Author: News Desk

New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) Manipur’s Shanker Heisnam and Maharashtra’s Prisha Shinde produced big upsets to clinch the titles in their respective categories in the 28th Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship on Saturday at the DLTA Complex, here.The No. 16 seed Shanker displayed excellent baseline play and defeated seventh seed Thirumurugan V of Tamil Nadu 6-1, 6-2 in straight sets to win the boys singles U-16 title, while Prisha beat sixth seed Anandita Upadhyay 6-1, 6-2 to clinch the girls singles U-14 title in a tournament that witnessed around 1,000 players across categories in different age groups.The winners received glittering…

San Francisco, Oct 14 (IANS) Meta-owned WhatsApp is rolling out a new option on Android and iOS to make it harder for hackers to infer users’ location by protecting their IP address in calls.With this new ‘protect IP address in calls’ feature, users will get to add an extra layer of security to their calls by protecting their IP address and location from malicious actors, reports WABetaInfo.The new feature is available in a new section called “Advanced”, placed within the privacy settings screen, which contains the new option, making it harder for anyone in the call to infer users’ location…

Kochi, Oct 14 (IANS) IBM India aims to make its Kochi software lab an important centre in the country to augment development and delivery of next generation software portfolio and cloud offerings, according to a top company official.A high-level meeting to this effect was held with Kerala Industries Minister P. Rajeeve and IBM India Senior Vice President (Products) Dinesh Nirmal.The move to upgrade the facility comes a year after the US tech major opened its Software Lab here.The state-of-the-art global innovation centre at Infopark became the company’s fifth software lab in the country, with Bengaluru, Hyderabad Ahmedabad and Pune being…

New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) Overall foldable shipments grew 141 per cent (year-on-year) in India till August this year, a report has shown, as the overall foldable market os set to grow at a CAGR of 56 per cent to reach 6.3 million units by 2027.For the 2023-2024 period, the overall foldable market is expected to witness 84 per cent growth (on-year).Increasing localisation of foldables, including flagship devices such as the Samsung Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, as well as Tecno foldables will steer the growth of the market, according to the data by market research firm CyberMedia Research…

San Francisco, Oct 14 (IANS) Researchers have discovered the structures of open and closed states of the coronavirus ion channel, which could help the development of antiviral drugs to reduce inflammation, a new study has said.According to the study published in the journal Science Advances, the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus encodes 29 proteins, one of which is an ion channel called ‘E’, which transports protons and calcium ions, induces infected cells to launch an inflammatory response that damages tissues and contributes to the symptoms of Covid-19.“The E channel is an antiviral drug target. If you can stop the channel…

Hyderabad, Oct 14 (IANS) Many women suffer from issues such as uncontrolled bladder movement and lower abdominal pain but do not seek medical attention due to shyness and embarrassment.Doctors at a summit on advances in urogynecology here have warned that these problems can worsen over time if left untreated.The three-day summit, which began on Saturday, focused on modern treatment protocols in urogynecology and included participation from foreign urogynecology experts who introduced the latest technology in treatment. KIMS Hospitals and Urogynecology Pelvic floor dysfunction and Incontinence Association (UPIA) are organising the summit.Doctors explain that many women avoid seeking medical attention for…

Washington, Oct 14 (IANS) The US has received enough petitions to reach the Congressionally mandated cap on H-2B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers for the first half of fiscal year 2024.The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that October 11 was the final receipt date for new cap-subject H-2B worker petitions requesting an employment start date before April 1, 2024.The new cap-subject H-2B petitions, received after October 11, 2023 that request an employment start date before April 1, 2024, will be rejected.The immigration agency said it will continue to accept H-2B petitions that are exempt from the congressionally mandated…

Singapore, Oct 14 (IANS) A sports school in Singapore has fired a badminton coach for failing to check a 14-year-old Indian-origin student’s well-being before leaving the track, leading to his death, a media report said. Pranav Madhaik, a Secondary 2 student at the Singapore Sports School (SSP) felt unwell after a fitness time trial and subsequently died in hospital, The Straits Times reported.After conducting investigations, the SSP on Saturday said that the coach did not account for all his student-athletes before dismissing them from training, which was not in accordance with the school’s safety protocols.On October 5, after completing a…

Official figures released on Thursday show a 9.3% growth in the manufacturing sector during August but this is compared to a low base of the previous year when output contracted.Since the manufacturing sector holds the key to providing quality jobs to the country’s young graduates passing out of engineering institutes and universities, it needs to grow at a much faster and steadier pace.The Government’s National Manufacturing Policy has set an ambitious target to increase the share of manufacturing in the country’s GDP to 25 percent by 2025 from around 17 percent at present.The productivity linked incentive (PLI) scheme for a…

Unveiling the bi-monthly monetary policy review, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said on October 6 that the domestic economy exhibits resilience on the back of strong demand.He said the economic growth in the current year is expected to be at 6.5 per cent with the risks evenly balanced.The projection is the same as was estimated in the August monetary policy.Despite geopolitical tensions and disruptions in global supply chains, the RBI governor reiterated his confidence in the resilience of the Indian economy and listed several reasons for projecting a 6.5 per cent growth estimate for 2023-24.Let us look at some of them:Despite…