India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English
In late 2005, when YouTube was just a few months old, one its co-founders announced that the site’s users were consuming the equivalent of an entire Blockbuster store each month. Today, 300 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. And Blockbuster… Well, kids, Blockbuster was a video rental shop offering films on DVD and VHS. VHS tapes were like giant cassettes. Cassettes were… Oh, never mind. From The Telegraph: How YouTube Changed the World.
Mumbai: Reliance Communications, a part of the Anil Ambani-led group, Tuesday said it has been roped in by Facebook to offer free access to data and web sites to customers through the social networking site’s global digital inclusion initiative, Internet.org.
The Internet.org initiative will provide access to popular websites and services with zero data charge to make it easier for people to access the Internet across both the 2G and 3G platforms, Reliance executives said at a press conference here.
“Internet is the integral part of our well being. It is tool to transform lifestyle. Data is the raw material of the information age,” said Gurdeep Singh, chief executive officer, consumer business, Reliance Communications.
To start with these services will be available to Reliance customers in of Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The services will then be extended to the rest of the country in a phased manner with more services and websites.
The company is already live with the he services in all these circles by, said Singh: “We are committed to go online pan-India within 90 days.”
The companies declined to share who will bear the cost of such data. “If we do good to people they will come back to us,” Singh said.
“Today, we’re excited to make the Internet available to millions of people in India through the launch of Internet.org and free basic services with Reliance,” said Chris Daniels, the vice-president of Internet.org at Facebook.
“This is a big step forward in our efforts to connect everyone in India to the Internet, and to help people discover new tools and information that can create more jobs and opportunities.”
Reliance customers can now explore Internet and reap its benefit in daily life, without having to worry about data charges. These set of services also come with free Facebook access, Singh said.
“It is not restricted to any handset, irrespective of screen size or operating platform,” he said.
“Through this partnership, we aim to increase Internet inclusion and encourage more Indians to go online. This will not only accelerate net penetration in India, but also open new socio-economic opportunities to users in areas like education, information and commerce.”
Saying that future belongs to the people with access to internet, he said that people with no access to internet will be “less comparative and agile.
Daniels said Facebook has helped Reliance in the project with technology and users experience.
Reliance customers can access these websites with zero data charges at www.internet.org, or in the Internet.org Android app. Most of the services will be available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi, to begin with.
Reliance Communications, an integrated telecommunications service provider with a pan-India presence, has a customer base of over 110 million, including over 2.6 million individual overseas retail customers.
(IANS)
The doors were open. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse)
by Heather Timmons, QZ
An investigation into 100,000 individuals who held accounts with HSBC’s Private Bank turned up a roster of royals, arms dealers, sanctioned Russian businessmen, and on-the-lam politicians—along with music icons Tina Turner, Phil Collins, and David Bowie. The leaks of the bank’s sometimes-unsavory clientele—who collectively held more than $100 billion in assets, often structured specifically to evade taxes—forced HSBC to acknowledge that its standards “were significantly lower than they are today.”
The investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), involves 60,000 files leaked by a former HSBC employee that detail the private bank’s accounts held in Switzerland in 2006 and 2007. In part through the use of the same leaks, European andUS authorities have been cracking down on banks—and HSBC in particular—that help clients stash assets overseas to evade taxes.
Only a few dozen of the account holders were made public by ICIJ. But they represent an interesting cross-section of the world’s wealthy and paint an intriguing picture of how to store offshore assets—a practice that some economists say contributes to rising global wealth inequality, by stripping local governments of tax revenue to spend on goods and services for the less-rich. Here are a few of the wealthy tribes that emerge from the leaks:
Some 14% of the wealthy individuals in the leaked database have Swiss passports, including many who weren’t born in Switzerland, like pop idols Phil Collins, Tina Turner and David Bowie. Swiss nationals are not subject to the same scrutiny of their accounts as citizens of the US and other EU countries. Clients “linked” to Switzerland had by far the largest amount of assets, at $31.2 billion.
Burundian Aziza Kulsum Gulamali, known as the “Coltan Queen” for her trade in that rare metal, has been criticized by the United Nations for providing arms to rebels during Burundi’s civil war. She was linked to accounts containing over $3 million.
Central African Republic diamond magnate Abdul-Karim Dan Azoumiis accused by the United Nations of financing the country’s rebel Seleka group that has waged civil war killing thousands. He held less than $500,000 in one account.
Rachid Mohamed Rachid, the former Egyptian trade minister, is linked to a $31 million account. He fled Cairo in 2011 but was convicted in absentia of profiteering.
