Heena Sharma Blog

  Russia has successfully launched its first satellite to monitor the Arctic's climate and environment, the country's space corporation Roscosmos said in a statement. A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the " Arktika-M " satellite on board blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9.55 a.m. on Sunday, Roscosmos said. The Arktika-M spacecraft was delivered to the orbit at 12.14 p.m., Xinhua news agency quoted the space corporation as further saying in the statement. The creation of a satellite system in highly elliptical orbits is necessary for information collection to solve operational meteorology and hydrology problems, and monitoring the climate and environment in the Arctic region, it said. The Arktika-M will provide round-the-clock continuous monitoring of the northern territory of Russia and the seas of the Arctic Ocean, Roscosmos added. Read More

  SpaceX has cancelled the planned launch of a Falcon 9 carrier rocket with 60 Starlink satellites. "Auto-abort at T-1:24 ahead of tonight's Falcon 9 launch of Starlink; next launch opportunity is tomorrow, March 1 at 8:15 p.m. EST [03:15 GMT on Tuesday]," SpaceX said on Twitter on Sunday. The company did not specify the reasons behind the delay. The Falcon 9 rocket was supposed to lift off from the Cape Canaveral (Kennedy) Air Force Station in Florida at 01:37 GMT on Monday. The mission aims to put 60 Starlink satellites into orbit. If successful at its next launch opportunity, it will expand SpaceX's fleet of broadband relay satellites to include over 1,200 (some of them are prototypes that are no longer in service). The Starlink project seeks to provide affordable access to broadband internet connection across the world. Read More

  The second phase of India’s Covid-19 vaccination started on Monday and the Co-WIN portal also started a self-registration process for the 270 million people eligible for these shots. Under this phase, people above 60 years of age – and those over 45 years of age and with co-morbidities – are to be inoculated. The registration portal could be accessed at https://selfregistration.cowin.gov.in/ . The government has issued a list of 20 specified co-morbidities to determine the eligibility of people who can be administered a vaccine shot on priority. If someone is more than 45 years old and suffers from conditions like diabetes or has suffered a heart attack in the past year, they will be eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine shot. Here’s the full list of specified co-morbidities: 1. Heart failure with hospital admission in the past one year. 2. Post cardiac transplant/ Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD). 3. Significant left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVEF < 40%). 4

  The rise in the petrol and diesel price has paused for the last couple of days as oil marketing companies have decided to wait and watch the developments on the global oil market before finalising their India retail strategy. Accordingly, oil marketing companies kept the pump price of petrol and diesel unchanged on Monday. With this, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 91.17 a litre and diesel Rs 81.47 a litre in the national capital. Across the country as well the petrol and diesel prices remain unchanged. Sources in OMCs said that price pause on Monday followed subdued movement in product price in global markets. The crude oil, which has been on fire for the last couple of weeks has also shown some downward movement lately but staying above $65 a barrel now. Petrol and diesel prices have been rising continuously since February 9. In the 14 increases since then, prices have gone up by Rs 4.22 per litre for petrol while diesel rate has risen by Rs 4.34 a litre in Delhi. Read

  Nirav Modi , once touted as a billionaire designer diamantaire, and now wanted on charges of fraud and money laundering in the $2-billion (Rs 14,000-crore) Punjab National Bank scam case , was on Thursday ordered by a London court to be extradited to India, with the judge ruling that the 49-year-old did have a case to answer before Indian courts. The verdict will, as is the procedure in Britain, be referred to the country’s home secretary, Priti Patel, to authorise deportation at her discretion. But Nirav Modi is permitted to appeal against the ruling to the high court. After nearly two years of proceedings since he was arrested at the British capital’s well-known shopping precinct of Oxford Street, a district judge at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Samuel Goozee, ruled: “I am satisfied that there is evidence upon which Mr Modi could be convicted… A prima facie case is established…He has a case to answer for in India.” The Prime Minister’s Office has acknowledged it was ti

