Amazfit GTR 2 Review: A fitness watch with more style and features than the GTR

Rating: 4/5

Price: Rs 12,999

About a year and a half ago, we reviewed the Amazfit GTR and were mighty impressed with its design, wide array of fitness features and unreal battery life. Its successor has now arrived, and it promises to up the style quotient further and also has a few additional tricks up its sleeve. Time to see if the Amazfit GTR 2 can walk the talk.

The design just got even better

I am still quite fond of the Amazfit GTR’s design, and it remains one of the best-looking fitness watches in the sub-Rs 15,000 segment. The GTR 2 takes the finesse a notch higher by making the watch look almost bezel-less courtesy of a curved glass that encompasses the outer ring, too. The designers have smartly put minute markers on the periphery that nicely blend in with several analogue watch faces, making the watch feel completely bezel-less. It has a round dial and a stainless-steel body. Despite the sturdy steel construction, the company has managed to keep the GTR 2’s weight to under 40 grams (without straps).

Amazfit has done away with the brown leather-like strap on the GTR and replaced it with an all-black faux leather strap on the GTR 2. You have the freedom to replace it with any third-party 22 mm strap you like, which is a good thing. The watch is extremely comfortable to wear for long hours, and the strap material doesn’t cause sweating or skin irritation even after prolonged use. A couple of physical buttons grant you quick access to the watch’s features and fitness modes, along with the touchscreen.

Sharp AMOLED display with a variety of watch faces

The Amazfit GTR 2 has a sharp, 1.39-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 454 x 454 pixels that translates to 326 ppi pixel density – same as that of an Apple iPhone 11 screen. The touchscreen has a layer of tempered glass to protect it from scratches, but it hasn’t been made by Corning this time. However, there wasn’t a single scratch on the screen even after using the watch for weeks. It also features an anti-fingerprint coating that works quite well, and you don’t need to keep wiping the screen frequently.

The screen has auto and manual brightness controls and is legible outdoors even under bright sunlight. However, the screen is quite reflective, so expect a bit of glare from certain angles. You just need to flick your wrist to activate the screen. There are two sensitivity settings for that - Normal and Sensitive. The company seems to have lowered the sensitivity of both, and the screen was a little slow to switch on even in Sensitive mode. If it doesn’t wake up after a flick, you can always press either of the physical buttons to do that. You can also schedule to turn off the ‘lift wrist to view’ feature from the app during your sleep hours.

The Amazfit GTR 2 also supports Always On display that primarily displays the time. It does drain the battery a bit, but not excessively. One cool feature here is the screen can rotate 180 degrees, and you can have the physical buttons on the right or left side of the watch for easier access, depending on which hand you wear it on. It also supports wear detection, which lets you automatically lock the screen when you take the watch off.

The watch comes preloaded with a handful of watch faces, most of which can be customised to display a variety of information including steps count, calories burned, heart rate, battery and more. There are dozens more available in the Zepp app, but those cannot be customised. The good part is, unlike most budget fitness watches, the GTR 2 lets you store a lot more faces on the watch itself. I am not sure what the limit is, but every single one I added from the app, stayed on the watch. At one point, I had a dozen watch faces stored on the watch, and could switch between them on the fly.

Simple user interface, but the app needs a refresh

As with all Amazfit watches, you need to download the Zepp app, add your device on it and sync it over Bluetooth. It may take a bit of time initially, but once it is set up, things work smoothly. You can control several aspects of the watch like adjusting the screen brightness and activity selection from the screen itself, but certain watch settings can be accessed and configured only from the app. The overreliance on the app has gone down significantly in comparison to the last GTR. Beyond the initial configuration, you mainly need it to add more watch faces, set your fitness goals, get daily/weekly/monthly fitness reports and manage alerts and notifications.

The app interface hasn’t undergone much of a change over the last couple of years and feels a bit dated. It can do with a refresh and needs to be a bit more intuitive, too, with related settings grouped together. Currently, one needs to go looking for certain options across multiple tabs. There is little to complain about with the watch UI, though. It is quite easy to use, and all you need to do is swipe down on the screen for settings, swipe up to access notifications, and swipe left or right to browse through functions such as heart rate, weather info, music playback and daily goals progress. One of the physical buttons acts as a shortcut for all watch functions and also doubles up as a home button. The other button gives you access to all workout modes.

Limited smartwatch features

Like most fitness watches not based on popular platforms like Wear OS or Tizen, there are limited smartwatch options and no app ecosystem. The Amazfit GTR 2 lets you answer or reject calls from the watch screen. In fact, the watch has microphones and a speaker, and you can have a quick conversation from the watch itself if the phone isn’t at hand; the quality is barely passable, though. Alternatively, you can route the call to a Bluetooth headset from the watch.

The screen is large enough to read all the notifications and messages you choose to enable. However, you cannot reply from the watch. You can opt to receive notifications from almost all apps on your phone, along with event reminders and weather updates. This watch lets you store up to 3 GB of audio files and control music playback. That said, there is no option yet to stream music directly from any online platforms.

Fairly reliable fitness tracking

As a fitness tracker, this watch offers plenty of options. The Amazfit GTR 2 can track 12 different kinds of workouts indoor and outdoor – from walking and running to cycling, swimming and more. While it tracks your outdoor activities perfectly courtesy of the GPS module, the indoor tracking isn’t too bad either. The steps counter is a little slow to react when indoors, but thanks to the multiple sensors present here, it does a more than decent job, though the steps count is slightly on the conservative side. The good part is, it doesn’t report false steps.

The Amazfit GTR 2 is 50 metres water-resistant, so you can wear it for a swim without a worry. The watch supports continuous heart rate monitoring, and you can choose the frequency of monitoring in the app, the higher the frequency, the higher the battery drain. A good balance can be achieved by setting the frequency to five minutes and keep the Activity Detection setting switched on. When the watch detects some significant physical activity, it automatically increases the monitoring frequency for more accurate readings and analysis. After you are done with the workout, the frequency drops again to save battery.

All the fitness data is available in the app and it presents you with a daily, weekly and monthly breakdown of various fitness activities you indulged in during that period. It also displays a weekly PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) score, that gives you an idea of how active you have been over the past seven days. It combines information from all forms of exercises, heart rate, activity duration and other health data into a single score for your reference. Your goal is to simply reach the 100 mark every week.

The sleep quality tracking feature seems to work well. It gets the overall sleep duration pretty much spot on from the time you fall asleep till you wake up. It tracks the quantum of light sleep, deep sleep and awake time. Now, the product page of GTR 2 states that it tracks REM periods too, but in reality, the data wasn’t available. Interestingly, REM sleep information is also available in the cheaper Amazfit Bip U that sells for less than a third of the price of this watch. This is probably a software issue for the company to look at, as lack of that info impacts the overall sleep quality analysis. You also have an option to measure your stress levels that you can check manually or set to all-day monitoring. Stress is calculated on the basis of the wearer’s heart rate variability.

Some of the newer features need more fine-tuning

As I mentioned earlier, the Amazfit GTR 2 has a handful of cool new tricks up its sleeve, but most of them seem like work-in-progress. It supports offline voice commands, but they are more miss than hit for now. Alexa support is expected in the near future, and that may actually make this a lot more functional. The watch has a built-in speaker that lets one play music. Understandably, the sound quality isn’t great and it’s best to use Bluetooth earphones instead.

The biggest disappointment for me is the poor implementation of a particularly useful feature – blood oxygen saturation measurement or an oximeter. The SpO2 sensor is probably the slowest I have come across in fitness watches. It takes almost a full minute to get a measurement, and that too only if the watch thinks you are steady enough with the watch face pointing upwards. Often, I had to repeat the process twice or thrice to get a reading, and that is unacceptable. Ironically, the significantly cheaper Amazfit Bip U gets it done in 30 seconds flat with similar accuracy.

