Ashok Leyland on Tuesday said it had received permissions to resume operations at Alwar, Bhandara and Pantnagar plants, but will restart production in line with demand after preparing supply chain.
The firm has received permission from authorities to resume operations of plants at Alwar, Bhandara and Pantnagar, Ashok Leyland President-HR, Communication and CSR N V Balachandar said in a statement.
With the restriction in the movement of transport vehicles and closing of mandis (market places) to contain the spread of Covid-19, farmers and agriculture technology companies are facing a huge challenge. The supply chain operations of many agtech firms have been disrupted due to the lockdown. This is also the season when farmers were gearing up to harvest Rabi crops such as peas, wheat, mustard, sesame and barley. Apart from logistical challenges, the weather also plays a key role in enabling a smooth flow of crops from farms to consumers.
This is where tech giant IBM is now stepping in, to fill the gap. The Big Blue, as IBM is known as, is offering ‘Operations Dashboard’ from its weather forecasting firm The Weather Company (TWC), for a 30-day free trial. The customisable solution is designed to function like a ‘meteorologist-in-a-box’ which actively monitors weather forecasts for conditions that may affect one’s location, operations and customers. The technology helps supply chain managers make faster, more informed decisions by combining weather forecasts with their unique business insights.
The ‘Operations Dashboard’ is helping agtech companies that are providing inputs to farmers and working at the farm gate with the Farmer Producer Organisations to take their produce to a warehouse or market. For instance, one can determine the safety actions to employ in specific locations due to severe weather, such as tornadoes or lightning. This means, produce will reach consumers faster and less food would get spoiled.
Chinese electronics maker OnePlus on Tuesday launched the OnePlus 8 Pro and the OnePlus 8. Successors to the OnePlus 7-series smartphones, these new offerings bring several upgrades in terms of design, display, camera and connectivity. Besides, the Pro edition has got wireless charging and ingress protection rating for water and dust resistance (IP68), in a first for OnePlus smartphones.
OnePlus 8 Pro specifications
The OnePlus 8 Pro is a flagship product, aimed at the premium smartphone segment. It has a 6.78-inch fluid AMOLED screen of a QHD+ resolution, stretched in a 19.8:9 aspect ratio. The display has a punch hole on the top-left side, accommodating the phone’s selfie camera, and rounded corners. Its screen, with a 120Hz refresh rate, supports the HDR10+ and MEMC interpolation technology for a smooth video-rendering experience. Moreover, the display supports HDR boost, which artificially optimises on-screen content by enhancing colour, contrast and brightness.
Way back in 2014, Doordarshan was telecasting a science reality show in which young school-going innovators were demonstrating their ideas. The winners were announced in quite a unique manner — a drone showered chocolates on them. These winners are now using that very technology to shower disinfectants on schools, colleges and government offices in order to get rid of the killer Coronavirus and make these premises what they ‘Corona Killer 100 (CK100)’.
Chennai-based Garuda Aerospace, promoted by Asian gold medalist swimmer and young entrepreneur Agnishwar Jayaprakash, was launched in 2015. But right from the beginning, the firm had one objective – to explore larger use cases of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) instead of simply deploying them to video-graph weddings and other events.
Over the years, the company has been involved in manufacturing drones and offering their services in agriculture, pesticide spraying, mapping, crowd monitoring, wildlife monitoring, aerial inspection, delivery, wildlife poaching, among a host of other services. It has acquired expertise in the agriculture sector, in pesticide spraying, powerline stringing for high tension electricity lines for Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, mapping for infrastructure firms, and aerial inspection of forest area for Tamil Nadu Forest Department, where a loudspeaker loaded with the drone imitates animal sounds to distract the wildlife from approaching human habitats.
Activist investor ValueAct Capital Partners LP has built a stake of over $1.1 billion in Nintendo, according to a letter seen by Reuters, a bet that digital software distribution and the development of new entertainment products will fuel growth at the Japanese gaming company.
