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Google turns Android phones into earthquake sensors; California to get alerts

by | Aug 11, 2020 | , , , ,

eismology experts consulted by Google said turning smartphones into mini-seismographs marked a major advancement, despite the inevitably of erroneous alerts from a work in progress, and the reliance on a private company’s algorithms for public safety. More than 2.5 billion devices, including some tablets, run Google’s Android operating system.

“We are on a path to delivering earthquake alerts wherever there are smartphones,” said Richard Allen, director of University of California Berkeley’s seismological lab and visiting faculty at Google over the last year.

Jobless youth risk lifelong ‘scarring’ from pandemic – ILO

by | Aug 11, 2020 | ,

“The COVID-19 pandemic has a systematic, deep and disproportionate impact on young people,” Sangheon Lee, director of ILO’s employment policy department, told a news briefing.

Evidence from previous crises suggests young people who lack access to job opportunities when entering the labour market face ongoing consequences throughout their working lives, he said. “That is what we call ‘scarring effects’.”

Young women and youths in low-income countries are among the hardest hit, he said.

Kozhikode AI Express crash: 56 passengers sent home,says airline

by | Aug 10, 2020 |

Air India Express’ flight IX-1344 with 190 people onboard overshot the runway at Karipur airport while landing and fell into a 35 feet deep valley. Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe, the pilot in command of the Boeing 737 aircraft, and co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar also lost their lives as more than 100 were injured in the country’s worst commercial aircraft accident in a decade.

WHO decries ‘vast global gap’ in funds needed to fight coronavirus

by | Aug 10, 2020 | , , ,

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO was only “10% of the way” to funding the billions of dollars required.

“For the vaccines alone, over $100 billion will be needed,” Tedros said. This sounds like lot of money and it is.

“But it’s small in comparison to the $10 trillion that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far.”

10 states account for 80% Covid-19 cases:PM Modi,

by | Aug 10, 2020 | , , , , ,

“Our experience so far is that containment, contact tracing and surveillance are the most effective weapons against the pandemic with experts of the view that if positive cases are identified within 72 hours of onset, then infection slows down to great extent,” prime minister Narendra Modi said.

Modi said it was a matter of satisfaction that the average fatality rate in India has been going down and noted that it has been very low compared to the world average.
With the fresh cases, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 22.68 lakh, while the recoveries have surged to 15,83,489, pushing the recovery rate to 69.80 per cent.

 DGCA,airport authority ignored warnings on Kozhikode table top runway

by | Aug 9, 2020 | , , ,

The runway at Kozhikode, where the latest crash took place, doesn’t have an adequate safety mechanism, especially in wet conditions with a tailwind, a member of the aviation regulator’s Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council wrote in a letter to top bureaucrats in 2011, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg News.
A ground arrestor system, similar to those maintained at Air Force bases, should be installed at table top airports to bring any skidding aircraft to a halt, an investigation report into the 2010 crash of another Air India Express jet recommended.

Scientists develop low-cost way to test mask against viral droplets

by | Aug 9, 2020 | , , , ,

According to the researchers from Duke University in the US, the preliminary, proof-of-principle findings suggest that professional-grade N95 masks, surgical or polypropylene masks, and handmade cotton masks may all block much of the droplet-spray produced when wearers speak.

However, they said bandanas and neck fleeces likely provide little protection, as the scientists observed that more droplets are expelled through these materials.

COVID-19 impact: Major ports’ cargo handling drops 18% to 193 MT in April-July

by | Aug 9, 2020 | , ,

India has 12 major ports under the control of the central government — Deendayal (erstwhile Kandla), Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar (earlier Ennore), V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia).

These ports handle about 61 percent of the country’s total cargo traffic. These ports handled 705MT of cargo last fiscal.