Good battery life but not as good as its predecessor

Amazfit claims a battery life of 14 days on a single charge under a typical usage scenario that the company defines as “voice assistant on, wear all day, heart rate always on, sleep monitoring, Bluetooth talk for 30 minutes a week, connect earphones for 30 minutes per week, exercise 3 times a week, each time turn on GPS for 30 minutes, raise the wrist to light up the screen 30 times a day, 150 message pushes per day, blood-oxygen detection 2 times a day”. The figure is pretty much on the money.

In real-world testing with conditions somewhat similar to the typical usage scenario but with sleep monitoring turned on only for 5 days, heart rate monitoring set to 5 minutes and without playing any music, the Amazfit GTR 2’s battery lasted 18 days on a single charge. If your usage is on the heavier side, you will still get 10 days out of it. These are very good numbers, surpassed only by its predecessor, that would go on for anything between 21 days to a month. Its 471 mAh battery takes about 2.5 hours to charge fully with the bundled 2-pin magnetic charger.

Amazfit GTR 2 price and verdict

The Amazfit GTR 2 sells for Rs 12,999 in India with a one-year warranty. For that price, you get a stylish fitness watch with an excellent AMOLED display, built-in GPS, reliable fitness tracking, 50 metres water resistance and a solid battery backup. The price, though a couple of thousand rupees higher than the first GTR, seems fair for what it offers along with the nicer exterior. But ironically, you will be paying most of the premium for the extra functions that barely work.

To complicate matters further, Amazfit launched the GTR 2e for just Rs 9,999 soon after, that looks similar, offers most of the GTR 2’s functions, barring a couple of minor ones, and claims to deliver a whopping 24 days of battery life with typical use, making it a better deal than this. If there was ever a perfect example of cannibalisation…

Mind you, the Amazfit GTR 2 is a great all-round product. It’s just that the GTR 2e is pretty much the same, but costs less.

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Gauri, fond of throwback pics, shares another one with Shah Rukh Khan & its unmissable!

Fans have always been in awe of the power couple Shah Rukh Khan and wife Gauri Khan. Their love story, they way they've been standing with each other thick and thin, their pictures, family, each and everything is discussed. The Instagram handle of the two celebrities are filled with many throwback photos and yet again Gauri stole our attention on Monday when she shared another one on Instagram. Taking to the stories section, SRK's lady love shared a photo captioning it 'Flashback' which was taken at the London premiere of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai's film's Raavan in 2010. 

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Happy Birthday Kesha: Here's a Playlist of Her Best Tracks

Kehsa, known for her quirky fashion, gained fame through her electro-pop songs and dance-pop performances.

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Airbus estimates its 863 planes delivered in 2019 will emit 740 million tonnes of CO2 in approximately next 22 years

Airbus unveiled Friday the carbon footprint of its aircraft, a move that will help measure progress made by the aviation industry towards its goal of reducing emissions. It is the first time an aircraft manufacturer has released lifetime carbon emissions of its aircraft, and Airbus Executive VP Corporate Affairs Julie Kitcher said it was an opportunity to increase transparency in the sector. "We really want to demonstrate our commitment to driving decarbonisation of the sector," she said.

The industry currently represents 2 percent of global CO2 emissions, according to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, but a forecast rise in passenger air traffic means it could add more pollution to the skies unless measures are taken rapidly.

And between the "flygskam" movement, a Swedish neologism meaning "flight shame", to increasing social responsibility expectations among investors, the industry is under mounting pressure to meet its promise to cut its carbon emissions by half from 2005 levels by 2050.

Airbus calculated that the 863 planes that it delivered in 2019 will emit 740 million tonnes of CO2 during an estimated 22 years in service. As a point of comparison, France is estimated to have emitted 441 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019.

Airbus used the accounting measure for emissions used by most leading firms, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, including measuring the use of its products by consumers. Airbus pointed out, however, that the efficiency of its planes is improving.

It calculated that the planes delivered in 2019 will produce on average 66.6 grams of CO2 per passenger per kilometre. In 2020, that figure dropped to 63.5 grams per passenger kilometre.

The current commercial aircraft fleet, including older aircraft, is estimated to emit on average 90 grams per passenger kilometre, according to the NGO International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

It estimates that cars produce an average of 122 grams per kilometre, but that figures needs to be divided by the number of passengers in the vehicle to offer a real comparison.

'Snapshot'

While the information is useful, Airbus's Kitcher pointed out that it only offers a snapshot of the situation today.

That is because the industry is hoping for the development of sustainable aircraft fuels (SAF) made from renewable sources to reduce its emissions.

The predicted carbon dioxide emission levels would drop if the aircraft that Airbus delivered in 2019 are certified to accept up to 50 percent SAF, although the amount of the green fuel available today is extremely low. "If we had 50 percent of SAF going into our aircraft today we could reduce the emissions of our aircraft flying already by 40 percent," Kitcher said. An increase to 100 percent SAF, the use of hydrogen produced in a renewable manner, or battery powered aircraft could push down emissions even further.

But to reach the 2050 goals, as well as head towards zero emissions, requires a fleet of planes that is 90 percent more efficient than those in 2005 given the expected increase in air travel. Last year Airbus released three zero-emission concept planes powered by hydrogen that it said could enter service by 2035.

The aviation industry is also counting on better air traffic control and efficiency gains from engines to reduce CO2 emissions.

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Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine differs considerably from Pfizer’s, Moderna’s

A third effective weapon was added to America’s arsenal against the coronavirus Saturday when the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for a vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. The company said it would start shipping millions of doses early this week and would provide the United States with 100 million doses by the end of June. Together with 600 million doses of the nation’s first two authorized vaccines, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, that are due to be delivered over the next four months, that ought to be enough to cover every American adult who wants to be vaccinated.

The new vaccine differs markedly from the two already in use in the United States. Here is how they compare.

One shot instead of two

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is administered in a single shot, while the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are given in two shots several weeks apart.

How J&J's COVID-19 shot works

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a different method to prime the body to fight off COVID-19: a viral vector called Ad26. Viral vectors are common viruses that have been genetically altered so that they do not cause illness but can still cause the immune system to build up its defenses. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use messenger RNA to do that.

How well it works

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is rated as highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are. It is also very effective at preventing milder illness, though a bit less so than those two. It appears to do well against the highly contagious B.1.351 variant, first identified in South Africa, that has given at least one other vaccine candidate trouble.

Storage and handling

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine does not have to be stored at extremely low temperatures like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It can safely be kept in an ordinary refrigerator for three months, much longer than the Moderna vaccine, which spoils after a month if not kept frozen.

Side effects

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine appears to be less prone than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to trigger the kinds of side effects that require monitoring after the injection, which may make it more suitable for use at drive-thru vaccination sites. There have been reports that side effects tend to be felt more strongly after second doses, which the Johnson & Johnson vaccine does not require.

Patrick J. Lyons. c.2021 The New York Times Company

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Playstation Network suffers outage: Consoles including PS5, PS4, PS3 and PlayStation Vita affected

PlayStation Network (PSN) is currently suffering a major outage. The outage reflects on PlayStation Network status page as well. The page reveals that services experiencing issues include "Account management, Gaming and social and PlayStation Store". The outage is affecting all consoles including PS5, PS4, PS3 and the PlayStation Vita. The PSN status page also confirmed that this outage began at  "27/02/2021, 5:03 AM".

As of 1 March, 9.48 am IST, the services are still facing the issue, as it can be seen in the screenshot below taken from the PSN status page.

As per the website, users might face difficulty launching games, apps or other network features. The company did not disclose how long can this outage last but confirmed that they are "working to resolve the issue as soon as possible."

We have reached out to Sony PlayStation India regarding the same. We will update this article as soon as we hear back from the company.

Notably, neither Sony India nor PlayStation India has acknowledged the issue on Twitter. There is still no confirmation about how far along they have reached in fixing the issue.

Users started reporting about the issue on Saturday (27 February):

I think its for every game. Im realy thinking that psn has a bigg outage atm. Cuz i seen people that cant connect on sniper elite 4 and me myself cant even log in into the batman leaderboards in-game. Whats the issue psn? Tell the community

— thomas casteleyn (@CasteleynThomas) February 27, 2021

Please hurry and fix the server outage issue.

