Rawalpindi : Merchants while lauding decision of the government for relaxing coronavirus lockdown took a sigh of relief as Eid season is around the corner. For the last few weeks specifically following the advent of the holy month of Ramazan, there were reports that merchants were treating...

Islamabad : President Arif Alvi on Friday directed that social distancing should be maintained in the upcoming session of the National Assembly for the safety of the parliamentarians and staff against the threat of coronavirus.During a visit to the National Assembly, the president was apprised by...

Islamabad: The cancellation of educational board exams over the coronavirus pandemic has caused confusion for candidates, Federal Minister of Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood has promised to respond to questions early next week.In multiple tweets, the minister said Class 9 exam...

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation is going to introduce a mobile application to ensure punctuality of its employees and facilitate their work.Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar announced this while addressing a meeting at the Frere Hall on Friday. He also announced that applications were sought for...

The Sindh High Court has directed the home department to decide the representation of a proscribed organisation’s activist against his 90 days’ detention under the Maintenance of Public Order within a week.The activist, Abdul Hameed Bugti, had been recently released in the Pakistan...

A man was killed and another wounded during a clash within the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station’s limits on Friday.Police said the incident took place when the two men exchanged fire near Kamran Market in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 1. As a result, both were wounded and taken to Jinnah Postgraduate...

With more five people falling victim to the novel coronavirus in a day, the death toll rose to 176 in Sindh on Friday. Four out of the deceased diagnosed with the COVID-9 belonged to Karachi. The new coronavirus cases which emerged in the province on Friday were 598.“Today is another...

Microchip’s Low-Power Radiation-Tolerant (RT) PolarFire FPGA Enables High-Bandwidth Space Systems with Lower Total System Cost

Microchip Solves Interoperability Challenges of Delivering up to 90 Watts of Power Over Ethernet Wiring

Microchip Smart Storage Adapters Now Interoperate Seamlessly with MegaRAC® SP-X Management Firmware from AMI for At-Scale Secure Storage Management

Microchip Announces Industry’s First Space-Qualified COTS-Based Radiation-Tolerant Ethernet Transceiver and Embedded Microcontroller

Microchip Simplifies Functional Safety Requirements with MPLAB TÜV SÜD-certified Tools

Next-Generation Miniaturized Rubidium Atomic Clock Improves Performance and adds Features without Increasing Size

New PIC® MCU Family Moves Software Tasks to Hardware for Faster System Response

Enabling Cloud Connectivity to All MCUs and MPUs, Microchip Launches a Range of Embedded IoT Solutions for Rapid Prototyping

Microchip Expands Silicon Carbide (SiC) Family of Power Electronics to Provide System Level Improvements in Efficiency, Size and Reliability

Microchip Announces the 53100A Phase Noise Analyzer for Precision Oscillator Characterization

To better understand how ADB’s developing members are weathering the COVID-19 crisis, the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department launched the ADB COVID-19 Policy Database.

Safeguards due diligence reports are prepared as part of safeguard due diligence and review to ensure compliance with ADB safeguard policy due diligence requirements. This document dated May 2020 is provided for the ADB project 51039-002 in Afghanistan.

Safeguards due diligence reports are prepared as part of safeguard due diligence and review to ensure compliance with ADB safeguard policy due diligence requirements. This document dated May 2020 is provided for the ADB project 2020-05-07 in Afghanistan.

Environmental monitoring reports describe the environmental issues or mitigation measures of a project. This document dated May 2020 is provided for the ADB project 43319-022 in the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

ADB has approved $30 million in extra financing for a health sector project in Mongolia to strengthen the country’s preparedness and response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH), with support from ADB, has set up a new laboratory in Pampanga province, north of the capital Manila. It will significantly increase the government’s testing capacity for COVID-19...

ADBI, CCAF, and the JBSEEL are offering an 8-week Online Course on Fintech & Regulatory Innovation and related scholarships for select policy makers from Asian Development Bank developing member countries.

The ADB Sanitation Dialogue 2020, to be held on 29 June to 1 July 2020 in Manila, engages ADB's developing members and other development partners toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 on sanitation for all.

radeep Sharma Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 23 The group-housing societies, residential colonies of employers and commercial-cum-residential complexes of developers will be supplied power on single-point (bulk supply) system by the electricity department from April 1. While the electricity bills for February/March would be issued as per the existing practice, the bills from April onwards would be issued as per the single-point metering system, according to an order issued by the Chief General Manager (Commercial), Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN). The new system would be implemented in housing colonies having 20 or more houses. The order said on the basis of the reading of April 1, the bills of […]

Tribune News Service Faridabad, January 24 Despite an overall lull in the real estate sector, illegal construction and encroachment in certain parts of the district appear to be going on in “full swing”. These include the hilly terrain of the Aravallis. However, the authorities have removed certain encroachments from the Surajkund area in the past. “Several construction activities have been noticed in the area, including the Surajkund road. As the non-forest area comes under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MCF), it has removed certain encroachments in the past,” said a source in the civic body. Admitting that illegal construction poses a threat to the green cover of the […]

