Google – In biggest donation yet from any global tech giant, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced the company will provide over $800 million to support small and medium businesses (SMBs), health organisations, governments and health workers on the frontline of global COVID-19 pandemic.

The commitment would include $250 million in ad grants to help the World Health Organisation (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities.

“This is an increase from our initial $25 million announced last month. In addition, we’re providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs,” Pichai said in a statement on Friday.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities.

Google committed a $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital.

“As one example, we’re working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the US to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions,” said Pichai.

This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.

The company will give “$340 million in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year”.

“Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms,” Pichai announced, adding that it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers.

The overall commitment would also include a pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to “leverage our computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19”.

Google is working with supplier and partner Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation.

“Additionally, employees from across Alphabet, including Google, Verily and X, are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and the government in this effort,” informed Pichai.

In addition to these commitments, Google also increased the gift match it offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500.

“That means our employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 million Google.org has already donated,” said Pichai.

Apple has released a website and an iOS app that allows users to screen themselves for coronavirus symptoms, days after announcing that it would donate more than 10 million respirator masks across the US and Europe.

 Google Cloud – Google has announced machine images, a new type of Compute Engine resource that contains all the information people need to create, backup or restore a virtual machine, reducing the amount of time people spend managing their Cloud environment.

Custom images capture the contents of a single disk, for example, a boot disk, which can be used to create new instances that are preconfigured with the apps that you need.

Machine images are a more comprehensive resource that can contain multiple disks, as well as all of the information required to capture and create a new instance.

According to Google, it will reduce the time network admins and data scientists spend managing their cloud environments by eliminating extra steps and streamlining operations.

“In addition to storing complete instance properties and data, machine images use the same differential disk backup technology that powers incremental snapshots, giving you fast, reliable and cost-effective instance backups,” explained Ari Liberman, Product Manager, Google Compute Engine.

“The new machine images make it easy to create new instances at the heart of your scalability, backup and disaster recovery strategy,” he added in a statement.

Tax Payers –  The Finance Ministry on Wednesday notified setting up of a GST grievance redress committee at zonal/state level after it was approved in the last GST Council meeting this month.

The Council in its 38th meeting held on December 18 decided that a structured mechanism be set up for the taxpayers under GST to tackle grievances of taxpayers on GST-related issues of specific/general nature, Commissioner of AGST Policy wing of the Finance Ministry in a letter to all Chief Commissioners of Central Tax & GST and all Chief Commissioners/Commissioners of State Tax said on Wednesday.

The Council has approved constitution of ‘Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC)’ at Zonal/StateAlevel consisting of both Central Tax and State Tax officers, representatives of trade and industry and other GST stakeholders.

The Committee will examine and resolve all issues being faced by the taxpayers, including procedural difficulties and IT-related issues pertaining to GST.

It also can refer any issue requiring a change in Act/rules/notification/ form/circular/instruction to the GST Council Secretariat and the relevant Policy Wing of the CBIC (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Custom). IT-related issues will be referred to GSTN.

Whenever a GST policy related issue is referred by a GRC, the Policy Wing of CBIC would examine the said policy issue, and if required, would make suitable recommendations to process it for placing it before the GST Council for its consideration.

In case, where there are more than one state corresponding to a single Central Tax Zone, the Grievance Redressal Committee will be constituted at state level for each State. Where there are more than one Central Tax Zones in a state, the committee would be constituted at the zonal level.

Each zonal/state level redressal Committee will comprise zonal principal chief commissioner/chief commissioner of Central tax (Co-chair) , chief commissioner/commissioner of state tax (co-chair), representatives of various trade associations (up to 12).

Representatives of prominent associations of tax professionals such as chartered accountants, tax advocates, tax practitioners (up to 4 in number), nodal officer of ITGRC of the Central Tax and Nodal officer of ITGRC of the state tax will also be part of it.

Malang – In their upcoming release “Malang”, Disha Patani and Aditya Roy Kapur essay characters that are in a quite dark space, with both justifying the act of killing. According to the actors, these are morally tricky characters, and as performers they essay such roles in a non-judgmental manner, emphasising that the film is nothing but a work of fiction.

In the trailer, Aditya’s character says: “Mere liye, jaan lena mera nasha hai (for me, taking lives is an addiction)”.

Disha’s protagonist quips: “Jaan lena mera mazaa hai (taking lives is fun)”.

Disha’s character is otherwise portrayed as someone who loves to live “from one high to another”, soaked in adventure sports, long rides and wild nights out.

Talking about her role, Disha told IANS: “Every individual has her own reality, and every action she takes, she feels, is justified in the situation that she lives. That is what my character is about. For example, there are psychopath killers and, of course, what they are doing is not right! So when the audience watches the film, I do not want them to get inspired by her actions and try them in reality. It is a work of fiction.”