— Sathular (@Sathular1) February 27, 2021

@PlayStation when do you think shareplay will be working again? Do you think it will be today? pic.twitter.com/2zKr7pOHH3

— Greg Goodson (@thefgn) February 28, 2021

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Clubhouse app: The audio social network is compelling but it also has some very grown-up problems

A few nights ago, after my weekly trip to the grocery store, I sat in my car glued to Clubhouse, the invitation-only social audio app.

While my ice cream thawed in the trunk, I dropped in on a room where Tom Green, the former MTV shock comedian and star of “Freddy Got Fingered,” was debating the ethics of artificial intelligence with a group of computer scientists and Deadmau5, the famous Canadian DJ.

When that was over, I headed to a room called NYU Girls Roasting Tech Guys. There, I listened to college students playing a dating game in which contestants were given 30 seconds of stage time to try to seduce someone else in the audience.

And after a few rounds of that, I joined a room called the Cotton Club, in which users changed their avatars to black-and-white portraits and pretended to be patrons of a 1920s-style speak-easy, complete with jazz soundtrack.

Two hours later, my ice cream fully liquefied, I emerged from the car with the feeling that I had just experienced something special. It was all fascinating, surprising and a little surreal, like peeking into the windows of interesting strangers’ houses. And it gave me a flashback to a similar euphoria I felt years ago, when celebrities and creative weirdos started showing up on Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Clubhouse recently, and the parallels to the early, hypergrowth days of those earlier-generation social networks are uncanny. The 11-month-old app’s popularity — it has more than 10 million users, and invitations are selling for up to $125 on eBay — has set off a mad dash among investors, who have valued the company at $1 billion. Celebrities including Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey and Joe Rogan have shown up in Clubhouse rooms, adding to the buzz. And the app is spawning competition from Twitter and Facebook, which are experimenting with similar products.

Every successful social network has a life cycle that goes something like: Wow, this app sure is addictive! Look at all the funny and exciting ways people are using it! Oh, look, I can get my news and political commentary here, too! This is going to empower dissidents, promote free speech and topple authoritarian regimes! Hmm, why are trolls and racists getting millions of followers? And where did all these conspiracy theories come from? This platform should really hire some moderators and fix its algorithms. Wow, this place is a cesspool. I’m deleting my account.

What’s remarkable about Clubhouse is that it seems to be experiencing this entire cycle all at once, during its first year of existence.

I started using Clubhouse in the fall. At the time, the app seemed to be dominated by typical early-adopter types — tech workers, venture capitalists, digital marketing gurus — along with a sizable contingent of Black influencers and a number of “heterodox” internet figures who mostly used the platform to complain about the mainstream media and go on tedious rants about cancel culture.

From the start, there were signs that Clubhouse was speed-running the platform life cycle. Weeks after launching, it ran into claims that it was allowing harassment and hate speech to proliferate, including large rooms where speakers allegedly made anti-Semitic comments. The startup scrambled to update its community guidelines and add basic blocking and reporting features, and its founders did the requisite Zuckerbergian apology tour. (“We unequivocally condemn Anti-Blackness, Anti-Semitism, and all other forms of racism, hate speech and abuse on Clubhouse,” read one company blog post in October.)

The company has also faced accusations of mishandling user data, including a Stanford report that found that the company may have routed some data through servers in China, possibly giving the Chinese government access to sensitive user information. (The company pledged to lock down user data and submit to an outside audit of its security practices.) And privacy advocates have balked at the app’s aggressive growth practices, which include asking users to upload their entire contact lists in order to send invitations to others.

“Major privacy & security concerns, lots of data extraction, use of dark patterns, growth without a clear business model. When will we learn?” Elizabeth Renieris, director of the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab, wrote in a tweet this week that compared Clubhouse at this moment to the early days of Facebook.

To be fair, there are some important structural differences between Clubhouse and existing social networks. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which revolve around central, algorithmically curated feeds, Clubhouse is organised more like Reddit — a cluster of topical rooms, moderated by users, with a central “hallway” where users can browse rooms in progress. Clubhouse rooms disappear after they’re over, and recording a room is against the rules (although it still happens), which means that “going viral,” in the traditional sense, isn’t really possible. Users have to be invited to a room’s “stage” to speak, and moderators can easily boot unruly or disruptive speakers, so there’s less risk of a civilized discussion’s being hijacked by trolls. And Clubhouse doesn’t have ads, which reduces the risk of profit-seeking mischief.

But there are still plenty of similarities. Like other social networks, Clubhouse has a number of “discovery” features and aggressive growth-hacking tactics meant to draw new users deeper into the app, including algorithmic recommendations and personalized push alerts, and a list of suggested users to follow. Those features, combined with Clubhouse’s ability to form private and semiprivate rooms with thousands of people in them, create some of the same bad incentives and opportunities for abuse that have hurt other platforms.

The app’s reputation for lax moderation has also attracted a number of people who have been barred by other social networks, including figures associated with QAnon, Stop the Steal and other extremist groups.

But before I get tagged as a Clubhouse hater, let me sound a note of optimism. I actually like Clubhouse and think its core technological innovation — an easy way to create live, participatory audio experiences — is a genuinely useful one. Most rooms I’ve been in are civil and well-moderated, and if you scroll past the megapopular rooms filled with celebrities and clout-chasers, you can find some truly fascinating stuff.

In the past few weeks, I’ve listened to a Clubhouse room of Black doctors and nurses discussing their experiences of racism in medicine, and a room where a prominent psychologist led a workshop on mourning and grief. I’ve lurked in Korean karaoke contests, heard energy experts debating nuclear power and hosted civilized conversations about the media. The other night, after sampling a few dozen Clubhouse rooms, I fell asleep to the sounds of the lullaby club, a nightly Clubhouse gathering of musicians who sing songs to help one another fall asleep.

The ability to spontaneously drop in and out of rooms like these and toggle between passive listening and active speaking is part of what makes Clubhouse so compelling — and so different from listening to podcasts or attending a Zoom webinar. There’s also a refreshing randomness to Clubhouse that makes it more interesting than social networks where every piece of content is algorithmically tailored to your exact interests. (As Nicholas Quah wrote in Vulture, “There is something that feels alluringly new about being able to slide between various pop-up communities you didn’t intentionally seek out.”)

Granted, a pandemic that traps people inside their homes and starves them of social connection is an ideal environment for introducing a new social app, and Clubhouse may lose some users once they’re vaccinated and go back to IRL socialising.

But I hope Clubhouse survives, if only because it could create a more thoughtful, less outrage-driven alternative to the social networks we’ve been typing into for the last decade and a half.

If the platform can fix its issues and learn from the mistakes made by bigger companies before it, I might be in for a lot more late nights in my car.

Kevin Roose [c.2021 The New York Times Company]

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Hyundai i20 adjudged Indian Car of the Year 2021, beats Kia Sonet and Mahindra Thar to the crown

The third-gen Hyundai i20 has been named the winner of the 2021 Indian Car of the Year (ICOTY) Award. As for the other categories, the Tata Nexon EV has been conferred with the first-ever Green Car Award by ICOTY 2021 and the Land Rover Defender with the 2021 Premium Car Award by ICOTY.

The Hyundai i20 took the top prize with a score of 104 points from the jury. Following it at a close second place was the Kia Sonet with 91 points and in third place was the Mahindra Thar with 78 points. The Tata Nexon EV took top honours in its category with 106 points, the Hyundai Kona followed in second with 99 points and the MG ZS EV in third with 93 points. As for the premium car winner, the Land Rover Defender scored 108 points, followed by the Mercedes-Benz GLE at some distance with 77 points and the BMW 2 Series with 61 points.

Each of the judges scored the contenders on 25 points. Judges were asked to rate at least five contenders and have picked a clear winner out of these. The process was conducted digitally and validated for confidentiality by an external agency. This panel of judges consists of experienced automotive journalists from the biggest publications in the country.

