CCRS to begin study on prophylactic use of Siddha in treating COVID-19 cases

CCRS to begin study on prophylactic use of Siddha in treating COVID-19 cases

Chennai: With a Siddha ‘add-on’ therapy to allopathic treatment at a government COVID-19 care centre here giving encouraging results, the Central Council for Research in Siddha (CCRS) will soon commence a study on 60 coronavirus patients at Vysarpadi in the city.

The new clinical trial aims to bring out the efficacy of the Siddha group of medicines and ‘Kabasura kudineer’ as prophylactic designed to treat or prevent COVID-19.

The add-on therapy was earlier attempted at the COVID-19 care centre at the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital.

Kabasura kudineer is a herbal concoction, comprising dry ingredients of ginger, pippali, clove, cirukancori root and many other herbs.

“We are awaiting the number from the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI) to begin the trial next week,” Dr K Kanakavalli, director general of CCRS, said. CCRS is the apex body pertaining to research in Siddha system of medicine.

It works towards the scientific validation of Siddha system of medicine through clinical research, drug research, medicinal plants research, fundamental research, literary research and documentation.

The new study is in sync with the directive issued by the Union Ayush Ministry and with the consent from the Tamil Nadu government.

“About 60 asymptomatic, mild and moderate coronavirus positive patients would be taken up for study at the COVID-19 Care Centre established by Greater Chennai Corporation at Vysarpadi,” she said on Monday.

“Siddha, which was recently tried at Stanley GH as add-on therapy on 30 positive patients, proved successful and based on the outcome we have decided to take up the new study,” she said.

Earlier, the Siddha Central Research Institute (SCRI) here conducted a prophylactic study on 15,000 mild or moderate coronavirus patients and those who were asymptomatic. Similar study is on at the SCRI units at Bengaluru, Delhi, Tirupati, Palayamkottai and Puducherry. These studies are aimed at evaluating Kabasura kudineer as drug of choice.

Recently, a retrospective study on the herbal concoction and group of Siddha medicines was conducted in Coimbatore.

Google removes misleading ads related to voting, elections

Google removes misleading ads related to voting, elections

Washington: Google has said it has removed misleading and fraudulent ads targeting Americans looking for information about how to vote in November”s presidential election.

Some of the ads charged fees for registering people to vote, while others sucked up people”s personal information for marketing purposes. The ads were discovered by the nonprofit tech watchdog Tech Transparency Project.

The group found that search terms such as “register to vote,” “vote by mail” and “where is my polling place” generated ads linking to websites that charge fees for voter registration, harvest user data, or plant unwanted software on people”s browsers.

Google says such ads are prohibited on its platform.

“We are committed to protecting users from abuse on our platforms, especially when it comes to information about elections,” said Google spokeswoman Charlotte Smith on Monday.

Amazon India eliminates single-use plastic in packaging

Amazon India eliminates single-use plastic in packaging

Bengaluru: Amazon India announced on Monday it has eliminated all single-use plastic in packaging originating from its 50-plus fulfilment centres in the country.

In September 2019, the company had pledged to meet this goal in an accelerated time frame by June this year, it said in a statement.

The first milestone towards this goal was achieved in December 2019 when the company replaced plastic packaging material, such as bubble wraps and air pillows, with paper cushion” in its packaging.

The company then introduced 100 per cent plastic-free and biodegradable paper tape earlier this year, which is used to seal and secure customer shipments.

Additionally, the company has replaced thin cling films for customer deliveries among other material with packaging options that are not single-use plastic in nature.

“All other plastic packaging material originating from the Amazon Fulfilment Centres is 100 per cent recyclable through available collection, segregation and recycling channels,” the statement added.

Telegram to pay $18.5 million fine, return $1.2 billion investor money to settle with SEC

Telegram to pay $18.5 million fine, return $1.2 billion investor money to settle with SEC

Telegram has agreed to return more than $1.2 billion to investors that investors had put into its TON digital token and to pay an $18.5 million civil penalty to resolve charges over an unregistered digital token coin offering.

The civil penalty being paid is to resolve the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s charges that the instant messaging platform’s unregistered offering of digital tokens called “Grams” violated the federal securities laws.

SEC in October halted a $1.7 billion digital token offering by the firm, saying Telegram had raised capital to finance its business by selling 2.9 billion Grams to global investors.

Telegram neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations.

In March, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York agreed with the SEC and issued a preliminary injunction.

In May, Telegram announced that it was shutting down the TON initiative.

