STORY
"2019 will see gadgets like gaming smartphones and wearable medical devices lifting the user experience to a whole new level


mint-india-wire consumer technologyconsumer technology trends in New Yeartech gadgetsFoldable phonesgaming smartphoneswearable medical devicestechnology


New Delhi: Gadgets have become an integral part of our lives with most of us relying on some form of factor to communicate, commute, work, be informed or entertained. Year 2019 will see some gadgets lifting the user experience to a whole new level. Here’s what we can expect to see:


Smartphones with foldable screens: Foldable phones are finally moving from the concept stage to commercial launches. They are made up of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels with higher plastic substrates, allowing them to be bent without damage.


US-based display maker Royole Corp’s foldable phone, FlexPai, has already arrived in select markets, while Samsung’s unnamed foldable phone is expected sometime next year. Samsung’s smartphone chief executive officer D.J. Koh has said they will make a million units of it. LG, too, is expected to display a foldable phone next year. Meanwhile Apple, Nokia, Lenovo and Huawei have also been working on foldable phones, reportedly.


eSIM: Very soon your smartphone won’t need a physical SIM card anymore. The eSIM technology, already used by Apple in its iPhones and Apple Watch, replaces the physical SIM with a virtually embedded chip on the motherboard. eSIMs support multiple mobile operators and can be programmed to switch services."
"It has also unleashed a wave of changes in the MCU that will make sure its future is a lot different than its past


Kevin Feige had signalled diversity and more representation in the post-phase 3 MCU and Endgame does a lot to showcase the initiative"
"It can be confusing to pick the right smartphone for yourself, so we have segregated the top smartphones under Rs 20,000 according to their strengths.


The best smartphones under ₹20,000 categorised according to performance, camera, design and battery life


mint-india-wire phones under Rs 20000Poco F1Realme U1Redmi Note 6 Prorealme 2 proHonor PlayNokia 7.1Nova 3iAsus Zenfone Max Pro M1


Gone are the days when you had to shell out big buck for buying smartphones with premium features. Technology has become more accessible recently and the biggest example of that lies in the sub-Rs 20,000 category—you get good performance, design and even software at a reasonable price.


It can be confusing to pick the right smartphone for you, however, given the amount of variety that lies in the segment. So we have segregated the top smartphones under ₹ 20,000 according to their strengths, so you can pick the one that suits you best.


This phone actually lies just north of the ₹ 20,000 price point. But if you have an HDFC debit or credit card, you can purchase the lowest spec variant with 6GB RAM and 64GB internal storage for as low as ₹ 19,999, making it the cheapest smartphone to run a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. There’s not a lot to not like about this phone—it has the fastest processor Qualcomm has to offer, some thermal trickery to keep your smartphone cool during intense gaming sessions, a very good camera and some durable plastic that doesn’t shatter or pick up scratches.


It even gets a modded version of the MIUI with an app drawer that allows you colour code your applications."
"The mobile application is integrated with a dashboard to confirm and register the pre-registered cases, to enable online interface between the beneficiary and the panel lawyer through video conferencing and telephone facility.


Prasad said that a pilot project in this regard had proved useful and more than 50,000 people have already availed this service. Till January, it resulted in enabling legal advice to 49,192 beneficiaries that include 36,526 (Women), 7049 (SC) and 13970 (ST) in 11 states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and all North-Eastern states and the State of Jammu and Kashmir, he said.


The law minister was of the view that pro bono appearances by lawyers should be considered as a criteria for appointment as judges. He was also of the view that there was a need for legal literacy in India."
"We have rounded up some of the gadgets that showed up in 2018 and left an indelible mark on, consumers, experts and the tech industry


Youngsters playing PUBG Mobile on their smartphone for hours, elderly switching off the lights using voice or a family watching their favourite movie in 4K HDR on Netflix are some of the habits which were shaped by the gadgets around them. We have rounded up some of the gadgets that showed up in 2018 and left an indelible mark on, consumers, experts and the tech industry .


The Echo Plus 2 takes the whole IoT experience up by a few notches with features such as Zigbee smart hub which can find IoT products on its own, the temperature sensor and local voice control which works offline


This is a smart fridge with built in cameras and sensors. You can control the temperature, look inside the fridge remotely and even mirror your TV or smartphone on its 21-inch screen


Launched in India in April 2018, the Google Home speaker has a 360 degree design like Echo Plus2, but comes with the Google Assistant. Its voice match feature can identity voice and one can control compatible IoT devices with it.


The ROG Zephyrus is one of the slimmest and lightest notebooks driven by Nvidia’s top-of-the- line GTX 1080 graphics."
"""Imagine if every message you sent was kept with a record of the fact that you sent it and with a record of your phone number. That would not be a place for private communications,"" said a WhatsApp spokesperson.


WhatsApp is removing over two million accounts per month for bulk or automated behaviour -- over 75 per cent without a recent user report.


""These efforts are particularly important during elections where certain groups may attempt to send messages at scale,"" said the company."
"Positioned along the four sides of the Asus ROG Phone are four haptic sensors that function as shoulder buttons or the L1 and R1 buttons on a gamepad


The Asus ROG phone is priced at ₹69,999 and comes in a single variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. Offers on the phone include no-cost EMI, Jio ₹5,000 cashback+4GB data per day plan on recharge of ₹509


mint-india-wire Asus ROG PhoneAsusAsus ROG Phone IndiaAsus ROG Phone India priceAsus ROG Phone India accessoriesAsus ROG Phone cooling


Taiwanese electronics giant Asus on Thursday launched its much anticipated gaming smartphone, the ROG Phone. The Asus ROG phone is priced at ₹ 69,999 and comes in a single variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The 512GB variant of the ROG Phone will not make it to India.


Asus is making customer care the priority for this device, providing invoice free walk-in, free pick-up and drop and device swap at service centres just in case your smartphone is faulty or damaged. The phone will be available exclusively on Flipkart. Offers on the phone include no-cost EMI, Jio ₹ 5,000 cashback+4GB data per day plan on recharge of ₹ 509."
"In fact, when I applied to USC film school they had a thing that asked you to write three ideas for films


”In 2002, Boyz N the Hood was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, which called it “an innovative look at life and the tough choices present for kids growing up in South Central Los Angeles


”Singleton’s death on Monday followed a turbulent week during which his family members made opposing court filings regarding his health


 A court filing last week by his mother, Shelia Ward, requested she be appointed Singleton’s temporary conservator to make medical and financial decisions while he was incapacitated


 But on Friday, Singleton’s daughter Cleopatra Singleton, 19, filed a declaration disputing that account


 She maintained that her father was not in a coma and that doctors did not “have a concrete diagnosis


 Jackson said, “blazed the trail for many young film makers,” while “always remaining true to who he was and where he came from


” Jordan Peele, the Oscar-winning Get Out and Us filmmaker, called him “a brave artist and a true inspiration


”“Your love for the black experience was contagious and I would never be the man I am without knowing you,” Ice Cube said in a statement"
"As spotted by Android Police, Netflix is testing the 'Random Episode' button that allows you to randomly select something to watch. The button is tucked in the playback controls where a shuffle icon has the said label on it."
"Her moves were immaculately choreographed as she used her dragonglass spear that Gendry made for her like it was made of lightning


Also Read | Game of Thrones’ Battle of Winterfell: Here is everyone who diedNight King does his raising-the-dead-using-hands thing: The Night King can reanimate the dead on purpose


 He raised his hands in the same fashion and the dead people — like Lyanna Mormont — rose up as the undead"
"The NCP leadership was under tremendous pressure to consider fielding third-generation Pawars from key constituencies in western Maharashtra. Parth Pawar was open about his keenness to contest from the Maval Lok Sabha constituency near Pune. Rohit Pawar, son of Sharad Pawar’s brother Rajendra Pawar, is also keen on entering the electoral arena and has set his eyes on the Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency in Ahmednagar constituency. The pressure increased after Sharad Pawar said he would contest from Madha while Sule would seek re-election from Baramati.


Last month, Sharad Pawar sought to end speculation by saying that no third-generation Pawar would contest Lok Sabha polls. However, NCP leaders and some legislators say that both Parth Pawar and Rohit Pawar were not ready to wait.


Before Pawar intervened, the Maval constituency saw posters of Parth Pawar coming up in several places. Known to be more ambitious of the two third-generation ticket aspirants, Parth had started touring the constituency some six months back, one NCP legislator said. “He is very keen to get into active politics. He has a dedicated band of young workers with him who are confident that we can win the Maval seat this time too,"" said the NCP legislator requesting anonymity. The Shiv Sena had won the Maval seat in 2014 and 2009 elections."
"On the traded volume front, 48.67 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE and over five crore shares on the NSE during the day.


On Tuesday, the BSE sought clarification from Jet Airways on reports that it is likely to temporarily shut down its operations."
"They wrote, “Welcoming Makkal Selvan Vijay Sethupathi on board for our film with Panja Vaisshnav Tej, being directed by Buchi Babu Sana"
"The back of the phone features a 12MP+13MP AI enabled dual camera with Optical Image Stabilisation. The lens of the rear camera is made by ZEISS. The front camera is an AI-enabled 20MP clicker.


The phone runs Android One and has already received the Pie upgrade. The Android One badge also means the smartphone is on the priority list for the latest security and firmware upgrades from Google."
"Talking about how the pressure got to her at one point, she said, “I would leave the house and they would say, ‘Is this Sameera Reddy? What happened to her?’ That pushed me into a further hole


”However, the actor stated that what mattered to her at the end of the day was that she was a good mother"
"The Xiaomi Play is expected to have a CPU running at 2.3GHz paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage


Right after a Xiaomi smartphone (rumoured to belong to the Redmi 7 series) appeared on a TENAA listing, another smartphone from the Chinese giant has appeared on the certification site. This time, it’s a smartphone named “Play"" and it will sport a dewdrop notch at the front."
"In January 2019, the telecom industry added 21 million broadband subscribers with Bharti Airtel leading the growth


Before Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd came on the scene, only one-sixth of all active wireless subscribers had broadband connections on their mobile devices. In January 2019, or less than 30 months since Reliance Jio’s launch, over half of all active telecom subscribers were broadband users, shows data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Reliance Jio, of course, offered only broadband connections, forcing competitors to follow suit."
"Apart from the finalists, the grand finale also witnessed some breathtaking performances by coaches and super judge Asha Bhosle


 While Adnan Sami and Asha Bhosle mesmerised all with “Kabhi toh nazar milao,” Armaan Malik, Harshdeep Kaur and Kanika Kapoor also gave rocking performances on a medley of songs"
"""We expect (a) slew of REIT IPOs to hit the market in the coming months. Ability to raise resources through monetization of rent-yielding properties at relatively attractive cost is a re-rating trigger for not only the REIT-issuing real estate companies but also boosts investor sentiment towards entire sector.""


The Embassy Office Parks REIT IPO, backed by global private equity firm Blackstone Group LP and Bengaluru-based developer Embassy Property Developments Pvt Ltd, aimed to raise ₹4,750 crore by issuing shares in a price band of ₹299-300.


The proceeds from the Embassy Office Parks REIT IPO will be used for servicing debt and acquisition of Embassy One assets. Post utilization of the IPO proceeds, total debt is expected to be less than 15% of market value, said HDFC Securities in a note on 16 March."
"According to the same report, Avengers Endgame has created a new record for IMAX by earning RMB 93 million from 608 screens in China, a record that surpasses the collection of Avengers: Infinity War


Avengers Endgame released in India on Friday and fans from all parts of the country have been making a beeline outside theaters to catch the latest MCU flick"
"“Wounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night’s Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon’s anguish


 Arya will be more forgiving until she realises, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night’s Watch, sworn to celibacy"
"With so much hatred around, through the show, we also want to pass the message that revenge is not the answer to everything


Don’t you think there is suddenly a surge of crime-based shows or thrillers on the web?See honestly, earlier there weren’t even too many web series and now there’s a plethora"
"The Force Awakens, incidentally, wind up as the highest grossing film in North America, and Endgame might actually come close, despite this summer being totally clogged up with big releases


2 billion dollars at the worldwide box office, doubling the previous record of 642 million dollars held by its own predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War


Sixth highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide: Avengers: Endgame is already the sixth biggest movie of all time globally with 1"
"The two have been taking potshots at each other for the last few weeks on the campaign trail. Banerjee, who was part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the 1990s, has been on a collision course with the centre for a few years now, and is openly critical of Modi, his policies and programmes, and his mode of governance. (READ MORE)


In West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is looking to win at least half the seats, says the party’s state president and Medinipur candidate Dilip Ghosh. Tackling corruption and implementing National Register of Citizens are on the party’s agenda if it wins, he said in an interview.


Restoration of democracy is the main agenda of this election. The one-point programme of the BJP is to protect democracy because there is no democracy in West Bengal. In the panchayat elections last year, people could not file nominations for over a third of the seats. Trinamool Congress members surrounded the office where nominations were to be filed for seven days. There was large-scale violence during panchayat elections. In 20,100 of 58,000 panchayat seats, nobody could file a nomination; over 42% of rural voters were unable to cast their votes. This is the situation in West Bengal. The second big issue is corruption and political violence. At least 42 BJP workers were killed and over 100 political killings have happened across the state. The police force is not allowed to investigate these cases. Yet, BJP won 7,000 seats in the panchayat election even after so much violence. (READ MORE)"
"Thakur said “they (authorities) wanted to force me to accept that I was involved in the blast in which Muslims were killed. They used to beat me day and night"".


“Some people were wrongfully put in jail. Nobody can question us on constitutional validity of putting up a candidate who just has allegations against her,"" Ram Madhav, BJP national general secretary, told reporters."
"“It’s seriously delightful that our new Dracula is being shot at Bray Studios – the former home of Hammer Films! This wonderfully atmospheric and legendary studio gave birth to so many famous monsters and stars – most memorably Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee


“As we watch Transylvania once again rise on the sound stages of Bray, it’s amazing to be able to say that Count Dracula has finally come home,” Gatiss said in a statement"
"(Photo: Diljit Dosanjh/Instagram)Diljit Dosanjh shared a glimpse of his latest Punjabi single ‘Kylie + Kareena”


 (Photo: Diljit Dosanjh/Instagram)Sharing the video, Tiger Shroff wrote “Half century love for #thejawaanisong got me pumped like 😍😍❤❤🙏🙏 #soty2 #soty2on10thmay @punitdmalhotra @karanjohar @ananyapanday @tarasutaria"
"Some respite came from the 6% growth in utility vehicle sales. The moot question, however, is: Has Maruti lost market share to other incumbents? Numbers from other PV makers will throw light on this front.


Shares of the country’s largest car maker are likely to open lower on Thursday—when markets resume trading after Wednesday’s public holiday—reiterating subdued growth forecasts for fiscal year 2020."
"The outlook for India's rupee has deteriorated from just a month ago as the outcome of a more than month-long national election draws near, according to foreign exchange strategists polled by Reuters.


While the rupee pared some of 2018's losses early this year, it has remained under pressure. It lost about 1 percent against the dollar last month due to a significant surge in fuel prices - India's largest import - and a strengthening U.S. currency.


The Reserve Bank of India has also cut the main repo rate twice in the run-up to the election, putting it at 6.0 percent, 50 basis points lower than where it was at the start of the year.


India's multi-stage national election started on April 11 and will end on May 19. The result, due on May 23, will decide who governs the world's biggest democracy for the next five years."
"However, political analysts said that it will be difficult for the AIADMK to retain its 2014 tally of 37 out of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu. Internal power feuds, corruption allegations and the breakaway faction led by Jayalalithaa’s nephew T.T.V. Dinakaran could erode the party’s vote share, they added.


Tuesday’s announcement was made after Goyal’s arrival in Chennai to hold the second and final round of discussions with AIADMK leader and chief minister K. Palaniswami. Earlier in the day, the AIADMK clinched a deal with the S. Ramadoss- and his son Anbumani Ramadoss-led PMK, which has been consistently improving its performance across the northern and western parts of the state, primarily drawing its support from the Vanniyars."
"Google Pay users can purchase gold for any value and that will be stored on behalf of the user, by MMTC-PAMP, in secure vaults. (AFP )


Google Pay users can purchase gold for any value and that will be stored on behalf of the user, by MMTC-PAMP, in secure vaults


The users can buy and sell this gold any time at the latest price, refreshed every few minutes, as displayed on Google Pay app


NEW DELHI: Tech giant Google on Thursday said it has partnered with bullion refiner MMTC-PAMP India to allow Google Pay users to buy and sell gold through the app, a service that is already offered by the likes of Paytm, Mobikwik and PhonePe."
"ONGC board on Thursday also approved a proposal for buyback of its equity shares not exceeding 252.9 million equity shares of the company at the price of ₹159 per equity share for an aggregate consideration, not exceeding ₹4,022 crore. The process of buyback is likely to be completed in February, 2019."
"Devarattam has too many supporting artistes, though none of them particularly gets registered in your head except Pechi (Vinodhini Vaidyanathan)


 But what irks me is this: On one hand, we have a hero, who seeks justice for a sexually-assaulted survivor"
"“The other important thing is income. If people are not earning enough, why will they take an auto? So people like us just want everyone to do well. In peace, there is prosperity,"" he says.(Read more..)


If it weren’t for the large, ugly hoardings in the city’s main enclaves, it would be difficult to guess there’s an election in a few days in this city of eight million. Not that Ahmedabad is politically irrelevant. Home to Gandhi’s famous Sabarmati Ashram, it was also the city where the Navnirman Movement began in 1974-75, when a protest by young college students over the issue of mess bills, snowballed into a state-wide protest against spiraling prices and government corruption, leading to the resignation of then chief minister Chimanbhai Patel. That event kickstarted the nationwide movement against Indira Gandhi’s government, leading to the declaration of Emergency soon after.


Since then though, the city’s political energies have been channelized into more productive activities leading to a long period of political stability.(Read more..)"
"A new trailer of Detective Pikachu is out and it is surprisingly emotional, a sharp departure from the comedic tone of the previous promos


In the film, Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds through voice and motion-capture) will play the role of a detective who goes on a quest to find his master and the father of a former trainer Tim Goodman (Justice Smith)"
"In the writer’s room, we’re continuing to let current events inspire us, and that’s what feels relevant


 (When we first started), hacking felt relevant, and the day after (USA Network) picked up the series, the Sony hack happened,” he added"
”Former cricketing champions Kapil Dev and Mohinder Amarnath are seen instructing actors on how to best emulate the body language of the athletes
"One of the hardest things for me – it was at the time, too – is looking back and seeing how much of it centred around money, right? And how, Steve, my (character’s) husband, was like the closest we got to a working class guy, you know? Never mind a working class woman, right?” Nixon told IndeWire


The actor, activist and politician, who ran for governor of New York in 2018, added that she had problems with the idea of perfection that was portrayed in the show"
"The new economy has created its own hubs, and Gujarat, though known for its hard-working and business-minded ways, seems to have stayed within traditional set-ups. The recent startup boom has also seen firms focused on disruptive technology choose the twin cities in the south and Gurugram in the north and Pune in the west rather than Ahmedabad.


The closure of traditional businesses and mills, the primary employers of the past century, also coincided with a deeper change in the fabric of Ahmedabad.


The economic changes caused fissures between Hindu and Muslim communities, which eventually led to riots in 1985, 1992 and again in 2002. The city that prides itself on its link to Gandhi is also one where his ideals tend to be forgotten.


“It is interesting that the city first witnessed riots between Hindus and Muslims in the 1980s, around the same time many lost formal employment and livelihood because of the closure of the textile mills,"" says Rutul Joshi, associate professor at the city-based CEPT University (formerly called the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology)."
"Redmi Note 7 will be available on the same platforms for ₹9,999 for the 3GB+32GB variant and ₹11,999 for the 4GB+64GB variant starting 6 March, it added.


Xiaomi, which grabbed the highest share in the India smartphone market in 2018 with its low-cost phones, debuted the Redmi Note line-up in India in 2014."
"Tom Vadakkan was one of those old Congress leaders in Kerala who acted as a bridge between the local unit and the Delhi leadership


Thiruvananthapuram: Rahul Gandhi's Kerala tour had an instructive itinerary, shaped by an important criterion that the Congress was trying to convert into votes this election season — political murders in North Kerala. He visited the families of slain youth Congress leaders in Kannur and Kasargod.


But his effort to highlight the sensitive topic was overshadowed by senior Congress leader hailing from Kerala, Tom Vadakkan, joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the same day."
"The plan doesn't have any content restrictions, thankfully. Users will get access to the entire catalogue of films and TV shows on Netflix and can cancel the subscription anytime. It, however, does not offer HD or Ultra HD content.


“We are always looking for ways to make Netflix more enjoyable and accessible. We will be testing different options in select countries where members can, for example, watch Netflix on their mobile device for a lower price and subscribe in shorter increments of time. Not everyone will see these options and we may never roll out these specific plans beyond the tests,"" the company said in a statement."
"Tightening the spigot on purchases is bad news for a market already jittery about the heavy supply of paper from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s record $100 billion borrowing plan. The yield on new 10-year debt may climb as high as 7.75% over the coming months, according to ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Ltd., a level last seen in November.


“If the OMOs go out of the picture at a time when we have humongous debt supply hitting the system, we may see bond losses intensifying,"" said Naveen Singh, head of fixed-income trading at ICICI Securities.


In a sign of things to come, the Reserve Bank of India on Feb. 26 unveiled purchases for the first two weeks of March after earlier saying it would extend support for the entire month. The central bank may halt fresh buying in the quarter starting April as higher spending by the government will likely boost liquidity in the banking system, Singh said."
"Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Ajith, Suriya and Karthi were among the early voters as voting for the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu began on Thursday


While Ajith and Shalini voted at a polling booth in Thiruvanmiyur, Rajinikanth was clicked at Chennai’s Stella Maris College as he came to cast his vote"
"Broadly speaking (and perhaps at the risk of reiterating a cliché), aren’t we all fighting something every day? But Fight Club’s idea is to take that battle to a bigger stage, its war is against the commercialisation of every little aspect and emotion of one’s life, to the point where everything seems mechanised


Hollywood Rewind: Doubt | American Psycho | Julie and Julia | Forrest Gump | The Silence of the Lambs | Finding Neverland | Roman Holiday | American History X | Tropic Thunder | Before Sunrise | Scent of a Woman | Finding Forrester | Sixteen CandlesFight Club also happens to be one of those movies that you can fill a tiny notebook with, thanks to its immensely quotable quotes


What keeps the movie still fresh is its theme and its filming, for which credit must be given to Fincher, screenplay writer Jim Uhls and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth"
The trailer opens with Sreenivasan’s Shekharankutty narrating his wartime adventure when India was battling the Chinese army
"Huawei ""P30 Lite"" is also coming bundled with EMI, exchange, cashbacks and data offers for Jio users.


The Huawei P30 Lite was launched in India alongside the Huawei P30 Pro, the best smartphone Huawei has to offer currently, priced at ₹71,990.


The Huawei P30 Pro is powered by a Kirin 980 processor paired with 8 GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The smartphone runs Huawei's EMUI 9.1 based on Android Pie operating system and sports a curved glass design and gradient colours."
"While there is a chance Apple will update its iPads or Apple TV devices later this month, the event is likely to be Apple's first major media event in which hardware is not the primary focus, said Ben Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies.


That is a big shift for Apple, which earlier this year moved to make its Apple Music services work on smart speakers from rivals such as Amazon and partnered with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to let Samsung television owners watch video purchased from Apple on Samsung sets.


""I don't look at that as saying Apple has given up on the (Apple smart speaker) HomePod or the Apple TV - those will be the products where Apple Music or an Apple movie experience work the best,"" Bajarin said. ""But Apple is smart to not limit the places people can consume their services."""
"Modi’s remark comes in wake of Rahul claiming that the PM tried to benefit some businessmen in the Rafale deal


Modi said that the dream of New India cannot be fulfilled without the help of traders who are the biggest stakeholders in the development process of the country


NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday accused the Congress of working against the interests of small and medium traders and said the opposition party is trying to create a perception that all businessmen and traders are thieves.


Modi’s comment comes against the backdrop of Congress president Rahul Gandhi leading a campaign against the Prime Minister and alleging that he has tried to benefit a handful of businessmen in the Rafale fighter aircraft deal."
"New Delhi: In an effort to encourage entrepreneurs and small businesses in India, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp on Thursday announced the ""Startup India-WhatsApp Grand Challenge"".


""Ideas and business models capable of making a large-scale socio-economic impact and solving day-to-day problems have been invited to apply for the challenge by March 10,"" said WhatsApp."
"It also asked the regulator to investigate the sale of Reliance Power shares by Edelweiss Group on February 4-5.


When contacted, a Reliance Group spokesperson referred to an earlier statement in which boards of three listed companies of the group -- Reliance Power, Reliance Infra and Reliance Capital -- had approved and recommended ""all appropriate legal steps"" to protect shareholders' value.


""We will take all legal steps necessary to protect and enhance the value of our stakeholders, including pursuing the matter with an appropriate regulator,"" the spokesperson added.


There was no response to a query sent to Edelweiss Group. Last week, Edelweiss said it had granted credit facilities against pledge of shares to Reliance Group and it reached out numerous times to the group to address concerns on shortfall in margins and resultant fall in collateral valuation.


It said liquidation of collateral was necessitated after Reliance Group continued to breach contractual obligations, and did not reply to an offer for remediation."
"We spent a lot of time with the writers to see that we deliver a powerful, emotionally impactful ending and hopefully it will be delivered


 The consensus reads, “Exciting, entertaining, and emotionally impactful, Avengers: Endgame does whatever it takes to deliver a satisfying finale to Marvel’s epic Infinity Saga"
"But for creativity to flourish, says Belsky, it is imperative to empower different teams at different times. He opines that at the early stage of development, it is the product and designers who need to work together and as a business leader one has to make sure that they are not deterred by engineers.


On the debate between automation versus design and creativity, Belsky believes that creativity is a uniquely human trait and no one knows where it comes from. It is thus, the one industry that is safe from replacement from new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI)."
"Zeller’s 2012 play was first launched in Paris, winning a Moliere Award for best play, before hitting Broadway and London’s West End, where it won both Tony and Olivier awards for best actor"
"Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditya Roy Kapur, Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt starrer Kalank is officially the biggest opener of 2019


The Abhishek Varman’s directorial was released on Wednesday as the makers wanted to make the most out of the extended weekend"
"SP is contesting elections in Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)


NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav will contest Lok Sabha election from Azamgarh, currently represented by his father and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party said."
"YouTube has been battered with criticism of the videos it surfaces and recommends around breaking news topics. The company has said it shows “tens of millions"" of the text panels below videos each week."
"The Redmi Note 7 is set to be launched in India on 28 February. E-commerce platform Flipkart recently teased the smartphone on a dedicated landing page. The page teases the smartphone's camera, processor design and battery performance. It has also released a teaser video on YouTube with the punch line ""The Next Seven Is Here"".


The Redmi Note 7 will come with a 6.3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2340x1080. The display will have an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and a maximum brightness of 450nits."
"Jaitley, who described Gambhir's joining as an ""important induction"" into the BJP, said the party will take a call at an appropriate time whether to field him in the Lok Sabha polls.


BJP sources, however, said Gambhir may be fielded from the New Delhi constituency, currently represented by the party's Meenakshi Lekhi."
"LG’s new smart AC can be controlled with a smartphone and comes with a dual inverter compressor, which allows it to cool faster. It also offers LG’s mosquito-away feature keeps mosquitoes away by emitting ultrasonic signals."
"""I work on analysis of encrypted network traffic, and when we stumbled upon this Netflix movie Bandersnatch it was something very new,"" Gargi Mitra, a PhD student at IIT Madras was quoted as saying by the WIRED.


""But when I was looking at the choice-making interactions it turned out that they are similar to other kinds of interactions in web applications and web sites I study. So I tried out some of my techniques and we were able to determine which options the viewer chooses,"" Mitra added."
"Werner Herzog is calling The Mandalorian “a phenomenal achievement” after joining the cast of the streaming series set in the Star Wars universe


Herzog told The Associated Press that he’ll likely appear in two or three episodes of Jon Favreau’s series as “a character in whom you cannot trust"
"Funds of investors such as Fidelity International, Capital Group, TT International and Schroders, among others, bought the REIT’s units.


On the domestic side, the anchor book saw participation from Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Co. Ltd and the family office of Radhakishan Damani, the promoter of Avenue Supermarts Ltd, which runs the D-Mart chain of supermarkets.


Embassy REIT’s portfolio comprises about 33 million sq. ft of office space across seven office parks and four prime city-centre office buildings as on 31 December. It includes strategic amenities, such as two completed and two under-construction hotels totalling 1,096 rooms and food courts, besides employee transportation and childcare facilities.


The REIT’s portfolio has an occupancy rate of 95% and more than 160 blue-chip tenants. Office properties that are part of the REIT IPO, include the Express Towers at Nariman Point in South Mumbai and First International Finance Centre in the Bandra-Kurla Complex."
"Winstead, 34, also has Margot Robbie starrer Birds of Prey, in which she will take on the role of Huntress, and Ang Lee’s Gemini Man"
"Xiaomi made these announcements on Twitter and said the exclusive sales for Mi A2 and Redmi 6A are taking place via Amazon India and mi.com as well as offline stores include Mi Home stores.


The base variant of the Mi A2 with 4GB RAM/64GB ROM is available at ₹ 13,999 while the 6GB RAM/128GB ROM variant is selling at ₹ 15,999. The original prices of the two variants are ₹ 17,499 and ₹ 20,500 respectively."
"FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London. Photo: Reuters


San Francisco: Google is rolling out the new update for its search browser, Chrome 72, with bug fixes, security updates and newer features like external storage access for Android apps including microSD cards and USB drives along with Picture in Picture (PiP) mode for Chrome sites.


With Chrome 72, Google has optimised the browser for touchscreen devices in tablet mode and added app shortcuts for Android apps that are now searchable in the launcher, the company wrote in a blog post on Saturday."
"Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Endgame picks up after events of the 2018 release Avengers Infinity War


 Half the superheroes that the audience had come to know and love disintegrated after Thanos’ snap and it seems like the remaining superheroes will do everything in their power to bring back the fallen heroes


From the promotional material and the interviews, the makers have strongly suggested that this film will focus on the dynamics of the six original Avengers – Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye


 The film also brings back the characters who survived Thanos’ snap which includes Okoye, James Rhodes, Rocket and Nebula among others


Fans were overwhelmed after the emotional end of Avengers: Infinity War and the early reviews of Avengers: Endgame suggest that the audience is going to have a strong reaction to this one as well


Our verdict | Avengers Endgame movie reviewHaving laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years


Read here | Avengers Endgame movie review: A spectacular send-offAvengers Endgame cast talks about the emotional wrap upWatch: Bengaluru fans are loving Avengers EndgameAvengers Endgame runtimeThe exact runtime of Avengers Endgame is said to be 182 minutes making it the longest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe


Watch: Fans are going to miss their favourite superheroes after this big finaleOur verdict | Avengers Endgame movie reviewHaving laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years


Read full review here |  Avengers Endgame movie review: A spectacular send-offWatch: Bengaluru is enjoying Avengers EndgameWatch: Fans are overwhelmed by the emotional endJoe Russo on Avengers Endgame fan theoriesJoe Russo told indianexpress


com, “People are creative and funny, and the fact that they are so excited about these movies that they are adding their own stories to it, I mean, it is not really all that storytelling, it is this sort of collective contribution"
"It is a stronger alliance than we faced in 2014 for sure. But then people’s faith in BJP, the NDA and Prime Minister Modi is even stronger. Therefore, this coalition is not going to make any difference no matter what it does. Our party workers and coalition partners are working very hard on the ground."
"The party also fielded former Union minister M M Pallam Raju from Kakinada constituency and party's former Rajya Sabha member J D Seelam from Bapatla reserved seat.


The party also fielded its Rajya Sabha member Bhubaneswar Kalita from Mangaldoi in Assam and former Union minister Bhakt Charan Das from Kalahandi in Odisha."
"Huawei’s been steadily gaining on Apple and Samsung with an increasingly high-end line-up of devices, particularly in China


Hong Kong: Huawei Technologies Co overtook Apple Inc to claim the No. 2 spot in smartphones in the first quarter, moving a step closer to its avowed ambition of displacing Samsung at the top of the market."
"""Thank God and the Indian judiciary for the ban!! Hat's off to you sir Advocate S. Muthukumar for filing this petition to save our youth,"" another user tweeted.


TikTok India had been on the radar for its ""pornographic and inappropriate"" content. Earlier this month, the Madras High Court ordered a ban on the app on a plea by Advocate Muthu Kumar."
"The Redmi Note 7 is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to sport a dewdrop notch, dual gradient colour scheme at the back


Other specs include Snapdragon 660 SoC, up to 6GB RAM/64GB ROM, 48MP+5MP dual rear camera with pixel binning"
"HBO has once again asked US President Donald Trump to stay away from using memes inspired by its hit series Game of Thrones for “political purpose”


On Thursday, Trump put out a tweet with a GOT-inspired meme after US Attorney General Bill Barr reiterated that there was no collusion between the president’s 2016 election campaign and Russia"
"People showing inked fingers after casting their vote in Sector 3, Amity school Vasundhara, Ghaziabad. Photo by Pradeep Gaur/Mint.


In Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha, assembly polls is also being held simultaneously today


Voting began in 91 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states and two union territories in the first phase. In Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh people are also casting their votes for simultaneously for all the assembly constituencies. In Odisha, voting for 28 out of 147 assembly seats and four Lok Sabha seats is also being held today. Voting for 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases: April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19. Counting will be done on May 23.


1) In Andhra Pradesh, polling for all 25 Lok Sabha and 175 assembly seats is being held simultaneously. There are 2,118 candidates for the state polls and 319 for the Lok Sabha elections.


2) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday expressed his unhappiness over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) not functioning at several polling booths in the state."
"If you look at the last by-elections in Srinagar, the turnout was 2%. So it has definitely increased. While it is not great, it is definitely an improvement. This time all anti-national forces have threatened the people against coming out and voting. We need to instil faith in democracy. The major achievement, however, is that we have witnessed an election process this time without any violence and that is a great factor in Jammu and Kashmir.


Mehbooba Mufti is looking at making a comeback from Anantnag, which she had vacated in 2016. What is the BJP’s view of this?


The stance that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken is no different from the Hurriyat’s. The PDP has been changing its tone and tenor from time to time. So Mehbooba Mufti may be looking to make a comeback, but if she keeps speaking the language of the separatists and thinks that the people will vote for her, she is highly mistaken.


Following the Pulwama attacks, there were calls from across the Valley that they wanted security forces to be phased out. Your thoughts?"
"The devices to go on flash sales every day this time would be Xiaomi’s Redmi 6A and Mi TV (49-inch). The Redmi 6A will be available at noon during the sale while the Mi TV will be on flash sale at 11 am each day.


AmazonAmazon saleAmazon Great Indian Festival saleOnePlus 6TOnePlus 6T amazon saleOnePlus 6T amazon sale priceOnePlus 6T price"
"""The upgrade of the transport network is also essential to cater to the booming consumption of mobile broadband services and enable world-class digital services. Nokia is our longstanding partner and we look forward to their support in our journey towards 5G,"" Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel, said.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Facebook users, including brand marketers, expressed their outrage on Twitter with the #facebookdown hashtag.


""Ya'll, I haven't gotten my daily dosage of dank memes and I think that's why I'm cranky. #FacebookDown,"" a user Mayra Mesina tweeted.


The Menlo Park, California-based company, which gets a vast majority of its revenue from advertising, told Bloomberg that it was still investigating the overall impact ""including the possibility of refunds for advertisers."""
"”Huma Qureshi expressed that she will remain a fan forever, “Happy Bday to the only and one @sachin_rt #fan #forever


”Nivin Pauly shared a photo on Twitter and wrote, “Happy happy birthday to the man who inspired millions to dream"
"It is, however, reported that the actor is set to earn USD 20 million for both starring in and producing the new stand-alone Black Widow film, which is set for a 2020 release


Actors Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), who are set to star in their respective Disney+ shows, have also renegotiated their deals with the studio that are separate from the movie contracts"
"The chosen route of divestment has been either exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or open market sales. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint


 In many public sector firms, the free float has risen by 10-34%, which can be a huge deterrent for the market


The government’s aggressive divestment spree in these past two years has constantly kept the supply taps open"
"“The Congress party has decided to not contest seven Lok Sabha seats in the state for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance. The seats include Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad (all SP bastions). We will not field candidate on any seats which will be contested by BSP chief Mayawati, RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary,"" Raj Babbar, UP Congress chief told reporters in Lucknow without disclosing the seventh seat."
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.69 points, or 0.1%, to 25,866.63, the S&P 500 lost 3.81 points, or 0.14%, to 2,775.95 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 27.13 points, or 0.36 percent, to 7,459.63.


The S&P 500 posted 37 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 91 new highs and 13 new lows."
Congress also flagged off trucks with its campaign slogan inked on them which is going to travel across the country for campaign outreach.
"The father of Kourtney Kardashian’s three children and a frequent face on Keeping Up with the Kardashians will star in Flip It like Disick, which will follow him on his adventures remodeling and selling celebrity real estate"
"“It is a gimmicky cameo and in a way it is the best casting possible because he is almost the lead character,” Curtis said


The film, directed by Danny Boyle, features Patel as a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the support of his childhood best friend, played by Lily James"
"It is set in the aftermath of the snap, in which the Big Bad Thanos killed half of the population in the universe


Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted, “#AvengersEndgame has shattered two myths: Screen count and release period… Most *Hindi* biggies release in 3500 screens, even 4000 or 4500+ at times, yet those movies don’t achieve the numbers that #AvengersEndgame has amassed in just *seven days* on *2845* screens"
"Today, we think of Marvel as the monolithic studio that each year reliably releases two or three blockbusters based on its costume-clad comic-book superheroes


 It has built movies like “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” into money-minting franchises, and when its latest offering, “Avengers: Endgame,” is released April 26, it will conclude a narrative spanning some 22 films that started with “Iron Man” in 2008


 In the mid-2000s it was a smaller, inexperienced company that controlled the film rights for only a few of its lesser-known characters — other studios had already brought “X-Men,” “Spider-Man” and “Fantastic Four” to theaters — at a time when no one in Hollywood was yet contemplating the idea of an interconnected universe of superhero movies


That changed with the help of people like Kevin Feige, who had been an associate producer on “X-Men” before Marvel hired him in 2000; and Robert Downey Jr


, the veteran actor who was almost no one’s idea of a mass-market magnet when he emerged as a candidate to play Tony Stark, the eccentric billionaire hero of “Iron Man


”In interviews, Feige, now president of Marvel Studios, and Downey — a star of three “Iron Man”s, four “Avengers” and a “Spider-Man” — spoke about the origins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the choices they made, and what it’s all meant as “Endgame” approaches


KEVIN FEIGE: In 2006, when we were making our first appearance as our own studio at Comic-Con, the articles written around that were basically: “Marvel’s going to try to make movies themselves now


 Iron Man became one of them when the rights reverted back to Marvel from [New Line Cinema]; it instantly went to the top of the list


 And internally, at Marvel corporate, “Hulk” — by far, the better-known property — seemed like the slam dunk and “Iron Man” seemed like the risk


Marvel started hiring cast and crew for “Iron Man” in 2006 — first, director Jon Favreau and then its star, Robert Downey Jr


 He’d had a movie that I very much enjoyed, and I’d had one that he very much enjoyed, bomb at the same time"
"It sports a 6.39-inch FHD+ Ultra Full View AMOLED display at the front. To make the notch free design possible, Vivo has taken the Nex approach of including a motorised slider that houses the front facing camera. It has also slimmed down the earpiece of the smartphone and has neatly tucked it inside the top bezel. There's a bit of a chin at the bottom of the display though. The display also has a 5th generation in-display fingerprint sensor sitting underneath it.


The Vivo V15 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 675 SoC paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. There's only one storage/memory variant of this smartphone, which simplifies your choices. It runs Android Pie 9 with Vivo's FuntouchOS running atop. It is backed by a 3,700mAh battery with support for dual engine fast charging through its micro USB port."
"Huawei sub-brand Honor announced that the recently launched Honor Band 4 became the best-seller on Amazon.in on its first day of sale. Priced at ₹ 2,599, the Honor Band 4 is available in three colour variants - Meteorite Black, Midnight Navy and Dahlia Pink exclusively on Amazon.in. The fitness wearable was announced alongside the Honor 8C.


The Honor Band 4 acts like a personal fitness trainer and helps track daily activities and measure performance constantly with the help of its real-time heart rate detection and Huawei’s TruSleep monitoring technology.


Suhail Tariq, CMO at Huawei Consumer Business Group, said, “We are extremely delighted by the overwhelming response for Honor Band 4 making it a best-seller on Amazon.in. Honor Band 4 is an ideal fitness tracker with Real Time Heart Rate Detection and Huawei’s TruSleep monitoring technology. We appreciate the positive feedback by consumers and are deeply encouraged to offer more exciting and innovative products in future."""
"The Redmi Go is powered by Qualcomm's entry-level Snapdragon 425 processor paired with a gigabyte of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The smartphone runs Android Oreo 8.1 based on Android's Go platform which is a lightweight and stripped down version of the regular Oreo operating system.


The Redmi Go is backed by a 3,000mAh battery, which is claimed to provide a standby time of 10 days. It also packs an 8MP rear-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture and an LED flash. The front of the smartphone will have a 5MP selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture with support for HDR and beauty filters."
"Theon Greyjoy, Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, Dolorous Edd and the Dothrakis were those who died fighting the undead


Actor Iain Glen, who played Ser Jorah Mormont also told Entertainment Weekly, “When I read the nature of his demise it felt right


”Post the thrilling episode, the cast and actors took to social media to write farewell posts to the dead characters


 Emilia Clarke shared a click with actor Iain Glen, and wrote, “YOURE SIMPLY THE BEST, BETTER THAN ALL THE REST, BETTER THAN ANYONE, ANYONE IVE EVER MET……😭” #serjorahforlyfe”Bella Ramsey aka Lyanna Mormont, who became probably the youngest and bravest hero on the show, posted a series of images from the sets of the show and wrote, “I had a song in my head during the filming of episode three… Every Giant Will Fall by @rendcollective 👊🏻 it basically sums it all up


 I pledged to fight for the North, and I will fight” RIP Lyanna 👊🏻 #gameofthrones #everygiantwillfall #lyannamormont”Sansa Stark had an emotional reunion with Theon Greyjoy in episode 2 of season 8"
"Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus is gearing up to launch its latest flagship device, the OnePlus 7. CEO Pete Lau on Monday asked OnePlus fans on Twitter to keep an eye out on his handle in the coming days for a new exciting announcement.


“Excited to share the next product from OnePlus will unleash a new era of Fast and Smooth. Especially Smooth! Smooth is more challenging than Fast - a true test of hardware and software.


Excited to share the next product from OnePlus will unleash a new era of Fast and Smooth. Especially Smooth! Smooth is more challenging than Fast - a true test of hardware and software."
"All emerging technologies will make an impact in 2019 but AI, blockchain and cloud- based applications will be the most transformative across all industries.


IBM defines AI as “augmented intelligence"", because its true value lies not in replicating human intelligence but complementing it. And in doing so, it will do more than redefine how the world works—it will expand what people are able to work on, opening up entirely new avenues of innovation, exploration, discovery and industry. AI will also create new markets and companies, while transforming existing enterprises and government institutions from top to bottom.


Blockchain is a transformative technology with the potential to change business transactions the same way the internet changed communication in the 1990s. Cloud will continue to play a significant role as a foundational technology that pivots business transformation of enterprises."
"""OnePlus emerged as the leader in $500-$700 segment on the back of the OnePlus 6 and the newly-launched OnePlus 6T. However, in the super premium segment of $700+, Samsung surpassed Apple for the top position with its Galaxy S9 series,"" Joshi added.


With the government initiative to push local manufacturing in India, 2018 witnessed further duty hikes on mobile phone components, IDC said, adding that weakened rupee further added to the challenges of the long tail of brands outside the top five.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The basic data defense mistake would also appear contrary to the ""Hacker Way"" mantra that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has espoused at the social network.


Brian Krebs of security news website KrebsOnSecurity.com cited an unnamed Facebook source as saying the internal investigation had so far indicated that as many as 600 million users of the social network had account passwords stored in plain text files searchable by more than 20,000 employees."
"The people who want forces to be removed are far less in number than those who actually want security forces to remain in the Valley. It has become a political issue and people in the Valley want security cover.


The PDP has been very vocal about Article 35(A) and Article 370. The BJP has a diametrically opposite stance on the matter. Is there a middle ground?


The BJP believes very strongly that Article 370 has been responsible for a lot of Kashmir’s problems. A lot of the damage that has been done in the Valley is because of Article 370 and it remains the root cause of a lot of issues here (Jammu and Kashmir). We are willing to discuss Article 370. We have experienced Article 370 for more than 70 years now and had it benefited the people of J&K economically or socially we would have reconsidered it. But it has done more harm than good."
"Why not give them the full range of the spectrum to grow into themselves and understand that they have the world in the palm of their hand,” Moretz told BBC


The actor, a vocal critic of gender inequality in the movies, said even though she has seen a “change in the industry” over recent years, women are still not treated as equals"
"He wrote, “#Kalank is clearly underperforming… Dips on Day 4 [Sat]… Trending is weak, so big biz on Day 5 [Sun] is ruled out… Wed 21"
"Also, the burning lamps like Extremis provide a refreshing step away from the suit-on-suit fights in the past offerings


Two not-so-great things about Iron Man 3:Bad GuysWhen will Marvel learn to do justice to its bad guys? While there is some hope in the beginning of Iron Man 3 as the makers pull in the Extremis narrative from the comic books, ultimately the villains just don’t live up to the standard


 Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen also brought in a fresh narrative but is cut off from the plot far too quickly


Over-dosage of Pepper PottsSomewhere along the line, in adding a personal touch to Tony Stark in Iron Man 3, the narrative starts to focus a little too much on his girlfriend Pepper Potts


 Their mushy romance is given an unnecessary amount of time and Potts even delivers the final blow to Gillich"
"HDFC Card users will get an instant cashback of ₹1,000 on purchase of any variant of POCO F1, taking the effective price of the phone to ₹19,999"
"THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a late night drama evolving in Kerala politics, Congress ally Kerala Congress (Mani), or KC(M), party chairman K.M. Mani on Monday night announced his loyalist, Thomas Chazhikadan, to contest from Kottayam seat, against the dreams of a factional leader within his party, P.J. Joseph.


Mani's move risks an implosion within the party as Joseph had publicly said that he wants to contest from Kottayam.


Joseph told reporters that he is ""heavily disappointed"" with the decision and expressed hope that it will be amended. ""We will discuss it with the Congress leaders, who will return from Delhi tomorrow. Will decide future steps after that,"" he said."
"The Redmi Y3 was launched alongside the Redmi 7, the successor to Redmi 6 launched last year. The Redmi 7 starts at ₹7,999 for the 2GB RAM/32GB internal storage variant and costs ₹8,999 for the 3GB RAM/32GB internal storage model. It went on sale yesterday.


The Redmi Y3 is lit by a 6.26-inch HD+ ‘dot notch’ display covered in 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5 body with rounded edges. It has an aspect ratio of 19:9. Xiaomi calls the rear finish of the Redmi Y3 as the “Aura Prism Design"" and “Auro Smoke Design""."
"After recording negative growth for three consecutive months—October, November and December 2018—gold imports grew 38.16% to $2.31 billion in January 2019. It again contracted by 10.8% to $2.58 billion in February.


India is one of the largest gold importers in the world, and the imports mainly take care of demand from the jewellery industry.


Gems and jewellery exports too dipped by 6.3% to $28.5 billion during the 11 months of the current fiscal."
"India continues to be in the top-five market for us in the world, which I think is pretty interesting, especially considering the cautious positioning that the regulators and the authorities are taking in the country. But for people that already have it (crypto currencies), having tools to trade and exchange and securely store crypto is still super valuable. I’m still pretty optimistic that in the long run India will be one of the places where digital currencies could have a very powerful and significant impact in helping people with access to smartphones to be able to move money around as easily as sending a message. That being said, there are reasonable and understandable concerns and risks that should be addressed. In other markets, we’re seeing very strong pro-innovation regulatory environments that are allowing for very fast iteration on these capabilities. We’ve received strong regulatory guidance and clarity across Europe and the US. South Korea and Japan are also very forward on this stuff.


The original networks were not designed for high throughput. They were designed for settlement with a high degree of certainty. We wanted to make sure that transactions were completed with finality. On the other hand, when you swipe a credit card and buy something, you can claw back that transaction for 90 days. I think credit cards are really a terrible mechanism for banking, especially over the internet.


In terms of throughput, it’s not a lot of work to do to increase capacity on these (blockchain) transaction networks. Just two weeks ago, we (blockchain.com) announced the introduction of Stellar, which allows for a much higher volume of transactional volume on a per second basis than bitcoin does, for example. We also spent a lot of time looking at the “lightning network"". Basically, it is a hyper capacity capability that will far exceed Mastercard and Visa in terms of total capacity there. Those networks can do about 50,000 transactions per second while the lightning network is looking at numbers far in excess of that at near-zero cost."
"New Delhi: Misuse of messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram for illegal activities is well known. While these companies have been trying hard to curb them, criminals seem to find new ways to exploit them again and again. According to the findings of Delhi based Cyber Peace Foundation, chat groups in WhatsApp are still being used to share child sexual abuse material (CSAM).


“The members are first solicited publicly using these invite links and then the trusted ones (in this case, who would actually engage in sharing CSAM) are called on to join a more private group. Numbers used to create groups are often virtual numbers used by Indian users. There are several such tactics being used by group admins and members,"" said Nitish Chandra, a cybersecurity expert and Manager-Training and Policy Cyber Peace Foundation, in an email reply to Mint. The findings were first reported by The News Minute.


According to the Foundation’s report, many groups are created by people with Indian phone numbers with their group descriptions in Hindi. Many of these groups also lay emphasis on sharing of child pornography videos and no other links, while some require their members to share a specified number of videos every day or face dismissal from the group. Their activities are not limited to circulation of CSAM. Many even solicit physical contact with children with details like price, location and time."
"Talpade gets into his part, and is suitably shifty and smooth as he goes along: the only time he is out of his depth is in the clunky love angle the plot dreams up for him


 Malhotra vamps it up, and is a case-book study of the over-the-top baddies that Bollywood used to dish out"
"Among states, political parties from Andhra Pradesh topped the list, spending ₹1.73 crore spent on ads, followed by Bihar with ₹1.05 crore and Delhi with ₹ 9.96 lakh.


In the run-up to the elections, Google has been working to bring transparency in political advertising on its platforms. It enforced its election ads policy for India on 20 February. The policy requires advertisers running election ads in India to provide a pre-certificate issued by the Election Commission of India, or anyone authorized by the commission."
"On digging into the microblogging site, some reactions were found, dated prior to the airing date of the show


That watching a “cleaner” version of the HBO series will be a tasteless affair, a tweeple wrote on March 28: “Watching ‘Game of Thrones’ on Star World is equivalent to eating pav bhaji without butter


”On April 9, a user asked Hotstar Premium, the streaming platform that airs GOT in all its explicit glory, whether the show will be “uncensored without beeps”


The tweet read, “Hey, I want to buy Hotstar Premium specially just for Game of Thrones’ wanted to know whether it will be uncensored without any beeps or like the one you show on star world with beep and edited scenes


”He received a reply: “Hi! Like any other season of Game of Thrones’ on @hotstar_premium, even season 8 will be uncensored


”On March 28, a Bhutanese TV viewer had complained on the social media platform about missing nuances of the show as their digital/cable TV services are from prude India”"
"US stocks were mixed in thin trading, while Treasuries and the dollar fell as investors awaited hints on the direction of interest rates from the Federal Reserve and any clarity on trade.


The S&P 500 struggled for footing ahead of the release of the Fed’s meeting minutes Wednesday afternoon that will give a peak into the thinking behind the central bank’s big decision last month to pause rate hikes. CVS Health Corp. plunged after the company said its results would be dragged down by rising costs and its recent takeover, weighing on health-care shares.


The 10-year Treasury yield rose above 2.64%, while the dollar fell against major currencies as American and Chinese officials work in Washington this week to resolve a trade war that’s set to ramp up on 1 March. West Texas crude oil pushed above $56 a barrel."
"With the slowdown of smartphone sales worldwide, phone companies are also looking forward to new concepts to get buyers to switch to new phones. Foldable display and phones with multiple cameras are going to be the key factors. Samsung will be launching foldable phones this year and reports suggest that Huawei, LG and Lenovo have also got their flexible phones and concepts lined-up for the event. HMD Global’s Nokia 9 PureView is expected to be the first smartphone with five rear cameras. Images of a Nokia smartphone with five cameras on the back were leaked online early this week.


The year 2019 will see proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT)-driven smart speakers. Samsung is expected to expand its Galaxy Home speakers portfolio with more affordable variants on the lines of Amazon’s Echo Dot, breaking the Google and Amazon monopoly in this segment. The company will, thus, provide buyers with an alternative ecosystem of IoT devices running Samsung’s Bixby assistant. CES 2019 will also see a splurge in headphones with built-in assistants.


Autonomous cars with advanced infotainment systems will be the talking point this year. Audi is expected to unveil a new car infotainment system for autonomous cars. The infotainment system will work even when the car is stationary and getting charged. BMW is reportedly going to introduce an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered virtual assistant of its own on the lines of Amazon’s Alexa. Intel unit Mobile Eye is also likely to show off new technology in the autonomous driving space. Bosch is going to unveil the concept of an always-connected driverless shuttle with a built-in wireless system and sensors to communicate with other vehicles."
"Robotics and AI can enable customer services 24x7 from government agencies. These trends herald significant opportunities for service providers, technology companies, designers and device manufacturers.


The i4.0 challenge is not about adopting impressive new technologies. It’s a strategy and operating-model challenge, a competition for critical new skills and, ultimately, an overarching business issue that transcends yesterday’s innovations.


Driving true and sustained value from i4.0 demands the strategic integration of automation, data, advanced analytics, manufacturing and products —to unleash unique competitive advantages. Smart manufacturing and digital business models make it critical for business leaders to become better informed on what the future will look like for their industry, organisation, products and customers."
"We have decided to give it a dual format release, this is the first time a film, as well as an extended version as a web series, will be released on a major OTT platform


“Hot Shots is an edge of the seat human drama that has all the elements of a thriller complete with emotions, wit, friendship, ambition, greed and power struggle,” web series co-producers, Arjun Kumar and Farid Sama, said in a statement"
"The much-talked-about biopic PM Narendra Modi, helmed by Omung Kumar and starring Vivek Oberoi in the titular role, on Friday got a new release date


 The film will now hit theaters on May 24, a day after the results of 17th Lok Sabha elections are declared"
"Samsung on Monday confirmed the launch of a foldable smartphone at the Unpacked event it will hold at San Francisco on 20 February. Samsung uploaded a video teaser for the upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphone on its official YouTube channel which reads “The future of mobile will unfold on February 20, 2019"".


