The Ulmus Londinium installation at Somerset House in 2015 (photo: lukeandrewwalker.com)
Forty years ago it was impossible to walk through a London park or the British countryside and not notice, marked against the horizon, the unmistakable outline of the elm tree. But in the 1970s millions of elm trees were lost to Dutch elm disease, transforming our landscape.
But unknown to many Londoners, the elm lives on in the capital, providing important habitats for many other species, as well as through its contribution to London's history and culture.
In our streets
An Ernest Trobridge cottage in Brent, mostly made of elm in 1921
Elm's strong, water resistant qualities has lent it to many uses in crafts and the built environment. At the London Museum of Water & Steam you can find a demonstration of one of its early uses: to carry the capital's first piped water. In the 17th century vast quantities of elm were grown in the Thames Basin to supply the demand, and the sounds of machines boring the trunks to create a pipe echoed through the countryside.
On the Thames, lock gates and boat keels were often made of elm, while elm piles kept Old London Bridge out of the water which, despite the famous nursery rhyme, stood standing for six centuries. You can find the last remnants of the medieval bridge at St Magnus the Martyr's church on Lower Thames Street, along with a model of the bridge.
The elm has also lefts its mark prolifically throughout London's streets. Their often striking statures led to their use as route way markers and plantings to line avenues. Today this is shown in almost 200 London street names that reference the elms that have stood there. There are also less obvious references, such as Seven Sisters in Tottenham, named after a stand of elms and referenced at the tube station through a mosaic of seven elms by Transport for London designer Hans Unger and in Carol Ann Duffy's poem The English Elms.
Off the street, elm can also be found in London's houses. A dip into Brent Archives reveals architect Ernest Trobridge's experiment with elm wood in the 1920s for housing — cheap and plentiful at the time, and stronger than many other woods — to meet the post-First World War population expansion. You can still find many of his houses in the area.
The capital's culture
An elm in the 1851 Great Exhibition's glasshouse (picture: Wikimedia)
The elm also features prominently in London's cultural history. In art, many of John Constable's paintings at the V&A feature the elm, most obviously in Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree which was painted on Hampstead Heath, and in more contemporary pieces including The Twilight Tree sculpture in Acton Park.
Elm has often been used in medicine to treat wounds, giddiness and even leprosy, illustrated at Richmond Park's old Victorian pharmacy, and today through the occasional use of slippery elm for sore throats and stomach pains. However, the tree also has a rather darker association. Rudyard Kipling's A Tree Song highlights its reputation for dropping boughs on passersby, and the wood was often chosen for coffins, including for Anne Boleyn's at the Tower of London.
At Marble Arch, a plaque marks the spot of The Tyburn Tree, originally a large elm tree and later a gallows, used to hang the convicted. Nuns of the nearby Tyburn Convent commemorate the Catholic martyrs that died here and a recent grove of disease-resistant elms can be found across the road at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.
The park is dotted with other elms, including next to the site of the 1851 Great Exhibition — by today's tennis courts — which paved the way for the cultural wealth of museums on Exhibition Road and Albertopolis. They have long-featured in the park and such was the public uproar when two enormous elms were to be felled for the exhibition's glasshouse, that a dome was added so they could be accommodated within it. However, there was concern that sparrows nesting in the trees would soil visitors. To prevent this a sparrow hawk, at the request of the Queen and her husband Albert, was introduced.
London's elms today
An elm in St Paul's park, Brentford
Today, the elm is a much rarer site in the capital, but you can still find significant numbers — approximately 4,000 in Greater London. Many grow in hedgerows as a result of the English elm's tendency to "sucker" along root systems, creating rows of identical elms and prolific spring blossom — which they celebrate as Spring Snow in Amsterdam — but many much grander trees can also be found.
At the top of Marylebone High Street you can find what could be London's oldest elm, thought to be some 150 years old. As well as surviving the ravages of Dutch elm disease and London's sprawling development, the tree also narrowly avoided a World War Two bomb, to which the Garden of Rest on the site of a former church now testifies. Here, many new elms have also been planted thanks to the W1W Tree Planting Scheme, while to the north Regent's Park contains a grove of rare Japanese elms by the Sicilian Fountain, and a Caucasian elm which came down in a storm is clambered over by children in the park's Marylebone Green Playground.
Hunting down London's elms can also reveal the wider heritage of places. Tucked behind St Pancras rail station, in an old churchyard, you can find a number of "weeping" elms among the gravestone-encased Hardy Tree, and John Soane's mausoleum, which inspired Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's design for London's infamous red telephone box.
This has been adapted from an earlier piece byJames Coleman.
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Pedestrians have taken over city streets, people have almost entirely stopped flying, skies are blue (even in Los Angeles!) for the first time in decades, and global CO2 emissions are on-track to drop by... about 5.5 percent.
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A 42-year-old Alabama man was arrested on Thursday at Disney World's Discovery Island, telling deputies he was unaware he was trespassing. He called the island a "tropical paradise," according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
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Employees at a chain restaurant in Tennessee have to temperature check guests, or question them about COVID-19 symptoms, change gloves constantly, and enforce social distancing — and that's just to start.
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Like Michael Jordan himself, the AJ1 was an instant hit. But the sneaker's renewed reign 35 years later isn't just about greatness. It's about the stories that build the myth.
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Edward is 20 years old and he has never had a job. Unlike most of his peers, he didn't work Saturday shifts in restaurants or grocery stores as a teenager, but also unlike most of his peers, he graduated high school $20,000 richer than when he started.
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The US administration announced it would withdraw funding from the WHO. Here's who contributes to organization, using the two-year budget from 2018-2019, broken up by contributor and contribution type.
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Globally at least 3,500,517 cases and 246,893 deaths, Europe the continent most affected - over 1.5mn cases and over 143,000 fatalities, the US over 1.1mn cases and 67,000 deaths, but numbers reflect only a fraction as many countries test only serious cases pic.twitter.com/P7v8cafcpZ
BREAKING: A new U.S. intelligence analysis obtained by the AP says Chinese leaders "intentionally concealed the severity" of the coronavirus pandemic in order to stock up on critical medical supplies needed to fight it. https://t.co/pyvIhBT3pE
President Trump relaunches his election campaign with a live TV event inside the Lincoln Memorial, promising an early #coronavirus vaccine and urging Americans to put the pandemic behind them and embrace an "incredible" future https://t.co/eiKqSXVqDcpic.twitter.com/SF181eEEnn
Navy Lt. Pamela Resurreccion salutes the flag during morning colors aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy in Los Angeles, April 30, 2020. The Mercy deployed to serve as a referral hospital for non-COVID-19 patients admitted to shore-based hospitals, allowing those hospitals to focus on COVID-19 cases.
Four army officers, three non-commissioned officers, and eight soldiers were killed or injured during the operations, the armed forces said
Egypt's armed forces killed 126 takfiris in northern and central Sinai during operations "in the past period," a statement by the military read on Sunday, and the operations resulted in the "death or injury" of 15 army personnel.
The statement said that the takfiris were killed in 22 raids and 16 qualitative operations, without providing a timeframe for the operations.
Four army officers, three non-commissioned officers, and eight soldiers were killed or injured during the operations, it said.
Prime minister tells of his stay in intensive care after he contracted coronavirus.
Boris Johnson has spoken of his dramatic stay in intensive care as doctors faced a "50-50" decision on whether to put him on a ventilator and plans were drawn up on how to announce his death.
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, the prime minister said he needed "litres and litres" of oxygen but he got through his ordeal with "terrible buoyancy" that left him convinced he could make it.
He also admitted he had worked throughout the early stage of his illness and not taken the disease seriously enough, having to be "forced" to go to hospital on the advice of doctors. Johnson came out of a three-night stay in intensive care at St Thomas' hospital in Westminster on 9 April.
In a separate interview with Monday's Sun, Johnson also revealed how he clapped for carers from his hospital ward.
Travellers in protective suits are seen at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport after the lockdown was lifted in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China's epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, April 10, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
As countries lie frozen in lockdown and billions of people lose their livelihoods, public figures are teasing a breakthrough that would mark the end of the crippling coronavirus pandemic: a vaccine.
But there is another, worst-case possibility: that no vaccine is ever developed. In this outcome, the public's hopes are repeatedly raised and then dashed, as various proposed solutions fall before the final hurdle.
Instead of wiping out Covid-19, societies may instead learn to live with it. Cities would slowly open and some freedoms will be returned, but on a short leash, if experts' recommendations are followed. Testing and physical tracing will become part of our lives in the short term, but in many countries, an abrupt instruction to self-isolate could come at any time. Treatments may be developed -- but outbreaks of the disease could still occur each year, and the global death toll would continue to tick upwards.
It's a path rarely publicly countenanced by politicians, who are speaking optimistically about human trials already underway to find a vaccine. But the possibility is taken very seriously by many experts -- because it's happened before. Several times.
WNU Editor: From what I have read, and listening to the people that I know who are knowledgeable about this, they are all telling me the same thing. A vaccine will be found, and probably manufactured and distributed in 2021. It relieves me that they are this confident. But I am also lhave concerns that they may be wrong. I have lost count over the past two months on how much the narrative for this virus and the pandemic that it has spawn has changed. Who is to say that the narrative behind the development of a vaccine may also change. I guess we will know by next year.
The 16th installment of the China navy escort fleet conducts a two-ship alongside replenishment in the eastern waters of the Indian Ocean in a file photo. Photo: Twitter
China is leveraging coronavirus confusion and distraction to make gains in rival India's maritime backyard
If Chinese military planners thought they could use the Covid-19 crisis to steal a march in the Indian Ocean, they may have been mistaken. India may be under the world's largest coronavirus lockdown, but its navy is not.
On April 14, the Indian Navy issued a public statement saying that its Eastern Naval Command's Dornier squadron continues its maritime surveillance missions and that its naval assets remain "mission-ready and prepared for immediate deployment should the need arise."
The statement was likely prompted by the discovery of a dozen China-deployed Haiyi, or Sea Wing, underwater drones in the eastern Indian Ocean, India's traditional sphere of influence. The drones, known as Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), are purportedly used for scientific research for deep-sea mining and other commercial activities.
Engineers working from their bedrooms and basements helped determine how serious the situation was and crafted a repair plan.