  India recorded its single-day increase in coronavirus cases above 16,000 for the second consecutive day as the infection tally rose to 1,10,63,491, while the recoveries have surged to 1,07,50,680, according to data updated by the Union Health Ministry on Friday. A total16,577infections were reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,56,825 with 120 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. The number of active cases increased to 1,55,986, which accounts for 1.41 per cent of the total infections, the data stated. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,07,50,680 which translates into a national recovery rate of 97.17 per cent. The case fatality rate stood at 1.42per cent. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7; 30 lakh on August 23; 40 lakh on September 5; and50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28; 70 lakh on October 11; 80 lakh on October 29; 90 lakh on November 20; and th

  Considering the rise in COVID-19 cases in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra, the city's famous Siddhivinayak temple has decided not to give on-the- spot permission to devotees for taking darshan of Lord Ganesh from March 1, its office-bearers said on Friday. Only those who have registered themselves online, will get a chance to take darshan, and only 100 such devotees will be allowed inside the temple per hour from next month, they said. Talking to PTI, Priyanka Chhapwale, chief executive officer of the Shri Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust said that at present, devotees who have not registered themselves for darshan, are given QR code on the spot, which allows them to go inside the temple. Read More

  India announced new rules on Thursday to regulate content on social media, making Facebook, WhatsApp and others more accountable to legal requests for swift removal of posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. The rules -- part of an effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist government to tighten the leash on Big Tech -- come after Twitter recently ignored government orders to drop content related to farmers' protests. India is the largest market by users for both Facebook and its messenger service WhatsApp. The new rules issued by the government, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, will be legally enforceable. They will require big social media companies to set up a grievance redressal mechanism and within three months appoint new executives to coordinate with law enforcement. Social media firms should be "more responsible and accountable," Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister for information technolo

  The COVID-19 vaccination sessions will not be held this Saturday and Sundayin view ofthe Co-Win digital platformtransitioning from Co-Win 1.0 to Co-Win 2.0 as Indiagears up to inoculate peopleabove 60 years and those over 45 years with comorbidities against the infection from March 1. All states and UTs have been already informed about this transition,the Union Health Ministry said. TheCo-Winsoftware was created for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine delivery. The nationwide COVID-19 inoculation drive tovaccinate healthcare workerswas launched on January16 by the prime minister. Vaccination of frontlineworkers started onFebruary 2. "The country wide vaccination exercise is being exponentially expanded to include those above 60 years of age and those above 45 years with co-morbidities, fromMarch 1. Read More

  Twitter is planning a new tool to let users automatically block and mute abusive accounts. With the new safety mode, the micro-blogging platform will automatically detect accounts that "might be acting abusive or spammy." The company will limit how those accounts can engage with your content for seven days. During its virtual Analyst Day on Thursday, the company showed a presentation where a slide revealed that the feature will be a toggle in the new safety mode. "Automatically block accounts that appear to break the Twitter Rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks," the description read. Currently, not many Twitter users in India are aware of how to report abuse or harassment they face on the open communication platform, opting for the wrong way of posting an abusive photo or tweet and then requesting us to take action. Read More

  As COVID-19 cases surge in Maharashtra, 229 school students and three staff members were found positive for the virus at a hostel in the Washim district of the state, said district authorities. The students are mostly from Amravati (151). A total of 327 students who reside in this hostel are mostly from Amravati, Hingoli, Nanded, Washim, Buldhana, and Akola. Last week 26 students were found virus-positive at the hostel after that all the students were tested. The school premises have reportedly been declared a containment zone. Maharashtra reported 8,807 new COVID-19 cases and 80 deaths in the last 24 hours, the state health department said on Wednesday. The state has reported a total of 21,21,119 COVID-19 cases. Read More

  Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced that its smart wearables are now open to third-party apps. Huawei has created a live proof of concept of a third-party app with a workout app for the Watch GT2 Pro called Fitify, reports GSMArena. Fitify is a fitness app that is fine-tuned for mobile devices and wearables. With over 10 million users in 170+ countries, the App has 900+ exercise guides. The company seems to have used HMS's 5 integration kits like Account, Push, in-app purchases, Analysis, and Wear Engine. The App is now available on the App Gallery, supports up to 18 languages -- English, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Turkish. As per the report, the app was created using five integration kits developed by Huawei Mobile Services, and the Chinese company aims to provide "one-stop, full-spectrum operational support for all app content providers"

