News in Short

• People with type O or Rh−negative blood may be at slightly lower risk from the new coronavirus, according to a new research.
• Among Canadians who were tested for the virus, the risk for a Covid-19 diagnosis was 12% lower and the risk for severe Covid-19 or death was 13% lower in people with blood group O versus those with A, AB, or B.
• People in any blood group who were Rh-negative were also somewhat protected, especially if they had O-negative blood. People in these blood type groups may have developed antibodies that can recognize some aspect of the new virus.

• India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted 7.5% in the second quarter of 2020-21, following the record 23.9% decline recorded in the first quarter, as per estimates of the National Statistical Office. The country has now entered a technical recession with two successive quarters of negative growth.
• However, the economy’s performance between July and September when lockdown restrictions were eased is better than most rating agencies and analysts anticipated.
• While most had estimated a contraction of around 10%, the Reserve Bank of India had projected a 8.6% decline in the second quarter.

• The president of Iran has accused Israel of killing top scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh to stall country’s nuclear programme.
• Fakhrizadeh had been described by western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003.
• The pattern follows a spate of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists that are alleged to be handiwork of western and Israeli intelligence.

• A stadium near Barasat, where Diego Maradona was last seen in action in India, was named after the football legend.
• During his last visit to Kolkata three years ago, Maradona had conducted a football clinic with school children. The stadium has now been converted into a full-fledged cricket stadium.
• The football legend passed away recently after a cardiac arrest. He is considered one of the greatest footballer of all time.

• A group of researchers documenting amphibians in the Deccan Plateau parts of Karnataka have encountered a new species of frog and named it after Bengaluru.
• This new species — Sphaerotheca Bengaluru — is being named after the city to highlight the lacunae in documentation of amphibians from non-forested areas and to restore frog habitats in Bengaluru.
• The new species was described based on the morphological differences and molecular approach with the known species of the borrowing frogs.