The Hyundai i20 is powered by a set of familiar engines, already seen on cars like the Venue and facelifted Verna. At the base of the range is the 1.2-litre naturally aspirated Kappa four-cylinder petrol which makes 83 hp when paired with a five-speed manual and 88 hp when paired with the CVT. Torque output is 114 Nm. The 1.0-litre three-cylinder T-GDi makes an appearance here too, in its highest 120 hp and 172 Nm form. This pairs with either a seven-speed DCT or a six-speed iMT. There is no manual option, but Hyundai claims a 0 to 100 kph time of 9.9 seconds with the turbo-iMT. The diesel engine option is the 1.5-litre four-cylinder U2 CRDi diesel. Seen here in its non-VGT 100 hp and 240 Nm form, this engine pairs only with a six-speed manual.

The turbo-petrol i20 has a mileage of 20.25 kpl. The 1.2-litre petrol with the manual returns 20.35 kpl with the manual and 19.65 kpl with the CVT. The diesel manual has a fuel-efficiency figure of 25.2 kpl. Helping here is the co-efficient of drag of 0.33. Prices for the Hyundai i20 start from Rs 6.80 lakh for the base Magna 1.2 MT and go up to Rs 11.33 lakh for the Asta (O) 1.0 turbo DCT dual tone (ex-showroom).

In 2020, the Hyundai Venue won the ICOTY award and the BMW 3 Series won the Premium Car Award by ICOTY.

Overdrive’s Bertrand D'Souza (editor) and Bob Rupani (consulting editor) are part of the ICOTY jury this year. Heading the juror's panel is Yogendra Pratap, editor at Auto Today. Other members are Rahul Ghosh, associate editor, Auto Today; Dhruv Behl, editor at AutoX, Ishan Raghava, associate editor at AutoX; Aspi Bhatena, editor of Car India and Bike India; Sarmad Kadiri, executive editor at Car India and Bike India; Sirish Chandran, editorial director of Evo India and Fast Bikes India; Aniruddha Rangnekar, contributing editor at Evo India; Pablo Chaterji, executive editor at Motoring World; Kartik Ware, managing editor at Motoring World; Muralidhar Swaminathan, consulting motoring editor at Hindu Business Line; Vikrant Singh, editor at Carwale, Bikewale and CarTrade; Kushan Mitra, managing editor at The Pioneer, Girish Karkera, consulting editor at Times Auto and Kranti Sambhav, editor and lead at Times Drive.

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Dance Deewane 3: Madhuri Dixit mesmerizes fans by dancing on late Sridevi's song 'Naino Mein Sapna' | VIDEO

With all the shows coming back to their place slowly and steadily, reality show Dance Deewane has also been entertaining the viewers. Judged by Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit, Tushar Kalia and Dharmesh Yelande, the show's auditions took place online due to COVID-19 pandemic. And now the show has finally being shot. The promos of the same are all over the internet and amid the same a video caught our eye. In the same the beautiful actress who is known for her dance skills and expressions is seen grooving to late actress Sridevi's song 'Naino Mein Sapna' on the request of a contestant.

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Catching COVID-19 from surfaces is very unlikely, maybe we should ease up on the constant disinfecting

A lot has happened over the past year, so you can be forgiven for not having a clear memory of what some of the major concerns were at the beginning of the pandemic. However, if you think back to the beginning of the pandemic, one of the major concerns was the role that surfaces played in the transmission of the virus.

As an epidemiologist, I remember spending countless hours responding to media requests answering questions along the lines of whether we should be washing the outside of food cans or disinfecting our mail.

 I also remember seeing teams of people walking the streets at all hours wiping down poles and cleaning public benches.

But what does the evidence actually say about surface transmission more than 12 months into this pandemic?

Before addressing this, we need to define the question we’re asking. The key question isn’t whether surface transmission is possible, or whether it can occur in the real world — it almost certainly can.

The real question is: what is the extent of the role of surface contact in the transmission of the virus? That is, what is the likelihood of catching COVID via a surface, as opposed to other methods of transmission?

The evidence is minimal

There’s little evidence that surface transmission is a common way in which the coronavirus is spread. The main way it’s spread is by the air, either by larger droplets via close contact, or by smaller droplets called aerosols. As a side note, the relative role these two routes play in transmission is probably a much more interesting and important question to clarify from a public health perspective.

Oh my. This is scary. @CSIRO has found covid can live on surfaces such as banknotes, glass (mobile phone screens) and stainless steel for up to 28 days 😐😷 https://t.co/ymQWoWeJlb

— 💧😷Queen Victoria (@Vic_Rollison) October 11, 2020

One of the best commentaries on COVID surface transmission was published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases in July 2020 by Emanuel Goldman, a professor of microbiology from the United States.

As he described, one of the drivers for the exaggerated perception of the risk of surface transmission was the publication of a number of studies showing SARS-CoV-2 viral particles could be detected for long periods of time on various surfaces.

You probably saw these studies because they received enormous publicity worldwide and I remember doing numerous interviews in which I had to explain what these findings actually meant.

 As I explained at the time, these studies could not be generalised to the real world, and in some instances, the media releases accompanying them tended towards overstating the significance of these findings.

The key issue is that as a general principle the time required for a population of microorganisms to die is directly proportional to the size of that population. This means the greater the amount of virus deposited on a surface, the longer you will find viable viral particles on that surface.

So in terms of designing experiments that are relevant to public health, one of the more important variables in these studies is the amount of virus deposited on a surface — and the extent to which this approximates what would happen in the real world.

If you understand this, it becomes apparent that a number of these virus survival studies stacked the odds of detecting viable virus by depositing large amounts of virus on surfaces far in excess of what would be reasonably expected to be found in the real world. What’s more, some of these studies customised conditions that would extend the life of viral particles, such as adjusting humidity and excluding natural light.

The Guardian report does not mention the key fact that these studies were done in the dark to negate the effect of UV light, which is a pretty major caveat. https://t.co/a2WfEXTFjp

— Eddie Holmes (@edwardcholmes) October 11, 2020

 Although there was nothing wrong with the science here, it was the real-world relevance and the interpretation that was amiss at times. It’s notable that other studies which more closely replicated real-world scenarios found less impressive survival times for three other human coronaviruses (including SARS).

It’s important to note we’re relying on indirect evidence in assessing the role of surface transmission for the coronavirus. That is, you can’t actually do an ethical scientific experiment that confirms the role surface transmission plays because you’d have to deliberately infect people. Despite being such a seemingly straightforward question, it’s surprisingly difficult to determine the relative importance of the various transmission pathways for this virus.

The virus that causes COVID-19 can survive on banknotes, glass and stainless steel for up to 28 days, much longer than the flu virus, Australian researchers said, highlighting the need for cleaning and handwashing to combat the virus https://t.co/Y1Qwwr3jau pic.twitter.com/PpQLGAkhw4

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 12, 2020

What we have to do instead is look at all of the evidence we do have and see what it’s telling us, including case studies describing transmission events. And if we do this, there isn’t a lot out there to support surface transmission being of major importance in the spread of COVID.

We could save a lot of time and money

We need to put the risks of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 via the various modes of transmission into perspective, so we focus our limited energy and resources on the right things.

This isn’t to say surface transmission isn’t possible and that it doesn’t pose a risk in certain situations, or that we should disregard it completely. But, we should acknowledge the threat surface transmission poses is relatively small.

"If hygiene theater were actual theater, it would exist in the genre of catastrophic improv. Hundreds of millions of people are ad-libbing their way through a crisis in the absence of a clear script,” writes @DKThomp https://t.co/MyuvvN430o

— Yoni Appelbaum (@YAppelbaum) February 8, 2021

We can therefore mitigate this relatively small risk by continuing to focus on hand hygiene and ensuring cleaning protocols are more in keeping with the risk of surface transmission.

In doing this, we can potentially save millions of dollars being spent on obsessive cleaning practices. These are probably providing little or no benefit and being done solely because they’re easy to do and provide the reassurance of doing something, thereby relieving some of our anxieties.

Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Royal Enfield Meteor 350 crowned Indian Motorcycle of the Year 2021, pips seven bikes to the title

The most prestigious Indian automotive awards have crowned the newest member of the Royal Enfield family, the Royal Enfield Meteor 350, as the Indian Motorcycle of the Year 2021. The IMOTY 2021 winner was picked out of a total of eight contenders which included the Bajaj Dominar 250, Hero Glamour 125, Hero Passion Pro, Hero Xtreme 160R, Honda Hornet 2.0, Husqvarna Svartpilen 250 and KTM 390 Adventure. The runners up for IMOTY 2021 were the KTM 390 Adventure, and Hero Xtreme 160R.

Coming back to the Royal Enfield Meteor 350, which was launched in November 2020, as a replacement to the Thunderbird 350X. Despite the familiar looks, the Meteor 350 rides on an all-new twin-downtube chassis, the first time Royal Enfield's 350cc platform has been revamped since its introduction over a decade back.

The Meteor 350 also packs a new 349 cc engine and 5-speed gearbox, another departure for the company, moving from a pushrod style engine to a thoroughly modern SOHC two-valve design, but it remains air-cooled. Still, power figures of 20.2 hp and 27 Nm are up from the previous BS6 UCE engine. It also includes onboard navigation, christened Tripper, marking the first time this tech was made available on a Royal Enfield. Prices for the Royal Enfield Meteor 350 range from Rs 1.77 lakh to Rs 1.92 lakh, ex-showroom, for the three variants available.

These contenders are judged by a panel of experienced automotive journalists from the biggest publications in the country. Overdrive’s Bertrand D'Souza (Editor) and Rohit Paradkar (Assistant Editor) were part of the IMOTY jury this year. Other members are Rahul Ghosh, associate editor, Auto Today; Dipayan Dutta, senior special correspondent, Auto Today, Jared Solomon, assistant editor at AutoX, Ravi Ved, content development editor at AutoX; Aspi Bhatena, editor of Car India and Bike India; Sarmad Kadiri, executive editor at Car India and Bike India; Sirish Chandran, editorial director of Evo India and Fast Bikes India; Aatish Mishra, assistant editor at Evo India; Pablo Chaterji, executive editor at Motoring World; Kartik Ware, managing editor at Motoring World; Vikrant Singh, editor at Carwale, Bikewale and CarTrade and Kranti Sambhav, editor and lead at Times Drive.

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Soyuz rocket launches first Russian satellite for monitoring Arctic climate

A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday carrying Russia's first satellite for monitoring the Arctic's climate, the Roscosmos space agency said. Video published by the Russian space agency showed the Soyuz blaster launching against grey skies at 06.55 GMT, carrying an Arktika-M satellite. Space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter later that communication with the satellite had been established. The monitoring system will need at least two satellites to operate properly, the space agency said.

"As part of the system, they will provide round-the-clock all-weather monitoring of the Earth's surface and the seas of the Arctic Ocean," it added.

The launch of the second Arktika-M satellite is planned for 2023, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Economic exploitation of the Arctic is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's key goals.

The Arctic holds huge oil and gas reserves that are being eyed by Russia and other countries including the United States, Canada and Norway.

UK scientists last month reported ice was disappearing across the world at a rate that matched "worst-case climate warming scenarios".

The team from the universities of Edinburgh and Leeds and University College London found that some of the largest losses in the last three decades were from Arctic Sea ice.

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Astronauts complete seven hour spacewalk to prep ISS for its new solar panels

Spacewalking astronauts ventured out Sunday to install support frames for new, high-efficiency solar panels arriving at the International Space Station later this year. NASA’s Kate Rubins and Victor Glover put the first set of mounting brackets and struts together, then bolted them into place next to the station’s oldest and most degraded solar wings. But the work took longer than expected, and they barely got started on the second set before calling it quits. Rubins will finish the job during a second spacewalk later this week.

The spacewalkers had to lug out the hundreds of pounds of mounting brackets and struts in 2.5-meter duffle-style bags. The equipment was so big and awkward that it had to be taken apart like furniture, just to get through the hatch.

Some of the attachment locations required extra turns of the power drill and still weren’t snug enough, as indicated by black lines. The astronauts had to use a ratchet wrench to deal with the more stubborn bolts, which slowed them down. At one point, they were two hours behind.

“Whoever painted this black line painted outside the lines a little bit,” Glover said at one particularly troublesome spot.

“We’ll work on our kindergarten skills over here,” Mission Control replied, urging him to move on.

As astronaut Kate Rubins continues work to secure a bolt on the bracket support structures at the base of the solar arrays, the @Space_Station is flying 261 miles over Venezuela and is about to pass over Brazil. pic.twitter.com/zTcPxaplEX

— NASA (@NASA) February 28, 2021

With more people and experiments flying on the space station, more power will be needed to keep everything running, according to NASA. The six new solar panels — to be delivered in pairs by SpaceX over the coming year or so — should boost the station’s electrical capability by as much as 30 percent.

Rubins and Glover tackled the struts for the first two solar panels, due to launch in June. Their spacewalk ended up lasting seven hours, a bit longer than planned.

“Really appreciate your hard work. I know there were a lot of challenges,” Mission Control radioed.

The eight solar panels up there now are 12 to 20 years old — most of them past their design lifetime and deteriorating. Each panel is 34 meters long by 12 meters wide. Tip to tip counting the centre framework, each pair stretches 73 meters, longer than a Boeing 777′s wingspan.

Boeing is supplying the new roll-up panels, about half the size of the old ones but just as powerful thanks to the latest solar cell technology. They’ll be placed at an angle above the old ones, which will continue to operate. A prototype was tested at the space station in 2017.

Rubins’ helmet featured a new high-definition camera that provided stunning views, particularly those showing the vivid blue Earth 270 miles (435 kilometers) below. “Pretty fantastic,” observed Mission Control.

Sunday’s spacewalk was the third for infectious disease specialist Rubins and Navy pilot Glover — both of whom could end up flying to the moon.

They’re among 18 astronauts newly assigned to NASA’s Artemis moon-landing program. The next moonwalkers will come from this group.

.@VP placed a special phone call to space when she spoke with astronaut @AstroVicGlover, currently aboard the @Space_Station. Watch the exchange in celebration of #BlackHistoryMonth: pic.twitter.com/6CffeSd9ZQ

— NASA (@NASA) February 27, 2021

Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris put in a congratulatory call to Glover, the first African American astronaut to live full time at the space station. NASA released the video exchange Saturday.

“The history-making that you are doing, we are so proud of you,” Harris said. Like other firsts, Glover replied, it won’t be the last. “We want to make sure that we can continue to do new things,” he said.

Rubins will float back out Friday with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to wrap up the solar panel prep work and to vent and relocate ammonia coolant hoses.

Glover and Noguchi were among four astronauts arriving via SpaceX in November. Rubins launched from Kazakhstan in October alongside two Russians. They’re all scheduled to return to Earth this spring.

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Watch: PSLV-C51 launches Brazil's Amazonia-1, 18 other satellites; Narendra Modi congratulates ISRO

In the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) first mission of the year, the country's polar rocket on Sunday successfully launched Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 and 18 other satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C51 lifted off at around 10.24 am from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and injected into orbit primary payload Amazonia-1 about 17 minutes later.

Primary satellite #Amazonia1 successfully separated from #PSLVC51. Join us again at 1210 hrs IST for witnessing the separation of co-passenger satellites

ISRO Website : https://t.co/bwLKodEjCL
Youtube: https://t.co/XlVvZaENl5
Facebook: https://t.co/MYy1DZUA7e

— ISRO (@isro) February 28, 2021

After a gap of over one-and-half hours, the co-passenger satellites, including one from Chennai- based Space Kidz India (SKI), which is engraved with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were launched one after another in the space of ten minutes in a textbook launch.

SKI's Satish Dhawan Satellite (SD-SAT) also carried the Bhagavad Gita in a Secured Digital card format. According to SKI, the picture of Modi has been engraved on the top panel of the spacecraft to show solidarity and gratitude for his Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and space sector privatisation.

