Heena Sharma Blog

With the Covid-19 cases zipping past five million people globally last week and rocketing towards six million, the search for a vaccine and a therapy has become more and more urgent. Some statisticians say the case count could be at least 5 to 20 times higher due to inconsistencies and variations in testing and testing protocols in different countries. A paper published by the Imperial College London estimated that the number of people infected by Covid-19 in the UK as of March 30 was between 800,000 to 3.7 million. The official case count then was just 22,141. Even the more conservative actual estimate of 800,000 is 36 times higher than the reported count. Without a vaccine and an effective treatment, we may never get back to life as it used to be. Read More

A pilot demo of BHIM UPI QR-based payments in Singapore began on Wednesday through a live transaction at a merchant terminal at the ongoing Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, the payment system's first approach to the international market. The demo will continue during the festival, which started on November 11 and would end on November 15. This QR code-based system would allow anyone with a BHIM app to scan the SGQR at NETS terminals for payments in Singapore. "This is the first time that BHIM app has gone international," said Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Jawed Ashraf, who launched the live demo. The project is being jointly developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) of Singapore. It is targeted to go live by February 2020, said the High Commission. "This is another achievement for fintech (financial technology) cooperation between India and Singapore, after the launch of RuPay In

India's vision to be the skill capital of the world Current Affairs News: The Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre (eGL) at the National University of Singapore's Institute of Systems Science (NUS-ISS) and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, government of India have come together to collaborate with each other on the skilling initiatives for India's workforce. The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance the skills in India's workforce during India Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Singapore from 31st May to 2nd June 2018.They will work together to develop and implement skill development programmes across emerging technology areas like Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. They will also cooperate and collaborate further especially in the areas of vocational training on new-age technologies, training of trainers and assessors, and