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Business Lifestyle USA

A Whopping $5,600 Tip Left Restaurant Staffs In Tears

A customer left a whopping $5,600 (over four lakh rupees) tip at a restaurant in the US state of Ohio, which allowed the establishment’s 28-person staff to take home $200 each, a media report said.

In a Facebook post, Moussa Salloukh, the owner of Souk Mediterranean Kitchen & Bar in Toledo, said the generosity left staffers cry tears of joy, the Daily Mail said in its report published on Monday.

“This really happened. Last night one of our guests left a $5,600 tip to be given to all of our staff, whether they were working that shift or not. It meant each of our 28 staff members received a $200 tip. What an amazing gesture of kindness to my employees,” Salloukh wrote in his post dated December 13.

“Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people,” he said, adding: “With Covid restrictions and guidelines, that was not going to happen for them this year. So this heartfelt generosity was deeply needed and very appreciated.”

Along with the post, Salloukh also attached a photo of the receipt that the customer left behind, showing a one penny food purchase and the handwritten $5,600 tip.

Speaking to a local TV channel, the restaurant owner said after the customer left behind the tip, his general manager walked up to him with “this look on her”.

“I asked if everything was all right and she just kind of showed me the check and it was a $5,600.00 tip,” the Daily Mail news report quoted Salloukh as saying.

The massive tip came at a time as the pandemic-induced restrictions the pandemic have led to the closures of indoor dining and restaurants across the country.

There has also been dramatic downturns in earnings, especially during the traditionally busy holiday season.

About 17 per cent of the country’s restaurants, roughly 110,000, have permanently closed this year, with thousands more on the brink of shutting shop, according to a recent National Restaurant Association report.

Also Read: Emerging Economies Expect Benefits From $900 Bn US Stimulus

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Football Sport

EFL Expects Spectators For Rescheduled Carabao Cup Final

Carabao Cup

This season’s Carabao Cup final has been rescheduled and will now take place on April 25 next year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the English Football League (EFL) has announced.

“It is the objective of the league to stage the final with as many supporters in attendance as possible and the decision has therefore been taken to move the final from its original date of Sunday 28 February 2021 to later in the year,” EFL said in a statement.

“The number of fans permitted will be dependent on government guidance in place at the time and it is hoped that moving the date to later in the year will give clubs and their fans the best opportunity to attend in person,” it added.

Supporters have not been able to attend matches in full capacity since March following the coronavirus outbreak, and recently large parts of UK returned to tiers which ban all fans from attending sporting events.

The competition is set to continue this week, with the quarter-finals to be played across December 22 and 23.

Also Read: India Suspends all flights from UK

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Cricket Sport

Ashwin Is A World Class Performer: Smith

Australia's Steve Smith

Australia batsman Steve Smith on Tuesday said he did not play Ravichandran Ashwin well in the first Test at the Adelaide Oval and is looking forward to counter the India off-spinner in the Boxing Day fixture at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Ashwin got Smith caught at slip for just one in the first innings with a delivery that did not turn. Smith said it was his mistake against what he thinks was decent bowling.

“He (Ashwin) is a good bowler, he has played a lot of cricket. He is a world class performer. Unfortunately, he got the better of me the other day, I will hopefully learn something from that and move forward and play him in the next game…I just nicked one that didn’t spin. Unfortunately, that happens sometimes and I thought it was pretty well bowled. The two balls prior to that spun a bit and got grip off the wicket. The next one was more of a sidespin and just skidded on. I didn’t play as well as I could. That was just decent bowling,” Smith told reporters in a virtual media interaction while recalling the dismissal on the second day of the first Test.

“Playing in Australia to playing in India is completely different. The ball probably doesn’t spin as regularly as it does in India…at times he got over the top of the ball and at other times, in my dismissal for instance, he came rounded and tried to skid it on. So, good piece of bowling,” added Smith.

The Aussie’s failure to get going in the first Test was a rare occasion he failed against India. Despite his failure, the Aussies managed to pull off a convincing win, thanks to their bowlers who shot India out for 36, the lowest Test total for the Indians.

The visitors go into the next Test, starting December 26, as a depleted side. Their skipper Virat Kohli will be missing as he returns to attend the birth of his first child.

