Umar Khalid attack: Kanhaiya questions Delhi's law and order ahead of I-Day

Kanhaiya also said it is the democratic right of a common citizen to be given security if they are facing a threat to life

Former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumarcalled the attack on fellow student Umar Khalid an attempt to "stop us from reaching out to the masses" to educate them about the current political agenda.

An unidentified man targeted the JNU student leader outside the Constitution Club and gunshots were heard but Khalid escaped unhurt, according to witnesses even as the police asserted it would verify the incident.

He also raised questions on the law and order situation in the national capital since the attack happened a couple of days before Independence Day.

ALSO READ: JNU student leader Umar Khalid allegedly shot at in Delhi; escapes unhurt

"August 15 is Independence Day and just two days before it, there is a deadly attack on a man in a high-security zone. This raises serious questions on the law and order situation," Kumar told PTI.

Khalid had gone to participate in an event when the attack took place.

"He had gone to an event which was about gaining freedom from fear. The attack was an attempt to create an atmosphere of fear. The incident shows that certain people are scared of those who talk about rights and justice," he said.

He also said it is the democratic right of a common citizen to be given security if they are facing a threat to life.

"Unfortunately, the government is protecting those who have mob lynch mentality. Those who raise their voices are not being protected," he said.

He said that they are "against intolerance" and will keep putting their views across and putting pressure on the government.

"A specific type of political agenda is being played out and there is an attempt to break those who talk about democracy and believe in non-violence. The social fabric is breaking and people should be told about it. Incidents like these are attempts to stop us from reaching out to common people," he said.

Microsoft builds digital solution for CBSE to prevent question paper leaks

At present, the solution is having its pilot run, but it has passed the first test with flying colours

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which came under heavy criticism this year following the leak of class 10 mathematics paper and class 12 economics paper, has forged a partnership with tech giant Microsoft to prevent such leaks in the future.

The paper leaks triggered nation-wide outrage among students and parents. This set the CBSE, which has 20,299 schools in the country, in action, paving the way for the partnership with Microsoft which developed an encrypted security solution for digital question papers for the board within a period of three months.

"We have developed for CBSE an innovative solution which makes question papers leak-proof until 30 minutes prior to the start of the examinations," Anil Bhansali, Managing Director, Microsoft India (R&D) and Corporate Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise, told IANS in a telephonic interaction.

"But if the question papers get leaked after they are allowed to download (just half an hour before the start of the exam) due to some bad actors, the system allows easy traceability as question paper for each centre are watermarked," Bhansali said.

At present, the solution is having its pilot run, but it has passed the first test with flying colours, Microsoft claimed.

As part of their collaboration, CBSE and Microsoft successfully executed in July the first ever pilot of the digital question paper generation and delivery process at 487 centres for compartment examinations for class 10.

How does the system work?

The system allows the Controller of examination to track the entire process using a software solution built on Windows 10 and Office 365.

The overall process is encrypted and a two-factor authentication process is embedded. So examiners will have to identify themselves before they can download the examination papers. They are allowed to download the papers (after authetification) only 30 minutes prior to start of the exams. (more)

Reliance Jio effect: Bharti Airtel posts Rs 9.4-bn loss in India operations

Total revenues were also down by 8.6 per cent to Rs 200 billion for the June 2018 quarter, compared to Rs 219 billion last year

Bruised by an intense tariff war in the telecom sector, Bharti Airtel has reported a net loss of Rs 9.4 billion in its India operations during the quarter ended June. The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led firm, set to be dethroned by Vodafone Idea as the country’s largest telecom operator, had reported a net profit of Rs 8.3 billion for India in the same period last year.

However, helped by an exceptional gain of Rs 5.15 billion, the telco has reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 970 million for the June quarter. Without this gain, Airtel would have reported a net loss on a consolidated basis. The exceptional gain relates largely to creation of deferred tax asset in Nigeria. This was partially offset by network refarming programme and costs pertaining to the business combinations completed during the quarter. The consolidated net profit was down 73.5 per cent for the reported period to touch Rs 970 million against Rs 3.67 billion last year.

