Bengaluru: The Congress on Monday launched a ‘CryPM’ campaign ahead of the Karnataka Assembly polls and put out a QR code showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi wiping his tears.
Along with the ‘CryPM’ QR code, the party also put out a ‘PayCM’ QR code poster too, with Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s image in the middle.
The unique campaign was launched a day after Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took potshots at Modi saying that he was the only Prime Minister she had seen who cried over insults aimed at him, instead of listening to the sufferings of the people.
“He (Modi) is the first prime minister I have seen who comes before you and cries that he is being abused. Instead of listening to your grief, he is coming here and telling you his (problems),” Vadra said.
The Indian Youth Congress in Karnataka tweeted the two posters of ‘CryPM’ and ‘PayCM’ side by side with a message, “The PM’s speeches these days remind me of my Facebook feed full of complaints and no substantial content. Time for a status update? #CryPMPayCM”
The Congress is also targeting the Chief Minister accusing his government of collecting 40 per cent commission on public works.
The state will go to the polls for the 224 seats in the general Assembly on May 10.
Jerusalem: Israel has launched a sustainable energy transition plan in the Gaza envelope area seven km from the Gazan border in southwestern Israel, the country’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said.
The plan is part of the government’s efforts to strengthen civil resilience in the region, which has for many years suffered from rocket and missile attacks, Xinhua news agency reported.
With an investment of five million shekels ($1.38 million), the plan will promote projects of energy efficiency, energy management, storage, and transportation, and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy in household and business sectors in the region.
Facilities will also be planned for optimising solar power generation in agricultural areas in the border towns.
In addition, the electricity network in the region will be upgraded with the establishment of new electricity facilities.
Hyderabad: Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) brings another good news to its passengers on Sunday. The company is adding new buses between Hyderabad and Karnataka.
TSRTC has launched new Lahari AC Sleeper and Garuda Plus buses between Karnataka’s Bengaluru, Hubballi, Davanagere and Hyderabad.
TSRTC managing director VC Sajjanar took to Twitter to make the announcement. He said that the buses from Bengaluru to Hyderabad and Hyderabad to Bengaluru will be available every hour from 5 am to 10:45 pm
Buses from Hubballi to Hyderabad will leave at 6 pm and 9 pm while buses from Hyderabad to Hubballi will leave at 8 pm and 7 pm.
Davanagere to Hyderabad bus will leave at 5 pm while Hyderabad to Davanagere will leave at 6:30 pm.
VC Sajjanar has urged the public to use the services and support the public transportation system.
Russian cruise missiles have killed at least 19 people in the central Ukrainian cities of Uman and Dnipro, days after Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, begged his allies for more air defence supplies.
The attacks were part of a wave of Russian missile and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday morning, the most intense aerial bombing of major Ukrainian cities in weeks.
In Uman, at least 17 people were killed including two children when a missile hit a high-rise building. The impact sheared off a column of apartments, reducing them to rubble at the base of the tower, and leaving nearby rooms on fire.
To the south, on the outskirts of the port city of Dnipro, a mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed in their home in a rural suburb.
Seven missiles targeted the city, Serhii Lysak, the head of the military administration for the Dnipro region told a news conference. Fragments of one of them, shot down by air defences, appeared to have fallen on the house, police told neighbours.
“It was loud enough to understand that someone was probably hurt,” said Oleksandr Kalinichenko, a neighbour who lives about 300 metres away.
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Most of Russia’s attacks were intercepted, with 21 out of 23 missiles shot down by the Ukrainian military. The missiles that got through were a grim reminder of why the country is so vulnerable when Moscow aims its weapons at civilian targets.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted: “Missile strikes killing innocent Ukrainians in their sleep, including a … child, is Russia’s response to all peace initiatives.”
Air raid alarms sounded across the country in the early hours of Friday, while explosions were heard in Kyiv, and southern Mykolaiv was targeted again.
Twenty-four hours earlier, another round of cruise missiles aimed at the port city had killed at least one person and ended nearly four months of relative calm there.
Ukraine strengthened air defences over the winter, with help from western allies, after a Russian bombing campaign against power stations and other civilian infrastructure tried to cut off heating and power to major cities.