NOIDA: The Noida Authority is set to start work on a six-lane bridge, parallel to the existing Okhla Barrage, this month bringing a sigh of relief to thousands of commuters who travel between Delhi, Noida and Faridabad. Technical bids for the project are to be finalized on February 3, while financial bids will be decided a week later. According to the officials, the construction of the Rs 150 crore bridge is expected to be ready in two years. Officials further revealed that the Central Water & Power Research Station (CWPRS), Pune, Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) and IIT-Delhi have already approved the proposed project last year and it is being fast […]

Faridabad, February 3 The newly developed Industrial Model Township (IMT) at Ballabgarh will offer nearly 530 plots to industrialists in a couple of weeks. Welcoming the move, Ramnik Prabhakar, a member of the Manufacturers Association, Faridabad (MAF), said, “We have been demanding much smaller plots, preferably of the size ranging between 50 sq yards and 300 sq yards, so that a majority of the small units operating from non-industrial areas could be adjusted in a developed township.’’ He said over 5,000 small and medium industrial units were operating from the residential and unauthorised areas and the authorities had perhaps ignored the ground realties so far. He said the rates of […]

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Thursday dismissed as not useful the meeting held the previous day at Baabda Palace to discuss the economic financial rescue plan which he and his parliamentary Future bloc boycotted.

Schools and universities are to resume classes in June, Education Minister Tarek Majzoub said Friday

Over 50 flights are scheduled to return stranded Lebanese citizens in the third phase of citizen repatriation set to begin May 14, Middle East Airlines said in a statement Friday.

Speaker Nabih Berri said it was necessary and urgent to implement measures to halt Lebanon’s economic collapse, local newspaper Al-Joumhouria reported Saturday.

Lebanon confirms 13 new COVID-19 cases, total at 809

Lebanon registered 18 new coronavirus infections Saturday, bringing the total number of cases in the country up to 809.

Usually the kingdom of water tanks and satellite dishes, Lebanon's rooftops have recently been graced by unlikely scenes of locked-down residents fleeing their flats.

Life returned to normal Saturday in the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp, south of Tyre, after a night of clashes that left one person dead and five others injured.

mXT2113TD-AT_2v0_Protocol_Guide_A.zip

mXT2912TD-AT_1v0_Protocol_Guide_A.zip

mXT2912TD-AT_2v0_Protocol_Guide_A.zip

mXT144U_1v0vAB_Protocol_Guide_A.zip

How To Search For Microchip PCNs

How Do I Login To myMICROCHIP Account

How To Select or Change myMICROCHIP Preferences

dsPIC33CK64MC105 Motor Control Plug-In Module (PIM) Information Sheet for External Op Amp Configuration

dsPIC33CK64MC105 Motor Control Plug-In Module (PIM) Information Sheet for Internal Op Amp Configuration

The coronavirus lockdown wiped out 20.5 million US jobs in April, destroying nearly all the positions created in the previous decade in the world's largest economy, the country's labour department reported on Friday.

The unprecedented collapse drove the unemployment rate to 14.7 per cent — well beyond the peak hit in late 2009 during the global financial crisis — from 4.4pc in March.

And job losses in March were worse than initially reported, falling 870,000 even though the business closures mostly happened in the second half of the month.

The plunge in non-farm payroll employment was the largest ever recorded since 1939, while the jobless rate was the highest and the biggest increase since 1948, the report said.

Employment fell sharply in all major industry sectors, with particularly heavy job losses in leisure and hospitality, the first sector hit and the one bearing the brunt of the impact of the lockdowns.

However, the labour department noted that the some workers were misclassified in the report as employed when they should have been counted as laid off.

Had they been listed properly, the unemployment rate would have been nearly five percentage points higher.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump downplayed unprecedented US job losses, saying they were not a surprise.

“It's fully expected, there's no surprise. Somebody said, 'oh look at this,'” he said on Fox News minutes after the labour department published the figures.

“I'll bring it back,” he said.

NEW DELHI: India’s top medical research body has turned down a proposal by the Modi government to test water from the Ganges river as a cure for coronavirus, ThePrint news portal said on Thursday.

It said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) turned down the government’s “request” to conduct research on a theory that Gangajal, or water from Ganges river, could possibly cure Covid-19.

Speaking to ThePrint, a source in the ICMR said the agency has refused to get involved as it is focussing on the Covid-19 battle and doesn’t want to waste time on other research amid the pandemic.

The move came after the country’s apex medical research body received a “request” from the Ministry of Jal Shakti to conduct “further research” on a proposal by an NGO, Atulya Ganga, said an ICMR official, who didn’t wish to be named.

In its letter last month, Mr Atulya had cited the presence of a “ninja virus”, called bacteriophage, in Ganges water that could cure Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Bacteriophage is a special type of virus that eats harmful bacteria, the letter said.

According ThePrint, the NGO asked the government on April 3 to conduct a study on the possibility of this virus acting as a cure. It sent a copy each to the ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The ministry’s National Mission for Clean Ganga, the department administering the Modi government’s ambitious Namami Gange programme, then wrote to ICMR on April 30 requesting a clinical trial.

