www.theasianstar.com
Vol 20 - Issue 23
Indian-Origin tennis player wins Wimbledon boys’ singles Samir Banerjee, an American tennis player of Indian-origin, on Sunday won the Wimbledon boys singles title. Banerjee defeated compatriot Victor Lilov, with a straight sets, winning 7-5 6-3 in the final that lasted one hour 22 minutes. This was the first all-American final since 2014, and Banerjee’s second grandslam. Sameer Banerjee is a 17-year-old who had previously ranked 19 in the world had crashed out in the junior French Open. Wimbledon was his second appearance at a junior Grand Slam. Banerjee’sparentshadmovedtoAmerica, in the 1980s, years before he was born.
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Canada’s mobile data prices the highets World in world, and India’s is the cheapeat Sweden-based mobile analytics firm, Tefficient, released its latest report on mobile data usage from 44 countries around the world today, sharing insights on data usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the
firm says mobile data usage accelerated in 2020, with some countries seeing a slower growth rate. When it comes to mobile data, Tefficient says “using mobile data has never been cheaper but the erosion in the revenue per gigabyte varies a lot between markets.” Continued on page 6
Federal Liberals filibuster to stop opposition call for inquiry into parliamentary funds paid to Trudeau’s close friend Liberal MPs on Monday filibustered an attempt by opposition parties to hear testimony from the party’s chief digital campaign strategist regarding constituency work that his company is being paid by taxpayers to perform. The House of Commons ethics committee had been recalled during Parliament’s summer
break to discuss whether to investigate the hiring with parliamentary funds of two companies – Montreal-based Data Sciences and U.S company NGP VAN – that are also central to the Liberal Party’s voter-outreach operations. Conservative, NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs particularly wanted to hear Continued on page 7
Entire communities ready to leave on short notice as BC wildfires rage India celebrates woman who flew into space on Virgin Galactic Indians are celebrating Sirisha Bandla’s flight to the edge of space on billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket plane. Ms Bandla is the second woman born in India to go to space after Kalpana Chawla who died when the Columbia Space Shuttle crashed at reentry in 2003. The rocket flew high above New Mexico in the US before returning to Earth just an hour after leaving the ground. Sir Richard called the trip the “experience of a lifetime”. Sunday’s trip makes the UK entrepreneur the first of the new space tourism pioneers to try out their own vehicles, beating Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. Bandla, who developed an early interest in space, works as the vice president of government affairs for Virgin Galactic. Her grandfather told Reuters that “from the beginning, she was fascinated towards the sky, looking at the sky, space, how to enter space and what is there”.
All but small corners of British Columbia were listed at high to extreme risk of wildfires as continuing hot, dry and windy conditions fuel the more than 300 blazes burning in most regions of the province. Evacuation orders affecting more than 1,400 properties were posted for 10 of the 26 fires listed by the BC Wildfire Service as potentially threatening or highly visible by mid-morning. Most of the orders covered huge areas of the central Interior, but residents of 41 properties in the Okanagan,
Rajasthan man sleeps for 300 days a year, dubbed as real-life Kumbhakarna A man from western Rajasthan’s Nagaur district sleeps for 300 days in a year and is being called a real-life ’Kumbhakarna’ by villagers. Purkharam, 42, a resident of Bhadwa village, suffers from a rare disorder known as Axis hypersomnia. He apparently runs his day-to-day activities such as bathing, work, and eating in his sleep, Zee News reported. While most of the people usually sleep for 6 to 8 hours a day, Purkharam sleeps for 25 days at a stretch once he takes a nap. He was first diagnosed with the rare disorder 23 years ago, and since then, the condition has
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west of Peachland, were ordered out before dawn as the Regional District of OkanaganSimilkameen said a new fire threatened safety. The wildfire service website shows the roughly 250-hectare wildfire is one of at least 19 sparked overnight, adding to fires elsewhere in the province that have closed Highways 1, 97 and 20, key transportation routes through the Cariboo. Those fires also prompted an evacuation alert for the entire Continued on page 6 community of 100 Mile