Former Portsmouth FC owner Vladimir Antonov is accused of a $500 million bank fraud in Lithuania. He is linked to an account worth $65 million.
Actor John Malkovich said through a representative that he knew nothing about the account in his name, and suggested that it might be related to Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, “who handled some of his finances.”
Actor Christian Slater was linked to an account named “‘Captain Kirk,’ after the Star Trek character,” which was open between 1996 and 1997.
Elle MacPherson, the Australian model, had four client accounts that led to 25 separate bank accounts holding over $12 million.
Actress and author Joan Collins was linked to two Swiss HSBC accounts that have since been closed. Her accountant said they were opened without her consent.
Rajan Raheja, an Indian construction magnate, was linked to accounts that held $262 million.
Oil trader Jonathan Kolleck was linked to 19 active accounts that held $72 million.
Mexican businessman Carlos Hank Rohn was linked to HSBC accounts with nearly $180 million. He and his relatives have been investigated for alleged money laundering and links to drug cartels, but all charges have been dropped.
More than 7,300 people in the leaked accounts are described as “housewives.” The report supplies few names of these woman, but it does describe how one Danish housewife visited the private bank in Zurich and left with the equivalent of $16,000 in cash. The ICIJ report notes the term housewife “may be used to describe a wealthy married woman, but it’s also applied in some cases to women who include industry pioneers, architects, journalists, teachers, princesses and heiresses.”
New Delhi: On Wednesday, the Department of Telecommunications issued orders to Internet service providers in the country to block 32 websites on December 16, compliance of which was effected on the same day.
According to Government sources, the sites had alleged anti-India content from groups such as Islamic State or ISIS.
“We have blocked some websites as there were serious national security concerns,” said a government official.
“The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying anti-India content from ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria),” Arvind Gupta, head of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s information technology cell, said in a message on Twitter.
“The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the ongoing investigations, are being unblocked,” he added.
If Internet service providers (ISPs) don’t comply with the demand, they are liable to being penalized, the order said.
However, social media users erupted in fury over the blocking of sites like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Pastebin and, for some reason, Internet Archive and Github – one an archive and the other a collaborative programming service.
Insane! Govt orders blocking of 32 websites including @internetarchive @vimeo @github @pastebin #censorship #FoEx pic.twitter.com/F75ngSGohJ
— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) December 31, 2014
Redditors in India: United We Stand have been discussing the blocks on Reddit threads confirming that some of the listed sites have been blocked by Vodafone, BSNL, ACT Fibrenet, Hathway Cable & Datacom LTD. (Bangalore), among others.
This is not the first time the government has cracked down on websites. A recent report by Freedom House, an independent watchdog, said the information ministry received a total of 130 court orders to block Web content between February 2009 and December 2013.
In February 2014, the then minister of communication and information technology told Parliament that 62 URLs were blocked in 2013 under Section 69A for hosting objectionable information with the potential to disturb public order.
As many as 82 URLs were blocked on 18 September 2013 in addition to 26 blocked a week earlier after violence escalated between Hindu and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. A total of 362 URLs were blocked in response to communal violence in the northeast, the report said.
“The ultimate purpose of all science and research should be to address the huge challenges faced by the common man in these areas,” Siddaramaiah said. Photo: IE
Bengaluru: To encourage the nanotechnology industry in the state, Karnataka government plans to set up a state-of-the-art Nano Park here, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said today.
“We are planning to establish a state-of-the-art Nano Park in Bengaluru. I am sure this initiative will give a major fillip to the nanotechnology industry to blossom in the state in coming years,“ he said at the inauguration of the seventh “Bengaluru India Nano 2014“, an annual event, here.
The park will have Nano Incubation Centre along with necessary physical infrastructure and support systems including common facilities, he said.
The government is establishing Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences in the city with Centre’s financial support under Nano Mission, for which Karnataka has already allocated 14 acres of land on Tumkur road, Siddaramaiah said.
“I request kind intervention of Bharat Ratna and Professor C N R Rao in moving the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to hasten its development work,“ he said.
The Vision Group on Nanotechnology headed by Professor Rao is doing commendable work in recommending initiatives for the growth and development of Nano Science and Technology in the state, Siddaramaiah said.
The government has enhanced budgetary support from the current financial year for schemes and programmes recommended by the Vision Group on Science and Technology, he said.
Siddaramaiah called upon scientists to come up with tangible nanotechnology-based solutions for food security, energy security, water purification, medicine, healthcare and waste management.
“The ultimate purpose of all science and research should be to address the huge challenges faced by the common man in these areas,“ he said.
