Google-owned YouTube has announced an investment of $20 million in educational content and creators to expand its initiative to support people across the world in sharing knowledge and pursuing learning on the platform.

YouTube said on Monday that it was creating a new Learning Fund programme to support creators who make some of the best learning content on YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing site, with videos covering a wide range of topics from career skills, like interviewing and resume building, to computer science, like coding for game development and JavaScript basics.

The company said it had completed the first round of investment to fund some of the most successful channels on the platform, such as TED-Ed, which is dedicated to educational Ted Talks, and brothers Hank and John Green’s Crash Course.

YouTube has pledged investment to support EduTubers through the Learning Fund and plans to fund content from independent creators, traditional news sources and educational organizations to broaden its content offering.

The company also said it would partner with third-party studios and networks such as Goodwill and Year Up to create videos that teach career skills.

Its major partners include leading online learning platforms, like edX, a non-profit offering courses from the world’s best universities and institutions, and OpenClassrooms, an education platform based in France.

The Google subsidiary held YouTube EduCon conferences in California, Mexico and Brazil to connect EduTubers with new resources in 2018.

In a further push for its global education efforts for next year, YouTube said it plans to expand YouTube EduCon to Europe and Asia, starting with India in December and the UK in February 2019

IANS

The state-run THDCIL’s proposed Khurja coal power plant in Uttar Pradesh would not only push up the cost of electricity at a time when renewable energy options are cheaper but will also be a threat to Delhi’s air quality, a report said on Tuesday.

THDCIL, formerly known as Tehri Hydro Development Corporation Ltd, is a joint venture of the Central and Uttar Pradesh governments with a 75:25 equity sharing ratio.

Releasing the report titled “The Khurja Thermal Power Project: A Recipe for an Indian Stranded Asset”, the US-based the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) recommended that the 1,320 MW proposal should be re-evaluated against severe air pollution levels in Delhi.

Also, the real threat of government financing wasted on another expensive stranded asset, increasingly cheaper renewable energy options and India’s ambitious sustainable energy goals.

The Khurja project entails an investment of Rs 12,676 crore. While the first unit is scheduled to be commissioned in November 2022, the second unit would go on steam in April 2023.

The electricity users — the state and central governments — and project’s lenders should not be burdened with yet another expensive stranded asset at a time when local residents need cleaner energy options, IEEFA Director of Energy Finance Studies Tim Buckley told reporters here.

“Delhi already has the dubious reputation of having the worst air pollution of any city in the world. If the Khurja coal plant is built as planned near Delhi, this will increase the impact on local residents, emergency workers and the local government.

“The Khurja power plant was feasible when first proposed eight years ago in response to power supply shortages and outages across northern India, but technology has moved on,” he said.

According to Buckley, renewable energy generation in India is now cheaper than Khurja’s non-minemouth coal, with ongoing price declines prompting states, including Uttar Pradesh, to seek solar and wind options to meet incremental demand growth.

“The Khurja proposal relies on a prohibitively expensive 900-km-long rail haul to bring coal to the plant. Additionally, the market price of coal continues to increase globally,” he said.

“Our analysis shows any power generated at the Khurja plant would likely be sold for Rs 5.67 per kilowatt hours, while renewable energy prices today are only plus or minus Rs 3 per kilowatt hours.

“The economics of the project look dim. The Khurja proposal must be re-evaluated,” Buckley said.

Kashish Shah, IEEFA Energy Research Associate and co-author of the report, said India’s ambition to sustain double digit economic growth hinges on improving energy security and reducing the cost of power and that requires sensible investment.

“India is aiming to achieve 40 per cent of its electricity generation needs by 2030 from non-fossil fuel sources including wind and solar. As a coal-fired power station takes significant time to ramp up power generation, the Khurja power station cannot help with grid stabilisation and peak demands, one of the new requirements of the Paris commitments,” Shah told IANS.

“As the share of renewable energy options increase, India will need additional firming capacity and wider national grid inter-connectivity to integrate increasing amounts of variable solar and wind generation, and prevent frequency and voltage fluctuations that adversely affect grid stability.

“The long delayed, excessively expensive and redundant Khurja project should be cancelled before it becomes another expensive stranded asset in India,” he added.

IANS

Ahead of the second round of Brazil’s presidential election on October 28, Facebook has removed 68 Pages and 43 accounts associated with a Brazilian marketing group for using fake accounts and repeatedly posting spams.

The marketing group, Raposo Fernandes Associados (RFA), is believed to be promoting far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

RFA used sensational political content to build an audience and drive traffic to other websites, earning money for every visitor to the sites, Facebook said on Monday.

However, the social networking giant said that its decision to remove these Pages was based on the behaviour of these actors rather than on the type of content they were posting.

“The people behind RFA created Pages using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names, which violates our Community Standards,” Facebook said in a statement.

“They then used those Pages to post massive amounts of clickbait intended to direct people to websites that are entirely separate from Facebook and appear legitimate, but are actually ad farms,” the statement added.