  Google -owned video-streaming platform YouTube has unveiled a new feature that would help parents to control what their kids watch on the platform by enabling different content settings on the platform. The new feature will give parents the ability to choose from Explore, Explore More and Most of YouTube. "Over the last year, we've worked with parents and experts across the globe in areas related to child safety, child development, and digital literacy to develop a solution for parents of pre-teens and teens," James Beser, Director of Product Management, Kids and Family, YouTube, said in a blogpost on Wednesday. "In the coming months, we'll launch a new experience in beta for parents to allow their children to access YouTube through a supervised Google Account," Beser added. "Explore" will feature a broad range of videos generally suitable for viewers who are more than nine years old, including vlogs, tutorials, gaming videos, music clip

  Expanding its hot-selling Galaxy M series , Samsung is set to launch Galaxy M12 next month that will be priced around Rs 12,000. The Galaxy M12 will sport a 6.5-inch HD+ Infinity-V display and a 6000mAh battery, industry sources told IANS on Thursday. The device will feature a 'True' 48MP quad camera along with a ultra-wide, macro and depth sensor to capture detailed images with better clarity. This will be a big upgrade from Galaxy M11 that featured a 13MP triple rear camera. Galaxy M12 is likely to be powered by an 8nm chipset for a smooth mobile experience. Galaxy M12 will be Samsung's third 'M' series smartphone of the year. The South Korean giant has been on a roll since the start of the year and has made a big impact in the affordable smartphone segment with the recently launched Galaxy M02, Galaxy M02s and Galaxy A12 that have all been priced under Rs 15,000. Read More

  France on Wednesday confirmed 31,519 new Covid-19 cases , the biggest one-day jump since mid-November last year, as very worrying situation in some departments forced the authorities to impose partial lockdown to fight the virus resurgence. A higher single-day tally, at 45,522, was registered on November 17, according to official data. As of Wednesday, France's cumulative number of Covid-19 infections totalled 3.66 million. Some 85,321 patients have died so far, after 277 more lost their lives to the virus in the past 24 hours, the Xinhua news agency reported. Some 25,614 cases needed treatment in hospital, 46 fewer that Tuesday's figure. Of those hospitalised, 3,436 were put on ventilators, almost stable from a day before. "The epidemic situation is deteriorating in our country...The epidemic has stopped decreasing and in some places it can even increase," said Health Minister Olivier Veran. "We erased in one week the two consecutive weeks of decline

  The total number of global Covid-19 cases has topped 112.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.49 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Thursday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 112,534,393 and 2,497,023 respectively. The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 28,334,797 and 505,803 respectively, according to the CSSE. India comes in second place in terms of cases at 11,030,176. The other countries with more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases are Brazil (10,324,463), the UK (4,156,703), Russia (4,153,735), France (3,721,061), Spain (3,170,644), Italy (2,848,564), Turkey (2,665,194), Germany (2,416,037), Colombia (2,237,542), Argentina (2,085,411), Mexico (2,060,908), Poland (1,661,109), Iran (1,598,875), South Africa (1,507,448), Ukraine (1,364,861), Indo

  Realme on Wednesday launched in India the Narzo 30 Pro and Narzo 30A smartphones, and Buds Air 2 wireless earbuds. The Realme Narzo 30 Pro is the Chinese smartphone maker’s cheapest 5G offering that also happens to be the most affordable 5G smartphone in Indian smartphone market to date. The Realme Narzo 30A, on the other hand, is a 4G LTE smartphone. Both the smartphones are touted by the company as gaming-centric smartphones. Speaking of the Realme Buds Air 2, they are affordable pair of true wireless stereo earbuds with active noise cancelling feature. Realme Narzo 30 Pro 5G: Price and specifications The smartphone sports a 6.5-inch IPS LCD screen of fullHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. The screen is stretched in 20:9 aspect ratio for a touted screen-to-body ratio of 90.5 per cent. The screen is rated to have 600 nits of peak brightness. Powering the smartphone is the MediaTek Dimensity 800U system-on-chip, paired with up to 8GB RAM (LPDDR4x)

