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Archives for August 2018

Facebook bags media rights of La Liga for Indian subcontinent

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Social media giant Facebook has bagged the media rights of Spain’s top-division football championship, La Liga, for the Indian subcontinent, both parties have confirmed the path-breaking deal.

With this mega-deal, La Liga will be the first European football league to be broadcast exclusively live on Facebook in the Indian subcontinent.

La Liga will be available for free on Facebook in India, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, championship’s India Country Manager Jose Cachaza revealed to IANS on Monday.

The period of the deal is for three seasons and it begins with the 2018-19 campaign starting on August 17, Peter Hutton, Facebook Head of Global Live Sports Programming, said.

“La Liga has a very wide global audience and the league has two of the most supported clubs on our platform — Real Madrid and Barcelona. Fans can either go to La Liga page on Facebook and can view any of the matches or they can go on to the Facebook page of their favorite clubs to watch the match. No subscriptions are needed,” he said.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to expand La Liga’s fan base in India with free live streaming of football games. Apart from the live games, the fans will also have access to see other programmes like studio discussion, preview shows and highlights,” Hutton said, adding that interacting with fellow fans is a very interesting feature that Facebook will offer during the live streaming.

Earlier, the La Liga media rights for the Indian subcontinent was with Sony Pictures Networks India. According to sources, Sony Pictures Networks was not ready to match the figure offered by Facebook.

Alfredo Bermejo, Head, Digital Strategy, La Liga, said: “For us, India is one of our most important markets and Facebook is one of our most important and traditional partners in digital world. We want to reach out to the biggest audience with the biggest platform possible.

“We wanted to improve our broadcasting strategy with technology — like production, new camera, new angles, new way of viewing football. Facebook shared our strategy. Facebook is the biggest platform with 270 million users, out of which 60 million are interested in football. So Facebook has the perfect features to help us what we want to.”

Cachaza added: “For us it is a great opportunity to give Indian football fans free live broadcast of La Liga games through Facebook. Digital landscape in India is interesting for us. Indian market is ahead of others in terms of digital audience.

“We have seen the growth of digital audience in India whether it is for FIFA World Cup or the Indian Premier League. One out of every four IPL viewers followed the matches on a digital platform. Digital broadcasting platforms are already there.

“We want of be ahead of time. So we think this is the best way to reach out to our audience,” he stated, refusing to reveal the financial figures involved in the deal.

Around 50 million fans watched La Liga 2017-18 season and Facebook aims to make the most of the growing market.

Facebook will also provide analysis of the matches by a pool of experts including former Real Madrid defender and four time La Liga champion Michel Salgado, as well as former Barcelona and Atletico Madrid midfielder Luis Garcia.

Hutton said that over the course of the next three seasons, they want to learn about sports live broadcasting in the Indian market, though they have the experience of showing live couple of sports championships in the United States.

Rupee hits record low against US dollar; recovers a bit

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Fears over a rise in global protectionist measures, along with a strong US economy, dragged the Indian rupee to a fresh intra-day low of over 70 against the US dollar on Tuesday before recovering by a fraction at Rs 69.98.

Around 11 a.m., the rupee plunged to 70.08 — lowest-ever — against the greenback.

However, soon afterward, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is said to have intervened to curb the rupee’s fall.

The intervention aided the rupee to stabilise just a tad below 70 to a USD at 69.98 around 11.05 a.m.

“The fear of a rise in global protectionist measures along with a strong US economy pulled the Indian rupee lower to 70.08 during intra-day,” said Anindya Banerjee, Deputy Vice President for Currency and Interest Rates with Kotak Securities.

Banerjee predicted an immediate range from Rs 69 to Rs 71 per US dollar.

At 1.40 p.m. the rupee stood at 69.855 to a US dollar.

“Around 70-70.08 level, the RBI might have intervened to protect the rupee. We saw some exporters selling in the market. So, that too supported the rupee. But importers will jump into the market on every dip in the USD/INR given the turmoil in the global market,” Rushabh Maru, Research Analyst, Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers, told IANS.

“A decline in the WPI also provided support to the rupee. Market will now focus on the trade balance data for further direction,” he said.

Hackers transfer Rs 94 crore from Pune’s Cosmos Bank

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Suspected hackers siphoned off Rs 94.42 crore from the Cosmos Cooperative Bank Ltd — the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in India — to various foreign and domestic bank accounts, police said on Tuesday.

The bank was cyber-attacked twice, on Saturday and on Monday, according to an FIR lodged by an official of Cosmos Bank with Chaturshringi Police Station.

The complaint said the first attack took place on August 11 between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. and on August 13 around 11.30 a.m., affecting its headquarters on Ganeshkhind Road.