A beaming ISRO Chairman K Sivan announced that the mission was successful and all 19 satellites were launched in precise orbits.

"Today is a very great day for the entire ISRO team and the PSLV-C51 is a special mission for India. Let me congratulate and compliment the team ISRO for achieving the precise injection of AMAZONIA-1 and 18 other satellites," PTI quotes him as saying.

PSLV-C51 is the first dedicated commercial mission of New Space India Limited (NSIL), ISRO's commercial arm, and the launch was watched among others by Brazilian government officials at the mission control centre in Sriharikota, over 100 kms from Chennai.

The 18 co-passenger satellites placed in the orbit include four from ISRO's Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (three UNITY Sats from consortium of three Indian academic institutes and the SD-SAT from SKI) and 14 from NSIL.

The 637-kg Amazonia-1, which became the first Brazilian satellite to be launched from India, is an optical earth observation satellite of National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and is intended for providing remote sensing data to users for monitoring deforestation in the Amazon region and analysis of diversified agriculture across the Brazilian territory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the space agency on the success of the first dedicated commercial launch of PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission, saying it ushers in a new era of space reforms in the country. He added that 18 co-passengers included four small satellites that showcase dynamism and innovation of our youth.

Congratulations to NSIL and @isro on the success of the 1st dedicated commercial launch of PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission. This ushers in a new era of Space reforms in the country. 18 co-passengers included four small satellites that showcase dynamism and innovation of our youth. pic.twitter.com/BbWYGLsyvo

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 28, 2021

The prime minister also congratulated Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on the successful launch of Brazil's Amazonia-1 satellite by PSLV-C51, and said this is a historic moment in space cooperation between the two countries.

Congratulations President @jairbolsonaro on the successful launch of Brazil's Amazonia-1 satellite by PSLV-C51. This is a historic moment in our space cooperation and my felicitations to the scientists of Brazil. @isro

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 28, 2021

According to a press release, Marcos Cesar Pontes, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Brazil also congratulated the ISRO team, saying “Amazonia-1 is an important mission for Brazil which also marks beginning of a new era for satellite development in the country."

Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri, Prakash Javadekar, among others, congratulated the space agency.

New era of space reforms takes off in India.

Congratulations to NSIL & @isro on the successful launch of the1st dedicated commercial PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission with 18 payloads including four small satellites. pic.twitter.com/0D77W0rB6p

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) February 28, 2021

 

Many congratulations to NSIL and @isro on the success of the 1st dedicated commercial launch of PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission.

A moment of pride indeed as the country ushers in a new era of space reforms under the able leadership of PM Shri @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/zOHH0x9c1k

— Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) February 28, 2021

Earlier, at the end of the 25.5 hour countdown, the four-stage 44.4 metre tall PSLV, a workhorse launch vehicle of ISRO in its 53rd mission, soared into clear sky and every stage performed as programmed, ISRO said.

According to an ISRO press release, this was the 78th launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR in Sriharikota. With today's launch, a total of 342 customer satellites from 34 countries have been placed in orbit by PSLV.

With inputs from PTI​

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Archeologists find unscathed ceremonial chariot that survived the Mt Vesuvius eruption near Italy's Pompeii

Officials at the Pompeii archaeological site in Italy announced Saturday the discovery of an intact ceremonial chariot, one of several important discoveries made in the same area outside the park near Naples following an investigation into an illegal dig.

The chariot, with its iron elements, bronze decorations and mineralised wooden remains, was found in the ruins of a settlement north of Pompeii, beyond the walls of the ancient city, parked in the portico of a stable where the remains of three horses previously were discovered.

The Archaeological Park of Pompeii called the chariot “an exceptional discovery” and said "it represents a unique find — which has no parallel in Italy thus far — in an excellent state of preservation.”

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed Pompeii. The chariot was spared when the walls and roof of the structure it was in collapsed, and also survived looting by modern-day antiquities thieves, who had dug tunnels through to the site, grazing but not damaging the four-wheeled cart, according to park officials.

The chariot was found on the grounds of what is one of the most significant ancient villas in the area around Vesuvius, with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea on the outskirts of the ancient Roman city.

Archaeologists last year found in the same area on the outskirts of Pompeii, Civita Giulian, the skeletal remains of what are believed to have been a wealthy man and his male slave, attempting to escape death.

The chariot's first iron element emerged on 7 January from the blanket of volcanic material filling the two-story portico. Archaeologists believe the cart was used for festivities and parades, perhaps also to carry brides to their new homes.

While chariots for daily life or the transport of agricultural products have been previously found at Pompeii, officials said the new find is the first ceremonial chariot unearthed in its entirety.

The villa was discovered after police came across the illegal tunnels in 2017, officials said. Two people who live in the houses atop the site are currently on trial for allegedly digging more than 80 meters of tunnels at the site.

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Posthumous Golden Globe win for Chadwick Boseman

Los Angeles, Mar 1 (PTI) Chadwick Boseman was posthumously honoured with a Golden Golden for his performance as the strong-willed trumpet player Levee who marches to his own beat in the musical period drama "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", the actor's swansong. Boseman, who died in August at the age of 43 following a four year-long private battle with colon cancer, won the award in the best performance by an actor in a motion picture category.

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Daniel Kaluuya wins first Golden Globe, technical glitch during actor's speech leaves Internet go ROFL

Actor Daniel Kaluuya has bagged his maiden Golden Globe award for his impassioned performance as the Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton in "Judas and the Black Messiah". The British actor earned the trophy in the best performance by an actor in a supporting role in any motion picture category for the film, helmed by Shaka King in his studio feature directorial debut. Kaluuya, who won the first honour of the scaled down virtual ceremony which is being held bi-coastally from New York and California in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, faced a technical problem as he started his acceptance speech.

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Johnson & Johnson's upcoming COVID-19 vaccine trials to include infants

Johnson & Johnson plans to test its coronavirus vaccine in infants and even in newborns, as well as in pregnant women and in people who have compromised immune systems. The bold plan for expanded clinical trials met with the approval of Dr Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital and a member of the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that reviewed the company’s vaccine data. When Levy saw the outlines of the planned trials, "they turned my head," he said. They were reported as part of the company’s application to the FDA for emergency use approval and discussed at the FDA meeting.

“They did not get into a lot of detail about it but did make it clear they will be pursuing pediatric and maternal coronavirus immunization studies,” Levy said. They referred committee members to their briefing materials where, on page 34, the company mentioned the planned studies.

A spokesperson for Janssen Biotech, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that is manufacturing the vaccine, confirmed that the company planned to extend clinical trials to children.

PfizerBioNTech and Moderna, whose coronavirus vaccines are now being given to adults, plan to gradually test them in younger and younger age groups. Those vaccines are now being tested in children 12 and older.

Johnson & Johnson will first test its vaccine in children older than 12 and under 18, but plans to immediately after begin a study that includes newborns and adolescents. The company then will test its vaccine in pregnant women, and finally in immunocompromised people. Like the other companies, Johnson & Johnson will analyze safety and immune responses.

Unlike the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use, which use a new technology involving messenger RNA, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine utilizes a method that has been widely tested for years. It relies on a disabled adenovirus, similar to viruses that cause the common cold, to deliver instructions to cells to briefly make copies of the virus’s spike protein. The recipient’s immune system then makes antibodies against the spike protein. The coronavirus needs its spike proteins to infect cells, so the antibodies can block a COVID infection before it starts.

Existing adenovirus vaccines include one for Ebola that has been safely administered to babies as young as age 1, and another for respiratory syncytial virus that was safely given to newborns. Nearly 200,000 people have received adenovirus vaccines, with no serious safety issues, Levy said. He said that Johnson & Johnson mentioned that safety record at the FDA meeting.

Most of the world’s vaccine market is for pediatric vaccines.

Levy added that in his opinion children need not be immunized in order for schools to open. But many parents are afraid to send their children to school without a vaccine. And, he noted, vaccinating children will help the country reach herd immunity.