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on and Americans remain urged to stay home as much as they can to help prevent further outbreaks, employers, including the U.S. military, have encouraged working from home whenever possible. At the same time, healthcare providers have expanded the use of so-called telemedicine, remotely diagnosing and prescribing treatments, giving the virus fewer opportunities to spread and reducing the strain on medical personnel and infrastructure. These two worlds converged in a way recently when a team of Air Force engineers, at times working from their bedrooms and basements, helped 'diagnose' a battle-damaged A-10 Warthog ground-attack aircraft and prescribe a 'treatment' plan to maintenance personnel downrange without ever having to meet to face-to-face.
Washington (CNN)Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday stepped up administration claims that China mounted efforts to hide the extent of the coronavirus spread, including concealing the severity while stockpiling medical supplies.
"You've got the facts just about right," Pompeo told ABC's "This Week" when asked if China intentionally stockpiled medical supplies in early January while it concealed the severity of Covid-19. "We can confirm that the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didn't learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place."
Pompeo's comments come as the Trump administration is formulating a long-term plan to punish China on multiple fronts for the coronavirus pandemic, injecting a rancorous new element into a critical relationship already on a steep downward slide.
As speculation still lingers over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after he reappeared publicly on Saturday for the first time in 20 days, an official in South Korea says it doesn't appear the dictator had any medical procedure.
Video released by North Korea showed a smiling Kim moving around during the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, with some observers still raising questions on whether he looked a bit stiff as he walked around the facility.
A South Korean government official told Fox News on Sunday that "our government believes" there was no indication that a medical procedure occurred on the leader of the Hermit Kingdom, who is believed to be 36, despite speculation he may have had a heart procedure.
Weapons found this morning in relation to the 'mercenary invasion' according to Nestor Reverol. Include 2 technicals with machine guns mounted and thousands of rounds of ammunition, multiple AR rifles. Unconfirmed reports say 8 were killed and 2 captured #Venezuelapic.twitter.com/iPJ5D4LNzi
The interior minister of the South American nation says a group from Colombia attempted to invade the country by boat. Venezuela is mired in a political and economic crisis over the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro's rule.
Venezuela announced that an armed group launched an invasion before dawn on Sunday by boat, attacking through the port city of La Guaira.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said on state television that Venezuelan forces overcame the attackers. He did not say who the assailants were but identified them as coming from Colombia.
"In the early hours of May 3, a group of terrorist mercenaries from Colombia intended to carry out an invasion by sea with the aim of committing terrorist acts in the country," the minister said.
Afghan officials on May 3 launched an operation to locate and retrieve bodies of migrants from a river in western Herat Province after reports that Iranian border guards had thrown Afghans into the river to prevent their entry into Iran.
In a statement on May 2, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said a probe had been launched into the reports.
It was not immediately clear how many migrants had been involved in the alleged incident, which was denied by the Iranian consulate in the region.
This spring's successful test shots of the Precision Strike Missile and Extended-Range Cannon are just two pieces of a rapidly evolving portfolio of new long-range weapons.
WASHINGTON: As the Army urgently rebuilds its long-neglected artillery branch, it's test-firing some impressive hardware in the southwestern desert and over the Pacific. But all those technologies, the Army's artillery modernization director told me, are in service to a single purpose:
After decades of depending on air support, the Army needs its own long-range precision firepower to blow holes in high-tech defenses so US aircraft, warships, and ground troops can pour through.
No one wonder weapon can solve this problem on its own, Brig. Gen. John Rafferty told me in an interview ahead of this week's successful Precision Strike Missile test. Instead, it requires a complete toolkit of complementary weapons with overlapping ranges, each optimized for a different set of targets at a different level of the future fight.
The Army plans to deploy more of the thermal sensors, originally developed to spot targets at night.
WASHINGTON: Pentagon security has been using thermal cameras on tripods to check temperatures at the building's Visitor Center since April 22nd, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force announced today.
The REF, famous for fielding defenses against roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq, worked with the Army's C5ISR Center lab and Program Executive Officer – Soldier to convert infrared targeting sensors into hands-off thermometers to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency wants to set up more of the sensors at other points around the massive headquarters, including the entrance to the Washington Metro subway system.
ISIL attacks against government forces in Iraq have been on the rise since April compared with previous months this year [File: Achilleas Zavallis/AFP]
* Intelligence officials estimate 2,500 to 3,000 ISIS fighters remain in Iraq alone * An additional 500 escaped from prisons in Syria last month, fuelling violence * Attacks have been recorded within 60 miles of Baghdad and inside Syria
Iraq and Syria are battling a resurgence in attacks from ISIS as the terror group takes advantage of the coronavirus pandemic.
There are between 2,500 to 3,000 Islamic state fighters in Iraq, security officials estimate, and a further 500 have escaped from prisons in Syria, fuelling a spike in violence in the region.
Three security guards were killed outside a government building in Kirkuk, Iraq, after a suicide bomber blew himself up in the first week of Ramadan.
And yesterday ten Iraqi military fighters were killed in a three-pronged co-ordinated attack in Salahaddin province, just 54 miles from the capital Baghdad.
Previously secret agreement emerges as spokesmen for US military and Taliban clash on Twitter
The US military has warned the Taliban it must curb attacks inside Afghanistan and revealed that a US troop withdrawal agreement signed in February included an informal commitment for both sides to cut violence by 80%.
The previously secret arrangement was revealed in a Twitter spat between the US military spokesman Col Sonny Leggett and his Taliban counterpart Zabihullah Mujahid. It comes after a sharp escalation in militant attacks since the agreement was sealed.
In a rare open letter to militants published on Twitter, Leggett warned: "If the violence cannot be reduced – then yes, there will be responses."
It's Friday morning in Alexandra township – a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg – and dozens of people are gathered in a field outside a food distribution point, hoping today might be the day they get something to eat.
"If you're hungry, it's easy to get sick from stress and everything," says Mduduzi Khumalo, who's been lining up every day for two weeks. To get food your name has to be on the list and, so far, despite registering multiple times, his hasn't been.
Khumalo worked as a delivery man before South Africa's coronavirus lockdown decimated his income. His children used to get two meals a day at school, but schools are closed now. Every day, the kids wait for him at the family's tiny home, and every day brings the same bad news.
Update: I concur with this analysis that the secondary impacts of Covid-19 are going to be enormous .... "Exceptionally Dire": Secondary Impacts of Covid-19 Could Increase Global Poverty and Hunger (The Intercept). I can easily foresee deaths from secondary impacts .... poverty, hunger, diseases, social unrest, and violence exacerbated by the pandemic .... dwarfing the number of those who die of the coronavirus itself. And heaven help everyone if the expected second coronavirus pandemic wave does happen later this year.
Thousands of defiant Muslims have held public prayers during Ramadan in Afghanistan, ignoring Covid-19 safety measures. Their radical leader previously said that dying from the virus would be a form of martyrdom.
A large crowd of followers of hardline Salafist preacher Mujib Rahman Ansari had gathered for an open-air group prayer near the Gazer Gah Sharif pilgrimage site in Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city. The worshippers sat in tight rows, close to each other, ignoring social distancing norms and not wearing masks or other protective gear.
Just a few weeks after the US Air Force ended its 16-year Continuous Bomber Presence in Guam, its B-1 bombers are back on the Pacific island. The temporary deployment program is designed to keep Washington's adversaries guessing about what US firepower will be where and when.
The US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) announced Friday that four of the B-1s, able to carry the largest weapon payloads in the US fleet, had arrived at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam to conduct training and "strategic deterrence missions" in the Indo-Pacific region.
The B-1s, from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, are being deployed under what the Air Force calls its bomber task force, a plan designed to move the massive warplanes to spots around the world to demonstrate "operational unpredictability," the service said in a statement.
The Air Force did not specify how long the bombers will be on Guam.
The acting Director of National Intelligence has ordered all 17 of the intelligence community agencies to immediately review whether their handling and sharing of information that identifies U.S. persons — such as citizens and those with permanent residency — are in compliance with strict privacy policies and procedures, according to a memorandum exclusively reviewed by CBS News.
Richard Grenell, who became the acting intelligence chief in February, signed the memorandum with the subject, "Protecting the Privacy and Civil Liberties of U.S. Persons," on April 29. It directs agencies including the CIA, the NSA, military intelligence and Homeland Security to report back findings, and identify specific actions that will ensure the rules are followed, within 30 days.
WNU Editor: We have learned in the past few years on how this program of "unmasking" can be used by an administration to target their political opponents. Reforming this program is long overdue.
The Kremlin and its towers and churches are reflected in the Moscow River along a deserted embankment as the sun rises over Moscow, Russia, Monday, April 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord has you potentially command large armies in big battles, but first, you’re going to have to win them over. Keeping their loyalty, feeding them, and upgrading them to stronger troop types will be the key to conquering the land. It’ll take a lot of work, so we’ll explain how to do it here.
If you think being locked down for the last month has been hard on you, then pity your poor CPU: it’s just not used to this kind of focused attention. The good news is that you can now give it the gift of early retirement without breaking the bank thanks to a pretty solid sale on processors over at Newegg.
Recruiting people to your cause in Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord is key to achieving your goals, whatever they may be. The most valuable people in your army will be companions, who are people that can be assigned roles and who can be upgraded in similar ways to your player controlled character.
If you bought a VR kit for your Mac and planned on using SteamVR, then you are out of luck. Valve are ending VR support for MacOS, so they can “focus on Windows and Linux”. Mackers can still access legacy builds, but this means no more improvements, and no more bug-quashing.
There are ways to jack in without using SteamVR, but still. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth.
Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord does allow you to develop settlements into money making machines, but in order to get the most gold flowing through your town, you need to ensure that you have the right infrastructure in place. Workshops are key to this and there are some that are better for your specific town than others.
Clambering over rubble that, moments earlier, was a stout brick wall, Sergeant Nelson’s squad find themselves on the ground floor of a windowed two-storey west-facing storeroom. To the south the coast seems clear. To the north, in the chamber codenamed ‘LEAD’ by Colonel Croesus, a sandbagged Pak 40 anti-tank gun waits patiently for passing trade. The gun crew are expecting dawdling side-on Shermans 50 metres away. They are not expecting a dozen grizzled GIs within spitting distance.
