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UAE, Israel To Boost Biz Ties; Dubai Residents Can Now book Covid Tests in Malls; Pandemic Disrupted Critical Mental Health Services; Asia-Pacific Group Retains Pakistan on ‘Enhanced Follow-Up’ list; Taiwan Sends Strong Message Against Chinese Expansionism – all in Asian Lite Daily Digital – please click here to read.
Vijay Sethupathi is a very talented actor and will nail the bowling expressions in my biopic ‘800’, says former Sri Lankan spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan.
“800”, a fast-paced and funny biopic, is touted to be a moving portrayal of Muralitharan – one of cricket’s most brilliant characters. The film will be shot in Sri Lanka, UK, Australia and India. The shoot is slated to start at the beginning of 2021 and is set to release at the end of next year.
“Once the script was ready, we thought the best fit for this movie is non-other than Vijay Sethupathi,” said Muralitharan while speaking on Star Sports show Cricket Live.
“I think he is a very talented actor and he will nail the bowling expressions. I trust Vijay completely as he is one of the greatest actors and I have complete faith that he’ll definitely do wonders for the film.”
Speaking about Muralitharan, Sethupathi said, “It’s really nice to listen to his story and spend time with Murali sir. He is like a stamp, he makes a mark wherever he goes with his charming character and personality.”
“I love his real life, because fans have seen him in matches on the field, but very few have got a chance to know Murali sir’s personality off the field. He’s very adorable and lovable. He’s such a beautiful person and his story needs to be told,” he added.
The film will be made primarily in Tamil language. However, owing to Muralitharan and Sethupathi’s popularity, the film will also be dubbed in all South Indian languages as well as Hindi, Bengali and Sinhalese. An international version with English subtitles is also being planned.
Muralitharan is the only cricketer to have taken 800 wickets in Test cricket. Besides, he also picked up 534 and 13 wickets respectively in 350 ODIs and 12 T20Is.
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Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a telephonic discussion to assess the progression of bilateral relations in view of the peace accord the two countries recently signed.
The two leaders also reviewed the steps being taken to enhance UAE-Israel cooperation in various development and economic fields, the UAE’s official news agency WAM reports.
The two sides also affirmed that the normalisation of relations is a step to enhance regional peace, stability and security, and paves the way for a new phase of cooperation.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement that he had invited the crown prince to Israel, and that he also received the same invitation, although no dates were confirmed.
The Israeli Cabinet, meanwhile has approved the normalization deal with the UAE. It will now submit the agreement for parliamentary ratification.
During the call, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed reaffirmed the country’s keenness to exert all efforts to achieve peace, stability and development for all.
The two sides also discussed a number of various issues including strengthening cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus, ways to empower youth in the region, the principles or tolerance and cooperation among others.
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Full-stack financial solutions company Razorpay has raised $100 million in its Series D round of funding, making it another Indian unicorn with over $1 billion in valuation, joining the big startup-turned-unicorn league of BYJU’s, Swiggy, Zomato, Paytm and more.
The round was co-led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and Sequoia India, along with participation from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator and Matrix Partners, the company said in a statement.
Witnessing a 300 per cent growth in its business during the last six months, the new funding gives Razorpay $206.5 million in investments since its inception in 2014 (this includes recent $75 Million raise in Series C in 2019).
“This funding represents a huge endorsement of our belief of powering the financial infrastructure for disruptive businesses, simplifying the entire money flow so that businesses can focus more on disrupting the Indian economy with their new ideas, products and experiences, everyday,” said Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-Founder.
Razorpay plans to use the new funding to further strengthen and accelerate its two new product lines – RazorpayX which is a neo-banking platform and lending arm Razorpay Capital, and invest in new initiatives to empower SMEs.
The company expects RazorpayX and Razorpay Capital to contribute to 35 per cent of its revenue, with a 100 per cent increase in the company’s count of partner businesses, by FY21.
The funds raised will also be used towards hiring additional 500 employees.
“Neobanking is a nascent but fast-developing space in the Indian market and has the potential to become the one-stop platform for a business’ banking needs. This pushes us to develop new technologies that meet the rising demand,” Mathur said.
Despite the Covid-19 disruption, the fintech market is expected to grow to Rs 6.2 lakh crore by 2025.
“We will power payments and banking for 50 million businesses by 2025,” Mathur added.
Founded by IIT Roorkee alumni Shashank Kumar and Mathur, Razorpay is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y Combinator.
Around 33 angel investors have invested in Razorpay’s mission to simplify payments and banking and redefine how finance works in India.
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Mumbai Indians (MI) climbed to the top of the table with their five-wicket win over Delhi Capitals (DC) on Sunday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium. Skipper Rohit Sharma said that being top of the table gives the team confidence on the way they are approaching their matches.
“Means a lot (to be top of the table). The kind of cricket we are playing, gives us a lot of confidence. It’s important to have momentum with us, and it was a perfect day for us, getting those crucial two points,” said Rohit in the post-match presentation ceremony.
The defending champions first restricted DC to 162/4 despite their opener Shikhar Dhawan playing through the innings before chasing down the target with two balls to spare. Rohit said that they would like to make sure that one of the top order batsmen stays till the end in the death overs which did not happen for MI on Sunday.
“We were clinical with the bat, but not so much towards the end. We need one set batsman to finish off the game in general, and some set batsmen got out today. That is something we need to tighten up,” he said.
“But again, I don’t want to go too much into it because I think they batted really well. Chasing has not been so great in this tournament so looking at what we have done with the bat in the second half gives us that confidence we can chase any score.”
This was MI’s fourth consecutive win and they next face Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday.