Total revenues were also down by 8.6 per cent to Rs 200 billion for the June 2018 quarter, compared to Rs 219 billion last year. The net debt of rose to Rs 1.02 trillion at the end of June 30. Incumbent operators have maintained that Reliance Jio’s “predatory pricing” was responsible for their margins crashing.

ALSO READ: Chief technology officers of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel resign

The high-decibel tariff war is not likely to end anytime soon as Jio continues to disrupt the market. Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio has touched a customer base of 200 million within two years of starting its commercial operations, making the company the fastest to achieve the milestone.

“Industry pricing continues to remain untenable,” said Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive officer, India & South Asia, Airtel. On an optimistic note, he said the company’s mobile data traffic surged 355 per cent in India on a year-on-year basis, led by successful bundles, content partnerships and handset upgrade plans.

“Q1 FY19 has seen our highest quarterly capex spends of Rs 78.87 billion. Our investments have led to some opex headwinds in this quarter, but we remain focused on structural cost containment through our war on waste programme,” Vittal said.

Low tariffs continue to take a toll and the company’s average revenue per user (ARPU) in India, a key metric to gauge the profitability of any telecom operator, decreased to Rs 105 a month. The ARPU for the March quarter was Rs 116. During the last quarter, Airtel completed the acquisition of Telenor because of which its customer base in the country rose to 344 million. The consolidated Ebitda margin fell to 34 per cent in the last quarter compared with 35.6 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year. Consolidated Ebit also dropped by 43.8 per cent year-on-year to Rs 16.80 billion.

Honor 9N India launch today: Watch live stream, know expected price, specs

The Honor 9N would sport an optimised notch-based screen and 2.5D curved glass design with 12-layer Nano coating on the back for a mirror-like effect

Honor, the online subsidiary of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei, is all set to launch the Honor 9N in India on July 24. The Flipkart-exclusive smartphone would sport an optimised notch-based screen and 2.5D curved glass design with 12-layer Nano coating on the back for a mirror-like effect.

The Honor 9N is reported to be a renamed version of the Honor 9i, launched in China some time ago. In terms of specifications and features, the Honor 9N is expected to sport a 5.84-inch fullHD+ notch-based screen stretched in a 19:9 aspect ratio. The phone would be powered by Kirin 659 system-on-chip (SoC), paired with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. This is the same processor that has been used in most of Honor’s budget smartphones, including the Honor 9 Lite, Honor 7X and Honor 9i (Indian version).

However, the Honor 9N processor might support Huawei’s recently announced GPU Turbo technology, which the company claims to boost graphic performance by up to 60 per cent and processor efficiency by 30 per cent.

ALSO READ: GPU Turbo aims to address smartphones' graphic performance challenge: Honor

In terms of imaging, the Honor 9N would have a dual camera set-up on the back and a single-camera unit on the front for selfies. The rear cameras would feature a 13-megapixel primary sensor mated with a 2MP depth-sensing lens. The selfie camera would feature a 16MP lens, which would also double up as a biometric utility for the face-unlock mechanism. Powering the device would be a 3,000 mAh battery.

As for the price, the Honor 9N is expected to be priced somewhere between Rs 12,000 and Rs 18,000. However, this is a speculative price and the official price, sale information and colour details would be added soon after the launch.

Lakshadweep's new islands to be thrown open - only for 'high-end' tourists

Checks are to be placed on the movement of tourists to ensure the ecology of the place is not disturbed

Planning to spend a long weekend with family and friends in one of the newly opened Lakshadweep islands? Be prepared to shell out a little more than you thought. If things go as planned, the Centre will develop 12 new Lakshadweep islands under its island development programme but limit their access to ‘high-end’ serious adventure and fun tourists – those who won’t mind spending more than Rs 15,000 for a one-night stay in some of the world’s most exotic and unexplored places.

The number of tourists visiting these newly opened spaces will also be planned and closely monitored to ensure the highly fragile ecology of these coral islands does not get harmed.

The visits will only be on a prior booking basis, and there will be no drive-in facility.

According to senior officials, the movement of tourists will also be limited to a specific area in the newly opened islands, so that the privacy of locals and tribal people, many of whom have their own personal communities cut off from the outside world, is maintained.

“We won’t allow this (opening of islands for tourists) to impact the much-cherished and highly fragile ecological and environmental characteristics of the Lakshadweep islands,” Farooq Khan, administrator of the Lakshadweep islands, told Business Standard.