(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here)(more…)
After disappearing from the face of the earth for a few years, metroidvanias are everywhere. If you boot up Steam now and check New Releases, I’ve no doubt you’ll see two or three games that promise a pixelated creature jumping around on a 2D plane, unlocking doors and paths for ten or so hours.
The sea’s a pretty messed up place, ain’t it? A vast, practically-bottom expanse of mother nature’s weirdest and deadliest experiments, piled in together and told to work it all out themselves. A short, pay-what-you-want release from devs Maceo Bob Mair and Nicolás Delgado, Swallow The Sea (available on Itch) captures that horror by following a hapless bundle of eggs just trying its best to be born.
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! Each week, a procession of game developers and aspiring hobbyists come heads bowed, offering up their darling prototypes and unfinished works. Each week, I am burdened with selecting a scant handful to present to you, dear reader. This week: sailing sandy seas, a medieval delivery service, bin-raking bandits and the worst television.
Hard to imagine worse things to eat while in VR. Do you really want sticky fingers clutching your index controllers, melon juice splashing over your expensive electronics? It’s probably for the best, then, that the one watermelon in Half-Life: Alyx is impossible to find in normal play – a sweet, tantalising snack tucked away only for those brave enough to break out the cheats.
NEW YORK governor, Andrew Cuomo has joined budgets with other neighbouring states to co-ordinate the lifting of lockdown restrictions and buy protective personal equipment .
DONALD TRUMP kept his cards close to his chest, as he remained coy about whether he would slap tariffs on Chinese imports as his punishment for the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world.
THE BRAZILIAN city of Manaus has become a hotspot for the coronavirus, overwhelming hospitals, cemeteries and emergency services - and it appears one particular teenage environmental activist could help.
VLADIMIR PUTIN'S popularity has plummeted to new lows, as Russians become increasingly frustrated with his regime's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
CHINA has warned Australia against continuing its investigative efforts after it published a dossier containing details of its probe into the coronavirus pandemic.
THE MYSTERY surrounding Kim Jong-un's disappearance from public deepened on Sunday, after a South Korean official claimed that the North Korean leader did not undergo any medical procedure or surgery.
US SECRETARY OF STATE Mike Pompeo said there was "enormous evidence" that the coronavirus originated from a Wuhan laboratory, further stoking tensions with Beijing.
US SECRETARY OF STATE Mike Pompeo sought to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula, claiming North Korea "accidentally" fired shots into South Korea on Sunday morning.
A LEAKED intelligence dossier from the Western 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance has fuelled more criticism against China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and condemned the "duplicity" and "secrecy" surrounding the virus' origin in Wuhan.
Though Netflix began its life as a rental-by-mail DVD service, it was the on-demand service that truly took Netflix from a successful company to the media giant it stands as today. What started as a simple alternative to the DVD service known as Netflix Instant became the main focus of the company. No longer was Netflix just a simple Blockbuster alternative; they were the future of television. Now, nearly ten years after Netflix truly started to take over the industry as a streaming service, they remain at the top of the pile of on-demand watching. While Hulu and Amazon Prime both offer their own competing services (in addition to the seemingly-endless stream of other options on the market today), Netflix has remained in power as the service to have. After all, the slang phrase is “Netflix and chill,” not “Crackle and chill.”
Netflix has become increasingly interested in being the “next HBO,” releasing new content weekly in an effort to bolster their legacy library. Unfortunately, all of their new content has made it tough to find shows that are actually worth streaming. Thankfully, Netflix happens to be the best place to watch some of TV’s greatest shows, whether you’re looking to binge through the entire series or catch up before next season. We’ve already covered the best Netflix originals, so consider this list of the best shows on Netflix to be more focused on content picked up from other outside sources. We’ve also listed some of Netflix’s best international shows, some of which are billed as Netflix originals.
With all that said, these are the top 60 shows on Netflix for May 2020 in no particular order. Get ready for a night of binge-watching, as these shows represent the best non-originals Netflix has to offer. Take a look!
The best kind of animated feature films are capable of telling stories you wouldn’t be able to tell using traditional live-action animation. Perhaps your world is inhabited with creatures that would be impossible in the real world, or capable of creating without using millions upon millions of dollars. Animation is a broad category that covers a lot of great entertainment. Some is for kids, some is just for adults, and some is legitimately fun for everyone. Films based in animation are excellent ways to experience full-on fantasy worlds, science-fiction battles, and often-impossible events. You’ll find talking animals, dancing teapots, and the classic anvils falling from the sky. Plenty of animation is based in humor, designed to make you laugh until you cry. Sometimes watching animation comes from the need to view the true artistry put into work by teams of animators, both working in 2D classic cel-animation and newer 3D CGI animation.
This list contains the best animated movies and films streaming on Netflix at the moment. From stories about brand-new baby brothers and anthropomorphic animals working together, to adult storytelling, painting a world destroyed by a giant monster or the tale of a teenage girl trying to find her parents in a dystopian, steampunk Paris, there’s something for everyone on this list. We present the 30 best animated films on Netflix for April 2020, in no particular order.
And of course, if you’re looking for more entertainment to watch with the whole family, you might also want to check out our list of the best family-friendly movies on Netflix.
Something you’ll see on Twitter more than anywhere else is reaction GIFs, or GIFs used to respond to other messages and comments without typing any words. Twitter has an entire GIF search engine that makes it easy to find the right GIF to send, either in a direct message or in a reply tweet to someone else on your feed, with easy suggestions like “Agree,” “Applause,” “High Five,” and many more.
As you might expect, you’re bound to see a million GIFs on the platform that you like. Unfortunately, keeping those Twitter GIFs on your computer or phone is more challenging than it should be. Right-clicking on the desktop site reveals the option to copy the URL, but that’s all you get!
Why does Twitter make it so hard to download and save GIFs for offline use? Is it even possible to save Twitter GIFs to your computer or your smartphone? You’ll find answers and more in this guide to downloading GIFs from Twitter.
Twitter GIFs are Not Real GIFs
To kick things off, why can’t you save Twitter GIFs as an image file on your computer or smartphone, just like you would with a GIF on any other website? The answer may not seem evident at first, but any media that isn’t a still photo on Twitter cannot get downloaded.
Instead, you might notice that GIFs on Twitter use an interface that looks similar to a video platform, but they are missing the playback bar at the bottom of the display. That’s the real reason why you can’t save your Twitter GIFs to your computer: they aren’t GIFs at all, but small video files converted to a proprietary format by Twitter. On the flip side, you can also convert videos to post them on Twitter.
So, what does that mean for downloading Twitter GIFs? The answer is to use a third-party tool. While it’s not as simple as right-clicking on an image and saving it to your computer, it is still a simple process. Let’s take a look.
Saving a Twitter GIF on Your Computer
The easiest way to save a Twitter GIF is through a PC. Here’s how!
Grab your PC and open the tweet containing the GIF that you want to copy.
Right-click on the GIF. You’ll see one option here: copy video address.
Copy the GIF link.
Open a new tab.
Go to “https://ezgif.com/” and click the ‘Video to GIF‘ link.
Paste the copied Twitter GIF link into the video URL box.
Click the ‘Upload video!’ button
You’ll see a page that features your GIF as a video. Hit “Convert to GIF” to convert it into a “regular” GIF file.
The converted GIF will appear in the next window. Right right-click it and save the file, as shown in the example below. You’ll notice that they specify not to link to the GIF they display directly. That’s why you need to right-click the GIF and save it to your PC, which makes total sense, considering that you want to keep it for many uses.
Just remember that reposting the GIF to Twitter will reconvert the GIF back to Twitter’s hybrid format, as it does with any animated GIF file.
If, for whatever reason, you can’t get EZGIF to work on your device, don’t fret.
There are plenty of sites on the web that can convert Twitter GIFs, including:
Unfortunately, keeping a Twitter GIF on your smartphone is more complicated than downloading it on your computer, largely thanks to the limits of mobile operating systems. Still, some people rely on their smartphones for everything, and even Twitter is a better experience when it’s in the palm of your hand. For these two methods below, we’ll be using the Twitter app for Android, combined with some other applications to unlock the GIF download on your device. Let’s take a look.
The Easiest Solution: Use Your Mobile Browser
By far, the most natural solution is just copying the GIF, just like the method we described above. It’s not difficult to copy the video address within the Twitter app, and EZGIF has a mobile site that makes saving the GIF to your phone just as simple.
Start by finding the GIF you want to save to your device
Click on the tweet
Click on the GIF inside the tweet to open it in a full-screen display.
Hit the share button at the bottom, then select “Copy Link.” On Android, you receive a notification when the link gets copied to your clipboard.
With the link copied, open your browser and head to EZGIFS.com, which has a mobile site that functions as outlined above.
Paste the link into the box provided, but don’t click the “Convert” button. The problem with copying the link from the Twitter share menu is obvious: the link copied includes an invite in front of it to “check” out the tweet.
Scroll through the URL and erase everything before the ‘https://…’ portion of the link.
Hit the ‘Upload video!‘ button.
Press and hold the newly created GIF.
Select ‘Save Image‘ to download the content to your device.
The Second Solution: Use Dedicated Apps for iOS and Android
In addition to the mobile site for EZGIF, there are several non-website apps you can install on iOS or Android to accomplish the same thing. The apps support the ability to download and save the content to your device versus saving them from the web browser, but using a web page is safer. Still, there are tested and approved applications, if you would rather have a dedicated app that does the same job. Just be prepared for ads!
For Android, Tweet2GIF is an app that performs very similar to EZGIF’s Video-to-GIF web app but works as a dedicated application. One drawback to the app is the lower quality conversion, but it works great overall!
You only need to click the convert button once to gain access to your GIF, not convert it and then download it. Second, because it happens within its app interface, the GIFs are easier to download and store than they’d otherwise be. We did find that the GIFs were a bit lower quality than what we’d otherwise want from the platform, but even so, it’s a reliable app.
Click on the GIF within the associated tweet to open it in a full-screen display.
Tap the ‘Share‘ button at the bottom
Select “Copy Link.”
Visit Tweet2GIF from the Play Store.
Install and launch the app.
Paste the Twitter GIF link you copied in steps 1-3 above.
