Archives for 2018

Over 1.9 billion users are logging into Google-owned YouTube each month and on average, users now watch over 180 million hours of YouTube on TV screens every day, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has said.

“Our overall interactions, such as likes, comments, and chats, grew by more than 60 percent year over year. More and more creators are building their businesses and discovering that they can shape the global conversation with just a phone and an Internet connection,” Wojcicki said in a mid-year update over the weekend.

“We made a conscious effort to respond on social media, and we answered 600 percent more tweets through our official handles (@TeamYouTube, @YTCreators, and @YouTube) in 2018 than in 2017 and grew our reach by 30 percent,” Wojcicki informed.

YouTube has built a new feature that enables it to deliver relevant information in YouTube Studio (formerly known as Creator Studio).

“In February, we began testing a new dashboard with a small group of creators. The dashboard, which was launched for all English channels, will soon be available in an additional 76 languages in the next two weeks,” she noted.

When it comes to channel membership, viewers pay a monthly recurring fee of $4.99 to get unique badges, new emojis, Members-only posts in the Community tab, and access to unique custom perks offered by creators.

“We worked with a small group of creators to develop this service and are expanding it to eligible channels with more than 100,000 subscribers and even more creators in the coming months,” the YouTube CEO said.

Every day, over 60 million users click on to engage with YouTube Community posts.

“Live streaming continues to be an area of growth for creators, with watch time of live streams increasing by 10X over the last three years,” Wojcicki added.

With the increasing penetration of smartphones, data becoming affordable and ever-growing availability of content, 80 percent of internet users across all age groups in the country are accessing YouTube, Google India said on Friday.

YouTube’s monthly user base has touched 225 million in India, reaches 80 percent of the Internet population.

The platform recently announced a “Copyright Match” tool, which uses the matching power of Content ID to help creators find copies of content when it’s been uploaded by other channels.

With this tool, after a new video is uploaded, YouTube would run a scan to see if there is any other video that resembles the uploaded video very much or is the same and if there is a “match”, it would appear on the “matches” tab.

“We’ve been testing this tool with a thousand creators over the last year to tailor it to your specific needs and is a great complement to the range of copyright tools we provide,” Wojcicki said.

The army chief, Gen Bipin Rawat, on Sunday emphasized on battle focused training and mental mobility in operations to ensure a decisive victory.

His remarks came during his visit to the 1 Corps HQ at the Mathura Military Station where he appreciated the measures being undertaken to improve operational readiness and training of the Corps and also the efforts made to improve the quality of life of soldiers as well as their families, an official statement said.

“The Army chief emphasized on battle focused training to ensure decisive victory and mental mobility to exploit opportunities in operations to ensure decisive victory over our adversary,” it said.

During his visit, Rawat also interacted with the formation commanders and the officers of 1 Corps. He also visited “The Heritage” which is the archive of the 1 Corps memorabilia.

Received by South Western Command chief, Lt Gen Cherish Mathson and 1 Corps commander, Lt Gen Taranjit Singh, Rawat was briefed extensively on operational preparedness and training activities in the Corps zone, the statement said.

The Army chief was accompanied by his wife Madhulika Rawat, the President of the Army Wives Welfare Association.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi congratulated Asharam Choudhary, the son of a ragpicker in Madhya Pradesh, who cracked the AIIMS MBBS entrance test in his first attempt and hoped that he would contribute to nation-building and inspire many in future.

“I congratulate you on clearing the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) entrance test in your first attempt and getting selected at Jodhpur AIIMS to pursue Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)… I extend my best wishes to you and hope you will contribute to nation-building,” Gandhi said in the letter.

“I am aware that despite all challenges you were able to secure good rank. It is a testament to their dedication and your hard work that you have performed so well,” he said, adding it gave him immense pleasure to note how Asharam’s village doctor and parents inspired him in his journey and Dakshana Foundation supported him financially.

Choudhary also cleared the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), conducted on May 6, bagging the 803rd rank in the OBC category and 2,763 overall.

In his letter, the Congress President said, “I hope one day, you will also be in a position to inspire other children to take up medical profession and serve the people of India. You remind me of Mahatma Gandhi who used to say: ‘Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from the indomitable will’.”

In another letter to Chief Election Commissioner O. P. Rawat, Gandhi said:”I write this letter to commend you on the excellent initiative of the Election Commission in Karnataka. The issuance of the Braille EPIC cards to the visually impaired voters is a step in the right direction, which will make elections and voting accessible to all voters.”

