Trump challenges Clinton to drug test

Donald Trump tried to change the subject on Saturday, unveiling a plan to combat opioid addiction in the US while also challenging his Democratic presidential competitor to take a drug test before their next debate. Yet he couldn't completely drop the subject of sex, or let go of the idea of a conspiracy to take the election from him.

The Republican presidential nominee rallied in front of boisterous crowds in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in Bangor, Maine.

The New England events came a day after two more women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment against the billionaire, which Trump has denied with vigor. He's linked the stream of allegations to a theory the presidential race is being tilted by the media in favour of Hillary Clinton.

Related: Donald Trump says allegations of sexual misconduct 'fabricated'

"The election is being rigged by the corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president," Trump said in Portsmouth.

Alluding to one of the allegations, in which an accuser says he groped her for a period of about 15 minutes, Trump sought to refute the claim on the grounds of common sense: "Fifteen minutes? With the ladies in this place, it'd be one second and then it'd be, 'Smack,'" Trump said before a crowd of about 5,000 people at a car dealership.

"It's a rigged election because you have phony people coming up with phony allegations with no evidence whatsoever," Trump said. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday pushed back against Trump's suggestions about the U.S. electoral process. Ryan is "fully confident" the election will be carried out with integrity, his spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement.

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India has lost 550 jobs a day in last 4 years: Study

As many as 550 jobs have disappeared every day in last four years and if this trend continues, employment would shrink by 7 million by 2050 in the country, a study has claimed.

Farmers, petty retail vendors, contract labourers and construction workers are the most vulnerable sections facing never before livelihood threats in India today, the study by Delhi-based civil society group PRAHAR has said.

According to the data released by Labour Bureau early 2016, India created only 1.35 lakh jobs in 2015 in comparison to 4.19 lakh in 2013 and 9 lakh in 2011, the group said in a statement.

Related: There will be no job losses, Finance Ministry assures CBEC officers

"A deeper analysis of the data reveals a rather scary picture. Instead of growing, livelihoods are being lost in India on a daily basis. As many as 550 jobs are lost in India every day (in last four year as per Labour Bureau data) which means that by 2050, jobs in India would have got reduced by 7 million, while population would have grown by 600 million," the statement said.

The data clearly points to the fact that job creation in India is successively slowing down, which is very alarming, it pointed out.

"This (rise in unemployment) is because sectors which are the largest contributor of jobs are worst-affected. Agriculture contributes to 50 per cent of employment in India followed by SME sector which employs 40 per cent of the workforce of the country," the statement said.

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Donald Trump vows to 'protect' jobs for Americans

Injecting H-1B and outsourcing as an election campaign issue, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has alleged that companies are importing low-wage workers on the work visas and pledged to protect jobs for Americans.

"Many mothers across this country are worried their kids won't find jobs, and they are right to be worried. One of the biggest threats is outsourcing - jobs for college-educated kids are being sent to other countries," the 70-year-old reality TV star told his cheering supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio last night.

"At the same time, companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans," he alleged.

"We will protect these jobs for Americans," he pledged.

H-1B work visas are the most sought after for IT professionals, particularly those from India.

While H-1B and outsourcing had become one of his frequent campaign issue during the Republican primary season early this spring and summer, it more or less remained absent from his key election issue till the election rally in Ohio ahead of the November 8 polls.

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Your next job interview may be taken by a robot

The future of job interviews might horrify you. It horrified Jake Rosen.

A recent graduate of UCLA, Rosen was applying to be a page at NBC (yes, yes, just like Kenneth) when he learned he wouldn't be going to an office to talk to a human being about his skills. Instead, he interviewed by webcam, on a laptop.

So Skype, right? Nope, nothing as personal as that. He recorded his answers and sent them back to a hiring manager at NBC for review at the company's convenience.

It's the robo-interview, and it goes something like this. In the more humane experience, a hiring manager, who also isn't all that practised in the art of digital video, delivers taped questions. Or, if it's truly Mr Roboto, a question pops up on the screen. You have a limited amount of time to answer. You talk to your computer, record the responses, and send them back to the company. Sometimes there's a practice question to get prospective employees used to talking to a camera. Sometimes there isn't. Often, at the end, you have the chance to re-record your answers.

For shy people, it may be a dream come true. No firm handshake needed, and sure, you smell fine. And wouldn't we all love the redo option after making up an answer and mumbling it, too?

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India has fourth-largest population of HNIs in APAC

India is home to the fourth-largest population of high net worth individuals (HNIs) in the Asia-Pacific, with total wealth of $797 billion, says a report.