Click the ‘Download GIF‘ button to save a copy to your smartphone.
For iOS, you’ll want to turn to GIFwrapped, a reliable GIF search engine on iOS that also comes with the ability to convert Twitter GIFs into shareable ones.
Copy the link and paste it within GIFwrapped’s “Use the Clipboard” feature.
Save the GIF to your library
Post or share the GIF to any app by using the built-in share feature of GIFwrapped.
Since GIFwrapped keeps its library within the application, it’s easy to keep things locked down and make them readily available!
***
With your GIF newly downloaded and saved from Twitter’s clutches, you can post and share the moving image file anywhere you like! GIFs are a vital part of the online world and help pages load faster compared to actual media files. Whether you’re using a dedicated application or you’re downloading content through EZGIF or another viable online source, it’s essential to keep the GIFs for future use. It’s also silly that Twitter keeps their GIFs locked in a video-like state, but thankfully, they can be converted and rescued for the rest of us.
Today’s streaming powerhouse is undoubtedly Netflix, the world’s premier streaming service and creator of half the oddball shows in the creative universe. Whether you’re looking for films, television shows, or Netflix Originals, Netflix has content for everyone. That universality means that it’s all too easy to start sharing your account with friends and family.
Account sharing is a lovely way to build closer relationships with your friends, family, and neighbors. It’s also a great way to watch your favorite Netflix shows without having to pay for a subscription.
But what happens when you come home from work, kick off your shoes, grab something to eat, and fire up Netflix, only to be greeted with an error message alerting you that too many people are using your Netflix account? Or, what do you do if you notice some suspicious activity on your Netflix account?
In this article, I will show you how to deal with exactly this situation. (First, are you sure someone’s piggybacking? Check out of our article on how to detect Netflix intruders.)
Netflix has a tiered service model with levels that permit one, two, or four streams at a time on your account. However, if you try to pull down more streams than your subscription tier allows, Netflix will immediately put a stop to your shenanigans.
Netflix is pretty generous with their streaming allowances and is pretty flexible about letting people piggyback on their friends’ or family members’ subscriptions, so although there are people who will try to teach you how to beat their system and get more streams than you’re paying for, you won’t find that information here.
Instead, we’re going to talk about what to do if you’ve permitted too large a population of “passive viewers” to gather at your Netflix watering hole.
How Can I See What Devices Are Using my Netflix?
If you’re curious about who exactly is using your account, it’s very simple to get a report of what IP addresses and what devices are associated with your Netflix account.
In older versions of Netflix, there used to be the option to “See recent account access” from within the “Viewing Activity” section. However, this option is now gone.
Instead, there is an entry called “Recent device streaming activity” under “Settings.” This shows what device has accessed a Netflix account, when they logged in, and where they accessed your account from. If you see a text link for “See recent account access” at the top of your Viewing Activity, select it. It will show you what devices have used your Netflix account and when. It also lists IP address but the device type is typically more useful.
You should be able to identify which family member or roommate is using your account from the type of device they are using to access it.
If you don’t see “See recent account access” or “Recent device streaming activity,” then you need to look through your viewing history for anything you have not watched recently. If you see multiple entries for The Crown and you know you haven’t watched it because you would definitely fall asleep, you now know someone else is using your account.
Another sign of a “Netflix Intruder” can come if you see odd suggestions on the main screen. If you begin seeing random or completely irrelevant suggestions, chances are someone else is using your profile and influencing your Netflix suggestion algorithm.
Lastly, if you notice that someone logged into your account from Maine, for example, but you don’t know anyone who lives there, then your account may have been compromised. (Be sure to check with your friends, though, as they might just be using a VPN.)
How Do I Kick Someone Off My Netflix Account?
If someone is using your account without your permission or you’re just tired of other people mooching off of you, then you’ll need to take the steps to kick other users off of your account.
There are three ways to kick people off of your Netflix:
Visit their place of residence, pick up the remote, pause their show mid-stream, and log them out of the app.
Delete their profile.
Sign out all users from Netflix and change the account password.
Our legal department spoke to us quite firmly about recommending the first option, so now we’re mandated to tell you that it is “unwise” and “unnecessarily confrontational” to carry out such a plan.
Accordingly, I will say only the first option is heavily discouraged, so only instructions for the second and third options will be displayed here. Remotely deleting a user’s profile is a little passive-aggressive, and they may ask you about it. So it is probably worth asking the person about their usage first.
Delete Their Profile
If you pay for the account and cannot get access, that isn’t fair; however, a little gentle questioning might be a good first move before kicking anybody off of your account. Ask who is using your account and perhaps ask them to log off so you can watch it. If the person respects your need for Netflix, they should comply. If they don’t, it’s time for Plan A: remote profile deletion.
Open Netflix wherever browsers are sold.
Click “Profile” in the upper right corner and select “Manage Profiles.”
Select the profile you want to delete.
Click “Delete Profile.”
Keep in mind, this won’t log them out of your account. It will just delete their personal profile, but they will still be able to use any of the other profiles on your account.
Sign Out All Users
If the person still has your username and password, they may be able to create a new profile for themselves. That’s when it’s time for Plan B: forced logout. You can forcibly log people out of your Netflix account. However, if you cannot get access to your Netflix, you have little choice.
Select “Sign out of all devices” under Settings on the Account screen.
Select “Change Password” at the top under Membership & Billing.
Change the password.
Log into Netflix using your new password.
Everyone who was using your Netflix device allocation will be logged out of the app. It should be noted, though, that it may not be instant.
In some cases, it can take hours or even days for everyone to be kicked off. By changing the password immediately, they won’t be able to log back in and you will be able to binge as much as you like. Just make sure you inform all of the legitimate users of your account of the new password.
Final Thoughts
Account sharing is the reason many people are able to enjoy their favorite Netflix shows and movies, but it can be very frustrating when too many people are using your account and preventing you from watching. Sometimes, the only solution is to kick everyone off of your account.
Most households will understand your move if they have been leeching off your account for a while. Some won’t and you will have to be prepared to defend your position. At the end of the day, it’s your account and you are paying, so it is up to you how you manage it.
Of all genres of film, there’s no type of film more difficult to recommend than comedies. While a well-produced drama can keep most viewers glued to their seats, and a quality horror film can produce frights and scares without resorting to jump scares, what constitutes a “good” comedy is far more subjective. Everyone finds different things to love about a comedy, be it the outrageousness of what’s happening in a situation, the romance between the two leads, or the witty wordplay exchanged between characters. Comedy can be broad, based on physical stunts or laughing at the poor decisions of the characters in a film, or it can be subtle, focused on hidden details in the backgrounds or double entendres in the script. And while a horror film can be universally looked at as “poor” or “not scary,” even the worst-received comedies have their defenders, with a solid amount of fans defending the work for being truly hilarious.
Still, we can’t simply ignore the need for comedy recommendations, especially when you’re looking for something easy to laugh at on a night in with Netflix. The world’s most popular streaming service offers hundreds of comedies for you to choose from, from broad and slapstick comedy to subtle and dialogue-based humor. We’ve gathered a small selection of the best that Netflix has to offer, with everything from raunchy, provocative humor, to gallows-based dark comedies, to family-friendly films that can make anyone ages 5 to 105 smile. Make sure to take a look at the description of each film, where we’ve done our best to designate each film with a certain style of humor to better allow for our readers to find a film that will fit their sensibilities. Let’s dive into the 25 best comedies streaming right now on Netflix!
Family-friendly movies often get a bad reputation, often known for being entirely too cutesy and unfocused on being able to provide actual entertainment for viewers over the age of seven or eight years old. There’s no shortage of bad family films either, cheap direct-to-DVD or direct-to-streaming movies that are made to generate a quick buck, and nothing more. Plenty of people might argue that family movies should be resistant to criticism; they’re meant for an afternoon at the movies with your kids, or to distract your children for 100 minutes while you finish some housework. Ultimately, arguing that family-friendly films have to be bad is a wasted argument. There’s enough incredible, well-made, entertaining films meant for parents and children alike that watching random, bottom-of the barrel content is simply a waste of your time.
Netflix has a pretty wide library of family content, both in their movies and television sections. If you’re looking for something appropriate for movie night that will work to entertain both you and your children, there are plenty of excellent offerings to be had on the site. These are 25 of our favorite family-friendly films on Netflix, perfect for a movie night in or for watching on a lazy Sunday afternoon. While we can’t guarantee every film will be one of your all-time favorites, each film on this list has something special to offer, whether it be classic life lessons, laughs for the whole family, or action-filled excitement. If you aren’t sure whether a film is appropriate for certain children, we recommend using Common Sense Media’s guide for films, which allow you to view age suggestions for each film. Here’s 25 of the best family-friendly movies on Netflix as of May 2020.
To many computer users, the word “torrent” has become associated with pirating. Sure enough, torrenting has earned a bad reputation for many, with the assumption that it is illegal to download any torrent. While it’s true that a lot of pirate sites use torrent to download and illegally distribute content, downloading torrents as a technology is a perfectly legitimate way to share large files online. In fact, there are many torrents out there that are totally legal to use. Sharing of large files using the BitTorrent protocol had gone on for years, long before software piracy became a massive issue. Large software distributions, like Linux OS packages, use torrents to get the software to its end users.
It is therefore important to realize that using BitTorrent or uTorrent (or any other torrenting client) is not illegal in and of itself. Using them will not, in and of itself, get you thrown in jail, banned by your ISP, or copyright trolled. However, if you use the protocol to share copyrighted media (and if you have bad luck or are careless), those things might happen. With that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. In this article, we will give you a brief tutorial on how to make uTorrent download faster. The examples here all use uTorrent, but if you use a different client, most of these procedures will still work. You just have to find the equivalent settings in your client.
Speeding up torrent downloads with uTorrent
uTorrent is a torrenting client that works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The basic uTorrent app is free; although, there are premium versions available for Windows that add some bells and whistles. Subscription fees range from $4.95 to $52.46 per year. These are great if you want an ad-free and pro experience, but we can say that the free version is perfectly adequate for anyone who just wants to share some files. uTorrent isn’t the only torrent tracker available in the web, but it is one of the most popular. It has been around for years and is the torrent client choice for millions of people across the world. However, it isn’t well-optimized “out of the box”, and there are some things you can to do make it faster.
