women, in particular, to find new ways to be socially active.”
Zeinab Hosseini, the lead author who contributed to the work as a former postdoctoral fellow at UBC said more studies are needed on how exactly social connections impact cardiovascular risk factors. “Prospective and intervention studies can help us understand this as well as why the associations are different for women compared to men,” she said.

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.

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.