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Delta variant forces Silicon Valley giants to rethink office-return plans

Recent court decisions have upheld employers’ rights to require vaccinations, including a ruling that said Houston Methodist Hospital could require health care workers to get shots. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Indiana University could require students to be vaccinated as well.

“The legal authority continues to line up on the side of employers being allowed to mandate vaccines if they choose to,” said Douglas Brayley, an employment lawyer at the global law firm Ropes & Gray.

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Gig economy to boost employment of Indian women in formal sector: Study

The survey also reflects that some key sectors that are likely to see an increase in women’s employment are health and pharmaceuticals (by 59 per cent), electrical and electronics (by 44 per cent) and fast-moving consumer goods (perishable goods) industry (by 41 per cent).

At the same time, women’s employment in the finance and accounting divisions may moderately change due to the adoption of new technology

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India’s economic rebound faces rising risk from Delta variant: Reuters poll

“Resurgence in cases and (any) emergence of fresh variants are notable risks for the economy for the rest of the year, particularly at a time when vaccination coverage is short of achieving a critical mass,” said DBS economist Radhika Rao.

“Reinstatement of movement curbs risks deepening the damage inflicted on the informal sector, which contributes to nearly half of the national output and employs a majority.”

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India plans more power islands to counter cyber, terrorist threats

The plan follows a major power outage in India’s financial hub Mumbai last year that brought the city to a halt and prompted speculation about a cyber attack. The year before, the country’s nuclear power monopoly reported computer systems at one of its generation plants had been attacked by malware. Power grids the world over are increasingly digitalized, leaving them vulnerable to such attacks.

Islanding systems feature generation capacity and can isolate automatically from the main grid in the event of an outage. For the new systems, provinces need to submit proposals for setting up generation and storage capacities, power minister Raj Kumar Singh Singh said

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COVID-19 vaccine: Results of CoronaVac are patchy, but the world can’t ignore its usefulness

The WHO Situation Report of July 19 2021 noted that the number of COVID-19 cases reported worldwide increased by 12% in the previous week. Right now, the pandemic is growing.

There are also widespread concerns about unfolding outbreaks in many places across sub-Saharan Africa. Most countries in the continent have populations that are almost entirely unvaccinated and so greatly susceptible to new outbreaks. The tragic circumstances of the huge outbreak earlier this year in India shows how COVID-19 can wreak havoc on a susceptible population.

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