Facebook said RFA violated its misrepresentation and spam policies.

“This behaviour was detected on Facebook but, as yet, we have not found similar misuse on Instagram or WhatsApp,” Facebook said.

Bolsonaro, who pulled off a thumping win in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election earlier this month, faces leftwing former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad in a second round runoff on October 28.

IANS

A total of 400 petrol pumps, many with CNG dispensing units, began a day-long strike on Monday in protest against Delhi government’s refusal to reduce VAT on fuels.

The Delhi Petrol Dealers Association (DPDA) said the Delhi government’s inaction was hampering their business as the neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were attracting more consumers after slashing their fuel prices.

Criticising the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government’s refusal to address the VAT issue making fuel prices costlier in the city, the DPDA said it would also increase pollution in the National Capital Region as the quality of fuel sold in the peripheral states was inferior in quality.

The difference in prices has led to sharp drop of up to 50 to 60 per cent in sale of diesel in Delhi and 25 per cent in petrol in this quarter, DPDA President Nischal Singhania said.

Urging the Delhi government to immediately save the livelihood of employees and owners of petrol pumps of Delhi and check the state’s revenue loss, the petrol dealers body in its statement said commuters must be encouraged to buy Euro VI fuel that is sold in the capital as against Euro V in the adjoining states.

IANS

Broadly positive Asian markets, along with a stable rupee and value buying pushed the key domestic equity indices higher during Monday’s morning trade session.

In addition, healthy buying was seen in interest rate sensitive stocks like banks, auto and capital goods.

Besides, the Indian rupee strengthened to around 73.28 to a US dollar from its Monday’s open of 73.41 to a greenback. It had closed last Friday’s session at 73.33 against the dollar.

There was a slight rise in global crude oil prices to around $80-per-barrel and other geo-political concerns capped gains.

Index-wise, the S&P BSE Sensex opened at 34,689.39 points from its previous close of 34,315.63 points on last Friday.

Around 9.30 a.m., it traded at 34,450.89 points higher by 135.26 points or 0.39 per cent.

Similarly, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) made gains during the morning trade session.

The NSE Nifty50 traded at 10,341 points during the morning trade session, down 37.45 points and 0.36 per cent.

IANS

The commander of the Sri Lankan contingent in the UN peacekeeping operations in Mali has been ordered back home after a review of his human rights record, according to Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The decision to send Lt. Col. Kalana Priyankara Lankamithra Amunupure back was made after new information about him was received by the UN, Dujarric said on Friday,

Besides the usual vetting for all peacekeepers, “there were some extra procedures done with the Sri Lankan contingents”, he said.

Amunupure was reportedly involved in atrocities against Tamils during the civil war in Sri Lanka when tens of thousands of civilians perished and the UN has said that war crimes were committed.

A human rights group, International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), said in an April press release from London that it had sent the UN a list of 56 paramilitary Special Task Force (STF) personnel who should be barred from serving as peacekeepers because of their human rights record.

It said they “are either alleged perpetrators or were involved in frontline combat in the final stages of the war when the UN says system(ic) crimes were committed by security force units”.

While ITJP kept the names confidential, its Executive Director Yasmin Sooka, said at that time: “One STF officer who appears currently to be serving in a UN peacekeeping mission in Africa is alleged to have ordered summary executions of Tamils in the East of Sri Lanka in 2006-7.”

Sooka said her organisation had a “substantial database of evidence” of human rights violations and was ready to help UN investigations.

ITJP also released a report in April about human rights violations and extra-judicial killings by the Special Task Force “based primarily on the testimony of Sinhalese insiders who worked for the unit in the past and on the testimony of former Tamil paramilitaries, who worked with them”.

Of Sri Lanka’s 682 peacekeepers, about 200 are deployed in the West African nation with the operation known as UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali.

IANS

An anonymous political campaign on Facebook has reached nearly 10 million voters, asking them via advertisements to oppose British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the media reported on Saturday.

According to The Guardian, it was discovered by the digital campaign group 89up, which shared the details with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) panel into fake news.

“In adverts micro-targeted to individual constituencies, voters are exhorted to tell your local MP to bin Chequers,” said the report.

“This advertising is designed to specifically influence MPs,” 89up said.

All that is known about the campaign is what can be found on its website, Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“Going by the name Mainstream Network, the group writes and publishes news stories on its website with an almost exclusively pro-Brexit slant, shared on its social media accounts,” the report added.

“Over the last couple of weeks, I received a flood of about 50 emails – some quite abusive – urging me to ‘chuck Chequers’ and vote for out-and-out Brexit,” Labour MP Paul Farrelly was quoted as saying

The news comes at a time when Facebook is reeling under a couple of massive data breaches including the Cambridge Analytica scandal that impacted 87 million users earlier this year.

Facebook says it has set a goal of bringing a transparency feature for political ads — now available in the US and Brazil — to the UK and India by March 2019.

With the new ad architecture in place, people would be able to see who paid for a particular political ad.