Let it through your firewall
The first thing you should do when installing uTorrent is to click yes when it asks you if you want to ‘Add an exception for uTorrent in Windows Firewall’. If you hit no or don’t use Windows Firewall, you still need to let uTorrent through.
If using Windows Firewall:
Open uTorrent and select Preferences.
Navigate to Connections and check the box next to ‘Add Windows Firewall exception’.
Open your firewall software and allow uTorrent traffic to pass freely through.
Do not be tempted to turn off your firewall when torrenting, as this opens your computer up to malware and all sorts of threats. If you use a router with firewall, you will need to configure this setting too.
Add more or faster seeders and peers
Torrenting works by distributing a file across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of seeders and peers. Seeders are computers that have the complete file available for upload. Peers are computers that are still in the process of downloading the file. When a new peer joins the system and is looking for a file, the torrenting software breaks the file into many tiny chunks. The software then looks for peers that have already obtained the chunks that the new peer still needs, and if they have it, the other peers upload it to the new peer. If none of the peers have the chunk, then the system goes and gets it from one of the seeds (which have all the chunks).
This system keeps the seeds from being overwhelmed by requests, and once the peers collectively have all of the chunks of the file, then new peers joining can get the file very quickly because it is available from many different sources instead of just a few seeds. For this reason, the more seeds and the more peers a torrent already has, the quicker any new members of the network will be able to download the file. When a peer finishes downloading the entire file, it becomes another seed and can further enhance download speed.
Torrent websites don’t actually keep the original file themselves. Instead, they have trackers, a file that describes all the chunks of the original file. The tracker also keeps track of how many seeds and peers are working with the specified file (which always starts with one seed, the original file owner). So when you go to a torrent website, it will show you how many seeds and how many peers are already working with the file. It’s almost always a good idea to select the torrent with the highest number of seeders and peers to get that file faster. Higher numbers also are a good general indicator that a particular torrent has high-quality content.
Allocate the correct bandwidth
While it might seem counter-intuitive, allocating too much bandwidth to torrents can slow them down. You need to get the ratio right if you are to get the most throughput.
Open uTorrent and select Options.
Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
Check the box next to ‘Apply rate limit to transport overhead’.
Change Maximum Number of Global Connections to 2329.
Change Maximum Number of Peers Connected to 257.
Change Number of Upload Slots Per torrent to 14.
Change Maximum upload rate to 14.
Change the port
Port allocation for uTorrent defaults to somewhere between 6881 and 6999. Most people know this, and most ISPs know it too. Accordingly, many ISPs throttle these ports so that torrenting traffic won’t burden their network. If your ISP throttles these ports, it makes sense to change them. The recommendation is to change the port to something over 10000 to avoid both throttling and conflicts within your computer.
Open uTorrent and select Options.
Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
Change the port to a number between 10000 and 12000.
Streamline queueing
Queueing sets up several torrents to download one after the other. Setting this up correctly enables you to maximize throughput. It’s a small but very effective tweak. While your computer or phone is waiting for packets from one torrent, it can send out requests for packets from another.
Open uTorrent and select Options.
Navigate to Preferences and Queueing.
Set Maximum Number of Active Torrents to 10.
Set Maximum Number of Active Downloads to 10.
Set Seeding Global Minimum Ratio to 0.
Prioritize a torrent
My final tips for speeding up uTorrent is to prioritize the download you want first. This gives that file first choice of bandwidth and resources so will download faster if the seeds and peers are capable of it.
Right click a torrent within the main uTorrent window.
Select Bandwidth Allocation and then High.
Right click the other torrents you have in progress.
Select Bandwidth Allocation and then Low.
If you don’t switch the others to low, nothing will happen as uTorrent will already be using all the resources allocated to it.
Add more trackers
Remember we talked about the tracker, the file that keeps track of who is seeding and who is downloading the underlying file? Well, you aren’t limited to just one tracker. You can tell uTorrent to check a whole list of trackers to find more seeds and peers. There are constant updates to the various lists of public trackers; that link is current as of March 2019. To use the list, copy the text of the list into your cut and paste buffer. Right-click the torrent name in uTorrent and select Properties. In the “trackers” section, paste the list and in a little while you’ll start seeing your seed and peer count go up, along with your download speed.
Those are just a few ways you can make uTorrent faster. As long as there are enough quality seeds and peers and you have everything set up correctly, your torrents should now come flying down. Any bottlenecks or slow downloads will be at the other end, not yours!
Switching Clients
uTorrent used to be the go-to for anyone looking for a stable, easy-to-use client for their PC, but over the last decade, a number of issues have made it difficult to recommend. In 2010, uTorrent began including a Conduit Engine toolbar within its download utility, along with making the homepage and default search engine Conduit without consent. In 2011, uTorrent began including the Bing toolbar instead, before announcing a paid version of the application titled uTorrent Plus. Even worse, in 2012 (starting with uTorrent version 3.2.2), users began to see advertisements, along with “featured torrents” within the app, and while these could be disabled, it was a disappointing addition nonetheless.
For many others, uTorrent became unusable in March of 2015 when the program began bundling another application titled “Epic Scale,” which mines cryptocurrencies called “Litecoin” in the background of your computer and gives that money to BitTorrent. Though this program has since been discontinued from being bundled with the software, for many, this was the final straw when it came to using uTorrent.
Without a doubt, qBittorrent is our favorite client in 2019, especially for those looking to move away from uTorrent. As a free and open-source client, we’ve found it to be reliable, fast, and complete without any sort of advertisements, malware, or any other unwanted software included during installation. The app is still regularly updated more than a decade after its initial launch. With recent updates, both the resolution of the app and the visual design of the software has been updated to look cleaner than ever. Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, it’s the perfect tool for those tired of the interruptions and slow connections that can be included with uTorrent.
Do you have any techniques for speeding up torrent downloads? Share them with us in the comments below!
One of the best things about Windows is that you can customize it almost infinitely to look and feel just how you want. While the default settings are pretty good, there is always room for improvement. So, how do you configure your computer to suit your particular needs? This tutorial walks you through how to make desktop icons smaller, as well as how to move, change, and remove them.
What are Windows Icons?
Icons are a primary way that people interact with computers. They are “graphical” representations of commands that hide the code of which they execute. Double-clicking an icon makes Windows interpret the action as a command. It runs the file’s code in the background, executes the command, and then opens the program or follows the code’s instructions.
Make Desktop Icons Smaller or Larger in Windows 10
To make desktop icons smaller in Windows 10, you can choose from three predefined defaults or use your mouse’s scroll wheel.
Option 1: Choose from Three Default Sizes
Right-click on an empty area within your Windows 10 desktop.
Select View and choose one of the presets, Small, Medium, or Large. Select whichever one looks best to you.
Option 2: Use Your Mouse’s Scroll Wheel or Laptop’s/Tablet’s Touchpad
To resize desktop icons using your PC mouse, follow these steps:
Hover the mouse on an empty place on the desktop.
Hold Ctrl and scroll your mouse wheel forward and backward to change the size of the icons. For laptops and tablets, the resizing process is performed using two fingers, pinching in or out.
Each wheel click represents one size up or one size down. Select whichever works best for you.
To resize desktop icons using your laptop’s touchpad or touchscreen, follow these steps:
To shrink icons, place two fingers (usually your thumb and index) on the touchpad, and then move them together to reduce the size gradually.
To enlarge icons, use the same fingers (or any that you want), and slide them away from each other.
Resizing Windows 10 icons with the mouse wheel, touchpad, or touchscreen offers more control because they aren’t restricted to three presets. You can use these three options to find the perfect icon size for your desktop.
Adjust Text Size, Apps, and Other Items
If you’re into customizing your desktop, you can also change the size of the text, app icons, and other items using one simple setting, as shown above, and below.
Navigate to Settings ->System -> Display.
Change the slider underneath ‘Change the size of text…’
Slide it up to make everything larger or down to make it smaller.
Select Apply once you’re happy.
Your screen resolution will remain the same, but the items displayed will increase or decrease in size based on your chosen setting. It’s primarily designed to make things on the screen easier to see, but it is useful in other applicable ways too!
Text resizing works with most but not all Windows apps. If they are fully compatible with Windows 10, they will work. If they are not, Windows may try to rescale them to fit or will leave it alone.
Adjust Icon Size within Windows Explorer
You can also change how files and folders appear within Windows 10 File Explorer.
Open Windows Explorer.
Select View from the top menu.
Select a setting directly underneath in the ribbon menu that appears.
You can also use the Ctrl and mouse scroll wheel trick again if you prefer.
As you can see from the above information, there are infinite sizing options you can make to your system. Whether you just want tiny icons to save some and preserve your beautiful wallpapers or larger ones to see them better, Windows 10 has plenty of ways to do it!
There are two types of people in this world: those who love being scared, and those who refuse to watch scary movies. Whether you enjoy the visceral thrill of watching your nightmares come to life, or you prefer to hide behind the couch with your eyes closed and your hands covering your ears to block out the sound, watching a horror film can lead to some incredible experiences, especially if you’re brave enough to confront the things you fear most. Horror films are some of the most popular movies in the industry today, both in terms of how many have been made and how many people go to see them. But for every great horror movie, you’re likely to find twenty that simply don’t hold up with the best the genre has to offer.
Netflix is home to a wide library of horror films, but it can be tough to determine the gems from the rest of the pack. Finding a good horror movie is tough—the film has to be scary enough to terrify you, original enough to keep you hooked, and feature performances from its actors that don’t bore you or cause you to remember that horror films are just movies. Classic horror movies are lucky to come out once a year, and looking through the library of films on Netflix will likely persuade you to search any farther.
If you’re wondering which films on Netflix are the worthy candidates for your scare-fests, you’re in luck. We’ve looked through the entire collection of horror films that Netflix has to offer, and found the best of the bunch—25 films that are sure to scare you to your core. We’ve done our best to rank these movies in an order ranging from “fun frights” to “true, white-knuckle horror,” though as with anyone, what we find scary may leave you yawning by the television.
Check out our list below and look back every month for brand-new updates on the best horror movies on Netflix today—plus, let us know in the comments below what you found to be your favorite horror flicks on Netflix!
