Nasheman News : Passing on a new year gift of reduction in global gas prices to consumers, state-run Indian Oil Corp (IOC) on Monday announced a major cut of Rs 120.50 in the rates of non-subsidised LPG cylinders.

In a statement here, IOC also said the subsidised quota of 12 cooking gas cylinders per annum will also cost less by Rs 5.91 per cylinder, effective from January 1. 

Thus, a 14.2-kg subsidised LPG cylinder will cost Rs 494.99 in Delhi from midnight, as against Rs 500.90.

The non-subsidised LPG will now cost Rs 689 per cylinder, in place of the current Rs 809.50.

“The price of Non-Subsidised LPG at Delhi will decrease by Rs 120.50 per cylinder w.e.f. 1st January 2019 due to fall in price of LPG in international market and strengthening of US dollar-rupee exchange rate,” IOC said.

Actual prices following the rate cut will vary across centres owing to local taxes. 

Nasheman News :  Key Indian equity indices opened flat on Tuesday as index pivotals — finance and banking stocks — witnessed selling pressure.

However, oil and gas sector gained.

The S&P BSE Sensex opened at 36,161.80 from its previous close of 36,068.33 on Monday. At 9.25 a.m., the Sensex traded 64.82 points or 0.18 per cent lower at 36,003.51.

The NSE Nifty 50 opened at 10,881.70 after closing at 10,862.55 on Monday.

The Nifty 50 traded at 10,842.90 during the morning trade session, up 19.65 points and 0.18 per cent.

Even though the 2018 gains were marginal, both the Sensex and Nifty50 emerged among the best in attaining the highest growth rates globally.

They were among the best performing benchmark indices in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).

Nasheman News : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday made it clear that the government does not need RBI’s reserves to bridge the widening fiscal deficit as the Lok Sabha voted the Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2018-19 to the tune of Rs 85,948.86 crore, including Rs.41,000 crore for bank recapitalisation.

“This government’s fiscal deficit track record has been better than any other government in history. We do not need RBI’s reserves for (meeting the) fiscal deficit,” he said, replying to a brief debate on the demands.

India’s fiscal deficit for the eight months till November stood at Rs 7.17 lakh crore, which is 114.8 per cent of the budgeted Rs 6.24 lakh crore.

The Minister’s assertion comes against the backdrop of a raging debate over the government’s reported moves for securing the surplus reserves with the RBI, estimated to be around a few lakh crore of rupees, to fund government’s social welfare schemes ahead of elections.

Jaitley said the global standard for economic capital framework for central banks was to have around 8 per cent of their assets as reserves with even the most conservative nations having it at 14 per cent.

“Does India need to have 27-28 per cent (as risk capital)… The money can be used for recapitalisation of banks or for poverty alleviation measures,” he said, adding the government only wanted to have a committee to review the matter.

The second Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2018-19 includes Rs 41,000 crore for recapitalisation of the public sector banks that have been hit hard by non-performing assets.

Jaitley said the government’s initiatives including the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) were bearing fruits and money stuck as NPA was now back into the banking system.

“The balance sheets of public sector banks are improving due to the IBC as money is coming back into the system. Rs 3 lakh crore has already been recovered through IBC. Banks’ ability to lend is also increasing,” he said.

Attacking the Congress, the Finance Minister said the asset quality review by the RBI initiated after this government took charge revealed the NPAs during the UPA regime were as high as Rs 8.5 lakh crore as opposed to the UPA’s claim of Rs 2.5 lakh crore.

Countering charges of a slowdown in the growth rate of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), he said: “India is growing at 7.5 per cent when the world is growing at 3 per cent. We are also growing faster than China.”

Jaitley also said that the government would continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that farmers get adequate minimum support price for their produce – 50 per cent higher than their input cost as promised.

The demands for grants contain proposals involving a net cash outgo aggregating to Rs 15,069.49 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the ministries and departments or by enhanced receipts and recoveries, aggregating to Rs 70,882.21 crore.

Both treasury benches and the opposition members attacked each other during discussion over the supplementary demand.

Taking part in the debate, most opposition members raised farmer’s distress issue and took a dig at the government over implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetisation reforms.

