Author: Mike Harrison

An earthquake of 3.6 magnitude hit Guwahati city and its nearby areas in Assam on Thursday, an official bulletin said.There was no immediate report of any loss of life or damage to property, it said.The quake occurred at 10.33 p.m. and the epicentre was in Kamrup district near Guwahati, the National Centre for Seismology said.The depth of the earthquake was 30 km, it said.Panic-stricken people ran out of their homes as the quake struck the region. You have reached your limit for free articles this month. Subscription Benefits Include Today’s Paper Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day’s newspaper…

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Thursday decided to retain Pakistan on the “greylist” till the next review of its performance on the recommendations during the June Plenary session.At a press briefing, FATF president Marcus Pleyer said although Pakistan had made a significant progress, it was still to fully comply with three of the 27-point action plan it had been presented with in June 2018 when it was first put on the “greylist”. He urged Pakistan to make fast progress on the remaining obligations.The three points on which the FATF has sought urgent action by Pakistan pertain to effective…

Crashes to a 3-2 defeat against Jamshedpur; Chhetri scores his 100th goal for the Bengaluru team Sunil Chhetri scored his 100th goal for Bengaluru FC (BFC) even as the club ended its Indian Super League (ISL) campaign on a disappointing note, crashing to a 3-2 defeat to Jamshedpur FC on Thursday. Following its eighth loss of the season, BFC finished seventh out of 11 teams with 22 points from 20 games.Chhetri scored his side’s second goal with a powerful header but couldn’t inspire a comeback from 0-3 down. The India skipper is the highest Indian goal-scorer in the history of…

The rising trend in fresh COVID-19 cases continued across Maharashtra which reported another big jump of 8,702 cases on Thursday as the active case tally surged past the 60,000-mark to reach 64,260. A spike of 56 deaths pushed the overall toll to 51,993. Just 3,744 patients were discharged to take the cumulative recoveries to 20,12,367. While the case tally has risen to 21,29,821, so has the sample testing. “Of the 1,59,41,773 laboratory samples tested thus far, 21,29,821 [with the case positivity rate down to 13.29%] have returned positive with over 85,000 samples being tested in the last 24 hours,” said…

Gurjoat Khangura shot the best among the Indian shooters, 119 (25, 24, 24, 25) out of 125, but missed out on the final berth by one point in the shotgun World Cup in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday.After a below par 21 in the first round, Gurjoat shot rounds of 25, 24, 24 and 25 over two days. He had to be content with 10th spot in a field of 40, as shooters with scores of 121 and 120 made the cut.In fact, there was a shoot off between four shooters with 120 for one berth in the final, to join…

This is President Rajapaksa’s first outreach yet to the families of the missing Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will soon meet families of missing persons who have been protesting to find their relatives’ whereabouts, according to a top official. “The President is really determined to bring closure to this issue and give the families a solution,” Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Retd.) Admiral Jayanath Colombage told The Hindu on Thursday. Scores of Tamil families in the north and east, mostly women, have been relentlessly agitating by the roadside – they recently marked four years of continuous protest –…

Xi said over the past eight years under his term, 98.99 million poor in rural areas had been lifted out of poverty China on Thursday held a high-profile celebration to mark what its President Xi Jinping described as “a complete victory” in eliminating absolute poverty.Mr. Xi said over the past eight years under his term, 98.99 million poor in rural areas had been lifted out of poverty while all the 832 designated “impoverished counties” and 128,000 “impoverished villages” had been removed from the government’s list.He described the lifting of close to 100 million people out of poverty in eight years…

Pfizer said it will offer a third dose to 144 volunteers, drawing from people who participated in the vaccine’s early-stage U.S. testing last year. Pfizer announced on Thursday that it has begun studying a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, part of a strategy to guard against mutated versions of the coronavirus.Health authorities say first-generation COVID-19 vaccines still protect against variants that are emerging in different parts of the world. But manufacturers are starting to prepare now in case a more vaccine-resistant mutation comes along.Pfizer said it will offer a third dose to 144 volunteers, drawing from people who participated…

Facebook announced on Thursday that it is removing all remaining Myanmar military and military-controlled pages from its site and from Instagram, which it also owns.It said it will also block advertising from military-linked businesses.The decision follows a February 1 coup in which the military removed elected leaders from power and jailed others. Days after the coup the military temporarily blocked access to Facebook because it was being used to share anti-coup comments and organize protests.Here’s a look at Facebook’s role in Myanmar and what the banning of the military pages means.What is Facebook’s role in Myanmar?For decades Myanmar was one…

Gold prices on February 25 declined by ₹358 to ₹45,959 per 10 grams in the national capital, amid selling in the international markets, according to HDFC Securities.The precious metal had closed at ₹46,313 per 10 grams on Feb. 24.Silver, on the other hand, rose by ₹151 to ₹69,159 per kg as compared with the previous close of ₹69,008 per kg.HDFC Securities Senior Analyst (Commodities) Tapan Patel said, “Spot prices for 24 karat gold at Delhi fell by ₹358 in line with selling in global gold.” In the international markets, gold was down at $1,792 an ounce, while Silver was trading…