However, leaked US military documents dated to February this year warned that by May the country risked running out of missiles and ammunition.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian officials pleaded with Nato allies for more supplies, the Financial Times reported, fearing large-scale Russian bombing campaigns could break through depleted systems.
The missiles launched on Friday were the first to target Kyiv in 50 days, although Iranian-made drones have tried to break the city’s air defences repeatedly in that time.
The wave of strikes comes as Moscow, and the world, wait for Kyiv to launch a spring counter-offensive against Russian forces.
The Ukrainian defence minister, Oleskii Reznikov, on Friday said it was close to beginning the assault. “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” he told an online news briefing.
Ukraine was “to a high percentage ready”, he said, with new modern weapons to provide an “iron fist”.
On Thursday, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg,said almost all the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine by western allies had been delivered, putting Ukraine in a “strong position” to recover further ground.
Last year brought a string of humiliating military defeats for the invading army, but Russia still occupies nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, which Zelenskiy has vowed to retake.
Stoltenberg said the western allies had sent more than 1,550 armoured vehicles, 230 tanks and “vast amounts of ammunition” to Ukraine, Reuters reported. They have also trained and equipped about 30,000 troops, the equivalent of more than nine new brigades. “They will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory.” he said.
On Thursday, the Kremlin said it still needed to achieve the “aims” of its invasion, a day after China’s president, Xi Jinping, spoke to Zelenskiy over the phone for an hour.
Beijing, which has a close strategic partnership with Moscow, has drawn up a peace proposal for Ukraine, but there is no sign that either side is ready to stop fighting and come to the negotiating table.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: Full-stack fintech platform Razorpay on Thursday joined the government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) ecosystem by launching a payment reconciliation service for network participants (NPs) like buyers, sellers, and logistic partners.
The move, said the company, will streamline the payment processes on ONDC, providing the users with an integrated single view of all their transactions.
“I believe the possibilities the ONDC network provides are endless and I’m confident the Payment Reconciliation Service will only further strengthen the development of ONDC’s tech infrastructure and help the ecosystem grow seamlessly from a payments and compliance point of view,” said Shashank Kumar, Managing Director and Co-founder, Razorpay.
Through this solution, Razorpay will facilitate ease of transacting on ONDC by timely routing settlement information for a given transaction and assisting Network Participants (NPs) with settling funds.
With an open network approach, where the buyers and sellers do not need to necessarily be on the same platform to be able to do a business transaction, ONDC will enable SMEs to access a larger buyer universe.
“This is a significant step towards our goal of enabling seamless and secure digital commerce for everyone. With this addition, we continue to drive transparency and inclusion in the digital commerce space and we look forward to working with Razorpay towards achieving this vision,” said Thampy Koshy, CEO, ONDC.
Razorpay is building its capabilities toward solving all things payments and business banking for over 10 million businesses, making it the go-to platform that enables exponential growth for Indian businesses of all kinds and sizes.
Established in 2014 by alumni of IIT Roorkee, Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, Razorpay is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y Combinator.
Investors such as Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator and MasterCard have invested a total of $741.5 million in the company.
Jammu, April 26 (GNS): Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today launched 3 online services of the Revenue and Registration Departments.
The services include Downloading of Registered Document, Aadhaar based authentication and online portal of Evacuee Property.
The launch was attended by Financial Commissioner Revenue Shaleen Kabra, Commissioner Secretary IT Prerna Puri and Secretary Revenue Dr. Piyush Singla, IGR J&K Sheikh Arshad Ayub, Custodian General Rajesh Sharma and other officers of the Revenue Department.
The feature of online downloading will enable citizens to have access to the copy of registered document immediately upon registration and thus, shall no longer have to visit the Sub Registrar Office on the next day to collect it. This shall save time and effort of the citizens as well as substantially reduce the burden on the official staff. This will further entail the change in PSGA timelines from 2 days to a single day.
Aadhaar based authentication in document registration shall enable online identification of intending parties from the server of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) and thereby eliminate the chances of fraud or impersonation and also rule out ‘benami’ transactions. In future, this will enable the department to dispense with the need of identifiers in registration and finally pave the way for e-registration.