A police officer said that during those hours, some unknown persons hacked into the ATM Switch (servers) at the headquarters and acquired the sensitive data of its Visa and RuPay debit card customers.

As per tentative estimates, the hackers siphoned off Rs 78 crore by 12,000 Visa card transactions and transferred it out of the country, including bank accounts in Hong Kong.

Another amount of Rs 2.50 crore from 2,849 transactions was transferred within India, details of which were being investigated, said the police.

Before the bank could react, in a fresh attack on Monday (August 13), the hackers initiated SWIFT transactions and transferred Rs 13.92 crore to the accounts of a company, ALM Trading Ltd, with Hang Seng Bank, Hong Kong. The amounts were soon withdrawn from that bank.

Established in 1906, the Pune-headquartered Cosmos Bank is the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in the country, enjoying the status of a multi-state scheduled bank.

Indian-American researchers unleash turmeric’s power to fight cancer

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A team of Indian-American researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City, has used an ingenious process to enable curcumin to kill cancer cells.

Curcumin is the active ingredient of turmeric (haldi), the ubiquitous kitchen spice that gives curry its yellow color. Turmeric has been used in India for thousands of years as a spice and medicinal herb because of its powerful anti-inflammatory and strong antioxidant property.

Curcumin is also known to exhibit anti-cancer properties, but its poor solubility in water had impeded curcumin’s clinical application in cancer. A drug needs to be soluble in water as otherwise it will not flow through the bloodstream.

Despite decades of research, the development of efficient strategies that can effectively deliver poorly water-soluble curcumin to cancer cells had remained a challenge.

A team headed by Dipanjan Pan, associate professor of bioengineering at UIUC, has now found a way out.

“Curcumin’s medicinal benefit can be fully appreciated if its solubility issue is resolved,” Pan told this correspondent in an e-mail.

Pan’s laboratory collaborated with Peter Stang at the University of Utah on ways to be able to render curcumin soluble, deliver it to infected tumors and kill the cancer cells.

Because platinum is a commonly used cancer therapeutic agent in the clinic, the researchers decided to experiment with a drug consisting of a combination of platinum and curcumin.

“It is a combination of clever chemistry and nano-precipitation utilising host guest chemistry,” Pan explained. “The sophisticated chemistry leads to self-assembled hierarchical structure that drives the solubility of curcumin and simultaneously delivers an additional anticancer agent, i.e. platinum. The combined therapeutic effect — of curcumin and platinum — is lethal for the cancer cells.”

The team has reported its work in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” in the US.

According to their report, the metallocyclic complex created using platinum “not only enabled curcumin’s solubility, but proved to be 100 times more effective in treating various cancer types such as melanoma and breast cancer cells than using curcumin and platinum agents separately”.

“Our results demonstrate that curcumin works completely in sync with platinum and exerts synergistic effect to show remarkable anticancer properties,” says the report. “The platinum-curcumin combination kills the cells by fragmenting its DNA.”

“Extensive animal studies are in progress in my laboratory, including in rodents and pigs,” Pan said. His team also hopes to prove that this method will be effective in killing cancer stem cells — the birth place of cancer cells — thereby preventing the recurrence of cancer.

Pan’s team included post-doctoral researcher Santosh Misra at UIUC, and Sougata Datta, Manik Lal Saha, Nabajit Lahiri, Janis Louie, and Peter J. Stang from the University of Utah.

5 killed in Pakistan court firing

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At least five people were killed and three injured in a firing inside a tribal court in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district on Tuesday.

The incident took place in Battagram district after a fight between two groups, one of whom opened fire, reports Xinhua news agency.

The assailants fled the scene.

Taliban militants overrun Afghan Army base, 17 soldiers killed

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At least 17 Afghan soldiers were killed after Taliban militants overran an Army base in the northern part of the country following a three-day intense fighting, officials said on Tuesday.

The clashes started last Saturday after hundreds of Taliban militants stormed and besieged Camp-e-Chenayeeha base in the remote Ghormach district of Faryab province in which about 106 Army soldiers were stationed, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Taliban attack in the north coincided with clashes in the southeastern province of Ghazni, which lies on the main highway linking Kabul with the south. Hundreds of people have been killed or injured during clashes there since last week. Heavy clashes and airstrikes were reported on Tuesday as fighting in the city entered the fifth day.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that residents of Ghazni were struggling to access basic services and medical care.

“The besieged soldiers showed stiff resistance and fought back the attackers for the past three days but the base was captured by militants as the soldiers received no help or supplies despite repeated requests,” said Sebghatullah Selaab, an official from the provincial council.

He said 15 soldiers were injured and five others were captured by the militants while several soldiers fled to nearby villages or mountains.

