40,000 PEOPLE IN INDIA AFFECTED BY DENGUE & CHIKUNGUNYA

Union Health Minister of India J P Nadda on Tuesday (Sept 13) stressed on the need for close coordination between the Centre and states to deal with the outbreak of chikungunya and dengue, which have affected about 40,000 people in the country, even as he said there was no need to panic.

He assured all help to states in fighting the spread of vector-borne diseases and said it should not be an issue for indulging in blame game. "We will try to fulfill all requirements. Whether it is dengue or chikungunya, we should not panic. There is a need to give symptomatic treatment. There is a need to take a lot of liquid.

"We are ready to offer all help to state governments. This is not an issue for the Centre and states to indulge in blame game. We should work together,"  Nadda said. 60 people have died across the country due to dengue. Four people have died in Delhi due to Chikungunya.

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JAY Z WILL DEBUT INDIA PERFORMANCE FOR ANTI-POVERTY GIG

An anti-poverty event will have rap megastar Jay Z make his debut performance in India. He will be part of a music festival to raise awareness about poverty, event organisers said Monday (Sept 12). 

The Global Citizen Festival, established in 2012, is intended to highlight the major challenges facing India including sanitation facilities in rural areas and the provision of elementary education.

"The line-up for November's performance includes Coldplay, Jay Z and various Indian artists including Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan among others," Sabbas Joseph from Wizcraft event management company told journalists.

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'BHATTACHARYA, KOCHHAR AMONG MOST POWERFUL WOMEN OUTSIDE US'

India's top women bankers, SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI head Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank CEO Shikha Sharma, are among the 50 most powerful women based outside the US, according to a list by Fortune which is topped by Banco Santander's boss Ana Botín.

Bhattacharya, 60 is ranked second on the list, while Kochhar comes in on the fifth spot and Sharma on the 19th position in the Fortune's '50 Most Powerful Women International' list, which has ranked the women based outside the US.

Botín, Group Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, Eurozone’s largest bank by market value, repeats as No. 1, in a time of economic and political volatility for all. The 2016 list spans 19 countries. 'Bhattacharya's profile has risen during her three-year tenure atop India's largest bank," Fortune said.

SBI Chairperson Bhattacharya, who was widely speculated to succeed Raghuram Rajan as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has continued her ‘high-profile battle with the bank's bad loans, while courting overseas partners to invest in the stressed assets’.

Read more: https://goo.gl/SfZOz8

NEW DELHI TO HOST INDIA-UK TECH SUMMIT

The Indian capital will play host to India-UK tech summit in November this year which aims to bring together leaders in government, industry and research from both countries to broker new partnerships.

The India UK TECH Summit 2016, scheduled to take place from November 7-9, 2016 will provide a platform for promoting technology-intensive trade and investments between the two countries.

"Tech summit will show that when we work together, the UK and India are an 'unbeatable combination' as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated. Britain is open for business and we want to do even more business with India.

"The UK has been the top G20 investor in India, consistently, since the turn of the century, and India invests more in the UK than it does in all other European Union countries combined. Our trade relationship is booming, our researchers collaborate on all manner of issues, and our people visit each other’s countries for study and tourism.

Read more: https://goo.gl/c603Il

WAWRINKA WINS US OPEN, STUNS DJOKOVIC

Stan Wawrinka poses with the trophy after winning US Open tournament

Stan Wawrinka became the oldest US Open men's champion in 46 years when he defeated world number one Novak Djokovic to claim a third Grand Slam title on Sunday.

The oldest winner of the men's tournament since 35-year-old Ken Rosewall in 1970 said a taste for pain helped him to victory and admitted he was shaking and at one point burst into tears before the match.

"You have to accept to suffer and you have almost to enjoy to suffer. Because I think this Grand Slam was the most painful, physically and mentally, that I ever played," said the 31-year-old from Switzerland. 

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DEBUT NOVEL MAKES MAN BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST

A psychological crime thriller set in the Scottish Highlands and the tale of a disturbed young woman in 1960s Massachusetts are on the shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker prize which was unveiled Tuesday (Sept 13).

Nobel-winner J.M. Coetzee failed to make the six-name list for the world's leading English-language fiction award, which featured only one previous nominee, South African-born British author Deborah Levy.

Her "Hot Milk" is a story of an intense relationship between a sickly mother and her daughter set in a small Spanish fishing village which the jury said in a statement examines "female rage and sexuality".

Scottish writer Graeme Macrae Burnet's "His Bloody Project" thriller "paints a painfully realistic picture of poverty in the tiny crofting community of Culduie in the Scottish Highlands," the jury said.

First-time author Ottessa Moshfegh, a Boston-born 35-year-old, was selected for "Eileen", a portrait of "an unassuming yet disturbed young woman" trapped between caring for her alcoholic father in a squalid house and her job as a secretary at a boys' prison.

Read more: https://goo.gl/AovgS5

GOVT LAUNCHES INTERACTIVE DASHBOARD OF INDIAN HONOUR AWARDEES

The government has launched an  interactive dashboard of all Padma awardees between 1954 and 2016, allowing users to explore details about the winners. 

This marks another major step in the government's efforts to bring transparency and people engagement into the Padma Award process, official sources said.

The website, www.padmaawards.gov.in:8888 enables a user to understand, explore and analyse all Padma awardees--who was awarded what award, in which year, and belonging to which state and profession.

The sophisticated data visualisation engine processes complex data of around 4400 awardees till date, into a simple and intuitive format, empowering the user to understand and engage.

The government has already allowed Indians to recommend any achiever for the prestigious Padma Awards as it threw open the nomination process to general public to make it transparent and curb the crony culture of influence and lobbying.

Read more: https://goo.gl/rrtS0o