Dave Woodhall wonders whether football and footballers are getting an unfair press.

Andy Munro wanders down Blues' memory lane - or should that be Dead End Street?

Football Foundation continues to support local communities.

Million pound transformation project helps entrepreneurs launch Warm Beautiful Homes.

Fund raising by fire security company helps charities.

Midlands leaders encourage businesses to join search for global investment.

Birmingham entrepreneur to back prestige ceremony.

New factory built homes revealed at Port Loop.

Solihull development to inject over £1.3 million into local services.

Urban Splash & Places for People lead the way at Port Loop.

Dave Woodhall on Villa's draw at Anfield and new signings.

Dave Woodhall ponders on Villa's weekend defeat.

Rugby charity announces emergency support package to help West Midlands groups.

The Caring Foundation donates meals to West Midlands Ambulance Service.

Funding will aid community work during pandemic.

Online platform launched to help charities source local furloughed workers as volunteers.

A negative list will clearly spell out what’s not allowed, allowing other activities to resume.

The capital infusion comes at a time when risk capital investment activity has almost ground to a halt because of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, which, in turn, has forced vertical ecommerce companies such as Nykaa to conserve cash, given the steep plunge in discretionary spending by consumers.

According to officials, retail demand started to build up gradually. In some cases, people were completing prelockdown transactions and others new ones.

Allowing shopkeepers to provide cash is expected to reduce the burden on the banking system amid the lockdown. Depositors do not need to queue up at bank branches or ATMs for withdrawal if their neighbourhood merchant provides cash.

According to staffing company Genius Consultants '9th Hiring, Attrition and Compensation Trend 2020-21', around 81 per cent of the respondents have shown interest to carry on with existing manpower and retaining them.

The survey was conducted by MindMap Advance Research with 560 India Inc. employees across small, medium and large enterprises in major metro cities of Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

The plan, which has been in the works for months, is likely to be part of the stimulus package, that is expected to be announced shortly.

The survey which covered over 1,300 HR professionals across sectors, aimed to understand the impact of the lockdown on the country’s employment scenario. More than 72% hiring managers said companies are devising new job roles that will be limited to remote working only.

Production cuts will be most in premium product portfolio as companies expect consumers to curb discretionary spending as the impact of the Covid-19. Manufacturing orders fall by up to 40% year on year as they expect much of current stock to remain unsold till then, company executives said.

The May 5-7 poll median of more than 40 economists predicted India's annual consumer price inflation fell to 5.68% in April from March's 5.91%, still above the Reserve Bank of India's medium-term target of 4.00%.

“The idea of store-on-wheels is that customers should not feel suffocated that they can’t go out and shop, and feel the same pleasure right at their doorsteps,” said Vishnu Prasad, managing director of Future Lifestyle Fashions that owns Central and Brand Factory.

A negative list will clearly spell out what’s not allowed, allowing other activities to resume.

Production cuts will be most in premium product portfolio as companies expect consumers to curb discretionary spending as the impact of the Covid-19. Manufacturing orders fall by up to 40% year on year as they expect much of current stock to remain unsold till then, company executives said.

Currently, owing to the ongoing lockdown, kirana (corner) stores on JioMart serve limited inventory. But that will be a thing of the past once restrictions are lifted.

The five southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala together consume as much as 45 per cent of all liquor sold in the country, the report by Crisil said. While Tamil Nadu and Kerala top the list in revenue percentage terms at 15 per cent each, for Kerala the tax on liquor is its single largest revenue source.

“The idea of store-on-wheels is that customers should not feel suffocated that they can’t go out and shop, and feel the same pleasure right at their doorsteps,” said Vishnu Prasad, managing director of Future Lifestyle Fashions that owns Central and Brand Factory.

Major retail chains including Viveks, Shahs, Girias, Vasanth and Co are among the signatories of the letter, which fears job losses might start impacting one lakh of families, besides a steep drop in direct and indirect tax revenues to the state.

The order directed pubs, clubs, bars and lodges to allow only one customer to enter their respective premises at a time and leave soon after purchasing liquor at the maximum retail price (MRP).