The Taliban seized 14 armoured military vehicles, heavy guns, weapons and ammunition after the seizure of the base in the province, 425 km northwest of Kabul.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been on the rampage since the beginning of 2015 when the Afghan security forces assumed full responsibilities of security from the US and NATO troops.

Realty sector needs more reforms to realise full potential

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Landmark reforms like RERA and GST, as also demonetization, have brought about much-needed transparency in transactions, helping the real estate sector to free itself of fraud, malpractices and other problems faced by consumers and investors. Yet, the sector needs more reforms to break free of the various ills that still plague it in order to realise its full potential as a major contributor to the country’s GDP.

The reform-oriented Narendra Modi government, which is fine-tuning and reinforcing the reforms undertaken by it to increase their on-ground efficacy, has its task cut out to free real estate from high transaction costs, especially to achieve the success of its flagship mission of “Housing for All”.

Though the interest subsidy scheme (CLSS) under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) has proved to be a big boost for first-time home buyers in the EWS, LIG and MIG category, yet high transaction costs are a deterrent to home ownership. Currently, GST, stamp duty and registration costs act as a dampener. There is an average stamp duty of six percent and it is not uniform and is much higher in some states. Further, in many cities, there is the anomaly of collector rates of property being higher than the market rates.

As such, home buyers end up paying more stamp duty and registration fee. Home buyers need to be given freedom from high transaction costs to boost sales and revive residential real estate, facing a slowdown for long. And this can be achieved by either rationalising stamp duty or simply subsuming stamp duty in GST. Similarly, while GST has imporved ease of doing business by doing away with multiple taxation, there is still a need to lower its 12 per cent rate, which is almost double the VAT and Service
tax prevalent in pre-GST era, especially when Input Tax Credit provided by the government is not having the desired effect. Further, the high GST on cement should be brought down as in the case of paints, to bring down the cost of homes.

Home buyers also need freedom from the double burden of rent and EMI, particularly as hundreds of thousands of housing projects across the country are facing long delays. Earlier, the home buyers would get possession of their homes in 3-4 years but now, in many cases, it has almost doubled, causing great hardships to home buyers in terms of dual burden of rent and EMI. Some developers are helping home buyers tide over this problem by offering schemes to pay EMI only after possession. But ready homes is a sound solution to this problem as they do not have any development risk and, moreover, home buyers save on 12 per cent GST.

That’s why ready-to-occupy homes are being lapped up by home buyers. Here, the concept of “Build and Sell” can provide a long-term solution. Under RERA, a developer can’t start his project without land and all mandatory permissions in place. Also, there is not only a ban on funding projects through customer advances by way of pre-launching of projects but there is also a strict check on (mis)utilising funds collected from customers through the implementation of the escrow account mechanism.

As such, it makes sense for developers to adopt the “Build and Sell” model which is common in advanced countries. Leading developer DLF has already announced it would adopt this model. And, if the government organises cheap bank funding for at least developers of affordable housing, many of them will take to “Build and Sell”, to the advantage of property consumers.

Red-tapism is also proving to be a big bane of the real estate sector as the unduly long time taken by authorities in giving construction permits and other multiple sanctions adds the developers’ debt, in turn increasing home costs. And, since the sanctioning authorities do not come under the purview of RERA, there is no check on project delays due to the unduly long time taken in according project sanctions and giving completion certificates.

The ideal solution to this problem is a single window mechanism for project sanctions/clearances. Since this is not happening, the government should fast-track the process of online permissions/sanctions and make this time-bound.

Last but not the least, there should be freedom from defective and fraudulent land/property titles to make property transactions easier and safer. Thus, there is an urgent need to set up a Land Titling Authority in states to prepare and maintain a digitised registry of all immovable properties. This, together with introduction of Title Insurance for providing protection against any financial loss due to title deficiencies, will considerably help in enforcing contracts and prevent property deals from falling through, thereby effectively checking high litigation due to property ownership disputes.

The transparency brought in by this will further boost the confidence of foreign investors, thereby helping in putting foreign investment in Indian real estate on the fast track.

Hindu migrants from Pakistan living a life of homeless wanderers, courtesy Indian red-tapism

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At a time when the world is battling one of its biggest refugee crises, India has its own share of the problem — thousands of Hindu migrants from Pakistan remain stranded at this Rajasthan transit hub. They have been awaiting their citizenship papers for years, despite submitting their passports, documents and hard-earned money too.

Although the world observed International Refugee Day in June, these migrants continue to run from pillar to post to check their status as a callous Indian bureaucracy works at its own inefficient pace unmoved by their plight.

Wandering like a nomad, one of these migrants, Anumaal, told IANS: “Our lives have become deplorable since the time we came to India. The longing to be a part of this country forced me to come here. But since then, from the year 2000 in April, we have been making untiring efforts to get citizenship, but to no avail.”