Although Samsung hasn't explicitly mentioned anything about a foldable device, it is safe to assume that it will launch the ""Galaxy F"" or ""Galaxy Flex""alongside the Galaxy S10."
"In the meme that used GOT fonts, Trump is seen with his back to the camera, wearing his trademark black overcoat


In response to Trump’s tweet, the network released a statement asking him to refrain from such activities"
"Further rupee gains maybe limited in the near term due to USD/INR support at 200-DMA, currently at 70.58, and an additional support at 69.230, the Jan. 7 low  (Reuters)


India’s rupee has snapped out of its recent doldrums, thanks to the easing in the military skirmishes with Pakistan and strong foreign flows into the nation’s shares. Analysts aren’t sure if the gains will sustain with elections due by May.


The currency has rebounded about 2% since early February, and is no longer the worst performer this year among Asia’s emerging market currencies -- a tag it held as recent as last week when tensions between India and Pakistan briefly reached the highest point since a 1971 war.


The flare up settled just as global funds warmed up to local shares again. They invested a net $2.4 billion last month, the most since November 2017. The data helped the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex jump more than a percent on Tuesday and the rupee rose to its highest close since Jan. 10."
"The brokerage firm points out that 7-Eleven Malaysia has been in operation for 30 years and enjoys a 30% gross margin, a 6% Ebitda (Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) margin and ~40-50% return on capital employed. Future Retail’s Ebitda margin so far in FY19 stands at 5%, and it has a return on capital employed of about 20%.


Investors cheered the news, with the Future Retail stock rising 5.7% in the past two trading days on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India.


This marks the entry of 7-Eleven into India, regarded as one of the fastest-growing retail markets in the world. 7-Eleven is set to benefit from Future Retail’s vast experience of operating in Indian markets and understanding the local consumer. Indeed, some analysts see 7-Eleven’s choice of its India partner as a vote of confidence in Future Retail. The first 7-Eleven convenience store is expected to open this year."
"The Big Sick writer-actor, who was nominated for Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2018 with wife Emily V Gordon, explained giving opportunity to a diverse people entailed empowerment


“Giving people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, women, persons with disabilities, women of colour, the LGBTQ communities, people of colour, women, people of varying religions, and women more opportunities to make the kinds of movies and TV shows that Hollywood lets all of the Chrises make,” he said"
"Even before the launch, experts were a bit sceptical about foldable screens and felt folding/unfolding of the screen will cause more and wear and tear, reducing the phone’s life-cycle. But they didn’t expect things to go bad this soon.


While plastic substrates are less susceptible to damage than glass, they can only bend up to a certain number of times.


“I think all brands rushed to showcase their foldables. The issue is of the material, which is still plastic to my mind. Unless I see someone like Corning coming out with their glass solution for foldable smartphones, there is a big question mark about their durability,"" said Faisal Kawoosa founder and chief analyst, techARC."
"OnePlus still hasn't officially unveiled the final names of the products. However, reports and leaks suggest that OnePlus might launch two flagships this year—the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.


While the OnePlus 7 is expected to be a direct successor to the OnePlus 6 and 6T, the OnePlus 7 Pro might be launched with a premium price tag matching that of Samsung and Apple flagships."
"A Mint analysis showed that slower sales have dragged profits of companies that reported earnings for the quarter ended 31 March to the slowest in at least 13 quarters even as BSE’s benchmark Sensex has climbed more than 8% in the past two months.


Yes Bank fell 5.3% after Bloomberg Quint reported that the lender may see pain emerging from its exposure to the Anil Ambani Group companies. That exposure, according to information provided by the bank’s management in investor interactions held this week, could be close to ₹13,000 crore ."
"Subsequently, the producers of the film approached Supreme Court on 17 April, through Senior Advocate Mukul Rohtagi stating that the decision of the Election Commission was arbitrary since they had not watched the movie but had formed an opinion merely by watching its trailer. The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India passed an order observing the argument made by Mukul Rohtagi and directed the Election Commission to watch the movie and thereafter consider the matter of public screening of the movie once again."
"The project is from Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s AMBI Media Group and Iervolino Entertainment S p A


Kirk Harris will direct the film, which revolves around Kate (Fox), a widow who lost her husband in the war in Afghanistan and is struggling to maintain her small-town farm with her daughter while also running the local volunteer fire department"
"The BJP should benefit from a wave of anti-incumbency against the Trinamool Congress, but fear is a key factor in this election. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)


Widespread anger over violence during panchayat polls has turned 2019 Lok Sabha elections into a referendum on TMC's rule


The BJP’s strategy of whipping up Hindu religious pride in West Bengal, where 27% people are Muslims, seems to be paying off


Purulia/Bongaon/Kolkata: ""I am not a magician, I have done so much for you…even if I sell my blood, it will not get enough money (for your needs),"" a visibly emotional Mamata Banerjee told the crowd at an election rally in West Bengal on Tuesday. At every public meeting—84 have been planned so far, two for each parliamentary constituency in the state—the chief minister has been presenting a report card of her eight years at the helm in Bengal, and ending her speeches with an earthy appeal on the importance of maintaining communal harmony. Didi, as she is fondly referred to, typically ends her speech by reciting parts of Chandi shloka, an ode to goddess Durga—Bengal’s most worshipped deity.


After a visit to the Bengal hinterland, it becomes clear why the chief of Trinamool Congress (TMC) needs to invoke the gods. Mamata is fighting a furious battle to protect her turf from a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).


The unpaved road which connects Bisriya village to the outside world is as rugged as it gets. On a hot summer afternoon in April, the village in West Bengal’s Purulia district, bordering Jharkhand, wore a deserted look. Few were lazing under the shade of a giant Kusum tree.


Shyamapada Mahato, 62, once a devoted worker of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, was the first to speak. In a calm voice, Mahato, who farms on less than a third of an acre of land, lists his grudges against the Mamata-led government. Most schemes, be it old-age pension for farmers or the state government’s housing scheme for the poor, have eluded him. “At every step you need to bribe local party leaders... in the 100-days work programme (the centre’s employment guarantee scheme) the work is being done by JCB machines. For every ₹1,000 transferred to bank accounts as wages for work we never did, we are asked to keep ₹100 and give the rest to them. I said no,"" he says."
"■ Nickel: LME nickel gave up earlier gains, slipping 0.1% to $12,555 a tonne in official activity. Its relative outperformance was helped by news that Chinese iron ore futures rose to a record on Monday. Nickel is mainly used to make stainless steel.


■ Dollar: Also weighing on metals was a stronger dollar, making dollar-denominated metals more expensive for holders of other currencies.


■ Prices: Aluminium traded down 0.6% to $1,869 a tonne in official rings, lead was bid down 0.7% at a two-week low of $2,066 and tin edged down 0.2%"
"“We have noticed that recently after the decision by the Fed’s on the US interest rates, concern towards the inflation and slow global growth, the gold prices are appreciating."""
"To be sure, the new firms in the commodity derivatives business are turning up the heat. BSE and NSE, which launched commodity-derivatives trading last October, are planning to introduce new products for traders. About 10-15 products are being explored, and that would lead to heightened competition. While the new platforms are yet to make a dent, their attempts to capture share can put pressure on MCX’s average realized fee, fear some analysts. BSE’s bullion trading platform has already garnered a 10% market share.


Also, with physical delivery in commodities now being initiated in metals, analysts see some impact on volumes."
"MTV Roadies Real Heroes has been keeping the audience hooked with its thrilling tasks and dramatic vote outs


 While Rannvijay Singh is the ringmaster, the adventure-reality show has Prince Narula, Nikhil Chinapa, Neha Dhupia, Raftaar and Sandeep Singh as gang leaders


The episode will start with the remaining contestants being asked to divide themselves into three teams"
"Oh yes, and with good frame rates. While the default setting is medium, you can yank it up to High with the help of GFX tool and it works just fine at that. Frame rates were consistently over 45FPS and there was no choppy gameplay whatsoever.


I gave the Realme 2 Pro a lot of flak for its UI (ColorOS 5.2), but Realme (read Oppo) has rolled out some upgrades to get rid of the previous annoyances like app notifications and bloatware. The phone runs Android Oreo out of the box and there are no promises from Realme about a Pie upgrade, but since Oppo was a Android 9 developer partner, we can expect it to come by the January.


Coming back to the UI, there is still no app drawer, but the UI now allows you to swipe and dismiss notifications. The bloatware can also be uninstalled, bar a few apps like ORoaming.


Some apps do come in the way of the notch, but you can disable the notch on an app-by-app basis. The music app also likes to autoplay a “Rakshabandhan"" compilation whenever you pair a Bluetooth audio device, which can be mildly unnerving.


You can fix the lack of an app drawer with a launcher like Nova, but there isn’t really much of a fix for the drop-down notification bar.


The camera of Realme U1 is a mixed bag. It is a selfie-focused smartphone, so let’s dig into that first, even though I’m not much of a selfie person.


The front camera consists of a 25MP Sony IMX576 sensor paired with Helio P70’s image processing platform.


The AI capabilities allow 296 facial identification points (an overkill, but doesn’t hurt) and better noise and colour recovery. To add cherry on top of that selfie cake, it can correct backlight, just in case you click in front a bright light."
"The only thing we loathe about the phone is its app optimisation, which might get better as it receives the Pie upgrade.


This smartphone has “Play"" in its name, which definitely means it means business, right? Yes. It has the best chipset Huawei has to offer, the HiSilicon 970, which walks abreast with Snapdragon 845 standards. Although it doesn’t have any tricks to keep it cool, it can run PUBG on its best settings without any frame drops or heating tantrums. It also has a fairly premium design and very decent AI-powered cameras.


The only thing we dislike about this phone is its UI, which lacks an app drawer and has childish icons.


This phone is an absolute steal for the kind of display, software and, most importantly, the camera it has to offer— all at just a rupee below ₹ 20,000. The rear of the phone sports a 12MP+5MP ZEISS-enhanced package. At the front, it comes with an 8MP camera with f/2.0 aperture. The phone was launched yesterday and it will go on sale on 7 December, so you might have to wait a bit if you wanted to buy this phone right away.


Other things to like about the smartphone are the 5.84-inch HDR display, ability to notch it up to Android Pie, understated design and stock Android experience, thanks to the Android One platform it runs (if you’re into that).


The Mi A2 received quite a bit of flak for skipping crucial features like the Micro USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It also received a significant bump in its price. But that doesn’t make the Mi A2 a slacker by any means. It is powered by the best mid-range processor Qualcomm had to offer at the time, the Snapdragon 660 and runs stock Android. It also has one of the best cameras in the segment—12MP + 20MP dual rear camera module and 20MP front-facing camera, both of which are AI-enabled.


It carries the same aluminium unimetal arch design of the Mi A1, which may look a bit dated to a few."
”Janhvi will also be seen in the Neha Dhupia-hosted chat show Vogue BFF along with her sister Khushi Kapoor
"“Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to-remember combinations,"" he added.


“Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online,"" says Slain."
"""We're not going to do it the way GST was done. We are first going to run a short pilot project to smoothen out any flaws in the implementation process and then roll it out nationwide. We're also going to set down a robust way of identifying the beneficiaries, so that no deserving family is left out,"" he said.


Asked if the pilot will be run in Congress-ruled states, Gandhi said experts will decide on that. ""This is for the experts to decide. In the 10 years of the Congress-UPA govt, we took 14 crore people out of poverty net. Our goal now is to finish the job,"" he said.


Gandhi added that 20-22% families are living in poverty even today. Many of them have been pushed into this cycle by the prime minister's demonetisation scheme and 'Gabbar Singh Tax', he noted.


""Our goal is to completely eliminate poverty from India,"" he said, describing 'Nyay' as the final assault on poverty."
"Economists said the Reserve Bank of India will be cognizant of the risk to inflation from fiscal slippages going forward and hence expect the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to keep rates on hold in the upcoming policy review. Nomura expects the central bank to keep the repo rate unchanged in the monetary policy review on 7 February.


Radhika Rao, Economist, DBS Group Research, also expects the RBI to keep interest rates on pause for the rest of 2019. “The government’s announcements suggest that economic priorities have taken precedence over near-term fiscal consolidation as the 3% fiscal deficit target stands delayed. The consumption push and growth stimulus will be positive for growth, but limits scope for an aggressive monetary easing cycle,"" said Rao.


India’s 10-year government bond yield rose nearly 10 basis points on Friday as analysts expected the government to face challenges in meeting its target for fiscal year 2020. The yield on the most traded 2028 paper ended at 7.611%, up 13 basis points from its previous close of 7.483%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions."
"TheVerge says the feature first showed up in a recent Chrome OS Dev build, but it now supports any browser supporting WebAssembly, which includes Firefox.


The interface of the app is pretty straightforward—you have a basic toolbar which lets you choose a pen, pencil, marker, chalk and eraser tools. To select colours you have a colour palette. Once you’re done making your masterpiece, you can export your drawing as a PNG.


The most convenient part of this web app is that you can pull up your drawings on any platform—be it smartphones or desktops—and continue working on them."
"This year’s TV is called the LG Signature TV OLED R and its screen disappears into the base when not in use. While that is impressive technology indeed, we knew it was coming for years now.


Like LG’s rollable OLED, Samsung’s new micro-LED TV doesn’t really tickle our fancy either. That’s because the original version of this was announced at CES 2018. Known as “The Wall"", the micro-LED TV was too big for any household at the time. So, Samsung has now made it smaller, enough to fill an average household. The new micro-LED TV comes in 75-inch screen size, which is more suited to mainstream use. What this really means is that micro-LED technology (which has been around for a few years) is finally ready for mainstream use, though it’s nowhere close to being affordable just yet.


Micro-LED is a technology similar to Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), though unlike OLEDs, it doesn’t use organic compounds to create light. Micro-LED offers the same picture quality as OLEDs, but is said to be brighter and overcomes OLED’s one big weakness— burn in (a display’s tendency to retain images, thereby forming discolouration in certain areas and affecting the overall viewing experience)."
"""The good news is that even for the entry level (sub- ₹5,000), users could get a smartphone with the latest Android version, which were sold by Nokia and Lava,"" the findings showed.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"About 3,000 deliveries were made, allowing regulators to judge the project was safe, leading to the first commercial approval in Australia and one of the first anywhere in the world.


Winged drones will only be allowed to fly 11-12 hours a day and they must be piloted, rather than fully automated.


The regulator did not look at the noise or privacy impact of the project — two issues that emerged during trials."
"”Anthony Russo chimed in and said the reason for removing the scene was they were not able to emotionally connect with the adult version of Tony’s daughter


“What we realized about it was we didn’t feel an emotional association with the adult version of his daughter"
"The Huawei Watch GT features a 1.39-inch OLED display with a resolution of 454x454. It claims to last for two weeks. It can monitor heart rate and sleep real time but doesn’t have EKG. It also comes with the usual sports mode, which calculates the number of calories you’ve burned. It can display notifications from your phone,


If that wasn’t enough, Huawei went on to announce two other phones—Mate 20 X and Mate 20RS Porsche Design.


The Mate 20 X is essentially the Mate 20 on steroids, aimed at gamers. The differences include a larger 7.1-inch display, vapour chamber with graphene film cooling (similar to the Poco F1) and a 5,000mAh battery. Since the screen is so big, Huawei found the perfect reason to launch the Huawei M Pen (sold separately) stylus. The Mate 20 X is priced at 899 euros (about ₹ 76,500).


The Porsche Design variant is essentially the Mate 20 Pro on steroids, aimed at the rich and ostentatious. The differences include larger internal storage variants of 256GB and 512GB and leather wrapped exterior. The Huawei Mate 20RS’ 256GB version is priced at 1,695 euros (about ₹ 1,44,000) while the 512GB variant is priced at 2095 euros ( ₹ 1,80,000).


mint-india-wire Huawei Mate 20Huawei Mate 20 ProHuawei Mate 20 XHuawei Mate 20 Porsche DesignHuawei Mate 20RS Porsche DesignHuawei Mate 20 priceHuawei Mate 20 Pro priceHuawei Mate 20 X priceHuawei Mate 20 Porsche Design priceHuawei Mate 20RS Porsche Design price"
"The N. Chandrababu Naidu-led government had in January announced an annual financial assistance of ₹10,000 for women in self-help groups under the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas programme. (PTI)


All payments, barring the salaries of state government employees, have been put on hold to disburse money for welfare schemes,


Political analysts say Naidu may do well if he manages to pass on the benefits in time, given that KCR’s welfare schemes led to his huge victory last year


Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led Andhra Pradesh government is banking on welfare schemes for farmers, women self-help groups, unemployed youth, and pensioners, despite a cash crunch, to win the upcoming assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Through a handful of government programmes, for which funds were allocated before the announcement of the election schedule, the government is set to spend over ₹15,000 crore on its citizens."
"The character ends up hiring back the bodyguard he fired and being driven in a car after he narrowly escapes a group of taxi drivers angry about his crackdown on gypsy cabs


Relations with Outgoing leaderZelenskiy spent a huge portion of his campaign lambasting traditional politicians for alleged corruption, the topic of the viral video that put his TV character in office


At Friday’s debate in front of nearly 60,000 people, Zelenskiy called incumbent Poroshenko “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and accused him of abusing power for personal enrichment


Poroshenko tweeted that the Kremlin would be “celebrating” the election of a “new, inexperienced Ukrainian president,” but also called Zelenskiy later Sunday to concede defeat and offer his assistance


Likewise, Zelenskiy on Sunday refrained from attacking Poroshenko and said of the president’s offer to help, “if I really need to call him, I will


”In the fourth episode of Servant of the People, the teacher-turned-president must deal with a crestfallen predecessor who locks himself in his office, gets drunk and refuses to come out"
"Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it may have unintentionally uploaded email contacts of 1.5 million new users on the social media site since May 2016.


The contacts were not shared with anyone and the company is deleting them, Facebook told Reuters in a statement, adding that users whose contacts were imported will be notified."
"I suppose they were trained soldiers considering they were Thanos’ own army, so how come Black Widow and Hawkeye – people with no superpowers – were able to handle multiple Chitauri so easily?No backgrounderThere should have been more information for those who had not seen previous MCU movies


 I am a huge comic-book fan, and I had seen all the MCU films before, but not everyone was so invested in the MCU then"
"Earlier this week, Google said it is going to close Google in the coming months, seven years after it was launched as a social networking site of its own name brand."
"Critically-acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog believes “piracy” is the most “successful” forms of film distribution and he has given his “blessing” to those who watch his movies via torrents


According to Screen Daily, the 76-year-old filmmaker, known for classics such as Heart of Glass, Even Dwarfs Started Small, Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Rescue Dawn, was speaking at Switzerland’s film festival Visions in Nyon"
"Endgame’s critical reception is nearly flawless, with a 96 per cent score on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes


The Indian Express’ own Shalini Langer wrote, “Having laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years"
"And having done Satya and Aligarh together, we knew that the film that I would direct for him would have to be really special"
"Cybersecurity has become a critical business continuity issue. There truly are only two types of companies: those that know they have been hacked, and those that do not. The operational, financial and reputational costs of breaches are rising as well. In some cases, CEOs and board members have been forced to resign. Many boards, however, are just waking up to this risk. The following questions can provide a framework for corporate directors as they fulfil their fiduciary responsibilities.


It is critical to risk-rank data assets to identify which ones can make or break an organization. For instance, the clinical trials data of a pharmaceutical company, call data records of a telecom enterprise and patient care records of a hospital would fall in the high-risk category. How can such crown jewels be protected? The mainstream approach is to identify potential threat-actors and vulnerabilities, implement controls, and finally, thwart attacks by leveraging analytics-enabled threat-monitoring tools. Another approach—suggested by leading cybersecurity experts—is to isolate critical assets from the internet, minimize their digital footprint, and monitor them by using analogue devices and trusted human beings.


Influenced by technology companies’ effective marketing, business leaders spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about new-age threats and investing ever more in new security products that can help them stay ahead of tech-savvy hackers."
"Extreme Job released earlier this year and became the highest grossing film in Korean box office history earning 127 million dollars, over 14 times its budget


The movie revolves around a team of narcotics detectives who go undercover in a fried chicken joint to stake out an organised crime gang"
"While the camera performance can be named as run-of-the-mill, the upgraded chipset and looks mean you get the best of both worlds. The UI is one of the more bearable ones and has some really useful features as well.


You can go for the 6GB variant as well, but do you really want to spend ₹ 2,000 more for two extra gigabytes of RAM?


Redmi Note 7Zenfone max Pro M2Realme U1Redmi Note 7 india launchZenfone max Pro M2 india priceRealme U1 india priceRedmi Note 7 comparisonZenfone max Pro M2 comparisonRealme U1 comparison"
"The three smart wearables can be paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth, but none of them supports WiFi and relies on the smartphone's connection instead.


The Huawei Watch sports a dual-crown design with stainless steel and ceramic bezels and is treated with a DLC diamond carbon coating. At the front, it has a 1.39-inch circular AMOLED display with a resolution of 454x454. Huawei claims the device has two-day battery life but hasn't mentioned the capacity of it. It comes equipped with TruSeen 3.0 heart rate monitoring technology that tracks a user’s active and resting heart rate. It has sports modes such as hiking, trail run, outdoor walking, running, cycling, swimming and free training. It can also track sleep via its TruSleep 2.0 technology.


It supports GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO for accurate global positioning. It runs Huawei's LiteOS custom UI instead of Google's WearOS interface."
"Apple took to the stage earlier this week to announce a bunch of new service offerings. While it might be too early to tell whether these will work, and which services will come to India, here’s what the company is offering.


The Apple Card is an actual credit card that Apple is going to offer its customers soon. While the card will live on your phone in virtual form, you do have the option to get a physical Apple-designed credit card too."
"An earlier criticism elicited a response from Trump, wherein he called the actor “a very low IQ individual” on Twitter


In a previous interview, De Niro called the president a “racist”, “white supremacist” and drew comparisons between him and Hitler"
"When flipped, the keyboard turns of automatically so that you don’t make accidental presses while using the device. The device has a touchscreen display, so you can navigate the interface using your fingers. Of course, Windows 10 still needs work when it comes to touch friendliness, unlike Android or iOS, which are designed for touch inputs.


While the Envy x360 is a thing laptop, it’s just thick enough to accomodate full-sized USB ports. You get two regular USB 3.1 ports, along with a single USB Type-C 3.1 port, and a headphone jack. While this isn’t the perfect assortment of ports we would want, ultrabooks have been known to make much bigger compromises when it comes to ports.


The keyboard and touchpad can make or break an ultrabook when it comes to usefulness. Here, HP has done just about enough to satisfy any user.


The touchpad feels a tad small, though it responds to all Windows 10 gestures well and without hiccups. It’s also sufficiently sensitive and feels good to use.


Similarly, the keyboard has the essentials — like backlit and well spaced keys. However, the key presses lack feedback, which leads to an uneven typing experience at times. This means that while there’s no big learning curve for getting used to this keyboard, nitpickers will miss the clickety-clack of typing."
"They use these services to get a more fact-based assessment of a user’s fitness regime, so they can assign them a score and offers discounts on premium if they are found to be leading a healthier life.


Health and fitness apps also provide assistance and immediate support that may not be available to users, resulting in their increased popularity. A case in point is GOQii, which has slightly lower than 1 million users right, and is hoping to acquire 10 million users in the next two years. On its part, Docprime, which was launched in August 2018, is already handling over 120,000 free consultations in a month and has 25,000 doctors and 5,000 labs in 34 cities on board."
"On April 3, the Supreme Court refused to stay the Madras High Court order following which the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asked Google and Apple to block the app."
"The Mi 9 will come with a gradient back which reflects light in different patterns at different angles, resembling an aurora.  (Weibo/LeiJung)


Xiaomi Lei Jun on Thursday gave Mi fans the first look at the upcoming Mi 9 smartphone. The Mi 9 will be launched on Wednesday, 20 February—just a few days before the Mobile World Congress kicks off on 24 February. Xiaomi has made the gamble of launching its flagship smartphone on the very day Samsung will launch the Samsung Galaxy S10 as well as its flexible smartphone."
"She may not be a Mad Queen (yet), but we will be surprised if she does not lose her mind after the death of her dragon Rhaegal and best friend and advisor Missandei


 Their numbers have dwindled after the Battle of Winterfell, and Cersei Lannister and Euron Greyjoy have the advantage of being ensconced in a castle"
"Avengers star Scarlett Johansson says the much-anticipated standalone movie of her Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) character Black Widow will happen when the time is right


Johansson has been playing Black Widow aka Natalia Romanova since 2010’s Iron Man 2 and her latest outing as the character is in Avengers: Endgame"
"Recently, the platform launched the beta version of its in-app shopping feature called ""Checkout with Instagram"" starting with the US to allow users to buy products tagged in images or videos without having to leave the platform. (Reuters)


The photo-messaging app has kept a tight leash on content controls and options on its platform since its launch


Facebook-owned photo-messaging app Instagram is testing a seek-bar for shorter videos to let users drag the cursor to watch specific parts of the videos."
"""Most urban elites haven't heard of TikTok and those who have, tend to view it as a platform for trivial content. In reality, it hosts diverse content including a fair share of political speech,"" said Kailas Karthikeyan, a New Delhi-based technology analyst who has tracked TikTok for nine months.


TikTok's video-only interface makes it less elaborate and easier to use compared to platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, making it a bigger attraction in rural India, he added.


While Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party have not officially joined TikTok, videos tagged #narendramodi have received more than 30 million views and those about Congress chief Rahul Gandhi (#rahulgandhi) have got nearly 13 million hits. Total views for political videos is far higher.


Amit Malviya, the BJP's chief of information technology, said the party was tracking TikTok conversations and it was ""a brilliant medium for creative expression"". The party, however, has no plans as of now to officially join the platform, he said.


A Congress source said the party was exploring joining TikTok and assessing how it could be used to better reach out to people in rural areas in the run-up to the election.


Not all political videos on TikTok seek votes. Some videos show people waving the Congress flag on Indian streets. Another clip shows Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a stage, with a Hindi-language rustic voiceover of her saying she will marry the Indian leader."
"Chants like “annan notu akkang vote"" that roughly translates to take money from Anna (Kumarswamy) and vote for Akka (Sumalatha).


Karnataka chief minister Kumaraswamy has shed tears on stage, often citing the adverse impact on his health of the alleged witch hunt against his family.


Sumalatha has the backing of disgruntled Congress and JD(S) supporters as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that is looking for an entry into the Vokkaliga heartland, where it has limited presence.


The seat is also testing the coalition’s resolve to remain together as a defeat for Nikhil in all probability could see the JD(S) pull out of the alliance and government. Even a section of the local JD(S) leaders has rebelled against the party after they were overlooked in order to promote the family of their supremo. Irrespective of the results, the contest is likely to have a lasting effect on the political landscape of Mandya-- known as the sugar city of Karnataka--which has seen a really bitter battle."
"In closing, the journey to deliver value in this evolving digital landscape will not be easy. Businesses will increasingly place their bets on the ‘four commandments’ to drive true differentiation and impact, coupled with relentless focus on speed, scale, conviction and commitment to win.


Rajiv Gupta is a partner and director at BCG India and heads its Technology Advantage practice. Abhik Chatterjee is an associate director with BCG India and leads the Platinion practice; Amit Bharti is a project leader in BCG India."
"I won’t explain to them because they are intelligent people but what do I explain to those who are not smart enough? Few of my friends questioned me and my only answer to them was that I am an actor and since 30 years, I am only thinking, reading, breathing and living acting


 If you are judging me for the characters I play then I have also portrayed Ganesh Gaitonde, who was way more weird as a character"
"“It is brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India that the YSR Congress Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and BJP are conniving to target and tarnish the TDP,"" Naidu said.


Andhra Pradesh goes to polls (Lok Sabha and Assembly) along with neighbouring Telangana in a single phase on 11 April. The ruling TDP and YSR Congress are likely to be in a close contest in the state, which has 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats."
"With these services, does anything change for the creators who have been using the platform for their content so far?


Nothing changes. The main YouTube app continues to be the way it was. There is going to be a Premium tier to it, which changes the consumer experience. But there is no change in how we work with our partners and creators.


Definitely. I’m stoked about doing it in the music point of view (music-based originals). I know we’re very active in sourcing some great originals.


Absolutely. We have to make sure that it’s in harmony with a human touch as well as artificial intelligence. We have to be able to help delight the consumer by the unexpected joy of discovery and we can’t just be an echo chamber. This is why I said earlier that we’re just in the 2.0 version of music streaming."
"The Automated Guided Vehicle setup will be operated by Flipkart's existing staff who will be trained to handle them internally.


The AGV setup includes more than 100 self-guided bots which can automatically sort and assign packages to the pin codes of the customer"
The film’s first trailer was criticised on social media with people saying that Sonic’s appearance barely resembles the original version
"Mithali stumps all with her cricketing skillsThe Indian team captain Mithali Raj will decide to indulge in a fun game of cricket with some of the audience members


Indian cricket team’s quirky superstitionDuring the conversation, Kapil will ask the cricketers if they like to apply make-up before the match


 Further revealing their quirky superstitions, she will share that the entire team believes that if one member cuts her hair, there is a possibility that they will take more wickets"
"A Dog’s Way Home movie director: Charles Martin Smith
A Dog’s Way Home movie cast: Ashley Judd, Jonah Hauer-King, Alexandra Shipp, voice of Bryce Dallas Howard
A Dog’s Way Home movie rating: 0


5 starThrough a ridiculously convenient set of circumstances, a dog called Bella (Howard) finds herself taken in by Lucas (Hauer-King) and his mom (Judd)


 Through a more ridiculous turn of events, Bella is taken 400 miles away, and finds her way back home through an adventure that includes a CGI cougar, wolves, wildebeests, an avalanche, a road hit, and many, many, many, many kind humans"
"This year, Arjun will also be seen in Ashutosh Gowariker’s period drama Panipat alongside Kriti Sanon and Sanjay Dutt"
"It is still far off by quite a margin to a similarly specced 6GB/128GB variant of the OnePlus 6T, which is priced at ₹34,999.


—Up to ₹9,000 upgrade bonus on exchanging a previous Samsung Galaxy S device + ₹6,000 cashback on Galaxy S10+ (128 GB), S10+ (512 GB) and S10+ (1TB) variants"
"In the premium end of the smartphone market with models priced above ₹ 36,000 (USD 500), OnePlus climbed to the leadership position on the back of OnePlus 6, surpassing Samsung and Apple in the quarter ending October.


“With its dedicated community building activities and high decibel promotional activities on social media platforms, the vendor has been gradually scaling up in volumes. The newly launched iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max were unable to create much demand in the opening quarter due to its high pricing in the India market,"" Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Channel Research, IDC India, said.


In the overall smartphone market in India, which grew by 9.1% on a year-on-year basis in terms of the number of units shipped, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi grew to a new high by selling 11.7 million units on the back of its successful Redmi 5A and Redmi Note 5 Pro series and refreshed Redmi 6/A/Pro portfolio.


Xiaomi also made an aggressive entry in the mid-premium segment of US$300 to US$500 with its Poco series, targeting upgraders with the experience of a flagship at pocket-friendly price."
"IT managers are more likely to catch cyber criminals on their organization’s servers and networks than anywhere else, says the survey


NEW DELHI: Cybersecurity continues to be a major issue in India with 76% organizations hit by online attacks in the last year, as compared to 68% incidents across the globe, reveals a new global survey from security firm Sophos."
"Srikanth elaborates he had shifted his residence to Lake Area in Nungambakkam, but the voter ID, apparently, had the previous address


 “Despite linking my phone number and everything to Aadhaar, I wasn’t informed that my booth had changed"
"Apple confirmed a media report on Wednesday that it would require two-factor authentication - using a code sent to a phone as well as a password - to log into all developer accounts by the end of this month. (Reuters)


It is unclear how much revenue the pirate distributors are siphoning away from Apple and legitimate app makers  


SAN FRANCISCO: Software pirates have hijacked technology designed by Apple Inc to distribute hacked versions of Spotify, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go, Minecraft and other popular apps on iPhones, Reuters has found.


Illicit software distributors such as TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox have found ways to use digital certificates to get access to a program Apple introduced to let corporations distribute business apps to their employees without going through Apple's tightly controlled App Store.


Using so-called enterprise developer certificates, these pirate operations are providing modified versions of popular apps to consumers, enabling them to stream music without ads and to circumvent fees and rules in games, depriving Apple and legitimate app makers of revenue.


By doing so, the pirate app distributors are violating the rules of Apple's developer programs, which only allow apps to be distributed to the general public through the App Store. Downloading modified versions violates the terms of service of almost all major apps."
"The poster mentioned that popular singer Guru Randhawa, Neha Kakkar, Armaam Malik and Amaal Malik will also attend the event"
"Now while this looks like a small deal, everything that seemed set for OnePlus three days ago has to be redone again. “We were dealt a pretty bad hand. Our challenge was to find a way to make the most of a bad situation,"" Lau added.


The change in plans has also affected the guests who will be attending the launch event. OnePlus has acknowledged the fact and has promised to take care of flight tickets and hotel bookings.


“We will cover any costs you might incur to change your plans. If you need to pay to move your flight, we’ve got your back. Same goes for those of you who booked a hotel or made other arrangements. Our team will be getting in touch with all ticket owners individually to help you out,"" he said."
"The developments have dealt a blow to the India growth plans of Bytedance, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp and by private equity. Bytedance, one of the world's most valuable startups potentially worth around $75 billion, was considering a public listing in Hong Kong this year, sources told Reuters in August.


The ban has also worried the social media industry in India as it sees legal worries mounting if courts increasingly regulate content on their platforms.


In the filing made to India's Supreme Court on Saturday, Bytedance urged the court to quash the ban and direct the federal IT ministry to tell companies such as Google and Apple to make the app available again on their platforms.


Bytedance pegged financial losses at $500,000 each day, which it said includes destruction in the value of its investments and loss of commercial revenue. It added the ban would result in its reputation and goodwill taking a hit with both advertisers and investors."
"Reflecting investor sentiment in gold, holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, fell 0.16% to 745.52 tonnes on Thursday, its lowest since Oct. 12.


Silver was unchanged at $14.63 per ounce, holding close to a more than four-month low of $14.52 touched in the previous session.


Platinum was up 0.3% to $850.80 an ounce, having touched a one-month trough of $839 earlier in the session, while palladium edged 0.1 percent lower to $1,352.60 an ounce."
"It is among the best cars for a tech enthusiast. It is expensive for sure, but if you can afford it, the technology won't disappoint you


New Delhi: When it comes to infotainment in cars, there are few that can rival the BMW 7 series. One of the first things that you will get used to is the car’s gesture recognition technology. The BMW 730Ld can change music when you point two fingers at it, modulate volume as you twirl your finger in front of the display, and so on. It’s a really intuitive way to control various options while you drive."
"Knightley is known for movies like The Duchess, Never Let Me Go, Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, A Dangerous Method, and Anna Karenina


She has twice been nominated for Academy Awards — in 2005 for Best Actress for Pride & Prejudice and in 2015 for Best Supporting Actress for The Imitation Game"
"The film chronicled the story of an alcoholic divorcee who rides a train every day and idolises a couple as her train passes through their house


 It also starred Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, Édgar Ramírez and Lisa Kudrow


Excited about working on the yet-to-be-titled project, Parineeti Chopra said, “I want to do roles that audiences haven’t seen me in before and ones that require a lot of prep and homework, which is why The Girl On The Train really worked for me"
"The 2GB device with 6.1-inch LCD waterdrop screen, a 32GB ROM, a 4,000mAh battery, will be available for sale on online and offline stores


The OPPO A1K is built with MediaTek 6762 CPU, supporting up to 17 hours of daily usage. It has an 8MP rear camera and 5MP front camera"
"At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the rupee opened lower at 69.55 and fell further to touch the day's low of 69.69. It finally ended at 69.60 per dollar, down by 18 paise against its previous close.


""The strength in dollar index against basket of six currencies and delay of dollar inflow by Essar steel lead to weakness in the rupee,"" said V K Sharma, Head PCG and Capital Markets Strategy, HDFC Securities.


Forex and equity markets will remain shut on Wednesday on account of ""Mahavir Jayanti"" while most of the major financial markets are closed on Friday for the start of the Easter holidays."
"Apple had alleged that Qualcomm's patent practices were an illegal move to maintain a monopoly on the market for premium modem chips


Apple Inc and Qualcomm Inc on Tuesday decided to drop all ongoing litigations and settle their royalty dispute, reaching an agreement on global patent license and chipset supply.


The settlement also includes a payment from Apple to Qualcomm, whose size the two companies did not disclose.


The settlement followed two years of legal conflict between the two companies and came as a opening arguments took place at a trial in federal court in San Diego."
"Researchers at cyber security company Symantec were also able to identify the attack against Asus users, a Symantec spokeswoman said.


The attack, which was first reported by technology news website Motherboard, shows how hackers are able to leverage the size of technology companies and their suppliers to reach large numbers of victims."
"Ryan Reynolds believes making fun of his wife Blake Lively on social media is a sign of the “healthy relationship” that he shares with her


During his appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan show, the 42-year-old actor was asked whether he enjoys trolling Lively, with whom he share two daughters"
"Lively, 31, revealed her pregnancy when she appeared on the red carpet of New York City premiere of Pokemon Detective Pikachu with Reynolds


Ryan Reynolds and wife Blake Lively owned the red carpet at the New York premiere of Pokemon Detective Pikachu"
"That’s not where it ends though. You also have a night mode with enough chops to compete with the industry leading Google Pixel 3XL and several other neat tricks in the video department that will be unleashed with an upcoming software upgrade. These include a portrait mode, spot colour mode and advanced augmented reality—all in the video mode.


To keep this high-class optical system running, the smartphone is powered Huawei’s in-house Kirin 980 processor based on a 7nm chipset coupled with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.


Further you have a plethora of innovations, including reverse wireless charging and a Nano SD card slot, which only supports Huawei’s own memory cards.


The front of the smartphone sports a QHD+ 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 3120x1440, an in-display fingerprint scanner and a selfie camera hidden underneath the notch with a resolution of 25MP.


The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is priced at ₹ 69,990, which is still cheaper than most other flagships including the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, Apple iPhone XS and Google Pixel 3.


The older brother of the Mate 20 pro, the Huawei P20 Pro was the first smartphone in the world to boast a triple camera setup. Like the Mate 20 Pro, it has a 40MP primary clicker with a 27mm wide-angle lens, but everything apart from that is a bit different. The secondary camera has a monochrome depth sensor with a resolution of 20MP while the third camera has an 8MP sensor coupled with a telephoto 80mm lens capable of providing 3x optical zoom.


Powering the device is the previous flagship in-house Kirin 970 chipset based on a 10nm process. This is coupled with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. It runs EMUI 8.1 based on Android 8.1 Oreo and is backed by a 4,000mAh battery."
"Kareena Kapoor made her debut almost two decades ago with JP Dutta’s Refugee but unlike many who debuted during that time, she has managed to hold on to her stardom


 She is a fourth generation actor but it is after watching her sister Karisma Kapoor that Kareena decided to take the plunge"
"He said that Lava is the only brand to have complete end-to-end control on the product value chain within the country.


The domestic brand also became the top feature phone brand in the country in February, according to Cyber Media Research (CMR)."
"The Galaxy M10 comes with a 3,400mAh battery and ships with a regular 9W charger. It has a Micro USB port for charging and connectivity.


The Galaxy M20 comes with all three biometrics and unlocking options—screen unlocking (pattern and alphanumeric), fingerprint scanner and facial unlocking. The Galaxy M10 misses out on the fingerprint scanner and only has the regular screen unlock and facial recognition.


Both smartphones run Android Oreo 8.1 with the new Samsung Experience 9.5 UI running atop. There's no word on when Pie will come to the two devices."
"The OnePlus 6T allows the Chinese phonemaker to stay up to date with the latest trends and at par with its rivals.


The OnePlus 6T comes in three storage variants6GB/128GB priced at 37,999, 6GB/256GB priced at 41,999 and 8GB/256GB priced at 45,999


mint-india-wire OnePlus 6TOnePlus 6T price in IndiaOnePlus 6T price in IndiaOnePlus 6T reviewOnePlus 6T AmazonOnePlus 6T variantsOnePlus 6T specsOnePlus 6T vs OnePlus 6OnePlus 6T saleOnePlus 6T 128 GB"
"Manoj Desai, who owns three prime single screen theatres in the city – Maratha Mandir, Gaiety Galaxy and Gemini, said, “People will have the same experience of watching this film as they would in any multiplex


 We have an equal number of Hindi and English shows, as a lot of people prefer to come and watch movies at single screens because the ticket prices are not too high"
"New Delhi: In a bid to enhance its revenue from storage on the cloud in India, Google Inc. has launched a new cloud storage subscription service called Google One. The idea, according to the company’s tag line, is to “get more out of Google"" by providing expanded user storage across its products such as Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos.


The storage plans start from ₹ 130 per month for the 100GB plan, ₹ 210 for the 200GB plan, going up to ₹ 650 per month for the 2TB plan and ₹ 19,500 per month for the 30TB plan. Users can also share their Google One membership with up to 5 additional family members at no extra cost. Other benefits include one-tap access to experts for help across Google’s consumer products and services, and benefits such as Google Play credits, and preferred pricing on select hotels found in Google Search.


According to Google, all paid consumers of Google Drive storage plans will be upgraded to Google One in the next few months. According to Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst, founder and CEO, Greyhound Research, though “Google One is an attempt by Google to monetize its public cloud storage business that hasn’t seen the kind of uptick they expected...launching an entirely new product to achieve this does not make sense"". He cites the example of Apple Inc., which put iCloud (storage and backup) and the heart of its OS across all devices—this helps solve both revenue and recall demands."
"""They are open to rate hikes down the road and the market has not priced in the potential for rates to go up rather than down from here. I think that might be behind the market reaction,"" sad Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Schwab Centre for Financial Research in New York.


A dovish Fed and progress in trade negotiations have helped the S&P 500 rise about 18 % from its lows in December, when the market swooned on fears of an economic slowdown. The index is trading about 5 percent below the record closing high it hit in late September."
"This year's competition saw thousands of entries from more than 100 countries representing some innovative ideas in science and technology, Google said. (Reuters)


The global science competition inspires teenagers in the age group of 13-18 years to solve real-world problems with science, technology, engineering and maths"
Sajid has been away from Bollywood ever since multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him emerged in the wake of the #MeToo movement in India
"Samsung was one of the first to offer the thin bezel design and screens that curved, but the company has been reluctant to embrace new design elements like the notch and teardrop. It’s mid range phones like the Galaxy A9 are still saddled with bezels that are reminiscent of phones from 2017.


The phone has an eye catching dual tone finish, and is available in lemonade blue and bubblegum pink colours. It has a tall but narrow form-factor, which makes it easy to manage with one hand and at 183g, weighs as much as it.


The Galaxy A9 has a lot going for it, but the key among them is the eye catching variants. The many cameras and modes, dependable battery and impressive display make it worth consideration, though we wouldn’t recommend buying this over the OnePlus 6T if you want more value for your money."
"Realme says the uppercase “R” signifies the original aspiration of “Realme” in providing the youth with quality products they need and the lowercase “r” signifies young people’s true selves. (Realme says the uppercase “R” signifies the original aspiration of “Realme” in providing the youth with quality products they need and the lowercase “r” signifies young people’s true selves.)


The current Realme line-up comprising the Realme 1, Realme 2, Realme 2 Pro and Realme C1 will feature the old logo


Chinese smartphone maker Realme recently launched its upgraded logo in an attempt to provide a new visual experience and emotional connect with young consumers. The new “R"" logo in “Realme Yellow"" is designed by Eddie Opara, partner and chief designer at design consultancy Pentagram."
"Several Google users reported problems with accessing Gmail and other services in large parts of the world


San Francisco: Several Google users on Wednesday reported problems with accessing Gmail and other services in large parts of the world. The company said it was investigating the problem."
"Kanchana 3 stars Raghava Lawrence, Vedhika, Devadarshini, Sriman, Manobala, Kovai Sarala, Sathyaraj, Oviya, Soori, Kabir Duhan Singh and Yogi Babu among others"
"By making healthcare accessible to people on their phones and even their doorsteps, mobile app-based healthcare services such as Practo, GOQii and Zoctr are trying to address these issues. They figure among more than 60,000 such healthcare-related apps on Android and iOS. “These apps have helped users become more aware of the local doctors or the medical infrastructure in their area and the kind of ratings they have received from other users,"" says Vijay Raghavan, associate director, PwC India.


For instance, apps such as GOQii that focus primarily on preventive healthcare have doctors and coaches on board who advise people on how to stay healthy. GOQii has tied its services with its fitness bands. This has helped them win a loyal user base. “What happens in the healthcare category, is that most apps have millions of downloads but the number of active users is much lower. Because GOQii is an integrated system and people are paying for the fitness tracker and subscription services, they are more serious about the whole thing. As a result we have 70 to 80% usage of our platform,"" says Vishal Gondal, founder and CEO, GOQii Inc.


Apps like GOQii that work with wearables or the ones that support medically approved ECG readers provide the option where users can get a reading from the machines and transfer them on the app and keep regular track of their cardiovascular health, blood sugar level and other conditions. These apps are actually taking a big leap, says Ragahvan."
"“Qualcomm’s ongoing campaign of patent infringement claims is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the larger issues they face with investigations into their business practices in US federal court, and around the world,"" Josh Rosenstock, a spokesman for Apple, said in a statement. “While we are disappointed with the outcome, we thank the jury for their service in this case.'


The disputed patents pertain to technology for graphics processing and battery power conservation, which the San Diego-based company says improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of smartphones. The infringement verdict covers iPhone 7, 8, and X -- not the latest models. Qualcomm can now ask the judge for an order to halt further infringement of its patents by Apple. US courts have been unwilling to order outright sales bans and favor financial remedies.


“Today’s unanimous jury verdict is the latest victory in our worldwide patent litigation directed at holding Apple accountable for using our valuable technologies without paying for them,"" Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s general counsel, said in a statement. “The technologies invented by Qualcomm and others are what made it possible for Apple to enter the market and become so successful so quickly."""
"Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 packs a large 5,000mAh battery. Don't be fooled by its dated looks and lack of notch— the phone is a tested performer.


The Galaxy A10 is the second Samsung smartphone to make it to this list. A part of the revamped Galaxy A series, Galaxy A10 comes with a refreshed design and upgraded specifications. The smartphone is similar to the Galaxy M10 with a 6.2-inch HD+ display with Infinity-V cutout. The V-shaped notch hosts a 5MP selfie camera. At the back, it has a single 13-megapixel rear camera. Under the hood, it rocks the Exynos 7884 processor and packs 2GB of RAM with 32GB of in-built storage. The smartphone is backed by a 3,400mAh battery and runs OneUI with Android Pie out-of-the-box."
"Volumes grew 5% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the March quarter to 7.5 million tonnes, lower than industry growth"
"Directed by N Muthiah, Devarattam stars Gautham Karthik, Manjima Mohan, Soori, Akalya Venkatesan, Bose Venkat, Vinodhini Vaidyanathan, FEFSI Vijayan and Vela Ramamoorthy


Latest movies and TV shows including Kalank, Avengers: Endgame and the final season of Game of Thrones have also made its way to the illegal website"
"The fiscal math of it has been worked out, he claims, but it’s unclear if India can afford the Nyay scheme for minimum income guarantee. With its annual cost placed at ₹3.6 trillion, even if only a single member of every poor family gets the payout, government spending elsewhere would need to be slashed drastically."
"David Heenan, a visiting professor at Georgetown University who has studied leadership, has reached a similar conclusion


“The most productive relationships … are those of a leader and a chief ally,” he wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2013


 “They may seem like buddies, even peers — but they remain committed to the principle of one-voice or single-command


”Assuming they all survive the zombie apocalypse, could John and Dany govern as equals, at least in public? If so, who would wield the real power, and who would be “chief ally”?Daenerys Targaryen seems more interested in ruling alone: “All my life, I’ve known one goal: The Iron Throne,” she told Sansa Stark


And we know that there’s no confusion about the White Walker chain of command: There’s one Night King whose rule reigns supreme"
"“All my work was informed by my years in Catholic school,” Springsteen said to the intimate crowd of Emmy voters and press at the start


”Scorsese responded that even his upcoming Netflix film, The Irishman, deals with the same thing, “Trust, loyalty, betrayal and faith


”The two said they both find inspiration in the stories of Flannery O’Connor (Scorsese recommended her letters to The Boss) and Springsteen said he’s always found that, “the darkness is more interesting than the light


” He connected it to other artists he finds interesting, from Hank William, to Bob Dylan and Robert De Niro, who he said has a “two-hour face"
"Indian Oil and other OMCs raised as much as $1.6 billion from overseas sources in January through the approval route. (Bloomberg)


In January, Indian companies raised $5.40 billion from abroad, $2.27 billion of which came via external commercial borrowings (ECBs)"
"On cheaper Android devices, AES runs very slow, resulting in longer app-launch time, slowing of the device and poor user experience.


Low budget Android smartphones do not come with the processing power that is needed to run Advanced Encryption Standard, a standard storage encryption Android uses


Google has created a special encryption method for cheaper entry-level smartphones called Adiantum which would be an optional part of Android distributions going forward."
"""With stock Android becoming the preference of users, the OEMs are able to reduce the upgrade turnaround time for OS as it requires minimal integration from their end after Google releases one,"" said Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst, techARC.


Nearly 80% of the launches with latest OS version had Android 8.1 (Oreo) pre-loaded when shipped for sale."
"After exchanging rings and kisses, the bride and groom broke into dance and celebrated the new beginning of their lives"
"The Redmi Y3 starts at ₹9,999 for the base model with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage and goes up to ₹11,999 for its 4GB RAM/64GB storage variant


Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi's new budget smartphone, the Redmi Y3, will go on sale today at 12 noon. The Redmi Y3 starts at ₹9,999 for the base model with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage and goes up to ₹11,999 for its 4GB RAM/64GB storage variant."
"Spotify said last month it had more than 1 million unique users in India across its free and premium categories within a week of its launch. The company offers a free version supported by ads and a premium ad-free variant that charges users ₹119 ($1.68) per month.


Spotify declined to comment, while Saregama did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment."
"Also read | Rajinikanth, Nayanthara shoot for Darbar in MumbaiDarbar is Rajini’s 167th film and will reportedly release around Pongal next year"
"""I want to tell the Congress workers and leaders that they must support the JD(S) candidates wherever they are contesting and vice versa,"" Gandhi said in the outskirts of Bengaluru.


The Congress is trying hard to keep its coalition intact in Karnataka to help it stitch up similar alliances with other regional parties across the country to help it take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).


But its intent to lead a consolidated opposition has suffered a setback as several regional parties have backed off to boost its respective individual prospects and not that of the national party that is trying hard to recover from its 2014 debacle where it was reduced to double digits after a decade in power."
"Besides the tournament, ESL One Mumbai 2019 will feature an array of exciting activities including ESL One's famous Dota 2 cosplay competition and opportunities to interact with teams and pro players"
"Bikaner: Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures during an election rally for the Lok Sabha polls, in Bikaner, Rajasthan. (PTI )


The ruling BJP has made national security, surgical strikes and air strikes in Balakot an election issue and has claimed that it can protect the country from acts of terrorism


Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday refuted the Congress’ claims that six surgical strikes were carried out to strike terror hideouts during the tenure of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government."
"The Supplier Responsibility Report is a summation of the various programs Apple runs in its facilities worldwide. That includes programs aimed towards being more environment friendly, educating employees and more.


In India, the company partnered with the St. John’s Medical College in Bangalore about two years ago. According to the company, it has seen 60% increase in knowledge of nutrition among its employees in the supply chain in India, and 54% increase in the knowledge of diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol. There has also been an 85% increase in the knowledge of early cancer detection."
"“The rupee is falling and as a brand we actually work on low margins. We may have to upgrade the pricing just to make sure that we continue to give you the best technology in our upcoming offerings. We are trying to figure out a solution post-Diwali,"" he said.


The rupee rates are falling and as a brand we actually work on low margins. It indicates that we might have to upgrade the pricing, just to make sure that we continue to give you the best technology in our upcoming offerings. We are trying to figure out a solution post Diwali.


The rupee rates are falling and as a brand we actually work on low margins. It indicates that we might have to upgrade the pricing, just to make sure that we continue to give you the best technology in our upcoming offerings. We are trying to figure out a solution post Diwali."
"The Mi A2 was launched last summer and is the Chinese smartphone maker’s second Android One handset. It comes with marginal improvements over the Mi A1, which was launched in 2017, but skips the 3.5mm headphone jack.


The Mi A2 features a 5.99-inch full HD+ display with a resolution of 2160x1080. Powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC coupled with Adreno 512 GPU. The Mi A2 comes in two RAM variants of 4GB and 6GB, with internal storage options of 64GB and 128GB.


For photos, the Mi A2 features a dual camera set-up on the back comprising a 12MP Sony IMX 486 sensor and a 20MP Sony IMX 376 sensor. On the front, it has a 20MP selfie camera with flash, capable of delivering a DSLR-like depth-of-field effect."
"GoPro one of the leading action camera makers, has recently updated its product line-up with the new Hero 7 Black.


New Delhi: Action cameras are gaining a lot of traction. Their compact form-factor and flexible design make them very handy during treks, road trips, skiing, paragliding or scuba diving. GoPro one of the leading action camera makers, has recently updated its product line-up with the new Hero 7 Black."
"Prof. Sethu Vijayakumar from the University of Edinburgh, also co-director of the Alan Turing Institute's of Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme, says that while we have made some big advancements in AI, we're still far away from what science fiction projects


mint-india-wire Artificial Intelligencescience fictionroboticsrobotsProf Sethu VijayakumarUniversity of Edinburghtechnology


Mumbai: Sci-fi movies typically project robots, mostly humanoids, in a scary light--ones that attempt to overpower the human race. In an interview, Prof. Sethu Vijayakumar from the University of Edinburgh, also co-director of the Alan Turing Institute’s of Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme, says that while we have made some big advancements in AI, we’re still far away from what science fiction projects. Edited excerpts:


We can do fairly advanced things in terms of decision making and inference—as in taking data, using some clever machine learning (ML) algorithms and doing inference on data to extract information that is not obviously visible to the human eye. But when it goes from that to changing the state of the world—means using robots to move things around, navigate in a cluttered environment and work with noisy sensors—we’re still quite far away from a robustness perspective. We do a lot of things as proof of concepts in laboratories, but moving that from labs to complicated environments is still a big challenge."
"Samsung earlier announced that it would launch at least one phone every month from March to June this year.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Representatives of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Twitter, and TikTok attended the meeting chaired by chief election commissioner Sunil Arora."
"Former finance minister P. Chidambaram said that the ruling BJP was not ready to discuss the real issues but was instead making hyper nationalism an election issue.


“Let me say with humility that a wise and competent government by the Congress will be able to implement this. There is enough capacity in the economy to attempt ambitious programmes,"" said Chidambaram. In the past, too, it was asked where resources for schemes like food security, farm loan waiver and the rural employment guarantee scheme will come from, he said. “But money did come,"" said the former finance minister, adding that the goals set out in the Congress manifesto were “achievable"".


Jaitley also asked how the Congress would raise resources for its minimum income guarantee scheme, NYAY. “The promises of the Congress cannot be believed. Former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had indulged in fiscal mismanagement and the country had faced a debt trap. India was on the verge of insolvency when Mammohan Singh became Prime Minister. The Congress now says NYAY will be funded by the Union government and state governments,"" he said."
"PiP allows a viewer to watch the video outside the YouTube app in a miniature hovering player. Similar functionality is present on WhatsApp as well, and it lets users view videos in a hovering video player within the app without actually opening YouTube. WhatsApp is currently working on making the functionality compatible outside the app and allowing users to access the PiP mode in other apps as well.


