India saw a 29 per cent increase in online festive sales in September, setting a year-over-year (YoY) record, Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, announced on Monday.

At 42 per cent, electronics led as the top-selling category online, with smartphones and headphones as top buys. Popular smartphone brands in India included Redmi, MI, Samsung and MOTO.

According to the report, the online festive shoppers are predominantly male (79 per cent).

“The huge volume of data points across our brands gives us a comprehensive understanding of consumers in India and their behaviour,” Erin Chao, Head of Platforms, APAC, Oath, said in a statement.

“These deep insights in turn are helping our advertisers to make sense of audiences’ preferences and market trends at a very strategic level, to put in place data-driven marketing strategies during this crucial season,” Chao added.

Tech-savvy millennials between 25-34 tend to shop more online during festivals, said the report.

The findings were based on data points across these brands and an in-depth understanding of consumer behaviour based on content consumption by users.

In what they thought was a Diwali gift, hundreds of Punjab government employees received “double salary” for the month of October.

But their happiness was short-lived when they were told that the extra amount was credited to their bank accounts by mistake and they should not withdraw the additional money paid to them, officials said.

District treasury officer AK Maini in a notice sent to head of all the government offices said two salaries were paid by mistake and shortly one salary would be taken back.

On being contacted, Maini while confirming the development, said it has happened not only in Amritsar but throughout Punjab because of technical snag in the software of the government’s treasury department.

He said a majority of the government employees were paid double salary for the month of October.

Maini said all the government departments, including education, were told not to withdraw the second salary and within a day, one salary would be taken back by the treasury department.

He said in Amritsar district alone, around ₹40 to 50 crore excess payment had been made to employees.

 Amid firm global cues the key equity indices gained over one per cent during the afternoon trade session on Friday. The Sensex jumped over 600 points to cross the 35,000-mark and the Nifty traded above the 10,500-mark.

Healthy buying was witnessed across all the sectors on the BSE, led by banking, finance and auto counters.

However, the IT stocks traded lower owing to a weak rupee. The domestic currency traded at Rs 72.87 a US dollar from its previous close of 73.45.

The investors sentiments were boosted on the back of declining crude oil prices, as the benchmark brent crude prices eased below $74 (73.30) per barrel along with signs of easing trade tension between US and China.

At 12.12 p.m., the S&P BSE Sensex traded 595.19 points up at 35,027.16. It had opened at 34,743.95 from its previous close of 34,431.97.

The NSE Nifty50 traded at 10,561.80, up 181.35 points or 1.75 per cent. It opened at 10,462.30 from its previous close of 10,380.45.

IANS

 
Admitting that his business in India in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2018 was flat and weak currency trends are just speed bumps, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is a big believer in the country and can’t wait for the future there.

In an earnings call after announcing Apple’s Q4 results late Thursday, Cook said he has had really great productive discussions with the Indian government.

“We’ve had really great productive discussions with the Indian government, and I fully expect that at some point, they will agree to allow us to bring our stores into the country,” Cook responded to a question.

“We’ve been in discussions with them, and the discussions are going quite well,” the Apple CEO added.

Cook noted that the currency weakness has been part of our challenge in India.

“But I view these as speed bumps along a very long journey, though. And the long term I think is very, very strong there,” the Apple CEO said.

The iPhone maker is seeking tax relief and other incentives from the government to begin assembling more handsets in the country and its proposal to set up a manufacturing unit is reportedly being evaluated.

According to Cook, “there are import duties in some or most of the product categories that we’re in and in some cases, they compound.

“This is an area that we’re giving lots of feedback on. We do manufacture some of the entry iPhones in India, and that project has gone well,” Cook told analysts.

Apple is currently assembling iPhone 6S in India with its partner Wistron.

“I am a big believer in India. I am very bullish on the country and the people and our ability to do well there,” Cook added.

According to industry experts, India is the fastest-growing among the top 20 smartphone markets globally, with a large untapped user base potential in Tier 5 and 6 cities and beyond.

