The film is scheduled for a digital release on Amazon Prime Video…reports Asian Lite News.
Actress Vidya Balan is known for her very strong roles in the industry. Vidya now released the teaser of her upcoming film “Sherni” on her social media accounts on Monday.
“A tigress always knows the way! Ready to hear the #sherni roar? Here’s the official teaser. Trailer out on June 2,” the actress wrote as caption with the first clip of the film, which she posted on Instagram and Twitter.
The actress, who plays the role of a forest officer in the film is seen wandering through the wilds with her team, searching for something. “Jungle kitna bhi ghana kyun na ho, sherni apna raasta dhoond hi leti hai (no matter how dense the jungle, the tigress knows the way),” her voiceover says in the teser.
Sherni is directed by “Newton” helmer Amit Masurkar, and also features Neeraj Kabi, Vijay Raaz, Sharat Saxena, Mukul Chadda, Brijendra Kala and Ila Arun in supporting roles.
The film is scheduled for a digital release on Amazon Prime Video.
Meanwhile, he is excited about his popular “Dabangg” avatar of Inspector Chulbul Pandey getting an animated avatar on the small screen. “Dabangg: The Animated Series” will be created keeping in mind his young fans…writes Ahana Bhattacharya
The crisis period has not ended yet and people are suffocating with the continuous lockdown restrictions. Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has shared words of encouragement for fans facing various crises amidst the ongoing second wave of the Covid pandemic.
“I would just like to say that we all need to stay positive and hold the fort until these bad times pass. This is a phase and it shall pass. I know all of us are going through very critical times, we must have faith and help each other in whatever way we can,” Salman said.
Meanwhile, he is excited about his popular “Dabangg” avatar of Inspector Chulbul Pandey getting an animated avatar on the small screen. “Dabangg: The Animated Series” will be created keeping in mind his young fans.
“‘Dabangg: The Animated Series’ is an adaptation and reimagination of ‘Dabangg’. The action-comedy series chronicles the day-to-day life of police officer Chulbul Pandey, who stands in the face of evil to keep the city safe. He is joined by his younger brother Makkhi, who, new to the police force, attempts to emulate his older brother in every sticky situation,” Salman said.
Quizzed if he is lending his voice to the lead character of Chulbul Pandey, the actor replied: “Unfortunately I am not lending the voice to the character in the animated series, but fans wouldn’t be disappointed because the voiceover actors have done a fantastic job.”
Backed by Cosmos-Maya and Arbaaz Khan Productions, “Dabangg: The Animated Series” streams on Disney+ Hotstar VIP.
Talking about the process of bringing oxygen concentrators to India, he added: “I want to thank India Club of Jakarta (Indonesia) who were so prompt in helping me…reports Asian Lite News.
People from all over the world is coming forward to help India amid the pandemic crisis. Actor Gurmeet Choudhary has put an official stamp on his philanthropy, launching The Gurmeet Choudhary Foundation, which he says will work at “enhancing the health care system” by focusing on a “plethora of diseases that the country faces year after year”.
He has also arranged for oxygen concentrators from Indonesia with the help of India Club, Jakarta, a non-profit organisation.
“The Gurmeet Choudhary Foundation aims at not only empowering the nation with resources to battle this virus but also cementing and enhancing the healthcare system with (facility to fight) the plethora of diseases that the country faces year after year. I have already started working towards achieving this aim,” the actor said.
Talking about the process of bringing oxygen concentrators to India, he added: “I want to thank India Club of Jakarta (Indonesia) who were so prompt in helping me. My idea to get these oxygen concentrators was to reach out to the rural areas which are in the need of it, the most. I want to reach out to all the small cities and two-tier locations which currently are suffering from a lack of resources.”
Earlier, the actor launched hospitals in tier-2 cities.
He said the volunteers are delivering the goods maintaining all the Covid protocols and standard operating procedures (SOPs) during non-curfew hours…reports Sujit Chakraborty.
The Guwahati cycling community, which had started its mission a couple of years ago to protect the environment and save fuel, besides popularising cycling as a mode of recreation, is now helping Covid patients, ailing people and senior citizens.
The ‘Cycling Community’ of Guwahati launched the ‘Relief Riders’ mission two weeks ago to serve Covid patients, ailing people, senior citizens and those in distress with essential items, including food and medicines.
