Author: Mike Harrison

Left parties and the Congress on Thursday agreed on seat sharing in almost two thirds of the Assembly seats in West Bengal — 193 of the 294 seats — that will go to polls. Of the 193 seats, the Congress will contest in 92 and the Left in 101 seats. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Leader of the Left Front Biman Basu held a joint press conference at Bidhan Bhawan, the headquarters of West Bengal Congress, announcing the seat sharing arrangement. Both expressed confidence that the seat sharing would be completed in next few days. Sources said both…

Police, local villagers and administrations want them to vacate multiple dharna locations After two months of protests without any significant pushback, the farmers’ agitation on the borders of Delhi is now seeing concerted pressure and intimidation from police, as well as local villagers and administrations, to force them to vacate multiple dharna locations. Putting farm unions further on the backfoot in the wake of Republic Day violence, show-cause notices have been issued to union leaders, six of whom have been summoned to join the probe at the Delhi Police Special Cell office on Friday.Also read: Farmers’ protests | Union leaders…

The 2022 Women’s Asian Cup, to be hosted by India, will be held from January 20 to February 6, the Asian Football Confederation announced on Thursday.The tournament will feature 12 teams, expanded from eight in the previous edition, comprising three groups of four with a minimum of 25 matches being played over 18 days. Eight teams will qualify for the newly-introduced quarterfinals. The event will also serve as a qualification tournament for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which will see a record five Asian teams seal their spots to join co-host Australia for the newly-expanded 32-team global showpiece.Centralised venue…

Six-judge bench was assembled with Prime Minister Nehru, 13 High Court judges in attendance. Seventy one years ago, the Supreme Court of India took its seat for the first time under a new Constitution in the Court Chamber in Parliament House on January 28.Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde remembered the occasion of the inaugural sitting of the court with Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta as soon as his Bench assembled on Thursday for hearing disputes through a virtual court system chiseled out of a necessity to render justice amid the shroud cast by a…

Sri Lanka on Thursday received 5,00,000 vials of Covid-19 vaccine gifted by India, the country’s first consignment as the island nation prepares to begin its rollout. President Rajapaksa, who received the vaccines from the Indian High Commissioner at the Bandaranaike International Airport on Thursday morning, tweeted: “Received 500,000 #COVIDー19 vaccines provided by #peopleofindia at #BIA today(28). Thank you! PM Shri @narendramodi & #peopleofindia for the generosity shown towards #PeopleofSriLanka at this time in need.” Vaccination will commence on Friday at six main hospitals in Sri Lanka’s Western Province, a statement from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office said. “Around 1,50,000 health workers,…

Six of the vaccines were getting close to expiring so the workers decided to offer them to other stranded drivers at Josephine County in Oregon. Oregon health workers who got stuck in a snowstorm on their way back from a COVID-19 vaccination event went car to car injecting stranded drivers before several of the doses expired.Josephine County Public Health said on Facebook that the “impromptu vaccine clinic” took place after about 20 employees were stopped in traffic on a highway after a vaccination clinic.Six of the vaccines were getting close to expiring so the workers decided to offer them to…

The Novasep’s factory in the town of Seneffe is part of the European production chain for the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Belgian health authorities announced on Thursday that they have inspected a pharmaceutical factory in Belgium to find out whether expected delays in the deliveries of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine are due to production issues.The European Commission had asked the Belgian government to inspect the factory amid a heated public dispute between the 27-nation bloc and the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker. European Union (EU) officials are under tremendous political pressures because the bloc’s vaccine rollout has been much slower than that of Israel…

The think-tank said China was not included “due to a lack of publicly available data on testing”. New Zealand and Vietnam were ranked the best performing countries in their response to the pandemic according to a COVID-19 “performance index” put together by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank, which sought to assess the impact of geography, political systems and economic development in assessing outcomes.The index, which was based on six different indicators including confirmed cases and deaths per million people and the scale of testing, sought “to gauge the relative performance of countries”, assessing 98 countries in the 36 weeks…

Data from research firm IDC showed Apple’s shipments surged 22% to a record 90.1 million phones in the quarter, giving it global market share of 23.4%. (Subscribe to our Today’s Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)Apple Inc cornered nearly a quarter of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter, making it the world’s biggest seller, while shipments for Huawei plunged as U.S sanctions against it took effect.Data from research firm IDC showed Apple’s shipments surged 22% to a record 90.1 million phones in the quarter, giving it global…

Experts say the attacks reflect North Korean efforts to improve its cyber skills and be able to breach widely used computer products. (Subscribe to our Today’s Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)Google says it believes hackers backed by the North Korean government have been posing as computer security bloggers and using fake accounts on social media while attempting to steal information from researchers in the field.Google didn’t specify how successful the hackers were or what kind of information could have been compromised. Experts say the attacks reflect North Korean…