Heena Sharma Blog

  Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (local time) urged his supporters to take the COVID-19 vaccine , as a growing number of Republicans remain opposed to get vaccinated. In an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked if he would recommend his supporters voluntarily receive the coronavirus vaccine. "I would. I would recommend it and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by them and I agree with that also. But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works," he said. Trump further said that pharmaceutical companies and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been working "around the clock" to develop the various vaccinations. Read More

India reported nearly 15,000 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 440,215, an increase of 3.5% according to the Health Ministry.The country's death toll has crossed the 14,000 mark with 312 fatalities in a day. India is the fourth-most-affected country by total cases, and eighth by death toll. According to government data, however, the situation in India is not as alarming as some of the other countries, given a limited spread on a per-capita basis. India has 30.04 coronavirus cases per 100,000 population, which is just a little more than a third of the global average of 114.67, the health ministry has said, referring to the WHO Situation Report 153, dated June 21. Read More

Shares of most information technology (IT) companies were trading flat with negative bias on Monday as investors turned cautious after the US President Donald Trump said late on Saturday he would announce new restrictions on visas within a couple of days to block the entry of certain foreign workers and protect Americans struggling with a job market devastated by the coronavirus pandemic . “We’re going to be announcing something tomorrow or the next day on the visas,” he told Fox News Channel. Asked if there would be exclusions from the new restrictions, Trump said very few. Read More

US President Donald Trump is considering suspending a number of employment visas including the H-1B , most sought-after among Indian IT professionals, in view of the massive unemployment in America due to the coronavirus pandemic , according to a media report. The proposed suspension could extend into the government's new fiscal year beginning October 1, when many new visas are issued, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting unnamed administration officials. That could bar any new H-1B holder outside the country from coming to work until the suspension is lifted, though visa holders already in the country are unlikely to be affected, the daily reported. H-1B is the most coveted foreign work visas for technology professionals from India. Read More

With a daily increase of 9,987 in total Corona Virus cases , the biggest single-day jump yet, India’s tally has risen from 256,611 to 266,598, reporting an increase of 3.9 per cent. That apart, the death toll has reached 7,466, with 331 new fatalities, the most in a day so far. And, the number of active cases across India has increased by 4,536, compared with 4,975 on Monday. States that have reported the biggest 24-hour jump in active cases are Delhi (1,483), Tamil Nadu (1,017), Maharashtra (783), Haryana (395), and West Bengal (255). Read More

The death toll due to Covid-19 rose to 4,167 in the country, while the number of cases climbed to 1,45,380, registering an increase of 146 deaths and 6,535 cases since Monday. It has been five days in a row that India has recorded its biggest single-day spike with around 7,000 new cases. Well, the good news is that Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has ramped up testing capacity from 1.4 lakh samples to 2 lakh samples per day. Globally, 5,588,356 people have been infected by coronavirus so far, and the total number of deaths from the disease now stands at 347,873, according to Worldometer. Read More

India has recorded its biggest single-day spike for the fourth consecutive day on Monday with around 7,000 new cases, taking the country’s official total to 138,845, out of which 57,721 have been cured and as many as 4,021 people have died, which means the country currently has 77,103 active cases according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare . Meanwhile, India has also surpassed Iran’s tally, making it into the list of 10 most affected countries globally. Maharashtra, the most affected state, has added more than 3,000 cases in a single day, breaching the 50,00-mark of total positive cases, so far. Read More

India's coronavirus caseload has surpassed the 100,000-mark, according to the the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Of the total 101,139 cases reported so far, 39,174 have been treated successfully while 3,163 died due to the infection, leaving behind 58,802 active cases. The count of cases continued to rise as the country entered lockdown 4.0 yesterday, with many states and UTs allowing reopening of markets, local transport and even salons in the areas that are considered safe from the pandemic. Read More

India has witnessed a sudden surge in its Covid-19 cases ever since the restrictions on movement have been partially lifted. In the last 24-hours, the country has reported 3,561 new cases and 89 deaths. While the total tally has breached 50,000-mark, standing at 52,952 cases, the daily death toll has also shot up, mounting to 1,783 deaths, so far. However, the daily testing capacity has also risen to fivefold, which is the only good news for now. It’s already May, and parts of the country hit 40 degrees Celsius a few days ago, making situations worse for people living in cramped quarters to stay indoors. Read More

On Tuesday, India saw the biggest single-day spike with 3,900 cases and 195 deaths, mounting the country's tally to 49,391 and 1,694 deaths according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare . That apart, in view of the zooming cases, the Telangana government has extended the lockdown period till May 29 while Mumbai revoked permission for liquor shops following massive violation of social distancing norms in the last two days. Besides, the central government is set to bring back close to 2.5 lakh Indians stranded abroad, making it the biggest-ever evacuation exercise in modern history. Read More

Days after the US government allowed applicants for H-1B visas to continue in the country, President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a temporary suspension of immigration into the country. “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!,” the US President wrote in a Twitter post. Details of Trump's executive order were not immediately known. He also did not indicate when he will sign such an order. While Trump talked about suspending immigration visa, the H-1B visa, which is more popular among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa. But his reasoning that he needs to protect jobs of American citizens indicates that non-immigrant work visas too might be on his target. Read More