  After jumping out to a quick start in its vaccination campaign, Israel has announced that it has decided to share a small surplus of its coronavirus vaccines with several friendly countries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision on Tuesday to share the vaccines with his diplomatic partners comes at a time when Israel has come under international criticism for not providing significant quantities to the Palestinians. He also faced accusations from a rival of acting unilaterally and wasting taxpayer funds. Netanyahu's move is the latest illustration of how coronavirus vaccines have emerged as a kind of diplomatic currency, with countries that have the medicines using their supplies for political gain. While Israel does not produce vaccines, Netanyahu has moved aggressively to secure enough vaccines for Israel's 9.3 million people in deals with Pfizer and Moderna. In just under two months, Israel has vaccinated roughly half its population, one of the highest pe

  Petrol price on Wednesday remained stable at Rs 90.93 per litre in the national capital and diesel price unchanged at Rs 81.32, according to a price notification from oil marketing companies. In Mumbai, petrol price stood at Rs 97.34 per litre--the same as yesterday. In Chennai, petrol remained unchanged to sell at Rs 92.90. Diesel was retailing at Rs 86.31 in the city. In Bengaluru, petrol and diesel prices stayed at Rs 93.98 and Rs 86.21 respectively. Last week, petrol prices breached the Rs 90-a-litre mark to touch an all-time high of Rs 90.19 in the national capital after the rate was hiked by 31 paise. Petrol and diesel prices are revised on a daily basis in line with benchmark international price and foreign exchange rates. This stability has comes amid an outcry over record high fuel prices. Read More

  Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has finalised a deadline to launch the ' Ayushman CAPF ' scheme across the country in May. The scheme was first launched by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in only Assam on January 23 this year. All Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) officials and serving personnel and their dependents from seven forces--Assam Rifles, Border Security Force ( BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), National Security Guard (NSG), and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), along with their families, will be covered under the scheme. According to sources, in the last meeting that took place last week, MHA decided to launch the scheme at a national level by May this year. "Last week a meeting was held to discuss the launch of Ayushman CAPF at the national level. Target is to launch this scheme at the national level by May this year. This will be completely cashless and limitless facili

  LG Electronics said on Wednesday its smart TV platform will be used by other TV makers this year as the company eyes boosting its software capability. LG said some 20 TV manufacturers, including RCA, Konka and Ayonz, will release TVs installed with its webOS platform. To attract more TV brands using its smart TV platform, LG said it has also signed partnerships with streaming giants like Netflix, YouTube and Amazon, as well as remote controls solution provider Universal Electronics Inc. The world's top OLED TV maker hopes the latest move helps the company generate profits and reinforce its presence in content and software services. LG Electronics said webOS' openness, easy accessibility and user-friendly interface will attract more TV makers and that it will actively support content and broadcasting services to expand the ecosystem of its smart TV platform. In recent years, LG Electronics has been trying to upgrade its software capabilities in the TV business, repo

  Google Maps is now getting a full-fledged dark mode on Android, the feature has been in testing since September 2020. "These days, we are all experiencing a bit of screen fatigue. With the dark themes in Google Maps soon expanding to all Android users globally, you can give your eyes a much-needed break and save on battery life," the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Once your Google Maps has been updated, you can turn it on for your entire phone by heading to Settings > Theme and pick Always In Dark Theme. The company also introduced some updates to Android Auto. In addition to custom wallpapers, Android Auto is now going to feature games as well. For longer drives, you and your passengers can stay entertained with voice-activated games like trivia and "Jeopardy!". Just say, "Hey Google, play a game" to get started. Android Auto is also getting a split-screen feature that will put Maps side by side with media controls, Google is al