Chief Secretary was informed that the Registration portal namely NGDRS has already been integrated with key services such as PAN verification, Rapid Assessment System (RAS) and DigiLocker.
While commending the Revenue Department on the achievement of important milestones, Chief Secretary stressed on strengthening the online portals so that citizens do not have to face any speed or connectivity related issues while uploading or downloading their documents. He further directed the Revenue Department to conduct a workshop for field functionaries of the Department and come up with a comprehensive roadmap for demystification of revenue terminology, so that it becomes accessible and understandable for the common man.
He further directed the Department to expeditiously pursue the Scanning and Digitization of Legacy Registration data from the courts. He noted that online seeding of old registration data shall be a massive reform which shall hugely benefit the citizens in assurance of titles and can minimize the burden on the official machinery.
Custodian General J&K gave a brief presentation on the launch of the Evacuee Property Portal jkcustodian.jk.gov.in which contains a database of all the evacuee property of the UT spread over 14 Lakh kanals, services such as e-auction of property, Issuance of NOCs, Change of use of property, Renewal of rent, transfer of allotment, etc.(GNS)
SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta on Wednesday launched 3 online services of the Revenue and Registration Departments.
The services include Downloading of Registered Document, Aadhaar based authentication and online portal of Evacuee Property.
The launch was attended by Financial Commissioner Revenue Shaleen Kabra, Commissioner Secretary IT Prerna Puri and Secretary Revenue Dr. Piyush Singla, IGR J&K Sheikh Arshad Ayub, Custodian General Rajesh Sharma and other officers of the Revenue Department.
The feature of online downloading will enable citizens to have access to the copy of registered document immediately upon registration and thus, shall no longer have to visit the Sub Registrar Office on the next day to collect it. This shall save time and effort of the citizens as well as substantially reduce the burden on the official staff. This will further entail the change in PSGA timelines from 2 days to a single day.
Aadhaar based authentication in document registration shall enable online identification of intending parties from the server of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) and thereby eliminate the chances of fraud or impersonation and also rule out ‘benami’ transactions. In future, this will enable the department to dispense with the need of identifiers in registration and finally pave the way for e-registration.
Chief Secretary was informed that the Registration portal namely NGDRS has already been integrated with key services such as PAN verification, Rapid Assessment System (RAS) and DigiLocker.
While commending the Revenue Department on the achievement of important milestones, Chief Secretary stressed on strengthening the online portals so that citizens do not have to face any speed or connectivity related issues while uploading or downloading their documents. He further directed the Revenue Department to conduct a workshop for field functionaries of the Department and come up with a comprehensive roadmap for demystification of revenue terminology, so that it becomes accessible and understandable for the common man.
He further directed the Department to expeditiously pursue the Scanning and Digitization of Legacy Registration data from the courts. He noted that online seeding of old registration data shall be a massive reform which shall hugely benefit the citizens in assurance of titles and can minimize the burden on the official machinery.
Custodian General J&K gave a brief presentation on the launch of the Evacuee Property Portal jkcustodian.jk.gov.in which contains a database of all the evacuee property of the UT spread over 14 Lakh kanals, services such as e-auction of property, Issuance of NOCs, Change of use of property, Renewal of rent, transfer of allotment, etc.(GNS)
As an official White House event, Biden was not there in his capacity as a candidate. Instead, the speech was a campaign launch without an explicit launch of the campaign. He shook every hand on stage. He flashed a big grin more than once. He peppered his speech with booming yells about workers being the backbone of American and bottom-out economics.
But while the crowd erupted into a “Let’s go Joe” chant, Biden left talk of 2024 somewhere behind the dais. It was an implicit recognition that the actual act of running for office comes with certain legal restrictions, an illustration of how tricky it can be to walk the line between president and incumbent presidential candidate.
Though Biden’s speech came just hours after he formally launched his 2024 campaign with a three-minute video in which he asked voters to help him “finish the job,” he made no such ask of the union members before him.
Still, Tuesday’s speech at the Washington Hilton previewed how the president will make his case in the coming months — with official and political events and travel to highlight his administration’s accomplishments before kicking off a barnstorming general election campaign in 2024. He zeroed in on legislative accomplishments, from the Inflation Reduction Act to the bipartisan infrastructure law, while making the case that his core economic plan was working.