Smith was asked by an Indian reporter about what India should do to make a comeback. He replied, “I think it is important to keep moving forward. Look at yourself individually at what you could have done better which I think is important enough after any game…whether you bat well or you don’t. You reflect what you can do in the next game or in the rest of the games for the series to have an impact…Again every individual is different. The way they take their dismissals, how they think about their game after it is finished.”

Also Read: Australia shuts borders with Sydney amid Covid cluster

Also Read: Consolation Win for Aus, Series for India

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Sport

FIH Ranking: India Men Ends 2020 at No. 4

Indian Men's Hockey Team

The Indian men’s hockey team are placed at the fourth spot in the latest FIH team rankings while the women’s team are placed at the ninth position.

Belgium men and the Netherlands women will finish the year at the top of the rankings, confirmed the International Hockey Federation on Monday.

In the men’s rankings, reigning world and European champions Belgium (2496.88 points) sit at the summit in front of Australia (2nd place – 2385.70), Netherlands (3rd place – 2257.96) and India (4th place – 2063.78).

Olympic champions Argentina (1967.39) are in fifth, followed by Germany (6th place – 1944.34), England/Great Britain (7th place – 1743.77), New Zealand (8th place – 1575.00), Spain (9th place – 1559.32) and Canada (10th place – 1417.37).

In women’s rankings, The Netherlands (2631.99 points) are 457 ranking points ahead second placed Argentina (2174.61), with Germany (2054.28) occupying third position, climbing one place following their Pro League results against Belgium in September.


Australia (2012.89) finish the year in fourth place, with England/Great Britain (1952.74) and New Zealand (1818.98) fifth and sixth respectively. Spain (7th place – 1802.13), Ireland (8th place – 1583.09), India (9th place – 1543.00) and China (10th place – 1521.00) complete the top ten.

In January, FIH had introduced its new match-based model for the calculation of the world rankings, with the Pro League matches that were played in early part of the year seeing regular fluctuations in the standings before the Covid-19 global health pandemic brought the competition – and all international hockey – to a standstill in March.

The brief return of the competition between September and November saw further exchanges of points between the men’s and women’s national teams of Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Great Britain.

The Indian men’s hockey team’s campaign in the ongoing Pro League is scheduled to restart on April 10 and 11, 2021 with a tie against Argentina away from home. They will then play Great Britain away from home on May 8 and 9 before travelling to Spain where they play on May 12 and 13. They then face Germany away on May 18 and 19 and will finally play a home tie on May 29 and 30 against New Zealand.

Indian Men’s Hockey Team

The Indian women’s team is not part of the Pro League tournament.

Also Read: ‘We Can Repeat 2016 FIH Junior World Cup Win’

Also Read: Players Must Stick To Discipline While At Home: Kangujam

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Business Economy USA

Emerging Economies Expect Benefits From $900 Bn US Stimulus

After a massive plunge in global equities due to renewed Covid fears, market insiders pinned hopes on the $900 billion US stimulus bonanza re-igniting a torrent of foreign fund inflows into emerging markets, especially India, which is poised for another move-up.

The long-awaited deal for another round of US stimulus package has been sealed at a cap of $900 billion and comes down to $600 per week of direct unemployment benefits to each and every beneficiary.

Besides, funds for family, child welfare and government support programmes have been provided separately.

Overall, the package after protecting the American paychecks, has provisions to support the food stamps programme, educational institutions, small business, specific industries and funds for the Federal government.

It comes after the US Congress reached an agreement to pass the booster stimulus dosage which is the second-largest economic relief bill in history of the US after the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

This time, as well, the CARES Act will be used to channelise the stimulus funds to intended beneficiaries.

It is expected to provide fast and direct economic assistance, especially, given the Christmas holiday timing in the US.

Furthermore, the massive money flow is expected to percolate its way through to the emerging markets such as India, given the record low interest rates in developed economies.

Lately, healthy FIIs inflows have powered a rally in equities and gave an appreciation push to the rupee.

The FIIs were net buyers last week, investing around Rs 12,000 crore in the equity segment, while, in the week before, they pumped in around Rs 15,000 crore.