“My son has completed his 12th, but he couldn’t get admission in any college as the authorities demand domicile certificates and other identity proof. Eventually, he started working as a labourer to ensure we don’t die of hunger. His future has become dark and the same will be the case with my other son who is pursuing his 12th. Eighteen years of running from here to there has failed to bring any result for us,” he lamented.

“In a camp organised in the year 2005, we missed submitting our certificate by a day. The officials asked us to come with a certificate but it being a Saturday, we reached on Monday and since then, our grievances remain unheard,” Anumaal added.

“We surrendered our passports, our forms were duly filled, and they asked us to come along with a certificate. However, when we reached on Monday, we were informed that we can’t be given citizenship as they had received fresh instructions from the government. Since then, we have been meeting district collectors… the home secretary too, but to no avail. We have exhausted all our savings to pay these officials. We have even borrowed money, which has now exhausted. Now we are asked to fill in fresh forms and deposit fresh fees. When asked about the money we had already deposited, the officials said its gone, so forget about it and make a fresh start.

“There are many people like me who are running around in distress. We were doing agriculture in Pakistan but here we are forced to work as labourers. Initially, during partition, we lost our ancestral land which was seized by residents of Pakistan. Most of the Hindus lost their lands at that time. Now this is the second time we are losing a lot. We were initially in Jaisalmer. However, we left the place a long time back because of the water crisis. It is an irony that people consider us as Pakistanis now, which is quite sad to hear,” he added.

Then there is Dr Rajkumar Sharma, who practises medicine and was whose citizenship was confirmed on June 17. He said, “We came to Jodhpur in 2004. Since then, we have been working hard to make a decent living. There are thousands like me who have come here, their passports have been submitted, but they are yet to get their citizenship. The major challenge for them is getting a long-term visa (LTV) which gets stuck in red tapism,” he added.

Sharma said that he, being educated, managed to earn his bread and butter. “But when I think of other people like me who have migrated, I have tears in my eyes. They are really suffering. People refuse to give them a house on rent or a job to earn considering them as Pakistanis. More than 1,000 people are awaiting their long-term visas,” he informed.

“I belonged to Sindh and came here as Muslims were not so kind to Hindus in Pakistan. Radicalism was growing and so was their influence. Although we had land there, we preferred coming here leaving everything as we knew that things might become challenging in the coming days for Hindus,” he said, adding: “Now, when I have got citizenship, I will try to clear the Medical Council of India examination so that I can start my practice here.”

Dr Hindu Singh Soda, an activist for Pakistani minorities living in India, said that the number of Total Registered Migrants (TRMs) at various FROs in Rajasthan is 13,623. Of them, 12,253 are at FRO Jodhpur alone. Of them, 3,408 were granted LTVs in 2017 while rest of the applications are still under process.

On paper, an LTV is supposed to be granted within 120 days of applying; but in almost all cases, these are not granted for many years, he said, adding that 965 migrants were permanently sent back to Pakistan in 2016 and 2017.

Soda said red-tapism is to be blamed for this situation. Also, the processing of LTVs needs to be hastened to ensure the migrants get justice in India — a land for which they have left everything in Pakistan, he added.

2 Pakistani soldiers killed on LoC

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The Indian Army said on Tuesday that two Pakistani soldiers were killed in retaliatory fire on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

On Monday, an Indian soldier was killed in the LoC’s Tangdhar sector in unprovoked firing from the Pakistani side.

Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia told IANS: “The Indian Army responded to the unprovoked ceasefire violations and repeated attempts to facilitate infiltration by the Pakistan Army in Tangdhar.

“Our troops carried out calibrated operations last night in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed.”

I am married to Congress, says Rahul

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday remarked that he is married to the party.

He made the comment during an interaction with editors when he was asked about his marriage plans.

Gandhi, on a two-day visit to Hyderabad, said Narendra Modi will not become Prime Minister in 2019.

He predicted that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would not even get 230 Lok Sabha seats and hence there was no question of Modi becoming Prime Minister again. The BJP tally would be cut primarily due to the alliance among non-BJP parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The Congress President evaded a direct reply to a question on who would be the Prime Minister in the event of Congress and other non-BJP parties getting a majority. He merely said they would work it out.

Gandhi said the party’s state units were free to have alliances with like-minded parties. He was confident that the Congress would come to power in Telangana.

Asked about Andhra Pradesh, where Congress drew a blank in the 2014 polls, he said the party was improving its position.

He voiced concern over growing intolerance in the country. He said that minorities were feeling insecure.

He called for addressing the problems of farmers and providing employment to the unemployed. He said Modi had failed to fulfill his promise of providing two crore jobs annually.

“China provides employment to 50,000 people in 24 hours while in India only 458 people get employment during this duration,” he said.

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