The beauty of TikTok lies in the sheer volume of content available on the platform. There are millions of short videos covering everything from lip sync to comedy sketches and commentaries. There surely is something for everyone here! There is a vast collection of videos from different topics including comedy, animals, dance, food, fashion, music, pop culture, art, daily life, sports, travel, and many more.
It’s the perfect app for people who love watching short videos and for those who are comfortable in front of the camera.
Surely, a lot of people have spent their time immersed in watching TikTok videos online. But what if you want to download keep a TikTok video? Some people might want to keep a collection of their favorite videos, or they might want to have some offline entertainment stored handy in their devices. Whatever reasons there might be, there are third party apps and websites that could help us download and save TikTok videos. In this article, we will walk you through some of them.
The strength of TikTok is in the online community and the mix of self-promotion and social media. However, if there is a video you particularly like or one you want to use in a montage or within your own production, it is often easier to download it to a computer and use video editing software there instead of on your phone.
The Best TikTok Video Downloaders
Unfortunately for iPhone users, the third-party app downloaders are mainly for Android users. There are websites, though, that you can try for download. You can also use the built-in downloader within TikTok, if you like.
The TikTok downloader
There is a download option within TikTok that lets you download some videos to your phone, although it will leave a watermark. If you want to download for post editing or to use in your own montage, this is less than ideal but it is an option.
Open the video you want to download in the TikTok app.
Select Share and then select Save Video. The video will then be saved in your camera roll.
Use Instagram to download TikTok videos
For some reason, the TikTok downloader doesn’t work with every video. Some users block other users from downloading their videos. If you cannot see the Save Video option when you select Share, then the uploader has disabled downloads.
There is a workaround that you can try, though, so don’t despair. You will need the Instagram app installed on your phone for this to work.
Open the video in TikTok and select Share.
Select the Instagram Stories icon and wait for the app to save the video to Instagram.
Select the Download option in Instagram and it will download to your camera roll.
When you select Share to Instagram Stories, you will likely see a progress meter and then Instagram will open with the video already there. You can use the standard download feature in Instagram Stories to save it. The video will still be watermarked but it’s another way of saving the video.
Video Downloader for TikTok
The Video Downloader For tik tok app on the Google Play Store (their spelling not mine), is an Android app that lets you download videos. The app is free and has over a million installs. What makes this one of the best TikTok video downloader around right now is the fact that it removes the watermark on the downloaded videos. This is a very useful feature if you want to create a montage or use the video in your own production. The watermark is subtle but it is still there and will still show up in anything you create that features it. Using this app will remove it and allow you to use the video as you need to. This app is absolutely free to use.
Musically Saver
I promised another method that would work for iPhone users and Musically Saver is it. It’s a website that works like the many YouTube video downloaders but for TikTok. Copy the video URL from TikTok and paste it into the center box. Hit the Download button and the rest is easy. It seems to work the majority of the time and is free so is worth checking out.
Download TikTok Videos to Your Desktop
If you want to download TikTok videos on your desktop, there are websites that can help you do this job. For one, you can try TTDownloader. You just need to copy the URL of the TikTok video you want to download and paste it in the download box in the TTDownloader website.
Know of any other TikTok video downloaders worth trying? Know of any apps for the iPhone? Other websites? Tell us about them below if you do!
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Mumbai | Kolkata: India's factories will make a muted start as the government eases lockdown conditions partially starting May 4 and manufacturing looks to get back on track with many plants having been shut for more than a month. Carmakers are set to begin production this month with output at about a quarter of the usual level. Leading smartphone, electronics, apparel and shoe manufacturers expect to restart at 15-20% capacity, although not immediately. They expect a big dent in consumer demand, given salary cuts and job losses due to the lockdown that had been imposed from March 25 to curb the spread of Covid-19. Industry executives said most plants will work at low capacity at least until the festive season. Manufacturers will have to contend with the constraints of the country being divided into red, orange and green zones, apart from containment areas that are fully sealed. The situation is fluid and zones could change depending on cases. They also have to ensure supplies from vendors can be transported to plants without a hitch and put enough distance between workers.Most carmakers have told their supply chains to prepare for production at 20-30% of capacity, after zero production in April. Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor, Honda, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) will try and resume in the first half of May, whereas leading exporters Ford and Volkswagen are likely to start manufacturing in the second half of the month, according to people with knowledge of the matter.Much will depend on opening up of markets as well, said Naveen Soni, senior vice president, sales and service, TKM, since dealerships also have to resume for any sales to happen. 75525105Most Auto Cos to Run One Shift"Plus the zones where our suppliers reside are also dynamic. We want to start manufacturing in May, but a lot will depend on the clearances at our supplier end and opening up of the market. There is no point producing if the buyer is not there," he said.Most will run one shift and have physical distancing on the shop floor. Workers have already gone into plants to start preparing for production. MG Motor have already started making a small number of vehicles at its Halol plant in Gujarat. Mahindra and Mahindra will start its engine and transmission unit at Chakan in Pune from Monday.India is expected to make 50,000-70,000 cars in May, given the fact that first few days will go toward disinfection and rearranging the assembly floor, said Gaurav Vangaal, associate director at IHS Markit."The complete automotive ecosystem is in paralysis and their local administration bandwidth is already overstretched to give factory clearances," he said. "We expect production to ramp up slowly at 10-20% in the first week, before moving to 30-50% in the next couple of weeks."Maruti Suzuki's plants in Manesar in Haryana and in Gujarat will be the first to resume production and the Gurgaon factory will start later.Logistics and supply chain challenges will need to be overcome, since over 90% of vendors are in the red zone. For instance, the Vitara Brezza's moulding is sourced from a plant in Noida in Uttar Pradesh, while the rubber mix used in this comes from Mohali in Punjab. The mix isn't stocked as its properties change after 20-25 days if unused.Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava recently told ET the company will commence operations only when it can do so in a sustainable manner. Automakers have supply chain partners spread across the country and inadequate access to components will hold up production processes even if vehicle makers reopen. Besides, unless dealerships resume, stocks will continue to pile up over and above the inventory already in channel.CONSUMER ELECTRONICSLarge MNCs such as LG, Vivo, Oppo and Realme were yet to receive the green light for resumption of production from local authorities as of Sunday evening since their plants fall in the worst-affected areas.Most plants are expected to work at low capacity until the festive season. Several mobile phone makers export from India and some of the production may cater to that initially. Samsung also hasn't received approval to start production and the company is yet to decide when to resume. Panasonic, Woodland and others said they would restart only when there's demand.Samsung, LG, Vivo and Oppo did not respond to queries.Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) president Kamal Nandi said production at the industry level may not go beyond 20-25% for next few months."Categories like AC and refrigerator will lose 30% of their annual sales due to lockdown," said Nandi, who is also the business head at Godrej Appliances. "Demand in cities and large markets will be subdued to poor… sentiments probably continuing even during festive, and the only hope is if upcountry gets revived with good crop harvest and normal monsoon."SMARTPHONESmartphone maker Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth said once sales resume, demand will definitely be impacted due to income loss, a possible recession and the hike in goods and services tax (GST) on handsets to 18% from 12% from April, forcing all brands to raise prices."More consumers might postpone their plan of purchasing a smartphone for some time. We will understand the market demand once the online sales and offline sales resume and accordingly make adjustments to our production plans," said Sheth.IDC India research director Navkendar Singh said the smartphone market has been growing in the past two-three years as consumers upgrade."Consumers will hold onto their existing handsets. The market will contract by 5-6% this year and if festive sales fail, it can even be 10%," he said. The industry expects consumers will also go for cheaper phones than flagship models.Woodland India MD Harkirat Singh said it will reopen a few factories after some weeks and run at 10-15% capacity to prepare for the autumn-winter season, anticipating poor sales in the 600 stores it has. "We have to conserve cash too," he said.Puma India MD Abhishek Ganguly expects sportswear may not get impacted severely as it caters to work-from-home and fitness attire but the company has cut supplies."We want to keep the factory lights on since restarting production after a complete shutdown for a while might be a challenge to scale up when demand revives," he said.Apart from anticipated low demand, companies said it will be difficult to scale up production as they have to follow distancing norms in factories and buses.(With inputs from Sharmistha Mukherjee)