Taking a jibe at Congress President Rahul Gandhi, the BJP on Sunday dubbed him a “non-performing chief” of a party that is doing negative politics as against the positive politics pursued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“After the defeat of the no-confidence motion in Parliament, the Congress non-working committee met today (Sunday) under a non-performing party President Rahul Gandhi. His mother Sonia Gandhi chaired the CWC (Congress Working Committee) for 20 years and after that her son Rahul Gandhi is chairing it. This is not how a democracy functions,” BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra told a press conference here.

He said that the two-line decision taken at the CWC meeting was that the Congress does not want to win and its sole aim is to stop Modi at any cost.

“The Congress has decided to play the role of a suicide bomber. It is negative politics. Positive Politics is being performed under the leadership of Modi. The people of the country, who believe in positive and developmental politics, will never accept this negative politics,” he said.

The BJP leader also hit out at UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for her “reverse countdown” jibe at the Prime Minister, saying the country had few days back seen the politics of “hug and wink” and the rhetoric on the floor of Parliament.

Addressing the CWC meet, Sonia Gandhi had said earlier in the day that the Prime Minister’s rhetoric shows his “desperation” reflecting that the “reverse countdown” of the Modi government has begun.

“You (Sonia) were runing the country in reverse gear and you are now talking of reverse countdown. The reverse countdown of dynastic politics, appeasement politics and caste politics has begun,” Patra said.

He said that the whole purpose of the CWC meet was to back Rahul Gandhi as Congress candidate for 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“What is new in Sonia’s backing of Rahul as PM. This was the whole purpose of CWC. Sonia’s only ambition is to back Rahul as PM candidate,” he said.

Commenting on former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s remarks that the Congress can win three times more seats in the 2019 general elections, Patra asked: “If a party is looking at contesting only 150 seats, how can it dream of getting the Prime Minister’s post?”

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) members walked out of the Lok Sabha on Friday as the House began a debate on a no-confidence motion moved by the opposition against Prime Minister Narendra Modis government.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the discussion on the no-trust motion would continue for the entire day and the vote would take place at 6 p.m.

She said the House would also skip lunch.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge sought more time from the Speaker saying 38 minutes allotted for his party leaders to address the Lok Sabha was not enough.

He also sought more time for the members of Trinamool Congress, Left parties and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

“This is a very important motion. The country is watching us to know what we have to say and how the government is going to respond. Don’t limit the time. There are precedents when no-confidence motions have been debated for two, three or even five days. Therefore if you sum up in five hours, it is not justified,” Kharge said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar responded, saying Kharge is a senior leader but needed to understand that “in one-day cricket era, there was no need to play a test cricket match for five days”.

The BJD, which has 19 members in the Lok Sabha after the resignation of Kendrapara MP Baijyant Jay Panda, then walked out.

Its leader Bhartruhari Mahtab said injustice had been done to Odisha in the last 14 years and the BJP government at the Centre has failed to safeguard the interests of the state.

“In the last 14 years, the BJD has witnessed that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for 10 years and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for four years have done injustice with Odisha. And this discussion is not going to help Odisha. So we are not going to participate,” Mahtab said.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), an estranged ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government, moved the no-confidence motion on Wednesday, which was admitted by Mahajan.

The no-confidence motion has the support of the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

The ruling NDA, however, enjoys a comfortable majority in the House. The BJP which leads the ruling combine has 273 members in the House that has an effective strength of 533, excluding the Speaker.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said French President Emmanuel Macron had told him that there was no secrecy pact with India on the Rafale jet deal, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had lied to the nation about it.

“I personally met the French President and asked him if there was a secrecy pact with India. He told me that no such pact was signed between the two countries. He said he had no hesitation in saying this and that I can tell this to my country,” Gandhi thundered in the Lok Sabha.

Gandhi said the price per plane during the UPA regime was Rs 520 crore but when Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to France and “with some magic” powers, the price per plane increased to Rs 1,600 crore.

“Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is here. She said she would reveal the price. But after that she said clearly she cannot because the French and Indian governments have a secrecy pact.

“The Prime Minister has lied to the country. Sitharaman under pressure from the Prime Minister has lied to the country. They must tell the nation. The Prime Minister and the Defence Minister must tell the nation.”

The mention of the Rafale deal triggered noisy protests from the ruling party MPs.