According to Google's support page, non-paying users in the US are being able to benefit from PiP playback with advertisements."
"The smartphone will sport two cameras at the back and a lonely one at the front. It will be available in a lot of colour options though, including black, white, blue, red, yellow, pink, green, purple, pink, gold, silver and gray."
"That’s one of the reasons asset managers such as DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Pvt. and HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. favor the front-end of the yield curve. At the same time, escalating concern about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to sell almost $100 billion of debt is damping the appeal of longer maturities.


“The RBI rate cut and expectations of a further reduction will support the short end,"" said Puneet Pal, deputy head of fixed income at DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Pvt. in Mumbai, who favors debt due in four years or less. Meanwhile, the “demand-supply dynamics are likely to deteriorate going ahead, negating a big move down in long-term yields.""


The odds for more rate cuts is rising as inflation slows, with Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das pointing to the CPI to justify a surprise 25 basis-point reduction in the policy rate last week. Consumer-price growth fell to 2.05 percent in January, well below the RBI’s medium-term target of 4 percent."
"The payment from Qualcomm to Apple - part of a 2011 deal between Apple and Qualcomm - was meant to ease the technical costs of swapping out the iPhone’s then-current Infineon chip with Qualcomm’s, CEO Steve Mollenkopf testified at a trial with the US Federal Trade Commission.


Under the 2011 deal, Qualcomm was named Apple’s sole supplier of modem chips, which help mobile phones connect to wireless data networks, in exchange for which Qualcomm agreed to give Apple a rebate - the exact nature of which has not been disclosed. Apple could choose another supplier but it would lose the rebate, effectively increasing the cost of its chips.


Antitrust regulators have argued the deal with Apple was part of a pattern of anticompetitive conduct by Qualcomm to preserve its dominance in modem chips and exclude players like Intel."
"Nil Battey Sannata, featuring Swara Bhasker, is the story about a single mother and her dreams for her daughter


Also starring Ratna Pathak Shah and Pankaj Tripathi, the film won critical acclaim and received appreciation from international film festivals


Ashwiny’s next release was Bareilly Ki Barfi, a small-town love story starring Kriti Sanon, Rajkummar Rao and Ayushmann Khurrana"
"He wrote, “#Kalank has a fall on Day 2… A decline was on the cards, but the drop is much higher than expected… Will be interesting to see how it fares on Day 3 [#GoodFriday]… Wed 21


 The whole feels like a giant set, stately and ponderous and minus impact; the characters all costumed and perfumed and largely life-less, sparking only in bits and pieces"
"“This Lok Sabha election will bring a grand change and find a new prime minister of the country. The grand alliance will give a new prime minister to the country,"" Yadav said. “This election is to protect the people from communal politics and end hatred. The BJP is trying to divide brothers just like the British used to do.""


Uttar Pradesh is crucial for political parties as it sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha. The ruling BJP-led coalition won 73 seats in the state in the 2014 general elections, and again stamped its political dominance in the 2017 assembly elections by winning a three-fourth majority. This will, however, be the first time that BJP will face the combined force of three regional heavyweights in statewide elections. BJP, however, lost bypolls in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur and Phulpur, two of its bastions, in 2018 to the regional alliance.


The western region of the state goes to the polls on 11 April in the first phase of general elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls, BJP had won most of the seats from the region. The dominance of BJP in the state prompted the three parties to contest the elections jointly.


The three leaders said that though the BJP had promised jobs for the youth, better prices to farmers and safety for women, it failed to deliver on them. Despite that, both BJP and Congress were again trying to misguide the poor by promising to end poverty."
"Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Endgame brings face to face the avengers, who want to do one right by correcting their wrongs, and Thanos, who wants to achieve one right by doing everything wrong


 In fact, a verbal exchange between Captain American (Chris Evans) and Thanos (Josh Brolin) is a moment the viewers will remember for years to come"
"All four smartphones cater to a different target audience, even though three of them are from the same parent company


mint-india-wire Realme U1Redmi Note 6 Prorealme U1 comparisonOppo A7Vivo Y95Realme mobilesOppoVivoXiaomiRedmiAmazonFlipkart


The Realme U1 was launched on Wednesday in India. While the phone boasts of MediaTek’s flagship Helio P70 processor, it is also priced in the same category as the Redmi Note 6 Pro. However, Vivo and Oppo also launched their newest sub ₹ 15,000 smartphones earlier this week. This makes up for an exciting (and inevitable) comparison. Here’s how the four smartphones stand against each other.


All phones except the Note 6 Pro have glossy rear panels. The Redmi Note 6 Pro features an all-Aluminium body. The main difference between the glossy backs of the Realme U1, Oppo A7 and Vivo Y95 lies in colour schemes and the optical trickery—the material is the same i.e. polycarbonate resin.


Realme U1 goes for a mirror finish, while the Oppo A7 goes for vertical grooves that reflect light in different directions. The Vivo Y95 has a dual-tone gradient with metallic finish that give a starry appearance. Polycarbonate is more durable than glass as plastic is more shatter resistant. The Redmi Note 6 Pro looks a bit conservative in its design language, as the all-Aluminium look is starting to look dated these days."
"Posting a photo featuring herself, Nick Jonas, Katy Perry, Lena Waithe, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez, she wrote, “From walking the prestigious carpet for the first time, to meeting my husband and many friends for life… Nick and I are honored to be on the Benefit Committee for this year’s Met Gala"
"Without his slit-eyed throwback to good old-fashioned villainy, Setters would have been very dull indeed, especially when Shivdasani does nothing but flail in his pursuit of the bad guys


Setters lays all its cards on the table in the first act itself: the follow-up is over-long and tedious"
"Xiaomi India head Raghu Reddy went on to explain that manufacturing locally in India helped in this situation as supply chain efficiencies allowed passing on the benefit to consumers. However, a large part of the components is paid for in dollars as these are bought from suppliers from locations like Japan, Taiwan and the US. That is why when the dollar continues to strengthen, costs go up.


The festive season might well be the best time to buy smartphones for customers. Xiaomi’s Redmi 6 Pro and Realme 2 are on sale on Amazon at discounted rates.


mint-india-wire XiaomiRealmerealme price hikeXiaomi price hikesmartphone diwali saleamazonflipkartamazon diwali saleflipkart diwali sale"
"I am so flawed,” shared Shrenu Parikh, while talking about her upcoming show Ek Bhram – Sarvagun Sampanna


 Though she will come across as a perfect daughter-in-law, she will have ulterior motives to destroy the family"
"To streamline reporting and billing, businesses will be able to maintain records of how many ""Vouchers"" were redeemed or used within a dedicated dashboard


New Delhi: Global ride-sharing major Uber on Wednesday launched ""Uber Vouchers"" for businesses globally including in India."
"Satyajit Ray was a legendary filmmaker who not just influenced directors and actors in India, but artistes across the world


 On Ray’s 98th birth anniversary, Sahapedia looks at the Bengali filmmaker’s relationship with two influential women —Indira Gandhi and Marie Seton—who recognised and supported his genius


As India sought to rebuild itself post Independence, its filmmakers found patronage from a rather unusual and enthusiastic quarter—film connoisseurs and cinephiles such as Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi—who helped them reach the global arena


 The iconic Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who placed India on the global film map firmly with his landmark debut movie Pather Panchali (1955), was a product of such patronage


 Ray’s early supporters were two influential women—Indira Gandhi, the first female prime minister of India, and Marie Seton, a family friend of the Nehrus and a British film consultant, who had been invited to India in the 1950s to assist the government with the making and promotion of films after penning a biography of the Russian director Sergei Eisenstein


 In 1952, she brought one of her family friends, Indo-French director Jahangir Bhownagary to India to launch the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) under the Films Division


Indira Gandhi was excited about the release of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali in 1955 and its compassionate portrayal of countryside poverty in India"
"“The film flags, just for a little while, post interval and things become a tad heavy-handed and dull"
"“We were just trying to get it to work,"" recalled Cerf, who is now Google’s chief internet evangelist. “But now that it’s in the hands of the general public, there are people who ... want it to work in a way that obviously does harm, or benefits themselves, or disrupts the political system. So we are going to have to deal with that.""


Contrary to futuristic fears of “super-intelligent"" robots taking control, the real dangers of our tech era have crept in more prosaically — often in the form of tech innovations we welcomed for making life more convenient .


Part of experts’ concern about the leap into connecting every home device to the internet and letting computers do our work is that the technology is still buggy and influenced by human errors and prejudices. Uber and Tesla were investigated for fatal self-driving car crashes in March, IBM came under scrutiny for working with New York City police to build a facial recognition system that can detect ethnicity, and Amazon took heat for supplying its own flawed facial recognition service to law enforcement agencies.


In some cases, opposition to the tech industry’s rush to apply its newest innovations to questionable commercial uses has come from its own employees. Google workers helped scuttle the company’s Pentagon drone contract, and workers at Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce sought to cancel their companies’ contracts to supply tech services to immigration authorities.


“It became obvious to a lot of people that the rhetoric of doing good and benefiting society and ‘Don’t be evil’ was not what these companies were actually living up to,"" said Whittaker, who is also a research scientist at Google who founded its Open Research group.


At the same time, even some titans of technology have been sounding alarms. Prominent engineers and designers have increasingly spoken out about shielding children from the habit-forming tech products they helped create.


And then there’s Microsoft President Brad Smith, who in December called for regulating facial recognition technology so that the “year 2024 doesn’t look like a page"" from George Orwell’s “1984."""
"The slider module holds four cameras—two front facing cameras with a 24MP+2MP configuration while the rear has wide-angle and telephone modules with a 12MP+24MP configuration.


The Mi Mix 3 starts at 3,299 Yuan (about ₹ 39,000) for the 6GB/128GB variant. The 8GB/256GB variant is priced at 3,999 yuan (about ₹ 42,000) while 5G enabled “Forbidden City Palace Museum"" edition with 10GB RAM and 256GB storage will sell for 4,999 yuan (about ₹ 53,000). It will go on sale from 1 November in China."
"Brent crude oil futures were up 10 cents at $67.64 per barrel, also close to this year's peak of $68.14 reached late last week


SINGAPORE: Oil prices were near 2019 highs on Tuesday, supported by supply cuts led by producer club OPEC.


U.S. sanctions against oil producers Iran and Venezuela are also boosting prices, although traders said the market may be capped by rising U.S. output.


U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were at $59.10 per barrel at 0314 GMT, virtually unchanged from their last settlement and close to the 2019 high of $59.23 reached the previous day."
"In Zuckerberg’s list of things Facebook accomplished in 2018, some remain undone, or already widely critiqued. For example, he writes that Facebook automatically takes down 99% of terrorist content before anyone reports it, without saying that the statistic only refers to content from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. He also points to a “clear history"" tool the company started building. Facebook announced the tool in May, but it will still be many months before it rolls out to users.


FacebookMark ZuckerbergFacebook CEO Zuckerbergprivacy issuesfake newsmisinformationpersonal dataelection interferenceharmful speech"
"“The more time and effort a user has spent playing the game, learning how to develop their character, they have a progress bar that shows how they’re levelling up. And when that level up happens, they get a little bit of drama or their character changes,"" he explained.


Behavioural sciences are very important when designing user experiences and trying to engage customers.


According to McCann, the ability to empathize and collaborate with your colleagues, the ability to understand your customer well enough that you can picture her."
"“Life has just kept us on opposite sides of the globe unfortunately and so we have to walk solo paths it seems


The couple seems have to buckled under the pressure of a long distance relationship and their hectic work schedules"
"Priyanka shared a photo from the fun night and wrote, “Making home made ice cream! Thank you to the hostess with the mostest"
"The US-based developer, Pierre Valade, is the former CEO of Sunrise Calendar, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2015.


To ensure that Jumbo does not collect, save or breach their data, the app and its functionalities have been developed phone-based.


""We never collect, store or process data you manage through Jumbo. In fact, we don't even know who you are,"" Pierre said."
"But the new button solves the issue. It lets you call contacts of your choice from a group. All you have to do now is tap on the add participant button in a group (right next to the hamburger button). Then you’re greeted with the list of participants that you can start a call with. The maximum number of participants is still restricted to four.


If you wish to place a group call with a bunch of friends that are not in a single group, you might have to resort to the previous method of adding participants after you’ve placed a call."
"The impact will vary. Rising oil prices will hurt household income and spending and it could accelerate inflation. As the world’s biggest importer of oil, China is vulnerable, and many countries in Europe also rely on imported energy. Seasonal effects will also impact. With the Northern Hemisphere summer approaching, consumers can switch energy sources and scale back usage. A slowing world economy will also hurt demand and by extension keep a lid on prices.


For a sustained hit to growth, economists say oil would need to hold above $100. It also depends on dollar strength or weakness, given crude is priced in greenbacks. Analysis by Oxford Economics found that Brent at $100 per barrel by the end of 2019 means the level of global gross domestic product would be 0.6 percent lower than currently projected by end-2020, with inflation on average 0.7 percentage points higher.


“We see increased risks of significantly higher oil prices,"" Oxford economists John Payne and Gabriel Sterne wrote in a note. “In the short-run, it is likely the supply impact will be offset by higher production elsewhere, but the market is tightening and all it would take is one more shock to supply and oil could reach $100.""


An upending of global oil trade around the Iran-Trump spat could continue to have a sizable impact on financial markets, as the affected supply is as much as 800,000 barrels a day. Uncertainties around availability have already whipsawed oil markets. And the political sensitivities of these developments have other markets bracing for volatility."
"Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in his 2019-20 budget, introduced a scheme to double the income of people of Wayanad who have been reeling under an agrarian crisis. The scheme includes a project to sell coffee powder of Wayanad under ‘Malabar’ brand in a carbon neutral manner.


“Wayanad is going to prove that a huge leap may be made in the income of people by protecting environment and raising defence against climate change, and this experience will be a model for the whole country,"" finance minister of Kerala, Thomas Issac said in his budget speech on 31 January.


Harilal blamed the free trade agreements signed by India such as with Sri Lanka for the price slump in rubber and coffee.“The farmers of Wayanad do not need doles (like NYAY). They are seeking remunerative prices for the plantation crops. Rahul Gandhi needs to convince them how he will change the policies to ensure that,"" he added."
"According to research firm eMarketer, Amazon's Echo is expected to capture 63.3 % of smart speaker users in 2019, while Google Home will account for 31%."
"Both the films have been released on TTT’s YouTube channel and the streaming platform Voot under the umbrella Shortcuts


“This association with the amazing team at Viacom18 Studios marks the beginning of TTT’s foray into becoming a formidable storytelling studio in the country


 Even as we continue to produce some of India’s most compelling short films, 2019 is also our year to incubate long format web shows"
"Hoult, who plays Beast/ Hank McCoy in the films, said while he is uncertain about how the series will branch ahead of Fox Studios’ merger with Disney, he would like to be a part of these films


 That character’s grown as I’ve grown, and I feel like when I grow and get older and discover new things in life I can put more into the character"
"I am trying to take a moment for myself, but everything that’s happening is just making it harder for me


 You may not know this about me, but I am strong, and stand up for what I want! Your love and dedication is amazing, but what I need right now is a little bit of privacy to deal with all the hard things that life is throwing my way


She opened up to fans in January on Instagram about her dad’s health, saying she was taking an indefinite hiatus ahead of her planned Domination residency in Las Vegas, which was set to kick off in February, because her father had “almost died”"
"When contacted, TRS leaders did not want to be quoted or comment, but only said that their party is in talks with a few more Congress MLAs, who might switch sides in the coming days.


Political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy said that chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is essentially trying to establish his authority by weakening the main opposition in the state . “The Congress for some reason has not been able to find its rhythm. In fact, it took a few months after its loss in the assembly elections last year to start preparing for the Lok Sabha polls,"" he added."
"The CBFC had granted a ‘U’ certificate to the film on 10 April and had asked the director, Omang Kumar, to make a few minor changes. The film was scheduled to be released on 11 April but could not be released on the account of the ban."
"”Produced by Hiroo Johar, Karan Johar and Apoorva Mehta under the banner of Dharma Productions, Student of the Year 2 is scheduled to release on May 10, 2019"
"Rebel BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, met Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday and will formally join the party on April 6.


""BJP MP Shatrughan Sinhaji ... will formally join Congress on April 6,"" Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said in a tweet."
"On the face of it, this AR startup isn’t doing anything new. Many companies have worked on AR platforms that measure the human body to help e-commerce brands find the right fit for clothes. However, Arup Chakraborty, founder and CEO, claims Mirrorsize’s technology is more advanced than others. He says his technology can get a person’s measurement with an accuracy of one centimetre. A B2B platform, Mirrorsize uses the camera(s) on smartphones to get these measurements. The company has various solutions, tailored to a merchant’s requirements. GetMeasured is a solution for companies who make clothes according to the customer’s measurements. On the other hand, Size2Fit is a solution for those who sell ready-made garments.


The company also plans to launch a solution called Draping. This will allow clothes to be virtually sewn for a customer, meaning users will actually see themselves wearing the clothes through AR technology. Just over two years in the making, Mirrorsize was formed by Chakraborty, alongside two professors from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi—Subhasis Banerjee and Sudipto Mukherjee."
"Microsoft on Thursday said that its Windows 10 operating system (OS) is now running on more than 800 million active devices worldwide, one step closer to its goal of 1 billion Windows 10 users.


""Thank you to all our customers and partners for helping us achieve 800 million Windows 10 devices and the highest customer satisfaction in the history of Windows,"" Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Modern Life and Devices Group tweeted."
"Also Read | Bharat trailer: Salman Khan promises a dhamakedar EidSalman will be seen playing a 20 something young boy working in a circus to a miner, a naval officer and finally an old man


Bharat makers are overwhelmed by response to trailerWatch Bharat trailerSalman Khan replies to Shah Rukh Khan's reaction on Bharat trailerShah Rukh Khan had praised the trailer of Salman Khan's film Bharat


Also read | Bharat movie trailer: Salman Khan promises a dhamakedar Eid'Bharat is a blockbuster'RJ Alok took to Twitter and wrote, ""Just watched #BharatTrailer It's MEGA BLOCKBUSTER"
"Cricket portal ESPN Cricinfo plans to use an artificial intelligence (AI)-based metric system called Superstats to provide new insights on players, performances and matches that were not available earlier.


Developed by IIT Madras researchers and an IIT-Madras incubator company Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd, Superstats uses algorithms that have been trained on 10 years of cricket-related data on ESPN Cricinfo, according to a press statement issued on Wednesday."
"Absolutely. BJP won 71 of the 80 seats in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. It then lost three seats in the bypolls held from March to May last year. Power supply has improved. The attendance record of teachers in government schools and colleges is also better. However, social discord has risen. Unemployment remains high. The central and the state governments have taken steps to mitigate rural distress, even as arrears owed by mills to sugarcane farmers remain high. Free cooking gas cylinders and the Swachh Bharat Mission have alleviated the misery of women, but the damage left by demonetization still hurts many.


The state sends the highest number of members of Parliament to the Lok Sabha. As many as 10 of the 15 Prime Ministers, including Narendra Modi, have fought from a seat in the state."
"Also Read | NGK trailer-audio launch: HighlightsProducer SR Prabhu of Dream Warrier Pictures assured there would be a grand NGK event for Suriya fans, hinting at the success celebration of the film"
"The recently launched Rosso Red edition of the POCO F1 will be up for grabs during the Diwali with Mi sale at its regular price tag of ₹ 20,999. The POCO F1 features a 6.2-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2246x1080. Powering the device is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC coupled with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.


Xiaomi’s best-seller, the Redmi Note 5 Pro will get a price cut of ₹ 2,000 for both its variants. This means the 4GB/64GB model will sell for ₹ 12,847 and the 6GB/64GB variant will sell for ₹ 14,999. Redmi Note 5 Pro features a 5.99-inch full-HD display with a resolution of 2160x1080. It is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC coupled with a choice between 4GB and 6GB RAM memory and 64GB internal storage that can be expanded up to 256GB via MicroSD card.


The Mi A2 will available at a price tag of ₹ 14,999 during the sale. Mi A2 features a 5.99-inch full HD+ display and is powered by a Snapdragon 660 SoC."
"We can expect Realme’s new “R"" logo to feature on the upcoming smartphones that will launch across Southeast Asian markets, including India, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, as well as the Middle East and North Africa.


Realme’s founder and CEO Sky Li said, “As a global, youth-facing smartphone brand, Realme is continuing to introduce new products that feature stylish design and a powerful performance."""
"Eva Mendes says falling in love with partner Ryan Gosling changed her perspective towards having kids


In an interview with Women’s Health magazine, Mendes said she had no plans to experience motherhood before the couple started dating"
"Headphones Gaming can be a noisy affair. Headphones with noise isolation can come in handy. If you like to play for long hours, go for headphones that are not very heavy, come with soft padding and have large ear cups. Gamers also need to chat with other gamers, particularly in multiplayer games. For them, a headphone with microphone is essential. So look for products that use some sort of surround sound technology like Dolby Audio.


mint-india-wire gaming accessoriesgamesgaming mouseMonitorsGame controllersKeyboardsHeadphonespubgxbox"
"The kingdom subsequently bolstered output to record levels, flooding the market and sending prices crashing below $50 a barrel. The move was strongly influenced by US promises to choke off Iranian shipments using sanctions, a pledge the Trump administration reneged on at the last minute.


This time, the Saudis are probably holding off on any action while they await a US decision early next month on how to proceed with sanctions on Iran’s exports, Tchilinguirian said.


Regardless of Trump’s decision on Iran, with inventories set to shrink and supply losses looming elsewhere, the Saudis could face the same boom-and-bust outcome seen last year.


“OPEC has been very good lately at getting the market moving in the direction it wants, but less good at steering the market once it nears the destination,"" said Brower. “It’s never really understood when to call time on a rally for its own good.""


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed"
"Beyond the price and technology, the service will live or die based on its content -- and that’s where Disney made a big statement. Disney+ will feature an arsenal of kid-friendly programming, including 13 classic animated movies, 21 Pixar features, original series, and material from its Marvel and Star Wars franchises.


“We are confident this is a product people are going to sign up in droves to have,"" chief executive officer (CEO) Bob Iger said in a Bloomberg Television interview.


Disney+ will begin rolling out to the US, western Europe and Asia in the first fiscal quarter, near the end of the calendar year. It will then arrive in eastern Europe and Latin America a year later.


Disney plans to spend $1 billion on streaming programming in the next year, and it doesn’t expect to make a profit until fiscal 2024, when the platform could have 60 million to 90 million customers. Two-thirds of those subscribers will be overseas, the company predicted."
"The India-first smartphones come with features like Infinity-V display and massive battery power and 3x faster charging technology.


The 2GB and 16GB version of ""M10"" is priced at ₹7,990 and 3GB and 32GB version costs ₹8,990, whereas the 3GB and 32GB variant of ""M10"" costs ₹10,990 along with the 4GB and 64GB variant costing ₹12,990."
"The honeypots were set-up in 10 of the most popular Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres in the world, including California, Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Ohio, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore and Sydney over a 30-day period from mid-January to mid-February.


A honeypot is a system intended to mimic likely targets of cyberattackers for security researchers to monitor cybercriminal behaviour.


According to Sophos' ""Exposed: Cyberattacks on Cloud Honeypots"" report, over five million attacks were attempted on the global network of honeypots, thus, demonstrating how cybercriminals are automatically scanning for weak open Cloud buckets."
"Lawmakers are still hashing out how to define small excerpts of stories and whether individual words should be covered by the copyright rules, according to an EU official who asked not to be identified. The rules would also require Google and Facebook to actively prevent music, videos and other copyrighted content from appearing on their platforms if rights holders didn't grant them a license.


Despite the delay, an agreement is possible in the next few months, two EU officials said. If there's no accord by the spring, when European Parliament elections are held, the process would be delayed until later this year.


As with many divisive issues in European regulation, the problem is the small print. When the commission first unveiled draft rules, it proposed letting publishers waive their rights to demand payment from news-aggregation services. The European Parliament introduced a provision last year that raises concerns among some small publishers that they wont be able to let Google distribute their content online free of charge.


The impact of a Google News withdrawal on publishers who rely on the search giant for traffic to their sites is unclear. Google shut its news service in Spain in 2014 after the country passed a law requiring Spanish publications to charge aggregators for displaying excerpts of stories. Publishers must claim compensation for the reuse of fragments of text whether they want to or not.


The Spanish law led to small publishers losing about 13% of their web traffic, according to a 2017 study released by the Spanish Association of Publishers of Periodical Publications. That translates to a cost of at least 9 million euros ($10.2 million), the study estimated."
"The Vivo V15 has a 48MP primary sensor, 5MP depth sensor and 8MP super wide sensor. The 48MP sensor allows pixel binning, which means it can combine four pixels during low light scenarios to offer a bigger effective pixel size which in turn results in better low light performance. Combining four pixels also means the effective resolution of the sensor is reduced to 12MP.


The Vivo V15 and V15 Pro both have 32MP selfie cameras in motorised enclosures, similar to the Vivo Nex. Vivo claims the pop-up camera takes 0.46 seconds to arise completely. "
"Sansa says the soldiers need rest, and Daenerys is of the opinion that Sansa is going back on her word


 Ever practical, he says he knows Cersei Lannister will die and that she does not have an answer to Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons


 Arya catches up with him and says she has some unfinished business as well (almost certainly Cersei’s assassination


Sansa Stark tells Tyrion Lannister about Jon Snow’s parentage, almost immediately breaking her promise to Jon"
MicromaxMicromax Bharat 5 InfinityBharat 4 Diwali EditionMicromax Bharat 5 Infinity priceBharat 4 Diwali Edition price
"Following the order, the government asked Google and Apple to remove the TikTok app from their app stores, and both complied on 16 April. The matter is sub judice, with TikTok’s plea set to be heard by the Supreme Court again on 22 April, even though existing users can still use the app.


TikTok’s popularity is evident from the fact that its parent—six-year-old Bytedance that also owns of news aggregator Toutiao—is currently valued at $75 billion against Uber Inc.’s $72 billion, according to CB Insights. ByteDance plans to invest $1 billion in India over the next three years, the Press Trust of India reported Friday.


Launched in India in 2018, TikTok has 120 million active users in the country, most of them youngsters in small towns and cities. It is largely used to capture and share moments through short video clips decorated with stickers and GIFs.


Though the app has been accused of encouraging pornography, some social media networks, such as the microblogging platform Twitter, also carry short pornographic video clips and photos put out for promotion by publishers and performers—without facing a backlash from the authorities."
"Singh has alleged that loan waivers increases fiscal deficit and spoils the country’s economy. Photo: Mint (Mint)


It comes in the backdrop of the ongoing 17th Lok Sabha elections wherein farm distress is one of the major issues confronting the Narendra Modi government


NEW DELHI: A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed by advocate Reena N. Singh in the Supreme Court seeking restraint on loan waiver schemes announced by political parties in their election manifestos.


The petition in the apex court will come up for hearing on Monday before Justice S.A. Bopde. It comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, in which farm distress is one of the major issues confronting the government. The BJP has also joined issue with Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his promised nationwide farm loan waiver if the Congress is voted to power. The promise of a loan waiver helped the Congress defeat the BJP in state elections in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in December."
"But foreign investors in NSE, who have been pushing the exchange to go public, said they fear that an appeal would further delay its plans for an IPO that bankers had estimated could raise up to $1 billion.


The NSE originally planned a public offering in 2017 but it was delayed due to Sebi's investigation into whether bourse employees provided unfair access to some brokers to its co-location servers, which are placed at the site of exchanges to speed up algorithmic trading."
"Voice Recognition: The speech recognition market is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $6.9 billion by 2025. With support for voice assistants being built into all kinds of gadgets, users will eventually not have to rely on physical remote controls-


According to a MarketsandMarkets report, the eSIM market is estimated to grow from $253.8 million in 2018 to $978.3 million in 2023. In India, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd have already started providing eSIM services.


A market report by Beecham Research claims that an industry-wide adoption and deployment of the eSIM will lead to 34% higher market growth in the mobile industry by 2020.


Voice as an interface: The advancements in machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) have made conversing with voice assistants less frustrating. They are slowly getting better at understanding the context and intent of people.


With support for these assistants being built into all kinds of gadgets—speakers to TVs—users will eventually not have to rely on physical remote controls anymore. A voice command from anywhere will get things done in a jiffy. Research firm Tractica has predicted that the voice and speech recognition market is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $6.9 billion by 2025.


Wearables as medical devices: Wearables are no longer just about tracking steps and activities. The Apple Watch Series 4 can capture (electrocardiogram) ECG/EKG readings and even detect fall in heart rates , though the feature isn’t available in India as yet. US-based medical device company, AliveCor, has announced a smartwatch with a six-lead ECG reader ."
"”The Indian Express’ Shalini Langer wrote in her four-and-a-half-star review, “Having laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years"
"Indian fans woke up Monday morning to witness ‘The Long Night’ in Game of Thrones, which promised a gory battle at Winterfell between the armies of the living and dead, and found the third episode of the hit HBO series’ final season to be darker than what Melisandre predicted in her visions


The latest chapter was billed to have the most action and bloodshed after two consecutive slogging, build-up episodes, now that the White Walkers and wights were a stone’s throw away from the gates of the northern stronghold and it was every bit that


So, imagine the plight of fans unable to figure out ‘who died how?’ and ‘who killed whom?’ as the ‘Great War’ was being fought in abysmally dim lighting


Majority of the battle takes place at night, so the low light makes sense, but fans complained on social media that even with raging fires all around the castle, they struggled to see the action clearly"
"“The Samsonite campaign is a smart example of bringing a social message and product together but there are multiple brand categories that will not work like that,"" said Naresh Gupta, strategy head and managing partner at advertising agency Bang In The Middle.


A clutch of brands such as DB Corp. Ltd-owned radio brand 94.3 My FM, food delivery startup Swiggy, movie ticket booking platform BookMyShow, and KFC India are running various campaigns to remind young voters to exercise their voting rights.


“Brands need to be part of the cultural narrative and they need to have a point of view on what’s happening in the country. Creating such campaigns makes a brand sensitive, responsible, and relevant in people’s lives,"" said Dheeraj Sinha, the India managing director and chief strategy officer of Leo Burnett, South Asia."
"Artificial intelligence-driven engines are learning more about consumer behaviour—the more the AI engine knows about you, the better recommendation it will be able to provide along with customized emotional or economic benefits from the providers. Mobility startup Mobacar, for instance, uses machine learning to predict the mode of transport and type of vehicle a traveller may want and pushes only relevant offers, while travel assistant Mezi uses natural language processing to provide a personalized experience to business travellers who usually are short of time.


Biometrics can help simplify the journey and may replace the identity documents, maybe even passports, through fingerprint, facial or iris recognition at customs, hotels and airline check-ins.


Robotics is being used in automating monotonous tasks. Customer service robots already exist at Munich, Bologna and Geneva airports. Social robot and digital concierge ‘FRAnny’, deployed at Frankfurt Airport, answers questions about the gate for airline departures, can direct passengers to specific restaurants and help them access the airport’s free Wi-Fi. In Sasebo, Japan, a hotel is run almost entirely by robots enabling check-in at reception and luggage transfer to rooms.


Blockchain is also seen as a future disruptor of the entire travel value chain through increased disintermediation and democratization. It has the potential to remove intermediaries and balance the bargaining power in the hands of online travel agencies (OTAs), and inventory owners. For instance, Winding Tree is a decentralized travel distribution platform for inventory tracking and Travala is a travel booking marketplace that ledgerizes and decentralizes the hotel industry, allowing users to add rooms backed by smart contracts.


These new age technologies will also have implications related to customer data, usage, storage and accessibility and are bound to give rise to data and privacy regulations.


While the customer is evolving and being pampered by the choices provided by these new age intermediaries between customer and hotel, the rise of other inventory providers like online travel aggregators, metasearch agencies and digital tour guides will also ensure that the business model on the supply side shifts. Today hotels and other inventory owners have less bargaining power at the hands of large online travel agencies (OTAs) but are coping as the cost of customer acquisition has reduced. But they are constantly grappling with the question of how much commission they should give away to the online travel aggregators."
"”The photos shared along with the tweet features Big B, Aamir and Ranbir recording the song “Tu Desh Mera” in white outfits


 The CRPF men were travelling in a bus, part of a convoy of over a thousand security personnel when an explosive-laden SUV rammed into the bus and exploded"
"They had to maintain the narrative flow after the first Avengers cross-over that came right before this one and still deliver a strong solo movie


 Not only was the first time Marvel director Shane Black able to retain the snarky humour of the original but he was also able to add a much-needed new dimension to the now two-film old Iron Man


” In the course of the film, we find out that even though Iron Man is back to the ease of life in Malibu, he is now having a tough time dealing with a series of panic attacks and threats from a maniac called the Mandarin


 He leans over the edge a little too much and what follows post that is a well-thought out and satisfying re-creation of a superhero


Five great things about Iron Man 3:Robert Downey Jr as Tony StarkCan any actor pull off playing Iron Man better than Robert Downey Jr? Despite this third iteration trying to bring a whole new sentimental side to his personality, Downey never loses his quintessential cocky appeal"
"Another game called “Play and Win"" will also be available on Mi.com that where Mi Fans can spin the virtual wheel and gain a chance to win coupons smartphones such as the POCO F1, Mi Band 3 as well as Mi coupons. The “Fun and Furious"" begins today and will be held throughout the Festival until 6 April. “Play and Win"" will start on 4 April 2019 and will go on till 6 April. It will be held from 10 am until 2 pm on each day of the sale.


The Mi Fan Festival will also offer the “Re 1 Flash Sale"", which has appeared in previous Mi sales as well. It will see Mi products such as the Redmi Note 7 Pro, POCO F1 , Mi Soundbar, Mi LED TV 4A PRO (32-inch) among others being offered at Re 1 each day of sale"
"Earlier in March, Google-owned content sharing app YouTube launched its paid service called YouTube Premium and its music streaming app, YouTube Music in India, to take on international music streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music as well as domestic music players like JioSaavn and Gaana in the country.


YouTube Premium, that costs ₹129 a month, includes membership to YouTube Music Premium, offering users ad-free services, background play and offline download feature.


""Our tremendous scale and reach is why many talented artists and creators across India come to YouTube to share their voice with the world,"" said Susan Wojcicki, Chief Executive Officer of YouTube, on Monday."
"Players who want a fix of their favourite classic games can turn to emulators such as DOSBox. It is available both offline and online, and allows users to play the original versions of games such as Dangerous Dave, Prince of Persia, etc. You can also use js-dos, a javascript-based online version of DOSBox that doesn’t require installation, neither the game, nor the emulator.


You can also download games like Metal Slug, and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, which have been ported to Android by third-party developers and are often made available on this mobile platform for free. You will have to download these from third-party websites though, so do exercise caution.


Many games are being reproduced in their original avatars, but with tweaks, so they suit the touchscreen interface. Super Mario, for instance, continues to be a side scroller like the original, while Street Fighter II is also similar to the original."
"The chipmaker brought separate patent suits against Apple in Germany and China, winning bans on the sale of some models of the iPhone. Photo: Reuters


Qualcomm argues the US simply has its facts wrong and has failed to demonstrate any evidence of anti-competitive behaviour by the chipmaker against its rivals


Two years after the US Federal Trade Commission sued Qualcomm Inc., unleashing a series of existential challenges to the company’s business model, the chipmaker is about to get its chance to square the record.


Lawyers for the regulatory agency and the company are set to begin presenting arguments on January 4 in a 10-day jury trial over claims that Qualcomm is abusing its strength in the market for smartphone components to force Apple Inc. and others to pay inflated license fees.


While the two sides have said they’re in settlement negotiations, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, refused to delay proceedings and narrowed the scope of Qualcomm’s arguments in pre-trial rulings.


The case challenges San Diego-based Qualcomm’s business model, casting a shadow over one of the fundamental reasons it’s been so successful in the smartphone era. Losing to the FTC would threaten billions of dollars the company makes in licensing fees, which have been used to develop better chips and invent technology. Any cut to Qualcomm’s ability to pay for industry-leading research and design jeopardizes its future competitiveness as well as its current profits."
"Actor Vivek Oberoi, who is playing the lead role in a biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, offered prayers at the Saibaba temple here to seek blessings for the release of the film soon


He visited the famous temple, located at Shirdi town in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, on Saturday


Later while talking to mediapersons, Oberoi expressed hope that PM Narendra Modi, whose release has been withheld by the Election Commission (EC), will hit the theaters soon"
"In the US, PAC is an organisation that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives or legislation.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"New Delhi: In an attempt to bar people from using its services for the purpose of manipulating the Lok Sabha elections, Twitter on Wednesday announced a new feature to make it easier for users to report misleading information about voting.


So if you see misleading information about how to vote or register to vote, including those that suggest that one can vote by tweet, text message, email, or phone call, you will be able to report such information for review from within the platform."
"The 39-year-old actor said she does not want people to be ashamed of their looks and instead be comfortable with their “self-image”


 Not everyone can be that way and no one should be ashamed of how they look or suffer bullying and other forms of abuse because of their size and shape"
"At Wipro, the posts being examined include not only public posts but also those that are shared privately to a limited set of a user's friends. (Reuters)


Hyderabad: Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014.


These include the subject of the post - is it food, for example, or a selfie or an animal? What is the occasion - an everyday activity or major life event? And what is the author's intention - to plan an event, to inspire, to make a joke?


The work is aimed at understanding how the types of things users post on its services are changing, Facebook said. That can help the company develop new features, potentially increasing usage and ad revenue.


Details of the effort were provided by multiple employees at outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd over several months. The workers spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by the Indian firm. Facebook later confirmed many details of the project. Wipro declined to comment and referred all questions to Facebook.


The Wipro work is among about 200 content labeling projects that Facebook has at any time, employing thousands of people globally, company officials told Reuters.


Many projects are aimed at ""training"" the software that determines what appears in users' news feeds and powers the artificial intelligence underlying many other features.


""It's a core part of what you need,"" said Nipun Mathur, the director of product management for AI at Facebook. ""I don't see the need going away.""


The content labeling program could raise new privacy issues for Facebook, according to legal experts consulted by Reuters. The company is facing regulatory investigations worldwide over an unrelated set of alleged privacy abuses involving the sharing of user data with business partners."
"“It’s definitely harder, like, the more money the more problems the more people that think they know you"
"The POCO F1 has the highest battery capacity among the lot, with 4,000mAh. The Galaxy A9 comes closest to this with a 3,800mAh battery. The Zenfone 5Z and OnePlus 6 come with the same 3,300mAh battery capacity.


The base variant of the POCO F1 is the cheapest of the lot, priced at ₹ 20,999, while the top variant of the POCO F1 comes for ₹ 29,999.


The OnePlus 6 is priced at ₹ 34,999 for the base variant and while its top-of-the-line variant costs ₹ 39,999.


The Galaxy A9 has the highest starting price of all the phones in the lot, at ₹ 36,999, while the top variant costs the same as the OnePlus 6, at ₹ 39,999.


mint-india-wire Samsung galaxy A9Samsung galaxy A9 comparisonSamsungOnePlus 6POCO F1Zenfone 5ZSamsung galaxy A9 vs OnePlus 6Samsung galaxy A9 vs POCO F1Samsung galaxy A9 vs Zenfone Max"
"”Read here what Tanushree Dutta wrote in her statement against Ajay Devgn and his film De De Pyaar De:“Tinsel town is full of liars, showoffs and spineless hypocrites


 During the #MeToo movement in India, the actor had tweeted and sworn never to work with those accused and now in a surprising and convenient turn of events is working with rape and harassment accused Alok Nath and supporting him to make a comeback in Bollywood


 Doesn’t this prove yet again that your big Bollywood heroes are truly zeroes!Overrated actors and human beings who have created a clout by clever PR machinery and careful manipulation of public sentiments


 Old stuffy morons who can’t tell the difference between what’s right and wrong and what is the need of the hour! So would it be so difficult to just edit out Alok Nath’s portions in the film and hire someone else and reshoot those bits even before the film promotions started? Nobody even knew before the posters and trailers that Alok Nath is in the film so if Ajay Devgn and the makers wanted they could have just quietly replaced him and re-shot his portions (which is barely 10-15 days for character actors in Bollywood) and given Vinta Nanda the respect she deserves as well as several other women who were troubled by this guy


 But no! They had to keep the alleged rapist in their film and rub it on not only Vinta’s but on all our faces as a show of solidarity with all rapists, molesters and harassers of Bollywood and an even greater show of arrogance and defiance against all things morally and conscientiously right


It’s time India wakes up and stops worshiping these morally bankrupt actors, directors, producers and others who clearly put on a facade of being family men just to promote their careers that they build on the tears of women like Vinta and others whom they silence using their muscle power"
"The feature was spotted in the iOS beta version and is not available for all beta users as the feature is still in the development stage. Further, the feature has not been seen in the Android beta version of WhatsApp. It is highly likely that the feature would be available in the next iOS update while the Android beta users would receive it soon. 


WhatsApp has already rolled out features that enable Touch ID and Face ID to open WhatsApp, one-touch group video calling, using 3D Touch to preview WhatsApp status, among others ."
"""We place limits on group sizes and how users send messages. Approximately 90 per cent of the messages sent on WhatsApp are from one person to another, and a majority of groups have fewer than 10 people. WhatsApp requires the message sender to know the phone number of the recipient,"" said the company.


WhatsApp on Monday launched the second-leg of its ""Share Joy, Not Rumours"" education campaign to encourage the responsible use of its platform ahead of the Lok Sabha polls."
"In the 20-second clip of the song, we see Salman and Katrina romance to a love ballad sung by Abhijeet Srivastava


The music of Bharat has been composed by Vishal and Shekhar who have earlier composed for Salman Khan’s Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai"
"Taking a swipe at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Kejriwal said that the party was hellbent on “throwing out Muslims, Christians and Jains from India.""


“These elections are not about any single manifesto. It is about saving India as a country. Amit Shah had said that all infiltrators except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs will be thrown out. Will Muslims, Jains and Christians be mob lynched or thrown in the ocean? The BJP is fulfilling Pakistan’s agenda because even Pakistan wants to divide our country,"" he added."
"Other reviewers however reported no major issues with the gadgets Samsung provided. In an email sent Tuesday -- a day after providing the demo units -- it asked media not to remove a “special protective layer."" The device’s packaging didn’t discourage the attempt however, and the sheet seemed similar to the protective films that come with most phones, tablets, and TVs right out of the box.


“The main display on the Galaxy Fold features a top protective layer, which is part of the display structure designed to protect the screen from unintended scratches,"" Samsung said in its statement. “Removing the protective layer or adding adhesives to the main display may cause damage. We will ensure this information is clearly delivered to our customers.""


Samsung may need to consider postponing the rollout of the Galaxy Fold because it risks a public relations “fiasco"" if the problems are widespread, Anthea Lai and Anand Srinivasan, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a report.


“Delaying the Galaxy Fold’s expected April 26 launch date -- while not certain to occur -- could save the brand’s reputation from a repeat of the Note 7 debacle,"" they wrote. “Postponing the rollout would also have minimal impact to earnings, as only about 1 million units are expected to ship this year."""
"Modi filed his nomination from the holy town in the presence of several senior leaders of the NDA, including Parkash Singh Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal, Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena, Ram Vilas Paswan of Lok Janshakti Party and BJP president Amit Shah.


“We do not have to discuss who are the contestants from other political parties, they are not our enemies, they too are trying to strengthen democracy. An election is not a war but a festival of democracy. We have to win the hearts of people, the party will automatically win with the help of the people,"" Modi said.


The four people who proposed Modi’s name for nomination were Annapurna Shukla, former principal of the women’s college of the Banaras Hindu University; Jagdish Chowdhary, “Dom Raja"" and chief cremator of Varanasi; Subhash Chander Gupta, long-time BJP worker; and Ram Shanker Patel, agricultural scientist, who has known Modi since his days as Gujarat chief minister.


Modi also thanked BJP workers and residents of Varanasi for their support during his roadshow on Thursday evening. He said because of the hard work of BJP workers and the affection of the people, the party has won the city even before the elections."
"In order to test improved conversation features on its platform, microblogging app Twitter has launched prototype app ""twttr"" where users can join and test it.


""Our prototype app, 'twttr', launches to the first group of participants today. #LetsHaveAConvo about new features to build a better Twitter together,"" Twitter Support tweeted on Monday, inviting users to help them review test features."
"However, many users also approach third-party repair shops in electronic hubs like Delhi’s Nehru Place and Lamington Road in Mumbai. The reason: these shops charge a lot less and have more affordable replacement options for customers. For instance, the cost of getting the display replaced on the Galaxy Note 9 is ₹13,840 (according to Samsung’s support webpage) with service charges on top, while in third-party shops one can get a copy at less than half the price.


“Third-party repair shops have both original parts as well as copy. The original parts cost ₹2,000 to ₹3,000 less than what authorized service centres charge. That is because they provide warranty for their replacements and third party shops don’t. The copy, which is sourced from China, costs many times less,"" explains Kailash Babu from Ankit Communication, a smartphone repair shop in Nehru Place. Besides, third-party stores try to repair the faulty parts rather than replacing whole components, thus saving consumers some money.


However, these attempts can often result in a harrowing experience. The phone may not offer the same level of experience and in some cases may stop working as well. Moreover, user data could be stolen and misused. For instance, in December 2018, several iPhone 8 users who had their handsets repaired by a third-party store found the display was not working after updating to iOS 11.3. According to researchers from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, third-party repair shops can record keyboard input and even exploit the operating system (OS) kernel on the handset by embedding a malicious chip in the third-party replacement screen."
"However, the BJP’s growth in the state over the last few years is quite visible, more so after the 2017 panchayat polls, when the party’s performance, aided by consistent ground work done by two Odia central ministers—petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan and tribal affairs minister Jual Oram—got national attention. Pradhan and Oram though did not enjoy a traditional political base, they have worked consistently over the past five years to improve the party’s chances in both the coastal belt and tribal-dominated western Odisha. But for the Congress, it’s about staying relevant.


“The 2017 panchayat polls have given BJP some confidence, as it had put up a challenge to the ruling BJD,"" said Gyan Ranjan Swain, another political analyst, and professor at Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. “But CM Naveen Patnaik’s clean image and connect with people is a huge positive for BJD."""
Critically-acclaimed actor Lupita Nyong’o believes in challenging beauty norms and credits her parents for raising her as a confident individual
"Radloff said he believes the latest rally has to do with the next halving of Bitcoin supply which is set to happen in May of 2020.


“If you study the peaks and troughs of Bitcoin, you see it move around leading up to when new monetary supply is cut in half every four years,"" he said. “Around 250-300 days before one of these monetary supply halvings, you start to see bullish tendencies starting to occur in the digital asset market."""
"You can buy the 8GB/128GB variant of the OnePlus 6 at the Amazon Great Indian Festival sale for Rs 34,999


While most top deals and discounts of the Amazon sale are nearly over and the products are out of stock, there are still a few smartphones and their accessories that you can consider during the closing hours of the sale. Here are the top deals


AmazonAmazon Great Indian saleAmazon Great Indian Festival saleOnePlus 6XiaomiXiaomi Mi A2SamsungSamsung Galaxy Note 9BoseBose QC 35 II amazonAmazon saleAmazon indian saleamazon festival saleamazon sale best dealsamazon sale smartphones"
"Barring cancer and blood-related medications, most therapies slowed down, points out Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd. This pushed the growth rate to 9.9%, a tad below the 10% mark for the quarter ended March 2019. This is similar to the 9–9.8% rise the industry saw in the earlier three quarters.


Growth for the full fiscal year is a respectable 9.6%. But, for investors eyeing a continuing double-digit rise in sales, the sequential slowdown last month is being viewed as a tough pill to swallow."
"Last October, Apple introduced the 32-person video conferencing feature for iPhones, iPads and Macs. With the bug, a FaceTime group-chat user calling another Apple device could hear audio — even if the receiver didn't accept the call. The bug was triggered when callers turned a regular FaceTime call into a group chat, making FaceTime think the receiver had accepted the chat.


In Grant's case, he had just gotten his Xbox ready and called to invite a friend, Nathan, to play ""Fortnite"" with him online.


""You can swipe up and add another person, so I added another friend of mine, Diego, to see if he also wanted to play,"" he said. ""But as soon as I added Diego, it forced Nathan to respond.""


They were shocked at first, then tried to repeat the bug and it happened every time, he said. His mother, Michele Thompson, said she started trying to reach Apple the next day.


""They could have tested it within two minutes, realized it was true and brought it up the chain at Apple,"" said Thompson, who works as an attorney. ""There needs to be a better process for the average citizen to report things like this. And a timelier response."""
"Seemakurty and team are trying to bridge this gap with a continuous remote patient monitoring system, which measures six core vital signs, deploys predictive AI at the bedside and provides actionable insights to doctors, any time, anywhere. Through the Stasis app, doctors can remotely manage vulnerable patients on their smartphones with real-time vitals and high-resolution long-term trends.


“Stasis eliminates unnecessary ICU admissions; helps triage (prioritise) late night emergency trauma cases and increase family time after cardiac surgery. Our mission is to accelerate healthcare towards proactive patient care. Our investments into intuitive design, plug-and-play simplicity and machine learning, drive our innovation,""says Seemakurty, CEO and co-founder. Currently, the Stasis patient monitoring solution is being used across 20 hospitals, including Fortis, Columbia Asia and Cloudnine in India, and more than 500 doctors are using the app to remotely monitor patients."
"Later, Aishwarya also wished him on their wedding anniversary by sharing a photo of them together captured by Aaardhya


 We also got to see a photo of them together as they arrived in the Maldives which was shared on a fan page of the Bachchans"
"The bug allows a user to call someone on FaceTime and automatically begin hearing the other person before they pick up the call. The other person isn't aware that the caller can hear them. The bug, confirmed by Bloomberg News, happens when a user creates a FaceTime conference call, puts in their phone number, and then adds the number of another person. The flaw was discussed on social media and picked up by website 9to5Mac.com.


The bug emerged on Data Privacy Day when Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook called for 'action and reform for vital privacy protections.'"
"Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu on Tuesday directed his ministry's secretary to hold an emergency meeting on Jet Airways


NEW DELHI: Shares of Jet Airways fell nearly 4% on Tuesday amid the debt-ridden company massively cancelling flights after grounding of a large part of its fleet.


The shares of the company declined 3.35% to close at ₹229.05 a piece on the BSE. During the day, it plunged 5.48% to ₹224."
"Once a formidable force, Congress is the victim of prolonged indecision and infighting in Odisha. Its ticket distribution ahead of the assembly and Lok Sabha polls was mired in controversy, and several leaders quit the party. Five candidates, including former chief minister J.B. Patnaik’s son, Prithvi Ballabh, declined to accept the Congress ticket as the offers came too late.


“Congress is a traditional name in Odisha, but we as a party did not reach out to people enough. Ticket distribution system in our party was not very transparent. I don’t know what exactly our state leadership is thinking,"" said Sucharita Mohanty, a spokesperson for the Congress in the state.


“There was a void in state politics; we could have filled it through sustained action. The chances of us doing better after the party’s victory in neighbouring Chhattisgarh were high, but I am not sure how we shall perform in the state this time,"" she added."
"In an interview with the Wired UK, Wagner defended the episode and instead blamed the settings of the viewers’ TV sets


Also read | Big battle brings record viewing for Game of Thrones“A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly"
"Arjun votes from Hamirpur district which is part of Uttar Pradesh’s drought-prone Bundelkhand region. In this election, an alliance between the Samajwadi Party (SP) led by Akhilesh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Mayawati is trying to re-establish their roots and counter the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) narrative which is banking on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and government schemes including Swachh Bharat Mission and Ujjwala.


Bundelkhand accounts for four Lok Sabha constituencies – Jhansi, Hamirpur, Jalaun and Banda. Other than Banda, the remaining three constituencies go to polls in the fourth phase on Monday. Of the 13 seats going to polls in Uttar Pradesh on Monday, BJP won 11 in 2014, including Union minister Uma Bharti from Jhansi, who has decided not to contest this time. Voters across the constituencies of Jhansi, Jalaun and Hamirpur feel that while there has been an improvement in law and order, the government has not been able to fulfil promises made to farmers and to increase jobs.


The area is of key importance to the BJP as it had won all four seats from here in 2014. Keeping its momentum going in the assembly elections, the BJP won all the 19 assembly segments across the four Lok Sabha constituencies in Bundelkhand. The party has been reaching out to other backward classes (OBCs) to gain ground.


The BSP, which has its roots in Bundelkhand, is contesting elections in Jalaun and Hamirpur while SP is contesting in Jhansi. The alliance is looking to reach out to people on the government’s performance and unfulfilled promises."
"The song “Bawli Tared” will be launched on April 25 and Daler Mehndi has been teasing fans with stills from the song


 He had earlier tweeted, “Block the 25 April 2019 and get ready to dance to #BawliTared a song full of flavours of Indian folk and a burst of colours"
"The feature allows users to take a break from bustling WhatsApp group conversations without leaving them


Instant messaging platform WhatsApp introduced a new feature in its beta version that allows users to take a break from bustling WhatsApp group conversations.


The feature, popularly known as the ""Vacation Mode"", has been in the pipeline for almost a year now. It lets you mute chats that you've archived or dismissed from appearing on the main conversation list.


This way you wouldn't be notified about new messages and they wouldn't appear in the way of your regular messages either. This can be used with individual conversations as well as group conversations, which means you don't have to be impolite and leave the group to ignore messages."
"Here, Rahul falls in love with Mithra (Nivetha Thomas), who is a classical dancer and also the daughter of their college principal


The group decides to kidnap the daughter of Radha Krishna but the details of this character are not unveiled in the teaser"
"The final form that AI will take is difficult to predict right now. The technology today is at an early stage, said Sadagopan. “For those of us present today, we’re watching the evolution of AI. AI will have lots of fun for all of us for the next 10-20 years. When you are in your eighties and nineties, you can tell your grandchildren that you were part of the evolution of AI,"" he concluded."
"At the launch, Pooja Hedge, while giving her thank you speech, said that Mahesh Babu could surely be a good director because of the way he looks at a scene


Also read | Maharshi trailer: This Mahesh Babu film is a perfect treat for his fans“It is good that you observed that I could be a director, but no thank you"
"India's top court had last month ordered Anil Ambani and two RCom directors to pay Ericsson ₹4.5 billion within four weeks or face a three-month jail term for contempt of court.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"It is no surprise that every company pitch made to an investor revolves around AI or machine learning, points out Pai. “When I see an idea that has got a view to change the B2C part of an interaction from an AI standpoint, I don’t see them lasting for more than 5-7 years from now. However, B2B is a very different game. The same kind of predictive analytics tool when used to improve logistics, supply chain, or customer engagement is going to work extremely well,"" says Pai. He, however, isn’t betting on cryptocurrencies being able to take over the world, because governments and banks won’t allow it. But he is very positive about the distributed ledger or blockchain and feels that the technology is expected to grow.


Investors are interested in talking to companies that have distributed ledger solutions which can be used for any sort of transactions and contracts that don’t necessarily talk to one another very well."
"There has been an uncertainty over formation of an alliance between the AAP and the Congress for months a few months now.


On Monday, amid a blame-game over seat-sharing in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal engaged in a public spat, with the Congress president accusing the AAP of making a ""U-turn"" over alliance talks, prompting the Delhi chief minister to hit back at him.