Bhartruhari Mahtab of BJD sought to know from the government the steps being taken to improve the governance in the banks.

TMC MP Saugata Roy said the economy was in “doldrums” and asked the Centre about the resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel.

“The biggest blunder of the Modi government was to hurriedly implement GST and demonetisation. These were the cruel steps of the government. Many businessmen like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya have fled after defrauding banks,” Roy said.

He said the government has not come out with the figures on the number of people who have lost jobs due to demonetisation and asked the Finance Minister to state the number of small businesses that had closed due to implementation of the GST. 

Opposing the supplementary demand, Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav said: “I am against it because the problems are increasing day by day though five budgets have passed. Over 60,000 farmers have committed suicide in NDA regime. Potato is being thrown on roads and farmers are not getting proper cost of their sugarcane crops.”

BJP MP Anurag Thakur, however, supported the draft, saying “the fiscal deficit is now 3.8 per cent which never came below 6.8 per cent during UPA government”.

Labelling MGNREGA as the “mother” of corruption, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said that it was due to MGNREGA that the fiscal management of the Central government was affected.

After the implementation of Aadhar and Biometric, around Rs 60,000-70,000 crore had been saved, he said.

Nasheman News : India and Bhutan on Friday reviewed the progress of hydroelectric projects in the Himalayan kingdom during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bhutanese counterpart Lotay Tshering here.

“Development of hydrolectric projects is an important part of the long history of India’s aid to Bhutan,” Modi said in a joint address to the media with Tshering after the meeting.

“Today we reviewed our aid for all related projects in this important sector,” he said.

India is a leading development aid partner for Bhutan. There are a number of institutional mechanisms between India and Bhutan in areas like security, border management, trade, economy, hydroelectricity, development cooperation and water resources.

New Delhi has set up three hydroelectric projects in Bhutan with a total capacity of 1,416 MW, which are operational. About three-fourth of the power generated is exported to India and the rest is used for domestic consumption. 

Stating that space science is a new area of cooperation between the two countries, Modi said that a ground station will be soon be developed in Bhutan by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to the reap the benefits of the South Asian Satellite.

He also expressed happiness at Tshering conveying him the news that Bhutan will soon launch the RuPay cards.

Appreciating Tshering’s vision of “Narrowing the Gap” on ties between India and Bhutan, Modi said that it complements India’s Neighbourhood First Policy.

On his part, Tshering said that the main aim of his visit, taking place on the golden-jubilee year of India-Bhutan diplomatic ties, is to take the bilateral relationship to much greater heights.

He also said that there are “many, many miles to go” India’s aid for development of hydroelectric projects in Bhutan.

He invited Modi to visit Bhutan at the earliest. 

Earlier, Tshering was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here. 

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also called on the visiting dignitary.

Tshering arrived here on Friday on a three-day visit to India, his first official trip abroad after assuming office in October.

Tshering’s Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) party, formed in 2013, won 30 of the 47 National Assembly seats in the elections in the Himalayan kingdom held in October.

The country of 800,000 people, located between India and China, has chosen a different party to rule at each election since the end of absolute monarchy in 2008.

Nasheman News : Amid speculations that the Narendra Modi government could announce a major relief plan for farmers ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, former Union Minister and Congress veteran P. Chidambaram on Thursday asked how the government will fund the new plan.

On a day when Modi accused the Congress of “deceiving farmers” with promises of loan waivers, Chidambaram took to Twitter to ridicule the Prime Minister’s mega relief plan for farmers. 

“Prime Minister says that Congress governments’ loan waivers are only to win elections. So, shall we assume that PM’s ‘Farmers’ Relief Plan’ is intended to lose elections?

“Eight months’ revenue collection is less than 50 per cent of target, fiscal deficit is 115 per cent of estimate. Where is the money for the new plan,” asked the former Finance Minister. 

“BJP government’s plan will imitate the previous Madhya Pradesh government’s plan of paying the farmer the difference between MSP and market price. Remember, the MP Govt plan brought no relief to the indebted farmers.

“The ‘pay the difference’ plan will help only the farmer who has a marketable surplus. What about the farmer who has no marketable surplus? He is also in debt,” he added.