Wavesfactory has announced the release of an accordion collection of Native Instruments Kontakt. Le Parisien is based on three accordions, with a faithful recreation of the sound and behavior of the real instruments. The library features Rouge, Blanc and Noir accordions, each one of them sampled with all registers, giving different sound characteristics, and mechanical […]

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Toontrack has announced the official list pricing information for EZbass as well as a new video presenting an in-depth look at the features of the program. As announced earlier, EZbass will be available on May 19th and is Toontrack’s highly anticipated bass software instrument as well as the next core title in the company’s widely […]

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W.A. Production has released a free collection of construction kits, samples & loops, MIDI loops, and Serum presets. The Stay Home Stay Safe Freebie includes 3GB of total content. Hi everybody, Roman here from WA Production :) What I would like say is that I wish from the bottom of my heart to all of […]

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W.A. Production has released its new audio plugin Punchy Worm, a one-knob punch and saturation effect with a dancing worm. At W.A. Production they’re serious about music and over the last few years, they’ve created many top-quality plugins with finely tuned controls and pro studio features. But sometimes they just like to go a bit […]

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Ampify is the name behind the iOS apps Launchpad, Blocs Wave and Groovebox, which have together amassed over 15 million downloads. Ampify now brings you its latest music-making software, Ampify Studio, available for free on MacOS and Windows. After announcing Ampify Studio at NAMM 2020 in LA and releasing as public beta software, Ampify Studio […]

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Impact Soundworks has launched its free video series Impact Soundworks Academy, delivering lessons and tutorials on a wide range of music production, composition, and business topics, created by professionals and experts. The series aims to give you immediate, practical, and actionable knowledge you can use to improve your music, your workflow, and your career. In […]

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Softube has introduced its new Preset Collection, bringing various improvements to the tool to organize your Softube presets. There is more to a great plug-in than the sound quality it imparts on your tracks. Workflow and user-friendliness are arguably equally important. To that end, we are proud to finally announce the completely overhauled Preset Collection, […]

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Erica Synths is one of the few manufacturers that uses vacuum tubes in its Eurorack modules — and those who are familiar with tube-based modules know that tubes can push the sound to extremes, or transform it into deep and saturated tones. Three new Fusion series modules have been announced: Fusion VCF3
, Fusion Modulator 
and […]

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Plugin Boutique has launched a sale on Sonarworks Reference 4, offering 20% the sound calibration software for a limited time. Reference 4 removes unwanted coloration from studio speakers and headphones. Sonarworks is on a mission to ensure everybody hears sound the way it was meant to be. Across all devices. Calibrate sound on your current […]

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Denise has launched its new audio plugin God Mode, introducing a new push-pull technology that gives you full control over what frequencies to saturate and distort. God Mode features a node EQ graph and linear phase filters that allow for unlimited options to shape the coloration of your sound. The God Mode makes use of […]

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Freaky Loops has released a new sample pack titled Hip Hop Paradise, a collection of loops and samples for new and old-skool Hip Hop productions. Contains a variety of fresh and inspirational sounds; from wonky drums to hiphop melodies, smokey basses to shimmering instruments sounds, punchy snares to inspirational combi files, percussions, vox, fx and […]

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PluginFox has launched an exclusive sale on two audio plugins by Tokyo Dawn Labs, offering a 50% discount for a limited time only. NOVA Gentleman’s Edition MKII is a parallel dynamic equalizer. Appearing in the familiar layout of a parametric equalizer, the plugin also includes flexible dynamics processing options allowing the coverage of an impressively […]

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Tracktion has announced availability of Waveform Pro, the eleventh version of the affordable, award winning, fully featured digital audio workstation. Designed for the needs of modern music producers, this deeply capable DAW is a suite of tools that is powerful, intuitive and very user friendly. The latest evolution includes new features developed to harness the […]

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Magix has announced the release of VEGAS Movie Studio 17, the latest version of the video editing solution for both beginners and more advanced users. The update comes with powerful effects and transitions management, smoother video preview, unified color grading workflow, optical-flow slow motion, and warp flow transition. If you strive to make astonishing videos, […]

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UVI has announced that its BeatHawk music app for iOS is available as a free download for a limited time. BeatHawk is a complete portable music production studio for iOS. Create beats, sample, layer melodies, sequence, mix, arrange and perform songs with a blazing-fast workflow and sleek hardware-inspired user interface. It comes packed with high-quality […]

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Impact Soundworks has announced the release of a new sample library with a collection of modern electronic sounds. Cyclops includes over 1,000 one-shots, drum loops, MIDI files, and over 350 presets for the Serum synth by Xfer Records. The library includes drums, playable 808s, arps, basses, leads, pads, poly keys, plucks, fx, and more. This […]

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