The red-crested pochard: is a large diving duck. Its breeding habitat is lowland marshes and lakes in southern Europe and it extends from the steppe and semi-desert areas on the Black Sea to Central Asia and Mongolia, wintering in the Indian Subcontinent and Africa. IUCN status is Least Concern.
Northern Pintail: is a duck species with wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America. It is migratory and winters south of its breeding range to the equator. Unusually for a bird with such a large range, it has no geographical subspecies if the possibly conspecific duck Eaton’s pintail is considered to be a separate species. IUCN status is Least Concern.
Global Minimum Tax: the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has announced that a global deal to ensure big companies pay a Global Minimum Tax (GMT) rate of 15% has been agreed by 136 countries (including India). The countries behind the accord together accounted for over 90% of the global economy. GMT is tailored to address the low effective rates of tax shelled out by some of the world’s biggest corporations, including Big Tech majors such as Apple, Alphabet and Facebook.
Pegasus: Pegasus spyware is malicious software that is designed to enter a device, gather your data, and then forward it to a third party without the consent of the user. Pegasus was developed in 2010 by the Israeli firm, the NSO Group. Pegasus spyware was first discovered in an iOS version in 2016 and then a slightly different version was found on Android. Pegasus spyware is able to read the victim’s SMS messages and emails, listen to calls, take screenshots, record keystrokes, and access contacts and browser history. Hackers can hijack the phone’s microphone and camera, turning it into a real-time surveillance device.
Sputnik Light: is the first dose component of the Sputnik V vaccine. The Gamaleya National Research Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology in collaboration with the Russian Ministry of Health and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have developed Sputnik Light vaccine. The vaccine was approved in Russia on June 2, 2021. The RDIF statement stated that the Sputnik Light vaccine showed 78.6 to 83.7 per cent efficacy in the elderly population.
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