Gandhi had said while the doors of his party are open, time is running out, but Kejriwal slammed him, questioning what U-turn was he talking about as the talks were still on."
"Congress, on the other hand, has held that full healthcare is the right of every citizen— child, adult and senior citizen. Congress, in its manifesto, has promised that the total government expenditure on healthcare will be doubled to 3% of GDP by 2023-24 which is currently around 1%. The annual budgets will indicate the step up in each year in order to achieve the target in 2023-24, it said.


Challenging BJP’s AB-PMJAY, the Congress said, “We are of the firm belief that the insurance-based model cannot be the preferred model to provide universal healthcare in our country. Congress promises to vigorously promote and implement the free public hospitals-model to provide universal healthcare.


“Congress promises to enact the Right to Healthcare Act that will guarantee to every citizen the right to healthcare services, including free diagnostics, out-patient care, medicines and hospitalisation through a network of public hospitals and enlisted private hospitals,"" it stated."
"Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon…Dobara or Ishqbaaaz, what has been your turning point?Aastha from Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon…Dobara will always stay close to me"
"NEW DELHI: Congress party said on Friday it would more than double healthcare spending in five years if voted back to power, adding to a growing list of promises to try to woo voters away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party.


Congress will lift the expenditure on healthcare to 3% of GDP by 2024, provide free diagnostics and medicines through a network of public hospitals, establish more medical colleges and give financial support to medical students, party leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram said on Twitter.


Asia's third biggest economy spent an estimated 1.4% of its GDP on healthcare in 2017/18, among the lowest proportions in the world."
"The move could let the social networking giant tout higher user engagement to advertisers, thus, ramping up its advertising division at a time when overall growth has slowed down.


Facebook has the most users of any other social media platform, and by combining its assets this way, the company could more directly compete with Apple's iMessage and Google's messaging services, according to The Verge.


WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption—the hallmark of users' security—may also go for a toss if Facebook integrates the popular mobile messaging platform with not-that-secure Instagram and Messenger."
"You will see me out there, trying to steal your popcorn!”The team of Avengers was also shown a fan video that left each one of them emotional


 After bidding goodbye to the fans, RDJ surprised everyone with a special video message where the actor said he is what he is because of his fans


 And amid all this, an emotional Robert Downey Jr said, “From 11 years ago, 2008 to this moment, the universe (MCU) has expanded


 Mine and Jon Favreau’s first trip here was when we felt that we had a chance at continuing to make these"
"Amazon had said it would sell the latest editions of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and other devices in the United States, Europe, Japan and India in coming weeks."
"Facebook declined to comment, while WhatsApp and Instagram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


The panel has previously summoned social network Twitter Inc's Chief Executive Jack Dorsey to appear on Monday to discuss the same topic.


""These are issues for all Internet services globally,"" Twitter said on Friday, adding that Colin Crowell, its global vice president of public policy, is to meet the panel on Monday."
"The EC held a meeting of its top officials on Tuesday morning and examined the issue under the provisions of the MCC and the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951. It also sought a report from the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Maharashtra.


According to a senior official aware of the developments, the EC took the view that no violation of the poll code was noticed in the Wardha speech. The EC is also looking at a few other complaints of violations against Modi, Shah and Rahul Gandhi."
"But dig deeper into the results and the impact of the turbulence in the telecom sector is visible. The reported figures include exit penalties received from customers who discontinued their service contracts. These receipts are best treated as one-off incomes, according to analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities. Such penalties amounted to ₹99.7 crore in the last quarter.


Exclude this, and the revenues last quarter will fall by 4.4%. More importantly, operating profit will drop by 12.6% from the year ago, according to analysts at Kotak.


""Infratel's reported earnings print was weak and reflected the expected pain of tenancy exits for the first time,"" the analysts said in a note to clients."
"""The slash comes in response to China's reduction of the tax burden for manufacturing and other sectors that began on April 1,"" the report said.


The iPhone maker is also seeking tax relief and other incentives to begin assembling more handsets and open its branded stores in India.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"I essayed the role of a Pakistani officer in RAW and in The Zoya Factor, I am playing Sonam Kapoor’s brother


While people talk about star kids having it easy, it must be also pressurising to live up to your parents’ work?They are such fine actors that not even in my dreams, can I even think of matching up to them


 Coming to being star kids, well the only time it has helped me is getting the first meeting with someone"
"Steve Rogers redefines masculinity by making it more warm and compassionate, and not simply a show of puffed-up biceps


Secondary charactersThe First Avenger has a solid lineup of secondary characters that help complement Steve Rogers


 Tommy Lee Jones as Chester Phillips provides much-needed humour in what is a decidedly un-Marvel film"
"Private banks traded higher after Axis Bank Ltd reported strong March quarter earnings along with a fall in bad loans. It reported a profit of ₹1,505 crore compared to a loss of ₹2,189 crore a year ago. Gross and net bad loans fell for the fourth consecutive quarter, which resulted in provision figures declining to a 12-quarter low.


Other private banks also traded higher. ICICI Bank rose 3%, Kotak Mahindra Bank was up 1.3%, DCB Bank was 1% higher, and Indusind Bank rose 0.8%."
"In her latest Instagram post, Harleen wrote, “From where I started
To where I’ve come
I didn’t design this path
His will was welcomeFearlessly hustling
Energetic and bustling
I found who I was
A small fish in a big pond
I enjoyed the eccentricities
Performances and anxieties
Feeling alive everyday
Making a mark in my own wayLink ups don’t build me
Breakups don’t break me
Wins don’t fill me
Failures don’t kill meI feel complete
I feel sufficient
I have my own swag
I am my own tag”Along with the poem, Harleen shared her monochrome photo


The rumours of Vicky Kaushal dating Harleen Sethi started doing the rounds when the former accepted dating someone, first on Koffee With Karan, and later on Famously Filmfare"
"Huawei’s Honor brand is among the first to bring this technology to a phone, with the Honor View 20, launched in India recently.


ToF is a camera sensor technology that uses infrared light to get depth information in a photo. The sensor emits a light signal, which is bounced back from the subject and returns to the sensor. The time taken for this process is measured, giving an accurate depth information that can be used for 3D imaging."
"“I read the book and was taken in by the lawyer PC Solanki, who fought the case for the victims against Asaram Bapu for free"
"“Deploying a robot can cost as low ₹5 lakh for entry-level robots, and can go up to ₹30- ₹40 lakh depending on the application, nature of job and the payload involved,"" says Epson’s Satyanarayna.


Robots are also being introduced in healthcare for operations that require greater precision. According to reports, Ahmedabad-based Apex hospital used Corpath technology of US-based Corindus Vascular Robotics to remotely control a robot to perform a telerobotic heart surgery on patient who was located 32km away in Gandhinagar in December 2018.


In another instance, this February, doctors at PGIMER Chandigarh used robots for a precision surgery on a two-year-old baby born with esophageal atresia, a condition where food pipe is not developed. Bhaskaran points out that India has one of the lowest doctor to patient ratio. Bringing healthcare to large set of population can only be done through technology and industrial robotics will play a big role in that."
"It enables one to respond to customers easily with efficient messaging tools -- quick replies to provide fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages to introduce customers to your business and away messages to let them know when to expect a reply, WhatsApp said."
"All Airtel Books users will get a complimentary 30-day trial to experience the app and can access 'Free' titles from the Readers Club. Airtel smartphone customers will also enjoy a one-time special benefit of being able to access any five 'Paid' titles from the Readers Club, which has a collection of over 5000 e-books.


Airtel Books has a subscription service called, Reader's Club which is priced at ₹129 for 6 months and ₹199 for 12 months. Customers can also buy books on a per book basis.


""Airtel Books is another major milestone in our journey towards building a world-class digital content portfolio. E-books are a fast-growing segment along with music and video, thanks to large screen smartphones becoming the cornerstone of the digital lifestyle. We are delighted to roll out this initiative and take it to the smartphone users across India through our deep distribution reach. As we have demonstrated with Wynk Music and Airtel TV, our aim is to use deep customer science to curate great reading content for our users and add to their smartphone experience on our best-in-class network"", said Sameer Batra, CEO - Content & Apps, Bharti Airtel."
"He thanked her for making him understand the meaning of true love and doing ‘infinite things’ for him


He wrote, “There’s so much to thank you for, don’t know where to begin…I’ll start with saying thank you for saying “OK” when I asked you to marry me, thank you for loving me more and more everyday, thank you for always being my pillar of unwavering strength, thank you for being my best friend, thank you for being that one most brutally honest person in my life (everyone needs that), thank you for having faith in me, thank you for pulling me up every time I’m down, thank you for doing the gazillion things you do for me day in and day out"
"“In (‘Dark Phoenix’), I’m very lucky to take that character to new places and explore new emotions and ideas with him"
"A generation of our best engineers are spending their productive output on building behavioural nudges that manipulate users to stay on their platforms. Moving to a model where users pay for what they use could help us focus our efforts on ideas that meaningfully improve society.


But the innovation deficit could be more systemic. The economist Robert Gordon, a vocal proponent of this view, has argued that the golden age of technological innovation is behind us. To support his thesis, Gordon points out that before 1750s, there was virtually no economic growth. Inventions like the steam engine, railroads and telephone drove economic growth over the past 250 years. This growth spurt was an anomaly and there isn’t any reason to blindly believe we’ll continue to find new ways to grow.


His analyses suggests that most of the technology changes that improved our quality of life had taken place by the first half of the twentieth century. These include the internal combustion engine, electricity, air travel, indoor plumbing and kitchen appliances. We have just been incrementally improving them ever since.


The Boeing 707 was introduced in 1958. Since then, air travel hasn’t gotten that much faster. The kitchen in an average Western home largely resembles the kitchen from 1950s, albeit with more energy efficient appliances. Using productivity data for the past few decades, Gordon concludes that the major breakthroughs of recent times—personal computing and the internet—did improve our lives by automating tedious manual tasks. But the gains aren’t nearly as dramatic.


In particular, since the 2000s, most of the technological innovation has centered on entertainment and communication devices that are smaller and smarter. While our lives are certainly a lot richer, improving consumer utility isn’t on the same scale as inventing electricity. Finally, the growth of developing economies like India and China isn’t due to new innovation; these countries are merely catching-up and adopting technologies that have already been invented.


The “end of innovation"" thesis is appealing but it doesn’t explain why markers for innovation show an upward trend. The number of patents filed have continued to rise in the past few decades and adoption time for newer technologies has gotten shorter.


Instead of no more ideas, perhaps ideas are just getting harder to find. As another economist, Tyler Cowen suggests, in the past few centuries, we have plucked all the low hanging fruit. Innovation from here on out will get harder.


There is good evidence to support this view. Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, and his colleagues studied research productivity across a variety of sectors. Their findings suggest that the cost of finding new ideas has increased, both financially and in the number of researchers needed. In aggregate, they compute that research productivity falls in half every 13 years. To maintain a constant growth in per capita GDP, the US must double the amount of research effort every 13 years.


Moore’s law highlights this tension well. A central tenet of the computer industry for the past fifty years, the law states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every year while the costs are halved. Despite predictions of its impending end, the trend has continued to hold— making computers faster and cheaper. But it comes at a cost. The number of researchers required to double chip density today is more than 18 times larger than the number required in the early 1970s."
"The top deal of the sale is unarguably the Redmi Note 5 Pro which is selling for a discounted price of ₹11,999 for its 6GB/64GB variant. The Redmi Note 5 Pro features a 5.99-inch full-HD display, Snapdragon 660 processor and 12MP + 15MP dual rear cameras.


The Redmi 6A is available at ₹5,999 in its 2GB/16GB variant while its 2GB/32GB variant is selling for ₹6,499. The Redmi 6A comes with a 5.45-inch display, MediaTek Helio A22 processor and a 13MP rear camera."
"10-year bond yield rose 0.0770% to 7.3480% while rupee fell 1.07% to ₹69.16 per dollar after RBI's policy annoucement


RBI cut its benchmark repo rate by 25 bps to 6% but maintained its policy stance at neutral citing upside risks to the economy


Mumbai: Sovereign bonds slid, dragging down the rupee, as some traders were disappointed that the central bank wasn’t more dovish in its policy statement.


The yield on the most-traded 2028 bonds jumped 10 basis points as the Reserve Bank of India didn’t shift its policy neutral stance to convey aggressive action after delivering its widely expected second rate cut of the year. Indeed, the six-member rate-setting panel voted 5-1 to retain the stance.


“As markets had already priced in a rate cut, the overall tone from the RBI needed to be more dovish for Indian asset prices to continue rallying,"" said Khoon Goh, the head of Asia research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore."
"A leading Tamil producer who doesn’t want to be identified says what attracts Bollywood actors towards the south film industry is money


 To make the project commercially viable, filmmakers, these days, look for a pan Indian market,” he points out"
"""...parties/candidates are advised that their campaigners/candidates should desist, as part of their election campaigning, from indulging in any political propaganda involving activities of defence forces,"" it had said.


Former Navy chief Admiral L. Ramdas had Monday said he would approach the Election Commission against Adityanath for his remarks and claimed that many veterans and those in service were upset over it."
"Goldman added that it expected the Brent forward curve to shift further into backwardation, a situation where contracts for future delivery are cheaper than spot supplies. Backwardation indicates a tighter market.


That comes as Goldman expects the global oil market to remain in a supply-deficit of about 0.5 million barrels per day in the second quarter.


The bank now sees Brent prices at $72.50 per barrel in the second quarter, compared with $65 previously. But it maintained its 2020 Brent oil price forecast at $60 per barrel."
"In July 2018, LinkedIn Messaging got the ability to allow attaching documents and since November 2018 the platform had allowed companies to upload PDFs and PowerPoint presentations on their official pages.


Now, the expansion to personal profiles is another opportunity that the platform has offered to users to showcase their skills and expertise in additional formats, which could be hugely beneficial, Social Media Today said."
"With the Galaxy Fold, Samsung has wowed the smartphone industry with the first foldable screen. (Eric Risberg/AP)


Samsung Galaxy Fold burnishes the smartphone maker's innovation credentials, banishes 'fast follower' criticism


At $2,000, the Samsung Galaxy Fold sets a new standard in premium pricing, which so far was Apple iPhone's calling card


San Francisco/Seoul/Bengaluru: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd has wowed the smartphone industry with the first foldable screen, burnishing its innovation credentials, banishing “fast follower"" criticism and, at nearly $2,000, setting a new standard in premium pricing.


The South Korean tech giant’s Galaxy Fold resembles a conventional smartphone, but opens like a book to reveal a second display the size of a small tablet at 7.3 inches (18.5cm). It will go on sale from 26 April.


At its launch event in San Francisco on Wednesday, Samsung upped the surprise factor by briefing analysts and journalists on widely anticipated aspects ahead of time, such as 5G versions of its existing top-end Galaxy S phones."
"”Shilpa Shetty posted this video on her Instagram account and wrote, “Little Gymnastic student showing off some skills in front of #guru and the Student of the Year! 😍 @tigerjackieshroff thankyou for being his inspiration"
"Quentin Tarantino’s ninth directorial Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will explore the ’60s showbiz beyond the murder of Shannon Tate by the Charles Manson cult, say the producers of the film


In an interview with the Entertainment Weekly, producers David Heyman and Shannon McIntosh said that they want to clear the “misconception” that the film only deals with the famous cult and the murders they committed


According to the official plotline, film follows “a story that takes place in Los Angeles in 1969, at the height of hippy Hollywood”


DiCaprio is playing Rick Dalton, former star of a western TV series, while Pitt is his longtime stunt double, Cliff Booth"
"“Close to elections, when these things happen, it generally keeps building up,"" Agrawal said in an interview in Mumbai. “In that situation there could be an extraordinary mandate.""


The S&P BSE Sensex Index has jumped 8 percent from a low on Feb. 19, days after the suicide bombing, making the gauge of Indian equities the third-best performer among 94 primary indexes tracked by Bloomberg.


Global funds bought a net $4 billion of Indian shares this month through March 22, set for the biggest monthly inflow in two years. The buying comes after withdrawals of $4.6 billion in 2018, which was the biggest annual outflow in a decade.


“It is important that you have very clear and decisive leadership, and if we are heading towards that, of course the foreigners love it,"" Agrawal said. “Even if what I expect doesn’t come true, the sky isn’t going to fall. There will be volatility in the short term but economy will do well."""
"After the success of Uri, he has collaborated with Aditya Dhar for another project titled Ashwatthama where he will be essaying the titular role"
"The Young Scientist Award (YSA) is awarded to scientists / researchers who are less than 35 years of age


Bengaluru: Last week, seven Indian scientists including three women from the Asia-Pacific region were awarded ‘The International Union of Radio Science (URSI)-Young Scientist Award 2019’ in New Delhi for their ""substantial contribution"" to the field of radio science--the study of all aspects of electromagnetic fields and waves.


The Young Scientist Award (YSA) is awarded to scientists / researchers who are less than 35 years of age.


One of them, G Shrikanth Reddy , is an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.


YSA recognized Reddy’s past and current academic and research work in field of Radio Frequency (RF), Microwave Antennas and Passive Component Design. In the year 2012, for instance, while pursuing his PhD at IIT-Bombay, Reddy started his research on, ‘MIMO (Multi Input, Multi Output) Antennas and Integrated Filters’, which has an end application in all communication networks."
"The attack shows how hackers are able to leverage the size of technology companies and their suppliers to reach large numbers of victims. (iStock)


The attack was used to deliver a software update with a ""backdoor"" that would give hackers access to infected machines


Hackers were able to deliver malware to the more one million-plus Asus computer owners last year by hijacking the company's software update system, security researchers said on Monday."
"At an event in San Francisco, Qualcomm said it plans to begin testing its new Cloud AI 100 chip with partners such as Microsoft Corp later this year, with mass production likely to begin in 2020.


Qualcomm's new chip is designed for what artificial intelligence researchers call ""inference"" - the process of using an AI algorithm that has been ""trained"" with massive amounts of data in order to, for example, translate audio into text-based requests.


Nvidia has released special chips for the task and Intel is working with Facebook Inc on one that will be released later this year. Cloud computing vendors such as Amazon.com's Amazon Web Services and Alphabet Inc's Google Cloud unit are also making their own inference chips."
"“Since our alertness fluctuates, if we can find a pattern it will be very useful to manage and schedule our day,"" said Vincent W S Tseng, a doctoral student at Cornell.


Traditional methods of analysing alertness tend to be cumbersome, often including devices that must be worn.


“Since people use their phones very frequently during the day, we were thinking we could use phones as an instrument to understand and measure their alertness,"" Tseng said."
"I am making my personal life public so that ppl who are bombarding my social media with msgs of sympathy or filthy things – plz know one thing that mahat Went inside Like this! He was in love and I still am…


 To answer everyone – I am not with him anymore, but I will meet him in Person and discuss everything (sic)"
"Westgarth says the project suffered a litany of woes in its early years, with many false starts exploring ideas such as hundreds of thousands of tiny balloons and various methods of steering the balloons and powering the system.


“The first balloons would fly for a day, then for a week, and then it took us forever to figure out how to fly them for longer than a month,"" Westgarth says. “Now we’re flying for over 100 days, and our record balloon was up there for 198 days.""


Loon was conceived to create a global network of “floating cell towers in the sky""—one the company said could become a multi-billion dollar business. But Alphabet last year scrapped plans to blanket the globe, focusing instead on small numbers of balloons in particular regions to speed commercialization.


A pilot project in Indonesia shows how even those scaled-down ambitions can be a challenge. After a trial in 2016, further launches were cancelled to deal with concerns raised by air traffic controllers."
"Colin Crowell, global Vice President of Public Policy of Twitter, deposed before the Parliamentary Committee headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur.


The meeting lasted about three-and-a-half hours. Sources said he answered a few questions and assured to get back with answers to others in 10 days."
"Talking about the idea of New India, Modi said that opposition parties did not have the intension to work for upliftment of poor and socially weaker sections and these parties only work for their own development rather than the people of the country. Modi said that government had worked for the benefit of poor by providing gas cylinders through Ujjwala scheme, health for all through Ayushman Bharat scheme, power for all, toilets for all in the Swachh Bharat programme and housing for all schemes of the government.


""While working for the poor, we have implemented 10 percent reservation for financially weaker sections in the general category. The government has managed to carry out these development work because of the majority given by people to NDA in 2014 general elections,"" said the PM.  "
"The film will be jointly produced by Vishnu Vardhan Induri and Shaailesh R Singh under the banners of Vibri & Karma Media and Entertainment


Apart from Jayalalithaa biopic, Kangana will also be seen in Ashwini Iyer Tiwary’s Panga and Ekta Kapoor’s Mental Hai Kya"
"Empowerment is about what you’ve done for others that you can then brag about to others at power lunches


“Everyone named Chris has all the power, and this gala is about sharing that power with people with less bankable names,” the actor added"
"The Galaxy Fit is a basic fitness tracker that can track your heart rate, steps, stress and sleep. On top of that, it can automatically track six different exercises. It weighs 24g and is water-proof to 50 meters.


At the front of it, it has a rectangular Super AMOLED screen. Samsung claims its battery lasts around a week.


The Galaxy Buds are reminiscent of Apple's AirPods—wireless earphones offered with a charging case. The case can be wirelessly charged through the smartphones' Qi-charging compliant backs.


The buds run Bixby, Samsung's personal assistant. It lets you check your battery, control your Galaxy S10 or change the music by voice inputs.


The Galaxy Buds are priced at ₹9,999 however if you are a Galaxy S10 series customer, you can avail them at ₹2,999."
"Priced at ₹ 15,590, the Huawei Y9 is powered by Huawei’s in-house octa-core chipset, the Kirin 710, which is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is expandable up to 400GB via a MicroSD card. The 6.5-inch display has a resolution of 2340 x 1080. It features a unique GPU Turbo technology, which claims to provide smooth and high-quality gaming and gains in computing performance.


In terms of optics, the Huawei Y9 sports a 16MP+2MP AI-enabled dual camera setup at the back. It has an f/2.0 aperture and is capable of recording 1080p videos at 30fps.The front of the smartphone also features a dual camera setup comprising a 13MP primary and 2MP secondary sensor."
"According to Variety, Master Chief is described as Earth’s most advanced warrior in the 26th century and the only hope of salvation for a civilization pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant, an unstoppable alliance of alien worlds committed to the destruction of humanity"
"But herein lay a big challenge, too. Windows was designed to run on a PC platform, so porting it to a mobile platform that runs a mobile chipset required Microsoft to create a new version called the Windows 10S, which is fully compatible with apps from the Microsoft App Store, explains Andrew Chan, senior manager (systems marketing) at Asus. “Although users can switch to Windows 10 Pro, programmes written for Windows 10 Pro have yet to be fully tested. As testing and verification continues, we expect greater adoption.""


When it comes to rewriting code for Intel and ARM chipsets, there are ways to cross-compile programmes from ARM to Intel. Writing and compiling code will always be an experimental and, occasionally, challenging endeavour that takes patience and skill, says Sachin Dev Duggal, founder and chief wizard at Engineer.ai, a tech start-up which is working on making software development simple.


However, mobile chipsets in PCs will not necessarily make them cheaper as many of them offer features that are available in premium smartphones, which can be quite expensive."
"About half of Americans and Canadians get their news primarily from social media, yet most don't trust this source of information. (AFP)


52% of Americans and 48% of Canadians said they find out what's happening in the world through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter"
"The characters of Luke, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Yoda and many others had a huge impact on the audience and continue to be relevant in popular culture


 The impact was such that fans would dress up as these characters and quote their dialogues to show their fondness for the Force


The first film, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, was released in 1977 under the banner Lucasfilm and was directed by George Lucas"
"As Anne’s father tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality as if the world, for a moment, has ceased to be logical"
"Ragnarok, which saw Waititi play the fan favourite character Korg, followed Thor (Chris Hemsworth) fighting his way out of deadly gladiatorial contest that pit him against his former ally and fellow Avenger the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) , after being imprisoned on the other side of the universe"
"The actor, who started her Bollywood career in 2008 with Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, impressed both the audiences as well as the critics with her performance in Gangs of Wasseypur series"
Bihar’s capital is safer but the transformation hasn’t led to opportunities for private investment and job creation
"Chinese government regulates and supervises the practice of the professionals who constitute the highly skilled manpower of the country. (AP)


As part of a signed deal, Huawei would develop the ""non-core"" parts like antennas and other network components for the UK's 5G infrastructure


Despite security concerns over Chinese companies becoming part of important international projects, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has agreed to seek help from Huawei in building the 5G infrastructure for the country."
"At the heart of Apple's shocking FaceTime bug, which allowed just about anyone to turn an iPhone into a live microphone, stands a 14-year-old boy who stumbled upon the eavesdropping flaw more than a week before Apple took action.


""The thing that surprised me the most was that this glitch happened in the first place,"" said Grant Thompson, a high school freshman in Tucson, Arizona. ""I'm only 14 and I found it by accident, instead of the people at Apple that get paid to find glitches.""


Not only that, but Grant and his mom said they spent a week unsuccessfully trying to get Apple to do something about the bug in its FaceTime group-chatting feature. The bug allowed callers to activate another person's microphone remotely even before the person has accepted or rejected the call.


""It took nine days for us to get a response,"" he said. ""My mom contacted them almost every single day through email, calling, faxing."" Of the fax, he jokes, ""I'm not even sure what that is. It's probably older than I am.""


This eavesdropping scare is over now that Apple has disabled group chats, but the problem could dog the company for much longer. New York state officials have opened a consumer rights investigation. Others are raising questions about how long it took Apple to address the bug.


In a statement Friday, Apple thanked the Thompsons as it announced that it has identified a fix and will release it next week. FaceTime group chatting will resume then."
"Apple Inc. is planning to release three new iPhone models this year, including a device to succeed the newly-created XR model, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.


Apple will include a high-end model in its line-up that features three cameras on its back, up from the current two, in addition to a pair of less expensive alternatives, the newspaper said."
"The 69-year-old rock legend took to Twitter to share the news and said the first track of the album, titled “Hello Sunshine”, will be released later"
"As the leader of opposition in the Lower House, Kharge is confident of delivering over 20 seats to his party


KALABURAGI (KARNATAKA): In Karnataka, there are only a handful of people who are referred to as “solillada saradara"" (chieftain who has never lost) and 76-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge tops that list with 11 election victories -- nine in assembly polls and two parliamentary victories -- since 1972.


On 23 April, Kharge will be fighting his 12th electoral battle from Kalaburagi (Gulbarga), in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, that many believe is one of his most difficult ones as he takes on his protege, Umesh Jadhav, a rebel Congress leader who defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).


As the leader of opposition in the Lower House, Kharge is confident of delivering over 20 seats to his party. In an hour-long chat, the veteran leader speaks about the forthcoming polls and its impact on the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition in the state, Rahul Gandhi’s chances of dethroning Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his own unfulfilled ambition of becoming Karnataka’s chief minister.


Age has taken a toll this time and travelling by car becomes an ordeal for long distance but otherwise the election does not seem that difficult. Last time there was a lot of buzz over the Modi wave and people were scaring me but we can see the change in the youth, especially those who voted for the BJP. They are aware of me and my work like Article 371 (J)."
"Stockholm-based XBT Provider AB is rolling out trackers that mimic the price of Litecoin and XRP, the Ripple token, adding to its existing instruments for Bitcoin and Ethereum to tap into an investor public that wants the added protection of a regulated exchange.


“The institutional client base is asking for more products from us as the maturity and the infrastructure of other digital assets beyond just Bitcoin and Ether has started to emerge,"" Ryan Radloff, CEO of the CoinShares platform, parent to XBT Provider, said. “The fact that we’re seeing the crypto spring emerge after a long winter is just favorable timing,"" he said.


After plunging more than 70% last year, Bitcoin’s rally this year drew worldwide attention on Tuesday when it surged more than 20% in less than an hour at the start of Asian trading, dragging rival coins upward too. The eruption begged for an explanation among market participants, with some suggesting algorithmic traders were behind the move."
"About $10 billion of Musk’s fortune is derived from Tesla with approximately $13 billion coming from his stake in closely held rocket business Space Exploration Technologies Corp., according to calculations by the ranking."
"Vadakkan was one of those old Congress leaders in Kerala who acted as a bridge between the local unit and the Delhi leadership. Many of the leaders first approached him to present their matters before the leadership in Delhi, said a Congress leader, requesting not to be named.


The Congress was not worried about the electoral impact, he said. For the Congress, Vadakkan does not have any base in Kerala, even at his native place, Thrissur, where his strongest contacts in Catholic church holds a significant sway. In fact, the buzz is that the Congress' denial of Thrissur seat in at least three polls, including this time, caused Vadakkan to quit.


""Those who exited Congress do not have the support of even 10 people in their home turf,"" VT Balram, a Congress legislator in Kerala, wrote on Facebook."
"“We plan to re-focus our R&D efforts on a large scale and drive innovations in India for the global product, especially on the software side with special emphasis on artificial intelligence and machine learning,"" OnePlus founder and CEO Pete Lau said.


Hyderabad is among the fastest growing markets for OnePlus, and the company is in the process of expanding its offline presence in the region, in line with the expanding user base."
"""I would like to urge all the connected citizens who want to join this fight against the spread of fake information, to come and help volunteer towards the cause,"" Pamidi added.


NASSCOM Foundation is the social arm of the industry body, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"While other gang leaders would be shocked at this behaviour, Prince would be left completely overwhelmed


 He will go on to share that many believe he won three reality shows (Roadies X2, Splitsvilla 8 and Bigg Boss 9) by fluke but he has worked really hard for it"
"NSE has also received permission from Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to launch weekly options on Nifty IT Index, the exchange said. The contract details and launch date will be announced shortly."
"Starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johannson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans among others in pivotal roles, Avengers: Endgame has been helmed by the Russo brothers"
"I think AI is going to change every job and will take away jobs too. But that need not be a bad thing. If AI is creating goods at a lower cost by automating things, we should rejoice. Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author, wrote in 2001 that the goal of technology should be full unemployment and not full employment, so we all have time to be more creative. Humans historically believe that we have to work to be valuable.


That no longer has to be the case. Society can distribute the abundance that AI and robotics can make, allowing us to transition from a society-based on work, to a society based on creativity and exploration.


There are many people and companies that are trying to create open source AI. On the whole if we can share the ideas, it would allow more people to innovate instead of coming inside closed communities to take advantage of them. The strength of these algorithms is not just in the software but in the huge amounts of data that they review. Companies like Facebook and Google have huge amounts of data and they are not sharing it. We need to find ways to make sure that data is used for the sake of the whole community and not just for the benefit of these companies. That comes to the very important point of the democratic oversight of these powerful companies. Though they are well intentioned and I have a great deal of admiration for their founders, they are not necessarily going to do things that are in the interest of the community. They may do things that will boost their share prices, which is why governments are talking about exercising control over the hi-tech companies. This is going to be the big battles of the next few years."
"Los Angeles/New York: An android child struggles to control his emotions. Robots threaten to take away human jobs. And a voice-activated device ponders its own existence.


These dark themes were explored by this year’s Super Bowl commercials, with brands such as TurboTax, Olay and Sprint capitalizing on fears that technology is encroaching on our lives. The unspoken subject of many of the ads: Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa, an increasingly ubiquitous digital assistant sold by one of the world’s most powerful companies.


Amazon had its own commercial, where it poked fun at Alexa. The ad featured rejected ideas for the technology -- including a microwave, dog collar and hot tub -- and even depicted a massive power outage triggered by Alexa.


Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos also made an in-person appearance at the Super Bowl, where he was spotted with National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell.


The Super Bowl’s advertisers included companies seeking to disrupt the TV industry. Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube TV sponsored the game’s kickoff show, and Hulu and Netflix aired commercials.


The Olay skin-care brand presented another tech-horror scenario. As a home intruder closed in, Sarah Michelle Gellar couldn’t unlock her phone’s facial recognition technology because Olay had transformed her skin. Google’s spot, meanwhile, promoted its language-translation service."
"It is set in the wake of Thanos’ snap, which erased half of all life from the universe, including some major characters


Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted the latest box office figures, “#AvengersEndgame continues to sparkle… Rakes in big numbers on [second] Sat and Sun… Adds ₹ 50 cr+ in Weekend 2, which is remarkable… [Week 2] Fri 12"
"Winnners of Infosys Prize 2018 of Infosys Science Foundation, pose with co-founder Narayana Murthy and Mathamatician Manjul Bhargava during the award ceremony.


The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists by the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to recognise research


InfosysNarayana MurthyInfosys PrizeAIArtificial IntelligenceInfosys Science FoundationInternet of ThingsIoTMachine LearningML


Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will not render people jobless in the future, but rather create more opportunities for humans, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said here."
"Kriti will be seen next in Arjun Patiala with Diljit Dosanjh, multi-starrer comedy film Housefull 4 and Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Panipat"
Actor Vince Vaughn has been convicted of reckless driving after his arrest for failing a drunken driving test last year
"Those in attendance included Priyanka, Parineeti Chopra, Srishti Behl Arya, Tamanna Dutta and Radhika Merchant"
"Telugu film Virata Parvam, starring Rana Daggubati, Sai Pallavi, Tabu and Priyamani, is all set to begin its regular shoot from June


com, “With Rana and Sai in the lead roles, we are planning to start the regular shoot of Virata Parvam from June"
"WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption—the hallmark of users' security—may also go for a toss if Facebook integrates the popular mobile messaging platform with not-that-secure Instagram and Messenger.


The move could let the social networking giant tout higher user engagement to advertisers, thus, ramping up its advertising division at a time when overall growth has slowed down


London: The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has warned Facebook over its planned integration of its chat services — WhatsApp, Messenger and photo-sharing app Instagram, asking the social media giant to provide it with an ""urgent briefing"" on the proposals."
"Xiaomi initially targeted Asian markets, notably India, where it toppled Samsung as the No.1 smartphone seller last year


BARCELONA: China's Xiaomi has launched its contribution to a new wave of smartphones that will be able to take advantage of faster 5G mobile networks at a lower price than analysts expect from rivals such as Samsung.


The world's fourth-largest smartphone maker unveiled the handset on Sunday, trumpeting prices starting from 599 euros ($680) when it hits the market in May, prompting gasps in the hall at the mobile industry's biggest global event in Barcelona."
"Note that the margins dipped compared to the December quarter (14.1%) as well. On the whole, Hero MotoCorp’s operating performance was disappointing. The 8% drop in net revenue, along with weak profitability, led to a 22% year-on-year drop in Ebitda to ₹1,069 crore.


Worse, the management has already voiced concerns on the outlook for the year ahead. In a post-results call with analysts, it forecast a mid-single digit growth in revenue for FY20. Of course, much depends on a pickup in sales during the festive season and the ability of the consumer to adjust to higher product prices. After all, the price hike on account of new insurance regulations has hurt two-wheeler consumer sentiment since August 2018, following which growth has steadily slowed."
The film is based on his deWitt’s bestselling book of the same name that was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
"Asian currencies were trading lower. South Korean won was down 0.25%, Malaysian ringgit 0.13%, China Offshore 0.13%, Philippines peso 0.08%, Indonesian rupiah 0.06%, Singapore dollar 0.05%. However, Japanese yen was up 0.14%.


The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.994, up 0.06% from its previous close of 96.935."
"That’s because low inflation has been driven by falling food prices, cutting farmer incomes and pushing up debt levels. About 800 million of India’s 1.3 billion population depend on farming for their livelihood.


“While Modi has managed to keep inflation under control, it has come at a cost,"" said Priyanka Kishore, head India and South-east Asia economist at Oxford Economics in Singapore. “Falling rural incomes and farm distress have taken the shine off one of the key achievements of the Modi government.""


On the plus side, the slowdown in inflation raises the prospect of another interest-rate cut in April, providing Modi with a much-needed boost to the Indian economy. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based retail inflation rose 2.57% in February, compared with a median estimate of 2.4% in a Bloomberg survey, but well below the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI's) medium-term inflation target of 4%.


“The RBI cut interest rates in February and laid the groundwork for further loosening over the coming months,"" said Shilan Shah, senior India economist at Capital Economics Ltd in Singapore. “With headline inflation still below target, the next cut could come as soon as the policy meeting in April."""
"”Ironically, only a couple of weeks back, Parth Samthaan had bought a house in Mumbai as a gift for his parents


 The 28-year-old had posted a picture on Instagram stating, “Gift to my Parents —-MY FIRST HOUSE IN MUMBAI This feeling is beyond happiness ! Since the time one travels to a new city to aspire his/her dream"
"According to techArc’s founder and chief analyst Faisal Kawoosa, this shift in consumer behaviour is driven by the aspiration to upgrade to a better smartphone for an improved experience. The report attributes the shift to availability of faster 4G speeds on smartphones, as it introduced users in India to experiences like HD video streaming and online gaming that were not possible earlier. The demand for entry level segment which comprise smartphones in ₹5,001 to ₹10,000 is expected to shrink from 20 to 15% while basic smartphones under ₹5,000 will fall from 8% to 5%."
"According to reports, Kalabhavan approached Prithviraj seeking a suggestion as to who will be the right person to direct the script that he has written"
"Apple accuses Qualcomm, which holds the most patents for chips, of taking advantage of its dominant position to charge exorbitant amounts for its chips or access to its patents.


The iPhone maker refuses to pay up and is also seeking what could be billions of dollars in compensation.


Qualcomm denies the allegations and accuses Apple of abusing its position and of taking legal action to negotiate prices down.


After jury selection in the San Diego federal court, arguments are expected to begin Tuesday. Apple chief Tim Cook and Qualcomm's CEO Steve Mollenkopf are both expected to appear during the trial, which is set to last around a month.


The stakes are high for Qualcomm, which earns a significant chunk of its revenue from royalties paid by manufacturers for its patented technology.


""In order to purchase Qualcomm chips or obtain access to patents pledged to a cellular standard, Qualcomm demands that third parties pay Qualcomm a royalty much greater than the value of Qualcomm's contribution to the standard,"" Apple argues."
"Reports and rumours are already hinting at the presence of a curved, notch-less, high refresh-rate display. We are talking figures of 90Hz, which will put the OnePlus 7 Pro, a consumer-centric device, straight up in the league of gaming smartphones like the Razer Phone 2 and Asus' ROG Phone.


The high refresh rate panel will not only aid in gaming performance, but will even make general navigation through the UI much more snappy and fun. And given the fact that OnePlus has never launched a device in the recent past with an LCD display, it might as well be the first AMOLED display glued onto a smartphone sporting a high refresh-rate."
"Justifying his decision to enter active politics ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Patel said he could now work for the six crore people of Gujarat in a better way.


After joining the Congress at its rally near Adalaj village in Gandhinagar district, Hardik in his address asked the gathering if it was the right decision.


Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Patel said when the Congress decided to postpone its rally, earlier scheduled for February 28, following the terror attack in Pulwama last month, the PM was busy addressing gatherings across the country."
"While it is more affordable than Samsung's Q900 TV worth $100,000, it still makes the Z9G series virtually inaccessible to anyone but wealthy viewers who insist on having the best, the report said."
"KC(M) has been tradionally given only one seat, Kottayam, to contest within the UDF, where usually Mani would field one of his loyalists. Joseph first argued to raise the number of seats to two, but that was turned down by Congress. Then he shifted his demand to be fielded from Kottayam, but Mani was opposed to part away his stronghold.


Speaking to reporters, Mani maintained that Joseph will keep his peace and agree to the party's decision."
"“While its portfolio is highly stabilized at 95% committed occupancy, it is well positioned to achieve further organic growth through a combination of contractual rent escalations, re-leasing at market rents, lease-up of vacant space and new construction to accommodate tenant expansion,"" said HDFC Securities in the 16 March note.


REITs are companies that own or finance income-producing real estate in a range of property sectors. Modelled like mutual funds, REITs provide all investors the chance to own real estate, present the opportunity to access dividend based income and total returns, and help communities grow, thrive and revitalize.


The stockholders of a REIT earn a share of the income produced through real estate investment without actually having to go out and buy, manage or finance property."
"The fact that these parties talk of defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi but have not been able to finalize an alliance is a clear concern for voters


KOLKATA/SERAMPORE: The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, and the Congress may speak of forming a front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but voters are confused by the contradictions in their stand on the ground. This confusion may just help the BJP in the state.


The fact that these parties talk of defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi but have not been able to finalize an alliance is a clear concern for voters. They’re worried that regional differences will play out at the centre too, upsetting the working of a stable government."
"Having watched some AltBalaji shows like Broken but Beautiful, Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain, Haq Se, Apharan and now Baarish, it seems the makers do not spend as much time on the first few episodes as they do in creating the rest of the show


 The pilot episode sets the tone of the show and leaves the door open for the audience to come back to it"
"Among other features, the A80 has an innovative camera mechanism that delivers the same triple camera experience with the same high-resolution lens, for both front and rear. When users select the selfie mode in the camera app, the three cameras automatically pops up from the back of the phone and rotate.


While the main camera is 48MP, the ultra wide has 8MP and the 3D depth camera offers Live Focus videos by scanning objects for measurement and depth.


The new model comes with 6.7-inch super AMOLED new infinity display screen with 3,700mAh battery. The A80 has a memory of 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage."
"Singapore: Chinese technology giant Huawei on Tuesday said it had entered into an agreement with software major Infosys to develop new Cloud solutions in a bid to help enterprises fast-track their digital transformation.


As part of the agreement, Infosys will join the Huawei Cloud Partner Network (HCPN), a global partner programme, to provide valuable services and technical, marketing and management support, Huawei said, adding that by the end of 2018, the number of HCPN partners exceeded 6,000."
"Analysts also said posts by influential gamers such as ""Ninja,"" the most followed streamer on Twitch, had helped bring more attention to the game.


""Apex Legends"" could add $100 million to EA's revenue in the fiscal year ending March 2020, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.


""That figure is based upon our rule of thumb that free-to-play games typically generate around $10 per monthly active user per year,"" he said."
"Do you see artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), advanced data analytics as maturing technologies that can deliver return on investment (RoI)? Or is there an unwarranted hype around these technologies?


Sanjeev Sharma: I think the fundamental change that happened from one page of industry to the other is that the participants are looking for more productivity. Today we live in a data driven society and data is something which is giving the insights and when those insights are applied in a particular business case or particular problem solving method, it definitely gives an RoI.


Piyush Shah: I think we should stop asking ourselves questions if AI, automation, blockchain will affect jobs. It might have negative effects on job market in more advanced economies, but a country like India, these technologies will recreate business models and create millions of new jobs.


Sashi Sreedharan: I think it is very real as it has contributed to societal well being and goodness in the area of education, health, financial transparency and overall security. I also see the marketplace and service provider getting connected remotely, value chains getting extended in a unique way. There is still the challenge of linguistic divide and related challenges form tech standpoint, but those would also collapse pretty soon."
"Adityanath, who addressed election meetings in Ghaziabad and Greater Noida on Sunday, had lashed out at the Congress for what he called was its ""soft approach towards terrorism and terrorists"".


""Congress ke log aatankwadiyon ko biryani khilate the aur Modi ji ki sena aatankwadiyon ko goli aur gola deti hai. (Congress leaders would feed biryani to terrorists, while Modi's army gives them bullets and bombs). This is the difference. The Congress people use 'ji' to refer to (JeM chief) Masood Azhar to encourage terrorism,"" Adityanath had said at the Ghaziabad election rally."
"While Lei declined to comment on how an economic deceleration might affect his business, he did say 5G will revive not just demand for smartphones, but also the internet services Xiaomi hosts. They now run the gamut from online music to movies and serve, collectively, some 220 million users.


“In China, the penetration rate of smartphones is extremely high,"" Lei said in an interview. “But I think we are at the eve of 5G. I believe when 5G phones start to get popular, the overall demand from China will recover.""


Xiaomi shares rose 2.1% to HK$10.18 as of 11:21 am in Hong Kong. The stock is 40% below the price in July’s initial public offering and shed 17% in the past three days after a post-IPO lockup on billions of shares was lifted. Several analysts cut their price targets or estimates on the former high-flier this week. Once touted as an internet company that can command a value of as much as $100 billion, Xiaomi is now worth roughly a third of that."
"The announcement comes after Apple was made aware of six unfortunate incidents caused due to faulty adapters from across the world.


""In very rare cases, affected Apple three-prong wall plug adapters may break and create a risk of electrical shock,"" the post added."
"The second in line is Bot Air, a robot with built-in sensors to monitor air quality. This is an interesting addition for getting a neutral reading, but not indispensable, since most air purifiers provide sensors to monitor the air quality. Then there is Bot Retail is for businesses, built on the lines of LG’s CLOi Robot. It can be used to assist customers at stores, airports and malls. Samsung executives also spoke about a wearable exoskeleton called Bot Gems for athletes. It sounds a lot like LG’s CLOi suitbot, a powered exoskeleton that can enhance muscle strength and reduce the risk of injury and fatigue while running or lifting heavy objects.


Personal robots have got a whole new makeover at this year’s CES. While Sony’s Aibo and Mayfield robotics’ Kuri were adorable, they looked more like robots than pets. Lovot, by Japanese robotics company Groove X, is the first-of-its-kind toy robot, which looks more like an actual pet with its beady-eyed face, fabric clothing on the body and penguin-like hands. It has built-in wheels assisted by sensors to help it navigate its way in rooms without bumping into furniture. Available for pre-order in Japan at $5,500, it can interact with users through gestures and voice."
"A paramilitary soldier was injured in a bomb blast triggered by left-wing extremists in Chhattisgarh.


In the second phase, 155 million people were eligible to vote, deciding the fate of 1,611 candidates—more than half of them in Tamil Nadu.


A total of 0.37% of ballot units and 0.40% of control units—part of the electronic voting machines—were replaced during the course of the day.


The phase was crucial for southern India: First, Tamil Nadu went to polls in a single phase for 38 Lok Sabha seats (polling in Vellore has been cancelled) and by-elections to 18 assembly seats. Second, 14 Lok Sabha seats went to the polls in Karnataka."
"What’s helping these creators is that companies like LG, Samsung, Microsoft, Apple and Google have specifically-highlighted features in their devices that cater to such needs. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy S10 has specific camera features that are meant for creators. Similarly, LG’s V series devices have often been marketed as phones that are suited for those who earn a living by making YouTube videos.


Rohit Gupta , who is one of the founders of The Creative Indians, has shot the entire fourth season of their show using the iPhone XS Max. “We started our experiments with the iPhone 8 and then X and eventually XS Max. We have done a run-through from the iPhone 7 to the XS Max,"" he says, adding that when they shoot, they don’t look at the phone as a replacement for the camera but “try to shoot within the pros of the phone’s camera"". According to him, while phones may not allow the versatility that traditional cameras do, they allow the creator to introduce a different “language"", which he prefers.


To be sure, creators agree that it’s important to understand the limitations of mobile devices. For instance, Gupta says the smaller camera sensors on phones means you have to be more thorough with your lighting and “throw that much more light on the sensor"". Also, phone cameras do not provide the depth that a full-fledged camera gives.


Similarly, Khan says that while his iPad works fine for his Instagram posts, he has had to move to the PC when designing billboards or other larger resolution images. “This task is something that will require proper professional software and tools. The iPad has a limitation of the canvas,"" said Khan."
"Gandhi has represented Amethi for three consecutive terms. BJP has fielded Irani again, a strong orator who tears into the Gandhi family each time she takes the stage. Nepotism, corruption and the neglect of the constituency are her main talking points.


“The choice of Irani is significant because the party wants to focus on how this high-profile constituency of the senior-most Congress leader is in bad shape. She talks about development and dynastic rule, and puts the focus on things that have been ignored for so long in Amethi,"" said a senior BJP leader from the state.


She appeals to a section of voters who feel the constituency has been ignored and needs a non-Congress, non-Gandhi representative. “Amethi is worse than it used to be. We have nothing compared to the kind of work that Modi has done. Irani is a strong candidate and will do well this time,"" said Heera Soni, a jewellery shop owner in Amethi.


Across UP, and large parts of north India, Congress’ inability to firm up alliances has impacted its chances and left voters uncertain. In UP, Congress is not part of the Samjawadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party combine. In contrast, BJP had a fairly smooth ride with its allies. In states like Bihar, it ceded space to allies in order to create formidable combinations.


“It is a make or break election for the Congress. They have staked everything on it. Rahul Gandhi needs to win Amethi and Congress needs to do well in the Lok Sabha elections. If one or the other does not happen, it will cast a shadow on the future of both,"" said Ram Prasad, who supplies hardware material in Amethi.


After losing to the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress faced its roughest electoral run in the following years. In 2014, Congress won only Amethi and Rae Bareli of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. Three years later, in the assembly elections it could not improve its performance, and won only seven out of the 114 assembly seats it contested."
"Some of the popular authors on Airtel Books are Twinkle Khanna, Sourav Ganguly, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sunny Leone, Arundhati Roy, Devdutt Pattnaik, Preeti Shenoy, Yashwant Sinha, Kanhaiya Kumar, Raghuram Rajan, Rujuta Diwekar, Perumal Murugan, Benyamin and Rajat Gupta.


Alongside these names, Airtel Books also offers a large catalogue of stories from as short as five pages across a range of genres - crime, love, sex and romance, business, history and politics, fitness, diet, spirituality and classics."
"With Avengers: Endgame, director duo Anthony and Joe Russo are trying to give the perfect closure to Marvel Cinematic Universe’s decade long journey, comprising of 11 franchises and over 20 superheroes


 Popularly known as Russo Brothers, they joined the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and went on to helm Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War


The siblings, who are just one year apart and mostly work as a team, were in Seoul, South Korea recently to promote their latest magnum opus – Avengers: Endgame


 During an exclusive media interaction, the two shared the vision with which they entered the Marvel universe, how they handle audience pressure and their take on superhero films finding root in mythology


 When you guys came to the Marvel franchise with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, did you have a vision of how the story arc will progress over the years?ANTHONY: He and I would discuss it at times


 We kept moving forward in the Marvel universe because we didn’t know what we were going to do after Winter Soldier


 Kevin (Feige) sort of plays with one movie at a time because if you don’t make a good movie, then there is no next movie


 Did you have any fear while coming into the MCU and directing movies here?ANTHONY: I don’t think we had any fear"
"We see visuals of him becoming a business tycoon and also some glimpses of him being a mischievous college student in Visakhapatnam


From the trailer, it looks like actors Prakash Raj and Jayasudha are playing Rishi’s parents while Jagapathi Babu is playing the antagonist"
"”The Indian Express’ film critic Shalini Langer wrote in her four-and-a-half-star review, “Having laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years"
"Even as there are reports that Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s classic comedy Chupke Chupke is getting remade with Rajkummar Rao in the lead role, actor Sunny Deol, whose father Dharmendra acted in the 1975 film, says it’s impossible to recreate the magic created by the original team


Chupke Chupke, which itself was an official remake of 1971 Bengali film Chaadobeshi, also starred Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Om Prakash and Jaya Bachchan"
"Huawei 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset is displayed after the presentation event in Beijing on Thursday. The Chinese tech giant has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. Photo; AP


Developing its own mobile phone chips instead of using outsourced ones allows Huawei to keep more of its revenue"
"The Honor Band 4 display comes with a full-colour 0.95-inch curved AMOLED touchscreen with a resolution of 240x120. The Honor Band 4 can be navigated by scroll gestures and a home button for one-click return.


The Honor Band 4 is backed by Huawei’s TruSeen 3.0 heart rate technology, which is a new generation of heart rate algorithm from Huawei. With this, the Honor Band 4 can calculate dozens of exercise scene optimization algorithms with accurate measurements.


The Huawei TruSleep Tracking automatically records user periods of REM, stable sleep (deep sleep), unstable sleep (light sleep) and wakefulness. With Huawei TruSleep monitoring technology users can analyse their sleep quality, which the company claims is over 95% accurate."
"Investors greeted the announcements, mostly launching lower-margin businesses, with a lukewarm response. Facebook shares ended down 0.7 percent on Tuesday.


Zuckerberg in March promised changes to the advertising-driven social media company, which has come under regulatory scrutiny over propaganda on its platform and violations of users' data privacy.


He identified private messaging, short-lasting stories and small groups as the fastest-growing areas of online communication. In the last three years, the number of people using Facebook's WhatsApp has almost doubled.


Building up those more intimate and encrypted forms of communication could also reduce pressure on Facebook to clean up misinformation and abusive content. In the wake of its scandals, the company has spent heavily on tools to catch banned material.


The social media company is now working on ""LightSpeed"" in order to make its Messenger app smaller and faster.


Facebook will also introduce a desktop version of Messenger for Mac and Windows and launch a feature called ""Product Catalogue"" for WhatsApp Business. The desktop app will be available this fall.


Later this week, Facebook will run a test in Canada for a major change to its Instagram app that would remove the number of likes on photos as well as video views from users' feeds, permalink pages and profiles."
"Google blocked access to TikTok in its Play store in India to comply with the court's directive, a person with direct knowledge told Reuters on Tuesday. The app was not available in Apple's app store on Wednesday.


Google said in a statement it does not comment on individual apps but adheres to local laws. Apple did not respond to requests for comment.


A spokesman for TikTok in India declined to comment on the app's removal, saying the matter was still in the courts.


The company had faith in the judicial system and was ""optimistic about an outcome that would be well received by"" its millions of users in India, he added.


TikTok had been downloaded more than 240 million times in India, app analytics firm Sensor Tower said in February. More than 30 million users installed the app in January 2019, 12 times more than in the same month last year.


Jokes, clips and footage related to India's thriving movie industry dominate the app's platform, along with memes and videos in which youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-sync and dance to popular music."
"To try out these new features, make sure you have updated to version 2.19.10 of WhatsApp for iPhone. Here’s a look at the new features:


So somebody said something mean to you on a group, but you’re a bit hesitant to give it back to them in front of everybody. WhatsApp’s got a solution for you. Simply long press the message you wish to reply and then tap on ‘Reply Privately’. This allows you to reply to the corresponding message and the receiver will also be able to see their message you’re replying to."
"Supply creates its own demand, says one adage by French economist Jean-Baptiste Say. But, in the case of government shares, supply is proving to be a nuisance for shareholders of public sector enterprises (PSEs).


The Nifty PSE index is down 22% in the past two years, as compared to a 16% rise in the Nifty 500 index. Stocks in the Nifty PSE are down between 15.2% and 41% in the past two years. Of course, the financial performance of firms run by the government is nothing to write home about, which is in itself a major reason for the underperformance. But an increase in free float is a concern as well.


A case in point is the Coal India Ltd stock, which is down 34.9% in the past two years. In a recent report, Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd cited continuous selling by promoters as a key concern on the Coal India stock price. “Government of India (GoI) has sold shares worth ₹34,110 crore (in the past five years), bringing down promoter’s holding to ~72% (from 90% earlier). This has been a continuous pressure on the stock performance amid overall weakness in the stock market,"" note analysts at Motilal Oswal in a note to clients."
"Six people were killed and over 100 injured in a bomb blast at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in north Maharashtra, on 29 September 2008.


The BJP’s controversial move to nominate Thakur, who is out on bail, has been strongly criticized by opposition parties."
"As a teacher, she said that it was hard for her to read about a young Muslim boy (Junaid Khan) getting stabbed to death (in a train) last year for no fault of his. “This is the state of India today. I don’t want that to happen ever again. So my vote is going to the Congress, just to keep the BJP out. Although I feel that the TRS in Telangana has not done so bad,"" Rahman added. Among the Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and AP, the Nizamabad seat in Telangana is being closely watched as it has no fewer than 185 contestants. The ruling party’s sitting MP K. Kavitha, who is also the chief minister’s daughter, is seeking re-election from the seat.