“The news coming out of the UK regarding the new strain of Covid-19 virus is really unnerving especially if it spreads to other countries. This will impact global growth which has just started to revive and may keep the markets subdued for a couple of sessions,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

“However, later depending on the evolving situation and the stimulus announcement which has already been factored in will lead to some more upswing in our market.”

Anuj Gupta, Deputy Vice President, Angel Broking, said: “The latest US stimulus package will support the US market in terms of providing unemployment benefits, Covid vaccine distribution expense, education and health related measures.”

“It will also lend supports to the emerging economy. However due to this inflation may rise and US dollar may depreciate.”

On Monday, a new mutant strain of Covid-19 discovered in the UK spooked global investors and saw India’s stock markets plunge to their biggest single-day fall in the last seven months.

The two key indices — S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 – fell by over 3 per cent.

The day’s carnage saw Sensex losing a total market capitalisation worth around Rs 7 lakh crore.

It is speculated that ‘Basket’ selling by FPIs likely triggered the sharp fall in Indian markets.

Foreign investors pulled-out liquidity worth Rs 323.55 crore on Monday.

In addition, high valuation and absence of any positive trigger added weight to the slide.

Also Read: US Congress Passes Landmark Tibet Bill

Also Read: US Congress Passes $900 Billion Stimulus Package

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Business EU News

IBM Takes Over Eurpean Cloud Firm Nordcloud

Tech giant IBM has announced to acquire Nordcloud, a European leader in cloud implementation, application transformation and managed services, for an undisclosed sum.

Helsinki-based Nordcloud is triple certified in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

The move will further advance IBM’s cloud migration and transformation capabilities, an important aspect of its hybrid cloud platform growth strategy, the company said in a statement.

“IBM’s acquisition of Nordcloud adds the kind of deep expertise that will drive our clients’ digital transformations as well as support the further adoption of IBM’s hybrid cloud platform,” said John Granger, SVP, Cloud Application Innovation and COO, IBM Global Business Services.

Nordcloud has offices in 10 European countries. Following the close of the transaction, Nordcloud will become an IBM company.

“IBM’s hybrid cloud approach is very complementary with our cloud-native approach to helping clients migrate, manage and modernize in the cloud,” said Fernando Herrera, Chairman and Founder, Nordcloud.

Leading IT industry analysts estimate the market for cloud professional services will exceed $200 billion by 2024.

IBM’s open and flexible approach to advising, building, moving and managing clients’ hybrid environments gives enterprises the freedom to choose from multiple providers to best meet their business and IT needs.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021.

Also Read: China’s cloud infra spending grows 65% in Q3

Also Read: Cloud business powers Microsoft to a 12% growth

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Economy India News

Indian Economy Springing Back To Q4 FY20 Levels: Report

The continuous improvement in the key economic and business indicators signals that the worst is behind us and expectations of a positive GDP growth at 0.1 per cent to 2 per cent in Q3 and 2 per cent to 4 per cent in Q4 FY 2020-21 are becoming strong with a higher growth trajectory in FY 2021-22 at 7.7 per cent, according to PHDCCI EBM Index (Economic and Business Momentum Index).

The series of stimulus announcements by the Government in last 9 months under the AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 along with the calibrated measures undertaken by the RBI have pulled the economy from the lows of Q1 FY 2020-21 (-) 23.9 per cent in Q1 2020-21 to (-) 7.5 per cent in Q2 FY 2020-21, said Sanjay Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a press statement issued on Tuesday.

The overall growth for the FY 2020-21 is expected to contract by (-) 7.9 per cent, said Aggarwal.

The growth trend of PHDCCI EMB Index suggests that economy has potential to rejuvenate at more than 7.7 per cent growth trajectory in the next financial year 2021-22.

On a monthly basis, PHDCCI EBMI (Economic and Business Momentum Index) has shown steady recovery from the lows of 78.3 in April 2020 to 85.7 in May 2020, 91.6 in June 2020, 95.5 in July 2020, 95.9 in August 2020, 96.5 in September 2020 and 96.7 in October 2020.