Given the enabling nature of nanotechnology and its ability to converge with other technologies, it has the potential to address key development related challenges in diverse sectors like energy, water, agriculture, health and environment, Siddaramaiah said.
A significant spin-off of nanotechnology is development of diagnostic sensors and lab-on-a-chip technology, which may soon become an important part of efforts to improve global health, he said.
(PTI)
There’s no physical fences in cyberspace, that doesn’t mean there’s no border controls. paolo_cuttitta, CC BY
by Eerke Boiten, The Conversation
While there is only one world power on the internet, that situation will not last forever. The internet’s underpinning technologies were mostly created in the US, the initial networks were based there – and today the US hosts the majority of the most powerful internet companies.
Although minor battles have been fought on internet sovereignty for years, the de facto power that stems from the US for a long time seemed acceptable. But with the revelations – not even all following from Snowden – about international mass surveillance by the US and its allies, it’s inevitable the gloves have had to come off.
In a replay of an imaginary Cold War nightmare scenario, Russia and China appear to have identified a common enemy. The nations are expected to sign a collaborative cyber-security treaty to “oppose the use of IT and the internet to interfere in the internal affairs of independent states”.
There has also been discussion in mainland Europe, particularly Germany, about “Schengen-routing”, which would keep internet traffic away from the parts of the network where NSA and GCHQ could easily snoop on them. Edward Snowden has claimed that establishing a “European cloud” may not be effective, however.
Generally there are two main reasons for states to want to take control of the internet: they want to defend against outsiders – and to defend against insiders.
The enemy outside
Effectively the US still claims sovereignty over large parts of the internet. This is not just de facto sovereignty based on the residence of large internet companies and most cloud servers within the US. It is not even because the Snowden files have shown us that the NSA hoovers up most internet traffic. In a recent court case it was established that US law enforcement agencies can demand data from US companies even when it is stored abroad (in this case, Microsoft servers based in Ireland).
The discrimination in NSA procedures and US law that treats US and non-US citizens differently (worse) is also irksome.
Nor are US allies, chiefly Britain, innocent in this context. Unexplained spying by GCHQ abroad is well-documented, with the claims of eavesdropping at climate change conferencesthe most recent. The explicit extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 introduced through this summer’s “emergency” DRIP Act also plays a role. The act’s clause 4allows the interception of communications even relating to activity outside the UK by persons and companies based outside the UK.
For countries such as Russia and China, the threat from outside is more acute given that both countries have problems with territorial conflicts. There have been reports of cyber attacks in both directions between Russia and Ukraine. And China has been suspected of carrying out man-in-the-middle attacks in order to spy on citizens using encrypted connections.
These countries have a greater need to take control. Russia, for example, has recently been reported to be investing US$500m to establish a cyber warfare division, for offensive and defensive operations.
The enemy within
When governments tighten their hold over the internet within their own country it’s normally a slippery slope towards the restriction of civil rights. The so-called “great firewall of China” is to restrict freedom of expression and access to information for the Chinese population – to control those within, not those without. Google played along with this by censoring search results within China until 2010, when they moved their operations to the slightly freer jurisdiction of Hong Kong.
Amnesty International has taken up cases of people persecuted for political use of the internet in countries such as Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Egypt. North Korea has even gone as far as closing down all access to Twitter and Facebook.
On the other hand, Russia is close enough to Europe to not want to be painted as a politically repressive country. Instead Russia controls its internet through more subtle means. For example, its compulsory identity verification for social networks is justified as a defence against identity theft. While many nations operate a blacklist to restrict access to child pornography sites and those distributing copyrighted material, the Russian government added some independent news sites to the list, allegedly to prevent unauthorised protests – and pages on social network VK were highlighted by public prosecutors as advocating terrorism.
However, with its recent explicit attacks on freedom of speech, it seems Russian authorities no longer feel especially restrained in exercising censorship. Putin’s claims to support online freedoms like any other democratic country sound a bit shrill taken alongside his description of the internet as “a CIA project”.
Setting an example
Not that the UK emerges as a shining example in this respect. Dubious laws have been used to arrest a peer joining a demonstration – and years of spying on eminent historians by MI5 has just come to light. Meanwhile the police feel free to spy on journalists, prison staff listen in on MPs’ phone callsand intelligence agencies breach client-lawyer privilege. So it’s hard to swallow claims made by the home secretary, Theresa May, and GCHQ that efforts to improve mobile coverage and use encryption shouldn’t be allowed because of “security threats”.
Of course with elections around the corner, the major parties are making promises about restoring civil rights and establishing safeguards and oversight. But it seems there’s been little progress towards David Cameron’s promises in 2009 to erode the “control state” his government inherited.
Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint
Melbourne/Agencies: Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) won support on Monday from the State Bank of India (SBI) and an Australian state to help it build a $7 billion coal mine, defying a slump in coal prices to 5-1/2 year lows that has stalled rival projects.
The trading and infrastructure conglomerate signed a memorandum of understanding for a loan of up to $1 billion from the SBI for the mine, rail and port project in Queensland, which it aims to build by end-2017.
“The MOU with SBI is a significant milestone in the development of our Carmichael mine,” Adani Group Chairman and founder, Gautam Adani, who has close ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said in a statement.
Adani was in Brisbane with a business delegation for the G20 summit, which Modi attended over the weekend.
The company also won a commitment from the state government to take short-term, minority stakes in rail and port infrastructure needed to unlock massive coal reserves in the untapped Galilee Basin. Coal from the region must be sent 400 km by rail to Australia’s east coast.
Adani aims to reach a final investment decision on the Carmichael project in late 2015.
Australia’s federal and Queensland governments are eager to see the mine built following the loss of more than 4,000 coal jobs over the past two years, but analysts and project finance experts believe Adani may have underestimated the challenge of raising funds for the project.
“People have been very sceptical about the financing of this project. As we always said, we’ll keep getting this, one by one. The pieces are falling in place,” Adani Mining CEO Jeyakumar Janakaraj told Reuters.
Adani, which is also facing a campaign by anti-coal campaigners, is counting on securing A$1.2 billion to A$1.5 billion in funding from South Korea’s export credit agencies, as well as a loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
The company’s apparent momentum on Carmichael is in stark contrast to rival Indian firm GVK’s slow progress on another huge coal mine in the Galilee Basin, the Alpha project, which is co-owned by Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart.
Much bigger coal rivals, like BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) and Glencore (GLEN.L), have shelved coal developments at a time when a third of Australia’s coal output is making losses.
Janakaraj dismissed comments by Indian Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal that the country may be able to stop importing thermal coal within three years.
Bengaluru: The business world of Bengaluru is now in your smart phone. After Coimbatore and Kerala, Bengaluru became the third city in India to have “The only OFFLINE mobile business directory”.
Call Bengaluru, a free mobile app providing service plus business directory of Bengaluru was launched by Sam Signator. Call Bengaluru service comes a few days after Bangalore officially became Bengaluru from November 1. “we would like to highlight this point – where-by this product is Patent Registered in 142 countries. It is a very user-friendly offline search engine for business data in Bengaluru, which works both offline and online. The eco-friendly service, which has eliminated the use of bulky business directories. This product is adaptable with all the smart phones”, said Mr.Sam Challa., Chairman & Managing Director of Sam Signator which is a part of Sam Gulf International Group WLL, a 25 years old Bahrain based Group Company.
The bulky, time-consuming, non-eco friendly and tough to carry conventional printed yellow pages are outdated. Call Bengaluru is banking on smartphone users who number 45.3 lakh users besides social media users who include Android (24 lakh), iOS (3.4 lakh), Windows phone and Windows 8 (10.8 lakh) and Blackberry (6.5 lakh). This product has over 4,00,000 listings in 5,000 categories besides search for special offers and pop-up option. Updating of the data is always on auto mode. Search can be done with keywords, categorywise, company name, phone numbers and areawise. There are separate categories for public utilities, Brandex, Entertainment, Events & Exhibitions, emergency service, classifieds, tourist places, RTO helpline, metro information and airline information.
From Call Bengaluru listed addresses a customer can make a direct call, direct sms, direct email, direct link to web page, link to location map, view banner ads, video, offers and deals. User can even share the app with his associates, send business cart and view all business activities.
For those in business each listing can bring in the company name, phone numbers, location, address, email ID, Web address, brands and keywords. In term of benefits for business the services leads to increase in business enquiry, instant response from users, enquiry through e-mails and web sites, options for listing preference, banner ads and promo offers besides multiple listing facility, fast updating of information and world wide coverage.
Facebook’s reputation for privacy is equivalent to United States’ reputation for peace. So when the world’s least anonymous website joins the Web’s most anonymous network, it’s definitely something to rejoice.
The social network just created a dedicated Tor link that ensures people who visit the site from the anonymous web browser won’t be mistaken for botnets.
Until now, Facebook had made it difficult for users to access its site over Tor, sometimes even blocking their connections. Because Tor users appear to log in from unusual IP addresses all over the world, they often trigger the site’s safeguards against botnets, collections of hijacked computers typically used by hackers to attack sites.