Alokparna Das is 46 years old and a worried woman these days. Her son is set to join college next year and her Bengaluru-based company has slashed her salary by 25%. Even though she is part of a double income family, she says, "We will have to make adjustments in our lifestyle and spend cautiously in order to ensure our son's goal isn't jeopardised."Alokparna Das, 46 Trainer in NGO, Bengaluru"We will wait for another 2-3 months to see how the situation changes before deciding on how to proceed with our financial planning." 75502367Work experience: 24 yearsImpact: Will have to alter lifestyle and focus only on essential expenses for now.Smart steps she has taken Has started adjusting her budget to cut the discretionary spending so that child's education goal next year is not impacted. Has life and health insurance. Has identified ways to supplement income.Where she has fumbledHas a small emergency corpus of 2-3 months.Has not evaluated financial plan to check if all goals will be met.Manish Saxena, 32, is from Delhi and has bigger problems. A sole breadwinner for his family of three, he quit his job last month after being put on indefinite unpaid leave. He's still searching for a new job and his emergency fund can last him only two months.All the dictums that had pegged the rise and fall of careers to skill and hard work, can now add a new attribute: coronavirus. An invisible factor that can spring up suddenly to not only make or break careers, but also wreak havoc on lives and livelihoods. Since the beginning of this year, when the microscopic virus popped up on the global scene, it has altered the economies and budgets of nations and individuals worldwide.In India, the lockdown since March-end has seen the country and industries come to a grinding halt, wiping out startups, bringing small and medium scale businesses to the cusp of collapse, sowing widespread unemployment and salary cuts, and altering the workplace and lives of millions of employees. While the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates the loss of full-time jobs worldwide to be 305 million, in India, the total number of jobs likely to be impacted is 136 million, as per the National Sample Survey and Periodic Labour Force Survey.However, the impact of the virus on businesses and jobs is not uniform across sectors, with some taking the brunt and others barely skimming the bad phase. The worst affected sectors include aviation, travel and tourism, automobiles, construction & real estate, manufacturing, among others. On the other hand, sectors like information and communication technology, healthcare and medical supplies, e-commerce or online retail, logistics and transportation, where remote working is feasible or the need for manpower has gone up considerably, are doing well."Any sector that delivers to discretionary spends or involves high people connect, like travel, is likely to get impacted more than others," says Rajul Mathur, Consulting Head, Talent and Rewards, Willis Towers Watson, India. Agrees Neeti Sharma, Senior Vice-President, Teamlease Services: "Most people who plan vacations around this time have stalled and so has the travel business. The automobile volume may decline by 15-16% in 2020 as the companies have shut down manufacturing and put production on hold."As companies try to ensure their survival by cutting costs, many have resorted to slashing salaries and laying off people. Others have put employees on indefinite leave without pay or put freshly hired staff on hold. According to an online survey conducted by the Economictimes.com on the impact of Covid-19, as many as 39% of the 3,074 respondents who took the survey are facing a salary cut, while 15% are set to lose their jobs. Despite the fact that 15% respondents are facing a salary cut of more than 25%, almost 43%of these are likely to continue with their current jobs and not look for new ones. Click here to know more: Covid impact: 2 in 5 employees are facing salary cuts, finds surveyExpectedly, not only have the careers of employees been impacted, but their budgets and financial planning have also been skewed. Though the collateral damage is inevitable, there are ways to ensure that there is minimal disturbance to careers and finances. Find out how.A. MANAGE YOUR CAREEREven as careers run into large-scale disruption, experts are of the opinion that it may not last too long. "Remember that this is just a phase and normalcy will return after a cure is found. This is not like the 2008 global financial downturn where the uncertainty about recovery was very high," says Sanjay Shetty, Head, Strategic Account Management, Randstad India. So it may be a good idea not to have knee-jerk reactions and hurt your career prospects.Here's how to deal with specific situations:1. Job losses & salary cutsCompanies are slashing salaries or laying off people in the short term to be able to survive by cutting costs. It is in the employees' interest that the company survives to ensure job security. "So even if you've had a big salary cut, wait rather than quit to look for a new job," says Shetty. "The company is bound to remember employee support and make up for it later when growth resumes," he adds. If you feel you might lose your job, do not believe all rumours and quit proactively. At the same time, make sure you start circulating your resume immediately. It is always better to find a new job while you still have one in hand. If you've already lost your job, it might be a good idea to upskill during the lockdown so that you have a better bargaining power to land a better job.2. Leave without pay"I'm just so confused about what to do as I love my job but have no way of knowing whether I will retain it or not," says Pooja Anand, 20, who works in a digital marketing and PR firm. She has been asked to go on leave without pay till further notice. "While it is better to wait for two or three months before taking a decision, one should get in touch with the right stakeholders and recruiters to know what the company is planning," says Shetty. Similarly, if you've just been hired but then put on hold, you should get it in writing from senior people in the organisation that the job is confirmed and you will be hired after the situation stabilises. Remember that it is not even in the company's interest to spend a huge amount of money and go through the hiring process all over again after a few months. So be patient, but also be proactive.Pooja Anand, 20 Content Writer, Delhi"I don't want to leave the job as my learning curve here has been very high. Yet, the uncertainty means I should probably look for another job." 75502388Work experience: 5 monthsImpact: As she has no dependants, it won't affect her too much.Smart steps she has taken Has started freelancing as a make-up artist. Has started looking for another job.Where she has fumbledShe has no emergency corpus.3. Increments & performance"Most organisations have held back appraisals till the lockdown period and may decide on increments after stabilisation of offices and work. The status depends on how soon the companies bounce back after the lockdown," says Sharma of Teamlease. If your increment or performance-linked pay has already been withheld, wait. "Three to six months after the lockdown, consumer behaviour will change again. The pent-up demand will hit the market, resulting in a boost to businesses and the need to reward performers. Expect a reasonable increment to return next year.If your salary had been converted to a larger variable component, you will earn even more from bonuses," says Devashish Chakravarty, Founder and CEO at QuezX. com. However, if the pandemic resurfaces or your sector is unable to recover, it may not go as planned.4. Reskilling & upgradingWhether you have lost your job, have suffered a massive salary cut or are on unpaid leave, it is a good idea to upskill yourself during the lockdown since you have more time on your hands. "Do what work is being given to you and invest in upskilling and reskilling yourself to stay relevant and also improve productivity," advises Sharma. This is exactly what 50% of the respondents of the Economictimes.com survey are doing. They are either upgrading themselves in the existing work stream or are learning new skills to aid their career once the situation improves.Also read: From pay cuts to job security, answers to six questions you have about covid and your careerCovid-19 impact on jobs and businessesOverall unemployment rate in India, with the employment rate falling to an all-time low of 38.2% in March 2020, as per CMIE: 23.4%Urban unemployment rate in March 2020: 30.9%Total number of jobs that will be impacted in India, as per the estimates of the National Sample Survey and Periodic Labour Force Survey: 136 MillionNumber of businesses that will see moderate to large negative impact in the next six months, as per the Willis Towers Watson survey: 57%Potential job loss in the Indian tourism and hospitality industry, which is 70% of the total workforce, as per FICCI: 30 MillionThe estimated losses in aviation sector in the first quarter of 2020-21, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, India: Rs 27,000 croreNumber of workers in the informal economy worldwide, nearly half of the global workforce of 3.3 billion, who face an immediate danger of losing their livelihoods, according to ILO: 1.6 BillionLoss of full-time jobs worldwide, which is equivalent to 10.5% deterioration in working hours during the second quarter, as per ILO: 305 MillionB. PROTECT YOUR FINANCESWith salaries slashed, increments withheld and variable pays put on hold, the household budgets of lakhs of families have gone haywire. The situation is worse for those who have lost their jobs. How do you keep your finances on track?1. Secure your risksThe first step is to stop panicking and secure your risks. Do you have an emergency corpus to help you sail through the period of job loss? If you don't, build one that is worth six months' of household expenses immediately. "One of our surveys has revealed that 58% of people will not be able to meet their monthly expenses and 71% will go bankrupt if they were to get a pink slip," says Nitin Vyakaranam, CEO, ArthaYantra.Next, make sure you have enough health and life insurance. If you lose your job and are without an employer cover or an independent cover, your medical expenses could deplete your savings. So get a family floater plan of at least Rs 5 lakh and a term life insurance. "It may be time to think whether you want to continue with your traditional insurance plans and pay high premiums for these," says Vyakaranam.2. Assess, prioritise, allocateNext, list your income and outgo, assets and liabilities. While your salary may have reduced, your savings could have gone up due to reduced travel and work-related expenses, cutting down on eating out and entertainment, as well as discretionary expenses. This will help you know how much you can afford to spend and whether you will be able to reach your goals or not. "Based on your assessment, you can now segregate the essentials from the discretionary. You will know which goals need to be prioritised, how much you can save, which resources you can allocate, and where," says Vyakaranam.3. Reschedule emiS, premiums, SIPsIf you've lost your job, you may need to reschedule your loan EMIs, stop your SIPs for a few months and request a delay for your insurance premiums from the respective institutions. 4. Supplement your incomeLast, but not least, find ways to increase your income. Reskill, start freelancing, and monetise your passions.Also read: Future of work: What to expect after coronavirus crisis blows over
Bengaluru: Cheers accompanying the reopening of liquor stores could be short-lived as companies said existing stock at distributors will be exhausted after the initial round of stockpiling and replenishment could take a month or so. "The new guideline is a step in the right direction but we cannot beat the drums yet. Pipelines are dry as distilleries have been shut for over a month. Restoring the supply chain will take three-six weeks," said Deepak Roy, executive vice chairman of Allied Blenders & Distillers, the maker of Officers Choice whisky and chairman of the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC).While the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has permitted sale of liquor in the third phase of the Covid-19 lockdown starting Monday, companies are still awaiting clarity from state governments, especially for red zones. As per the MHA guideline, retail of liquor, paan and tobacco is permitted in green and orange zones and non-containment areas in red zones, while ensuring a minimum six feet of physical distancing. "Since it is also the peak harvest season, priority will be given to the movement of agricultural crops," said Roy. 75525213Most Bottling Units Outside Red ZonesHowever, most bottling units are located in semi-urban and rural areas, mostly not in red zones, reducing some pain on the transport side, he said.There are about 70,000 liquor outlets across the country. The government has said 319 districts are in the green zone, 284 in the orange zone and 130 in red. Companies expect states such as Assam, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to start retailing before others like Maharashtra, where infections are high."We will see a big challenge in social distancing on the bottling line. Karnataka has permitted only a single shift for distilleries. Production will thus meet only 50% of the requirement in the initial days," said Rakshit Jagdale, managing director of Amrut Distilleries, which expects large pack sizes to sell more due to panic buying.Sorting out the supply chain challenge to combat the spurious liquor trade is the core plan for the days ahead, according to Radico Khaitan, the maker of Magic Moments vodka and 8PM whisky."Opening retail will prevent the flow of tainted liquor, bootlegging and the loss of state government revenue," said COO Amar Sinha. "Liquor industry contributes 15-30% revenue to the state governments."Breweries are trying to determine the demand level as leftover stock in the market was impacted by the rise in blackmarket trading during the lockdown. "We will be able to retail in close to 400 districts but we will need 14 days to restart supply and a month to recover," said a senior official at a global beer maker on conditions of anonymity.