Gina Kolata. c.2021 The New York Times Company

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Golden Globes 2021 Winners List: Emma Corrin, 'Schitt's Creek' to Mark Ruffalo, who won what at the event

The 78th Golden Globe Awards is taking place nearly two months later than normal, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema and television. This is the first bi-coastal ceremony, with Tina Fey co-hosting from the Rainbow Room in New York City, and Amy Poehler co-hosting from The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. The nominees for Golden Globes were announced on February 3 and Jane Fonda and Norman Lear were announced as the recipients of the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the Carol Burnett Award, respectively. A lot of shows and celebrities won big at the event. Excited about the same? Here we bring to you the full winners list of the Golden Globe Awards 2021.

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Push too hard and lights go out: New study points to Chinese role in Mumbai's October blackout

Washington: Early last summer, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in a surprise border battle in the remote Galwan Valley, bashing each other to death with rocks and clubs.

Four months later and more than 1,500 miles away in Mumbai, trains shut down and the stock market closed as the power went out in a city of 20 million people. Hospitals had to switch to emergency generators to keep ventilators running amid a coronavirus outbreak that was among India’s worst.

Now, a new study lends weight to the idea that those two events may have been connected — as part of a broad Chinese cyber campaign against India’s power grid, timed to send a message that if India pressed its claims too hard, the lights could go out across the country.

The study shows that as the battles raged in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant.

The flow of malware was pieced together by Recorded Future, a Somerville, Massachusetts, company that studies the use of the internet by state actors. It found that most of the malware was never activated. And because Recorded Future could not get inside India’s power systems, it could not examine the details of the code itself, which was placed in strategic power-distribution systems across the country. While it has notified Indian authorities, so far they are not reporting what they have found.

Stuart Solomon, Recorded Future’s chief operating officer, said that the Chinese state-sponsored group, which the firm named Red Echo, “has been seen to systematically utilise advanced cyber intrusion techniques to quietly gain a foothold in nearly a dozen critical nodes across the Indian power generation and transmission infrastructure.”

The discovery raises the question about whether an outage that struck on 13 October in Mumbai was meant as a message from Beijing about what might happen if India pushed its border claims too vigorously.

News reports at the time quoted Indian officials as saying that the cause was a Chinese-origin cyber attack on a nearby electricity load-management centre. Authorities began a formal investigation, which is due to report in the coming weeks. Since then, Indian officials have gone silent about the Chinese code, whether it set off the Mumbai blackout and the evidence provided to them by Recorded Future that many elements of the nation’s electric grid were the target of a sophisticated Chinese hacking effort.

It is possible the Indians are still searching for the code. But acknowledging its insertion, one former Indian diplomat noted, could complicate the diplomacy in recent days between Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in an effort to ease the border tensions.

The investigators who wrote the Recorded Future study, which is set to be published on Monday, said that “the alleged link between the outage and the discovery of the unspecified malware” in the system “remains unsubstantiated.” But they noted that “additional evidence suggested the coordinated targeting of the Indian load dispatch centres,” which balance the electrical demands across regions of the country.

The discovery is the latest example of how the conspicuous placement of malware in an adversary’s electric grid or other critical infrastructure has become the newest form of both aggression and deterrence — a warning that if things are pushed too far, millions could suffer.

“I think the signalling is being done” by China to indicate “that we can and we have the capability to do this in times of a crisis,” said retired Lieutenant-General. DS Hooda, a cyber expert who oversaw India’s borders with Pakistan and China. “It’s like sending a warning to India that this capability exists with us.”

Both India and China maintain medium-size nuclear arsenals, which have traditionally been seen as the ultimate deterrent. But neither side believes that the other would risk a nuclear exchange in response to bloody disputes over the Line of Actual Control, an ill-defined border demarcation where long-running disputes have escalated into deadly conflicts by increasingly nationalistic governments.

Cyber attacks give them another option — less devastating than a nuclear attack, but capable of giving a country a strategic and psychological edge. Russia was a pioneer in using this technique when it turned the power off twice in Ukraine several years ago.

And the United States has engaged in similar signaling. After the Department of Homeland Security announced publicly that the American power grid was littered with code inserted by Russian hackers, the United States put code into Russia’s grid in a warning to President Vladimir Putin.

Now the Biden administration is promising that within weeks it will respond to another intrusion — it will not yet call it an attack — from Russia, one that penetrated at least nine government agencies and more than 100 corporations.

So far, the evidence suggests that the SolarWinds hack, named for the company that made network-management software that was hijacked to insert the code, was chiefly about stealing information. But it also created the capability for far more destructive attacks — and among the companies that downloaded the Russian code were several American utilities. They maintain that the incursions were managed, and that there was no risk to their operations.

Until recent years, China’s focus had been on information theft. But Beijing has been increasingly active in placing code into infrastructure systems, knowing that when it is discovered, the fear of an attack can be as powerful a tool as an attack itself.

In the Indian case, Recorded Future sent its findings to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-In, a kind of investigative and early-warning agency most nations maintain to keep track of threats to critical infrastructure. Twice the centre has acknowledged receipt of the information, but said nothing about whether it, too, found the code in the electric grid.

Repeated efforts by The New York Times to seek comment from the centre and several of its officials over the past two weeks yielded no response.

The Chinese government, which did not respond to questions about the code in the Indian grid, could argue that India started the cyber aggression. In India, a patchwork of state-backed hackers were caught using coronavirus-themed phishing emails to target Chinese organisations in Wuhan last February. A Chinese security company, 360 Security Technology, accused State-backed Indian hackers of targeting hospitals and medical research organisations with phishing emails, in an espionage campaign.

Four months later, as tensions rose between the two countries on the border, Chinese hackers unleashed a swarm of 40,300 hacking attempts on India’s technology and banking infrastructure in just five days. Some of the incursions were so-called denial-of-service attacks that knocked these systems offline; others were phishing attacks, according to the Maharashtra Police.

By December, security experts at the Cyber Peace Foundation, an Indian non-profit organisation that follows hacking efforts, reported a new wave of Chinese attacks, in which hackers sent phishing emails to Indians related to the Indian holidays in October and November. Researchers tied the attacks to domains registered in China’s Guangdong and Henan provinces, to an organisation called Fang Xiao Qing. The aim, the foundation said, was to obtain a beachhead in Indians’ devices, possibly for future attacks.

“One of the intentions seems to be power projection,” said Vineet Kumar, president of the Cyber Peace Foundation.

The foundation has also documented a surge of malware directed at India’s power sector, from petroleum refineries to a nuclear power plant, since last year. Because it is impossible for the foundation or Recorded Future to examine the code, it is unclear whether they are looking at the same attacks, but the timing is the same.

Yet except for the Mumbai blackout, the attacks have not disrupted the provision of energy, officials said.

And even there, officials have gone quiet after initially determining that the code was most likely Chinese. Yashasvi Yadav, a police official in charge of Maharashtra’s cyber-intelligence unit, said authorities found “suspicious activity” that suggested the intervention of a state actor.

But Yadav declined to elaborate, saying the investigation’s full report would be released in early March. Maharashtra minister Nitin Raut was quoted in local reports in November blaming sabotage for the Mumbai outage, but did not respond to questions about the blackout.

Military experts in India have renewed calls for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace the Chinese-made hardware for India’s power sector and its critical rail system.

“The issue is we still haven’t been able to get rid of our dependence on foreign hardware and foreign software,” Hooda said.

Indian government authorities have said a review is underway of India’s information technology contracts, including with Chinese companies. But the reality is that ripping out existing infrastructure is expensive and difficult.

David E Sanger and Emily Schmall c.2021 The New York Times Company

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Bigg Boss 14: Pavitra Punia slams trolls for spreading hate about her relationship with Eijaz Khan

Just like every other Bigg Boss season, the fourteenth season as well entertained fans through a sweet love story that blossomed between Eijaz Khan and Pavitra Punia. A relationship of fights and difference of opinion turned into love so much so that now the two can't take their eyes off each other. We saw how Pavitra's eviction made him emotional while her return in special episode left him all excited. While many are super happy for the two of them and have even given them a name 'PaviJaj,' there are many who are still opposing the union of the two. Mind you, Pavitra has now shared a strong message for all those who are spreading about the two of them!

