New Delhi,  Ten media outlets from India have been selected for receiving YouTube innovation funding as part of the Google News Initiative (GNI) to help newsrooms and publishers strengthen their online video capabilities and experiment with new formats for video journalism.

These 10 news organisations – Asianet News Media and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., Bharatiya Digital Party (BhaDiPa), FACTLY, Gaon Connection, India Today Group, Live Data Visualisation Pvt. Ltd., NDTV, NYOOOZ, ShepHertz and Video Volunteers — are among the 87 selected from 23 countries. 

“Today’s announcement reinforces our commitment to supporting a strong future for news video,” Timothy Katz, Director of News Partnerships, YouTube, said in a blog post on Tuesday. 

“Hailing from 23 countries around the world, they represent a diverse array of broadcasters, traditional and digital publishers, local media, agencies and creators, but all share a commitment to quality journalism and a spirit of innovation,” Katz added.

As part of the launch of Google News Initiative in March, YouTube committed $25 million funding to support the future of news. 

Many of the projects selected for the innovation funding are focused on expanding newsroom video operations and trying out new ways of reporting news through video — from reaching younger audiences online to exploring live and fact-checking formats. 

Other projects look at the sustainability of news organisations, including work on new business models and programmes to support a healthy news ecosystem. 

“Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing insights gained from the projects and giving newsrooms the opportunity to benefit from the learnings,” Katz added.

Twitter Inc shares fell almost 7 percent after the company said it was investigating unusual traffic that it said might be from state-sponsored hackers.

In what appeared to be an unrelated issue, a security firm also said that hackers used the platform to try to steal user data.

Twitter said in a blog that it discovered suspicious traffic to a customer-support forum while investigating a security bug that exposed user data, including users’ phone country codes and details on locked accounts. It said the bug was fixed on November 16.

Twitter said it observed a large amount of traffic to the customer support site coming from individual internet IP addresses in China and Saudi Arabia.

“During our investigation, we noticed some unusual activity involving the affected customer support form API. Specifically, we observed a large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia,” Twitter said in a press release.

“While we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors,” the blog said.

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Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter blamed the share price tumble on concerns that news of a breach could hurt growth and user engagement.

“Clearly, a breach like this impairs user trust in the platform,” he said.

Separately, security software maker Trend Micro Inc said in a blog earlier on Monday that attackers sent out two tweets in October in a bid to steal data from previously infected machines.

The hackers hid instructions in tweeted memes that secretly ordered infected devices to send information, including usernames, screen images and other content, Trend Micro said.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the Trend Micro report.

New Delhi,  The year leading up to the 2019 general elections was defined by a slowdown in investment, slackening growth, falling GST revenues, the biggest bank fraud and a credit crunch that provoked the most significant crisis in government-RBI relations.

It was topped up by the abrupt resignation of Urjit Patel as the RBI Governor, a rare phenomenon in the banking world. He was immediately replaced by former Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das the man who was the vocal face during demonetisation and seen as a ‘yes’ man of the government.

India, meanwhile, continued to be the fastest growing big economy during 2018 with its gross domestic product (GDP) rising at above 7 per cent, after having slipped to 6.7 per cent in the previous financial year, mainly on account of the impact of demonetisation. 

Even as it is projected to overtake China by GDP in the coming year, India jumped 23 spots in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings to 77th place, continuing its impressive climb on this score for the third year running. 

The pace of the country’s GDP growth slowed substantially during the second quarter of the current fiscal to 7.1 per cent, from 8.2 per cent in the previous quarter, mainly on the back of a drop in manufacturing, agriculture and mining. By criteria of gross value added (GVA), which includes taxes and excludes subsidies, growth fell to 6.9 per cent from 8 per cent during the April-June period.

On the inflation front, lower food prices kept headline inflation down, which touched a 13-month low of 3.3 per cent in October, and fell further to 2.3 per cent last month. Core inflation, however, continued to remain elevated.

Following the release of the GDP numbers, US agency Fitch Ratings lowered India’s growth forecast for the fiscal to 7.2 per cent, from an earlier projection of 7.8 per cent rise, “on weaker-than-expected momentum in the data, higher financing costs and reduced credit availability.”

The year witnessed the biggest fraud in Indian banking history with the Rs 14,000 crore scam on state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) committed over a number of years and reported in February. The fraud was committed from 2011 till 2017 by illegally issuing letters of undertaking and rolling over foreign letters of credit to diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi from PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai. 

Both are currently absconding and Interpol has issued red corner notices against them.

Twin storms hit the country in September — rising fuel prices that climbed new highs daily and a falling rupee that spiralled down to new lows against the US dollar before recovering somewhat towards the end of the month.

The year’s global protectionist measures unfolding through the US-China trade war, along with high crude oil prices, put the rupee on a downward spiral, dragging it down to a record low of 72.98 against the US dollar on September 18.

According to analysts, concerns over a rise in inflation rate, growing protectionism in global trade and an outflow of foreign funds from the country’s equity markets have had an adverse impact on the Indian currency. It fell nearly 15 per cent since the start of the year to become Asia’s worst-performing currency.

On the other hand, transport fuel prices in the country began going up almost daily since August 1, incessantly recording new highs across the country, even as the UK Brent crude oil climbed to $86 per barrel. A weak rupee and high excise duty added to the heady mix that made for high petrol and diesel prices in the country before beginning to fall from late October in tandem with global crude prices. 

“The widening of the current account deficit amidst tighter global financing conditions should put downward pressure on the currency, and we forecast the rupee to weaken to 75 against the dollar by end-2019,” Fitch said. 

The defining moment, however, came in December with the resignation of the RBI Governor nine months prematurely and the first such instance since Independence, which prompted Patel’s predecessor Raghuram Rajan to say that it should be a cause of concern for all Indians. 

The historic tensions in government-central bank relations were re-ignited in October when, in a public lecture, RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya talked about the independence of the Reserve Bank, arguing that any compromise could be “potentially catastrophic” for the economy. 

The government responded with the Finance Ministry seeking discussions with the central bank under the never-used-before Section 7 of the RBI Act which empowers the government to issue directions to the RBI Governor, who then summoned a meeting of the bank board. 

Central to the issue was the government’s demand that the RBI hand over its surplus reserves by making changes to the “economic capital framework”. Analysts noted that the government’s demand came in the face of a huge fiscal deficit and the need to boost the economy in an election year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Governor Patel before the board meeting and what emerged on November 19 was seen as settling the debate on the central bank’s autonomy and clearly establishing the government as a stakeholder in policy making.

The current liquidity crunch, particularly among non-banking finance companies, follows a series of defaults in late October by the privately-run IL&FS. 

In hindsight, the words of Sudipto Mundle on the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, after the November board meeting proved prophetic.

“The RBI-government fight has been pushed down, abated for now and postponed, but the NPAs issue continues to remain,” he said.