Facebook has also set up a War Room to reduce the spread of potentially harmful content.

Facebook faced flak for not doing enough to prevent spread of misinformation by Russia-linked accounts during the 2016 US presidential election.

IANS

Petrol and diesel prices Thursday were reduced for the first time in over two months because of a drop in the cost of production, according to state-owned oil firms. Petrol price was cut by 21 paise per litre and diesel by 11 paise, a price notification issued by state retailers said. This is the first price cut arising from a drop in international oil prices.

The rates were reduced by a minimum Rs 2.50 per litre across the country on October 5, when the government cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 1.50 a litre and asked oil PSUs to subsidise the fuels by another Re 1 a litre. The reduction in BJP-ruled states was more as they matched this cut by an equivalent reduction in local sales tax or VAT.

Petrol in Delhi now costs Rs 82.62 per litre as against Rs 82.83 a litre previously. A litre of diesel now costs Rs 75.58 as compared to Rs 75.69 previously. In Mumbai, petrol now costs Rs 88.08 per litre and diesel Rs 79.24.

The price cut follows international oil prices trading near the lowest level in a month on a bigger-than-expected gain in American stockpiles. West Texas Intermediate for November delivery traded 11 cents lower at USD 69.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent for December settlement was at USD 79.89 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Brent had earlier this month hit a four-year high of USD 86.74 a barrel.

Prior to Thursday’s cut in rates, diesel price had risen by Rs 2.74 per litre since October 5 to more than wipe away the excise duty cut and oil firm subsidy. Petrol price had during this period risen by Rs 1.33 a litre. Before the October 5 price cut, petrol in Delhi had hit an all-time high of Rs 84 per litre and diesel was at record Rs 75.45. This came down to Rs 81.50 per litre for petrol and Rs 72.95 in case of diesel.

In Mumbai, petrol had hit a peak of Rs 91.34 hit on October 4 and diesel was sold at a record high of Rs 80.10. After the Centre cut excise duty by Rs 1.50 per litre and asked PSU oil firms to subsidise fuel by Re 1, Maharashtra and Gujarat governments were among the first to announce a matching Rs 2.50 cut.

They were later joined by Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Assam, Uttarakhand, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and Bihar with similar moves. Jammu and Kashmir, which is under the governor’s rule, too reduced the tax on the two fuel. Maharashtra, however, reduced VAT only on petrol and not on diesel.

Even before the excise duty cut, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh had last month reduced VAT to cushion consumers for a spate of price increases. The reduction in excise duty on October 5, only the second in four years of BJP-led NDA rule, will dent Central government revenues by Rs 10,500 crore and was aimed at cooling retail prices that had shot up to an all-time high.

The BJP-government at the centre had raised excise duty on petrol by Rs 11.77 a litre and that on diesel by Rs 13.47 a litre in nine instalments between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell, but then cut the tax just once in October last year by Rs 2 a litre.

Prior to October 5 cut, petrol price had risen by Rs 6.86 a litre and diesel by Rs 6.73 since mid-August.

PTI

San Francisco As part of its annual privacy upgrades, Apple has introduced a new portal that lets users see what personal data the company has kept on them, the media reported.

The information collected may include data such as calendar entries, photos, reminders, documents, website bookmarks, App Store purchases, among other items, CNBC reported on Wednesday.

The search function is in line with Apple’s efforts to differentiate itself as a company that does not montetise user data as it does not treat customers as its products. The company takes pride in making money though its hardware.

“Whether you’re taking a photo or asking Siri a question, you can do it knowing that Apple doesn’t gather your personal information to sell to advertisers or other organisations,” Apple says in its privacy website.

According to a report in USA Today, users still have to wait a few days to retrieve the information, from the updated http://www.apple.com/privacy section of the Apple website, as the tech giant confirms the request, but it should be way easier to find the tools now than before.

Apple updates its privacy website every autumn, after the introduction of new phones and software upgrades to the mobile and computer operating systems, iOS12 and MacOS, which this year is called Mojave, the report said.

(IANS)

San Francisco Social networking giant Facebook is developing a camera-equipped set-top box for TVs that would support functionalities like video-calling, a media report said.

Internally codenamed “Ripley”, the device would use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automatically detect and follow people as they move through the frame during a video call, news website Cheddar reported on Tuesday.

Apart from facilitating video-chat, the device could also help Facebook compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon in the TV-segment.

In October, the social networking major launched its smart-speakers — “Portal” — which incorporated AI technology to follow user-movements while on a video-chat amd remove unwanted background noise during a call.

Priced at $199, sporting a 10-inch display, built-in Amazon Alexa support and pre-loaded with Facebook’s own “Watch” video service, the smart speakers would begin shipping in November.

With projects like “Portal” and “Ripley” Facebook is trying to build a consumer-hardware business outside of its virtual reality brand ‘Oculus’ that was acquired by the social networking giant in March 2014 for nearly $2 billion.

Facebook declined to comment on the subject, the report added.

(IANS)