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Air pollution hypertension among top 5 risk factors for death in India in 2019 Study

According to the study, hypertension is the third leading risk factor after air pollution, responsible for 10-20 per cent of all health loss in eight states in India, primarily in the south.

“Most of these risk factors are preventable and treatable, and tackling them will bring huge social and economic benefits,” said study lead author Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in the US.

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Retail cheque payments down to a trickle in FY20 to 2.96%: RBI data

Behind all these, the Reserve Bank has played the crucial role of an operator, catalyst and facilitator, regulator and supervisor.

Some recent RBI initiatives to enhance security and increase customer confidence in digital payments include mandating use of only EMV chip and PIN-based debit and credit cards from January 2019; tokenisation from January 2019; facility to switch on/off transactions; mandatory positive confirmation to remove any ambiguity of NEFT/RTGS funds transfers from March 2010, and January 2019, respectively.

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8 million have slipped into Poverty in US since May as govt aid has dried up

The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic’s start as a result of a $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act.

Using a different definition of poverty, researchers from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame found that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children.

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Driverless race steps up with Cruise allowed to drive empty in San Francisco

Cruise is the fifth company to receive the driverless permit in California. Alphabet’s Waymo was the first in late 2018 to receive it for about three dozen test vehicles with speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. This year SoftBank-backed Nuro, whose vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals, was also approved and has delivered medical supplies for temporary COVID-19 hospitals.

Chinese startup AutoX and Amazon.com Inc’s AMZN.O Zoox also got their permits in recent months. The four previous permits are for cities in Silicon Valley that are easier to navigate.Under its permit, Cruise cars can go anywhere on San Francisco streets at a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour, and can drive both day and night.

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