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Coronavirus a pandemic on Wednesday. But the question is will this declaration bring any change in the ways the nations are working to combat the novel coronavirus infection? But first, what is a pandemic? A WHO website defines pandemic as a “worldwide spread of a new disease.” This means, irrespective of how deadly or severe the disease or infection is, to become a pandemic, it has to spread far enough around the world. The last time a pandemic occurred was with H1N1 or Swine flu in 2009, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe according to experts. In case you are thinking about the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and the 2016 Zika outbreak were not pandemics they did not impact as many people as Coronavirus despite spreading in more than one country. Read More

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said India awaits the arrival of US President Donald Trump , asserting that his visit will further strengthen the friendship between the two countries. "India awaits your arrival @POTUS @realDonaldTrump! Your visit is definitely going to further strengthen the friendship between our nations," Modi tweeted. "See you very soon in Ahmedabad," he said, responding to a tweet by Trump that he was leaving for India with the US First Lady. Trump will reach Ahmedabad around noon on Monday. Read More

India is set to finalise a long-pending defence deal with the United States during President Donald Trump two-day visit to India from February 24, a senior official has told ANI. Trump will arrive in India on his maiden visit, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States Jared Kushner or daughter Ivanka Trump, along with United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of Energy Dan Brouille. The US President will reach Gujarat's Ahmedabad around the noon of February 24 and will address a mammoth crowd of more than 100,000 people which is expected to turn up for an event at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad on the lines of the 'Howdy Modi' function that was addressed by the US President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston in September last year. "The fact that a US President is going outside New Delhi to other cities -- and if you look at the reception that he will receive -- shows the admi...

Facebook and Twitter have apparently not been invited by the White House to a social media summit hosted by President Donald Trump for a robust conversation on the challenges of the online environment, according to a media report. The summit, set for Thursday, is to address issues relevant to social media, all the more important as Trump utilizes the platforms like no other president before him. The two prominent social media companies were not extended invitations, CNN was quoted the sources familiar with the matter as saying. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested it was not surprising. They said they believe the summit would amount to a right-wing grievance session and was not aimed at seriously discussing some of the issues facing large technology companies, the report added. The White House, however, refused to comment, the report said. A Social Media Summit without representation from the giants like Facebook and Twitter cannot be thought o...

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares for one of the most important meetings of his seven-year rule, he appears to have Donald Trump on the brain--even if he won’t say so directly. In conversations with other leaders ahead of his sit down tomorrow with the U.S. president on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi spared no opportunity to paint the U.S. as the bad guy in China’s spiraling trade conflict, while avoiding the provocative step of naming Trump personally. In remarks to African leaders this morning, Xi took a not-so-subtle swipe at Trump’s policy slogan, "America first." Warning against "bullying practices," Xi said that “any attempt to put one’s own interests first and undermine others’ will not win any popularity.” Xi then used remarks on the digital economy to call for a "fair and equitable market environment" and the "completeness and vitality of global supply chains." It comes as Trump singles out Chines...

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Thursday it had shot down a US "spy drone" over its territory after it violated Iranian airspace, according to Iranian state television. "The US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force" in the country's southern coastal province of Hormozgan, the Revolutionary Guard added, according to the English-language Press TV. Article Source -> Business Standard

A year ago, Susan Wojcicki was on stage to defend YouTube . Her company, hammered for months for fueling falsehoods online, was reeling from another flare-up involving a conspiracy theory video about the Parkland, Florida high school shooting that suggested the victims were “crisis actors.” Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive officer, is a reluctant public ambassador, but she was in Austin at the South by Southwest conference to unveil a solution that she hoped would help quell conspiracy theories: a tiny text box from websites like Wikipedia that would sit below videos that questioned well-established facts like the moon landing and link viewers to the truth. Wojcicki’s media behemoth, bent on overtaking television, is estimated to rake in sales of more than $16 billion a year. But on that day, Wojcicki compared her video site to a different kind of institution. “We’re really more like a library,” she said, staking out a familiar position as a defender of free speech. “There ...

The destructive California wildfires have so far killed at least 74 people with over 1,000 reported missing, authorities said. Butte County Sheriff and Coroner Kory Honea said on Friday evening that the number of people missing due to Northern California's Camp Fire, deemed as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state's history, was 1,011, CNN reported. Of the 74 victims, 71 were killed in Northern California while the three others died in the Woolsey Fire in Southern California. As of Friday, the Camp Fire has destroyed about 9,700 homes and scorched 146,000 acres. President Donald Trump is expected to visit the region on Saturday. Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom plan to accompany him. Meanwhile, the Woolsey Fire in Southern California has destroyed 548 structures in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said Cal Fire, the state's forestry and fire protection agency. More than 98,000 acres have been burned since...

New dating app DonaldDaters was supposed to help lonely conservatives find each other discreetly. But the app leaked its database of users on launch day, a report said Monday. With the slogan "Make America Date Again," the app targets the "American-based singles community connecting lovers, friends, and Trump supporters alike," its website says. The app had just over 1,600 users on its first day of operations, technology news site TechCrunch reported. TechCrunch said it learned the figure because a French security researcher found "issues" with the app, making it possible to download the entire user database. The researcher "shared the database with TechCrunch, which included users' names, profile pictures, device type, their private messages -- and access tokens, which can be used to take over accounts," it said. TechCrunch said the data was pulled offline after it contacted the app maker. DonaldDaters' website says ...