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Sonali Bendre shares quirky weekend meme, asks 'Can we please make Mondays optional?'

As the weekend is about to get over, Bollywood star Sonali Bendre Behl on Sunday shared a funny meme and said 'Can we please make Mondays optional?' The 'Hum Saath Saath Hain' star took to Twitter to share a funny meme that features her and how she feels when she realises Monday is just a few hours away. The picture is a collage of two, the first one sees Bendre in a joyous and happy mood as she flashes a million-dollar smile, with a caption that reads, " Me: Enjoying Sunday afternoon (with a smiling emoticon)."

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Amitabh Bachchan undergoes cataract surgery: Reports

Although there has been no official confirmation, unconfirmed reports have stated that Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan has undergone cataract surgery. The reports add that the star will be back home in 24 hours. "It was nothing, just a cataract surgery. Amitabh Bachchan will be home in the next 24 hours," a source close to the actor revealed, according to the entertainment portal Bollywood Hungama.

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Did You Know Eggplant Can Help You Lose Weight, Cure Anemia?

Eggplants boosts cognitive health. The phytonutrients and potassium in eggplants ensure oxygen supply to the brain. Here are its other benefits.

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Five Reasons Why One Should Include Ghee in Their Daily Diet

Benefits of having a spoonful of ghee everyday are immense. Therefore, to reap its exceptional nutritional value one must incorporate this wonder ingredient in everyday meal.

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Can’t Get Rid of Stubborn Stains? Here are 5 Helpful Home Remedies

Even though getting rid of those stains can feel annoying, we offer you some tannin removal hacks to put your woes to rest.

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Rare Diseases Day 2021: 'Orphans' of the health system, DMD patients are denied access to diagnosis, timely treatment

Any disease that affects a small percentage of the population is a rare disease. In many parts of the world, they also go by the term 'orphan disease’, for the lack of a market large enough to capture the support and resources needed to develop treatments for them. Most rare diseases are genetic, and present throughout a person's lifetime, even if symptoms do not immediately appear. Many rare diseases appear early on in life, and about 30 percent of children with rare diseases will die before reaching their fifth birthday.

The number of people in the world living with a rare disease is estimated to be between 300 and 350 million. This figure has often been used by the rare disease community to highlight that while individual diseases – though rare – add up to a huge population of people with rare diseases. With its sizeable population, India has an increased frequency of rare diseases when compared to the rest of the world. Due to the low prevalence of individual diseases, medical expertise is rare, knowledge is scarce, care offerings inadequate, and research limited. Despite the large overall estimate, patients with rare disease are the orphans of health systems, often denied diagnosis, treatment, and the benefits of research.

Relatively common symptoms can hide underlying rare diseases leading to misdiagnosis and delaying treatment. Typically a disabling or debilitating illness, the quality of life of a person living with a rare disease is affected by the absence of autonomy from any progressive, degenerative and occasionally life-threatening aspects of the disease.

It is estimated that every day in India, over 50 male babies are born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). We do not have any empirical epidemiological data of the DMD prevalence in India  from 2020, but it is estimated that there are between 4 and 5 lakh children suffering from DMD at any given time – roughly a fifth (20 percent) of the global DMD population. The burden in India is made greater than in Western countries by inadequate diagnostic facilities, management and rehabilitation facilities that cater to rare diseases.

Genetic disorders get relatively little attention because of the mistaken perception (of health planners, clinicians and the general public) that inherited diseases are very rare – affecting only a small proportion of people and, even if diagnosed, is untreatable. But for the families concerned, they represent a substantial, continuing burden, unlike infectious diseases, which generally manifest only for a limited period.

The plight of those suffering from DMD is on multiple levels in India. The access to diagnostics and procedures is not available across all levels of society and in non-metro areas which make up the maximum amount of the country, there is almost no genetic diagnosis available at all.

Even in metro cities blood tests done in different diagnostic centres even prove to be inconclusive. Post-diagnosis, clinicians who knew about the disease and gave guidance on steps to take are extremely hard to come by. The number of paediatricians who are unable to diagnose DMD till a late stage of disease is alarmingly high. This can be put down to lack of awareness.

India has the second largest population in the world; yet, no comprehensive database for neuromuscular disorders is available. There are still families out there with no idea about the disease, much less how to manage it. In the rare event of the family having access to diagnostics and are able to get an understanding doctor the costs of treatment are sky-high. With the expense in foreign countries reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars per year it is close to impossible for a family to support the treatment here in India.

The Government of India's identification of non-communicable diseases as a target for intervention is a welcome one, but extends to cancer, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease and stroke, but not genetic disorders. If real progress is to be made, genetic disorders needs to be brought in to the fold.

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In August 2000, my wife and were euphoric as our son Karanveer came into this world, bawling his lungs out. Everything was new again, and every day a new adventure. As Karan became older, we grew content and happy in our small world. He would babble, crawl, want to play, sleep and eat much like any other child his age. Like his peers, he would fall down and play. We lovingly thought he was a bit clumsy when he fell often. There were subtle changes as he grew, like trouble climbing stairs, getting up from the floor or running. He would walk on his toes or the balls of his feet with a slightly waddling gait. We presumed he had a small problem in his feet, and doctor visits with the promise of butter chicken on the way back, didn’t bring us the speedy conclusion we had hoped for.

We traversed the length and breadth of the country looking for a cure or at the very least find out the cause of the problem. Faith healing, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Allopathy, Unani – we tried them all, to no avail. He was prescribed vitamins, exercise, changes in diet and a lot more. General practitioners, orthopedicians, paediatricians each giving their own opinions, asking for blood test after another, electromyography (EMG) and more, without a satisfactory answer. Tests in textbooks, treatments unheard of and renown – we tried them all, and with each new treatment that fairled, despaired of ever finding a cure.

We eventually met a renowned paediatric neurologist in Chennai. He put Karan at ease, was interactive, did a lot of poking and prodding and gradually grew contemplative towards the end. He recommended a blood test to aid in diagnosis and delivered a nasty shock. We were taken aback when we were told that Karan had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a rare disease where a protein called dystrophin – essential for proper muscle function – was lower than normal. In other words, he was wheelchair-bound for most of his life, after which he would become bedridden.

What would you do if your child was diagnosed with a condition that that most people haven’t heard of? One that progressively worsens and doesn’t yet, have a cure? For decades the health ministry has been focussed on more prominent diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, cancer, and tuberculosis. They seem to have left behind the 70 million who suffer from 7,000-odd rare diseases, that also need medical treatments and disease management.

Stumbling, falling and breaking in search of hope, we ultimately decided to do it ourselves. The Dystrophy Annihilation Research Trust (DART) was founded after scouring the country in search of help for Karan. We have recruited people qualified to run a research lab, places it could be set up, necessary equipment and chemicals, collaborations with researchers abroad, and more. Non-profits have limitations, with whopping costs for drug-development supported by donations. DART is the first lab in India focusing on muscular dystrophy (MD).

We are a group of skilled professionals working towards achieving a realistic treatment option to alleviate and reverse the dystrophy condition at the genetic level thereby enhancing the quality of life of existing patients. DART hopes to change the course of DMD and, ultimately, to find a cure. The hope and motivation fuelling the initiative is that someday, children with DMD will be free of wheelchairs and restrictions and can play, run and walk like children everywhere do. The long-term goal is to develop a cost-effective treatment, as quickly as possible, to relieve the suffering of DMD children and families alike.

DART also performs a common platform for counselling and support for patients with Muscular Dystrophy and their families, as well as to create awareness of the available treatments, and drug trials. Last but not least, DART also facilitate research into alleviating the scourge of muscular dystrophy. 

The author is President of the Dystrophy Annihilation Research Trust (DART).

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