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: India expects bad debts at its banks could double after the coronavirus crisis brought the economy to a sudden halt, a senior government official and four top bankers told Reuters.Indian banks are already grappling with 9.35 trillion rupees ($123 billion) of soured loans, which was equivalent to about 9.1% of their total assets at the end of September 2019."There is a considered view in the government that bank non-performing assets (NPAs) could double to 18-20% by the end of the fiscal year, as 20-25% of outstanding loans face a risk of default," the official with direct knowledge of the matter said.A fresh surge in bad debt could hit credit growth and delay India's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic."These are unprecedented times and the way it's going we can expect banks to report double the amount of NPAs from what we've seen in earlier quarters," the finance head of a top public sector bank told Reuters.The official and bankers declined to be named as they were not officially authorized to discuss the matter with media.India's finance ministry declined to comment, while the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks' Association, the main industry body, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.The Indian economy has ground to a standstill amid a 40-day nationwide lockdown to rein in the spread of coronavirus cases.The lockdown has now been extended by a further two weeks, but the government has begun to ease some restrictions in districts that are relatively unscathed by the virus.India has so far recorded nearly 40,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,300 deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.'RIDING THE TIGER'Bankers fear it is unlikely that the economy will fully open up before June or July, and loans, especially those to small- and medium-sized businesses which constitute nearly 20% of overall credit, may be among the worst affected.This is because all 10 of India's largest cities fall in high-risk red zones, where restrictions will remain stringent.A report by Axis Bank said that these red zones, which contribute significantly to India's economy, account for roughly 83% of the overall loans made by its banks as of December.One of the sources, an executive director of a public sector bank, said that economic growth had been sluggish and risks had been heightened, even ahead of the coronavirus crisis."Now we have this Black Swan event which means without any meaningful government stimulus, the economy will be in tatters for several more quarters," he said.McKinsey & Co last month forecast India's economy could contract by around 20% in the three months through June, if the lockdown was extended to mid-May, and growth in the fiscal year was likely to fall 2% to 3%.Bankers say the only way to stem the steep rise in bad loans is if the RBI significantly relaxes bad asset recognition rules.Banks have asked the central bank to allow all loans to be categorized as NPAs only after 180 days, which is double the current 90-day window."The lockdown is like riding the tiger, once we get off it we'll be in a difficult position," a senior private sector banker told Reuters.
New Delhi | Chandigarh: Retailers in corona-free zones will soon run out of fans, electrical fittings, textbooks, mobile phones, stationery items and other goods as they need to replenish dwindling stocks with supplies from wholesale markets and warehouses located in severely restricted "red zones"."This is defeating government's aim to help consumers and businesses. We have requested the government to allow wholesalers to operate for up to four hours beginning midnight," said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of Confederation of All India Traders. He said retail sales of non-essentials usually add up to ₹2,000 crore a day. Supply of fans, coolers and electrical items like switches and bulbs is getting squeezed as wholesale markets such as Delhi's Bhagirath Palace that has 3,800 shops, are shut. "For last one week, retailers have been calling but we are unable to supply," said Bharat Ahuja, president of the traders' association in the market.75525475Many Consignments StuckAhuja said retailers generally kept stocks for only a week.It's a similar story for electronics, where factories depend on inputs from red zones and many consignments are stranded. More than 250 containers, each with 20 tonne of electronic goods, gadgets, mobile phones and accessories were stuck at various places including ports, wholesalers said. "There was some hope that we will be able to cater to retailers, but it is not happening. The Ramadan period usually accounts for 20-25% of our annual sales, which we have lost," said Ram Lal, president, Gaffar Market Traders Association.Factories also have a problem. "Most of the component manufacturing hubs are situated in red zones, and they are stuck there. There has been no movement at all, so no finished products either," said Vinod Sharma, MD, Deki Electronics, and chairman, CII National Information Communication Technology & Electronics committee.Sharma said conflicting guidelines from the Centre and states were an issue. "On April 20, we were hoping to resume work since the ministry of home affairs' guidelines seemed liberal, but then states overruled them. We are now waiting for Monday for the states to announce their own guidelines before making any decisions," he said."While the initial impact of Covid-19 was on the supply side, it has now moved on to the demand side owing to the lockdown," said Manish Sharma, CEO, Panasonic India, and head of Ficci electronics and manufacturing committee. He said there was a pent-up demand for appliances.
Mumbai: Local savers are buying into stocks big time. Here's the proof: The number of new demat accounts surged despite the lockdown, NSE internet trading volumes jumped 53 per cent in April, and the indices climbed a third since the March 23 low.Institutional investors were net sellers during this period, however.About 1.2 million new investors opened demat accounts with the Central Depository Services (CDSL) alone in March and April. About 6.18 lakh new demat accounts were opened in CDSL in March and another 6 lakh in April. Although the National Securities Depository (NSDL) did not disclose data since the end of February, market participants expect a few lakhs of new accounts in these two months.This is a record jump in new accounts compared with 4.2 million new demat accounts opened in 11 months between April 2019 and February 2020.A sharp fall in the prices of several quality stocks since mid-February may have tempted retail investors to make direct purchases rather than go through mutual funds, said brokers."We have added a record 3 lakh new customers in the last two months and 65 per cent of them are first-time investors" said Nithin Kamath, CEO, Zerodha. "The prime reasons for such an interest in the equity market are attractive valuations, free time due to the lockdown and ease of transactions because of the work-from-home routine."The Sensex fell 37 per cent between February 19 and March 23 and recovered 30 per cent since then. During this period, institutional investors sold shares over ₹6,000 crore. Foreign investors sold stocks worth ₹16,000 crore, and domestic institutions bought ₹10,000 crore.NSE data show that the internet trading volumes jumped 53 per cent in April to an average daily volume of ₹12,602 crore, compared to a daily average turnover of ₹ 8,261 crore."New clients came with good funds to buy only quality stocks," said Vinay Agrawal, CEO, Angel Broking.
Bankers are going back to their boards after the Reserve Bank of India conveyed to them that even non-banking finance companies (NBFC) are covered under `borrowers' to be eligible for moratorium, opening up an opportunity for the struggling non-banking lenders to stay afloat.During a meeting over video conferencing, central bank officials also told bankers that they could use their discretion to decide the eligibility of firms based on their credit and liquidity profile, multiple people familiar with the matter said.The RBI move follows complaints from the NBFC sector that they were being deprived the moratorium that the regulator provided for all borrowers from paying principal and interest between March 1 and May 31 following the temporary shutdown of businesses to prevent the spread of Covid 19.The central bank's nudge may have also come to avoid a plethora of litigation as some NBFCs had sought legal intervention to get the benefits of the moratorium in the absence of banks providing it on their own."The RBI has left it to the discretion of banks," said a bank chief executive, who attended the meeting on Saturday, called by the regulator to review implementation of moratorium on payment as well as to urge banks to boost credit flows as the lockdown is being lifted in phases.Some banks, which had earlier denied NBFCs and microfinance firms the benefit of moratorium on payments, have called their board meeting this week to review the matter. Banks may consider requests from them on case by case basis, top bankers told ET.But all eyes will be on the State Bank of India as it has the biggest share in the industry."The only clarity from the governor's meeting is that banks have been given the freedom to decide on extending the moratorium to NBFCs. But it all depends on what the large banks do. State Bank of India's stance in this is very crucial since it has a lion's share of the market," another senior public sector bank executive said.Bankers have been divided over the issue ever since RBI created the enabling provision on March 27 for lenders to extend moratorium on payment to stressed borrowers.One section believed that NBFCs should have been offered the benefit from the very beginning, while others were against it. Foreign banks and some public sector banks have been in favour.The banks which were against it have argued that NBFCs with unutilised loan limits or having enough cash flows should not get it.Banks' lending to NBFCs surged in March, the highest on month since 2008, as the shadow lending industry bulked up before the financial year closure.Total loans grew 4 percent in the same period at Rs 3.57 lakh crore, data from RBI shows. While NBFC accounted 32 percent of the total, loans to industry also grew, including loans to MSMEs."This moratorium on payment is envisaged for borrowers in stress. We would certainly offer them the benefit when they really need it," said a bank chief executive.
Pune: IT services provider Tech Mahindra expects to benefit from various industries such as healthcare going digital in a post-pandemic world, the company's chief executive told ET.CP Gurnani said the 'new normal' would include more businesses going digital – early signs of which are already visible."These are best guesses, but I think most of the world would want to start declaring that things are becoming normal in the next 4-6 weeks… the new normal is recognising that we all have to change," he said.This would include expansion in health systems, with more out-patient departments going digital and diagnostic solutions moving to department stores."I don't remember the last time I went to a bank – the way banking became digital, I see a lot of businesses becoming digital and hence, the need for 5G becoming much higher," Gurnani said.Telecom forms about 40% of Tech Mahindra's revenue and the company is betting on telecom operators and enterprises going ahead with their 5G implementation plans this year.While most industry sectors are likely to be impacted in the short term, especially travel and hospitality, Gurnani said telecom clients may not see much change."Their requirement to provide services has increased manifold. Most of us are surviving work from home because of telecom companies," he said.Once things start to normalise, Gurnani says the pharma industry globally will work towards becoming self-sufficient. Similarly, the mining and minerals sector will start to be substituted as countries work to cut down reliance on others for critical supplies.Tech Mahindra recorded deal wins worth $3.7 billion in the previous fiscal year, with new signings worth $500 million in the first 45 days of this calendar year, before it was impacted by the Covid-19 related disruptions.Most clients have cut down on discretionary spends, said Gurnani.Clients were only looking to keep the 'lights on' and want to go online. "It doesn't matter what you're selling, everybody wants to go online. So, my digital marketing business is doing very well," he said.There have been conversations with customers on reducing pricing, but there is little scope for discounts with its current Ebitda margins, he said.
New Delhi: Despite job losses and salary cuts caused by the lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, companies including Goldman Sachs and Capgemini are looking for top talent in India, especially tech, digital and core domain specialists.More than 200 director-level and above posts were available over the past week, according to Xpheno, a staffing firm that compiles data from job portals, LinkedIn and company sites. ET reached out to firms including Goldman Sachs, Vedanta and Capgemini, which confirmed that they are hiring."We are committed and continue to engage and hire the best talent in India during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic," said Gunjan Samtani, head of Goldman Sachs Services in India.Vedanta is filling niche technical positions and hiring global experts to build capability."We continue to look for technical experts and, such talent is becoming available globally across domains such as mining, smelting, exploration and technology," said Madhu Srivastava, chief human resources officer at Vedanta Group.Transearch, an executive search firm, has clients recruiting top talent for 20 roles. The bulk of these are replacement hires for CEO, CFO and technology head positions, managing partner Uday Chawla said."Most external hiring is focused around technical domain specialist areas of iron, steel and mining," said Dilip Pattanayak, CHRO of JSW Steel.Capgemini is looking for leaders in new-age technologies such as digital, cloud and data analytics. "In India, there is no hiring freeze currently," said Pallavi Tyagi, CHRO, India, Capgemini.
Press and hold the newly created GIF.
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