Need to Stop Emerging 2nd Wave of Covid-19, PM Modi Tells States, Warns Against Vaccine Wastage

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said it was crucial to contain the “emerging second peak” of coronavirus with steps such as setting up of micro-containment zones and enforcement of restrictions amid a surge in cases across the country.

Speaking at a meeting with chief ministers, PM Modi said: “If we don’t stop this pandemic right now, then there could be a nationwide outbreak. We have to immediately stop the emerging second peak and take big and decisive steps.”

He added: “The self-confidence that we gained in our corona fight should not turn into overconfidence. Our success should not be the reason for carelessness.”

Amid reports that the health ministry had proposed opening up vaccination to all above the age of 45 years on the request by states, the prime minister also warned against vaccine wastage. He pulled up states such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh for high vaccine wastage, saying it was akin to “stealing someone’s health right by letting a single dose go waste”.

Praising states which have got back into mission mode, the prime minister said localised containment zones are way forward but measures must be enforced without spreading panic among people.

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh counterparts were missing from the meeting amid campaigning for the upcoming assembly elections.

The meeting came on a day when India’s daily coronavirus infections jumped by 28,903 today, data from the health ministry showed, for the highest increase since December 13 and taking the nationwide tally to 11.44 million. Deaths swelled by 188, the highest figure in two months, to stand at 159,044.

India has the world’s highest tally of infections after the United States and Brazil. Nearly 62% of infections in the past 24 hours and 46% of the deaths were reported by Maharashtra, the country’s worst affected. The Centre has blamed crowding and a general reluctance to wear masks for the spike, ruling out the virus mutations that have been a factor in Western countries. Maharashtra, home to India’s commercial capital of Mumbai, is among the states that have already tightened rules to curb the spread of the virus.

No need to file income tax return if buying property or selling without capital gains

Amit Maheshwari



Should I file income tax return (ITR) if I purchase of property for above Rs 30 lakh; sell a property without any capital gain and give gifts to relatives?

— Pardeep Kapi

For purchase of property for above Rs 30 lakh, no ITR filing is required, as there is no provision mandating filing of ITR only due to purchase of property, assuming that property has been purchased in India. For sale of property without any capital gain, no ITR is required. However if there is loss on sale such property, then you can report these losses and carry forward to next financial year for set-off against any capital gains by filing an ITR. For gifts to relative, no ITR filing is required.

* We have a property in Bangalore which will be acquired by metro BMRCL. We were told that 10% tax will be deducted at source. Can I claim the TDS?

— Syed Khader

Yes, you can claim the refund of TDS by filing ITR for the year in which the tax will be deducted. For filing ITR, you will need to calculate capital gain on such property, i.e., sales price- cost of acquisition (the cost will be indexed as per income tax provisions if the property is held for more than two years). If your total income including this gain would be less than the minimum exemption limit, i.e., Rs 2.5 lakh (Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for senior and super senior citizen respectively), you can claim refund of the entire TDS amount.

* Though I have not got my Form 16, can I start filing ITR for 2018-19 now?

— Ashok Kumar

Yes, you can start filing ITR for FY 2018-19 as the forms have also been notified. However, your company would be filing its TDS return by May 31, 2019 and your TDS for the quarter January-March 2019 would not reflect in your Form 26AS till then. If you still want to proceed, then you can refer to 26AS that will be reflecting TDS till December 2018 and all payslips from April-March 2019 and make a calculation of your taxable salary and file the return.

* On retirement, my father received gratuity, leave encashment and commuted pension . He also got salary income, pension and interest from bank. Which ITR form should he use?

— SM Gopalkrishnan

As your father has salary and interest income and assuming that he is a resident in India, he has to file his return in Form ITR 1. Tax-free amount received on retirement must be reported in ITR.

Samsung offering cashback upto INR 8000 on its flagship offerings

tgeditor

Samsung has collaborated with Paytm Mall to roll out cashbacks of up to INR 8,000 on Galaxy smartphones. 

To avail cashback, buyers need to visit select Samsung stores, pick the Galaxy smartphone they intend to  buy, scan the Paytm Mall QR code at the store and pay for the smartphone.

Samsung cashback scheme is valid on models including  Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S8, Galaxy C9 Pro, Galaxy C7 Pro and Galaxy J5 Prime smartphones. 

The company's smartphones will also be up for sale at discounts of upto INR 6,700 off during the Happy Hours sale of the company on Amazon which will begin on December 12 from 12PM to 2PM.

“Our partnership with Paytm Mall will make it easier for customers to buy Samsung smartphones at never-seen-before prices. This offer gives us an opportunity to give more value to our customers. We will continue to wow our customers with such offers. This partnership is also a great example of Samsung’s ‘Make for India’ initiative in our distribution channels. We strongly believe in co-prosperity and this partnership gives us the perfect opportunity to work together with our trade partners on an unprecedented scale,” said Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Samsung India.

5 Signs Your Depression Is Getting Serious (and It's Time to Reach Out For Help)

© Unsplash / Watari Signs Your Depression Is Getting Serious

Sometimes it can be hard to know when to ask for help. Mitzi Bockmann at YourTango shares tips for identifying your depression and getting assistance.

For some time now you have been feeling really sad. Not yourself. And you aren't enjoying your life.

Your friends are telling you that it will pass. To just snap out of it. But you are wondering if you can.

You wonder if maybe you are clinically depressed. There are a few ways to tell.

Here are the 5 signs your depression is serious and it's time to reach out for help:

1. You can't get out of bed or off the couch.

How much time do you spend on the couch or in bed? You aren't necessarily tired but the prospect of getting up is just too daunting to face. So you stay horizontal all day, watching Netflix and feeling like a loser.