The current smartphone user base in India is around 450 million which is set to grow by leaps and bounds.

Cook is aware of the tremendous growth opportunity in India.

“There’s a huge number of people that will move into the middle class. The government has really focused on reform in a major way and made some very bold moves.

“I applaud them for doing that and I can’t wait for the future there,” Cook said.

IANS

 The standoff between the Centre and Reserve Bank of India continued on Friday with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg dismissing RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya’s comments about incurring the market’s wrath if the central bank’s independence was harmed.

Garg was sarcastic as he mentioned the recent macroeconomic developments — the performance of rupee, oil and stock markets — that did not reflect any “wrath”.

“Rupee trading at less than 73 to a dollar; Brent crude below $73 a barrel; markets up by over four per cent during the week and bond yields below 7.8 per cent. Wrath of the markets,” he tweeted.

Garg’s remarks came after Acharya, during a lecture last week, made out a strong case for the central bank’s autonomy, saying that governments that do not respect its independence “will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory institution”.

On Thursday, he said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore, the rupee appreciating by 40-50 paise and the performance of crude and bond yields were “very good developments essential for sound macroeconomic performance of India”.

Acharya’s remarks brought into spotlight the differences between the RBI and the government, as reports also suggested that the Centre has invoked a never-before-used section of the RBI Act to make the central bank fall in line.

IANS

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called on technology companies to defend users’ privacy as human right, urging firms and governments to collectively work together to protect the most vulnerable section in society.

Speaking at an event “Future Decoded” here on Thursday, Nadella applauded the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as first step towards securing data privacy, The Registrar reported.

“All of us will have to think about the digital experiences we create to treat privacy as a human right,” Nadella was quoted as saying.

“GDPR as a piece of legislation, a piece of regulation is a great start and we’ve done a lot of hard work to become compliant with GDPR,” Nadella added, adding that the companies need to develop ethical standards around Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Nadella said that 54 Azure Cloud regions worldwide is “more than any other provider”.

According to him, underwater data centres will play a key role in expanding Microsoft’s Cloud computing platform.

Under its “Project Natick”, Mictosoft has already deployed a 40-foot data centre pod on the seafloor off the coast of Scotland.

“Since 50 per cent of the world’s population lives close to water bodies, we think this is the way we want to think about future data centre expansion,” Nadella said.

Microsoft also unveiled an AI report titled “Maximising the AI Opportunity” for businesses.

The company announced at the event that the health agency NHS Scotland will deploy Office 365 to all of its 161,000 employees, moving away from a complicated organisation that included more than 100 separate computer systems.

Microsoft also formed a strategic partnership with Centrica, the British energy and services company behind brands like British Gas, Dyno and Direct Energy.

Centrica plans to transform field operations by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Artificial Intelligence, providing employees with real time and actionable insight so they can improve customer service.

IANS

The US Justice Department has announced multiple charges against two former Goldman Sachs bankers linked to Malaysia’s state investment fund scandal.

The agency said on Thursday that Tim Leissner, former Southeast Asia chairman, conspired to launder money and violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes to government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi, reports CNN.

Leissner has pleaded guilty and will forfeit $43.7 million.

The Justice Department also unsealed an indictment against Roger Ng, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Malaysian financier Jho Low, who allegedly played a central role in the scheme to launder billions of dollars from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund.

The US government has said that Ng and Low also paid bribes to foreign officials.

Ng and Leissner allegedly worked to circumvent internal accounting controls at Goldman, which underwrote more than $6 billion in bonds issued by 1MDB in 2012 and 2013.

The bank made about $600 million in fees and revenue for its work with the fund, according to the indictment.

Ng was arrested earlier on Thursday in Malaysia, according to the Justice Department, while Low remains at large.

Another Goldman banker, Andrea Vella, has been placed on leave, pending a review of alleged conduct related to the 1MDB case, an informed source told CNN.

