News in Short

• The ICC Cricket Committee headed by Anil Kumble banned saliva use to shine the ball due to threat of COVID-19 infection spread.
• The regulation to ban saliva to shine the ball has been put in place because spitting on the ball elevates the risk of virus transmission.
• The Committee also noted the medical advice that it is highly unlikely that the virus can be transmitted through sweat and saw no need to prohibit the use of sweat to polish the ball.

• More than half of the income of 23 regional parties whose annual audit and contribution reports were analysed came from unknown sources in 2018-2019, according to a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
• The report initially considered 52 recognised regional parties but only 26 of them had filed their annual audit and contribution reports with the Election Commission of India (ECI).
• The Biju Janata Dal declared the highest income from unknown sources (?213.54 crore), followed by the YSR-Congress (?100.50 crore) and the Shiv Sena (?60.73 crore).

• Phishing attacks in the name of Aarogya Setu mobile application are witnessing a “high rise” as online scamsters are taking advantage of the increased inquisitiveness of internet users during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
• It said attackers are also impersonating tools linked to the World Health Organisation and popular video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom to steal sensitive data.
• Phishing denotes to the cyber term of luring and cheating an internet user through a fake SMS or email and thereby breaching their privacy to steal sensitive information.

• Goldman Sachs expects India will experience its deepest recession ever after a poor run of data underscored the damaging economic impact of lockdown.
• Gross domestic product will contract by an annualized 45% in the second quarter from the prior three months, compared with Goldman’s previous forecast of a 20% slump.
• Those estimates imply that real GDP will fall by 5% in the 2021 fiscal year, which would be deeper than any other recession India has ever experienced.

• A rare palm endemic to the South Andaman Island is finding a second home at Thiruvananthapuramat the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI).
• The species, Pinangaandamanensis, resembles the areca palm to which it is closely related. But its entire population of some 600 specimens naturally occurs only in a tiny, evergreen forest pocket in South Andaman’s Mount Harriet National Park.
• JNTBGRI scientists termed the Pinangaandamanensis a critically endangered species and one of the least known among the endemic palms of the Andaman Islands.