One of the pioneers of the ‘Relief Riders’ mission, Arshel Akhter, said that riding their bicycles, the members of the cycling community are delivering prepared food, medicines, vegetables, fruits, groceries and other essential items to those in need without charging anything for delivery.
“Through online mode or by making cash payments, the beneficiaries are paying for their required items and our volunteers are delivering the essentials at the doorsteps of the people or at the Covid Care Centres,” Akhter said.
He said the volunteers are delivering the goods maintaining all the Covid protocols and standard operating procedures (SOPs) during non-curfew hours.
According to Akhter, who was named ‘Bicycle Mayor’, an honourary position conferred by the Amsterdam-based social enterprise BYCS, the Relief Riders mission currently has 16 volunteers in different parts of Guwahati and the numbers are increasing since the mission was launched on May 17.
The volunteers are aged between 22 and 59 years, who are delivering the essential items within a radius of 3 km from their respective homes.
He said the Relief Riders mission was started in Guwahati following the footsteps of Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and a few other cities, where the cycling community got together to help the people in need.
Bikash Doley, an entrepreneur and a volunteer for the Relief Riders mission, said that the Bengaluru team had guided them to devise a simplified process to operate the entire scheme.
“We have a few helpline numbers where people can call to place their orders. Once we get the orders, we post them in our internal group alerting the rider staying nearest to the beneficiary. We try to keep all transactions contact less by encouraging digital modes of payment. We also follow social distancing measures, personal hygiene and wearing of masks etc.,” Doley said.
Another volunteer, Siddharth Bhattaroy, said that they are also saving fuel, protecting the environment and preventing carbon dioxide emissions by using bicycles, which can also pass though narrow lanes and by-lanes with ease.
Cycling enthusiast Ripunjoy Gogoi said that if a medicine or some essential good is not available near the requester’s place, the group forms a relay team to deliver the item to the concerned citizen.
The senior most Relief Rider member, Gautam Choudhury, said that the volunteers’ strength is growing daily and they expect more people to join their mission to reach out to needy people.
Meanwhile, ‘World Bicycle Day’ would be observed on June 3 through numerous events. The Guwahati Active Mobility Forum would organise some competitions for people of different age groups on the occasion.
Akhter said the UN in 2018 had declared June 3 as the ‘World Bicycle Day’.
This comes as calls for a further investigation into the pandemic has intensified in the past few days…reports Asian Lite News.
Amid mounting concerns regarding a renewed probe of the origins of COVID-19 in China, former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that accidental lab leaks ‘happen all the time’ and there have been six last known outbreaks of SARS-1 from China.
In an interview with US media, Gottlieb expressed concern about safety protocols at research labs in the US and abroad. He said that a conclusive determination on where the pandemic originated was critical to prevent deadly outbreaks in the future, reported Fox News.
“These kinds of lab leaks happen all the time, actually…Even here in the United States, we’ve had mishaps, and in China, the last six known outbreaks of SARS-1 have been out of labs, including the last known outbreak, which was a pretty extensive outbreak that China initially wouldn’t disclose that it came out of a lab,” he said.
This comes as calls for a further investigation into the pandemic has intensified in the past few days.
Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care after they fell ill in November 2019, a month before Beijing reported the first patient with COVID-like symptoms.
The report provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits.
The controversy about COVID-19 origins has resurfaced after the Weekend Australian newspaper revealed that Chinese scientists were thinking about bioweapons, visualising a World War-III scenario.
Wuhan Institute of Virology
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said earlier this month that the evidence suggests that the coronavirus originated from the lab in Wuhan city of China, adding that the risk of bioweapons and bioterror arising from the region is “very real”.
Pompeo told Fox News that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)”covered up” the origins of COVID-19 and that evidence continues to mount despite their efforts to deny access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“We worked to get every bit of evidence that we could, we tried to deliver this to the CDC, tried to work with the Chinese. They covered it up terribly,” Pompeo said.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has asked the US intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to come to a conclusion on the origins of COVID-19 and report back to him within 90 days.
“I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” Biden said in a statement on the investigation into the origins of COVID-19. (ANI)
Ghebreyesus said that the defining characteristic of the pandemic is the lack of sharing: of data, information, pathogens, technologies and resources…reports Asian Lite News.
The Covid-19 pandemic has proved that the world needs a pandemic treaty to strengthen both the World Health Organization (WHO) and global health security, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.