For Aditya, playing such a character is a morally tricky deal. “It is tricky and that is why it is important to understand such a character instead of judging him. In reality, all of us try to rationalise the way we behave, the way we take any action. As an actor, I am trying to give life to a fictional character, so it is important to understand that. I try to understand where they are coming from when they do something instead of judging them as right or wrong,” he explained.

The actor added: “A guy can do something that is wrong in my opinion but not for him as a character, and on screen I am not playing myself but a fictional character written by someone, which came from someone’s imagination. So when I am working on a character, I refrain to make it likable, especially in this case, because he is doing some dubious things in the film.”

Directed by Mohit Suri, “Malang” is set in Goa and the story revolves around four characters. The film also features Anil Kapoor, Kunal Khemu, Amruta Khanvilkar and Shaad Randhawa, and is scheduled to release on Friday.

Mahabharat – After Doordarshan announced on Friday that its popular eighties epic “Ramayan” would be aired from Saturday, the audience started demanding for other popular old television shows of that era be re-telecast.

Taking note of such public demand, the government re-telecast body has decided to telecast “Mahabharat”, “Byomkesh Bakshi” and the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer “Circus”.

While “Ramayan” will be telecast everyday at 9am and 9pm, “Byomkesh Bakshi” has been allotted the 11 am slot. “Mahabharat” airs at 12 noon and 7 pm while “Circus” will be on screen at 8 pm.

Excitement of the viewers found their way to social media. Since Saturday morning, Twitter has been buzzing with tweets filled with gratitude.

One user tweeted: “#mahabharat… Remembering my childhood stage and exiting am seeing with my kids.. My daughter translating.. Thanks Doordarshan..”

Another user shared: “Rarely do I watch anything on TV and even rare is with family. Thank You DD. Took me a while to figure out the channel no though. In case you’re lost like me, it’s Channel 1194 on Tata Sky. #Mahabharat.”

Another viewer wrote: “One of the best #detective series #ByomkeshBakshi back to our home once again. Watch the time before CID nd savdhan India #CoronaPandemic #bestuseoftime #StayHome #SupportLockDown Thanks @DDNational @prasarbharati.”

Another user shared: “Already watched today re-telecast of first episode #Ramayana, #ByomkeshBakshi & now eagerly waiting to watch #Mahabharata on #Doordarshan. Thank You @DDNational & @prasarbharati. #StayHomeSaveLives as #IndiaFightsCorona”

Meanwhile, demands for several other old shows continues on social media. These include the Milind Soman-starrer “Captain Vyom”, Mukesh Khanna’s “Shaktimaan”, “Malgudi Days”, “Hum Log”, “Alif Laila” and “Fauji”.

Economy – With disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) driving businesses, the IT sector wants the Union Budget for fiscal 2020-21 to ensure greater use of these to spur a sluggish economy among other measures for the sector, industry experts said on Friday.

“The budget should announce a fund like Singapore’s Temasek that will invest only in early-stage Indian AI start-ups and lower long-term capital gain’s tax for investing in AI-based firms,” digital intelligence firm Germin8 founder chief executive Ranjit Nair told IANS.

With the US and China racing ahead of India in AI research, AI entrepreneurship and government investment in AI, he said the budget should make it easier for start-ups to access capital, as they face an uphill task in early-stage funding.

“The government bring policies that encourage AI companies. Ease of doing business means less bureaucracy so that entrepreneurs can build solutions without distractions,” he said.

AI is expected to have a huge impact not only in commerce, but also in health, national security, cybersecurity, food security, education and global warming.

“The government should announce AI challenges, which make academia and industry solve an important problem in the country. The state’s role should give a crisp problem definition, provide access to data and provide a good cash prize,” Nair said.

Though thousands of engineering graduates pass out every year across the country, India is behind other nations in AI PhDs and AI research. Hence, the budget should allot more grants for AI research and offer incentives to institutes investing in AI training, he added.

Noting that IT was one of the few sectors that remained growth-driven despite the eonomic slowdown since the last fiscal, Cigniti Technologies chairman C.V. Subramanyam said the budget should give relief or reduce dividend distribution tax (DDT) for IT firms operating in the country.

Anti-virus leader Kaspersky’s General Manager, South Asia, Dipesh Kaura said Dipesh Kaura said: “As the budget for the ensuing fiscal is crucial for businesses across the country, we are expecting higher allocations for cyber security from the government.”

Investment in cyber security will accelerate the digital transformation. Funds should be spent on supporting skill development and training students keen to become cyber security professionals, he said.

