Hey-lo everyone! Today’s top-3 stories are: Israel and Hamas agree for a ceasefire, our item looks into how previous such ceasefires hardly inspire confidence; 55 mn people were living in displacement by the end of last year and climate change had a lot to do with it, our item looks at how India fared; and finally a “will-not-die” piece of tech that we all may know will die in ’22.
If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself
Albert Einstein, physicist
Coronavirus
📈 Another climb: India has 7,251cases of black fungus, 219 dead. Centre tells states to immediately call it a notified disease (every case has to be reported to govt). Rare infection is now an epidemic.
💉 India Studies: Remember the UK and Spain studies on mixing 2 vaccines? Now, the NTAGI is discussing whether that idea ought to be tried in India, ET reports. Even South Korea is impressed.
💉🦠 Indian Variant: Pfizer jab co-developer BioNtech jab is effective against Indian variant by 70-75%, lower than 95% for original virus.
😢 Bypoll Effect?: Soon after bypoll in Madhya Pardesh’s Damoh Assembly seat on April 17, 17 schoolteachers associated with poll duty died of Covid.
🏭 Ups Game: Bharat Biotech’s subsidiary in Gujarat will produce 200 mn doses of Covaxin, taking total annual production close to 1 bn
“First we make the mistake of Kumbh Mela, then there is Char Dham. Why do we repeatedly cause embarrassment to ourselves?”
Uttarakhand HC
💉 Now in NY: After Ohio, New York introduces a lottery for those who take the jab. This time, it is $5mn.
🙏 Dead: Former Rajasthan CM Jagganath Pahadia (89)
✍🏽 Rescheduled: Delhi University final year exams to June 7.
🐶 K9 Test: Dogs can be trained to detect Covid-19, says study. Accuracy: 97%. Even better than some tests
India News
🇮🇳🇨🇳 Crossroads: “India, China troops yet to disengage (near Ladakh),” says MEA Jaishankar, adds that full bilateral relationship can be restored only after that. China had earlier said to keep the border issue aside and focus on trade/investments. China, meanwhile, has built a key highway in Tibet close to Arunachal.
We need to get over this Cold War precedent, which has conditioned our thinking…that’s not the world we live in anymore.
S Jaishankar, Minster for External affairs
🚶🏼Release them: Tamil Nadu CM urges President to release Rajiv Gandhi killers who had spent 30 years in jail. Same recommendation was made in 2018.
🤑 Money, Money: Gautam Adani #2 richest in Asia. His wealth surged by $32 bn to$66.5 bn. Mukesh Ambani #1 in Asia at $76.5bn.
🔕 Fake News: Twitter tags BJP’s Sambit Patra’s tweet on Congress “toolkit” as “manipulated media (basically, fake)”.
📱 FB Service: Between July- Dec, GoI had made 40,300 requests for user data and of these, 37,865 were legal requests. 52% requests complied with. Access to content restricted 1,764 times in the year.
📂 ITR: Deadline for filing for FY 2020-’21 extended to Sept 30; new IT portal from June 7: http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in incometax.gov.in.
Business
👋 No more Exploring: Microsoft to remove Internet Explorer from next year and promote Edge instead.
✅ Blue Tick: After three years, Twitter has restarted the application process for users to get their accounts verified and get a blue tick against their username. Here’s how to apply.
World News
🇮🇱 ⚔️ 🇵🇸 FINALLY!: Israel and Hamas have agreed to a Egypt-brokered ceasefire after 11 days of fighting. It maybe too early to celebrate. In the 2014 conflict there were nine attempts at a cease fire, with the first one broken in 24 hours. Palestine: 232 dead (including over 100 women and children); Israel: 12 (2 kids)
🙇🏻🙇♀️ 25 years on: The BBC has apologised after an inquiry revealed that its interviewer Martin Bashir had deceived Princess Diana’s brother into landing the interview with her. But damage done to parents, says Prince Williams.
🇬🇧🚆 Back to Govt: Britain plans to reunify its railways under one govt-owned body called Great British Railways. Till now, various zones had been franchised out creating many different fares. Most rail services will still be run by the private sector, but under new “passenger contracts” they will be expected to meet targets on punctuality and efficiency for the first time.
🐉🇱🇰 Let China In: Sri Lanka’s Parliament passes bill on laws governing the China-backed Port City project in Colombo. Opposition says it will create a Chinese enclave in the country.
🐵👩🦳 Good(for)all: Jane Goodall wins Templeton Prize for her work on animal intelligence and humanity
👮♀️👮 Protect and Serve: Biden signs bill seeking to protect Asian Americans from hate crimes in the wake of Covid-19.
Here’s the truth: Racism exists in America. Xenophobia exists in America, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia — it all exists. And so the work to address injustice wherever it exists remains the work ahead
Kamala Harris, US Vice-President
🇦🇺 Job Opening: Australia’s Queensland is suffering from staff shortage and is offering A$1,500 (Rs 85,000) and help with travel to work in tourism sector.
Climate Change
🐻❄️ Green Over Ice: Arctic is getting greener with more shrubs slowly replacing lichens, pollinating flies also down by 80% at one place, population of common bird down 20%.
🇮🇳 929,000: People living internally displaced due to disasters in India as of Dec 31, 2020. Afghanistan is 1st with 1.1 mn, and Pak 3rd with 806,000. In 2020 alone, nearly 4mn people were displaced. These figures are highly conservative. India country profile.
🗳️ Chevron next: Climate activist shareholders in Chevron are planning to do what their compatriots in Shell, BP attempted: Get oil firms to tighten their carbon emission targets.
News of Yesterday
PM Rajiv Gandhi assassinated 💥 on May 21, 1991.
Editor’s note: In an earlier version, it was mentioned that Rajiv Gandhi was killed in 1989. It is now corrected to 1991. Also, while talking about China, MEA spoke about the situation near Ladakh, not N-E India.
News Of Today 