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs (GS) said in a statement that the firm continues to cooperate with all authorities investigating the matter.

A spokesperson for Low said that he maintains his innocence, and “simply asks that the public keep an open mind regarding this case”.

Low held no formal position at 1MDB and was not employed by Goldman Sachs, or the governments of Malaysia or Abu Dhabi, the spokesperson added.

The Justice Department has previously filed civil asset forfeiture suits to reclaim goods they said were bought with money stolen from the 1MDB fund.

Federal officials have claimed that laundered funds were pumped into New York condos, hotels, yachts and a jet, and used to fund Hollywood films such as “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

The agency alleges that $4.5 billion from 1MDB was misappropriated by high-level officials at the fund.

WhatsApp on Wednesday announced a tie-up with Invest India to promote Indian start-ups and said it would organise a start-up challenge in the country with the aim to invest in the top five participants of the competition.

“WhatsApp will invest quarter of a million dollars as seed funding to the top 5 winners of the WhatsApp Start-up Challenge,” an official statement said.

Also, the company would invest an additional $2,50,000 to a select few firms from the entrepreneurial community to promote their WhatsApp business number on Facebook.

Speaking on the occasion here, Union Minister of Commerce and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu said that the start-up community is the future of India and it will be the platform through which “millions of youth of this country will be gainfully employed”.

Commenting on the partnership, Deepak Bagla, CEO, Invest India – the national investment promotion and facilitation agency – said: “India adds over three new start-ups a day, ranking it amongst the top start-up nations in the world. Through this partnership with WhatsApp, we aim to support the innovative start-ups in India and to create solutions not only for India but the entire world.”

Chris Daniels, Vice President, WhatsApp said: “We are excited to work closely with Start-up India by supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups to become engines of economic growth.”

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre for pricing details of the 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France in a sealed cover within 10 days but agreed that “strategic and confidential” information need not be disclosed. In its order, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, gave some more leeway to the government which has been arguing that pricing details are so sensitive that they have not even been shared with Parliament.

The Centre must bring details of the decision making process of the deal into the public domain, except those that are confidential and have strategic importance, the court said. The bench said the information must be shared by the government within 10 days and the petitioners could respond to it in the next seven days. It posted the matter for the next hearing on November 14.

“If pricing is something exclusive and you are not sharing it with us, please file an affidavit and say so,” the bench told Attorney General K K Venugopal in its oral observations. It was hearing four petitions, including one by advocate Prashant Bhushan and former ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha who are seeking a court monitored CBI investigation in the procurement of the fighter jets.

Delhi Minister Kailash Gahlot on Wednesday slammed Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal for not intervening in the ongoing DTC contractual workers strike despite the imposition of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).

“I have been trying to speak and meet Lieutenant Governor since the last two days over the DTC strike,” the Tansport Minister tweeted.

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) contractual drivers and conductors have been on a sit-in for the last 10 days, despite the ESMA being imposed, the Minister said, requesting “the LG to spare some time”.

The Najafgarh legislator said those DTC employees who have been “doing their duties” were being threatened by the “goons”.

“Most of the contractual workers want to report and do their duties but unable to do (so) because of fear created by (the) goons.

“By not taking action against the miscreants Delhi Police is encouraging the strike,” Gahlot added.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also reacted to the Minister’s tweet and said the “LG has constitutional duty to direct Delhi Police and ensure (proper) implementation of (the) ESMA”.

“Most workers want to attend work. They are being prevented by BJP goons. Police not taking action despite ESMA. LG refusing to meet.

“Why is LG not meeting the minister? Why is LG not directing police to act? BJP misusing LG yet again and harassing Delhiites?” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief tweeted.

Terming the DTC bus services as an essential part of transport, the LG had, on Saturday, imposed the ESMA on the DTC contractual workers strike which prohibits any strike for a period of six months.

Despite the ESMA being imposed and minimum wages being restored, the DTC contractual drivers and conductors continued their strike with five of them going on an indefinite hunger strike.