“This is an idea whose time has come,” said Ghebreyesus, in his closing remarks at the WHO’s 74th World Health Assembly (WHA), which took placee online from May 24 to Tuesday.
Ghebreyesus said that the defining characteristic of the pandemic is the lack of sharing: of data, information, pathogens, technologies and resources.
“A treaty would foster improved sharing, trust and accountability, and provide the solid foundation on which to build other mechanisms for global health security.
“Pandemics are a threat to all of us. So we must work together to build a healthier, safer, fairer future — for all of us,” he said.
At the 2021 WHA, which had the theme “Ending this pandemic, preventing the next one”, Ghebreyesus also called for a stronger and better-financed WHO.
“At present, pathogens have greater power than WHO. They are emerging more frequently in a planet out of balance. They exploit our interconnectedness and expose our inequities and divisions” he noted.
People head to the entrance of a mass COVID-19 vaccination site at the United Center in Chicago, the United States,
“The safety of the world’s people cannot rely solely on the goodwill of governments,” Ghebreyesus said, adding the need for more resources and authority along with an international treaty to connect countries that would strengthen the world’s health security.
Ghebreyesus noted that the continuing decline in global Covid cases and deaths is very encouraging, “but it would be a monumental error for any country to think the danger has passed”.
The world still faces “the same vulnerabilities that allowed a small outbreak to become a global pandemic”, he said.
“As the Mayor of Tulsa, I apologise for the city government’s failure to protect our community in 1921 and to do right by the victims of the Race Massacre in its aftermath…reports Asian Lite News.
G.T. Bynum, Mayor of Tulsa where hundreds of Black people were killed 100 years ago, has apologised for the US city’s role in the massacre.
“Tulsa’s city government failed to protect Black Tulsans from murder and arson on the night of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and from discrimination in subsequent decades,” Bynum wrote in the statement posted online on Monday.
“As the Mayor of Tulsa, I apologise for the city government’s failure to protect our community in 1921 and to do right by the victims of the Race Massacre in its aftermath.
“The victims – men, women, young children – deserved better from their city, and I am so sorry they didn’t receive it,” Xinhua news agency quoted Bynum as saying.
The city in the state of Oklahoma is commemorating the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre centennial with events and ceremonies to honour the victims.
On the night of May 31, 1921, a white mob descended the prosperous, all-black neighbourhood of Greenwood in north Tulsa.
In less than 24 hours, the mob burned what had been known as “Black Wall Street” to the ground leaving more than 10,000 residents homeless.
The exact death toll was not recorded, but an estimated 300 people died in the tragedy.
Historians believed that mass graves could be located within the city where digging is conducted.
The support from US lawmakers and policymakers is a result of a sustained outreach at US Congress by India’s top envoy Sandhu and senior Indian diplomats…reports Asian Lite News.
Indian Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu on Sunday called on US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss the strategic partnership between the two countries, especially in the Quad, COVID-19 vaccines and healthcare.
Taking to Twitter, Sandhu said: “Good conversation w/ Majority Leader @SenSchumer on the strategic partnership especially in QUAD; vaccines & healthcare. Discussed working together in innovation as well as emerging technologies & thanked him for his longstanding support for India & Indian American community.”
Good conversation w/ Majority Leader @SenSchumer on the 🇮🇳🇺🇸strategic partnership especially in QUAD; vaccines & healthcare. Discussed working together in innovation as well as emerging technologies & thanked him for his longstanding support for India & Indian American community. pic.twitter.com/AflkOf9H2Z
— Taranjit Singh Sandhu (@SandhuTaranjitS) May 30, 2021
During the conversation, the Senate majority leader expressed concern over the sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in India and both sides discussed how the two countries are working together in innovation and emerging technologies.
Apart from Schumer, some of the other top American Senators who have come out in support of India over the past few months include Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen Dick Durbin, John Cornyn, Mark Warner, Bob Menendez, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, Jim Risch, Dianne Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar and Gary Peters.
The support from US lawmakers and policymakers is a result of a sustained outreach at US Congress by India’s top envoy Sandhu and senior Indian diplomats.
The Indian envoy had also had virtual meetings with eminent Republicans including Michael McCaul, Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Steve Chabot who is the Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific; Brian Fitzpatrick, Jeff Fortenberry, Ann Wagner, Andy Barr, Liz Cheney, Scott Perry, Pete Sessions, Michael Waltz and Joe Wilson.