The ICMR then held a meeting to discuss the idea, but refused to proceed, offering only its “help” to the NGO, ThePrint said. “We had indeed received a letter from the Ministry of Jal Shakti for such research. The experts at ICMR also held a meeting on this matter. Then we asked those proposing this research that you should tell us about hospitals and doctors that are ready and willing to conduct some research on it. We will certainly help them in this regard,” said the ICMR official.

“As of now we are still treating plasma therapy as a trial for treatment for corona (Covid-19), then how can we so quickly accept a virus called bacteriophage, found in the water of Ganges, as a cure? Right now, there is no logic in the argument that the virus found in Ganga’s water can indeed fight the coronavirus disease,” added the official.

However, he added that if the ministry takes an initiative into the matter then ICMR will extend its assistance to it.

Speaking to ThePrint, Dr Rajnikant Srivastava, ICMR’s head of the Department of Research Management, Policy Planning and Communication, in Delhi and Director of Regional Medical Research Centre, Gorakhpur, said: “A presentation was made after the Jal Shakti ministry’s proposal. The matter is at a very preliminary stage. Nothing has been decided on the future course of action. We will support the Jal Shakti ministry in all the work it does on this front.”

A senior official of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, meanwhile, said there are several special properties in the river and many people were demanding research on them.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2020

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will appear on Saturday (today) before the commission of inquiry investigating the recent shortage and price hike of sugar in the country.

Mr Abbasi told Dawn on Friday he would inform the commission how sugar scandals develop, in the light of his experience as a former chief executive of the country.

He said he had written a letter to the commission, offering his services to it by sharing his experiences in probing scams. “I wrote the letter to the commission, as under the Commission of Inquiry Act any citizen can assist such commissions in investigating such scams,” he said.

Upon receiving the letter, Mr Abbasi said, the commission asked him to provide a written statement, or any other document, that would help in investigating the scandal. “I told the commission that I will not give any written statement or document, but will assist it on the basis of my experience, I being a former member of the Economic Coordination Committee (of the cabinet) and former head of the federal cabinet,” he said.

Mr Abbasi, who served as the prime minister in the last PML-N government, said he would explain to the commission how the sugar crisis occurred.

When asked to share some of the reasons behind the crisis, the former premier said allowing export of the commodity was one of the main reasons. “The commission has to ascertain who gave the approval for export of sugar when its local demand had not been taken care of.”

He said he would request the commission to keep his meeting with its members open to all. Another PML-N leader and former defence minister Khurram Dastagir Khan would be accompanying Mr Abbasi to the meeting.

The commission is investigating the recent shortage of sugar and wheat in the country, in which some key members and allies of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf were allegedly involved.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2020

An estimated 29 million babies will be born in South Asia in the nine months after the Covid-19 outbreak was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), while five million births will be reported in Pakistan, according to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).

The report — released on May 6 — has predicted that an estimated 116 million babies will be born across the world in the 40-week period between March 11 and December 16, with almost a quarter of them in South Asia.

India is expected to report 20 million births, the highest in the region, during this period, the report said, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh (2.4 million) and Afghanistan (one million).

The report also warned that lockdown measures imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus may cause disruptions in life-saving health services "putting millions of pregnant mothers and their babies at great risk".

"The continuing rapid spread of Covid-19 across South Asia means new mothers and newborns will be greeted by harsh realities, including global containment measures such as lockdowns and curfews, health centres overwhelmed with response efforts, supply and equipment shortages, and a lack of sufficient skilled birth attendants as health workers [...] are redeployed to treat Covid-19 patients.

"Unicef cautions that although evidence suggests that pregnant mothers are not more affected by Covid-19 than others, countries need to ensure they still have access to antenatal, delivery and post-natal services.

"Likewise, sick newborns need emergency services as they are at high risk of death. New families require care to ensure the health and well-being of mothers, support to start breastfeeding, and to get medicines, vaccines and nutrition to keep their babies healthy," the report said.

The UN body urged governments and healthcare providers to take a few steps to save lives in the coming months by:

• Helping women receive regular checkups during their pregnancy, skilled delivery care and post-delivery care
• Ensuring health workers are provided with the necessary personal protective equipment and priority testing and vaccination for Covid-19 when it becomes available
• Ensuring that all infection prevention and control measures are being followed at health facilities
• Allowing healthcare workers to reach pregnant women through home visits, encouraging women living in rural areas to visit maternal waiting homes, and using mobile health strategies for tele-consultations
• Training, protecting and equipping health workers with kits to attend to home births
• Allocating resources to lifesaving services and supplies for maternal and child health

The report also urged pregnant women to take precautionary measures by practicing social distancing, avoiding physical gatherings and using online health services.

Read: Mothers may pass coronavirus to unborn children, say Chinese doctors

It also advised them to continue breastfeeding their children even if they are infected as "the virus has not been found in samples of breast milk".

"Mothers with Covid-19 should wear a mask when feeding their baby, wash hands before and after touching the baby, and routinely clean and disinfect surfaces," it cautioned.