Kristina Littman, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s cyber unit, in a statement said, “New and innovative businesses are welcome to participate in our capital markets, but they cannot do so in violation of the registration requirements of the federal securities laws. This settlement requires Telegram to return funds to investors, imposes a significant penalty, and requires Telegram to give notice of future digital offerings”

As Telegram missed a deadline to launch its TON platform due to a court injunction, the firm had to return funds to purchasers

India’s TikTok rival app Chingari crosses 1 million downloads in less than 15 days of launch

India’s TikTok rival app Chingari crosses 1 million downloads in less than 15 days of launch

Indian variant of Tiktok, Chingari app has crossed over 1 million downloads. The app is a video sharing platform and allows users to download and upload videos, chat with friends, interact with new people, share content, and also browse through the feed.

Chingari has been developed by a Chhattisgarh-based developer and in just less than 15 days of launch, the app has crossed over 1 million downloads. The app also has developers from Odisha and Karnataka.

The app is available in nine languages other than English. The app supports Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.

Sources claim, the demand for Chingari has been trending at the number one spot on the Google Play Store and its popularity has already surpassed that of the Mitron app, a TikTok clone platform.

Starbucks latest to say it will pause social media ads

Starbucks latest to say it will pause social media ads

Washington: Starbucks is the latest company to say it will pause social media ads after a campaign led by civil rights organizations called for an ad boycott of Facebook, saying it doesn’t do enough to stop racist and violent content.

Starbucks said on Sunday that its actions were not part of the “#StopHateforProfit” campaign, but that it is pausing its social media ads while talking with civil rights organizations and its media partners about how to stop hate speech online.

The coffee chain’s announcement follows statements from Unilever, the European consumer-goods giant behind Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soap; Coca-Cola; cellphone company Verizon and outdoors companies like Patagonia, Eddie Bauer and REI; film company Magnolia Pictures; jeans maker Levi”s and dozens of smaller companies.

Some of the companies will pause ads just on Facebook, while others will refrain from advertising more broadly on social media.

In response to companies halting advertising, Facebook executive Carolyn Everson said earlier this week the social networking platform is committed to purging hateful content from its services.

“Our conversations with marketers and civil rights organisations are about how, together, we can be a force for good,” said Everson, vice president of Facebook”s global business group.

Facebook”s market value dropped on Friday by more than 8 per cent, or about USD 50 billion, as more companies said they would pause ads. Twitter stock also dropped more than 7 per cent on Friday.

Sarah Personette, vice president of global client solutions at Twitter, said on Friday the company”s “mission is to serve the public conversation and ensure Twitter is a place where people can make human connections, seek and receive authentic and credible information, and express themselves freely and safely”.

She added that Twitter is “respectful of our partners” decisions and will continue to work and communicate closely with them during this time”.

Mercedes-Benz cars will now help reach nearest COVID-19 testing centre

Mercedes-Benz cars will now help reach nearest COVID-19 testing centre

Mumbai: Mercedes-Benz cars in the country will now come loaded with MapmyIndia COVID-19 guide, which will help the users in getting all information related to the pandemic on a real-time basis, a release said on Friday.

The system will enable users to navigate to the nearest COVID-19 testing centres using the most updated information provided by ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research), with the panel displaying the centre name, address and phone number upon request, it said.

The German car maker’s Bengaluru-based R&D centre, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) is also working to include coronavirus infection treatment centres and many other unique features as well in the latest system, which has been developed by engineers at MBRDI in collaboration with MapmyIndia, as the next step, said the release.

Mercedes-Benz India’s recently launched all-new S-class SUV, GLS has fully packed connected services through its latest MBUX system.

“Our infotainment team, which have a key role to play on the entire MBUX including the Interior assist & rear-seat entertainment, earlier this year was instrumental in launching another timely innovation for Korean market where the infotainment system helps in navigating to stores with N95 masks/ respirators, also,” said Manu Saale, Managing Director and CEO, MBRDI.

The technology platform for MBUX both onboard (car) & offboard (cloud backbone) is built in such a way to accelerate new services and features to the customer, he added.

These hyperlocal mapping and location intelligence features are designed to ensure that vehicle owners navigate hassle-free during the current times. This feature gets automatically activated without any hassle of paying an additional fee, it said. The information is sourced from the latest government notifications and guidelines issued from time to time, and other credible sources, as per the release.

As the number of cases continues to grow across the globe, MBRDI engineers in Bangalore have achieved this integration in a record time of two weeks, in association with MapmyIndia, it said adding the 12.3-inch infotainment system handles requests using voice commands and gestures.

“Ever since the pandemic broke out, our teams have been developing tools and solutions leveraging its best-in-class indigenously developed location technology to benefit Indians. I am happy that a leading company like Mercedes-Benz India has partnered with us in furthering this effort of ours,” said Rohan Verma, CEO and Executive Director, MapmyIndia.