Most of the independent candidates in Nizamabad district are turmeric and jowar farmers, who are contesting in protest against the agricultural policies of the state government and the centre, with a demand for higher minimum support price."
Stree 2 will have the same cast and crew including Raj and DK (writer and producer of the film Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK) Shraddha Kapoor and Pankaj Tripathi
"com, Shiamak Davar revisits the experience of choreographing dance sequences in his first ever Bollywood project, Yash Chopra’s Dil Toh Pagal Hai, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor


 He also shares how Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Shahid Kapoor, who had been his students for a while, took to dance from a very young age


 I told Yash (Chopra) uncle that I was very scared that it will not work, and Shah Rukh (Khan) brainwashed the hell out of me to do otherwise"
"It remains to be seen whether it can beat James Cameron’s Avatar to become the highest worldwide grossing movie ever


Avengers: Endgame is the sequel to last year’s Avengers: Infinity War and set in its immediate aftermath


 Thanos, the Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wiped out half the universe and also killed half of the superheroes in the process"
"Xiaomi in May last year hiked the prices of the Note 5 Pro due to the depreciation of rupee against dollar and changes in PCBA import taxes, but later brought down them down to the introductory pricing


Redmi note 5 proXiaomiRedmi note 5 pro discountredmi note 5 pro price cutxiaomi discountRedmi Note 5 Pro reviewRedmi Note 5 pro flipkart


The prices of Xiaomi’s bestseller, the Redmi Note 5 Pro, have been slashed. The price of the 4GB RAM variant has been reduced by ₹ 3,000, making its effective price ₹ 12,999 while the price of 6GB RAM variant has been reduced by ₹ 4,000, bringing its MRP down to ₹ 13,999."
"The iPhone 8 lineup will now sell at Rs 59,900 for the 64GB model, while the 256GB version will sell at Rs 74,900. Photo: Bloomberg


The iPhone models receiving price cuts are iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus


Apple price cutsiPhone price cutsiPhone XSiPhone XS MaxiPhone XRiPhone 8 priceiPhone 8 Plus priceiPhone 7 priceiPhone 7 Plus priceiPhone 6S priceiPhone 6S Plus priceiPhone 6 discontinuediPhone SE discontinued"
"The film, directed by Ashok Nanda, revolves around a crime branch special officer, who investigates the serial disappearance of high profile individuals in a state capital"
"“A director’s job ends with finishing the first copy, whereas, the producer has to take the film forward from thereon,” he says


What made him write Gangs of Madras? “It is a revenge drama, inspired by a bunch of reports published in newspapers, told from a woman’s perspective


 The story is about a couple who get caught between two drug mafias,” says CV Kumar, who was particular that he make a gangster film with a female protagonist


 “I was clear about what I want to convey, but how I was going to translate my thoughts on to the screen was my only concern"
"Meanwhile, if you’re still wondering if artificial intelligence will ever become sentient, the short answer is: ‘No one really knows’. You may, though, take comfort from this quote by the late Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Artificial Intelligence Project (now known as Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL):


“When intelligent machines are constructed, we should not be surprised to find them as confused and as stubborn as men (or women) in their convictions about mind-matter, consciousness, free will, and the like.""


mint-india-wire datadigital dossierartificial intelligencemachine learningBlockchain technologyInternet of Things5Gtechnologies"
Rishi Kapoor had earlier said the Kapoors had collectively taken the decision to sell RK Studios as it had become increasingly difficult to maintain the place over the years
"Siddaramaiah was raising the stakes against the Congress’ main opponent in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections


The Congress, under Rahul Gandhi, has been trying to highlight the dangers of giving another term to Modi


BENGALURU: Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Friday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating that democracy might not survive if he returned to office."
"Demian Bichir announced the death of his wife, Canadian actress and model Stefanie Sherk, in a heartfelt message on Instagram


“It has been the saddest and toughest time of our lives and we don’t know how much time it will take for us to overcome this pain,” he said in his post with a picture of Sherk"
"Further, the government’s 100 smart cities project, Digital India programme, Make in India project and Smart Energy project are expected to proliferate the deployment of IoT devices in India. The government is also partnering with start-ups and mentoring them to develop innovative solutions in areas such as education tech, healthcare tech, e-governance, finance and agriculture. Besides, sensors inside offshore drilling rigs constantly monitor the performance of gas turbines for damages as well as regulate the pressure of the oil below the ocean surface.


The complexity of the IoT system, however, requires essential rules on data management, security, latency and reliability issues. Besides, IoT will require AI as a companion since IoT will produce a treasure trove of big data that will need to be intelligently analysed with machine learning to draw meaningful insights for businesses.


Three-dimensional (3-D) printing is changing the face of traditional manufacturing. Today, 3-D printers not only make jewellery and toothbrushes but also football boots, racing-car parts, custom-designed cakes, human organs, houses, aeroplane parts and even more efficient lithium-ion batteries. And yes! They even provide blueprints for 3D-printed guns.


Last month, a US federal judge blocked defdist.org from sharing blueprints of 3-D guns. However, the ruling came after thousands of people had already downloaded blueprints for these weapons. As a precautionary measure, some 3-D printing firms are now using gun-blocking software to deter people from printing functional guns, according to a 14 August report by radio programme producer NPR.


According to 6Wresearch, India’s 3-D printer market is projected to touch $79 million by 2021. The growth triggers include the low cost of manufacturing, increased applications and the Make In India campaign. In India, 3-D printers have been used in medical, architecture, automotive, industrial, aerospace, military and other applications, where automotive application accounts for the largest revenue and volume share.


Four years ago, for instance, a team of Indian plastic surgeons at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) in Puducherry restored the deformed skull of a three-year-old girl to its original shape with the help of a 3-D printer that was sourced from a Mumbai-based 3-D printer maker, Divide By Zero Technologies. Jipmer now has its own 3-D Printer.


3-D printing belongs to a class of techniques known as additive manufacturing, or building objects layer by layer. The most common household 3D-printing process involves a “print head"", which allows for any material from plastic (and now metals too) to be extruded or squirted through a nozzle. To be sure, there’s also the concept of 4-D printing, which allows materials to “self-assemble"" into 3-D structures, and which was initially proposed by Skylar Tibbits of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in April 2013.


Globally, the 3-D printer market is expected to be worth $32.78 billion by 2023, according to research firm Markets and Markets. The aerospace and defence vertical, according to the report, held the largest share of the global 3-D printing market in 2016."
"""Oppo has developed partnerships and initiatives related to popular culture and the arts. Through this cooperation with the film, Oppo will connect with fans around the world based on their common love for Marvel’s Avengers,"" Oppo said in a statement.


The Oppo F11 Pro Marvel’s Avengers Limited Edition features a 6.5-inch display with a resolution of 2340x1080. The smartphone is powered by MediaTek Helio P70 processor paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. For photography, Oppo F11 Pro sports a dual-camera setup of 48MP+5MP sensors."
"Qualcomm Inc. won the first US jury trial in its global dispute with Apple Inc. over how much the iPhone maker should pay for using the chipmaker’s patented technology.


A federal jury in San Diego on Friday awarded Qualcomm about $31.6 million in damages on its patent infringement claims. Qualcomm jumped as much as 3.5 percent before finishing up 2.2 percent at the close in New York trading.


The outcome boosts Qualcomm’s contention that its technology provides significant value to smartphones beyond the basic ability to connect to a telecommunications network. Still, it’s one small part of a global battle between the companies that is headed for a bigger test next month. Billions of dollars are at stake in that trial, which goes to the heart of the licensing dispute between the tech giants."
"Peter Mayhew, the actor best known for portraying Chewbacca in the original Star Wars trilogy, died at his home in Texas on Tuesday


Mayhew — who was 7-foot-3 — donned a shaggy costume to play Chewbacca, the menacing yet cuddly Wookiee who was a sidekick to Han Solo and the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon


 He appeared in all three films of the original trilogy, as well as in Revenge of the Sith in 2005 and The Force Awakens in 2015"
"According to a recent report by Variety, acclaimed British actor Rachel Weisz is in talks to join the Marvel movie


Coming back to Endgame, the movie has kept everyone on their toes since it was first announced, especially since makers had previously stated that the film will complete the arc for a lot of characters in the MCU movies since it is the concluding chapter of MCU’s phase three"
"A Hyderabad-based startup Broadcast Signals has developed a smart T-shirt called Sygnal ( ₹2,499), which can track users’ daily steps, calories burned and distance covered. It has in-built sensors along with a rechargeable battery and Bluetooth module on the back and a switch on the left sleeve.


Consider the Nadi X yoga pants ($180; approx ₹12,787) by New York-based startup Wearable X that can identify yoga positions and give real-time feedback on the accuracy of the positions with a gentle vibration around hips, knees and ankles. Users can get additional feedback by syncing it with their smartphone on the companion app. Los Angeles-based fashion company Lunya has developed smart pyjamas called Restore that can absorb and convert body heat into infrared energy and recycle it back to encourage better muscle recovery and enhance relaxation."
"“It hasn’t percolated yet because people are not willing to pay extra for it. It costs around ₹ 200-300 per square foot at this point of time; so, just a basic smart home facility roughly costs about ₹ 2-3 lakh extra,"" said M. Murali, managing director of real estate firm Shriram Properties. Someone who is spending ₹ 30 lakh to buy an apartment won’t be willing to shell out another 10% to install smart facilities, he added.


Real estate companies have already begun offering smart homes. In August, residential builder Puravankara Ltd launched a category of intelligent homes called BluNex Life, which come pre-installed with Google Home devices. But these types of offerings are still restricted to the very top end of the market.


If the smart home market has to become large, it has to undergo a cycle similar to that of the smartphone market. Smartphones would not have had the kind of penetration they do today if several companies had not come up with affordable options."
"Demand for shorter-maturity bonds is also higher amid concern of a repeat of the cash crunch seen last year following the default of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. With liquidity tightening anyway toward the end of the fiscal year in March, another default may create a squeeze.


“The crisis that began after the IL&FS default in September is not over yet,"" said Pankaj Pathak, fixed-income manager at Quantum Asset Management Co. in Mumbai. “The widening of spreads between corporate and sovereign yields reflects a lack of confidence in the credit market.""


Funds switching to shorter maturities has seen yields on three-year bonds slide 29 basis points this month to 6.86 percent, while those on five-year notes have tumbled 33 basis points. At the same time, benchmark 10-year yields have climbed five basis points to 7.33 percent."
"During noon trade, Tech Mahindra shares were up 6% to ₹796 against a 0.70% rise in the broader Nifty index. "
"The agreement also enables Amazon Prime members streaming to Chromecast or using Android TV devices to access Amazon's video content


WASHINGTON: Amazon and Google announced Thursday they had agreed to allow each other's streaming media applications to work on their platforms, ending a spat over video between the tech giants.


The companies said in a statement that the official YouTube apps will be available on Amazon's Fire TV in the coming months, allowing users of the Amazon platform to access the music videos, movies, shows and other content from the Google-owned service."
"A breakthrough in US-China trade talks and an eventual turn in economic data could give support for risk assets in time. But meantime, Chow advised dividend-rich equities and high- yield debt for an income-based strategy.


Investors also digested news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence anyone close to President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. While Mueller failed to exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice, Attorney General William Barr said he did not find enough evidence to pursue that charge.


In the U.K., sterling dipped at the start of a week that could bring the risk of yet another vote on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and other cabinet colleagues publicly backed May on Sunday as several British newspapers said she is under increasing pressure to stand down over her handling of Britain’s exit from the European Union.


The Turkish lira recouped some of its Friday slump, which followed Turkey’s banking regulator starting an investigation into JPMorgan Chase & Co. and another probe of unspecified banks for stoking the currency’s plunge."
"AppleApple iPhonesiPhones salesApple cuts iPhones productionApple sharesApple sales forecastApple investorstechnology


Bengaluru: Apple Inc has cut production orders in recent weeks for all three iPhone models launched in September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing sources."
"The peppy number, which is set in the backdrop of a circus, also features Disha Patani and Sunil Grover


While we know Bharat traces Salman’s journey over 50 years, the song takes us to his youthful days, when his character worked in a Russian circus"
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent election rally in Bhubaneswar reiterated the development message that BJP has been wooing voters with in Odisha.pti (PTI)


In the 1999 general elections, the BJP won nine out of the 21 LS seats in Odisha, up from seven in the 1998 general polls


While Patnaik is a major player in state politics, the BJP leadership has convinced voters that nationally it is PM Modi who counts


NEW DELHI: Twenty years after its best electoral performance in Odisha, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to resurrect itself in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The party is making a strong push in a state where Biju Janata Dal leader and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik remains a dominant force after nearly two decades in power. With Congress failing to rise to the challenge, the BJP is trying to woo voters with a development message."
"“Then, as part of a third-party SDK update, he could disable malware protections and inject any rogue code he chooses such to steal data, implant ransomware or tracking or install any other kind of malware,"" it added."
"In ratcheting up short-term borrowings, Indian companies are in line with their emerging market peers, based on an OECD report released last week. Corporate borrowings maturing within three years account for 47 percent of all outstanding emerging market debt, nearly double the level in 2008, the report showed.


The short horizon on the obligations means more frequent refinancing, making borrowers vulnerable to rising interest rates as quantitative easing ends, the report said."
"(From left) Congress leaders Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi, AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu in New Delhi on Sunday. (PTI )


Four leaders representing 21 opposition parties met in Delhi and decided to organize a nationwide campaign on discrepancies and malfunctioning of EVMs


A senior BJP leader said opposition parties were trying to undermine EC and the election process in the country


HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: Opposition parties on Sunday decided to approach the Supreme Court to secure a direction to the Election Commission (EC) for paper verification of at least half the votes cast through electronic voting machines (EVMs)."
"With emerging technologies becoming implementable, India offers an opportunity to implement at a scale that is probably matched only by China


133 million new roles that will be created through artificial intelligence, but seven million jobs will be displaced


A slew of emerging technologies is shaping our lives, arguably at a rate of change never seen before in history. Enabled by cheap computing power and access to large data sets, machines are already doing a better job than humans in several areas.


This ‘intelligence’ is moving away from central server farms into devices and things that will soon become part of our daily lives. These devices will potentially negotiate their own way in our world via ‘smart contracts’ and without significant human intervention."
"The Cupertino, California-based company warned last week that sales for the crucial holiday quarter would likely miss Wall Street expectations.


iPhone XRAppleiPhone production boostiPhone XR salesiPhone salesApple Q4 earningsFoxconnPegatronWistron"
"Funds from the company assists the charity that Konecki runs, Drop4Drop, which provides clean water to countries in need"
"The price rise came after a report from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed a drop in Saudi crude supply to the United States.


""Crude oil prices were stronger after signs emerged that OPEC cuts are impacting trade. EIA's weekly report showed that US imports from Saudi Arabia fell by more than half from the previous week to 442,000 barrels per day (bpd). This is the second lowest level in weekly data going back to 2010,"" ANZ bank said."
"Domestically, even Congress president Rahul Gandhi is talking about a lot of populist policies, he said, underlining the need to be vigilant.


In a departure from his earlier views, Jhunjhunwala said the ruling BJP will not get a clear majority in the ongoing polls. However, it will be a major partner in the next government, he said, adding from an economic perspective, there won't be any veering off the policies as they remained consistent with different governments since the 1990s.


Even as markets breach new highs, he advised investors that this is not the best time to invest and recommended a cautious outlook as always the gains are limited when the expectations are high."
"The Congress party on Sunday released a report on national security drafted by Lt. Gen (Retd.) D.S. Hooda, the main architect of the 2016 surgical strikes. The document is titled ""India's National Security Strategy"" and its views were reflected in party's manifesto which was released earlier this month.


""We have taken several features of Lt. Gen D. S. Hooda's plan. These ideas will be implemented when we form our government. Our approach is not ad-hoc, it is after a careful study and deliberation, necessary measures will be taken,"" former union home minister P. Chidambaram told reporters at the briefing."
"But all of these positives will not guarantee a deal. The company’s operations have scaled down, considering that about half of its planes are grounded. As the chart above shows, Jet Airways had already lost considerable market share by end-February. Returning to normalcy can be an uphill task, especially with some competitors successful in poaching some of the airline’s resources. Even before Jet Airways’ current troubles, its cost structure was far higher than that of its peers.


Cumulatively, these factors could well mean that Jet Airways’ sale will not take off easily. Investors are taking note of this. Small wonder then that despite the rally in its shares on Monday, the stock is still trading 58% lower compared to the beginning of FY19.


So, when banks try to find a strategic investor for Jet Airways within the next two months, their only hope is of others who have similar nerves of steel. Else, their latest show of support will be a case of false bravado."
"The cases cost $129 and come in white or black. They’re popular with many iPhone users and contribute to Apple’s Other Products segment, which generated $4.2 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, up 31% from a year earlier."
"Spotify declined to comment on the matter of modified apps, but the streaming music provider did say earlier this month that its new terms of service would crack down on users who are ""creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements"" on its service.


Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds mobile games, said it actively works with partners to address infringement ""for the benefit of both our player community and Rovio as a business.""


Niantic, which makes Pokemon Go, said players who use pirated apps that enable cheating on its game are regularly banned for violating its terms of service. Microsoft Corp , which owns the creative building game Minecraft, declined to comment.


It is unclear how much revenue the pirate distributors are siphoning away from Apple and legitimate app makers.


TutuApp offers a free version of Minecraft, which costs $6.99 in Apple's App Store. AppValley offers a version of Spotify's free streaming music service with the advertisements stripped away.


The distributors make money by charging $13 or more per year for subscriptions to what they calls ""VIP"" versions of their services, which they say are more stable than the free versions. It is impossible to know how many users buy such subscriptions, but the pirate distributors combined have more than 600,000 followers on Twitter."
"Micromax recently launched the Bharat 4 Diwali Edition and Bharat 5 Infinity Edition, both of which run Android Go based on Oreo 8.1 out of the box. The two smartphones sport a 5-inch display at the front. Micromax hasn’t specificied which processors power the smartphones, but both phones come with 1GB RAM. The Bharat 5 Infinity comes with 16GB internal storage while the latter comes with 8GB inbuilt storage. The Bharat 5 Infinity is backed by a 5,000mAh battery while the Bharat 4 Diwali Edition comes with a 2,000mAh battery.


In terms of optics, the Bharat 5 Infinity comes with 5MP cameras on both front and rear, while the Bharat 4 Diwali Edition features a 5MP sensor at the back and 2MP clicker at the front."
"Dubbed ‘Dual Flex’ or ‘Mi Flex’, Bin said the foldable smartphone could go into mass production if it receives enough popularity."
"Jio has introduced a new app on the Google Play Store called Jio Group Talk. The new app allows users to hold voice conferences with up to ten participants. The access to the app is restricted strictly to Jio users. The app is available only to Android users for now and can only support voice conferences, although video calling and chatting features are expected soon. The app also supports HD voice calling.


Users can sign in using their Jio number and enter an OTP that is sent for verification. After the completion of the registration process, users can access the voice conferencing capabilities. The app would not work, however, if your Jio SIM is inactive, and if the SMS and calling facility is turned off."
"The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max feature 12MP dual rear cameras with adjustable bokeh. If you’re one of those who think a good depth-of-field cannot be achieved via a single rear camera, you might want to think again. The lonesome rear camera of the iPhone XR is basically the primary camera of the iPhone XS, featuring all the niceties like 12MP sensor with Smart HDR and adjustable bokeh. The secondary camera on the iPhone XS is a tele camera rather than a depth camera.


The iPhone XR skips the 512GB storage variant that its bigger siblings offer and comes with a 128GB variant instead, which fills the gap perfectly between 64GB and 256GB. There’s still no MicroSD expandability option on the iPhone XR though."
"Alleging that the Prime Minister had lied to the country, Gandhi said: ""Narendra Modi has lied to the nation for the last five years. In his speech, he doesn't speak about employment, farmers or 15 lakh. He speaks by looking at the teleprompter.""


The fourth phase of general elections is scheduled for 29 April, when voting would take place in 71 constituencies in Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal."
"Aashirvad Cinemas, which bankrolled the film, issued a statement, on Friday, expressing disappointment over the leak


 But, what Askar Ponnani has done is unacceptable and we won’t let him get away with it,” read the statement"
"Chris Hemsworth returnsThe Australian actor returns as the prince of Asgard, complete with his signature look and the hammer


 At the end of the first Avengers movie, we saw Thor take Tom Hiddleston’s Loki back to their realm to make him answer for his crimes


 Introduction to Reality StoneIt’s all been leading to this – the Infinity Stones! The signature line from Avengers: Infinity War had its seed sowed in various Marvel films which introduced us to the Infinity Stones


 When Thor is helping Loki escape from the Asgardian prison, the latter masquerades as Captain America allowing actor Chris Evans to make a brief yet memorable cameo in the movie"
"NEW YORK: Facebook says it is aware of outages on its platforms including Facebook, Messenger and Instagram and is working to resolve the issue."
"For the past two years, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers have been working tirelessly across all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal with the single aim of making significant gains in the 2019 general elections.


Work began soon after the party’s dismal performance in the assembly polls in 2016, with the BJP garnering a mere 10% vote share. This, despite doing well in the remaining parts of east and north-east India. The efforts were not limited to strengthening the organizational and social base of the party, but aimed at exploiting the people’s anger against the Mamata Banerjee-led state government. (READ MORE)"
"The smart fabric described in the patents is capable of taking in touch inputs and transmitting them wirelessly.


Apple Inc received 37 patents for a touch sensitive surface capable of scrolling and flipping pages on a connected display and a smart fabric capable of transmitting remote control commands.


Patently Apple, a website that publishes Apple’s latest patents, says that Apple could integrate touch sensors on the back glass. The website also suggests that Apple has also applied for patents for tilt controls, allowing a user to turn pages of a document."
"HMD Global, the licensee for Nokia in India, launched the Nokia 7.1 smartphone on Friday. The Nokia 7.1 is priced at ₹ 19,999 and will go on sale starting 7 December on online and offline platforms.


Airtel prepaid customers on Nokia 7.1 can enjoy 1TB of 4G data on eligible plans starting ₹ 199 and Airtel postpaid customers can enjoy additional data of 120GB along with three months of Netflix subscription and one year of Amazon Prime subscription on plans starting ₹ 499."
"The Rs132-crore IPO received bids for 11,67,595 shares against the total issue size of 43,29,038 shares"
"While investors were somewhat aware of these pressures, they were evidently surprised at the extent of the fall in profit. Infratel shares were trading down 5% today. The worry is that the pressure on Bharti Infratel’s earnings is likely to worsen. These concerns emerge from two fronts. One is continuing consolidation in the telecom sector. The Vodafone Idea Ltd combine continues to rationalise its telecom sites. After exiting the overlapping sites, the focus now is on reducing the presence in low-revenue generating sites.


The second is Reliance Jio’s plans to float its tower infrastructure business into a separate entity. Analysts fear such a move can curb incremental tenancies from Jio. The scenario can deteriorate if the new entity created by Jio is successful in finding external customers. This can exert pricing pressure, impacting Bharti Infratel’s prospects further."
"While there is significant ground to cover, India is promisingly poised to take advantage of this gathering storm of opportunity. As these technologies move out of the research labs and innovation hubs in Silicon Valley towards real-world implementation, India offers an opportunity to implement at a scale that is probably matched only by China, according to an exclusive EY-Mint Emerging Technologies Report that was released during the Mint Digital Innovation Summit on 15 March in Bengaluru.


As India goes digital, data sets about various facets of Indian consumers and businesses are becoming available to fuel improved implementation. Our ecosystem of startups willing to plunge headfirst into the race to apply these technologies and data sets to solve unique Indian problems including agriculture, urban transport, energy management, financial inclusion, small format retail to name only a few.


Last, but not the least, the government is taking several steps to spur the adoption of emerging technologies.


However, there is a lot more to be done. To be able to compete with the US and China, India will need to invest significantly more to create a conducive environment to foster innovation and attract talent, as this report indicates. The dialogue is not just about survival, but the willingness to fight and thrive to stay ahead of the curve. The question is: Are you ready?"
"What lies ahead for organizations?: Experts at Checkpoint believe there will be more targeted attacks in the future as cybercriminals are eyeing higher returns. Cloud infrastructure will face more Cryptojacking attacks (unauthorized use of someone else’s computer to mine cryptocurrency) as hackers will require assets that offer greater CPU capacity for faster mining and the scalability of cloud services will allow them to do that. Also, many organizations are still not fully aware of its crippling effects, notes Checkpoint. Attacks on mobile devices are also expected to grow, but instead of multiple forms of attacks, cybercriminals may use an all-in-one mobile malware with multiple capabilities, it notes. Further, with artificial intelligence (AI) becoming an integral part of operations of many organizations, cybercriminals will try to manipulate AI systems. IoT devices, on their part, are predicted to remain the weakest link in security as they are harder to secure.


Moreover, following the roll-out of general data protection regulations in the European Union, more countries are going to come up with their own data protection laws. This means organizations won’t be able to brush away any data breaches involving user data and will have to make them public."
"“The risk-off sentiment is pressuring commodity prices,"" said Kim Kwangrae, a commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc. in Soul. “Investors are worried about the potential for a long-term recession, and that’s pushing down expectations for future demand.""


West Texas Intermediate for May delivery lost 58 cents to $58.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 10:33 a.m. in Singapore after falling as much as 71 cents earlier. Prices declined 94 cents on Friday, paring the weekly gain to 52 cents, or 0.9 percent."
"Avengers: Infinity War: Everybody expected this gigantic film to be a success, but it exceeded even the wildest expectations to top the 2 billion dollar mark


Black Panther: A relatively standalone superhero movie largely unconnected from the rest of the MCU became this humongous cultural phenomenon that resonated throughout the world"
"Stadia runs through the company’s YouTube video-streaming platform and takes advantage of Google’s extensive network of data centers. With its presentation, Google drove home the point that its technical tools alone would make the future of gaming services work. It repeatedly mentioned the advantage of its cloud-computing power and YouTube, suggesting the service is designed to bring more users to those units -- two areas where investors are looking for sales growth beyond advertising.


“This is only the start,"" said Karol Severin, co-founder of MIDiA Research. “The tech majors Microsoft, Google and Amazon will be the real winners creating synergies with their existing entertainment ecosystems and leveraging cloud infrastructure and high content budgets.""


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"India continues to be the largest market in terms of potential feature phone volumes followed by Bangladesh and Nigeria.


According to Counterpoint research, in contrast to the smartphone market which contracted for the first time in 2018, the feature phone market has continued to grow over the last three years. In 2019, a little more than 400 million feature phones would be sold globally.


""India and the Middle East Africa region will see cumulative shipments of around 800 million feature phones out of more than one billion global feature phone shipments over the next three years,"" Peter Richardson, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said in a statement."
"The way he is looking at the character (Udham Singh) and the world is extraordinary as well as beautiful


Earlier it was Irrfan Khan who was signed for the project, but the actor had to be replaced after he was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour"
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.77 points, or 0.01%, at the open to 25,062.12. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.04 points, or largely unchanged, at 2,706.49. The Nasdaq Composite gained 2.41 points, or 0.03, to 7,266.28 at the opening bell."
"The XR will start selling from Friday for about $750. The standard XS starts at about $1,000; its supersized cousin, the XS Max, goes for $100 more. Photo: Apple


Planning to buy the Apple iPhone XR? You would save at least $250 and still get most of the other cutting-edge features found on the more expensive model


New York: Apple offers you a simple trade-off with its new iPhone XR, the middlebrow cousin to the top-of-the-line iPhone XS.


On one hand, the XR lacks the high-resolution screen and dual-lens camera found on the XS. On the other, you'd save at least $250 and still get most of the other cutting-edge features found on the more expensive model.


Based on several days of testing, it looks like Apple made the right cost-cutting trade-offs with the XR, which starts selling Friday for about $750. The standard XS starts at about $1,000; its supersized cousin, the XS Max, goes for $100 more."
"The coalition of the opposition Congress party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), supported by the Rashtriya Janata Dal, has mounted a big challenge to the BJP. Jharkhand is one of the few states where the understanding among the coalition challenging the BJP is strong.


The current government has done very well in certain areas. For example, it succeeded in cracking down on Naxalism. In this election, Naxalism therefore, is not an issue. Also, agriculture has benefited from the expansion of irrigated areas. The state did not get good monsoon last year, which affected employment in the sector. But unemployment is not a very big issue in this election, going by public perception."
"The Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta wrote in her review, “The promise Kalank holds out is frittered away in its inordinate length, which you start feeling quite soon after it opens


 The pace slows so often that you are left admiring the period detailing from the 1944-45-46 years, in the movie’s havelis and ‘bazaars’ and newspaper offices"
"""Initial findings from the inspection of reported issues on the display showed that they could be associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge. There was also an instance where substances found inside the device affected the display performance,"" the spokesperson said.


Samsung has hailed the folding design as the future in a field that has seen few surprises since Apple Inc's iPhone in 2007. Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has also announced a folding handset, the Mate X."
"The region, that is often considered a darling of the pro-rural Janata Dal (Secular) party, accounted for one of the highest number of farmer suicides in the state. Known for its fertile lands, Mandya, has only half of it land covered under irrigation and sees most of its farmers take to the streets each time there is some development over the Cauvery river water sharing dispute with neighbouring Tamil Nadu.


“It was high voltage and created excitement from day one. It was as if the people were contesting the elections,"" Jagadish Shettar, former Karnataka chief minister and senior BJP leader said.


Though he attributes the higher turnout to more youngsters wanting to see Narendra Modi as PM again, G.Parameshwar, Deputy CM and senior Congress leader attributes to reasons that may be unpalatable to the BJP. “It was like a competition,"" he says, referring to the contest between JD(S) and Congress party workers who showed up in large numbers to help the coalition candidate.


Though the parties have different views to explain the higher voter turnout, Mandya has one of the biggest, if not the biggest phenomenon to watch out for when the results are announced on 23 May. In cinema parlance, “picture abhi baaki hai."""
Bollywood actor Neena Gupta is all to play Akshay Kumar’s mother in Rohit Shetty directorial Sooryavanshi
"JVC entered India in partnership with Veira Group, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for consumer durables in India, in association with Flipkart.


Viera Group said it currently has its manufacturing unit in Noida having a capacity of up to one million units per annum."
"The back of the smartphone sports a 16MP +2MP camera configuration along with an LED flash. The phone is backed by a 3,600mAh battery.


The Oppo K1 is priced at 1,599 Yuan (about ₹16,800) for the lower spec 4GB/64GB variant, while the 6GB/64GB option costs 1,799 Yuan (about ₹19,000). We can expect the same pricing in India."
"It’s also harder to find mispricings. Gross says he used to pounce when banks introduced new credit products because they inevitably were poorly understood and traded at discounts to intrinsic value. The first few years of mortgage bonds in the 1970s are an example.


“Investors basically wouldn’t touch them,"" he said. “Our accounting department, they didn’t know how to segregate the principal and the interest, and there were complaints aplenty. I said, ‘Come on, get over it!’ because these things were so cheap. We got in early.""


Similarly, Pimco was a big buyer of Treasury futures in the 1980s. Clients heard “futures"" and asked, “Is this like soybeans? Are you trading corn?"" Gross recalled. As a result, the spreads between the cash and futures markets were unusually wide and created a “sort of riskless arbitrage.""


Gross put himself ahead by identifying opportunities to take risk outside the bonds in his benchmark and using the Pimco sales force to get clients comfortable with the approach. Over a 15-year period, Gross beat 96% of his peers. Eventually, other investors caught up and those products were added to the index."
"The NDA government has launched an income transfer scheme for small and marginal farmers called the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, or PM-Kisan. Small and marginal farmers who own less than 5 acres of land will receive three installments of ₹2,000 each every year.


The petition has been filed against 41 respondents, including the chief secretaries of states and union territories. The other respondents include the union ministries of finance and agriculture, the Reserve Bank of India and the Election Commission.


The 'farm distress' issue has assumed importance given that 342 seats of the 542 parliamentary constituencies in India are rural (another 144 are semi-urban), according to numbers based on Census 2011 classification."
"When asked, how does the team plan to go about the film, considering the climax of Baaghi 2 was also set in the Rambo zone, Tiger said the setting has now been changed"
"oComplying to users and platform security concerns, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is banning accounts of users who have been using modified versions of the app like WhatsApp Plus and GB WhatsApp.


These altered versions of the messaging app are developed by third-parties where the company cannot validate their security practices. These unofficial apps violate the Terms of Service clause of the official app."
"It incorporates a 4th Gen Qualcomm AI Engine, Qualcomm Spectra 350 ISP and Qualcomm Hexagon 688 DSP, which also has an additional tensor accelerator unit which allows better speech recognition.


It comes with Qualcomm's X15 LTE modem module which is WiFi-6 ready. The Spectra 350 ISP allows recording of 4K HDR footage with ""Portrait"" mode, high-resolution depth sensing, MCTF video capture, HEIF file capture and playback. It can supports sensors with up to 48MP resolution and can click snapshots with really high resolution of 192MP by combining images from multiple sensors.


The Snapdragon 730G can be thought of as a regular Snapdragon 730 on steroids with an overclocked Adreno 618 GPU. It promises up to 15% faster graphics rendering over the Snapdragon 730 and comes with a Jank Reducer feature that reduces janks in games by up to 90% running at 30fps. It also has ""Anti-Cheating Extensions"" to help keep gamers on the same level playing field. It also has improvements in the camera pipeline, adding support for Cinemagraph, low power voice activation and HD super slow-mo at 960fps."
"OnePlus already confirmed the presence of triple camera setup, notch-less display and ""sub-$2,000 price tag"" in the OnePlus 7 Pro.


The company now claims that its display is also HDR10+ certified, providing users with a more dynamic, detailed and vivid viewing experience.


According to OnePlus, HDR10+ provides frame-by-frame adjustments for the optimum representation of contrast from the HDR source content. HDR10+ also produces 4000 nits of peak brightness, a massive increase of 3,000 nits compared to HDR10. Being an open format, it's license and royalty free and therefore easily adoptable by manufacturers and content producers with quality maintained through an HDR10+ certification and logo program."
"Experts are keyed up with this new tech, but are also sceptical about its potential side effects. Dr Nayar is excited to see how technology can help people sleep comfortably, but rues that it is still early days and doctors need to have more experience with such products to analyse their benefits and side effects after prolonged use before recommending them to anyone.


“While those related to improving obstructive sleep apnea can be of use as they can lead to significant improvement in quality of life. However, these devices need to show improvement in sleep parameters in polysomnography before they can be prescribed to patients,"" advises Dr Puneet Khanna, senior consultant and head of Respiratory Medicine Intervention Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine at Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital in Delhi.


Products such as electric blankets, which keep you warm during cold nights and are great for soothing aching joints, are easily available these days, but the more advanced options are expensive and available in select markets.


Also, there are not many studies that show their benefits. Dr Khanna says that most of them are not proved to be of any real benefit to qualify as useful, but he is not writing them off completely. With more advanced technology, they can be of use in future, he adds."
"RK Films bankrolled films like Awaara (1951), Shree 420 (1955), Mera Naam Joker (1970) and Bobby (1973) among others


 He said, “With the state of the roads and traffic today, no actor comes to Chembur to shoot in this studio"
"WhatsApp has already stopped working on Nokia Symbian S60, BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8.0 and its older versions from 2017. From 1 February, 2020, you will not be able to run WhatsApp on Android versions 2.3.7 and older and iPhone iOS 7 and older.


Here is a full list of all mobile phones on Nokia S40 operating system that will not support WhatsApp from now.


whatsappwhatsapp downloadwhatsapp iphonewhatsapp androidwhatsapp mobile phone downloadwhatsapp nokianokianokia ashanokia mobile phones"
"An ode to make entertaining unadulterated movies for the archives and beyond the basic intent of watching cinema


 When I’m making a film, I feel most alive, like I’m doing the right thing, and I’m in the place where I need to be and always hope that films will inspire and permeate culture in a big way,” she added


Ashwiny, whose next directorial is sports drama Panga, said good box office collections and critics reviews motivates an artiste"
"Shipments of mobile phones are estimated to reach 1.8 billion units in 2019, a decline of 0.5% year over year (YoY).


However, in 2020, the mobile phone market is forecast to return to growth, with a shipments increase of 1.2% from 2019."
"Qualcomm Inc. is among those talking up 5G as the next big thing in phones. In reality, 5G technology will be of greater benefit to connected devices such as cars and door bells than handsets. And the real momentum won’t get going for another year or so.


So if you’re hanging out for some action in the smartphone market, go take a nap. We’ll wake you up next year.


2019 SmartphonesQualcomm5GQualcomm 5Gnew smartphone launchesXiaomiSamsungAppleChina trade warChina smartphone marketiPhone"
"The 43-year-old actor, who is nine years elder to Gadot, shared the incident on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen"
"He pointed out that including OnePlus, the premium smartphone market in India grew by 44 per cent in the first half of 2018.


However, minus OnePlus numbers, the premium segment shrunk by 12 per cent, reflecting the strong growth being seen by the brand, he added.


OnePlus has recently launched its OnePlus 6T handset in India -- a key market for the company. In August, Lau had said India accounted for about one-third of OnePlus’ revenues last year and is set to become the “second home ground"" for the company.


oneplus smartphonesoneplus smartphone launchoneplus latest smartphoneoneplus new smartphoneoneplus india phonesoneplus mobile phones5g phonesoneplus 5g phone launch"
"But the Abhishek Varman directorial could not match the expectations, neither of critics nor the audience


Starring Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit, Kalank was largely criticised for its lack of strong storytelling"
"Leading the change, Facebook would be smart to hire as many prominent voices in online privacy as it can attract and hiring critics is a straightforward way to build trust in the meantime.


Nate Cardozo served as the Senior Information Security Counsel at EFF — a US-based digital rights group


This appointment comes days after Facebook revealed its plans of integrating WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger"
"How does this work for the way that you spend your days? Who the f**k are you as a real person, now?” Thomas, 47, told Billboard in an interview


“Carlos taught me the difference between being a successful musician and being a celebrity, and that being a celebrity means nothing at all"
"“Awards is motivator and also a reassurance that it is important to follow your heart and make different cinema that brings a smile and also automatically say at least he or she has tried something different


”Panga, featuring Kangana Ranaut, Neena Gupta, Richa Chadha and Jassie Gill, is slated to be released on January 24, 2020"
"New Delhi: With the poll season in full swing, brands are being socially responsible and creating campaigns around the importance of voting.


A campaign by luggage brand Samsonite, which has got more than two million views on YouTube, features a young man visiting his hometown Dehradun albeit for a day. As he drives through the familiar roads and reconnects with old friends, he seems in a hurry to reach somewhere. The camera zooms onto a polling booth to show that he’s gone home just to cast his vote.


The viral Ek din ki chutti (one-day leave) campaign, subtly delivers the message to millions of young Indians to take a day off and go home to vote."
"Going strictly by its international launches, we feel that the Note 6 Pro can be thought of as a “T"" or “S"" variant of the Note 5 Pro. And if Xiaomi decides to launch the successor at a higher price tag, it could only be justified by an additional camera and the depreciation of Rupee against the Dollar.


mint-india-wire XiaomiRedmi Note 6 ProRedmi Note 5 ProRedmi Note 6 Pro India launchRedmi Note 6 Pro specifications"
"The company is hopeful that the facility will play a crucial role in development of artificial intelligence and machine learning in OnePlus products and also drive innovations that are centric and relevant to its Indian users, it said in a statement.


OnePlus zeroed in on Hyderabad as the site for its R&D centre, as the city houses active startup ecosystem and offers a sizeable talent pool."
"Share trading will resume tomorrow but will again be shut on Wednesday to mark Maharashtra Day. With two holidays, share markets will have only three trading days this week."
"Location data is more sensitive than many other categories of user information that would be more difficult to trace back to a real person, said Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney and teaching fellow at Georgetown Law’s Communications and Technology Clinic.


“Anytime someone is collecting where you are, that means it could go to someone else who could find you when you don’t want to be found,"" she said. Widespread access to location data associated with Alexa user recordings “would set up a big red flag for me.""


In an April 10 statement acknowledging the Alexa auditing program, Amazon said “employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow.""


In a new statement responding to this story, Amazon said “access to internal tools is highly controlled, and is only granted to a limited number of employees who require these tools to train and improve the service by processing an extremely small sample of interactions. Our policies strictly prohibit employee access to or use of customer data for any other reason, and we have a zero tolerance policy for abuse of our systems. We regularly audit employee access to internal tools and limit access whenever and wherever possible.""


Amazon’s Alexa Data Services team, which manages the scads of recordings of human speech and other data that helps train the voice software, numbers in the thousands of employees and contractors, spread across work sites from Boston to Romania and India.


Some of the workers charged with analyzing recordings of Alexa customers use an Amazon tool that displays audio clips alongside data about the device that captured the recording. Much of the information stored by the software, including a device ID and customer identification number, can’t be easily linked back to a user."
"What sets the Redmi 7 apart from its competition is the fact that it runs on a fairly powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chipset, usually seen in smartphones above ₹10,000. It was able to wade through most apps and tasks with ease and can even handle games like FIFA Mobile and Real Cricket 2019 very well.


Xiaomi has been a bit stingy in the memory department, though. The entry-level variant offers just 2GB RAM, which can be a bit low for users who like to multi-task on their phones.


Users can always expand the storage with a micro-SD card and Xiaomi has kept the card slot separate from the dual-SIM slots, so one can use all three simultaneously. The 4,000mAh battery is bigger than the Galaxy M10’s 3,400mAh battery but slightly lower than Realme 3’s 4,230mAh battery. However, all three can comfortably see off a full day."
"Voice control: The November update has added the option to use a mouse and keyboard, allowing greater precision while gaming on the Xbox One—it works with Fortnite and Warframe as of now. Xbox users can use Microsoft’s voice assistant Cortana or an Alexa-enabled speaker to launch games/apps, switch on/off, scroll up/down, adjust volume, capture screenshots and clips with voice commands. This was a part of the November update, and is currently available to users in the US and the UK.


Motion sensors: Sony, on the other hand, lets users type with their controller in ways other than pointing and clicking. You can use the motion sensors of the PS4 to navigate smoothly between letters and press X to type on the virtual keyboard. For faster typing, users can swipe on the touchpad and click on it when the pointer is on a letter.


Multitasking: For users who like to multitask, the PS4 provides the option to switch between the last two applications you used by pressing the PS button twice. This allows users to play games and access native PS4 apps, such as the PS4 browser, PS Store, PS Video and Capture gallery at the same time."
"The actor tweeted, “Excited to venture into the web world with #ClassOf83 a @NetflixIndia original film by @sabharwalatul produced by @iamsrk @_GauravVerma @RedChilliesEnt”Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan is waiting for the release of another production, Bard of Blood, an original Netflix series based on the book by the same name


Earlier, Shah Rukh Khan had said on his collaboration with Netflix, “We have always tried to create world class content and entertainment from India"
"This image of a strict administrator is wrong, says PM Modi""This image of a strict administrator is wrong


PM Modi on missing his mother""If I would have left home after becoming the PM, then probably I would have missed my mother


PM Modi's anger management mantra""If something which I don't like has happened, I would sit alone and write everything on a paper


I do get angry but I never take it out on others: PM Modi""To be upset or angry is a part of human life


PM Modi opens about his chilhood""During childhood, I would go to the library and read about big people


 I used to find answers to the questions myself and this is how I reached where I am,"" Prime Minister Narendra Modi


Akshay-Modi interview beginsAkshay Kumar begins the interview by saying he wants to know more about Narendra Modi the person than Prime Minister Narendra Modi"
"The Nifty 50 Index options are already available for three monthly option contracts, three quarterly and eight semi-annual option contracts, National Stock Exchange (NSE) said in a release."
"”Also read | India’s Most Wanted trailer: Arjun Kapoor is on the lookout for India’s OsamaArjun Kapoor added, “When I saw the film, I felt proud as I am a part of a film that represents today’s India


”Produced by Fox Star Studios, Rajkumar Gupta and Myra Karn, India’s Most Wanted is scheduled to release on May 24, 2019"
"From playing a young boy with responsibilities in popular TV show Balika Vadhu to doing TV commercials and finally bagging roles in movies and web series after a struggle of 14 years, Vikrant Massey has come a long way


 But, unlike his contemporaries in the industry, the 32-year-old actor is not that big a fan of social media which has now become a platform to connect with fans


 He believes his “primary job is that of an actor” and he would like to work with those who trust him with his craft instead of looking at the number of followers he has on Instagram or Twitter


com, Massey talked about talented actors being denied work because of lesser number of social media followers and chances of him being a quintessential Bollywood ‘hero’"
"Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said in a research note that the FTC trial has “potential to be one of the more important events"" in Qualcomm’s broader showdown with Apple, while the chipmaker’s track record in preliminary skirmishes has been “less than stellar.""


Still, Qualcomm has scored some victories. The chipmaker brought separate patent suits against Apple in Germany and China, winning bans on the sale of some models of the iPhone.


Those cases are aimed at forcing Apple to settle the broader dispute. That’s not going to happen until the FTC case is out of the way, according to UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri.


The FTC case will “likely then drive the Apple-related cases one way or the other,"" he wrote in a research note.


The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm Inc., 17-cv-00220, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose)."
"That means the real problem may be not so much WhatsApp the company or WhatsApp the product but something more fundamental — WhatsApp the idea.


When you offer everyone access to free and private communication, lots of wonderful things may happen — and WhatsApp has been a godsend to vulnerable populations like migrants, dissidents and political activists. But a lot of terrible things are bound to happen, too — and it might be impossible to eliminate the bad without muzzling the good.


In this light, WhatsApp is a powerful and permanent new reality and its problems aren’t likely to be solved as much as fitfully and sometimes unsatisfyingly managed. For better or worse, we are going to have to learn to live with it.


“I thought WhatsApp would be a very dark place, a wild place, where all these conspiracy theories would be spreading and we wouldn’t know what they were talking about,"" said Yasodara Córdova, a fellow at DigitalHKS, a center at Harvard’s Kennedy School that examines the role digital technologies play in government. Córdova has been working on Comprova, a fact-checking project to monitor social media sites during Brazil’s election.


What sets WhatsApp apart is speed and reach, Córdova said. In Brazil, more than 120 million people use the service, which is offered free as part of mobile internet plans (that is, using WhatsApp does not count against people’s data rate). As it does in its other big markets — India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and much of Europe — WhatsApp functions in Brazil as an all-purpose communications tool. It is used for chatting and joking, for trading photos and memes, for news, for political activity and more.


Because of that centrality, Córdova argued, the problems on WhatsApp in Brazil were mainly a function of the country’s broken political and media environment.


“For example, we don’t really have public libraries in Brazil,"" she said. “We don’t have a lot of sources of what people would consider reliable information — and the lack of good sources of information reinforces their beliefs when they see something false on WhatsApp or Facebook."""
"The Universal Pictures film is based on the book The Ghost Army of World War II, written by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles, as well as the documentary Ghost Army


According to Variety, it is currently unclear when the movie will go into production as it is still in development"
"Brie Larson will once again step into the shoes of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel for Avengers: Endgame which hits screens this weekend


 The actor, who is riding high on the success of her last release Captain Marvel, expressed her gratitude recently at a promotional tour in Seoul, South Korea


 And when you do, aren’t you just kind of amazed by how many people it takes to make one of these films? So to have that work celebrated feels really great"
"Wing argues that drone deliveries reduce traffic and pollution and are quick — being completed in six-10 minutes.


Drone company ""Wing"" has been trialling deliveries for the last 18 months, but will now be able to go ahead full time


Winged drones will only be allowed to fly 11-12 hours a day and they must be piloted, rather than fully automated


A Google-linked firm will start delivering takeaways and other small items to Canberra residents after the company received approval from aviation watchdogs in Australia on Tuesday."
"The three services will, however, continue as stand alone apps, at least until end of this year or early 2020


Facebook is still in the early stages of the work and plans to complete it by the end of this year or in early 2020


After the changes, a Facebook user, for instance, will be able send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account


San Francisco: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, plans to integrate the social network’s messaging services — WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger — asserting his control over the company’s sprawling divisions at a time when its business has been battered by scandals.


The move, described by four people involved in the effort, requires thousands of Facebook employees to reconfigure how WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger function at their most basic levels. While all three services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their underlying messaging infrastructure will be unified, the people said. Facebook is still in the early stages of the work and plans to complete it by the end of this year or in early 2020, they said.


Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation. After the changes take effect, a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, for example. Currently, that isn’t possible because the apps are separate.


By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential. If users interact more frequently with Facebook’s apps, the company may also be able to build up its advertising business or add new services to make money, they said."
"The Korean company suffered a black-eye with a previous major launch in 2016, when it recalled the Galaxy Note 7 after consumers reported issues with batteries that burst into flames. The world’s largest smartphone maker is counting on ground-breaking gadgets to propel growth and excite consumers as demand for mobile devices flattens. Pre-orders began Monday for a marquee device expected to usher in a wave of smartphones that can unfurl into tablets. The Galaxy Fold’s 7.3-inch screen teased how users can juggle three apps at once and view video with more clarity.


“We have received a few reports regarding the main display on the samples provided. We will thoroughly inspect these units in person to determine the cause of the matter,"" Samsung said in an statement Thursday.


The company’s shares slid more than 2 percent, outpacing a 1 percent fall in the country’s benchmark index.


In one of the more serious apparent flaws, the inner screen stopped working. First, the left side of the display went dark -- then the right side developed problems before also failing completely. Other reviewers reported similar issues, including flickering visuals and how the area around the central hinge lost viewable pixels. The external display still functioned for Bloomberg’s review team when the phone is closed. Separately, the demo unit’s screen retained permanent marks wherever a fingernail made contact during the course of use."
"Chinese smartphone maker has is developing a 100W fast-charger that claims to charge a smartphone with a 4,000mAh in as little as 17 minutes.


In a video posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Xiaomi co-founder and president Lin Binshowed off the capabilities of its new fast charger."
"The star said opposed to her career, her biggest drive at the moment are her two daughters“(I) felt a lack of ambition when I became a mother and now I feel more ambitious in the home right now than I do in the workplace"
"An MP from Patna Sahib, Sinha will contest from the same seat, this time on a Congress ticket, against BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad


New Delhi: A week after meeting Rahul Gandhi, actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha joined the Congress in the presence of senior party leaders, in New Delhi on Saturday."
"Bharti Airtel plans to raise as much as ₹320 billion ($4.6 billion) to build a war chest to fend off competition, 'Bloomberg' reported.


Traders are now focusing on Friday’s release of US payrolls data, which is expected to show a tight labour market that is pressuring firms to boost wages. The other key area of attention will be US-China trade talk developments."
"The new entrant at the I/O will be the new Pixel smartphones. If the leaks and reports are to be believed, Google might launch two new mid-range Pixel smartphones, starting at $399 with 5.6-inch and 6-inch screens. They will be driven by Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 670 or 710 octa-core chipsets. Google’s Pixel 3 smartphones have been doing well in overseas markets, and according to Counterpoint Research, Google is now the 3rd premium smartphone vendor in the US.


However, the Pixel phones haven’t done well in emerging markets, including India, which is largely dominated by Samsung, OnePlus and Chinese OEMs. With the mid-range Pixel phones, Google stands a better chance in these markets.


Google recently started releasing developer previews for its next Android version in March, available only on Pixel smartphones, but the pubic beta is reserved for the IO event. It should also be available on more Android smartphones.


However, this year the public beta was released in the same month as the preview. Google is trying to speed things up as it wants to give developers ample time to play with the new features.


Google is also expected to unveil some new features with Android Q beta 3 like a more elaborate storage permission, a full-fledged gesture control, and a desktop mode similar to Samsung’s Dex."
"But Fortnite, world's most popular multiplayer game with over 200 million registered users, did something unusual and equally amusing on Saturday. More than 10 million players turned up to a ""virtual concert"" of Marshmello, a popular American electronic dance music (EDM) artist, in the game.


Fortnite's basic game mode matches 100 players in a fight for survival, where the last man (or woman) standing wins. The concert was placed in Pleasant Park, a location in the multiplayer shooting game, where players could watch the virtual performance and even dance or ""emote"" to the electronic beats. 


""It was very cool,"" says Kunwarveer ""Kabir"" Singh Salwan, a 23-year-old businessman who has been playing the game for well over a year."
"I think the only place where one could have a social as well as a commercial footprint is on YouTube. The other services are simply retailers, or social platforms. I think streaming is going to help create an explosive and fertile music industry, more than it is now in India. I think you’re going to see what I consider the golden age of the music industry.


What do you think of the competition that you will face here, such as Gaana, Spotify, and Apple Music?


You will find competition in all good businesses. I look at other streaming services more like comrades in arms, in order to make a healthier Indian music business, shrinking the world, giving the opportunity to export Indian music, and providing the opportunity for more artists to make a living by making music.


I don’t see it as a zero-sum game. I think the market can support many services and we’re excited to be part of that ecosystem."
"Currently, Flipkart-owned PhonePe is the only player in India to introduce this user-friendly feature.


Commenting on the new feature, Vishal Gupta, Head of Product, PhonePe, said, “The PhonePe keyboard is an industry first initiative that will give PhonePe consumers the power to transact seamlessly and securely even while using other apps on their smartphone. PhonePe users no longer need to toggle through multiple apps and they can easily transact while having a conversation with their friends and family on their preferred social platform. The PhonePe keyboard will revolutionise the payments experience and is in line with our constant endeavour to build the best experience for PhonePe users."""
"In August, Epic said it wouldn’t distribute Fortnite through Google’s Play Store, instead asking players to visit its own site and download a special launcher that would open the game on Android devices. The method allows Epic to avoid the commission fee, and it’s new store will work in a similar fashion. Still, the game maker will have to assure players that its app store is as secure as the ones operated by Apple and Google.


If Apple and Google are eventually forced to cut commissions to match Epic’s, it could severely impact profit, Schachter said. Though the companies don’t break out financial information for their stores, research firm Sensor Tower said in a July report that people spent around $34 billion on the stores in the first half of 2018."
"Besides, the government’s aggressive divestment spree in these past two years has constantly kept the supply taps open in many PSE counters. The chosen route of divestment has been either exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or open market sales, or follow-on share offerings.


The sales are often lapped up because of a discount offered, although institutional investors typically hedge their bets by taking short positions in the derivatives market. Soon after allotment, the position is flipped (bit.ly/2GFs22t), and anecdotal evidence suggests the majority of the chunk of the incremental free float is held by retail investors, either directly or through investments in mutual funds or EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation).


A recent Mint report said ETFs comprising PSE stocks have generated dismal returns for EPFO (bit.ly/2In50OB). The government’s aggressive disinvestment seems to be resulting in an egregious form of wealth transfer, with retail investors getting the short end of the stick."
"The foldable screens could increase display space to the size of a mini-tablet, but fold like a wallet. Image: Bloomberg


Samsung and several rivals are preparing to roll out such screens to make devices more versatile for work and pleasure


San Francisco: For the past few years, the smartphone industry has been searching for a breakthrough to revive a market mired in an innovation lull and a sales slump. A potential catalyst is on the horizon in the form of flexible screens that can be folded in half without breaking. Samsung and several rivals are preparing to roll out such screens to make devices more versatile for work and pleasure.