As India suffered from a devastating second wave of the global pandemic, the country received medical help and assistance from the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, in the form of oxygen concentrators, ventilators, raw materials for vaccines, PPE kits.
Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was recently on a five-day visit to the US, where he met Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Trade Representative Katherine Tai and 13 other departments and organizations, comprising of treasury, energy, commerce, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) representatives, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This was the first visit of an Indian diplomat to the US since President Joe Biden took charge earlier this year. (ANI)
It said that under the scam, in order to obtain the H1-B visas, Cloudgen submitted “forged contracts” showing that third companies had work for the persons it wanted to bring over…reports Arul Louis.
A technology company has admitted to committing fraud to bring Indians on the coveted H1-B visas to the US, according to a federal prosecutor.
Jomon Chakkalakkal, the corporate representative of Cloudgen, made the admission before a federal court in Houston, Texas, on behalf of the company on May 28, said acting federal Prosecutor Jennifer B. Lowery.
The prosecutor’s office in a news release circulated on Monday described the scam as a “bench and switch” ruse.
It said that under the scam, in order to obtain the H1-B visas, Cloudgen submitted “forged contracts” showing that third companies had work for the persons it wanted to bring over.
But once the employees came to the US there was no job for them and they were housed in different locations across the US, while Cloudgen would try to find work for them, according to the office.
“Such action gave Cloudgen a competitive advantage by having a steady ‘bench’ or supply of visa-ready workers to send to different employers based on market needs when the true process actually takes some time. Once workers had obtained new employment, the ‘switch’ would occur when the new third-party company filed immigration paperwork for the foreign workers,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Cloudgen took a percentage of the worker’s salary, which amounted to nearly $500,000 from 2013 to 2020 when the scam took place, it said.
Chief Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Southern Texas federal court is to impose a sentence in September and it could be a fine of as much as $1 million and probation for five years.
The prosecutor’s office said that Cloudgen was based in Houston, but on its website, the company lists an address in Manassas in Virginia.
It also shows offices in Hyderabad, Canada and Romania.
Chakkalakkal is described on the website as the senior vice president for sales.
This comes after Hamid Mir, the host of the flagship news program “Capital Talk”, raised concern about the safety of his colleagues…reports Asian Lite News
A popular news anchor in Pakistan has been taken off the air for three days after he spoke against the rising curbs on freedom of expression in the country.
This comes after Hamid Mir, the host of the flagship news program “Capital Talk”, raised concern about the safety of his colleagues, following the recent attack on reporter Asad Ali Toor.
Mir, who himself has survived assassination attempts said that he ready to go to any extent because “they” are threatening his family. “Nothing new for me. I was banned twice in the past. Lost jobs twice. Survived assassination attempts but cannot stop raising voice for the rights given in the constitution,” he tweeted.
The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists strongly condemned pressure applied to ban Hamid Mir from his show. “First journalists are attacked and when media persons protest against such attacks, the government employs fascist tactics to silence them.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) also condemned the decision to take journalist Hamid Mir off the air. “That Mr Mir has been promptly silenced and his family allegedly threatened is now a tipping point for press freedom – and one that will not be resolved through the optics of law-making in the shape of the long-touted and heavily criticised journalists’ protection bill,” HRCP tweeted.
Meanwhile, the management of the channel where Hamid was employed, has confirmed to the media that Hamid Mir will not be able to host “Capital Talk” indefinitely.
According to Geo Administration sources cited by Daily News, Mir has been sent on leave for a few days.
Several Pakistani journalists have stepped forward to show solidarity with Mir. Pakistani journalist and political commentator Asma Sherazi said the channel management must clarify their position.
“If @HamidMirPAK is taken off air or banned from doing program on Geo News, more fingers will point towards the powerful establishment and the government while resounding the ‘words that he said’. Journalists of Pak stand with Hamid Mir. Geo management must clarify its position,” Shirazi, Winner of 2014 Peter Mackler Award of Courage and Ethical Journalism said in a tweet.
Recently, Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor, who is known for criticising the country’s establishment, was attacked at his apartment in Islamabad. He had said members of the country’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), could be behind the brutal attack on him.
In December last year, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in a ‘White Paper on Global Journalism’ listed five countries, including Pakistan as the ‘Most Dangerous Countries for Practice of Journalism in the World’. As many as 138 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 1990. (ANI)