ValueAct, which first began buying the stock in April 2019, grew the position in Nintendo, known for its gaming consoles and for having turned characters like Mario and Donkey Kong into international hits, during the stock market sell-off in February and March, according to the letter sent to its investors.
Nintendo’s future is bright, ValueAct wrote in its letter, adding there is potential for growth both in the software business and room for the company to transform itself into a broader entertainment company.
ValueAct has picked up about 2.6 million shares, or about a 2% stake, in Nintendo. Shares of the Japanese company rose more than 2% as trading started in Tokyo.
“We are aware that ValueAct is holding a stake and we’ve been engaged in dialogue with them. We don’t disclose content of our dialogue with our investors,” a Nintendo spokesman said.
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.
After partial relief in lockdown at select places, the government is now looking at promoting blood donation, especially for Thalassemic and Hemophilic patients.
In a letter to state blood transfusion councils (SBTC), the National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) promoted voluntary blood donation programmes across the country. In the letter, it noted that due to the national lockdown from March 25, there was limited movement of Blood Mobile and Transportation vans, and blood donations.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a communication to the chief secretaries, administrators, Cmmissioner of Police of all the states to facilitate the movement of blood mobile/ transportation vans and blood donors.
In a letter to all the state health ministers, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan termed that availability of blood in blood banks as ‘essential’. “We are cognizant of the situation that due to restrictions, it may not be possible to organize blood donation camps. However, at the same time, it is necessary to ensure sufficient availability of blood, especially for people needing regular blood transfusion on account of blood disorders such as Thalassemia, Sickle Cell Anemia and Hemophilia etc,” he wrote.
Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy has said the company respects the government’s decision to reverse its previous order that allowed e-commerce companies to deliver non-essential items.
In a mail to employees, Krishnamurthy also encouraged them to explore innovative ways to drive value for the ecosystem including sellers, brands, kirana stores and customers.
“We respect the decision because the government has many complex scenarios to manage while protecting more than a billion people in the country,” Krishnamurthy said.
Four days after allowing e-commerce firms to also deliver non-essential items such as electronic goods and readymade garments, the government on Sunday said sale of non-essential items will continue to be prohibited during the lockdown period till May 3.
“With this development, changes our plans at the Flipkart group, the entire leadership and the management team is completely aligned and committed to supporting the government’s decision…,” Krishnamurthy said.
PaytmPayments Bank (PPBL) said it has crossed Rs 1,000 crore in deposits through over 57 million savings account holders.
PPBL has been witnessing an accelerated rise in the deposits, as more people are embracing digital banking during Covid-19.
The bank has now implemented the option to avail benefits of Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT), which is a scheme by Government of India to transfer the subsidies of various social welfare schemes like LPG gas subsidy, MNREGA payments, Old Age Pension, Scholarships directly into the beneficiary’s bank account.
India’s coronavirus infection rate – positive results as a proportion of tests conducted – has increased sharply from 3.5 per cent on April 1 to 4.6 per cent on April 19, reveal data released by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
As on April 19, India had tested 383,985 people for Covid-19, and found 17,615 of them (4.6 per cent) to be positive for the virus. By comparison, the total number of confirmed cases in India as on April 1 was 2,059, or 3.5 per cent of the 47,951 tests conducted till then.
However, if one were to look at the same data in a different way, the tally of confirmed Covid-19 cases in India has seen a 10-fold growth since the start of the month, against an increase of about 14 times in the total number of tests conducted during the same period. India has significantly ramped up its testing capabilities lately to keep a check on the spread of coronavirus infections in the country.
Among the 15 most affected Indian states with more than 100 confirmed Covid-19 cases, five have seen a spike in infection rate, and the rest a decline.
The sharpest rise in infection rate has been seen in Delhi – of around two percentage points between April 1 and 19. Delhi has tested 24,387 samples till April 19 and recorded 2,003 Covid-19-positive cases — an infection rate of 8.2 per cent. The best performance on this count has come from Tamil Nadu, where the infection rate has dropped from 13 per cent at the start of the month to 3.6 per cent now.
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