The foldable screens could increase display space to the size of a mini-tablet, but fold like a wallet so they revert to the size of regular phones. But there are questions about price and durability."
"“The impact of digital ad fraud now goes beyond diminishing the returns on marketing spends and can jeopardise the entire digital transformation journey hampering brand equity, relevance and positioning among other ramifications,"" cautions Faisal Kawoosa, founder and chief analyst, techARC, in the press release.


However, businesses with an ad fraud solutions in place are better placed to contain abuse through their brand and serve only the most relevant things to their customers."
"According to industry sources, the airport operation Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) conducted the feasibility study and cost estimation for undertaking such a project.


But, it might take a while for the airport operator to achieve the financial closure for its inter-terminal APM project which is estimated to cost around ₹1,500 crore to ₹2,000 crore."
"The Jio Money app recently received an update that allows it to recharge metro cards and pay traffic challans. It also allows payment of road tolls in select cities. The new update (v 3.17.9466) is exclusive to iPhone users and is available on the App Store.


Jio also claims the app has received a bump up in security as it allows “binding your device with your JioMoney account."" This basically means before users are able to start using the wallet service, they will be required to open a Jio Money account which requires personal details of the user along with ID proof. Eligible IDs include driving licence number, PAN Card, passport number, voter ID, and NREGA proof


For now, the Jio Money app will be able be to recharge existing metro travel cards only in Mumbai and Hyderabad, but Jio might also add more cities shortly."
"Celebrating this special occasion, Raghu Reddy, Head of Category and Online Sales, Xiaomi India said, “We are delighted to be sharing yet another wonderful milestone achieved by our popular Redmi Note series of smartphones. It is truly humbling to see the love of our Mi Fans towards the new Redmi Note 7 series that have set themselves a class apart from their segment of smartphones. This inspires us even more to further ramp up the supply for our popular Redmi Note 7 series and help all our Mi Fans access it easily.""


The Redmi Note 7 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 processor and it boasts a 12MP+2MP dual rear camera setup along with a 13MP front camera. It also comes in a 4GB RAM/64GB variant priced at ₹11,999."
"Keep loving us! #Baahubali2”Rana Daggubati wrote on Twitter, “Two years this day changed my life and Indian cinema forever!! #Baahubali”Soon, Baahubali 2 producer Shobu Yarlagadda expressed that he is yet to come to terms with the film’s achievement"
"The sketch also shows that the SIM card slot has been moved to the bottom of the smartphone from the left side. The design of the smartphone is in line with the previous case renders.


Although OnePlus has claimed the smartphone wouldn't cost $2,000 (about ₹1.4 lakh), it still might be up there with the big guns, competing against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, Huawei P30 Pro and iPhone XS Max.


Reports and rumours hint at the presence of a curved, notch-less, high refresh-rate display. We are talking figures of 90Hz, which will put the OnePlus 7 Pro, a consumer-centric device, straight up in the league of gaming smartphones like the Razer Phone 2 and Asus' ROG Phone."
"""There is no legal mechanism to stop misuse of facial recognition technology in India,"" Pavan Duggal, one of the nation's top cyberlaw experts, told IANS, adding that the Information Technology Act does not specially deal with misuse of this technology.


There is also not any blanket ban on the use of this technology, perhaps because of the benefits that could accrue from the proper usage of the technology that dramatically cuts down the amount of time needed for identifying people or objects in photos and video.


In April last year, for example, Delhi Police could identify almost 3,000 missing children in just four days during a trial of a facial recognition system.


While the benefits of the technology for law enforcement agencies in fighting crime and identifying missing people and also for the industry for business purposes cannot be denied, it is the misuse of the technology that can put the citizens of the country in trouble."
"Part of the reason for the stock’s stagnation is concerns over its ability to drive further margin expansion. Raw material prices have been stable largely due to the drop in food prices. “One of the big concerns is food inflation. Rising raw material prices will tend to impact margins,"" says Naveen Kulkarni, head of research at Reliance Securities.


A larger concern is the rich stock valuations, due to higher demand for consumer goods stocks. In March 2015, Britannia’s one-year forward price-to-earnings ratio used to be about 35 times. Currently, it is 51.8 times, which is 48% higher. Unless it can bake healthy growth rates in the future, investors might soon find the stock unappetizing."
"BJP general secretary Anil Jain, also the party affairs incharge for the state, made the announcement as the BJP's Central Election Committee, which includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top leaders, met here to deliberate over its candidates for the polls.


The party decision means that Union minister Vishnu Deo Sai and seven times Lok Sabha member and former Union minister Ramesh Bais will not be fielded in the polls."
"Highlights of Honor View 20 include Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset, 48MP dual rear camera, 25MP front facing camera and Android Pie support.


XiaomiHuaweiHonorSamsungHonor View 20Honor 10 LiteHuawei Y9Xiaomi Redmi Note 7redmi 7Honor View 20 india launchHonor 10 Lite india launchHuawei Y9 india launchXiaomi Redmi Note 7 india launchredmi 7 india launch


Now that the New Year celebrations are out of the way and everyone’s focused on their businesses, you might want to prepare yourself for the first wave of major smartphone launches. Some companies have already sent out invites for Indian launches of their devices.


Honor has readied up the yearly successor to its Lite series of smartphones, the Honor 10 Lite. The Honor 10 Lite will be launched on January 15 and will be equipped with stronger underpinnings and upgraded aesthetics. Powered by Huawei’s in-house octa-core processor, the Kirin 710, it claims to provide 75% more performance than the Kirin 659 found on the Honor 9 Lite. There’s also a GPU Turbo feature that promises to improve graphics performance and efficiency by 60%. The front of the smartphone is illuminated by a 6.21-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2280x1080."
"The special co-branded variant received an overwhelming response from the Marvel cinematic fans, selling out within 1 hour of its first sale. The offline sale of the smartphone will commence from 4th May 2019.


The Oppo F11 Pro Marvel’s Avengers Limited Edition features a 6.5-inch display with a resolution of 2340x1080. The smartphone is powered by MediaTek Helio P70 processor paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. For photography, Oppo F11 Pro sports a dual-camera setup of 48MP+5MP sensors."
His portrayal of college rowdy Radhe Mohan was well-received by the audiences and his look from the film became a rage with the fans
"The award-winning BBC Studios crime thriller Luther, featuring Hollywood star Idris Elba, is set to have an Indian remake


The Indian version of Luther, which is yet to be titled, will be developed by Aditya Birla Group’s Applause Entertainment


This will be the second Asian version of Luther after the award-winning South Korean remake, Less Than Evil, a press release issued by the makers said"
"Kerala goes to polls on 23 April. The temple's ban on menstruating age women was struck down by the Supreme Court last year, and the ruling CPM pledged ideological support and tried to implement it against protests from the believers. The ruling BJP held several protests, some turned violent, all of which is expected to be a wedge issue between the two parties in the polls. "
"However, banning TikTok may not completely put it behind the reach of children, feels Pavan Duggal, leading cyberlaw expert. He points out, “Banning the app is completely out of sync with today's time. Even if the app is banned, people can still download them from other sources or by changing their location. We are not understanding the bigger challenge of how to deal with the paradigm. The problem is not with the app but third-party content. Strict action needs to be taken against people publishing such content instead of asking for a blanket ban on apps.""


Also, in the absence of the app from legitimate and trusted sources, users may turn to web based third-party stores, which can be more dangerous as they do not verify apps for hidden malicious content as Google and Apple do."
"The digital token’s comeback has been so gradual that its 30-day volatility has sunk almost to levels last seen before the 2017 cryptocurrency mania, when it bounded close to $20,000 and grabbed worldwide attention."
"YouTube introduced this text box feature last year to combat spread of conspiracy theories, including those on 9/11


San Francisco: Soon after a fire engulfed Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, news outlets began streaming live broadcasts on YouTube. Below several of the clips was an odd box of text: A snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica about the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
"While Arhhan was last seen in Paathshala alongside Shahid Kapoor, he was also in the news after Anushka Sharma shared a video of herself pulling up the actor for loitering


 Post his stint in Bigg Boss 5, he got back to the small screen and has been part of shows like Sath Nibhana Saathiya, Ek Deewana Tha and Ishqbaaaz


 A loyal servant, Kareema was the go-to-person for family members as he had atrocious solutions to any problem


Urvashi Dholakia as ShilpaOne of her firsts acting projects, Urvashi was seen as Sanju’s girlfriend Shilpa


 While she was the demanding girlfriend leaving Sanju crazy, she had a warm equation with the other family members


Urvashi Dholakia went on to play many roles on television, out of which Komolika from Kasautii Zindagii Kay is still iconic"
"The European Unions Copyright Directive will give publishers the right to demand money from the Alphabet Inc. unit, Facebook Inc. and other web platforms when fragments of their articles show up in news search results, or are shared by users.  (Reuters)


The impact of a Google News withdrawal on publishers who rely on the search giant for traffic to their sites is unclear


Google says the new EU laws would force it to choose which publishers it would license, effectively picking winners and losers


Google is considering pulling its Google News service from Europe as regulators work toward a controversial copyright law.


The European Unions Copyright Directive will give publishers the right to demand money from the Alphabet Inc. unit, Facebook Inc. and other web platforms when fragments of their articles show up in news search results, or are shared by users. The law was supposed to be finalized this week but was delayed by disagreement among member states."
"From Deepika Padukone to Anurag Kashyap, here is a look at photos shared by celebrities on their social media accounts"
"His injury hampered the production in Pune, forcing the filmmakers to return home without completing the shooting schedule"
"The draft amendment proposes that intermediaries will have to hand over to governmentagencies any information that might be related to cyber security, national security and related with the investigation, prosecution or prevention of an offence, within 72 hours.


They will have to take down or disable content considered defamatory or against national security under Article 19 (2) of the Constitution within 24 hours on being notified by the appropriate government or its agency in addition to using automated tools to identify, remove and trace the origin of such content. Intermediaries with over 55 lakh users will be required to have a permanent registered office with physical address and a senior official who would be available for coordination with law enforcement agencies.


Microsoft notes that the problem MEITY is trying to address is of fake news. “Existing regulations provide enough powers to work with social media platforms. There may be a case to bring out additional guidelines for certain types of intermediaries like social media platforms. There may also be a case to strengthen other laws which make the punishment of fake news and misuse of social media stringent. The focus should be on the perpetrators of the crime rather than the intermediaries,"" it has said in response to the guidelines. Regarding deployment of tools to proactively identify and remove unlawful content, Microsoft cautions that intermediaries will have to monitor all content passing through their systems for this, which is a violation of their individual privacy and right to freedom of expression. It will also be technically impractical due to the high cost of deploying such tech.


According to Broadband India Forum, one of the grounds for the Supreme Court striking down Section 66A of the IT Act, 2000, in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India was the vagueness of the terms used in the provision, such as offensive, menacing and dangerous, which invaded the right of free speech. However, words with a similar level of vagueness, such as grossly harmful, harassing and hateful exist in the proposed draft."
WWE wrestler-turned-actor John Cena is in early negotiations to board filmmaker James Gunn’s upcoming Suicide Squad sequel
The BJP has made national security as it's biggest platforms and made it the first promise in its manifesto as well
"The app uses user-generated content and can be termed as a neighbourhood Quora because of the similarity in fundamental features. Neighbourly users have asked just about anything, from the source of a strong LPG smell to why there are elephants on the street outside.


Download Neighbourly app from the Play Store. Sign in using your Google account. Click on “Find Local Questions’’ on the app. Allow Google to access your location.


After allowing location access, you can see many cards containing questions on the screen. You can shuffle through the questions by swiping left or ask your own question."
"The survey, '7 Uncomfortable Truths of Endpoint Security', released on Wednesday reveals that IT managers are more likely to catch cyber criminals on their organization’s servers and networks than anywhere else.


In fact, IT managers discovered 39% of their most significant cyber attacks on their organization’s servers, and 35% on its networks. Only about 8% were discovered on endpoints and about 19%, which is almost double the global average, were found on mobile devices."
"Of course, with all the care and intelligent writing, Vellaipookal never becomes more than the sum of its parts


 Whereas in a serious one, you need to have authentic characters, interesting plot developments and actors to root for


 What good is a thriller if it doesn’t guarantee you an edge-of-the-seat cinematic experience? That’s the problem with Vellaipookal"
"Samsung is said to be developing a clamshell-like device, and another that folds away from the user similar to Huawei Mate X


Samsung and other rivals are eager to gain an edge over Apple in the $495 billion smartphone industry, especially amid cooling sales


Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd is working on a pair of new foldable smartphones to follow its Galaxy Fold, seeking to seize an early lead in new market segment. The South Korean manufacturer is said to be developing a clamshell-like device, and another that folds away from the user similar to Huawei Technologies Co.’s Mate X, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing internal plans. The $1,980 Galaxy Fold that Samsung plans to release in April folds inward like a notebook.


While it’s still too early to gauge how much demand there will be for smartphones with flexible screens, Samsung and other rivals are eager to gain an edge over Apple Inc. in the $495 billion industry, especially amid cooling sales. Xiaomi Corp. is working on a dual-folding phone, according to a video released in January. The iPhone maker hasn’t announced any plans for a similar gadget."
"com got in touch with Sajid Khan, he stated that news about a film with John is not true as Indian Film and Television Association (IFTDA) has banned himSajid said, “It is not true, I have been suspended by the director’s association and I have not been working since the last six months"
"The Honor V20 starts at 2,999 Yuan (about ₹ 30,000) for the base variant and goes up to 3,499 Yuan (about ₹ 35,500) for the top specced model in China.


Honor View 20Honor View 20 priceHonor View 20 india launchHonor View 20 cameraHonor View 20 processorHonor View 20 pre order"
"Cryptojacking emerged as a fast-growing threat vector with over 24,000 hits on a daily basis. Photo: AFP


With 40% of total malware detection, the IT/ITES industry was among most vulnerable; organisations in manufacturing, education, and hospitality were also at risk


cyber securityseqritecyber threatsindian enterprisescyber security report q3 2018ITES industryseqrite reportquick heal technologies"
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tweeted out to prominent people, including movie stars and cricketers, to encourage Indians to vote in large numbers in the Lok Sabha elections. (Photo: PTI)


Out of the 91 individuals and institutes Modi tagged, the top 15 boast follower counts ranging from 13-37 million


Senior actors Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and filmmaker Karan Johar were also encouraged to spread voter awareness


NEW DELHI: The official Twitter handle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took election marketing to a new level on Wednesday morning. In a move ostensibly to create voter awareness, Modi tweeted out to prominent people, including movie stars, cricketers, industrialists, journalists, spiritual gurus and even rival politicians, to encourage Indians to vote in large numbers in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections."
"Facebook reported $6.88 billion in net income which amounts to $2.38 a share — up from $1.44 a share in the year-ago period. The full year revenue stood at $55.8 billion — up from $40.6 billion in 2017.


""Our community and business continue to grow. We've fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we're investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect,"" said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO.


Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, up from approximately 89% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017."
"Indian rupee on Thursday weakened, tracking losses in Asian currencies as dollar extended its gains for sixth sessions. Traders are cautious ahead of the key Reserve Bank of India's bi-monthly policy due at 11.45 am today. At 9.05 am, the rupee was trading at 71.76 a dollar, down 0.24% from its previous close of 71.56. The home currency opened at 71.67 a dollar.


A majority of bank treasury heads surveyed by Mint expects RBI to announce a status-quo policy, while changing the policy stance from calibrated tightening to neutral. Falling inflation, along with an expansionary budget, could push the RBI to maintain the policy rates unchanged, said a section of bankers. However, some bankers are not ruling out a 25 basis points (bps) cut before the upcoming general election."
"""The Galaxy A Series provides a range of models so everyone can choose a device that fits their unique needs and enables them to pursue their passions. The Galaxy A80 offers premium features for digital natives who want to fully engage in the Era of Live,"" Samsung Electronics President and CEO, IT and Mobile Communication Division, DJ Koh said while unveiling the A80 here.


Samsung Electronics has set a revenue target of USD 4 billion in 2019 from its A series alone in India as compared to an insignificant contribution to its total mobile revenue of around ₹36,700 crore in FY2017-18 when it had just two models A7 and A9 under the series.


With Chinese players denting the company's share in the mobile handset market impacting its leadership position, Samsung had refreshed its strategy to bring its top-end innovative features to the mid-range instead of restricting those to top-end models.


While Samsung usually cites GfK data, reports from other research organisations like IDC and Counterpoint have positioned Xiaomi to be ahead of Samsung (in terms of units shipped) for many quarters now."
Sultan’s album featured the popular romantic song “Jag Ghoomeya” and even Tiger Zinda Hai’s “Dil Diyan Gallan” was loved by fans
"Amazon Summer Sale will see smartphones including the Apple iPhone X, OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy M20, Honor View 20, Vivo NEX and Samsung Galaxy S9, among others


Discounts are also available on pocket-friendly smartphones including Vivo Y83 PRO, Honor 8X, and Redmi 6A


Amazon India is gearing up to host the its first sale for the fiscal from May 4. The Amazon Summer Sale will see smartphones including the Apple iPhone X, OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy M20, Honor View 20, Vivo NEX and Samsung Galaxy S9 among others on discounts and offers. The sale will end on May 7."
"com, Russo, who helmed the final two Avengers films, Infinity War and Endgame with his brother Anthony, was asked which DC movie would he direct


Though unlikely, it would be interesting to see what kind of a Batman movie it would look like if Joe Russo was at its helm"
"His full statement read, “I really don’t understand the unwarranted interest and negativity about my citizenship


 While all these years, I have never needed to prove my love for India to anyone, I find it disappointing that my citizenship issue is constantly dragged into needless controversy, a matter that is personal, legal, non-political, and of no consequence to others


 I would like to continue contributing in my small way to the causes that I believe in and make India stronger and stronger"
"Earlier, a documentary film called The Central Park Five had been made on the subject by Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon in 2012"
"The question is if Devgn and his team were as sensitive to the #MeToo movement as he emphasises in his statement, couldn’t they have for once priortised morality over money? That would have definitely made a better statement than the one Devgn has released


If Bollywood is quick to laud its American counterpart’s significant actions against the accused in the #MeToo movement, how difficult was it for the De De Pyaar De team to take a leaf out of Hollywood director Ridley Scott’s book? In November 2017, the director removed actor Kevin Spacey from All the Money in the World immediately after allegations of sexual harassment against him were reported even as the film was weeks away from its release and its trailers were already out


’” He even called it a business decision because he understood the toxicity from the allegations would infect the movie


 Guess, all the money in the world combined with heaps of arrogance is all that matters for Ajay Devgn and team


Even if one buys that it would have been a difficult call to remove Alok Nath because of monetary issues, despite T-Series being one of the most powerful production houses in the industry, what would have taken the team to issue a statement before the film’s promotions to condemn Nath and express its support to Vinta Nanda and all other survivors of sexual abuse? How much of Devgn’s precious time would have really gone in addressing the issue at the film’s trailer launch? How many tweets would he have really needed to speak about it even as he posted the film’s trailer and song links? There were enough options and opportunities and the Bollywood star made his choice every single time"
Kangana had recently hit out at her fellow actors in the film industry for refusing to be vocal about their political opinion
"A banner across the official Allo website confirmed that March 12 was its last day in operation, The Verge reported on Monday.


""During our time together, we brought you a smarter way to chat, with features like the Google Assistant, 'Allo' for web and selfie stickers but now the app is signing off,"" the banner on Allo's page read.


Last year in April, Anil Sabharwal, the head of the communications group at Google told the media that ""Allo"" as a product did not achieve the level of traction the company had hoped for."
"On the new browser, Microsoft has added a dedicated extensions page and sync support for approved extensions


Microsoft is yet to add features like dark mode on the browser along with the ""set aside tabs"" and ""web writing with stylus


San Francisco: The first look of Microsoft's Edge browser that the software giant is rebuilding on Google's open-source web browser Chromium shows new re-touches, animations and a read-aloud accessibility option, media has reported."
"Further, joint research with IIT-B on using blockchain to reduce the cost of remittance coming into India, for instance, “can save the country billions of dollars"", notes Gupta. Moreover, since as part of UBRI, Ripple has tied up with other global universities too, Gupta believes all these universities could ideally collaborate with each other on blockchain and, eventually, “solve problems in other countries too"". Blockchain is no longer a technology that is just about powering cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. A distributed digital ledger technology (DLT), it is being used by manufacturing companies to improve their supply chains; by healthcare and electricity companies; and by the financial sector to make transactions more transparent.


Blockchain is “pulling us into a new era of openness, decentralization and global inclusion"", states a June 2017 paper by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Large banking, financial services and insurance firms, manufacturing firms and governments across the world are already testing blockchain proofs of concept.


For instance, NITI Aayog and Oracle plan to start a drug supply-chain blockchain ledger, which is meant to help fight counterfeit drugs in the country. The Telangana state Information Technology, Electronics and Communication department have partnered with IT services provider Tech Mahindra to launch India’s first Blockchain District in Telangana."
"OnePlus recorded its highest-ever shipments in a single quarter (Q4), capturing 36% market share to lead the premium smartphone segment for three successive quarters.


""OnePlus 6 was the best selling premium model throughout 2018 in terms of shipment as well as in retail value. OnePlus 6T was positioned at second place followed by Samsung S9 Plus,"" said Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint.


According to Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, it has emerged as the best-selling premium smartphone brand owing to the focus on sharing the best technology with its consumers."
"Tom Holland as Spider-Man is back, just that this time our web-slinging friendly neighbourhood superhero has to fight enemies in a world without Iron Man


 The latest trailer of Spider-Man: Far From Home was dropped by Marvel Studios on Monday, revealing that the upcoming movie takes off after the events of Avengers: Endgame, which saw the death of Tony Stark


Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shows Peter Parker coming to terms with the fact that he is all on his own now, sans the support of his mentor"
"Soon after Apple's MacBook Air refresh, Xiaomi is all set to launch the next generation of Mi Notebook Air. The Mi Notebook Air launch will take place on March 26 at an event in China.


In a teaser posted by the company on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Xiaomi is trying to bank on the weight of the Notebook. The original iteration of the Mi Notebook Air was heavier than the Macbook Air and it weighed in at 1.28kg."
"If festive season sales are to be considered, Realme is now India’s third largest smartphone brand in volume terms. The smartphone market is led by Xiaomi in India.


Realme had started off as a sub-brand of Oppo but was spun off into an independent company that launched its first phone in India, Realme 1, in May 2018. It soon followed up with Realme 2, Realme 2 Pro and Realme C1. The Chinese brand launched its 5th smartphone, Realme U1, in India today that will be sold exclusively on Amazon from 5 December with prices starting from ₹ 11,999.


The Indian smartphone market continues to be dominated by Xiaomi, which has now widened the gap with Samsung."
"Also See | Happy birthday Ajith: Rare photos of ThalaAjith’s 59th project Nerkonda Paarvai is an official Tamil remake of Bollywood hit Pink


 Directed by H Vinoth of Theeran Adhigaram Ondru fame, this project, scheduled for an August release, also marks Vidya Balan’s debut in Tamil cinema


Also starring Shraddha Srinath, Adhik Ravichandran, Abhirami, Andrea Tariang and others in important roles, the film has music by Yuvan Shankar Raja"
"Brokerage house CLSA Ltd sees increased risk for industrial segment margins, because price hikes may be difficult in the auto segment given the weak demand. “We cut our earnings per share forecast 2%-4% (following a 6%-7% cut in January 2019), as we trim our growth forecast for industrial and also slightly tone down our margin assumptions,"" it said in a note to clients on 22 March.


On the bright side, the rupee’s appreciation coupled with price increases in the decorative paints business should provide some respite. A stronger rupee means raw material imports would be cheaper. However, that may not be sufficient for a significant improvement in margins. Also, while the price of titanium dioxide, a key input derived from crude oil, has declined from its peak, it remains elevated."
"FPIs pumped in a net sum of Rs21,032.04 crore into equities but pulled out a net amount of Rs3,812.94 crore from the debt market during 1-26 April


Overseas investors had put in a net sum of Rs45,981 crore in March and Rs11,182 crore in February in the capital markets (both equity and debt)


New Delhi: Foreign investors were net buyers in the Indian capital markets for the third straight month in April, pouring in Rs17,219 crore on favourable macroeconomic conditions and ample liquidity."
"These creatures were worshipped as ancient gods; they are the reasons we have stories about dragons and giants and titans


“Because if you look at the entire world’s collection of ancient myths, you realize that they all have stories about monsters"
"The company also unveiled the Galaxy S10 5G, its first phone to work with 5G networks, which will have a jumbo 6.7-inch screen. In addition, it showed the Galaxy S10E, a model with a 5.8-inch display in a body that is smaller than the S9’s, for people who prefer more compact devices.


Why would you want a bigger screen? When upgrading devices, people are increasingly gravitating toward phones with larger displays. Many feel that they are getting more bang for the buck with bigger screens, as studies have shown that people spend more time using apps, watching videos and browsing the web on big-screen phones.


Samsung first showed a prototype of its foldable phone at a conference for software developers last year. When folded up, it looked like a phone with a small screen, and once unfolded, the screen doubled in size.


At a media event on Wednesday, Samsung shared some details about its foldable device, Galaxy Fold. It has two screens — a smaller one and a larger one — with a hinge in the middle containing multiple interlocking gears. When folded up, the viewable screen measures 4.6 inches. Unfolding the device reveals its 7.3-inch display, which is the size of a tablet screen.


Samsung said it was working with Google, YouTube and others to develop apps that seamlessly transition between a single screen when folded up and the double screens in unfolded mode.


You may want a foldable phone if you love tablet computers. Plenty of people enjoy using tablets like Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Fire Tablet for their roomy screens that are upward of 7 inches diagonally. That makes watching videos, reading books and playing games more enjoyable. The downside is that tablets are so large that they aren’t pocketable. A foldable phone, in theory, will let people have a tablet that can be folded up and carried in a pocket.


Other phone-makers are expected to jump on this trend. Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, posted an image on Twitter this month teasing a foldable phone that will be unveiled at Mobile World Congress, the tech trade show in Barcelona, next week.


Foldable phones raise plenty of questions. When folded, the device becomes thicker in the pocket, which might make it bulky and uncomfortable. And it’s unclear whether making the displays bendable also makes them more fragile when dropped."
"On the face of it, India already has the basic foundations of a social security system. The public distribution system (PDS) provides a modicum of food and economic security to 67% of the population under the National Food Security Act, 2013. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) gives every rural household an opportunity to earn a basic wage on local public works, for up to 100 days in the year.


Social security pensions are in place for the elderly, widows and disabled persons. Maternity benefits of ₹6,000 per child are a legal right of all Indian women under the National Food Security Act. Most children receive nutrition supplements and health services under the Mid Day Meal Scheme and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).


In practice, this safety net is still rife with holes. The PDS, despite considerable improvement in recent years, remains prone to leakages and exclusion errors. MGNREGA employment is far from “guaranteed"", even to those who make a formal application for it. The coverage of social security pensions is still very patchy in many states. Maternity benefits have been illegally restricted, under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), to the first living child.


Further, all these schemes have low benefits: MGNREGA wage rates are below the minimum wage in many states; PMMVY benefits have been reduced (illegally again) to ₹5,000 per child; the central government’s contribution to social security pensions has stagnated at a measly ₹200 per month for more than 12 years, and so on.


Against this background, the NYAY promise deserves serious consideration, as a means of plugging the holes and enhancing the benefits.


However, NYAY is both an opportunity and a threat. A well-planned NYAY, integrated with other foundations of India’s social security system, could be the next leap forward. But if NYAY displaces or undermines the existing foundations of social security without putting something better in place, it could also turn into a bull in the china shop.


For convenience, I shall use a prescriptive tone, but the intention is just to float some ideas for discussion.


FIRST, NYAY is best recognized for what it is: a massive pension scheme. The initial idea was to guarantee a minimum income ( ₹12,000 per month according to Congress president Rahul Gandhi) by filling the gap, household-wise, between minimum income and actual income. This “top-up"" approach, however, is impractical. On 25 March 2019, it gave way to the “flat-rate"" approach, where all recipients get the same unconditional benefit of ₹6,000 per month. In that case, NYAY might as well be seen as a pension scheme—taking the word “pension"" in the broad sense of a basic income allowance, not necessarily restricted to those who are unable to work.


SECOND, the “6x20"" formula ( ₹6,000 a month for 20% of the population) should not be treated as a sacrosanct prescription, but as a benchmark for the commitment being made to this pension scheme. If something roughly equivalent but more effective is possible, it should be considered."
"Coming to the Fitbit Inspire and Inspire HR, the two fitness trackers cost ₹6,999 and ₹8,999 respectively. The Fitbit Inspire is available in Black and Sangria colours while the Inspire HR comes in Black, Lilac and two-tone Black and White.


The fitness trackers come with up to five days of battery life, a greyscale OLED touchscreen display, on-screen dashboard, notifications support, all-day activity tracking, female health tracking, sleep tracking, all-day calorie burn tracking and more. "
"The Congress has 20 and the JD(S) eight seats as part of alliance agreement, which is an extension of state level alliance between the two parties that cane about after the states electorate delivered a hung verdict in May last year.


The party has gone with Mithun Rai, as it's choice for Dakshina Kannada constituency,the only seat it is contesting in the BJP dominated coastal districts of Karnataka."
"Indian telecom major Airtel has announced the pre-order dates of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR in India. While the iPhone XS and XS Max will go up for pre-orders on September 21, the comparatively affordable iPhone XR will be up for pre-orders from October 19. The new iPhones will be available on the Airtel Online Store.


Airtel will be one of the two eSIM compatible telecom operators that will be suitable to work with the new dual-SIM iPhones, the other one being Jio which is expected to announce the pre-order dates soon.


If you are interested in knowing why the new dual-SIM iPhones might be all the rage this year, click here."
"Movies are changing every twenty years in the world, but family values and people’s feelings are the same


 The story of India and Chinese films is one — messages, emotions, sentiments and family values are one, he said


“I would not like someone to dub for me, I will rather play a quiet guy who only sings and dances,” he said, adding that he grew up watching Chinese kung-fu movies and it would be great if he could be a part of Chinese production in some way


 I least expected this, that there would be so many people here who like me and it’s very sweet of you


 By God’s grace, I will get some wonderful films to China and when you write to me or message me please send me some good Chinese films every year, at least 10 good Chinese movies to watch"
Euron is protecting the city from Jon and Daenerys’ forces from the sea through his fabled Iron Fleet
"Similarly, this February, mobile security expert App Analyst discovered that iOS apps of some of the leading travel companies, such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Hollister and Air Canada, were secretly recording displays using a session-replay technology, which allows the app developer to capture every activity on the phone’s screen while the app was open. The recording was forwarded to analytics firm Glassbox for a deeper examination of how users were interacting with the apps so that they could identify the pain points and address them. The data gathering was carried out without the knowledge of users. In some cases, the apps were also found to be capturing passport info and credit card numbers of users as well.


One of the apps was by Air Canada, which had reported a data breach affecting more than 20,000 users in August 2018. Experts feel that if hackers had gained access to these sessions the situation could have been worse. “There can be good reasons for session replay analytics as it allows those companies to see, for example, which of their options are most used so that they can then make them more accessible. However, doing that without even mentioning it (so that the user at least knows that this is being done), is not right and probably illegal in some countries,"" Luis Corrons, security evangelist, Avast Software, pointed out in an official post.


Apple is simply a case in point. According to a July 2018 study from Northeastern University, Boston, security researchers found several Android apps secretly taking screenshots and video recordings of displays, and forwarding them to mobile analytics firms. It’s hardly a surprise, then, that a majority of smartphone users believe that many apps secretly listen to their conversations in a bid to target them with contextual advertisements."
"In teaser posted on Twitter, OnePlus confirmed the presence of a triple camera setup present on the back of the OnePlus 7


OnePlus is on a teaser spree with its upcoming flagship duo, the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. While the company has already given us the first look of the new flagships along with their launch schedule, OnePlus has revealed another major detail of the devices."
"The actor, who was last seen in Badla, is currently working on Ayan Mukherji’s Brahmastra and a bilingual project, titled Tera Yaar Hoon Main"
"The Samsung Family Hub refrigerator can be controlled by voice, and also talks to your phone, or a Samsung television.  


The fridge, washing machine and television can work in tandem while your phone adds a fourth device to control them


NEW DELHI: Samsung’s connected ecosystem in India comprises a huge smart fridge, a smart washing machine and high-end quantum dot (QLED) televisions. Together, the three devices would cost you a fortune, making them products meant only for the uber-rich.


That said, the company is perhaps the only one that has a complete Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem in the country. If you have all three, the fridge, washing machine and television can work in tandem while your phone (Android or iOS) adds a fourth device to control them."
"Google acquired HTC’s smartphone business at the start of 2018 and along with the deal, scooped its 2,000 engineers.


The software giant is also said to be poaching Apple talent, according to a Nikkei report. Nikkei says this will help increase Google's production partnerships in emerging markets including Asia.


The report also says Google hired over a hundred Apple hardware engineers and supply chain specialists."
"The Redmi Note 7 comes with a 6.3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2340x1080 and a notch reminiscent of the Essential Phone's.


The Redmi Note 7 is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to sport a dewdrop notch, dual tone gradient back panel


Xiaomi on Thursday announced that its latest smartphone, the Redmi Note 7, will be launched on February 28."
"”Actor and BJP politician Paresh Rawal, who has worked with Akshay in multiple films, had also supported the star


 In a tweet, he had said, “One of the most honest and straightforward human being I have ever come across in my film career and life"
"Finance sanctioned for small projects with cost of less than ₹500 crore has fallen sharply. This perhaps indicates that lenders believe projects without scale are more vulnerable, especially in the aftermath of tax reforms.


The growth in big projects is a sign that investment is finally reviving and requires continued fiscal and monetary assistance to gather traction. In its latest monetary policy, RBI noted that investment demand still needs support and that it is willing to provide it."
"The trend of recreating old songs is quite common these days but was not-so-frequently done when Student of the Year released seven years ago


Director Punit Malhotra said, “Vishal-Shekhar are huge RD Burman fans and they were very excited to work on this song"
"OnePlus is hopeful that the facility will play a crucial role in development of artificial intelligence and machine learning in OnePlus products and also drive innovations that are centric and relevant to its Indian users


New Delhi: Premium smartphone brand OnePlus on Monday outlined plans for its first research and development facility in India at Hyderabad, which it said will grow to become its biggest such centre globally in three years."
"MicromaxMicromax Bharat 5 InfinityBharat 4 Diwali EditionMicromax Bharat 5 Infinity priceBharat 4 Diwali Edition price


Homegrown handset maker Micromax on Monday launched two new Android Go smartphones in India—Bharat 5 Infinity Edition and Bharat 4 Diwali Edition. The Micromax Bharat 5 Infinity Edition will be sold offline at a price of ₹ 5,899 while the Micromax Bharat 4 Diwali Edition will sell for ₹ 4,249 3 November onwards. Reliance Jio will offer additional 25GB of 4G data to its subscribers buying the phones. You can think of it as 5GB additional data on a recharge of ₹ 198/ ₹ 299 for a maximum of 5 recharges. The Android Go badge basically means the two phones run Android 8.1 Oreo and will receive security and firmware updates much quicker than other Android devices."
"WhatsApp version 2.19.74 would show the in-app browser every time the user tries to open a link shared over the app, WABetaInfo reported on Friday.


""If you choose to use the in-app browser when it will be available in future, you should not worry because WhatsApp or Facebook would not be able to access your search history because the feature uses an Android Application Programming Interface (API), so everything is managed by the system,"" the report said."
"In recent months, the messaging app has raised frightening new political and social dynamics. Photo: Bloomberg


The real problem may be not so much WhatsApp the company or WhatsApp the product but something more fundamental — WhatsApp the idea


Should the world worry about WhatsApp? Has it become a virulent new force in global misinformation and political trickery?


Or, rather, should the world rejoice about WhatsApp? After all, hasn’t it provided a way for people everywhere to communicate securely with encrypted messages, beyond the reach of government surveillance?


In recent months, the messaging app, which is owned by Facebook and has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, has raised frightening new political and social dynamics. In Brazil, which is in a bruising national election campaign, WhatsApp has become a primary vector for conspiracy theories and other political misinformation. WhatsApp played a similar role in Kenya’s election last year. In India this year, false messages about child kidnappers went viral on WhatsApp, leading to mob violence that has killed dozens of people.


WhatsApp said it was working to reduce the spread of misinformation on the service. Critics charge that it is not doing enough — and there is some merit to their claims. Yet the deeper you dig into the problems, the more intractable they can come to seem, even if the company were moving heaven and earth to fix them.


Unlike Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, WhatsApp isn’t a social network. It is mostly a bare-bones texting app in which most conversations are private and unmediated by any kind of algorithm meant to amp up engagement. This design means WhatsApp has little control over what content takes off and what doesn’t; in most cases, the company cannot even see what is happening on WhatsApp because the service encrypts messages automatically."
"After these came the most challenging sequence of them all – the jugalbandi between Madhuri (Dixit) and Karisma (Kapoor)


 We wanted to show the jugalbandi between a classical girl and a modern girl, and we wanted both to complement each other


 Since Madhuri was classically trained, her pelvic and hip movement had a breezy flow, whereas Karisma would do it like fire"
"London: A specially designed smartphone game can detect people at the risk of developing Alzheimer's, say researchers.


The game called Sea Hero Quest, downloaded and played by over 4.3 million people worldwide, helped researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) better understand dementia by seeing how the brain works in relation to spatial navigation.


The game has been developed by Deutsche Telekom in partnership with Alzheimer's Research UK, University College London (UCL) and the University of East Anglia."
"""When we attacked Pakistan’s terrorists…did you like it or not? Are you happy? Did I do the right thing?"" he said to a roaring crowd in Chitradurga, about 200 kms from Bengaluru. He added that though Pakistan felt the pain of India's actions, tears could be seen among those in thr Congress and Janata Dal (Secualr) or JD(S).


Modi and the right wing have consistently attacked anyone who has questioned the impact of the air strikes, instantly branding them as 'anti-national'."
"It can seamlessly transition from a smartphone form factor all the way to a full-blown tablet when required. It allows three-app multitasking while it is unfolded and the app continuity feature allows you to instantly pick up where you left off when switching between screens.


The Galaxy S10 family includes the Galaxy S10, S10e, S10 Plus and finally the Galaxy S10 5G smartphones. All Galaxy S10 smartphones come with either Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 SoC or Samsung's Exynos 9820 chipsets, Samsung One UI, Infinity-O AMOLED display and reverse wireless charging as standard features. Displays, fingerprint sensors, cameras, display sizes and memory variants are present in different permutations and combinations throughout the range. You can read more about the full specifications of these devices by clicking here."
"NEW DELHI: New Delhi: Gold prices today rose at the bullion market here on increased buying by local jewellers amid a firm global trend. Gold rates jumped by ₹170 to ₹33,220 per 10 gram, Press Trust of India reported. Silver prices, however, remained weak due to decreased offtake by industrial units and coin makers. Silver rates slipped by ₹70 to ₹39,200 per kg. On Friday, gold prices had risen by ₹80.


In Delhi, gold of 99.9% and 99.5% purities rose by ₹170 each to ₹33,220 and ₹33,050 per 10 gram, respectively. Sovereign gold, however, held steady at ₹26,400 per piece of eight gram."
"Chinese mobile phones are swimming against the tide, though, as the mobile phone sector is declining in India. Photo: Bloomberg"
"Most cheaters try to manipulate games using DLL injection. A Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file contains code and data that can be simultaneously used by multiple programs.


Cheaters first access the system memory by placing a DLL file into the game process forcefully and then use the access to modify game related information. By modifying these codes, cheaters can gain unfair advantage by adding options like seeing opponents even when they are not in sight, or locking on a target in first attempt.


The company is using two third-party solutions, BattlEye and Uncheater, to protect the game process area. In addition to these, they are using machine learning models that first studies players’ usage patterns and then uses the markers to detect abnormal game patterns or actions.


They are verified and then banned from the game. The patterns used by unauthorised programs are periodically updated to ensure programs which have been blocked do not try to bypass the solution with modifications."
"So what does look like a shower of sparks? Here’s Hill again: “When a helicopter descends into a sandy environment, the enormous downward thrust from the blades inevitably kicks up a cloud of sand. Cutting through the sand and dust, the blades smash into millions of these tiny particles, each sandblasting metal from the blade…Every so often, the metal blasted from the blades produces a miniature meteor shower…When a helicopter’s blades begin cutting through a cloud of sand, the particles hit the blades and send bits of metal flying into the air.""


That’s right: The halos are caused by tiny shards of pyrophoric metal, igniting spontaneously as they fly through the air. The same phenomenon, that is, that’s at work in cigarette lighters and flintlock rifles and bits of metal that decrepit old cars drag behind them.


There in war-torn Afghanistan, Michael Yon captured a gorgeous visual treat that was, for him, simultaneously a reminder of the beauty in science and the despair of war. Yet while the pilots and soldiers around him were familiar with it, they had no name for it. On his blog, he asked: “How can the helicopter halos, so majestic and indeed dangerous at times, be devoid of a fitting name?""


So he came up with his own name. At about the time he was photographing these silky helicopter halos, two young soldiers died in combat in Helmand: An American, Benjamin Kopp, and an Englishman, Joseph Etchells. For Yon, the halos were almost like a tribute to them and all the deaths in this war he had witnessed so closely. He writes: “And so a fitting name had arrived to describe the halo glow we sometimes see in Helmand Province.""


The Kopp-Etchells Effect, then. A reminder that in the wrenching tragedy of war, sometimes you stumble on a touch of beauty.


Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His Twitter handle is @DeathEndsFun"
"The apex court said it was not entertaining the petition for the stay on the release of the film as it was ""premature"", since the movie was yet to be certified by the Censor Board.


It said that even if the film was released on April 11, as claimed by the Congress activist, it will be appropriate for him to seek a redressal from the Election Commission."
"When the District included in its court filings documents it said support its claim that Facebook has more than enough contact with D.C. to warrant its court’s jurisdiction, the company asked Saddler to keep that information under seal.


The documents indicate that “Facebook knew of Cambridge Analytica’s improper data-gathering practices months before news outlets reported on the issue,"" Racine’s lawyers said in a March 18 filing.


Company employees in Washington knew the firm’s activities were a “a problem,"" Rock said, calling it “material information that should be disclosed to consumers.""


The incursions started in 2013, about 18 months before Facebook employees began discussing them in a string of email messages Racine’s office submitted with court papers, the company’s lawyer said.


“Facebook was not aware of the transfer of data from Kogan/GSR to Cambridge Analytica until December 2015, as we have testified under oath,"" a Facebook spokesperson said in an email to Bloomberg News on Friday, referring to the creator of the app that mined Facebook user data and shared it with Cambridge. Facebook “first learned through media reports that Kogan sold data to Cambridge Analytica, and we took action,"" the spokesperson said."
"“Gait analysis is an expert opinion as per the Indian Evidence Act and admissible as evidence. The analysis in the Gauri Lankesh case was made by an expert from the Directorate of Forensic Science, Gujarat. DFS is certified u/s 79-A of IT Act as an Examiner of Electronic Evidence. In the eyes of law, they are treated as an expert,"" says DCP M.N. Anuchet, the chief investigating officer in the Gauri Lankesh murder case.


Beyond the realm of gait itself, law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to technology during an investigation. While technologies like Mobile Signal Triangulation which can pinpoint a suspect’s location at the time of crime based on cellphone call records have begun to be deployed on a regular basis, newer tools like gait analysis, AI-backed face recognition, or machine learning tools to predict violent behaviour by a crowd are slowly gaining acceptance.


Delhi Police recently announced plans to use cutting-edge technology in investigations and has roped in the Indraprastha Institute of Technology Delhi (IIIT-D) for assistance. The institute has set up a Centre for Technology and Policing, “which will help Delhi Police by providing them with the latest tools for interrogation, surveillance, and tracking along with research assistance in the field of biometrics, image processing, and forensic science,"" said Ranjan Bose, director, IIIT-D.


Advances in technology will also cut down the time spent on long-winded processes, which impedes investigative swiftness.


A case in point is the use of a Rapid DNA machine by the Bensalem police department in Philadelphia in the US. It can analyze DNA samples and give results in 90 minutes, unlike accredited labs which handle multiple forensic DNA analyses and take days to give results. These machines are as big as a desktop PC, which makes installing them easy, and can be operated by the police officials themselves. They use a cartridge, which costs $150, for every DNA analysis. Permitted by the US government, the machines will be installed in more police stations across the country. These machines can come in very handy in a country like India where the lack of DNA testing infrastructure and manpower has led to a serious backlog of unexamined DNA samples.


According to the Directorate of Forensic Science Services (DFSS) data, DNA samples from 12,072 sexual assault cases were waiting for examination in three of the six central forensic science laboratories which had the facility to test the samples, as on December 2017.


Machine learning is also being used now to assist in policing. Students at IIT Madras, for instance, have developed an AI-based crowd analysis tool which uses action recognition algorithms, crowd density maps, and analysis of live images captured by CCTV cameras to predict violent behaviour like stone pelting. The tool was showcased at Army Technology Seminar 2019 in Delhi by the IIT students.


Another AI-driven initiative in this area has come from a Gurgaon-based startup Staqu. The company has been working with several state police departments. One of their solutions, called Smart Glass, which is in pilot stage, uses facial recognition tools to auto-scan the faces and look up in a database for probable matches. The ability to faces via the Trinetra app has already come in handy to bust criminal gangs in UP. “Staqu’s platform has not only helped us build a centralized database which includes the photos and history of all the criminals who are in and out of prison but has also made our operations much easier. Within seconds, we can verify if a person has a criminal record or not,"" says SK Bhagat, IG, Lucknow range. Staqu’s solutions have been used by Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttarakhand and the UP police to solve over 1,500 cases and build a database of more than 80,000 criminals."
"Prasad also inaugurated the Command and Control Centre set up by NIC at its headquarters in New Delhi. It provides a single window solution for monitoring, troubleshooting and technical support for Cloud and Data Centre Infrastructure.


This newly established centre will focus on the areas of machine learning, image recognition, speech recognition and synthesis, deep learning and chatbot/voicebots, added Prasad."
"The Congress is trying to win back some lost ground in Bengaluru as it banks on Karnataka to help revive the fortunes of the Rahul Gandhi-led party at the Centre.


Bengaluru north is witnessing a direct fight between union minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda of the BJP and state cabinet minister, Krishna Byre Gowda. The central seat has P.C. Mohan of the BJP taking on Rizwan Arshad of the Congress. Popular south Indian and Bollywood actor Prakash Raj is also contesting from the central seat.


28-year-old L.S. Tejasvi Surya, the youngest candidate from Karnataka and one of the youngest in the country, is fighting against B.K. Hariprasad of the Congress. Surya was announced as the candidate after Ananth Kumar, the sitting member of parliament died last year."
"”Meanwhile, Priyanka Chopra, who is in the city, took to Instagram to share a post which said, “This is the moment that matters…


”BJP’s sitting MP Paresh Rawal was seen with his wife Swaroop Sampat casting their votes at Jamna Bai School in Vile Parle"
"Questions sent to Google remained unanswered at the time of publication of this report. In a statement, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, said, “This is a Facebook research app - it's very clear to the people participating that it's completely opt in, they go through a rigorous consent flow and people are compensated. That said, we know we have work to do to make sure people's data is protected. It's your information and you put it on Facebook so you need to know what's happening. We continue to focus on this work. In this case, the important thing is that the people participating in the research project knew they were involved and consented. As soon as we realized we weren't in compliance with the rules on their platform we pulled it.""


According to Harshit Ahuja, one of the users of the app, the Facebook Research app was downloaded by at least 48,000 users in the country. Ahuja, who is 19 years old, told Mint that he joined the app on April 16, 2018, and has been getting people to sign up since. He claims to have been responsible for 500-700 installs of the app in the country, earning him over ₹5,00,000 till date, transferred to his PayPal account, because of the referrals Facebook gave for signing up. Ahuja provided us with a screenshot from the uTest platform, claiming the number of users shown in the screenshot was the number of Indian users on the app. Further, Ahuja also directed us to the Facebook profile of a person called Kewal Krishan, who has put up pictures of his earnings from the platform. According to these pictures, Krishan earned upwards of ₹1 lakh by referring people.


Another user, Vishal Darsheel, a 22-year-old blogger and Internet marketer from Bihar, said the Facebook Research app has earned him $5,000. Darsheel said he found the app from a Facebook Group called Tricky Inbox but used it only for a few months. He posted a Google form on Quora, asking others to sign up. The same thread also has other users who were trying to get referrals."
Migration for work from towns around Lucknow has increased the pressure on existing resources and infrastructure
"Chalet Hotels, a part of K. Raheja Corp group, is the owner, developer and asset manager of high-end hotels


Shares of Chalet Hotels Ltd opened 4% premium on the bourses on Thursday, after its ₹1641 crore initial public offer (IPO) was subscribed 1.57 times last week."
"Carriers in Korea and China, meantime, are set to start turning on the networks this spring, with carriers in the United States planning rollouts for later this year.


For Qualcomm's part, the company is also introducing several chips surrounding the modem. Some elements of 5G phones, such as the design of antennas and chips for handling analog radio waves, are more complicated than previous generations of phones. Qualcomm aims to speed up adoption of 5G by also selling those technologies to phone makers."
"""Intel is now exploring strategic alternatives for its modem chip business, including a possible sale,"" the report added.


The chip-maker has received expressions of interest from a number of parties and has hired Goldman Sachs to manage the process.


Intel has confirmed the ""surprise"" settlement between Qualcomm and Apple pushed it to exit the mobile 5G race."
"The OnePlus 7 Pro was also reported to have appeared on a benchmarking database along with some key specifications.


HDR10+ provides frame-by-frame adjustments for the optimum representation of contrast from the HDR source content


UFS 3.0 storage lets you watch high-quality videos, play high bandwidth games, along with running multiple processes in the background without compromising functionality


OnePlus' D-Day is right around the corner and the company is gearing up to launch two of the most anticipated smartphones of 2019—OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. Ahead of the launch, OnePlus has started to tease the smartphone and confirm rumours."
"The rupee and 10-year gilt prices gained on Thursday after the Reserve Bank of India unexpectedly cut the repo rate and dropped its policy stance to ‘neutral’ from ‘calibrated tightening’.


The RBI reduced the repurchase rate by 25 basis points, the first cut since August 2017. The six-member monetary policy committee voted unanimously to switch its stance to ‘neutral’. Only 11 of 43 economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted the cut, with the remainder expecting no change."
"Airtel smartphone customers will also enjoy a one-time special benefit of being able to access any five 'Paid' titles from the Readers Club.


Airtel smartphone customers will enjoy a one-time special benefit of being able to access any five 'Paid' titles


Airtel Books has a subscription service called, Reader's Club which is priced at ₹129 for 6 months and ₹199 for 12 months"
"Sonali narrated the story behind the two hashtags and said, “When we heard about it, oh my god, it was like suddenly being hit by the train


”Recalling her first chemotherapy session and the night she could barely sleep, Sonali said she introspected and started to look at things in a much positive manner"
"For any other film, these figures would sound like a lot, but Kalank has a production budget of Rs 150 crore and needs a much stronger performance to break even


Directed by Abhishek Varman, the film also stars Madhuri Dixit, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditya Roy Kapur and Sanjay DuttFilm trade analyst Taran Adarsh shared Kalank’s latest box office figures"
"Asus' 4G smartphones Zenfone Lite and Max priced at 5,999 and 7,499, respectively, will be available on Flipkart


New Delhi: Taiwanese mobile phone maker Asus aims to garner 5% share of the hyper-competitive Indian smartphone market as it ramps up product portfolio in the country."
"Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas took to social media to reveal the title and release date for their new album"
"Ask Ramchandar who struggles to make ends meet working as a daily wage labourer at the nearby Banswara town whether he would prefer a scheme like NYAY announced by Congress president Rahul Gandhi promising ₹6,000 per month to 5 crore of the poorest families in India or drinking water facilities near his house, pat comes the reply.


“What will we do with the money? We need basic amenities such as drinking water and water to grow vegetables in our garden. Anybody can earn money through any means.""


Ramchandar is not the only one to prefer better amenities over dolls in the poorest part of Southern Rajasthan, which has the worst socio-economic indicators in the state.


According to Prakash, 30, a tractor driver and a staunch supporter of Modi, 'Bikash' (development) is more important than money. “Money can’t give us water. These are (schemes like NYAYA) false promises. Earlier also the Congress said ₹2000 pension and ₹2 lakh loan waiver, but we did not get it."""
"After longstanding rumours, Apple finally announced its ad-free subscription-based video on demand service. The service isn’t ready for customers yet, but Apple announced tie-ups with Oprah Winfrey, Steve Carell, Steven Spielberg and many more big names, who will bring original content to the company’s service."
"Caesar Sengupta, Vice President of Product Management at Google, speaks at the fourth edition of Google for India event, in New Delhi. Photo: PTI


The tech giant also rebranded its 'Tez' as 'Google Pay' as part of its efforts to take the digital payments app to more online and retail merchants across the country


Google WifiGoogle AP fiber netGoogle fiber netGoogleRailTelCaesar SenguptaJio GigaFiberGoogle free wifiGoogle TezGoogle Pay


Google today said it has partnered with Andhra Pradesh State FiberNet Ltd (APSFNL) to facilitate Internet access to more than 12,000 villages, benefitting around 10 million people."
"The P30 Pro sports a unique quad camera setup that comprises an 8MP telephoto camera with a Periscope lens that offers up to 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom and up to a whopping 50x digital zoom.


The 8MP clicker is accompanied by a 40MP primary camera, a 20MP ultra wide-angle camera and a Time of Flight (ToF) camera for depth mapping."
"Hindustan Copper had earlier said that it would spend Rs5,500 crore over six years to expand its production capacity by six times to up to 20 million tonnes per annum (MTPA)."
"Late on Monday, Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy and trust and safety lead at Twitter who accompanied Dorsey to India, apologised.


“I’m very sorry for this. It’s not reflective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us - we should have been more thoughtful,"" she said in a tweet. “Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India.""


Twitter, whose monthly active users globally averaged 326 million in the July-September quarter, does not disclose the number of its users in India but its executives have said that the country was one of its fastest growing."
"Google is releasing its ""Instant Tethering"" feature to 15 more Chromebooks and over 30 more smartphones after testing it for a few weeks behind the Chrome Operating System (OS) flag.


""Instant Tethering"" allows users to share a mobile device's Internet connection with other devices using their mobile-data hotspots with a single click."
"For that matter, even the relaxation of tax on notional rent of unsold housing units held by the developer for 24 months (from the earlier 12 months) will give marginal relief. The share of ready-to-move, unsold residential units is a small portion of the total unsold inventory, say analysts at Crisil. This means that very few firms in the listed universe would gain from this tax relaxation. Besides, the earlier outgo on this front was not very high in any case.


The need of the hour is to propel demand for homes. Budgetary incentives such as raising personal income- tax exemption limit to ₹5 lakh from ₹2.5 lakh, higher standard deduction, higher taxable limit for rental income from homes and allowing capital gains proceeds to be reinvested in two homes instead of one (in a lifetime) may motivate homebuyers to own a second unit.


But tax incentives alone will not suffice. Demand revival in the sector will come from lower interest rates that would make monthly equated instalments more affordable. The trigger will ideally come from rate cuts by the central bank. Further, the tightness in liquidity due to the non-banking financial companies’ crisis is yet to ease. Meanwhile, property prices are still sticky in most parts of the country, which may also put buyers of a second home on the back foot."
"The AAP contested national elections for the first time in 2014 where they managed to win four seats in Punjab


New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday announced the names of six of the seven Lok Sabha constituencies in the national capital. The party ruled out any alliance with the Congress.