“Under my predecessor, Infrastructure Week was a punchline. On my watch, Infrastructure Week has become a decade headline — a decade. That’s where you all come in. We’ve already announced over 25,000 infrastructure projects in 4,500 towns across America and we’re just getting started,” Biden said.
“Union workers will build roads and bridges, lay internet cable, install 500,000 electric vehicle chargers throughout America. Union workers are going to transform America. And union workers are going to finish the job.”
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term in the White House, is battling an approval rating stuck in the low 40s. But White House aides have repeatedly emphasized the unpopularity of his political opponents, particularly Trump. Biden will have 18 months to fundraise before Election Day, which could present a rematch with the opponent he beat in 2020, former President Donald Trump.
But on Tuesday, the president’s mood appeared unfazed by the great obstacles hovering over his announcement. The room full of union workers buzzed with chatter about the timing of his appearance.
“As they say, he’s the most pro-labor, pro-union president in the history of the United States. It’s pretty fitting that he announced this today,” said Dustin Himes, of Bricklayers Local 15, a labor union in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s pretty special.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
San Francisco: Telegram Messenger has launched major upgrades for its application with features like shareable chat folders, custom wallpapers, and more.
According to the company, the new update will let users share entire chat folders with one link, create custom wallpapers for individual chats, use web apps in any chat and more.
Now, chat folders can be shared with a link, inviting friends and colleagues to dozens of work groups, news channel collections, and more.
With one tap, users will be able to add the folder and instantly join all its chats.
“You can include any public chats, as well as any chats where you have the admin rights to add people,” Telegram said in a blogpost.
Now, your favourite photos and colour combinations can become ‘custom wallpapers’ in specific chats to give conversations extra personality and make them stand out.
You can set a custom wallpaper in any 1-on-1 chat.
To change the wallpaper, go to the chat header and click ‘Set Wallpaper’ on Android, or open a profile and tap ‘Change Wallpaper’ on iOS.
Moreover, Telegram is also working on ‘better bots’.
The latest update includes the integration of seamless web apps that can be launched within any chat.
These bots are not only accessible through private or group chats but can also be used collaboratively.
“Web apps of bots that support this feature can be accessed via a direct link or by mentioning the bot’s username in any chat on Telegram,” the company said.
Among other features, the company introduced bot links and Telegram Premium on Fragment, faster scrolling for attachments, read times in topics, and improved interfaces.
Hyderabad: The Osmania University administration on Friday took another stride to enrich the students’ understanding of International relations with the inauguration of the Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies.
Telangana State Planning Board vice-chairman Boianapalli Vinod Kumar, Ministry of External Affairs Ambassador C Rajasekhar, Telangana State Council of Higher Education chairman Prof Limbadri, and Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Surabhi Vani Devi were present at the inauguration of the institute.
OU vice-chancellor, Prof D.Ravinder said that the Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies began as an idea by the state planning board vice-chairman, Vinodh Kumar. “Following this, a concept note was prepared and presented to the officials of the Union Ministry of External Affairs,” he added.
“A committee was constituted with senior professors from OU and JNU. On the basis of the committee’s recommendations and along with the advice from professionals from the corporate world and academic field, the university decided to move forward,” said the vice-chancellor.
OU registrar Prof P Laxminarayana said, “The new centre of research is the only one in India after Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) with a focus on Indo-Pacific, covering areas such as security, trade, culture, diaspora, science and technology”.
The registrar further informed that diploma courses to improve skills and enhance employment opportunities for scholars are underway.
Ambassador C Rajasekhar has said “Indo-Pacific is a dynamic region with many important developments that every country is observing. The Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies has the potential to take up research that can put the OU on the global map through its work. The institute can avail opportunities which are increasingly available due to the dynamic nature of international relations”.
Prof JLN Rao, director of the Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, read a message from the state Education minister Sabhita Indra Reddy. The message read, “Osmania University is adding one more feather to her crown. The university is on its long march to reaching the pinnacle of excellence”.
She appealed to the faculty and scholars to seize the opportunities arising in the present world to build a new future for India and the world. She added that scholars of OU have to develop new tools of knowledge to help people to come out of the shackles of ignorance.