Steady growth of EBM Index is progressing towards the level of Q4 of 2019-20 as October 2020 EBM Index at 96.7 is very near the level of 97.1 in October 2019.

Growth chart. (File Photo: IANS)

Economy is expected to recover to the level of Q4 of 2019-20 in the coming months of Q4 2020-21, said Aggarwal

PHDCCI EBM Index is a composite index of 25 lead economic and business indicators with base year at 2018-19, which considers the demand and supply parameters to present a broad perspective of the economy.

Out of the 25 lead economic and business indicators, 21 have shown a remarkable improvement in October 2020 from their lows of April 2020.

Strong recovery has been observed in the production of cement, steel, consumer durables and capital goods from the lows of April 2020. In the financial segment, FDI equity inflows have shown a remarkable recovery.

Also Read: Asian Lite Daily Digital UK – December 22, 2020 – India Suspends UK Flights…

Also Read: India’s Housing Sales Plummets In 2020

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Business Tech Lite

Google, Mithril Capital Invests $145 Mn In Glance

Glance, a subsidiary of InMobi Group and owner of video-sharing social media platform Roposo, on Tuesday announced it has closed a $145 million investment round from Google and existing investor Mithril Capital.

The funding will be used to deepen artificial intelligence (AI) capability and product offerings, including expanding its technology team, across markets for both Glance and Roposo, the company said in a statement.

Roposo was acquired by the leading lock-screen content platform Glance last year for an undisclosed amount.

“Glance is a great example of innovation solving for mobile-first and mobile-only consumption, serving content across many of India’s local languages,” said Caesar Sengupta, VP, Google.

“This investment underlines our strong belief in working with India’s
innovative startups towards the shared goal of building a truly inclusive digital economy that will benefit everyone,” Sengupta added.

With more than 115 million daily active users, Glance delivers AI-driven personalised content in multiple languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bahasa, on the lock screen of Android smartphones.

Roposo currently has more than 33 million monthly across multiple genres in more than 10 languages.

“With two of the largest digital content platforms in the country, we have taken the lead in making the digital economy accessible for the next billion users in India and globally,” said Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of Glance and InMobi Group.

Although InMobi Group, which is among India’s first startup unicorns, did not disclose the fresh valuation for Glance with the new funding round, the lock-screen platform may soon hit the $1 billion valuation mark.

Also Read: ‘Google Pay is helping India Bridge Digital Divide’

Also Read: Google Gives $10 Billion For Digital India

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-Top News India News USA

India Daily Digital – December 22, 2020 – Trump Confers Legion Of Merit On ‘Friend Modi’

Trump Confers Legion Of Merit On ‘Friend Modi’; Biden Picks Bharat For Economic Council Dy Director; US Congress Passes Landmark Tibet Bill – All In Asian Lite Daily Digital – Please Click Here To Read.

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-Top News USA World News

US Congress Passes $900 Billion Stimulus Package

US Congress has passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package, sending the measure to President Donald Trump for signing into law, as many Americans were set to lose pandemic relief benefits by the end of the year.

The long-awaited relief package was approved late Monday by the Republican-majority Senate with a 92-to-6 vote, along with government funding for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2021, reports Xinhua news agency.

The Democrat-led House of Representatives has also passed the package.

“The Senate just passed another major bipartisan, Covid-19 relief package. The American people can rest assured that more help is on the way, immediately,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, top Republican in the upper chamber, tweeted early Tuesday.

Dollar.

Following months of deadlock over the size and scope of the next round of relief package, Democratic and Republican lawmakers finally reached a deal on Sunday.

The $900 billion relief plan includes another round of direct payments for individuals, federal unemployment benefits, and more funding for Paycheck Protection Program to support small businesses.

It also features hundreds of billions more for schools, testing and the distribution of vaccines.

In order to reach an agreement, both parties agreed to drop their key demands: more aid to state and local governments, sought by Democrats, and liability protections for businesses, sought by Republicans.

These have been key sticking points in the marathon negotiations.

As of Tuesday morning, the virus, which originated in China a year ago, has infected a total of 18,029,528 Americans and killed 319,354 others, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The two tallies are the highest in the world, making the US the hardest-hit country by the pandemic.

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