""EC will soon announce elections and enforce the model code of conduct. There is little time left for the election now, which is why we have decided to declare our candidates,"" Gopal Rai, AAP Delhi convener and Cabinet minister, said while addressing a press conference."
"In an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle Australia, the 48-year-old actor said her three daughters — Sam, Lola and Eloise Joni — have been barred from watching the film due to its sexually explicit content


 I told them, ‘I don’t want you guys watching this’, because one of my daughters brought it up to me and I was shocked,” Richards said"
"Declaring India has established itself as a global space power after the success of the operation 'Mission Shakti', Modi said the missile hit a live satellite flying in a Low Earth Orbit after it traversed a distance of almost 300 km from earth within three minutes of its launch.


The announcement was made by the prime minister in a broadcast to the nation on television, radio and social media.


Several opposition parties had raised the issue to the Election Commission alleging violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"For the bank now, it is imperative to monitor its non-corporate book and Sridharan said that the lender intends to have a close eye on the portfolio.


Meanwhile, the bank has shown investors in each of last four quarters that incremental corporate loans are going to strong borrowers with better credit ratings.


The bank has upped the ante on insurance against risk too. Its provisions towards bad loans has risen every quarter and the coverage ratio has reached 77% in the fourth quarter. The lender has chosen to make higher provisions over and above regulatory requirement against standard assets too."
"The commission, however, told a bench headed by Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan that it is almost impossible to make any such arrangement for NRI to cast their votes from overseas in the ongoing general election, as electoral rolls have been concluded in almost all the constituencies.


The bench, however, asked the commission to do something in this election itself. “You still have time,"" the bench said and wondered whether NRIs, who are registered voters, can be allowed to use their franchise through postal ballot.


“Why don’t you examine at least this (regarding 11,844 registered NRIs)?"" it said. The election commission submitted that it has appointed a committee to explore the possibility of allowing NRIs to cast their votes from overseas. The bench then asked the commission to file their response and posted the case for hearing on April 11."
"Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. Dell Technologies and Microsoft have partnered to jointly deliver VMware cloud infrastructure on Azure


Dell Technologies and Microsoft have partnered to jointly deliver VMware cloud infrastructure on Azure


Dell Technologies has also made about 100 investments in start-ups to get access to innovative technologies like AI, network capabilities and security


Las Vegas: When the global leader of a leading multi-billion dollar technology company devotes a large portion of his keynote to cloud computing, especially in a digital world that is obsessed with the role of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep learning, one may think that something is amiss.


But, given that a cloud infrastructure is the fulcrum on which all these cutting-edge technologies are thriving, it's hardly a surprise that Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of the $91 billion Dell Technologies is evangelizing a multi-cloud strategy that binds the strengths of all his group's business units including VMWare, EMC and Pivotal, with that of its technology partners."
"Powered by Intel’s 8th gen core i7-8750H processor with up to 16GB RAM and Nvdia’s GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) graphics, the TUF FX505 is slightly better placed to handle AAA games


The TUF FX505, which costs ₹1,29,990, is the successor to the FX504GE, which was launched in June 2018


mint-india-wire AsusAsus TUF FX505Asus TUF FX505 specificationsAsus TUF FX505 featuresAsus TUF FX505 pricegaming notebook


Asus’ new gaming notebook line-up, TUF, is here to stay. It’s a more cost effective alternative to the ROG (Republic of Gamers) series. The range has two new notebooks with improved displays, superior hardware and more refined looks. The TUF FX505, which costs ₹ 1,29,990, is the successor to the FX504GE, which was launched in June 2018."
"Consumers often pick simple passwords for the multiple accounts they use daily, not realizing that choosing weak passwords can open the door to identity theft and identity, according to security firm McAfee researchers. They recommend that users use strong passwords that include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.


""Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts. Simplify your life by using a password manager to keep track of logins and create strong passwords that are difficult to hack,"" McAfee researchers recommend."
"""Salil Acharya tags Bharat as an epic filmActor Salil Acharya was all praise for Salman Khan starrer Bharat's trailer


 looks fabulous and humongous this #bharattrailer @BeingSalmanKhan like uve never ever ever seen him 


 and great to see @WhoSunilGrover rocking it with @DishPatani and #KatrinaKaif mark my words this one will be it""'Best Eidi from Bhai'Atul Mohan took to Twitter and praised Bharat's trailer"
"It’s just a film set, it’s no different to any other film set, it’s just simulating more sex,” he added"
"“Thus applying different yardsticks for giving appointments to political parties and also acting upon the complaints made by political parties have led to serious reservations and suspicion among the people of Andhra Pradesh. The Election Commission of India should not fall prey to the baseless allegations of such a political party, whose leader himself is involved in 31 criminal cases. The complaints made by the TDP have so far not been attended to,"" Naidu wrote in the letter.


He also pointed out that K.K. Sharma, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who was appointed as an observer for the polls in Andhra Pradesh, was shifted from West Bengal to Andhra Pradesh, after the former state government objected to his appointment on the grounds that the IPS officer was close associated with the BJP and its parental organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Naidu also noted that the Communist party of India objected to K.K. Sharma’s appointment in Andhra Pradesh."
"Many websites still contain the Coinhive JavaScript code though with no mining activity taking place. (Alamy)


Organisations have been asked to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to their Cloud vendors for the compute resources used illicitly by cryptominers


While some of the big cryptomining services such as Coinhive have shut down operations, cryptominers are still the most prevalent malware aimed at organisations especially on Cloud environments, a new report by Israel-based cybersecurity firm Check Point said on Wednesday."
"”On coming back to the MCU after finishing Endgame, Russo sighed before speaking, and said, “We’ve done four of these movies in six years so we’re ready for a little vacation


”Joe and Anthony Russo began their association with Marvel Studios with 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier"
"Actors Kratika Sengar and Zuber Khan also shared photos from the celebrations on their social media handles


 In the videos, we see Ssharad and Ripci dancing on “Aankh Maarey” from Simmba, “Main Agar Kahoon” from Om Shanti Om and “The Jawani Song” from Student Of The Year 2"
"Customers would be avail a 5% instant discount up to ₹500 on HDFC Bank Cards and EMI transactions. Mobikwik will offer a flat 15% instant MobiKwik SuperCash up to ₹2,000 applicable on all products"
"The N11 is priced at ₹ 8,999 and comes with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage while the higher end N12 is priced at ₹ 9,999 and comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Offers on smartphones include Jio’s ₹ 2,200 cashback with 50GB additional data on ₹ 198 and ₹ 299 plans.


Both smartphones are based on the same platform and sport the same design. Both smartphones sport a 6.19-inch HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 18:9. Powering the smartphones is MediaTek’s Helio P22 chipset clocked at 2GHz. The N11 comes with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage while the N12 comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage."
"Ahuja told Mint that he was aware of the fact that Facebook would be using his data if he downloaded the app. He said he put the app on his secondary phone, which he only uses for running a mobile hotspot, so he wasn’t worried. He mentioned another user who had cloned his device to install multiple instances of the Facebook Research app, and used to earn over ₹10 lakh per month.


While the 48,000 number claimed by Ahuja is quite big, the actual number of installs may be bigger. Indranil Dutta, another user of the app, said he came across it via YouTube videos. He even shared the link of a video that has 20,000 views. According to Facebook, the total number of users who used the app globally is under 150,000.


Facebook has currently closed the new sign-ups for the app from India. Both Ahuja and Darsheel confirmed that not only are new sign ups not possible anymore, the referral amount has also reduced. In fact, Ahuja rued that the new referral amount (about 25 cents per referral) is too low. The referral amount used to be $10 per month per referral earlier."
"The recently launched Rosso Red edition of the POCO F1 will be up for grabs during the Diwali with Mi sale at its regular price tag of Rs 20,999


The Diwali with Mi sale commences on October 23 and will go on till October 25 on Mi.com. The sale will see Mi smartphones, TVs and other accessories on sale. There’s also a Re 1 flash sale that will let you buy one of the devices on sale for a limited period of time


XiaomiDiwali with MiMi salePOCO F1Redmi Note 5 ProMi A2Redmi Y2Mi TV 4Mi diwali salediwali sale miXiaomi diwali sale


Xiaomi’s “Diwali with Mi"" is set to go live between 23 October and 25 October on Mi.com. During the course of the sale, customers would be able to buy their favourite Mi devices at discounted rates. The sale will also see cashbacks, limited period discounts and coupons from products ranging from smart TVs to smartphones. Two devices would also be on sale at Re 1 for a limited period of time. The Re 1 flash sale will commence at 4 pm on every day of the sale."
"We wanted to introduce this character who would be taken forward in the franchise, and she is perfect for it"
Power Grid Corporation of India raised $228.55 million for power project and Reliance Home Finance Ltd raised $35.50 million for lending. Power Finance Corp. Ltd was the only firm to raise $150 million for sub-lending purpose.
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against a basket of major currencies, was at 97.617, down 0.07% from its previous close of 97.618."
"Gully BoyRanveer Singh is in fine form right now with a flurry of hits and his last Gully Boy, directed by Zoya Akhtar, was no exception


Total DhamaalThe third iteration in the Dhamaal franchise did not win the love of critics, but it nevertheless became a box office success thanks mainly to its cast"
Amy Aniobi is attached to write the script which follows a group of adult friends who reunite 20 years after high school
"The feature recommends plumbers and other local home service providers without disclosing that the results draw from a curated database mainly composed of companies that joined a Google marketing program.


""It's not a completely clean recommendation,"" said Michelle Cohen, an attorney with expertise in marketing rules at Ifrah Law in Washington, D.C. ""If there's a financial commitment, you're supposed to disclose it.""


Conversing with assistants is routine for millions of people globally, whether on bedside alarm clocks, car audio systems or even high-end headphones. More than 1 billion such devices have Google Assistant, 100 million Amazon.com Inc's Alexa and at least 1 billion Apple Inc's Siri, according to the companies and estimates.


Regulators avoid stifling new technologies, said Richard Lawson, partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and former consumer protection director in Florida's attorney general’s office. But he said, authorities will still ask, ""How do you convey meaningful disclosures?""


At the conference, Schindler said ads on Google Assistant would be more ""interesting"" when responses are shown on a nearby screen, like a TV, smartphone, laptop or smart speaker with a display.


""Then we're exactly in the world that we deeply understand,"" Schindler said, with moneymaking options ""very similar"" to traditional search.


The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates deceptive business practices in the United States, has long required search engines to inform users in a ""noticeable and understandable"" fashion when results are connected to financial relationships. That is why consumers see ""Ad"" or ""Sponsored"" labels next to the first few Google results on screens.


New search services that ""talk"" to consumers are not exempt from ""the long-standing principle of making advertising distinguishable,"" the FTC said in letters to Google and other companies in 2013."
"Lupita Nyong’o is a diehard Game of Thrones fan and like any other follower of the hit HBO show, the actor too spent her weekend waiting for its next episode


While the third episode of the series’ final season dropped, the Oscar winner drew comparisons between GoT antagonists White Walkers and creepy dopplegangers, the Tethered from her latest film, horror hit Us"
The 20-second-long footage features Deepika and Vikrant kissing while seated on the roof of a building
"NEW DELHI: Innovation really just means finding new ways to create value, according to Roger Park, EY Partner, Principal, Americas Advisory and FSO Innovation Leader.


According to the statistics, 90% of all data ever created by humans have been created in the last two years."
"Sharad Yadav, a former national convener of the NDA, will contest the Lok Sabha elections again on the RJD symbol and will merge his Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) with the RJD after the elections.


The NDA had swept the state, winning 31 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats and decimating opposition parties, including the Congress, the RJD, and the JDU, which was then in opposition."
"In the gaming segment, Nvidia showcased its next generation RTX series graphics processing units (GPUs), while Acer showed its futuristic gaming chair. The former offers a higher number of CUDA cores, an additional RT (ray tracing) core for rendering detailed shadows and reflections for a more realistic visual experience, and a Tensor core which uses Artificial Intelligence to render visuals faster. CUDA is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) model, developed by Nvidia. Acer created quite a buzz with its Predator Thronos gaming chair, which stands 1.45m tall, has room for up to three 27-inch monitors and has space at the bottom to accommodate a desktop PC. The chair, which can be tilted backwards up to 140 degrees, is expected to cost upward of $5,000. Razer’s THX-enabled Kraken Tournament Edition headset is another gaming marvel. It is the first headset to support spatial audio technology, which delivers a 360-degree surround sound experience with realistic depth and pinpoint accuracy, allowing players to determine the exact direction from which the sound is coming. This can come in handy in multiplayer online games such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG. It will be available in the US at $100.


The fourth generation of Fossil Q smartwatches includes the Fossil Q Venture HR (40mm case) and Fossil Q Explorist HR (45mm case). Powered by Google’s Wear OS, the smartwatches can monitor heart rate and be used for NFC-based payments. It will be available in India by the end of October at a starting price of $255.


Home security specialist Yale has integrated Philips Hue lights with its smart home alarm system, allowing users to personalize their smart home security based on their family’s needs. The integration will also add another level of convenience to homeowners with the visual reassurance that their Yale smart home alarm is set. When used with Philips Hue colour ambient bulbs, the lights will flash red if there is a break-in."
"BARCELONA: Huawei Technologies unveiled a $2,600 folding smartphone on Sunday which it said was primed for next generation 5G mobile connections, even as the United States campaigns to bar the Chinese company from such networks over security concerns.


Huawei, the world’s second-largest smartphone vendor after Samsung, said it had taken the lead on developing phones for 5G - which promise super fast internet speeds for consumers and businesses - because it was also involved in developing the networks.


""This phone is not only for today for 5G but also for future 5G. On all the benchmarks you can see the performance, the speed is the fastest for 5G in the world,"" said Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group."
"Also, going strictly by first-hand experience, setting up an eSIM was a complete nightmare for me while setting up an Apple Watch earlier. The steps to set up the eSIM, especially for a prepaid connection, are not clearly laid out anywhere.


Further, the eSIM option is only available in the top-tier iPhones, and not the affordable iPhone XR.


AppleiPhone XS eSIMiPhone XR eSIMiPhone XS Max eSIMiPhone XS dual SIMiPhone XS Max dual SIMiPhone XR dual SIMiPhone XS ChinaiPhone XS Max ChinaiPhone XR China"
"Elsewhere, European equities drifted and the pound weakened as data showed UK manufacturing fell to a three-month low in January. Asian stocks headed for a fourth consecutive weekly advance.


The S&P 500 Index was little changed as of 11:01 am in New York. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 0.1%. The MSCI Emerging Market Index slipped 0.1%."
"The new devices will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 processor or Samsung's in-house Exynos 9820 chipset, depending on the region


San Francisco: Samsung, which unveiled its highly-successful Galaxy S series in 2010, is all set to launch new flagship devices on the 10th anniversary of the S series with never-heard-before features here on February 20.


The core of Samsung's lineup will stay the same as there would a regular Galaxy S10 and a larger S10 Plus with 6.1-inch and 6.3-inch displays."
"It is rumoured to be an origin story, meaning it will detail how (and why) Natasha Romanoff, a Russian spy, ended up defecting to the US’ S


Black Panther 2One of the most successful movies, money-wise, Black Panther too is getting a sequel, which is not a surprise


 Black Panther remains the best-reviewed MCU film to date, so the sequel has to do something groundbreaking if it is to come anywhere near the original"
"The Microsoft Build annual developers' conference will take place between May 6 and 8 in Seattle, Washington. (Microsoft)


Ever since its pivot into a enterprise-focused company, Microsoft’s Build developer conference has had little to offer mainstream consumers. However, the conference still gives us a glimpse into the company’s future, and how it aims to take its services forward.


It’s safe to say that no mixed, virtual or augmented reality headset has shown as much promise as Microsoft’s HoloLens device. The company announced the HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress this year, and we should hear more about its future at Build this year, along with a HoloLens 2 Development Edition."
"“His philosophy was based on the idea that computers could be more than big number-crunching machines for doing more and more complicated calculations; they could be interactive and networked to raise our collective human intelligence, helping people collaborate and solve the world’s biggest problems,"" says Anatoliy Polyanker, senior director, C&P portfolio/brand C&P-MX marketing, Logitech, over email. “Some of his vision has already come true, but a large part of his revolution is still to be realized,"" he adds. Engelbart had filed a patent in 1967 and it was issued to him in 1970.


Since then, the mouse has evolved tremendously. Tracking balls and optical technology have given way to laser-guided precision. The cord is almost non-existent now, with wireless or Bluetooth mice taking their place."
"if you’re the one who wishes to check out features that haven’t made their way to the stable version, simply click on this link and become a WhatsApp beta tester. However, WhatsApp beta is known for having bugs and crashes, so be aware of what you’re getting into. You can always opt out of beta by going to the same link. Some new features under testing include swipe to reply, consecutive voice messages, QR Codes and group calling shortcut.


WhatsAppWhatsApp new featureWhatsApp picture in pictureWhatsApp pipWhatsApp webWhatsApp QR codeWhatsApp consecutive voice messagesWhatsApp swipe to replyWhatsApp feature"
"Everyone is well aware of how much Samsung hates display notches. It has done everything, from curving the edges to shortening the bezels of its smartphones, to stretch its displays to the edges without employing a notch. As a result, nearly all the Samsung smartphones sporting the modern Infinity Display look roughly the same.


But that is going to change soon, as the chaebol is ready to launch the Samsung Galaxy A8s in China today, which will sport an Infinity-O display, or basically a screen with a hole to accommodate the selfie camera. The launch will commence at 4 pm today and will be streamed live on the Samsung China website."
"Just like the others, specifications of the P30 are not out yet. However, Huawei’s CEO did say that it will be better than the P20 or the Huawei Mate 20.


It's expected to have four rear cameras with Leica lenses with one of the sensors having a resolution of 38MP.


It will most likely use the same Kirin 980 chipset found in the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Honor View 20, but it might as well tweak it for 5G."
"While the makers are yet to finalise the rest of the cast and crew, composer D Imman has been roped in to give music for the yet-to-be-tiled film"
"Both Ananya and Tara were spotted launching SOTY 2 song “The Jawaani” along with Tiger Shroff earlier in the day


 Sharing a photo with the new students Ananya and Tara, she wrote, “I don’t know how they tolerated you, Punit Malhotra"
"2M start, incl previews… beating the previous #FF8 record by almost double!” Not only this, but film trade analyst Ramesh Bala also shared that the 99 per cent of the tickets were sold for the film on Wednesday


 Also, it is being reported that all the big multiplexes in the country have the movie running in every screen with shows starting every 15 to 30 minutes


2 million on its first day in China, has become the second-biggest single-day gross earner across the world"
"The Redmi Y2 comes in five colour variants — Gray, Gold, Rose Gold, Mesmerising Blue and Stunning Black."
"Talking about payments, Sengupta said Tez — which was built for the Indian market — has seen strong traction with 22 million people using the platform every month. Already, 750 million transactions have been made with $30 billion in annual run rate of transaction value, he added.


“Many governments (globally) have taken note and have asked us to collaborate. Keeping that in mind, we are compiling our payments under Google Pay. Everything with Tez remains the same,"" he noted.


Sengupta said the company is also adding more merchants -- online and offline -- onto its platform. Google is working with big retailers and payments technology companies like Pine Labs to help merchants accept digital payments, he added.


Rajan Anandan, Vice President of Google (South East Asia and India), said data consumption in India is now at par with developed markets at 8 GB a month per subscriber. Various industry reports estimate that India has over 450 million total Internet users. There has been strong adoption of Internet among women and it is estimated that 45% of Internet users will be women in the next three years, he said."
"He later went onto direct a psychological thriller Hi I’m Tony (2014) and the sequel to his debut film Honey Bee 2


Prithviraj, meanwhile, is busy shooting for Brother’s Day, which will mark the directorial debut of actor Kalabhavan Shajohn"
"Two years later, Reddy visited the University Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC) in France for a period of six months as a Raman-Charpak Fellow where he explored ‘How microwave propagates within human tissues’. In the future, this study may help in Body Area Network (BAN) communication where doctors can seek information about patient’s medical condition without being physically present with the patient, Reddy said in a phone interview.


""It's the Internet of Things (IoT) where your body acts as a channel. Multiple sensors within your body communicate with a single sensor. My part was to generate an alogorithm to identify the modes of propagation within the body,"" Reddy explained.


BAN, also known as wireless body area network (WBAN) refers to the wireless network technology used in combination with wearables. The main purpose of these networks is to transmit data produced by wearable devices to a wireless local area netowrk (WLAN), to the Internet, or exchange the data directly with each other.


There are two types of devices in the global BAN market--wearable devices and implant devices. Of the two, the segment of wearable devices accounts for a greater share in the market, according to Transparency Market Research.


The market research firm estimates the global BAN market to touch about $63 million by 2025. Some of the key technologies leveraged in BAN include Bluetooth, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and other communication technologies such as IEEE 802.15.6, mobile networks, Ultra Wideband (UWB), Zarlink technology, ANT protocol, Rubee active wireless protocol, Bluetooth Low Energy, according to the market research firm."
"The latest poll of over 55 foreign exchange strategists taken Jan 28-Feb 5 showed the currency will strengthen only slightly to 71.0 per dollar in a year from around 71.8, where it was trading on Tuesday.


While that outlook for the rupee, the worst-performing major Asian currency this year, was slightly better compared to the previous poll, it is largely driven by expectations the dollar's dominance has diminished.


""From stellar outperformer in October-December 2018 - falling below 70 from about 74 - the rupee has turned to become the sole whipping boy this year. Notably, the rupee is the only currency to drop in sharp contrast to solid Asia ex-Japan currency gains, and is set to remain on the back foot,"" said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy for Asia at Mizuho Bank.


He said that even with a broad-based pullback in the dollar, ""relative INR underperformance may be hard to skirt."""
"Supporters of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) hold placards with the images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and BJP president Amit Shah (C) at a rally in Patan. (AFP )


It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62


Gujarat being the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP would again look for clean sweep in the state


The third phase of Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Tuesday will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in a single phase -- 117 across 15 states and Union Territories.


It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62.


In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won 62 of the 115 seats in the third phase, and its performance in this phase will be crucial in deciding its political fortunes.


The Congress had won 16 seats, while the remaining seats were divided between BJD (6), CPI-M (7), NCP (4), Samajwadi Party (3), Shiv Sena (2), RJD (2), AIUDF (2), IUML (2), LJP (1), PDP (1), RSP (1), Kerala Congress-M (1), CPI (1), Swabhimani Paksha (1) and Trinamool Congress (1). Three seats were won by Independent candidates.


This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat -- where polling will be held for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state -- apart from Karanataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in 2014."
"So is she Kate Bishop whom Hawkeye is teaching archery? “I haven’t really seen any footage from the movie at all


 When asked if it was Hawkeye disguised as Ronin, Jeremy said, “I did the haircut myself! (laughs)”Also read: Getting to be Captain Marvel changed me: Brie LarsonAs per fan theories, Ronin is a disguised identity that Hawkeye picks while on a mission in Japan"
"The AIADMK-BJP-PMK combine has to get a little more creative to mesh together symbols and ideologies and explain the alliance. In the lanes of Royapuram in Chennai Central constituency, Sam Paul’s team was holding aloft mangoes, the PMK party symbol, though he held up his hand to form the instantly identifiable two leaves symbol of the AIADMK. The recorded message blaring from loudspeakers reminded people: “Who gave you laptops? Amma. Who gave you cycles? Amma. Who made sure your children went to school? Amma. What was Amma’s favourite fruit? Mambalam (mango). Vote for mango.""


Though BJP workers joined the procession, there was no mention of lotus or Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A day later, when BJP minister Smriti Irani visited the largely north Indian neighbourhood of Sowcarpet, the BJP flags and slogans appeared everywhere. “Push the button for mango and a lotus will bloom in Delhi,"" she told the crowd.


Kannan Rajarathinam, who has authored biographies of both Anna and MGR, described Tamil Nadu as a unique state with leaders with a cult following beginning from Anna. “It is inevitable that these leaders and their contributions are invoked. With time, and with voters becoming more discerning, this is likely to change,"" he said.


In comparison to the other parties in the fray, Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) candidates don’t seem to lean so heavily on the star power of Kamal Haasan though he does turn out to drum up support for them. “We are a party of educated and honest people,"" said Chennai South candidate R. Rangarajan, a former banker and IAS officer. “Politics has no dearth of educated people, what’s missing is honest people,"" he said. “Our party will change that.""


It’s a line that has found some traction with younger voters. “I’m tired of the nepotism in the DMK and the corruption of the AIADMK. The AIADMK seems to be the centre’s puppet after Jayalalithaa died,"" said Srivatsav Balan, 30, who works as a product manager in one of Chennai’s SaaS companies. “Party manifestoes are still talking about the development of Tamil. I don’t need that. I need water, roads, infrastructure, healthcare, cleaner air. I need to know that parties will resist the impositions of the centre on the south like NEET and GST,"" he added.


Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, if and when he chooses to contest, may find that star power is no longer enough on the Tamil Nadu electoral scene. “Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan will have to deliver if they want us to keep voting for them. See what happened to Vijayakanth,"" said a 45-year-old auto driver, Rajan. He was referring to Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam, which made its debut in the 2006 assembly polls and captured a 10% vote share. But the party has since petered out, and is now part of the AIADMK-BJP alliance.


Across the city, there is, of course, the oft-repeated refrain of exhaustion with the two main Dravidian parties. “I’m tired of having to choose between the AIADMK and the DMK,"" said Yesuraj, a cab driver. “I’m glad Kamal Haasan and T.T.V. are options even if they turn out to be no different over time."""
"“Twenty years ago, when my husband got an order to export leather shoes, the first place we came to was Kanpur. Today, all the tanneries have been forced to shut shop and there are no jobs. It was one of the key promises of the government that has been in power and they have failed the people,"" Vadra said.


According to the Press Trust of India, the leather business in Kanpur was worth ₹12,000 crore. And now, tertiary businesses are also getting affected.


“Before the shut down, we used to work six days a week to make leather shoes. That has now been reduced to four days because the leather supply has reduced,"" Miraj Khan, a labourer at a shoemaking factory in Sisamau in the Kanpur constituency, said.


For Ravi Gaur, 28, a trader from Kidwai Nagar in Kanpur, the implementation of GST and the impact of demonetization has affected him. “Traders have been very worried. Though GST may have made the process smooth, increasing costs have led to a sharp decline in sales. When demonetization was implemented, it was a good step, but it is beginning to impact the market now,"" he added."
"The party chief in Kerala, PS Sreedharan Pillai, said as much—in an internal meet of the party's youth outfit, he said it is the ""golden chance"" for the BJP to grow. But as poll contest nears, Sabarimala is giving much of the pain for the party in the candidate's selection process.


Even as the ruling communists and the Congress, the later even after some unusual delay, have announced candidates, the BJP camp still seems to be in the dark about its candidates in Kerala, except for fielding Kummanam Rajashekaran against Congress heavyweight Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram.


Rajashekaran, a former party president, resigned as Mizoram Governor on 8 March in order to return to Kerala politics and has started poll campaigning in Thiruvananthapuram. The inordinate delay in other seats seems mostly because the party stands divided over who to contest from Sabarimala's nerve center, the Pathanamthitta constituency."
"That is why he stepped out of his comfort zone—production and simultaneously ventured into a lesser known arena—filmmaking


 I learned what I shouldn’t do as a director, and that helped me a lot in my second film, Gangs of Madras


 In fact, I decided that I will make my own film after producing 14 other films,” smiles Kumar, whose home banner Thirukumaran Entertainment, boasts a track record of churning out commercial blockbusters in a short span of time—Attakathi, Pizza, Soodhu Kavvum—and so on


An avid movie buff, Kumar used to watch Rajinikanth films back-to-back on weekends around the late 90s"
"On the other hand, Anupam Kher urged people to vote with a social media post which said, “Your vote counts


”Mumbai’s North Congress candidate and actor Urmila Matondkar showed off her inked finger to the camera after casting her ballot in a Bandra school"
"While Vanko can’t stop talking about his birds, Hammer was just a bad guy who we knew was going to fail


 And not just because he’s going up against Tony Stark but also because his character had no stakes in the bigger picture


 Too little actionSuperhero films are sold on the action sequences, that’s what the audience goes in for


 The Monaco Grand Prix scene and the climax scene where Iron Man and War Machine go against Vanko were great to look at but it was too little action for a big superhero film"
"CBBC announced the news on their website as they wrote, “We are so sorry to have to tell you that Mya-Lecia, who you will know from ‘Millie Inbetween’ and ‘Almost Never’ has, very sadly, died


 Mya-Lecia was a much loved part of the BBC Children’s family, and a hugely talented actress, singer and dancer"
"But with the scion of the Gandhi family choosing to contest from Kerala, rather than a place like Karnataka where the Congress is locked in a direct battle with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the equations have all toppled down. The local leaders are bristled. And they are not willing to go down in history without a pyrotechnic fight.


""This is a war and nobody should be a fence sitter. There is nothing impossible for us, we made a 50 lakh women's wall,"" said CPM boss in Kerala, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in Malayalam, playing the local strongman image to the hilt, in an internal meet of party workers on Tuesday. A day before Gandhi’s expected arrival in Wayanad, both him and Kanam Rajendran were in the constituency, having several such meetings. Rajendran, the chief of Communist Party of India or CPI, the second biggest Left party in Kerala and whose candidate P.P. Suneer is Gandhi’s opponent.


“Everybody in India will stand up and congratulate us if we defeat Rahul Gandhi... This is a golden chance to create history. He had so far contested only from places where they have not seen Communists like us. Now, he has come to us. I say get him. He has to leave this place saying: oh, the Communists are such a different party,"" Balakrishnan said.


According to Balakrishanan’s instructions, each of the volunteers, especially women, have to meet at least ten houses everyday for campaigning before the polls. This is apart from a more intensive squad of people who will visit 50 houses in four days. In a rather unusual thing, the front is also planning to carry out big celebrations on ‘Vishu’ and ‘Easter’ this month, important for Hindu and Christian communities in Kerala. “Go and ask for votes on those days at your ancestral houses, even if you've not bothered to check on them until now,"" he said to a laughing audience of about hundred workers."
"That and the slack treatment: a film like this should also have the tools to ramp up the drama and be consistent with it


 The whole feels like a giant set, stately and ponderous and minus impact; the characters all costumed and perfumed and largely life-less, sparking only in bits and pieces"
"2 million dollars in the US and going into its second weekend, the Marvel movie is expected to churn somewhere around 180 million dollars at the US box office"
"While revenue growth accelerated at TCS and Infosys in Q4, Wipro has reported a subdued performance underscoring uneven recovery. (Naveen Kumar Saini/Mint)


Wipro’s revenue growth in Q4 has slowed after just two quarters of acceleration even as TCS and Infosys surged ahead


Wipro’s guidance of a -1% to 1% revenue growth on a sequential basis in Q1 FY20 provides limited confidence"
"DMK had already appointed committees to steer the alliance process, Stalin said flanked by All India Congress Committee general secretaries Mukul Wasnik, incharge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, K C Venugopal, state unit party chief K S Alagiri.


The work on seat sharing with other allies will begin from tomorrow, he told reporters. There are a total of 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu and one in the union territory of Puducherry, ruled by the Congress. In the 2014 elections, the Congress went alone but failed to win none so as the DMK which had led an alliance with some smaller parties.


The AIADMK won 37 seats while the BJP and PMK one each in Tamil Nadu with the lone Puducherry seat going to AINRC. Describing the alliance between Congress and DMK as a long term relationship since the days of late Dravidian patriarch M Karunanidhi, Venugopal said ""we are very happy,"" about the seat sharing agreement.


""The country very much needs this alliance, the entire country is disappointed with the Narendra Modi government,"" he said. Asked about the other parties with which the alliance will be firmed up, Stalin said DMK has ""decided to hold talks with ""friendly outfits"" which have been working together with it ""on people's issues"" for the past about two years. He was obviously referring to parties, including Vaiko-led MDMK, CPI and CPI(M)."
"Sadak 2 is a sequel to the 1991 original, which also starred Pooja BhattBoth Sanjay and Pooja are returning for the sequel"
"New Delhi: With a 41% market share in the smart wearables device market, Chinese electronics company Xiaomi dominates the segment in India, according to a market report by International Data Corporation (IDC). Xiaomi’s Mi band 3 fitness tracker, which was launched in India at the end of September, has quickly become India’s largest selling smart wearable product, the report said.


“The newly launched Mi band 3 became the most shipped wearable product ever in the history of wearables in India,"" the IDC report said. In the third quarter of 2018, Xiaomi maintained its leadership in the market for the 5th consecutive quarter with a 41% market share.


“Although their shipments witnessed a decline of 20% quarter-over-quarter, but it saw a healthy growth of 77% in this quarter when compared to the same time a year ago,"" it said."
"The announcement is the culmination of Adobe’s long-held goal to bring its iconic image-editing program to mobile devices. Adobe has been on a multi-year journey to modernize its dominant creative media software, after shifting all of its apps to the cloud in 2012. With Photoshop CC, Adobe has stepped up its multi-device strategy to capture creative professionals and hobbyists who enjoy working on touchscreens.


“It’s a tip of the spear moment because this is where the rest of Creative Cloud will go,’’ Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer and executive vice president of Creative Cloud, said in an interview."
"However, India is not the only country benefitting from the global factors as the trend is similar in other emerging markets as well. India is in the midst of general elections and any surprise on the political or economic growth front could potentially reverse the ongoing trend, he added.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The Redmi Note 7 Pro has Qualcomm's latest mid-range chipset, the Snapdragon 675 based on an 11nm process and is coupled with an Adreno 612 GPU. It runs Android Pie 9 with Xiaomi's MIUI 10 custom ROM running atop.


The Galaxy A50 is powered by Samsung's in-house Exynos 9610 octa-core chipset based on a 10nm process, paired with Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. It runs Android Pie 9 with Samsung's One UI running atop.


The Oppo F11 rocks a MediaTek Helio P70 processor based on a 12nm process paired with the same Mali-G72 MP3 chipset present inside the Galaxy A50. It runs Oppo's ColorOS based on Android Pie 9.


All three smartphones have up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and are backed by 4,000mAh batteries.


The Redmi Note 7 Pro and Oppo F11 have 48MP sensors at the back, with a 5MP sensor accompanying them. The 48MP sensors on the two smartphones are also capable of pixel binning or clubbing four pixels together to offer a larger effect pixel."
"The back of the Moto G7 will sport a dual-camera setup 12MP+5MP configuraton while at the front will be an 8MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 lens.


The Moto G7 Plus will be the most powerful of the lot, boasting a Snapdragon 636 SoC. It will share its display and battery capacity with the regular Moto G7. The rest of the specifications would receive slight bumps. For instance, the G7 Plus will get a 6GB RAM/128GB ROM variant and a 16MP+5MP camera setup with OIS at the rear. The front camera will also have a higher spec 16MP sensor. The smartphone will also get 27W Turbo Charger."
"“We were fortunate that Katrina, back then, was shooting ‘Zero’ and ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ and the films were getting over"
"Mean Girls also starred Lindsay Lohan, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, who also wrote the screenplay"
"“Given the government focus on rail infrastructure spends, healthy order book, asset light model and reasonable valuation, we suggest that investors can subscribe to the issue from a long term perspective,"" said Centrum Broking Limited said on 28 March.


According to Canara Bank Securities Ltd, the issue is fairly priced. “As of 31 March, 2018, the company had an earnings per share (EPS) of ₹2.73 and net asset value (NAV) of ₹18.83. The company would trade at 6.96 times PE for FY18 earnings,"" it said in a report on 28 March."
"Under the hood, it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC paired with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 512GB via a MicroSD card.


The back of Galaxy A9 has four vertically-stacked cameras. The arrangement of them is similar to the on found on the Galaxy A7, which has three cameras. The camera setup can be thought of as telephoto and wide-angle cameras stacked on top of a primary dual camera module. The primary module consists of 24MP+5MP sensors with Phase Detection Autofocus and f/1.7 aperture. The wide-angle camera has an 8MP sensor at its heart while the telephoto camera has a 10MP sensor and provides 2x optical zoom.


The main reason to implement this setup is to offer professional camera-like capabilities inside a smartphone and providing more flexibility and versatility to the user when it comes to different shooting scenarios. We explored this (sans the telephoto module) in the Samsung Galaxy A7 in Goa—you can check out its camera review here."
"The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had in February 2018 ended the 25-year rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, in the state, with chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb replacing former chief minister Manik Sarkar.


For the people of Tripura, the state government needs to tackle the looming crisis of unemployment and a flagging education system, for which the people are willing to bring in governance parity between the centre and the state so that the two can work in tandem to address the growing crises in the region. (Read more...)"
"The company stopped trying to place an Intel modem chip in the iPad Mini 2 because losing the rebates on Qualcomm’s chips would have made the overall cost too high, he said.


“They made it very unattractive for us to use another chip supplier,"" Blevins said of the rebates. “These rebates were very, very large.""


AppleiPhoneApple Qualcomm lawsuitApple modem chipsApple Intel chipsiPad 2iPad ProiPhone XSiPhone XRiPhone XS Max"
"Further, the base model might come with a smaller 5.6-inch display with a resolution of 1080 x 2220 pixels resolution and screen density (DPI) of 440. Reports suggest it might be powered by a Snadpragon 675 processor, the same one found inside the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Both smartphones are expected to run at least 4GB of RAM.


In terms of optical firepower, the main teaser for the Pixel 3a talks about the issue of poor lighting in images after twilight. Google might be hinting at support for Night Sight with the teaser. Leaks suggest that the two smartphones could support Google’s Pixel Visual Core chip for improvements over standard image processing."
"Vasudev has already worked with I Change My City (perhaps the oldest civic tech platform in the country which also serves as the technology back-end for the Swachh Bharat app), to submit citizen feedback to the Bangalore Development Authority and the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority. You can also access I Change My City independently to post grievances and issues through its Android and iOS apps or the web platform.


As Civis is a new platform, getting citizen feedback requires some legwork at the moment, but Vasudev hopes the platform alone will suffice in future, once the user base grows.


However, like all early-stage start-ups, these companies face challenges. A November 2017 report by the Knight Foundation highlighted funding, lack of success stories and growth paths as some of the hurdles. Neta’s Mittal, though, says he has already received interest from multiple big-name media firms who want to make equity investments in his app. Next Election’s Bansal says that like any social platform, advertising is a viable option for him as well, alongside the rich data his platform will eventually generate. Civis, on the other hand, plans to depend on grants for sustaining itself in future. All three companies are bootstrapped (have invested their own money) at the moment.


Another good news is that investment firm Omidyar Network has partnered with venture capital company Village Capital to support civic tech start-ups. Other investments firms will likely follow suit.


mint-india-wire civic technology appsNeta appNext Election appCivis appGoogle PlayAndroid2019 general elections"
"The Galaxy M20 comes with all three biometrics and unlocking options—screen unlocking (pattern and alphanumeric), fingerprint scanner and facial unlocking. The Galaxy M10 misses out on the fingerprint scanner and only has the regular screen unlock and facial recognition.


Both smartphones run Android Oreo 8.1 with the new Samsung Experience 9.5 UI running atop. There's no word on when Pie will come to the two devices.


The Samsung Galaxy M20 is priced at ₹12,990 for the 4GB/64GB variant, while the 3GB/32GB variant costs ₹10,990. Galaxy M10 is priced at ₹8,990 for the 3GB/32GB variant and ₹7,990 for the 2GB/16GB. The smartphones would be available on Amazon.in and Samsung.com from 5 February, 2019."
"Varun added he is aware of the expectations as well as the skepticism which the film’s team will face till it arrives in theaters


 There will also be people who will be skeptical and say, ‘Why are you making this? It’s not possible"
"Kaspersky also makes the Kaspersky Safe Kids app, which brings parental control to your phone. You can block content, limit app usage, put limits on screen-on time and more, with the free version of this app.


Similarly, the Android version for Avast Antivirus gives you a virtual private network (VPN) to hide your online activities, a “photo vault"" to restrict access to photos on your phone, an app locker and more. It even has a Wi-Fi speed testing tool built in.


However, downloading antivirus apps can also be risky. “These apps ask for many permissions, all of which seem relevant, so they are among the easiest ways for attackers to gain access to your phone,"" Singh said. Since virus scanning requires deeper access to your phone’s system, it is easy for antivirus apps to ask for permissions without question."
"Allu Aravind, BVSN Prasad, Lagadapati Sridhar, KL Damodar Prasad, Sriman, Vedika and Nikki Tamboli among others were present at the event


Raghava Lawrence said, “I wouldn’t have been here without the encouragement and support of Megastar Chiranjeevi"
"There are also concerns that the recent rally in the rupee may not sustain even if fears of a recession in the US don’t come true. The appreciation in the local currency has been driven by higher foreign fund flows, but nothing material has changed on the ground in terms of fundamentals. Concerns such as trade wars and Brexit also remain.


For now, currency traders have put these worries on the backburner. This rupee has strengthened from lows of about 71.81/$ in mid-February to 68.94/$ at present.


Rising expectations of a stable government have helped reverse sentiment and the US Federal Reserve’s recent dovish monetary policy stance also lent a hand. Consequently, foreign investors’ interest in Indian equities revived, aiding the rupee’s relief rally. In the last one month, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have parked $6.02 billion in Indian equities. An analysis by ICICIdirect shows the rupee appreciates meaningfully when foreign fund flows are high (see chart)."
"“We have concluded a stake sale which will ease the liquidity position of the promoter group and reduce the debt,"" said Mohan Goenka, director of Emami Limited.


He also said that promoters are ""committed to maintaining our significant majority stake in the company and do not anticipate any further dilution of stake in the foreseeable future."""
"The latest images suggest the Chinese smartphone maker is finally experimenting with glossy back panels with dual tone gradients


XiaomiRedmi Note 7Redmi 7Redmi new phoneXiaomi new phoneRedmi noteRedmi note 6 proXiaomi RedmiXiaomi new phone 2019


Xiaomi is set to launch two new smartphones next week: the Redmi 7 and Redmi Note 7. Xiaomi’s new smartphones made their way to TENAA listings recently and the latest images suggest the Chinese smartphone maker is finally experimenting with glossy back panels with dual tone gradients in its new smartphone line-ups."
"Historically, a high voter turnout has usually benefited the main local opposition front in Kerala. Hence if the voters wanted to mark their anti-incumbency against the state-ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM leader and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan or the center-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the high turnout would mean a surge in the votes for the main opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front or UDF.


However, this might vary from one constituency to another. In 12 out 20 seats, the voters are voting for or against a sitting Congress MP, hence if it is local incumbency that matters, it might favour the CPM.


In any case, political parties and analysts see the turnout as a reflection of strong fight between the three fronts, which became more high profile than usual this time.


The Congress had fielded their national president Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad and expected a favourable wave across the state, especially in North Kerala regions including Wayanad. The BJP wanted to expand its vote base banking on the Sabarimala agitations, and pitched a lot of effort to open its account for the first time in Kerala by fielding former state president and Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan against heavyweight Congress politician Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram. The CPM-led Left Democratic Front or LDF did not make it easier for any of the opposition, by fielding their strongest local faces, as many as six MLAs, in the fray.


The constituencies which received a high turnout are indicative. Wayanad for instance marked a record polling at 80.31%, probably a result of a minority consolidation behind Congress based on the candidature of Rahul Gandhi."
"The physical appearance of the Redmi Note 7 Pro will most likely remain the same as the Note 7. Redmi has moved to a dewdrop notch and dual-tone gradient back design in terms of aesthetics.


The Redmi Note 7 is priced at 999 Yuan (about ₹ 10,000) for the 3GB/32GB variant, 1,199 Yuan (about ₹ 12,500) for 4GB/64GB variant and 1,399 Yuan (about ₹ 14,500) for the 6GB/64GB variant."
Somashekhar was cautioned by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) after he publicly decried Kumaraswamy's governance and praised former chief minister Siddaramaiah. A few Congress leaders had declared that Siddaramaiah was their only chief minister that prompted Kumaraswamy to publicly state that he would step down if such issues continued.
"The iPhone XS now comes with dual SIM functionality. However, it will sell in two variants—one for the Chinese market and one for the rest of the world. The iPhone XS for the Chinese markets will require two physical SIM cards, while the other variant will have one slot for a physical SIM card and one eSIM. eSIMs have been employed on the Apple Watch and they don’t require a physical SIM card to be put inside the SIM tray for your phone number to function. It requires your network provider’s support to work, though. According to a presentation slide at the Apple event, Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone were the Indian network providers that will support the eSIM functionality.


The iPhone XS builds on the edge-to-edge, notched OLED display of the iPhone X. Offered in 5.8-inch screen size, the iPhone XS sports a 2436x1125 resolution with a pixel density of 458ppi—the highest on any Apple device. The displays support Dolby Vision and HDR10 and have iOS system-wide colour management that results in better colour accuracy.


The A12 Bionic chipset by Apple is the first chip ever in a smartphone that is based on a 7nm process. This allows it to have a more power-efficient design, but at the same time have greater performance. In fact, the A12 Bionic chip features a six-core fusion architecture—two performance cores that are 15% faster than those on the A11 and four efficiency cores that are up to 50% more efficient than the A11. The four-core GPU is also 50% faster than the outgoing chipset."
"Apple has disabled group calling in FaceTime, according to 9to5 Mac. “We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week,"" said an Apple spokesperson. Group video calling in FaceTime was added with iOS 12.1 update in October 2018 to keep users within their ecosystem of apps and turn less to third party services like WhatsApp or Messenger for group video calling."
"But why Priyanka? “Well-known heroines might not adapt to this character, but new faces are easy to mould


Why did Kumar title the film—’Gangs of Madras’, and not ‘Gangs of Chennai’? “Chennai is still Madras to a lot of people, including me


 I am used to calling the city that way, and I am sure many have a better connection with ‘Madras’ compared to ‘Chennai’,” he grins


 Though I am a huge fan of Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, I want to go with films where the script is the ‘hero’,” he signs off"
"I love Drew,” Long, 40, told Us Weekly while attending the world premiere of his new film, Safe Spaces, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City"
"As far as the smartphone market is concerned, the top trends revolve around multiple cameras, nearly edge-less screens and more. Foldable phones bring forth a new form factor, and could theoretically solve one of the industry’s biggest design problems—how to deliver big screens without making every phone the same brick-like device as the last.


That said, any new form factor isn’t complete without software support. So, while companies like Samsung, Huawei and others may make initial changes to their software, the real use cases will come in when developers take interest. That, traditionally happens when products start attracting enough users, and that takes time. Similarly, Google will have to fundamentally change the Android operating system to take advantage of such screens as well.


“It is likely that top smartphone brands will claim to have reinvented smartphone design because of foldable phones and screens. However, it will take longer for these foldable screens to reinvent the smartphone category and deliver differentiated experiences. In the long run, though, it is likely that foldable screens will accelerate the convergence between smartphones, tablets and laptops, progressively unleashing a new form factor,"" wrote Thomas Husson, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, in a 14 February blog post about his expectations from MWC."
The pop singer’s representatives Benny Tarantini and Carl Fysh confirmed the news Friday in a statement to The Associated Press
"Fitbit was the second-biggest seller of smartwatches in 2018, with 5.5 million units sold, behind Apple Inc's 22.5 million units but just ahead of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's 5.3 million units, according to data firm Strategy Analytics."
"Towards the end of the trailer, we are shown the rape and murder of a girl, and that seems to be the main social issue that is going to be tackled in the film"
"An EUV mask, a sandwich of about 80 alternating layers of silicon and molybdenum, can fetch as much as $100,000. Only two companies – glassmakers Hoya Corp. and AGC Inc., both in Japan – manufacture the blanks. Lasertec’s machines can spot problems early on, which is critical to making the technology cost competitive. “For EUV, masks have to be perfect,"" Okabayashi said.


EUV lithography is so complex and expensive that so far only Samsung and TSMC have said they will use it to move to 7-nanometer chipmaking. Intel Corp. has delayed its introduction, while difficulties in making EUV economically viable have prompted Globalfoundries Inc. to reportedly abandon it altogether.


Samsung has said that the move lets it use chip area 40% more efficiently, improves performance by 20% and halves power consumption. Apple’s 7-nanometer processor is manufactured by TSMC and is specialized for machine-learning applications. In the past few months, Qualcomm Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. unveiled a 7-nanometer chip that will power 5G devices.


“It used to be that chip demand was completely dependent on product cycles for personal computers,"" Okabayashi said. “But then came smartphones and pretty soon we’ll be able to add AI, IOT and 5G to the list of applications driving demand."""
"Google's Pixel smartphone has just a home ""pill"" and then a back button appears only when it's required.


Users also can no longer disable the gestures to return to the vertical card recent apps overview with the three button navigation system"
"But the combination of this many characters in this Phase Three, as Marvel calls it, you’ll never have this interaction with this many people again


”He added, “Who knows what the future holds and whether they do prequels and sequels or whatever, I’d be open to anything"
"This honesty in storytelling helps one to overlook the many shortcomings of the film – the cliched characters, familiar backdrop, scenes that stand out as jarring and a criminally underutilised Neena Gupta


 The film, in its totality, works for not overreaching or trying too hard and ultimately for not giving in to the temptation of an ostentatious climax


 Kaul, as the music teacher, who intended to leave but is left behind instead, gives a heartwarming performance


 His inability to recognise what he wants makes him come across as a man-child, constantly needing the supervision of somebody else


 Kaul presents this befuddlement well by moving about with a perpetual sense of wonderment in his eyes"
"If it really was a burning Winterfell we saw Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen staring at, this means the living will lose this battle and retreat further south (and we may witness some major deaths)"
"”In a follow up tweet, he wrote, “Holidays, festivals, even a minor holiday that could lead to an extended weekend is given priority, while deciding on the release date… Festivals/holidays don’t necessarily guarantee success… Deliver qualitative content and non-holidays will turn into festivals for investors"
"Mumbai: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress kept up the tempo of the campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacking the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) at a public meeting in Ahmednagar in western Maharashtra and Congress president Rahul Gandhi taking a veiled dig at Modi’s radio talk programme during his rallies in Tamil Nadu.


In Ahmednagar, Modi attacked NCP chief Sharad Pawar for supporting the Congress and the National Conference. “People have no expectations from the Congress. But what has happened to you Sharad (Pawar)? Since you are standing with the Congress, have you also started looking at the nation from a foreigner’s glasses?"" asked Modi , who has singled out Pawar for sharp attacks in all his recent rallies in Maharashtra.


The Prime Minister asked Pawar to make his position clear on National Conference’s stand on a separate prime minister for Jammu and Kashmir and the party chief Farooq Abdullah’s statement that the state would secede if Article 370 was scrapped."
"At the start of her career, she gained popularity by doing roles that required her to be the “bubbly, girl-next-door”


 She also played the damsel-in-distress convincingly in hit films like Saamy, Ghilli and Thirupaachi among others"
"Imphal: Repolling is likely in two booths of outer Manipur constituency, where unidentified miscreants allegedly destroyed EVMs and VVPATs, an official said.


""Around 1.30 pm on April 11, unidentified men ransacked two booths at Poi and Chingkhai villages, along the India-Myanmar border, breaking some of the machines. They fled the scene even before the security guards could react,"" Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) PK Singh said."
"The cutout display with “under display camera"" can be expected to become a mainstream design element soon. Apart from Honor and Samsung, Asus is also expected to announce the ZenFone 6 with a similar cutout to house the front-facing camera.


Samsung Galaxy A8sSamsung Galaxy A8Samsung Galaxy A8s front cameraSamsung Galaxy A8s cutoutSamsungHonor V20HuaweiHonorGalaxy A7"
"That beefy scowl is still usefully in play, but how many times can you do a slo mo stride down a corridor and grab our attention?”She added, “Finally, the film which emphasizes its over-used thrust –Islamic ‘aatankwaad’ threatening the unity and integrity of ‘akhand’ Bharat—comes off as far too generic"
"For now, the on-device Gboard speech recogniser has been made available in American English language on all Pixel devices."
"Facebook has an incentive to play a strong role in the debate around technology companies’ data regulation


Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called for new global regulations governing the internet on Saturday, recommending overarching rules on hateful and violent content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.


In a statement that was also published as an op-ed in the Washington Post, Zuckerberg said the company is seeking regulations that would set baselines for prohibited content and require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a minimum.


'We have a responsibility to keep people safe on our services,' he said. 'That means deciding what counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more. We continually review our policies with experts, but at our scale we’ll always make mistakes and decisions that people disagree with.'


Zuckerberg’s comments mark his most visible effort so far to shape the discourse around the way the company collects information, uses and disperses it around the world."
"Incorporated in 1964 as a trading company to regulate the export of scrap, MSTC has grown into a large diversified, multi-product services and trading company. It was a canalizing agent for import of ferrous scrap until 1992. After de-canalization, the company has established itself as one of the major players in trading of bulk industrial raw material and one of the leading e-commerce service providers in the country.


The company entered the recycling business via a 50:50 joint venture with Mahindra Intertrade Ltd for setting up a shredding plant and collection centres across India. There are three main business verticals in the company: e-commerce, trading, and recycling through the joint venture company (Mahindra MSTC Recycling Pvt. Ltd)."
Dhyan is said to be playing the younger version of Sreenivasan’s character as some parts of the story will be narrated in flashbacks
"The Oppo R17 has the fastest charging tech in the bunch called ‘SuperVOOC’ which offers 45% charge in 10 minutes. It comes with dual 1,850mAh batteries.


The Nokia 8.1 sports a dual camera setup at the back with 12MP+13MP configuration. The two cameras also fitted Carl ZEISS lenses. At the front, the Nokia 8.1 sports a 20MP selfie camera.


The OnePlus 6T’s dual-camera setup consists of a 16MP Sony IMX519 sensor and 20MP Sony IMX376K sensor. At the front, it comes with a 16MP Sony IMX371 camera with f/2.0 aperture.


The Oppo R17 Pro comes with a triple-camera module at the back in which the third camera is actually a time of flight (TOF) depth sensor. It features 12MP and 20MP sensors at the rear and a 25MP front-facing camera."
"Smart extras: Another highlight of the Hero 7 Black is that it supports live streaming on Facebook or YouTube, albeit at reduced resolution of up to 720p. The microphone has been improved so the videos and live streams sound a lot louder. It also offers some camera smarts such as short clips which restricts video recording to 15-30 second, face detection, portrait mode, time lapse and Super Photo which can capture photos in HDR."
"The web series, presented by Applause Entertainment, features Sachin Pilgaonkar, Priya Bapat, Eijaz Khan and Siddharth Chandekar among others"
"The smartphone, which will be available on April 26, comes with the world's first 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display, which folds into a compact device with a cover display that is capable of opening up to three active apps simultaneously on the main display."
"Further, the iRobot’s automatic dirt disposal feature takes convenience to a whole new level by automatically emptying the contents of the Roomba i7+ dust bin into the Clean Base. Doubling as the robot’s charging station, the Clean Base takes the dirty work out of vacuuming, storing debris in an enclosed bag, and trapping dirt and dust so they can’t escape into the air. When the bag is full, the user is notified via the iRobot Home app and can simply replace the full bag with a new one. The bag can hold 30 bins of debris.