He said the Centre in the first phase planned to build around 150 rooms in the inhabited and uninhabited islands of Lakshadweep in association with private parties. Of these, 84 rooms would be in the inhabited islands of Bangaram and Suheli.

Resort owners who exceed their allocated quota of rooms would be penalised and their licences would be cancelled to ensure that there is no crowding of resorts in the islands.

Of the 12 identified islands in Lakshadweep, for which permission has been granted to develop as tourism destinations, the work in the first phase will start on 10 – Minicoy, Kadmat, Agatti, Chetlat, Bitra, Bangaram, Thinakarra, Cheriyan, Suheli and Kalpeni.

Among these, the first five are inhabited and the remaining not.

Lakshwadeep is an archipelago of 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks, with a total of about thirty-nine islands and islets. Of these, fewer than half are inhabited.

Development of the new islands in Lakshadweep is part of the Centre’s ambitious programme of holistic development of 26 islands in Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar for which it formed an Island Development Agency in June last year.

Along with the NITI Aayog, the government plans to develop these islands into tourist attractions on the lines of popular Southeast Asian beach destinations.

Article source : BS

RBI to defer putting lending, expansion curbs on PNB till Q1 results

Andhra Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, and Canara Bank, too, are likely to make a similar presentation before the regulator

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may defer putting lending and expansion restrictions on Rs 143 billion fraud-hit Punjab National Bank (PNB) till the first-quarter results of 2018-19 are out.

The regulator has conveyed to the management of the bank in a recent meeting that it will examine, after looking at the June quarter results, whether PNB’s financial conditions warrant putting it under the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework.

“The regulator will take a call after the June-ended quarter results (are declared). The regulator has told PNB to improve recovery, shed risk-weighted assets, and focus on reducing expenditure till then,” an official said.

PNB, led by its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Sunil Mehta, made a presentation on its revival plan to the RBI last Monday, requesting the regulator to defer action under PCA till December, according to sources.

Most public sector banks (PSBs) declare their financial results for the April-June period between the end of July and beginning of August. So PNB may not face any business restrictions till at least August if the regulator has its way.

“Looking at the PCA framework, PNB, like a few other banks, fulfils a couple of important parameters to be added to the list. But PCA will not affect business operations as such. In the present situation, no bank is looking at aggressive credit growth, looking at branch expansion or aggressive hiring, and these are a few things that the banks have to go slow on under PCA,” said Karthik Srinivasan, senior vice-president—group head, financial sector ratings, Icra, adding, “it does not change life for any bank unless the RBI puts a specific lending restriction.” According to a recent report by Credit Suisse, with net non-performing assets (NPAs) over 8 per cent and common equity tier levels down to less than 6 per cent, PNB and Andhra Bank are likely candidates for PCA. Under RBI rules, fulfilling any of the three conditions — net NPA levels above 6 per cent, two years of consecutive losses, or the capital adequacy ratio below the regulatory requirement — could put banks under PCA. PNB suffered the highest ever loss by any domestic bank, at Rs 134 billion, mainly due to the Rs 143-billion swindle on account of fraudulent loans to jewellery firms belonging to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and the RBI’s new provisioning norms. Last week, on the directives of the finance ministry, apart from PNB, Union Bank also met the regulator, urging a deferment of PCA by citing a revival plan.

From cheating banks to faking identity, Aadhaar frauds peak in 2018: Report

At a recent court hearing, UIDAI admitted that 6% of Aadhaar authentication requests using fingerprints transactions are known to fail

In January 2018, eight persons were arrested in Chandigarh for purchasing expensive mobile phones with fraudulent loans secured using fake Aadhaar cards. The accused, among whom were former bankers and employees of a finance company, had placed their own photographs on others’ Aadhaar cards to secure bank loans, and were booked for cheating, fraud, forgery and criminal conspiracy under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

This is just one among the 73 incidents of misuse of the Unique Identity Authority of India’s (UIDAI) Aadhaar programme that have been reported in the English-language media so far this year (up to May 7, 2018). This averages nearly four incidents each week, as per a new database created by independent researchers Anmol Somanchi and Vipul Paikra.