Also Read: ‘Win At Roland Garros Means Everything To Me’
Rafael Nadal continued his marauding run at the French Open with a record-extending 13th title win on Sunday. He beat arch-rival and world no.1 Novak Djokovic 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 and the victory took him level with Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam wins, the most for any male singles player.
Nadal, however, said in his post-match speech that he is not thinking about the record. “A very tough year. Win here means everything to me. It’s not the moment, to be honest, for me to think about the 20th, equal Roger on this great number,” said Nadal.
“For me, today is just a Roland Garros victory. Roland Garros means everything to me. I spent here some of the most important moments in my tennis career, no doubt about that… for me, just play here is true inspiration. The love story I have with this city and with this court is unforgettable.”
Nadal also congratulated Djokovic, who he last beat in a Grand Slam final at the 2014 Roland Garros. Djokovic is also one of two players who have ever managed to beat Nadal at the French Open, having achieved the feat in the quarter final of the 2015 tournament.
“Congratulations to Novak for another great tournament. Sorry for today, you know. In Australia he killed me a couple of times ago. Today was for me, that’s part of the game. We’ve played plenty of times together: one day wins one, another day wins the other. So just all the best for the future, Novak,” he said.
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Barcelona and Brazil midfielder Philippe Coutinho said on Saturday that his hunger for success has increased three-fold after his season-long loan at Bayern Munich.
“I’m aiming to achieve many things this year at both a personal and collective level,” Coutinho told a virtual news conference, Xinhua news agency reports. “I can say that I returned to Spain with a lot of motivation. My desire to work and make things happen in my favour has tripled.”
The 28-year-old, who endured a difficult 18 months at Barcelona, has rediscovered his confidence since returning to the Camp Nou last month, shining in a central attacking midfield role behind Lionel Messi.
He carried that form into Brazil’s opening 2022 World Cup qualifier against Bolivia on Friday, scoring a goal and providing the cross that led to an own goal from the visitors as the Selecao cruised to a 5-0 win in Sao Paulo.
Coutinho said his time at Bayern had taught him the importance of a strong work ethic.
“What I learned at Bayern and what I can stress is the need to train hard. It’s something I’ve always done. But, now, if I have to work three or four times harder than normal, I’ll do it. I’ve been working on my physical fitness and I’m feeling really good. The intensity of the training is something that Bayern take very seriously and you can see that the players benefit from that,” he said.
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The semi-urban and tier-2 markets are at the forefront of driving growth in digital and intelligent technologies in India, leading to significant market recovery in the Unlock phase, said a top Honor India executive.
The comment comes after the company recently entered the India laptop market and expanded its wearables portfolio in the country.
“The pandemic has severely impacted all sectors of the economy. Since the ease of lockdown, businesses across industries have slowly started to pick-up,” Charles Peng, President, Honor India, told IANS in an interview.
“With consumers fast adapting to a new lifestyle, we have seen an uptick in demand for products that are complementing their living as well as keeping them connected and safe. We believe this trend will continue to drive growth for the rest of the year,” he said.
Particularly, the company said it has seen rise in demand for low-end and mid-range devices.
The Huawei subsidiary last week expanded its wearable portfolio in India with two new smartwatches – Watch ES and Watch GS Pro.
“Earlier we launched Watch Magic, MagicWatch2, Band 5, and Band 5i with features and innovations unheard of in the segment. Since then, we have witnessed great success in the wearable market and emerged as a consumer favourite with impressive 4+ ratings for all products on both of India’s largest e-commerce channels Amazon & Flipkart,” Peng said.
Also Read: ‘Indian Economy Clearly On Recovery Path’
“After receiving an overwhelming response from the Indian market, we are now focussed on expanding our product offerings in the wearable segment.
“In India, we are among the Top 4 smart wearable brands,” he said.
According to the Honor India president, the company’s entry into the India laptop market in August has also turned out to be a success.
The company’s introductory laptop, Honor MagicBook 15, comes with an 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, a hidden pop-up webcam, 2-in-1 fingerprint power button and a compact 65W fast charger.
“It was sold out within seconds as soon as it went online. Further, we have received encouraging and positive feedback from our consumers who wish to own a PC that fulfills their requirements as well as suits their personality with a premium product at a competitive price,” Peng said.
“On future prospects, we are confident about our performance in India. We aim to create an intelligent new world for individuals by developing a smart living ecosystem having a diverse product portfolio including smart band, smartwatch, smart audio, laptops, and smartphones,” he said.
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Indian embassies and consulates abroad, including the GCC states, will soon facilitate the renewal of International Driving Permits, IDP, for citizens whose IDP has expired while they are abroad.
“It has come to notice that for citizens who are in a foreign country, the International Driving Permit gets expired and there is no mechanism for its renewal while abroad,” the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways here said in a press release. “Citizens can apply through Indian embassy/Mission abroad portals and the applications would then move to the VAHAN for being considered by the respective RTOs.”
VAHAN is the Indian government’s integrated system for services such as vehicle registration, issuance of permits and payment of taxes under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. RTOs stand for Regional Transport Offices, the organisation of the Indian government responsible for maintaining a database of drivers.
The new procedure for renewal of IDPs of Indians while they are abroad through Indian diplomatic missions is to be facilitated through an amendment to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules of 1989.
The government is also seeking comments and suggestions from the public for such amendments. They can be sent to the Joint Secretary (MVL,IT & Toll), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Transport Bhawan, Parliament Street, New Delhi-110 001 within 30 days or emailed to jspb-morth@gov.in
Proposed amendments include removal of the requirement of a medical certificate and a valid visa at the time of making the request for an IDP while an Indian is abroad. “Further, there are many countries where visa is issued on arrival and in such cases the visa was not available when applying for the IDP in India before travel,” the press release said.
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