Asia-Pacific (APAC) is a region consisting of the whole of Asia as well as regions bordering the Pacific Ocean, especially the small nations of East Asia. The most commonly quoted figure for membership in the high net worth club is $1 million in liquid financial assets.

The number of HNIs in India jumped to 200,000 last year from 180,000 in 2014, while their overall wealth rose by 1.6 per cent during the same period, according to the Asia-Pacific Wealth Report 2016 by Capgemini on Thursday.

Japan has the largest HNI population in the Asia-Pacific at over 2.7 million followed by China at more than a million in 2015 and Australia, 230,000.

The HNI wealth in Japan rose 11.4 per cent to $6,571 billion, while that in China surged 16.9 per cent to $5,261 billion. One year after recording the highest population of HNIs, the Asia-Pacific now leads the world with the largest amount of HNI wealth, according to the report.

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Eighth BRICS Summit: Fantastic five

8th BRICS Summit

The sun, sand and sea of Goa will play host to some of the most powerful global leaders over the next two days, as India chairs the 8th BRICS Summit with a packed economic and political agenda.

From being an acronym denoting the four emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, coined by Goldman Sachs analysts in 2001, BRIC became a formal grouping by 2006. Four years later, South Africa joined, making it BRICS, a transcontinental alliance comprising 43 per cent of the world's population and 30 per cent of its GDP, with a 17 per cent share in world trade.

Starting essentially with economic issues of mutual interest, the agenda of BRICS meetings has widened to encompass topical global issues such as political and safety challenges. While India leads the group in GDP growth, it trails on other parameters such as per capita income, poverty and life expectancy.

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Bob Dylan wins Nobel Literature Prize

Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy.

He is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognised.

“Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” the former Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

Dylan was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minn., and grew up in Hibbing. He played in bands as a teenager, influenced by the folk musician Woody Guthrie, the authors of the Beat Generation and modernist poets.

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ICICI Bank first Indian lender to execute Blockchain transaction

ICICI Bank has become the first Indian lender to complete a banking transaction using Blockchain technology. This remittance transaction has been completed in partnership with Emirates NBD, a lender from the West Asia.

India’s largest private sector lender has managed to authenticate remittance transaction messages as well as original international trade documents related to purchase order, invoice, shipping and insurance, etc electronically on Blockchain in real time. Blockchain technology simplifies the process and drastically reduces duration of the transaction to few minutes, compared with few days otherwise.

“I envision that the emerging technology of Blockchain will play a significant role in banking in the coming years by making complex bilateral and multi-lateral banking transactions seamless, quick and more secure,” said Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank.

She said the bank will also look at expanding the Blockchain ecosystem and creating common working standards for commercial adoption of the technology.

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Ravichandran Ashwin regains number one spot in Test rankings

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Wednesday reclaimed the number one spot in Test rankings for bowlers following a career-best match haul of 13 for 140 in the third Test against New Zealand in Indore.

Ashwin, who was named man of the series after he finished with 27 wickets in a 3-0 sweep by India, now has 220 wickets, the most by any bowler after 39 Tests.

Ranked third before the final Test in Indore, Ashwin, who also holds the top position in rankings for all-rounders, has leapfrogged pace bowlers James Anderson and Dale Steyn to attain a career-best rating of 900 points.

Ashwin, who finished the 2015 year-end rankings as the number-one bowler and was also at the top briefly in July this year, has joined a select band to have touched a rating of 900 points since 2000, the others being Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Shaun Pollock.

In the rankings for Test batsmen, India's middle-order batsman Ajinkya Rahane has attained a career-best sixth rank with scores of 188 and 23 not out

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Facebook makes Workplace app available for all

Buoyed by the positive response from over 1,000 companies that are currently using Workplace (formerly known as Facebook at Work) including in India, the company has announced it will make the app available to all.

This means you can chat with a colleague across the world in real time, host a virtual brainstorm in a Group or follow along with your CEO's presentation on Facebook Live.

"People have created nearly 100,000 groups and the top five countries using Workplace are India, the US, Norway, UK and France," Facebook said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We're announcing that Workplace will now be available to any company or organisation that wants to use it," it added.

Large multinational companies like Danone, Starbucks and Booking.com, international nonprofits such as Oxfam and regional leaders such as YES Bank in India and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore have all embraced Workplace.

"It's a whole new paradigm in employee engagement! L&T @Work is leading our thrust to digital.Technology is nothing without people and this platform reflects the perfect synergy of people driving technology," said SN Subrahmanyam, Deputy Managing Director and President, Larsen & Toubro.

Facebook also announced a competitive pricing model that is based on a monthly fee per active user.

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