“Tor challenges some assumptions of Facebook’s security mechanisms—for example its design means that from the perspective of our systems a person who appears to be connecting from Australia at one moment may the next appear to be in Sweden or Canada,” writes Facebook security engineer Alec Muffett. “Considerations like these have not always been reflected in Facebook’s security infrastructure, which has sometimes led to unnecessary hurdles for people who connect to Facebook using Tor.”
The Facebook onion address (accessible only in Tor-enabled browsers) connects users to Facebook’s Core WWW Infrastructure, so as to provide end-to-end communication, directly from the browser into a Facebook datacentre, allowing for private and secure browsing sessions. An SSL certificate issued by Facebook to visitors confirms to them that they’re indeed accessing the right destination.
The onion address for Facebook is currently live, and Tor users can log on with it securely starting now.
From L-R: Dr. Dinesh G Gowda, Dr. Prafulla, and Ms. Bani Anand of Hairline International Hair & Skin Clinics.
Bangalore: Hairline International, the city’s reputed hair and skin clinic and research centre, has now brought a first of its kind hair tranplant procedure to India called the ‘Scarless Hair Transplant with ACell Matrix’.
Launching this at a press conference here today, Ms. Bani Anand, Founder & Managing Director, Hairline International Hair & Skin Clinic said, “at Hairline we always strive hard for patient complaince in all our procesudres. The introduction of scarless hair transplant is another step towrads that. Scarless hair transplant is truly a breakthrough as far as hair transplant procedures are concerned. We realize that many of our patients hesitate to go in for a hair transplant because of potential scarring. With the scarless procedure, we will be able to address those concerns.”
Demonstrating a scarless hair transplant procedure through presentations, videos and dummy heads, Dr. Dinesh G Gowda, dermatosurgeon at Hairline International explained, “as against conventional hair transplant methodologies like strip harvesting which leave a liner scar on the back of the head or follicular transplant where small round punches leave marks on the scalp, scarless hair transplant, as the name suggests leaves little or no scar during the transplant.”
“At Hairline, we perform the scarless hair transplant with a combination of ACell Matrix and PRP. This helps in reducing scars to a significant extent. It stimulates growth of inactive hair that is hidden in the sclap and promotes the growth of the new follicles. This in turn increases the density of hair per sq cm. The greatest benefit is that the process is patient-friendly with no or limited side effetcs,” apprised Dr. Gowda.
The scarless hair transplant option is available for patients at all six Hairline centres in Bangalore and will be performed by able dermatosurgeons on board wiyth Hairline.
Speaking at the conference, Dr. Prafulla, dermatologist at Hairline said that cosmetic procedures like hair transplant have gained popularity in the last 2 to 3 years.
Young go Bald:
Citing a research conducted by Hairline’s Research centre, Dr. Prafulla said, “early age baldness seems to be afflicting young men and women these days. The research conducted by Hairline revealed that rapid hair loss now begins as early as 16 years of age in males and females. The reasons are a combination of genetic and lifestyle patterns.”
With hair loss being a common affliction, there is naturally a demand for hair transplant since it provides assured results with 958% succes rate. The past 2 years alone has seen a 40% growth in hair transplant procedures at Hairline.
“Hairline International has carried out over 2000 hair transplant procedures over the past 2-3 years. Out of these, 50% of patients are in the 21 to 30 year age group,” added Dr. Prafulla.
The combined power of ACell and PRP:
The combination of ACell and PRP is the key differentiating factor between scarless hair transplant and conventional hair transplant. The mix helps in stimulation of hidden follicles and promotes growth of new follicles.
ACell is ECM (Extra Cellular Matrix) which is a thin layer that surrounds all the cells in our organs and tissues. The basic functions of ACell are to provide:
ACell is a regenerative medicine that is approved by the USFDA – the highest authoriyty internationally. It helps in wound healing and in the regrowth of damaged tissue during the process of follicular hair transplant.
IF ACell encounters a damaged part of the scalp, its acts as emergency medical team and immediately starts to clean and heal the area. It initiaties a converstaion with other cells in the body which it will organize together to help with the healing. ACell then works on creating new blood vessels and facilitaing the work of other cells in the healing process.
With ACell at the scene of damage, the focus shifts from the formation of scars to actually remodelling the tissue and regenerating it, bringinhg it back to its original form. This is done by triggering the adult stem cells that are present in the tissue.
PRP is Platelet Rich Plasma. In this procedure, a patient’s own blood is drawn and the platelets in it separated. PRP procedure has been internationally used for hair growth and cell generation.