Chidambaram’s remarks come a day after Modi held consultations with top BJP leaders, including party chief Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on issues concerning farmers amid indications that agrarian problems could be a factor in the BJP’s ouster from three Hindi heartland states in the recently concluded Assembly elections.

Nasheman News :  Samsung’s Galaxy M series smartphones, set to make their global debut in India in January 2019, will sport a 6.4-inch Infinity V display and a large battery, probably the largest ever on any Samsung smartphone, according to industry sources.

The South Korean tech giant is likely to launch up to four smartphones in the Galaxy M series,M10, M20, M30 and M40, the sources told IANS.

The launch of the M series in India, following months of R&D carried out by Samsung India, would be in line with the company’s strategy to consolidate its position among the country’s millennials.

This new series comes on the heel of Galaxy A7 and A9 — Samsung’s first triple and quad-rear camera devices.

In 2018, Samsung’s flagship devices — Galaxy S9, S9+ and Galaxy Note9 — became bestsellers, while Galaxy ‘J’ series continue to rule the mid-price segment, according to industry experts.

Samsung India is also set to launch other interesting products across domains early in 2019 to maintain its leading position in the country.

Nasheman News : The moderators at Facebook who carry out the critical task of removing dangerous content from its platform rely on material based on incorrect interpretation of certain Indian laws, The New York Times has reported.

The documents that are used to guide Facebook’s more than 7,500 moderators span more than 1,400 pages which often contain inaccuracies and outdated information, said the report on Thursday. 

One of these documents tells moderators that any post degrading an entire religion violates Indian law and should be flagged for removal.

But the law prohibits such posts only in certain conditions, such as when the intention of the users is to inflame violence, Chinmayi Arun, a legal scholar, told NYT.

Another document for moderators instructs them to “look out for” the phrase “Free Kashmir” – though the slogan, common among activists, is completely legal, the report said.

The moderators are even warned that ignoring posts that use the phrase could get Facebook blocked in India.

According to data compiled by Statista, India has the highest number of Facebook users – 294 million (as of October 2018) – 90 million more than the number of Facebook users in the US which has the second-biggest users-base for the social network.

As Facebook faces severe criticism for allowing extremist content in some countries, and censoring legitimate posts in some other places, the job of moderators who need to monitor billions of posts every day in over 100 languages is very critical.

Those moderators, at times relying on Google Translate, have mere seconds to recall countless rules and apply them to the hundreds of posts that dash across their screens each day, the NYT report said.

An examination of the documents for moderators by the paper revealed numerous gaps, biases and errors, which are limited not only to interpretation of Indian laws. 

For example, the moderators were once told to remove fund-raising appeals for volcano victims in Indonesia just because a co-sponsor of the drive was on the social network’s internal list of banned groups. 

Similarly, in Myanmar, a paperwork error allowed a prominent extremist group, accused of fomenting genocide, to stay on the platform for months, the report said.

While admitting that perfection was not possible, Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management, Monika Bickert said that the company had been successful to a great extent in achieving its primary goal of preventing harm.

Nasheman News : Amid reports of Apple halting a production boost for its newest iPhones due to slower than expected demand, a new survey of US customers revealed that more Android users switched loyalty to Apple this year than in previous years.

Leading the transition for Android users is iPhone XR, a relatively cost-effective model that debuted alongside the iPhone XS and top-of-the-line XS Max this year, according to the survey by US-based research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). 

The findings showed that 16 per cent of iPhone buyers upgraded from an Android phone in the 30-day period after the launch of the iPhone XR, CNBC reported on Wednesday. 

This is much higher than the 12 per cent of iPhone buyers who upgraded from an Android phone after the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were released in September 2017.

That number was 11 per cent when the iPhone X was released in November 2017, the report said. 

“It appears that iPhone XR did serve to attract current Android users,” said Mike Levin,
CIRP Partner and Co-Founder. 

“Of course, Apple doesn’t just state plainly its launch strategy. But, based on the pricing and features, we can infer that Apple positioned the iPhone XR to appeal to potential operating systems switchers from Android,” Levin said. 

The CIRP research found that the new iPhone XR accounted for 32 per cent of total US iPhone sales in the 30-day period, while the XS and XS Max together accounted for 35 per cent.