Of these, 52 cases involved fake or forged Aadhaar numbers–coming up with entirely new Aadhaar enrolment based on fake details, or forging existing cards by replacing certain details like photographs–and 21 involved Aadhaar-related banking frauds.

In the six years since the launch of the Aadhaar programme in September 2011, 164 cases of forged or fake Aadhaar numbers and Aadhaar-related banking frauds have been reported in the English-language media, thedatabase noted. These include 123 cases of fake or forged Aadhaar numbers or cards and 41 cases of Aadhaar-related banking fraud.

“This database does not include the whole gamut of reported incidents of Aadhaar-related fraud and forgery,” Somanchi told IndiaSpend. “We had initially included Hindi reports and found more such incidents. However, since we couldn’t include all other regional languages we restricted the database to English news reports.”

Several attempts to reach out to the UIDAI for comment on the findings of the database met with no response. On April 30, 2018, IndiaSpend reached out to the office of the chief executive officer of UIDAI via email. On May 2, 2018, we reached out again and were told by the communications team that UIDAI would get back to us. On May 3, 2018, IndiaSpend reached out a third time, telephonically. On May 8, 2018, we sent out a third email.

The story will be updated with the Authority’s response when we receive one.

Lack of clarity

“The ambiguity around Aadhaar has led to an increasing number of cases where citizens are swindled of their money,” Somanchi said. “India is still grappling with limited financial, technological literacy–people aren’t sure of what they should or should not share and the authorities have failed to provide that clarity.”

IndiGo wants to offer Wi-Fi in the sky; DoT to meet telecom operators soon

The DoT will create a separate category of such licences

The country’s largest airline, IndiGo, has shown interest in providing in-flight connectivity services to flyers on board, and has reached out to the department of telecommunications (DoT) on the issue.

Besides IndiGo, one of the leading satellite service providers also contacted DoT after the Telecom Commission cleared the proposal for in-flight connectivity services in Indian airspace on May 1.

According to sources, the DoT will meet telecom operators as well as officials from the civil aviation ministry in the next couple of days to chalk out a road map for proliferation of such services. Although no date has been set for the roll-out of in-flight connectivity services, the DoT is hopeful that the services will be available commercially within four months.

The DoT and the civil aviation ministry will work out the modalities, and licences will be awarded to in-flight service providers at an annual fee of Rs 1 initially. The DoTwill create a separate category of such licences. Service providers need to partner telecom operators and register with the DoT.

IndiGo did not respond to a request for comments till the time of going to press.

Since the proposal does not need Cabinet approval, the DoT has already started working on the regulatory framework and the eligibility criteria for in-flight service providers. The DoT was likely to garner more insights from operators and the civil aviation ministry, sources said.

In-flight connectivity is allowed in the European Union, the US and Australia, and over 30 airlines offer the service. According to industry watchers, the price for in-flight connectivity in India could be much lower than in other markets. Globally, charges range from $9.99 for data packs of 150 MB to $15.99 for 500 MB.

Most of the telecom operators Business Standard spoke to said they were waiting for the final guidelines before taking any decision on providing such services.

The government is not likely to intervene in the pricing as in the case of mobile tariffs. According to sources, the demand for allowing in-flight connectivity in India came from satellite telecommunications service providers, which are already offering such services in other regions. With the government giving them the go-ahead, they will form alliances with airlines and mobile operators to launch services in Indian airspace.

Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest mobile operator, has already joined the global Seamless Alliance to provide in-flight connectivity. Alliance members can provide automatic login and authentication to their customers on various devices. Airtel, OneWeb, Airbus, Delta and Sprint are the founding members of the alliance.

Snapdeal won't renew Aamir Khan's contract as brand ambassador

Indian e-commerce major Snapdeal.com has decided against renewing Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan’s contract as brand ambassador, The Economic Times reported Friday.

The one-year deal ends later this year.

"It was extendable by a year but the company decided against it," one of two sources that the newspaper spoke to said. It was not immediately clear whether Snapdealwould replace Khan with another celebrity.

The Economic Times said Snapdeal didn't respond to its questions, while it couldn’t reach Khan for comment.

Marketing industry experts ET quoted said that the move by Snapdeal likely stemmed from Khan’s comments last year about growing intolerance in the country.