This habit is a significant indicator of depression. People who have been diagnosed with depression tell of the great lengths they go to stay out of bed - stripping the sheets, taking the mattress off of the box spring and leaning it against the wall, or locking the bedroom door. Whatever it takes to keep them out of bed and wallowing in their depression.

2. You have no interest in the things you love.

Have you lost interest in doing the things that you have always loved?

Does the idea of going to school or seeing friends or going out to dinner just seem like too much to bear?

People who are depressed isolate themselves. The energy that it takes to get out of bed and interact with others is overwhelming. So they don't.

Ironically, going out and doing the things that you love is a great way to alleviate depression, temporarily. Unfortunately, doing so can often seem too daunting to undertake and so people who are depressed just stay home.

3. You have overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and dread.

Do you spend much of your time running all sorts of negative thoughts through your head about how horrible your life is? What a loser you are and how no one will ever love you? Are you 100 percent confident that this will never change?

People who are depressed believe all of the negative thoughts that run through their heads. Unfortunately, they also falsely believe that the way things are will always be this way!

The truth is is that when one is depressed things can only seem hopeless because when one's mind is in such a bad place it's impossible to believe that the future will be any different.

The good news is that once the depression is addressed, that feeling of hopelessness can disappear completely!

4. You're impatient with those you love.

Do you find yourself losing your patience with those you love? Do you scream at your kids if their homework doesn't get done? Do you sneer at your husband if he asks you what is wrong? Can you not even talk to your mom anymore because her incessant questioning is just too much?

Impatience with those you love is a huge indicator of depression. The sense of hopelessness that our condition will never change and that we are worthless makes it intolerable for us to interact with others, particularly those who love us and want the best for us.

Ironically, this love is exactly what we need most in our life when we suffer from depression. Pushing that love away ultimately can make the depression worse.

5. Your appetite has changed.

Have you found that recently your appetite has changed? Do you find yourself indulging more than usual in Ben and Jerry's and Oreos? Or do you find that you have no taste for food at all? Have you lost weight and find yourself listless because you aren't eating?

Changes in eating patterns can indicate depression. When depression goes untreated, we can self-medicate with food, often to one extreme or another, which is not healthy and can make it all worse.

Eating well is an important part of dealing with depression. And failing to do so only makes the feelings of hopelessness and despair worse.

Depression gets worse the longer it goes untreated. Unfortunately, we hate to admit to being depressed because our loved ones, and society as a whole, tend to stigmatize those with depression.

Ask yourself if you have any of the symptoms above. If you do, seek professional help immediately. Call your primary care provider and tell her exactly how you have been feeling, using this article as a reference if you like.

Treating depression is easy. Living with it is not.

Cisco says IoT projects are failing, here’s why

tgeditor

We’ve all heard about the Internet of Things (IoT) over the past few years and how it’s really going to shake things up. Even predictions by noted organisations seem to suggest so. IDC predicts that the worldwide installed base of IoT endpoints will grow from 14.9 billion at the end of 2016 to more than 82 billion in 2025.

Similarly, Gartner predicts that 25 billion “things” will be connected to the IoT by 2020. Even Cisco and McKinsey Global Institute predict that the IoT will generate more than $10 trillion in the coming decade—with Cisco predicting the market could be worth $14.4 trillion by 2025. While the smartphone market was the quickest business to hit the trillion-dollar-mark in history, the IoT space is, by definition, much larger in scope and is growing at an almost unthinkable clip — a report released earlier this year predicts that the IoT market will have a 43% CAGR through 2019.

However, despite the IoT being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there have been several concerns regarding the pace of this revolution, given the overwhelming majority of enterprise IoT project failures.

In a recent news report, Cisco’s Australian CTO Kevin Bloch has revealed that three quarters of all IoT projects are “failing”, primarily because they have been designed to solve individual problems, and have become siloed and unsupported as a result.

“The inaugural phase of IoT is characterised by numerous point solutions from a multitude of new -- often startup – vendors. Typically, these solutions have been designed to solve a particular societal problem such as lighting or parking. In each case, a complete IT stack needs to be built in support of the solution,” Bloch was quoted as saying by the news report. “"Eventually, customers find themselves with multiple siloes from multiple vendors that don’t interoperate, are not cybersecure, use different protocols, and generate more complexity at greater cost.”

The CTO added that IoT projects are also failing due to a lack of cybersecurity, qualified skills by those running them, project definition, governance, and support.

In fact, a study conducted by Cisco and released at the marquee industry event IoT World Forum in London in May this year also shows that 60 per cent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 per cent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success. Even worse, a third of all completed projects were not considered a success.

“It’s not for lack of trying,” Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president and general manager, IoT and Applications, Cisco, was quoted as saying by media reports. “But there are plenty of things we can do to get more projects out of pilot and to complete success...”

For the study, Cisco surveyed 1,845 IT and business decision-makers in the US, UK, and India across a range of industries — manufacturing, local government, retail/hospitality/sports, energy (utilities/oil & gas/mining), transportation, and health care. All respondents worked for organisations that are implementing and/or have completed IoT initiatives. All were involved in the overall strategy or direction of at least one of their organisation’s IoT initiatives. The goal was to gain insight into both the successes as well as the challenges that are impacting progress.

Among the other key findings, the survey noted that “human factor” matters. IoT may sound like it is all about technology, but human factors like culture, organisation, and leadership are critical. In fact, three of the four top factors behind successful IoT projects had to do with people and relationships.

Also, 60 per cent of the respondents stressed that IoT initiatives often look good on paper but prove much more difficult than anyone expected. Top five challenges across all stages of implementation: time to completion, limited internal expertise, quality of data, integration across teams, and budget overruns.