“Cyber security awareness campaign for consumers should be a major focus of the budget,” Kaura said in a statement.

Cybage Software chief executive Arun Nathani said the budget should take steps to roll back DDT across the board to attract FDI and incentivise the sector to ramp up the capex/opex spend once the demand is back.

“Rationalising the GST rates and compliance processes will outgrow the consumption rates. The Indian IT industry will welcome specific incentives likeAweighted deductions for investing in R&D of AI/BI technology tools to facilitate IT firms, companies, universities and research institutes,” Nathani added.

Big B shares sweet memories – Christmas day saw Amitabh Bachchan turn nostalgic. He trekked down memory lane to recall how he used to celebrate the festival during his growing-up years in Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj), and also during his days in Calcutta (Kolkata), a city where he started out in life and holds very close to his heart.

In the early hours of Wednesday, Big B took to his blog to wish a Merry Christmas to fans and also reminisced how he used to celebrate Christmas along with his family and neighbours in Allahabad (Prayagraj) when he was a child.

“Christmas and the days of celebration were always within us from early times, right from the days of Allahabad .. our neighbours Rev Paul Das and his family lived opposite us from 17, Clive Road .. they were at 18 Clive Road .. and their children our group of friends – Shunila, Naresh, Malti .. Naresh was the one who suggested to my parents about Sherwood and then when he invited Principal Rev RC Llewelyn to visit us in Allahabad, the matter was firmly resolved .. we went to Sherwood,” he wrote.

The veteran actor has recalled how all of them would sing carols and listen to “Silent Night” together, while his mother made coffee for everyone. The actor has also shared memories of gifts he received, and how Christmas was never complete without cakes.

“Christmas time was carol singing with the group that came over past midnight and Maa making the finest coffee for them in the cold, as we listened to the lilting ‘Silent Night’.. there were little gifts that we looked out for form the Paul Das’s under their Christmas tree .. little trinkets, miniature cars and the like .. there was so much satisfaction on getting a pencil box.. a rubber a ruler.. the special Christmas cake made by Mrs Paul Das was a delight .. Shunila played the piano for us as we sang Hymns.. it was such a divine moment..” recollected Big B.

The veteran actor has also expressed the pain he felt when a childhood friend passed away, and meeting his sister after almost 40 years in San Francisco.

He shared: “Naresh was a year senior to me in Sherwood, and his sudden passing at a young age was a huge shock to me.. I met Malti at one of our Concert tours in San Francisco, USA where she had migrated and married.. she was so apprehensive whether I would recognise her or not.. and when I was driving away and saw her desperate face I stopped the limo, called her over and she broke down in tears.. it was after almost 40 years that we were meeting .. the next day I called her and her family over to the Hotel and we reminisced old times..”

Then came his stint of staying in the City of Joy. Kolkata (then Calcutta) was where he landed his first job in the sixties. Kolkata’s Christmas is absolutely magical, and Bachchan recalls every bit of that magnificent experience.

“BUT the true independent spirit of Christmas and New Year was celebrated in Calcutta, then.. during the time of my first job.. 1962 – 1968.. AHHH.. those were the days my friend.. freedom and cheer and the liberty of living on our own.. the group the company the various homes of friends the restaurants and the celebrations on Park Street.. which I must add still looks and dresses up for the occasion,” he wrote.

“Christmas Eve Mass at the church , by the Maidan.. the divine feeling.. the sombre prayers.. and such nostalgia when I shot ‘Teen’ there some years ago..”

“Indeed as I write it is the time for the Mass.. and the mind and body travels there..”

“Calcutta was the epitome of the celebration during these times in the entire Country.. Trinca’s , Moulin Rouge, Mogambo (Mocambo), Grand Hotel, Blue Fox.. Louis Banks, Pam Craine.. ahhh.. such delightful days.. and the non stop partying..” he recalled his pleasant memories, of the best restaurants and artists who performed at these places during the season.

That Calcutta holds a special place in Big B’s heart, is evident from his next few lines where he has mentioned:

“What a city .. what atmosphere .. and what energy .. never experienced anything like that ever again .. timeless ..

.. and is it not strange that just the other day , a book was presented to me .. pictorial .. filled with pictures and history .. titled :

“CALCUTTA THEN and Now”

Although Big B seems to be very happy as he recollects the golden memories of his younger days, the veteran actor has been keeping unwell on and off. He had to skip the National Film Awards ceremony in Delhi on December 23 because he was down with fever.

However, despite health scares every now and then, the 77-year-old actor has constantly been busy with work. He recently wrapped up the last leg of his film “Chehre” in Slovakia. He also attended the opening ceremony of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa last month.