The 32 per cent share of iPhone sales for the XR model compares favourably to the 30 per cent share for iPhone X in the similar timeframe last year, but lags the combined share of iPhone 8 and 8 Plus during that period last year, the report said. 

CIRP based its findings on its survey of 165 US Apple customers that purchased an
iPhone in the US in the 30 days following the launch of iPhone XR on October 26, 2018. 

Nasheman News : Throwing away clothing that is no longer needed is a missed opportunity to turn the fabric into new products such as building materials, as well as address our unsustainable landfill problems, says an Indian-origin professor.

According to Veena Sahajwalla from University of New South Wales(UNSW) in Sydney, the abundance of cheap clothes and short-lived fashion trends generate 10 million tonnes of landfill in the US alone each year, which decompose and release toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases.

“It could be said that consumers and the fashion industry have a lot to answer for, given that clothing is now one of the biggest consumer waste streams, with 92 million tons estimated to be thrown out a year globally,” said Sahajwalla, who is a Mumbai-born IIT Kanpur alumna. 

“The clothing and textiles industry is the second most polluting sector in the world, accounting for 10 per cent of the world’s total carbon emissions.

Not only is this bad for the environment, it also misses the opportunity to turn valuable clothing fibres into new products, Sahajwalla explained.

To create new building materials, Sahajwalla and her team collected a random assortment of garments from charity bins.

After removing zippers, buttons, buckles, they passed the leftover mix of cotton, polyester, nylon and other fabrics through a fine-grained shredder.

They then treated the resulting fleece with a chemical to help the different fibre components stick together, then compressed it under heat to form solid panels.

In a series of tests, the panels proved to be strong, water-resistant and minimally-flammable. Their properties could also be fine-tuned by mixing the fleece with other waste products such as sawdust filler from old couches.

The panels had different textures and colours resembling wood, ceramic or stone “depending on their mix of components” making them suitable for use as floor tiles, wall panels or other interior finishes, Sahajwalla noted.

Their strength could also make them suitable for load-bearing applications.

Sahajwalla showcased these building products at a thematic session on emerging building technologies at the 10th TERI-GRIHA summit in New Delhi last week. 

Sahajwalla and her team have been scientifically reforming common waste items using prototype technology developed for a laboratory-scale “green microfactory” to be launched in 2019.

Nasheman News :  Karnataka suffered an estimated Rs 20,000-crore loss during the kharif season owing to floods and landslides in its southwest districts and acute drought conditions in other regions, an official statement said on Wednesday.

“The prevailing condition is unprecedented, as the state was affected by floods and landslides and is facing acute drought conditions during kharif and rabi seasons, impacting the state’s economy,” the state Revenue Department said in the statement.

Of the southern state’s 30 districts, 45 taluks (sub-districts) in 8 districts were affected by floods and landslides while 100 taluks are reeling under drought due to scanty rainfall in the rabi season, it noted.

Heavy monsoon rains, which caused floods and landslides in Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts led to widespread destruction of crops, houses and infrastructure, besides displacing hundreds of people.

During the north-east monsoon period (October to December), the state, however, faced 49 per cent deficit rainfall, with north interior region that accounts for 90 per cent of rabi sowing, recorded 66 per cent rain deficit.

Seeds or saplings are sown during July-October for kharif crops and November-March for rabi crops.

During the rabi season, 153 taluks have been affected by drought so far, the statement added.

In the drought-hit regions, drinking water is being supplied to 283 villages through 524 water tankers and 315 private borewells (through pipelines) in 17 districts of the state.

“Since sowing has been impacted during the rabi season, fodder shortage is likely in the coming months. Fodder will be supplied at subsidised rates through its banks,” the statement said.

The state government has also increased man-days in the drought-hit districts to 150 days from 100 days across the state this year.

“Awareness campaign is being held in drought-affected villages to ensure greater participation of workforce and prevent migration from rural to urban areas,” it added.

A man-day refers to the work accomplished by a person in a day.

About 6 lakh man-days are generated per day and 1 crore per month across the state, the statement said, estimating over 10 crore man-days to be generated by March 2019