Puresight Systems Pvt. Ltd distributes iRobot home robots in India and they are available at Amazon, Croma and other flagship stores in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bengaluru."
"”The Netflix special is good timing for Brown, who has spent years traveling all over the country giving speeches to corporations, entrepreneurs, women’s conferences and leadership training events


Her youngest child is in middle school and she’s moving into a period of her career where she’s doing less of those speaking opportunities in order to be at home


 But with Netflix, she has a chance to continue building on the conversations she started with her books"
"With more than 39 lakh cases pending in high courts, currently functioning at 60% of sanctioned strength, a difference of opinion between the Supreme Court and the Centre is delaying finalisation of a Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for judicial appointments. (Google Play Store/Nyaya Bandhu)


The pro bono legal service was developed to let advocates register and connect with the registered eligible beneficiaries


The mobile application is integrated with a dashboard to confirm and register the pre-registered cases"
"The speakers are oddly placed at the base, as a result the audio isn’t very clear. We had to fall back on the headphones to watch movies or videos.


Display: The 13-inch display with a resolution of 1,920x1,080p looks crisp, and offers wide viewing angles.


While colours look good, it lacks the vividness of the more expensive Dell New XPS 13 (₹85,390). The thin bezel design, gives it an edge-to-edge look."
"The Redmi Go was priced at PHP 3,990 (roughly ₹5,400) in the Philippines. We can expect the smartphone to be priced roughly the same in India, or maybe even lower."
"For example, Facebook built its first data centre in Prineville in the US state of Oregon and the complex now consists of three massive buildings.


""The smallest of the three data centre buildings is about 350,000 square feet in size and the newest, which is still under construction, will measure over 450,000 square feet. Each one could easily hold a modern aircraft carrier and still have plenty of room to spare,"" says TechCrunch.


""Protecting data centre networks requires greater flexibility and modernisation to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated threats as the attackers know targeting the data centers will reap them more ROI,"" Sunil Sharma, Managing Director-Sales, India and SAARC, Sophos, told IANS."
"Bhardwaj has a valid point. A gaming system comprises five-six key components. First comes the motherboard that connects the CPU (central processing unit) with all other components like the GPU (graphics processing unit), SMPS (switch mode power supply), RAM (random access memory), storage drives and the chassis to cover it all.


Price range: Buyers with a budget of over ₹ 50,000 and under ₹ 1 lakh can opt for components such as Intel’s Core i7- 7700 CPU, which is currently available at ₹ 31,900 and the Nvidia GeForce 1050 Ti (4GB) GPU, which costs ₹ 13,350. The Gigabyte Ga-B250M-Gaming 3 Lga1151 motherboard, which is compatible with all Intel 6th- and 7th-gen processors, is available for ₹ 12,727.


Compatibility check: Checking the compatibility of the motherboard with the CPUs is also important—an Intel CPU, for instance, won’t work on a motherboard with an AMD socket and vice versa. Most new games require at least 8GB of RAM. Corsair’s Vengeance LPX 8GB DDR4, priced at ₹ 6,010, is a good option as it is compatible with both Intel and Ryzen processors."
It would indeed be something of a challenge to present it to the big screen in a way that is faithful to the lore
"Against that backdrop, Future Retail’s master franchise agreement with 7-Eleven Inc., announced on Thursday, could be helpful.


7-Eleven is the largest chain in the convenience store format globally, spread across 17 countries with more than 67,000 stores. The agreement would help Future Retail tap into 7-Eleven’s sourcing and technological expertise, says Himanshu Nayyar, analyst at Systematix Shares and Stocks (India) Ltd. This, in turn, may bring some valuable insights for the EasyDay format, too.


For a similar arrangement in Malaysia, the royalty payable to 7-Eleven is about 1%, point out analysts at Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd. This may be a fair cost to pay, especially if it helps Future Retail crack the code on running small convenience stores."
"This is the third major announcement among the series of five from the Chinese smartphone maker. The other two were price cuts of up to Rs 4,500 on the Mi A2 and Rs 4,000 on the Redmi Note 5 Pro. The latter comes also coincides with the 1 crore celebrations of the Redmi Note 5 Pro.


The Redmi Y2 was launched in India in June last year and sports a 5.99-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1440x720. Powering the device is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 clocked in at 2 GHz paired with either 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It comes with up to 256GB of expandable storage via MicroSD card."
"HYDERABAD: YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy will start his election campaign from 16 March. Reddy, who walked 3,648 kilomeres across Andhra Pradesh on foot as part of his ‘Padayatra’ from November 2017 to January this year, will begin his current campaign from the Gurazala assembly constituency in Guntur district.


Reddy’s YSRCP will be looking to defeat the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which is led by AP chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. On 16 March, Reddy will begin campaign by addressing a public meeting. He is expected to tour all 175 assembly constituencies His sister Y.S. Sharmila and mother Y.S. Vijayamma will also accompany him. In AP, both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls will be held together on 11 April."
"However, the production function for AI may not be too difficult to measure because the relevant machine learning algorithms and their performance at different times and with different data sets are usually well-documented, at least within the companies. Research is already on to determine the marginal effect of new data on predictions, though there are several conceptual and technical questions that still need to be worked out. This could be very useful for valuing data.


The funny thing is that Data as Labour could even help the tech titans in the long term, though in the short run, their profits will be squeezed. As AI grows more advanced, it will require more and better data.


Right now, through their surveillance, companies get mostly random data. As AI services get more sophisticated, algorithms will need to be fed a higher-quality diet of digital information, which people may only provide if they get paid.


In a recent book, Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy For A Just Society, Glen Weyl, an economist at Yale University, and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago, write: “Appropriate technological systems have to be developed for tracing and tracking the value created by individual users. These systems would have to balance a number of competing concerns.


On the one hand, they should try to measure which individual user is responsible for what data contributions, especially when these contributions are disproportionately large, and/or these individuals would be unlikely to supply or invest in this unique data that make these exceptional contributions unless they are monetarily incentivized. Creators of valuable entertainments, experts in obscure languages who can aid computer translators, specialized masters of video games who can help teach computers to play them expertly in multiplayer settings, these are unique skills worthy of exceptional rewards. On the other hand, tracking every detail of the ordinary use of a Facebook post would be overkill, and certain classes of data should be ‘commoditized’ and paid an ‘average price’ based on meeting basic quality standards.""


Maybe all this seems somewhat far-fetched. But the times we live in today, the things we do, what we see around us, would have seemed utterly incredible even 30 years ago. Google is only 20 years old and it’s already possibly the most powerful company on earth. Facebook was set up in 2004. Things can change very fast.


Sandipan Deb is a former editor of The Financial Express, and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines.


long-reads mint-india-wire datadata revolutiondata uses chargesbig datamoneyfree internetAIartificial intelligencesurveillancejob losssocial unrestmachine learningSabarimalaGoogleFacebookWalmart"
"WhatsApp introduced three new features for its iPhone users. Here's everything you need to know about them


WhatsApp new featureWhatsAppWhatsApp stickersWhatsApp webWhatsApp iphonewhatsapp private replieswhatsapp 3d touchwhatsapp sticker add photo videowhatsapp stickers for photos and videoshow to add whatsapp stickers to photoshow to add whatsapp stickers to videos


The start of this year has some exciting WhatsApp features coming our way. WhatsApp recently received its first major update of the year on the iOS platform. The update lets users reply privately in groups, add stickers to photos and videos and preview statuses using 3D touch. The new updates were previously tested on the beta version of the app."
"There are also numerous new smartwatches and fitness bands, like the Smartron t-band ( ₹3,999) that uses two light sensors at the base for tracking heart rate and a metal sensor on top to measure blood pressure and ECG. Fitness tracking isn’t limited to watches. It can be found in pieces of jewellery as well. for instance, Motiv’s titanium ring ( ₹14,139) looks like any other ring but, on the inside, it has an optical heart rate sensor and accelerometer to track steps and distance. The Bellabeat Leaf Urban ( ₹7,034) is designed like a leaf and can be worn as a necklace. It is made of a wood composite and steel and has sensors that can track activity, stress and sleep."
"For now, China has the attention of foreign investors. A Bloomberg report last week said two China-focused ETFs attracted inflows of more than $100 million each in a single day. “Positive news on trade and economic stimulus are also boosting Chinese stocks,"" the report added.


That just shows global investors in funds benchmarked to the MSCI indices are busy with plenty of rejigging, which can cause the dragon to soar higher."
Oviyaa and Gayathri were involved in a long and public feud during their stint inside the Bigg Boss house
"The IPO comprises fresh issue of up to Rs70 crore and offer for sale of up to 29,00,000 equity shares, including anchor portion of 18,46,715 equity shares.


Price range for the offer, which is scheduled to close on Friday, has been fixed at ₹212-215 per share."
"All EUME bags feature an anti-theft and weatherproof design. There’s also a USB charging port and secret pockets. The three variants include a classic pack (26 litres), a daily pack (27 litres) and a travel pack (42 litres)."
"Kumar, who began managing long-short strategies at London-based AGRA India Fund in 2006, joins other participants including Kotak Institutional Equities advising caution. For Kotak, the rally has made stocks expensive and there’s a risk that the company earnings estimates will be reduced if slowdown in the economy gathers pace, analysts led by Sanjeev Prasad wrote in a recent note.


The IDFC India Equity Hedge Tactical Fund is betting on the stock-market swings amplifying in the run up to the election results on May 23, with the India NSE Volatility Index reaching as high as 30, Kumar said. That level was last seen months after Modi swept to power in May 2014, data compiled by Bloomberg show.


India equity hedge funds that follow a long-short strategy rose an average 5 percent this year after losing about 9.6 percent in 2018, according to Eurekahedge Pte estimates. The funds’ best performance in the past 15 years were during election years of 2009 and 2014, with annual gains of about 50 percent, the data shows. Kumar’s fund, that was targeting about 10 billion rupees at the time of launch two months ago, didn’t disclose its assets under management."
"Samsung Galaxy S10 5G smartphone is displayed at a telecom shop in Seoul on April 30, 2019. - Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest smartphone and memory chip maker, reported a slump in first-quarter net profits on April 30, in the face of a weakening chip market. (Photo: AFP)


Galaxy S10 line now starts at ₹46,900, thanks to cashbacks of up to ₹11,000, Samsung announced last week


In a sign of intense competition in the premium smartphone segment in India, the price gaps among the top brands are narrowing ahead of the launch of OnePlus 7 series on May 14.


""Global OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are now looking at India more seriously when it comes to the premium smartphone segment,"" Hanish Bhatia, Senior Analyst, Devices and Ecosystem, Counterpoint Research, told IANS."
"“Every Maharashtrian is associated with Shiv Sena. I have been associated with Shiv Sena since my childhood since I was born into this city and Mumbai has been my janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi. There was no man parivartan (change of heart) required,"" she said.


Earlier on Friday, Chaturvedi sent a two-page letter to Congress president Rahul Gandhi resigning all organisational posts of the party and also the primary membership. She also promptly changed her profile on her Twitter handle from ""Congress spokesperson"" to ""columnist"". Two days back, she caused a political flutter when she tweeted her anguish over ""lumpen goons getting preference in Congress over those who have given their sweat and blood"".


The letter, which Chaturvedi shared on her twitter handle, says that “in the last few weeks, certain things have convinced me that my services are not valued in the organisation and that I have reached the end of the road."" The letter adds that “what saddens me is that despite the safety, dignity, empowerment of women being promoted by the party and has been your call to action, the same is not reflected in the action of some of the members of the party."""
"While NDA has managed to put its house in order in most states and Modi has held at least 40 public meetings in the last two months, the opposition is yet to find a common ground to come together against NDA.


The tussle between Congress and regional parties is most visible in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, where Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee have shared the dais with Congress president Rahul Gandhi at recent meetings but have not agreed on seat-sharing arrangements.


“In most states, where we aimed to have an alliance, we are hopeful of going ahead with a united face. Either formal alliances have already been announced or seat sharing will be announced soon, which includes states like Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In Bihar too, talks are in final stage and we are confident we will strike a fair equation with RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal),"" a senior Congress leader and parliamentarian said, requesting anonymity.


While Karnataka became an example of opposition unity when Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) came together to form the government, there is no clarity on seat sharing yet between the two parties, as the coalition has faced several problems since it came together.


“The only problem area we see right now is Uttar Pradesh, where formally we have said we are contesting alone, but some channels are still open. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has said it in public, too, that Congress is part of the alliance in Uttar Pradesh, but Mayawati is still taking a tough stance. We are hopeful there would be some movement there too,"" the leader added."
"Both the devices are available starting next week, through Apple Authorised Resellers, the company said in a statement.


""With its stunning Retina display, amazing design, twice the performance, and macOS Mojave that our customers love, iMac is by far the best desktop in the world,"" said Tom Boger, Apple's Senior Director of Mac Product Marketing.


With updated processors this time, customers will experience dramatically faster performance for a wide range of everyday computing tasks, said the company."
"The smartphone is expected to have a price tag north of ₹30,000 mark, so it will be in the same category as budget flagships including Poco F1 and OnePlus 6


Vivo is set to launch the Vivo V15 Pro smartphone today at an event in New Delhi. The smartphone's highlight is the motorised pop-up selfie camera and a notch-free display with very few bezels.


Going by the advertisements featuring Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, the smartphone will have a clean, notch-free display and a glittery back panel."
"The movie also stars Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy"
"Gurugram-based DataCultr is an IoT-enablement platform, which aims to make the IoT journey “simple, faster and value-driven"" for enterprises. Founded in 2016 by Neel Juriasingani and Sujoy Ghosh, the data streaming platform enables enterprises to connect and control their data and devices in real-time. “DataCultr continues to work and build a world class platform that will allow more and more large and small enterprises to take their IoT plans to life,"" says Juriasingani.


It eliminates custom coding and aims to solve certain use cases that enterprises find critical—solutions across digital homes, fintech, telecom and smartphones."
"Much of the growth of feature phones in India has been driven by the revival of the Nokia-branded features phones and the popularity of the Jio Phone, a smart feature phone which packs a chipset and an operating system that can support sophisticated smartphone-like features in a traditional feature phone form-factor.


""There are more than three billion people across the world who live on an income of less than $2.50 per day. This segment can neither afford a smartphone nor the data services demanded by the growing advancement in smartphone use-cases. Thus, a feature phone, coupled with basic mobile services, has been the go-to offering for these users to communicate and connect,"" said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research."
"Soon after, Star Wars turned into a franchise with The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983)


 The original trilogy is still loved by fans and for anyone who wishes to know all about Star Wars, these three films are a must"
"Uttarakhand, a relatively young state with an electorate of 7.71 million votes, goes to polls on 11 April. (Mint)"
"Mandya has become one of the biggest political theatres in the state, if not the country in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections


The record turnout of 80.23%, the highest in its history, indicating that the battle was not just between candidates but between the people of this region


Packed to the brim with star power, strong and powerful cast, a healthy mix of drama and a generous dollop of suspense that could compete with any family entertainer. Such has been the excitement in Mandya, that has become one of the biggest political theatres in the state, if not the country in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.


The record turnout of 80.23%, the highest in its history, indicating that the battle was not just between candidates but between the people of this region, known to be swayed by emotion than more compelling factors that an election--or a candidate--has to offer."
"For JM Financial, Tech Mahindra remains the preferred pick in the tech sector. The brokerage has revised its target price higher for ₹960 to ₹920 earlier.


“A confident management commentary, and growing news flow on the 5G theme should also attract investors’ interest,"" the brokerage said in a note."
"From playing intense parts to switching to comedy, Kunal Kemmu says every time he tries to feature in diverse films, it feels as if he is making his debut every second year in Bollywood


The actor started out as a child artiste in the 1990s and went on to do films such as Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Raja Hindustani, Zakhm, and Dushman


After having worked as a child artiste for a decade, the actor proved his mettle as a lead actor with his 2005 debut Kalyug and followed it up with Traffic Signal, both high on content films"
"FILE PHOTO: A Huawei sign is pictured at a shop in Beijing, China January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo


Donald Trump's administration has accused Huawei, the world's biggest network equipment maker, for enabling Chinese state espionage


European telecoms executives say this could set back plans to roll out advanced 'fifth-generation' 5G technology by at least two years


Leading telecoms companies gather in Barcelona this weekend for their main annual trade fair under the shadow of a bitter clash between the United States and China over network security for the next generation of mobile services.


Accusations from US President Donald Trump's administration that Huawei, the world's biggest network equipment maker, has enabled Chinese state espionage have shaken the industry and raised broader fears for progress in talks to defuse a rumbling trade dispute.


Aside from hosting snazzy device launches and officials from more than 2,400 companies, mobile industry trade body GSMA is seeking to ward off a ban on Chinese vendors in European markets.


GSMA Marketing Director Andrew Parker said the association would lobby to protect competition in the supply chain.


""The more choice the industry has, the more supply, the better value everyone will get,"" Parker said."
"Shekhar Banerjee, managing partner at media agency Wavemaker India said this election would be a lot about grassroots development that the government had delivered with a strategy of “show and tell"".


“Ease of living is the basic theme of this election campaign,"" said the senior BJP leader cited earlier. The 2014 general elections had witnessed a turnout of 170-180 million voters, he said, while the past five years have seen 320 million benefiting from the government schemes.


The election campaign will be across English, Hindi and regional language newspapers, outdoor advertisements and discussions on radio channels similar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio programme, Mann Ki Baat, besides limited social media engagement on websites such as Twitter.


Industry experts, on condition of anonymity, also emphasized that the BJP was very strategic about building polling booth trackers and measuring sentiments, both formally and informally."
"The Honor View 20 is the world’s first smartphone to sport a 48MP Camera and a punch-hole cutout. The smartphone is powered by Huawei’s top-spec Kirin 980 SoC based on a 7nm process. The octa-core processor is also present on Huawei’s current flagship, the Mate 20 Pro. It is paired with a Mali G76 MP10 GPU along with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The View 20 runs Magic UI 2.0.1 based on Android Pie 9.


Apart from the 48MP sensor, the back of the phone also has a secondary Time of Flight (ToF) stereoscopic sensor for capturing the depth of an image. The front facing camera is fitted with a 25MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture."
"Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner and American singer Joe Jonas exchanged wedding vows in an intimate wedding ceremony on Thursday


 The ceremony took place at Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas and an Elvis Presley impersonator officiated the wedding"
"Newcomer Rachel Zegler has been cast in the lead role of Maria and Ana Isabelle, a famous Puerto Rican singer and actor, will play her friend and coworker Rosalia"
"Ryan Reynolds became a household name with his performance as the sarcastic, foul-mouthed antihero Deadpool in the movie franchise of the same name


 He was asked by MTV in an interview about who he thinks would win in a fight between Deadpool and Pikachu"
"Kanimozhi, in an interview, speaks about her electoral debut, jobs, the controversy over Sterlite Copper’s industrial unit and the debate over welfare and populism"
"Speaking about his project with Anil Ravipudi, Mahesh said, “My previous outings were very intense projects


 So, once I wanted to do a full-length entertainer like Dookudu, I thought to come out from my comfort zone"
"This exposes them to “serious vulnerabilities"" such as “several worrying misconfigurations in an online management platform popular with surgical teams that could lead an attacker to sensitive data and treatment procedures"", “insecure or unencrypted data transfer between the implant, the programming software, and any associated networks"", according to the Kaspersky and Oxford University researchers.


“Manipulation could result in changed settings causing pain, paralysis or the theft of private and confidential personal data,"" the researchers caution.


Dmitry Galov, junior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, insists that “current vulnerabilities matter because the technology that exists today is the foundation for what will exist in the future"". 


Laurie Pycroft, doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford Functional Neurosurgery Group, corroborates: “Memory prostheses are only a question of time. Collaborating to understand and address emerging risks and vulnerabilities, and doing so while this technology is still relatively new, will pay off in the future."""
"The complainant alleged that Sunita Kejriwal has two voter identity cards, one from Ghaziabad and another from Chandni Chowk


Earlier this month, AAP leader had filed a criminal complaint against BJP's Gambhir for holding two voter cards"
"“This measure can provide short-term respite to the BFSI sector and also stressed corporates. However, this will also expose Indian corporates to currency risks going forward even as it fails to address the core issue of credit risk,"" Sinha added.


Meanwhile, the yield on the most-traded 2028 paper was trading at 7.595% from its previous close of 7.610. The yield on government bonds due in January 2029 was trading at 7.319% from its previous close of 7.358%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.


“Debt markets cheered the rate cut with short-term bonds seeing a 15-20 bps move, while the medium-to-long bonds space saw a 5-10 bps move. The market reaction to the rate cut on the long bonds space is likely to remain subdued on continued concerns on bond supply in the system. Further, the RBI hinted on need-based open market operations (OMOs) likely denting demand for G-Secs, given the liquidity in the system has moved from deficit to neutral,"" according to R Sivakumar, head, fixed income, Axis Mutual Fund."
"Brokerage Hana Investment and Securities expects Samsung to sell two million Galaxy Fold smartphones this year, with the price keeping the volume relatively low, while another brokerage expects shipments to reach one million. That would be less than 1% of the 291 million smartphones Samsung sold last year.


“The success of a foldable phone depends on whether it can take up demand from tablet users. We believe it will be difficult to achieve meaningful sales with a 7.3-inch screen,"" Meritz Securities analysts said in a note to clients.


“For it to succeed, it has to evolve further so that it can support 10-inch or bigger screen with multiple foldings.""


Some industry watchers said such foldable phones could eat into the tablet market, which shrunk 6% last year even as Apple shipped more iPads.


Apple’s 7.9-inch screen iPad Mini4, its smallest—and cheapest—tablet, is priced $329-559. The US firm commands 25.8% of the global tablet market, nearly double Samsung’s 13.3%."
The untitled film will commence after Pandiraj finishes his upcoming movie with actor Sivakarthikeyan
"The studios, previously owned by the Kapoors, once hosted the entire film industry, from actors to technicians under one roof


35 million square feet) of saleable area comprising modern residential apartments of various configurations as well as a luxury retail experience"
"She wrote, “Overall, Kanchana 3 is a frustratingly cringe-worthy piece of work masquerading as “horror comedy” that makes you squirm"
"Subsequently, the producers of the film approached the Supreme Court on 17 April. Appearing for the producers, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi had said the decision of the Election Commission was arbitrary since they had not watched the movie, but had formed an opinion merely by watching its trailer.


The Supreme Court bench had then passed an order observing the argument made by Mukul Rohtagi and directed the Election Commission to watch the movie and thereafter consider the matter of public screening of the movie once again. The Election Commission was asked to submit its view to the apex court by 22 April in a sealed cover."
"India's benchmark Sensex rose 0.2% to 37,042.97 points. So far this year it has gained 1%. The rupee has declined 2.5% this year, as foreign investors bought $69 million in the equity and sold $633.90 million in the debt market."
"Modi is expected to file his nomination papers on Friday. The decision of the BJP to choose Varanasi constituency for PM is part of a carefully crafted strategy to motivate the people to vote for BJP in the region.


During the 2014 general elections, BJP had won 17 of the 18 Lok Sabha constituencies in the region and the only loss of seat was in Azamgarh where Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav contested."
Actor Sunny Deol joins BJP in presence of Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. (ANI)
"Singh said he held talks with senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and PC Chacko, and proposed an alliance of 6:3:1 in Haryana


AAP had proposed to fight from one seat, while offering the Congress and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) six and three seats


NEW DELHI: The talks for an alliance between the AAP and the Congress ended ""inconclusively"" after the grand old party refused a tie-up in Haryana, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said Wednesday.


However, sources claimed that the talks are very much on and a decision on an alliance might be taken in the next couple of days."
"I would love to work with him someday,” she gushes, quickly adding since she signed Mehandi Circus, she caught Kaala, Sarkar and Nadigaiyar Thilagam, which helped her learn Tamil


What’s next? “Especially, after doing quality content including Gone Kesh, Mirzapur and Haraamkhor, I am more confident about my acting skills"
"“We ask that privacy be given to him and our family at this time and appreciate all of the prayers that have been pouring in from his fans, friends and colleagues,” the family said in a statement"
"The state does not have resources to harness hydropower on its own but can involve overseas and domestic companies on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon. These companies put conditions, that is, a sovereign guarantee by the state government. But, a sovereign guarantee by the centre has never been given. Farooq Abdullah fought this but failed and later Mufti Mohammad Sayeed made it a point in the election manifesto too, but failed as well.


Sayeed once arranged a meeting with former PM Manmohan Singh in 2004 and while giving the full database to the PM, he constituted a committee headed by C. Rangarajan. The committee has recommended transfer of some power projects to the state, but neither Singh nor PM Modi had the will to implement the report of Rangarajan committee."
"The Realme 3 will be available on Flipkart starting 12 March at 12 noon. Launch offers include Jio benefits worth ₹5,300 and ₹500 instant discount on purchase with HDFC debit and credit cards.


The Realme 3 is lit by a 6.2-inch display with a maximum brightness of 450 nits. The display has a dewdrop notch which hosts the 13MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture.


The smartphone follows a ""Gradient Unibody Design"" which is basically Realme's rendition of a dual gradient back. It comes in two colours—Dynamic Black and Radiant Blue."
"The Lion King director Jon Favreau has promised that Disney fans will be surprised by new version of the 1994 musical animated classic


The filmmaker reiterated his previous comments that the CGI retelling will not be a “shot-for-shot” remake of the original film but will try to match up to the viewers’ expectations"
"In global markets, gold was little changed today as investors awaited clarity on the ongoing US-China trade talks. Prices held above $1,300 per ounce, weighed down by a higher dollar. The dollar index rose to a two-month high, making bullion costlier for investors holding other currencies.


Higher global equity markets also dented gold's appeal. European shares climbing to a three-month high on optimism about US-China trade talks. US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the talks were ""going along very well""."
"Thin and light laptops are usually expensive. The HP Envy x360 lies on the cheaper side of that segment


The laptop is sold with AMD's Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 processors in India, with price tags of ₹60,990 and ₹74,990, respectively


mint-india-wire HP Envy x360HP Envy x360 specificationsHP Envy x360 featuresHP Envy x360 priceultrabook


On first look, the HP Envy x360 (2018) reminds you of the company’s first generation Spectre laptop. It doesn’t have the gold trims of that one, but has a similar thin, metallic body that would give any premium ultrabook a run for its money.


The device weighs about 1.3kgs, but the metallic body feels extremely solid and well built. The laptop is sold with AMD’s Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 processors in India, with price tags of ₹ 60,990 and ₹ 74,990, respectively.


The fact that the Envy x360 runs on AMD’s new Accelerated Processing Units (APU) though makes it noticeably slower than Intel-powered counterparts."
"Ranveer Singh is meanwhile training under former cricketer Balwinder Singh Sandhu, who had played a significant role in India’s first World Cup win"
"After being impressed by Kalabhavan’s writing, Prithviraj convinced him to take the responsibility of directing it"
"About 95% of the traffic Sophos tracked appeared to originate in China. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the attackers conducting these brute-force attempts are also located in China, the report clarified, ""because attacks may be routed through other machines under the attackers' control"".


The London honeypot alone suffered 314,000 login attempts over the course of the 30 days in which Sophos ran these honeypots, while the honeypots hosted in Mumbai and Ireland received more than 600,000 login attempts. Does this mean that hosting services in London is safer than hosting services in Mumbai?


No, clarifies the Sophos report, since the brute-force login attempts varied in complexity from default usernames and passwords down to complex passwords with what security practitioners would consider sufficiently complex combinations of numbers, letters, and special characters. Looking at what drives this number of brute force login attempts, for instance, Sophos found the dominant problem was ongoing exposure as a result of not changing default usernames and passwords (eg. root, admin, user, ubuntu and postgres).


Further, many devices ship with default passwords. ""Whether they are easy to guess or not, this is always a mistake,"" cautions the Sophos report. The report advises that users should use complex and unique passwords for each service, and use a password manager too for simplicity."
"The iPhone 8 lineup will now sell at ₹ 59,900 for the 64GB model, while the 256GB version will sell at ₹ 74,900. The iPhone 8 Plus, on the other hand, will sell at ₹ 69,900 for the 64GB variant and ₹ ₹ 84,900 for the 256GB variant.


The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, released in 2015, have seen a price drop as well. The iPhone 7 now costs ₹ 39,900 for the 32GB variant and ₹ 49,900 for the 128GB variant while the iPhone 7 Plus now sells for ₹ 39,900 for the 32GB variant and ₹ 49,900 for the 128GB variant.


The oldest of the lot, the iPhone 6S is selling at ₹ 29,900 for 32GB variant while the 128GB variant now costs ₹ 39,900. The taller sibling, the iPhone 6S, now sells for ₹ 34,900 and ₹ 44,900 for the 32GB and 128GB variants, respectively."
"In her latest Instagram post, the proud daughter wrote, “One of the greatest individual challenges we face in our lives is the ability to constantly evolve as people and professionals


 She has constantly reinvented herself in the pursuit to be her best self in her many roles from a physician in the army, to a film producer, an entrepreneur to a daughter, wife, sister, mother and a friend"
"“India has over 400 million internet users. However, only one-third of these have shopped online and that number includes those buying railway tickets online. From seasoned desktop shoppers to first-time users with entry-level smartphones, we hope this new shopping experience will make finding what people are looking for just a little bit easier,"" Google Vice President Product Management Surojit Chatterjee told reporters here.


Google Shopping will be a connector between retailers and consumers, and the transaction and delivery of products will be handled by the merchant, he added.


“There are an estimated 58 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India, of which 35 per cent are engaged in retail trade. However, a very small number of them have an online presence, this is a huge opportunity for retailers to surface their merchandise to the millions of online consumers,"" Chatterjee said."
"So far, the government has raised a total of ₹28,500 crore through CPSE ETF, including the first offer in March 2014 that mopped up ₹3,000 crore.


As on February 28, the dividend yield of the index was as high as 5.52 per cent, compared to 1.25 per cent for the Nifty 50, says the MF."
"At the Davos conference last year, Soros lashed out at social-media giants Facebook Inc. and Google. He compared them to gambling companies that foster addiction among users and said that they exploit the data they control. Soros on Thursday reiterated the need to regulate technology firms while authoritarian regimes declare theirs as “national champions.""


“That’s what has enabled some Chinese state-owned companies to catch up with and even surpass the multinational giants,"" he said.


In his speech, Soros touched on subjects including his childhood, running a hedge fund and his efforts to protect human rights. He spoke at length about China, criticizing Xi and the nation’s “One Belt, One Road"" infrastructure project as self-serving. He also called out Russian President Vladimir Putin as another enemy of democracy."
"Xiaomi’s Android One smartphone Mi A2 is available at ₹11,999 along with a ₹2,000 exchange offer. The Redmi 6 Pro has been discounted to ₹7,999 for the sale, while Redmi 6A is available with a ₹500 discount from HDFC Bank. Redmi Y2 is available at ₹7,999.


Huawei's Y9 smartphone is available at ₹14,990 during the sale. Customers can avail no cost EMI starting at ₹4,996 per month.


Samsung's new smartphones do not have eye-catching discounts during the sale. The Galaxy M10 and M20 are available on open sale, starting at ₹7,990. Samsung’s older flagship phone the Galaxy S9, however, gets a new sale price of ₹49,990 and is available with an exchange offer of ₹9,000."
"The company has learnt lessons from incidents of the mob violence triggered due to fake news and misinformation in Myanmar and Sri Lanka


Facebookfake newsFacebook India DirectorRaisina Dialogue 2019Facebook fake newsfake news whatsappAnkhi Das


New Delhi: Facebook Wednesday said it would focus more on local expertise and knowledge to deal with the menace of fake news and misinformation.Facebook India Director (Public Policy) Ankhi Das said a combination of enforcement and technical measures could help stop the spread of fake news."
"Read the news in MalayalamLucifer, which is the directorial debut of Prithviraj Sukumaran, set the box office on fire when it released in cinemas last month"
"#playdatesoon”“Hearts are leaping for a beautiful, wondrous and healthy baby boy! Sending much love and wishes for every blessing across the pond today and everyday! ❤️” Suits actor Sarah Rafferty said via Twitter


The official Twitter handle of Suits welcomed the royal baby and congratulated the royal couple with a tweet that read, “The entire #Suits family sends their congratulations to The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, on the birth of their baby boy! 💙”Singer Liam Payne tweeted, “Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on the birth of your baby boy"
"“Bot operators and bot defenders are playing an incessant game of cat and mouse, and techniques used today, such as mimicking mouse movements are more human-like than ever before,"" said Tiffany Olson Kleemann, chief executive of Distil Networks.


While it’s well known that bots were used to exploit social media sites in an attempt to influence political dialogue and elections, the real motivation behind the majority of bad bots is more simple—money, according to the Distil Networks report."
"When the photos were shown to photographers, they were surprised as they and the subjects in the photos had no idea that those photos were being used for research. In its official statement to the press, IBM said that it used only images that were publicly available, had been used for an earlier research, and users can request them to be removed if they want.


The race to build the most reliable face recognition platform requires a massive data set of faces. Most existing data sets collected for prior research purposes are very limited and lack racial diversity to train facial recognition algorithms. Clearly, companies in the space will require more facial data. Experts are of the opinion that companies that are collecting and working on face data, need to be more transparent on how the data is stored, who all have access to it and how it is going to be used. While Facebook’s photo privacy concern was pinned on an application programming interface (API) bug, the face recognition project by IBM was a case of oversight. However, in both cases, users had no control over their own photos.


There are several cases where photos shared by users on social media or image hosting platforms were stolen, made public to humiliate or blackmail them and misused for fraud and identity theft. Photos from social media can also be used to unlock stolen smartphones where face unlocking mechanism was poorly implemented. Sometimes, photos can reveal more than is visible to users, like location details.


According to researchers from department of Computer Science in Kent State University, when a user shares a photo on social media, the platform captures their GPS coordinates and appends them to the post. Using the API, anyone can retrieve the exact location of the picture via the metadata, while anyone seeing the post could get the location of the user via geospatial tag in the post. A recent McAfee survey involving 1,000 parents found that 30% of the participants were uploading photos of their children daily and 58% of them did it without the child’s consent."
"""Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trampling upon democratic norms in India by running brazenly and blatantly 'NaMo TV'. Isn't the prime minister mocking the Constitution as also every democratic norm?,"" Congress's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala asked.


He said by running 'NaMo TV' as an affront to the rule of law, Modi and the BJP were mocking the powers of superintendence and control of election of the EC under Article 324 of the Constitution.


The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP had recently asked the EC if the BJP had sought an approval for the launch of the channel.


""Can permission be granted to a party to have its own TV channel, even after the model code is enforced? If no permission was given by the ECI, then what action has been taken?,"" the party had asked in its letter to the poll panel.


According to government sources, the ministry is likely to take a line that it is an advertisement channel which does not require a prior permission and it is run on certain DTH channels on payment made by the BJP."
"During his appearance on the Ellen Show, the actor-director told the host that he is ready to reunite with Lady Gaga, the star of his directorial debut film"
"Here, the film has already broken the advance booking record with BookMyShow selling a million tickets over 24 hours


Film trade analysts in India expect a Rs 50 crore opening and over Rs 150 crore collection during its first weekend"
"Mandeep Manocha, co-founder and CEO of Cashify, though, differs. “Opting for third-party repair doesn’t always mean the performance of the device will change drastically as there are manufacturers who make good quality parts,"" he counters. Manocha adds, “If customers don’t want to spend ₹10,000 or more to replace a screen, they have every right to go to a third-party repair shop and get a replacement, unless the spare part has a brand logo and it is violating the IP (intellectual property) laws of that product.""


Kawoosa, too, believes brands should not see components as a “revenue-generating opportunity"" but offer them at reasonable prices so that users are encouraged to use them. Will brands listen or force users to seek riskier options?"
"Three days ago, communist leader and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan accused the Congress of becoming ""a recruiting agent"" for BJP. ""How can we believe Congress candidates?"" asked Vijayan.


With the election campaign heating up, communist leaders are likely to use Vadakkan's exit to attack the Congress. ""Those who are leaving last should switch off the lights and fans. Electricity is precious,"" quipped MM Mani, the communist government's power minister, in a Facebook post.


The developments come at a time when the Congress has already lost an earlier advantage in the polls because of the inordinate delay in announcing candidates. The party is in a disarray over the selection of candidates, with a number of senior leaders turning away from the contest. Its ally Kerala Congress (Mani), on the other hand, is at the verge of implosion over not giving seat to a factional leader. In sharp contrast, the CPM has gone far ahead in campaigning with the advantage of a highprofile panel announced last week."
"Last year in Lyon, we showed the restored films in front of 5000 audiences, and it looked very, very good


 The problem is that it’s like opening a Pandora’s box, because you will never never feel like it is good enough


 It brings up a lot of pains,” Wong told Filmmaker magazine on the sidelines of Hawaii International Film Festival"
"The Galaxy M30 will also include two additional cameras at the back, a first in the price range. According to reports, a 13-megapixel sensor will be accompanied by two 5-megapixel sensors. We can expect one of them to be a wide-angle camera sitting on top of a regular dual-camera setup.


According to IANS, the Galaxy M30 will start at ₹14,990; the full pricing will be unveiled at the time of its launch."
"According to CyberMedia Research, Samsung had second highest market share at 21% in tablet PC segment after Lenovo which accounted 23% share in first quarter of 2018.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The way the producers have brought the stories alive on the big screen is absolutely brilliant,” says Monica Khurana


Agreeing with his wife, Ravinder says, “All the superheroes and their stories merged together could have gone wrong"
"WhatsApp believes that with these new features, users will have more control over the group messages they receive.


Instant messaging platform WhatsApp on Wednesday announced a new feature that allows users to decide who can add them to groups."
"The touch-sensitive shoulder triggers provide additional hardware buttons without the need for a gamepad accessory, Nubia said.


Red Magic 3 could also be your daily driver as the phone features a 48MP rear camera (featuring the Sony IMX586 sensor) and 16MP front camera and runs Android 9 operating system. It can even record videos in 8K resolution and slo-motion videos in 1920 fps. The previous standard for super-slo mo videos was set at 960fps by the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus."
"The 8GB RAM and 256GB storage model also received the discount of the same amount, and it retailed for ₹41,999. We expect the smartphone to receive a similar discount during the summer sale.


The OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro are due for launch in India on May 14 and the OnePlus 6T's price cut makes sense just prior to the launch of its successors.


Discounts are also available on pocket-friendly smartphones including Vivo Y83 PRO, Honor 8X, and Redmi 6A."
"The protein-based sensor changes its fluorescence when it binds to lanthanides and lets recyclers know if it's worth investing resources to extract them


The protein undergoes a shape change when it binds to these metals, which is key for the sensor's fluorescence to ""turn on""


New York: Researchers have developed a new protein-based sensor that can detect lanthanides, the rare earth metals used in smartphones and other technologies, in a more efficient and cost-effective way.


The sensor changes its fluorescence when it binds to these metals, according to the study published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society."
"Google’s possible return to China—a market it abandoned over censorship concerns in 2010—was first leaked in August. Photo: Reuters


CEO Sundar Pichai says Google's absence in Chinaa country with 20% of the world's populationweighed heavily on the company, which has a mission to bring information 'to everyone'


New York: Google is still considering whether to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, CEO Sundar Pichai has said, in rare public comments about the controversial and secret project.


Google’s possible return to China - a market it abandoned over censorship concerns in 2010 - was first leaked in August by The Intercept which reported that the US tech giant was secretly developing “Dragonfly"", a custom-made search engine for the huge Chinese market."
"The Ujjwala gas connection, Awas Yojana houses and Gram Sadak scheme are big selling points. Even those who have not personally benefitted think their names will be on “the list"" if Modi returns as PM.


Though several speak of “the nation"", muscular nationalism and surgical strikes are not on the radar, even among Modi backers.


To find remnants of nationalism, one has to travel deep inland to the town of Pokhran in the neighbouring Jodhpur constituency. Though the seat is faced with the state’s most high-profile contest—between Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, a future BJP chief ministerial prospect, and Vaibhav Gehlot, the son of the sitting Congress chief minister, many young Hindu men and self-declared “Modi fans"" will only talk about two people who are not in the fray: Modi, obviously, and Saleh Mohammed, the local assembly representative.


In the December assembly election, Mohammed defeated BJP’s Pratap Puri, a Hindu sant, by a thin margin of 900 votes. The assembly seat is 30% Muslim, but in a Hindu-dominated town surrounded by a cluster of Muslim-dominated villages, anxiety runs deep. Nationalism sells like Jio SIM cards, which have begun to flood border regions."
"Crowd gathered to interact with BJP president Amit Shah addressing a public election meeting during upcoming Lok Sabha election polls at Thrissur in Kerala on Tuesday. (ANI)


Kerala’s reins have traditionally got swapped every five years between the two main political alliances


Rahul Gandhi faces a tough battle in Amethi against BJP’s Smriti Irani and Wayanad provides the party chief a safety net"
"The so-called black gold is expected to shimmer due to feared supply shortage. Kotak Institutional Equities expects global crude prices to remain elevated amid curtailment of supplies, led by nearly 1 million barrels a day (mn b/d) of reduction in Iran’s crude exports due to the US decision to end sanction waivers on the country. Secondly, partial disruption of about 1.1 mn b/d of Libyan oil production too will weigh on crude prices.


It would be interesting to watch whether Saudi Arabia and the remaining members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) compensate for lack of oil supplies from Iran, added Jain. Already, as the adjacent chart shows, Opec’s crude production has declined in recent months thanks to output cuts.


In November, the US granted a waiver to eight countries, including India, to continue importing oil from Iran. This ends on 2 May."
"With the last date of nominations in Delhi on Tuesday, key parties including the BJP and Congress had refrained from announcing their candidates in the backdrop of ongoing alliance talks between the Congress and the AAP in the national capital. With the talks having reached the dead end, the deadlock has now been broken.


With hours to go, the Congress is yet to announce names of candidates and the AAP had delayed the process of filing nominations in Delhi."
"The device might be powered by the new Snapdragon 7150 SoC along with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB expandable storage.


It is expected to be powered by a 3,700 mAh battery that will support 25W fast charging. The A80 might also skip the front-facing physical earpiece and will likely use a solution similar to the one found in the LG G8 ThinQ.


The Galaxy A70's USP would be its 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 20:9 aspect ratio, 4,500mAh battery and a 32MP front-facing sensor housed within an Infinity-U notch.


It will also host an in-display fingerprint sensor. It is expected to be powered by an octa-core processor paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB expandable storage."
"Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016 and Karunanidhi’s two years later have introduced a sense of uncertainty in Tamil politics. Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK swept 37 of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and in 2016, she became the only leader to come back to power for a second term since 1989, winning 134 of 227 assembly seats.


Now, the party has to win 20 of the 22 assembly seats in the byelections to be contested on Thursday and in May—just to stay in power, amid anti-incumbency, splinter groups, splitting votes and a general resentment of its tie-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party.


There are three splinter groups within the AIADMK who claim the legacy of Jayalalithaa. The EPS-run party got to keep the “two leaves"" symbol for this poll, over claims by a major splinter group led by T.T.V. Dhinakaran, nephew of Sasikala, a former top aide of Jayalalithaa, now in jail."
"Another factor which makes existing global data sets stale is the standard methodology they use. For example, in the Stereographic imagery method, a satellite with two cameras placed at a specified angle is used to take two images of each location at the same time. Looking at the differences between those images helps calculate the height of the elevation at every point. Google is taking a “slightly different"" approach. Instead of using expensive specialized satellite missions, Google first purchased large amounts of standard high resolution optical imagery that is captured anyway, from different sources, and then used them to generate high-resolution elevation.


Google also collaborated with governments for gauge measurements and forecasts so they could tell how much water can be poured into the models and how much can be expected to flow through them. Further, Google wanted a map that ignores anything that water can flow through or under and retain things that would block the waters’ progression. To do this, they used a convolutional neural network (loosely modelled on the brain) that automatically identifies one location or structures that has to be ignored. It can then remove these structures and give an elevation map that the model needs, Nevo said."
"Instant messaging platform WhatsApp has finally rolled out the much awaited Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode for all Android users. The feature had been under testing for a few months and users can finally test it out by updating the application through the Google Play Store.


When you click on a video link sent by someone on WhatsApp, the system instantly triggers the corresponding app to open. With the new feature, you can watch the videos in a box hovering over the chat window, saving you multiple taps on the recents button. The feature works with third-party video apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter. You can confirm whether the media supports PiP (or not) by looking out for a blurred version of the thumbnail as well as the platform logo. If it’s present, it means the content supports PiP."
"Smartphone accessories including JBL in-earphones, Sony portable speakers, Amazon smartwatches and even cameras including Canon's dual lens mirrorless camera would be available on 55% discount.


Customers can also get up to ₹2400 back on recharge, movies, food, among others using services from Amazon-partnered companies such as Swiggy, Yatra.com, BookMyShow, netmeds.com, etc.


Commenting on the upcoming Amazon summer sale Manish Tiwary, Vice President - Category Management of Amazon India said, ""As the most trusted and visited e-commerce destination, we look forward to celebrating every occasion with our customers. Amazon Summer Sale has been curated to offer everything customers are looking for this season and more! With great deals, instant discounts, no cost EMI and convenient exchange options, customers can look forward to celebrating the joys of summer on Amazon.in."""
"The smartphone has previously shown up on a TENAA listing. The listing suggests the smartphone might be available with two chipsets— Qualcomm's Snapdragon 670 and Snapdragon 710 processors. These would be paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The listing also reveals the X27 will have a 6.39-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED display. As the renders show the absence of a rear-facing fingerprint scanner, it might be safe to assume it will come with an in-display one. Other specifications of the smartphone are still under speculation."
"While Murthy represents an image of a classic father, who wants his ‘son’ to have a secured life with an assured pay cheque every month, Arjun, as a father, represents a new generation of parenting


 Arjun wants to be a role model for his son and inspire him to achieve anything that he wants in his life


 He wants his son to be his own man and the film’s ending only adds to Gowtam Tinnanuri’s progressive narration


 Gowtam exactly knows how much of cricket should be shown at a given point in the narration, so that the game doesn’t overshadow the human drama


Gowtam makes the viewing experience uplifting by highlighting the little expressions of his characters, a trick which is equivalent to a thousand words"
"Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) opens with Kader Khan as a fakir dispensing aphorisms to a young Sikandar (Amitabh Bachchan) about death, grief and misery that the impressionable kid makes his own when he grows up


 And this being a 1970s Hindi film and one directed by the inimitable Prakash Mehra to boot, cut to Sikandar, all grown-up in the very next scene, riding a motorcycle into the heart of Bombay


 Along the way, he meets a lawyer, Vishal (Vinod Khanna) and they strike a lifelong bond, until the film’s fateful climax when Sikandar dies in the arms of his best friend


 A pure gold of the lost-and-found genre, the madcap Amar Akbar Anthony is easily a film that every Indian has seen multiple times and probably knows its characters, songs and dialogue by heart


 The sombre Amar is Khanna, the goofy Akbar Rishi Kapoor and the loveable rogue Anthony Gonsalves is Bachchan


 They are blood brothers separated at birth, who grow up to follow different religions but reunite in a Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not climax singing and dancing like one big happy family


 Last year, in a rare appearance with Rishi Kapoor to promote 102 Not Out, Bachchan recalled the madness of Manmohan Desai, his brain-twisting plots and his suspension of disbelief formula


“In the closing song from Amar Akbar Anthony, the heroes are singing, loudly calling themselves ‘Amar’, ‘Akbar’ and ‘Anthony’ but the villain doesn’t yet know that they are ‘Amar’, ‘Akbar’ and ‘Anthony’,” Bachchan said bemusedly, amidst thunderous applause and laughter"
"In October, Instagram appointed long-term insider Adam Mosseri as the head of the photo-sharing app following the high-profile exits of the photo-sharing app’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.


Rival Snap Inc owner of Snapchat, which faces stiff competition from Instagram has been redesigning the app to lure more users and advertisers. Snap also bagged a $250 million investment from Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal as it shifted toward a self-serve model for advertisers."
"Apatow will produce the film for his banner, Apatow Productions, alongside his frequent collaborator Barry Mendel"
"The YouTube project will be a homecoming for Bieber, 25, who was spotted by talent manager Scooter Braun on the website where he used to share the videos of covers of songs by various pop artistes"
"Only three episodes remain until the end of Game of Thrones and as of now, there are many unanswered questions that will hopefully be resolved in the next three weeks"
"However, he did warn that widespread use of this technology can lead to new intrusions into people's privacy.


""The use of facial recognition technology by a government for mass surveillance can encroach on democratic freedoms,"" Smith added.


Microsoft is one of several companies playing a leading role in developing facial recognition technology.


The company, Smith said, would start adopting new principles to manage the issues surrounding facial recognition technology in the first quarter of 2019."
"Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar’s son Parth would contest the general election  


MUMBAI: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar made a U-turn on Monday, announcing he will not contest the Lok Sabha elections. Instead, daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar’s son Parth would contest the general election, the NCP chief said.


Pawar, however, did not specify the constituencies from where Sule and Parth Pawar would contest. Sule is a sitting member of Parliament (MP) from the Pawar fiefdom of Baramati near Pune and Parth Pawar is said to be keen on contesting from Maval constituency."
"Soon, John replied to Ayushmann’s tweet and wrote, “You will always be special to me @ayushmannk So proud of you


 She shared the script photos in a tweet and wrote, “In this 1st draft, Biji’s character was not there…which thankfully got added in the later draft"
"A promotion around the movie The Curse of La Llorona using traditional Mexican healers for “spiritual cleansings” before screenings of the horror film is drawing strong criticism from healers and scholars who say the stunts are offensive and demeaning


Leading up to the Friday release of the movie based on a Mexican folktale, Warner Bros invited healers known as curanderos to give audiences cleanings called “limpias


” The studio also dispatched Cuban-born, Los Angeles-based healer Salvador Gata to “bless” an audience before the March 15 premiere at SXSW at The Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas


In addition, photos posted on social media show images of supposed healers providing ceremonial cleansings in front of posters of The Curse of La Llorona, then celebrating as if attending a party


“I’m working on the movie La Llorona and am looking for a curandero to do limpias before my movie screenings,” publicist Nahir Wold wrote San Diego-based curandera Grace Sesma in an email"
"Wish you could have it now, but you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer,” Kevin wrote on Twitter"
"They definitely have a Barrymore gene strong within the two of them, but they’re funny and they’re cool and they’re adventurous and they love coming to set,” Barrymore told Us Weekly"
"2) ICICI Bank surged 4% on reports that Goldman Sachs has raised its target price to ₹492, from ₹451. IndusInd Bank (4%), Axis Bank (1.6%), and HDFC Bank (0.80%) were among the other top gainers in the banking pack.


3) Infosys shares continued to drag after its margin and growth guidance disappointed the Street. Infosys shares ended 0.40% lower, after falling nearly 3% on Monday.


4) Wipro shares ended 2.3% lower ahead of its earnings announcement later in the day. RIL and HDFC Bank are also set to report quarterly numbers later this week."
"The Oscar-winning director, whose diverse budget filmography ranges from 2 million dollar Cronos to 200 million dollar Pacific Rim, believes a filmmaker must always struggle to finish the project under allotted resources"
"Chinese government regulates and supervises the practice of the professionals who constitute the highly skilled manpower of the country.


Nonetheless, Huawei is fighting the US government ban on its products in court by attempting to prove the ban is unconstitutional, the report noted."
"He said that public policy heads of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have been called to appear before the parliamentary panel on March 6


New Delhi: A parliamentary panel on Monday asked Twitter executives to ensure that the content on their platform supports ""free and fair"" Lok Sabha elections and it does not face allegations of bias or politically motivated practices.


The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, also told Twitter to talk to Election Commission officials and ensure ""real-time compliance"" with the guidelines concerning free and fair elections."
"The fastest smartphone charger in the market at the moment is Oppo's 50W Super VOOC, which claims to fully charge a 3,700mAh battery in 35 minutes. It uses two 1700mAh batteries in a bi-cell design. This is equivalent to a single 3400mAh battery, but doubles the charging capacity for a significantly reduced charging time."
"While the Asus ZB556KL seems very similar to the Max M1 Pro on the outside, squint harder and you’ll notice bigger differences. The lower spec screen is 5.45-inches tall and has a resolution of 1440x720, hence having a pixel density of just 247ppi. Contrast and colours are alright, nothing to blow your mind. The touch response is also a bit off, but I’ll give it a pass for a phone at this price. Outdoor visibility is surprisingly good, but it’s marred by the glass, which has a tendency to become scratched quickly.


The Asus Zenfone Max M1 features a 5.45-inch display which has a resolution of 1440x720, hence giving it a pixel density of just 247ppi


Getting to the more exciting part of the phone, powering the device is an aged workhorse—the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 clocked at 1.4 GHz. It is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded to 256GB.


The phone is quick for most of the time—when you aren’t running background processes. The age of the processor starts showing once you have a few apps open in the background. I noticed a considerable delay when opening the dialer and even searching a contact. Switching between apps is also a bit slow, but hey you have app transitions to entertain you while you’re doing that.


Long answer—you have to keep it on the low graphics setting and still be ready to see a few frame drops every now and then. The load times are on the higher end of the spectrum. You will also notice heat coming off from the back of the phone during gaming sessions."
"As the world gears up to roll out 5G, the next generation of wireless communication networks, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd is facing increased opposition from governments that are worried that its telecom equipment could be used by Chinese intelligence, something the company has always denied.


Australia, New Zealand, and the US have already blocked Huawei from supplying equipment for 5G networks. Britain has decided it can mitigate the risks arising from the use of Huawei equipment in 5G networks, the Financial Times reported on 17 February. Meanwhile, Canada is reviewing whether its gear presents a serious security threat.


“2018 has been an eventful year but we have not stopped driving business forward. South east Asia will see large scale commercial use of 5G in 2020-21 and governments should work on spectrum allocation,"" Wu said.


Any loss of business for Huawei would mean an automatic advantage for European rivals such as Ericsson and Nokia, which are in the midst of cost-cutting measures to boost margins, as also South Korea’s Samsung."
"Deepika Padukone made her Met Gala debut in the year 2017 before the release of her first Hollywood film, XXX: Return of Xander Cage"
"The two smartphones from two different manufactures go neck-to-neck when it comes to specifications, but which one is a better deal? Let’s find out.


The Redmi Note 6 Pro looks a bit conservative in its design language, as the all-Aluminium look is starting to look dated these days.


The Zenfone Max Pro M2 has received a complete overhaul from the previous boring metal design to a new, flashy glass sandwich design.


Both smartphones have roughly the same dimensions, but the Note 6 Pro heavier even though it has a smaller battery.


Both devices sport roughly the same 6.26-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2280x1080 and a pixel density of 403ppi. However, in terms of screen protection, the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2 is the first device in the category to come with Corning Gorilla Glass 6. Also, both devices are the first in their series to sport display notches for better screen-to-body ratios."
"On the rocky slopes of the Lahaul-Spiti mountains in Himachal Pradesh (HP), the Himlayan Ibex is returning


 The horned herbivores, through their growing visibility, indicate an effective conservation strategy but a 10-minute film, Dan, by Shimla-based filmmaker Dev Kanya Thakur, insists that the turnaround is also a sign of women’s empowerment


 This is when local women formed a group and started a campaign, taking personal responsibility to ensure that the Himalayan Ibex would not be killed


On April 29, HP Governor Acharya Dev Vrat released the poster of Dan — the film is named after what the Himlayan Ibex is called in Lahauli


 Thakur has two more films in the pipeline — Breaking the Ice, based on the personal initiatives and grit that drive ice skiing in Himachal Pradesh, and a documentary on drug de-addiction, still untitled, told through the stories of two hard drug users who have cleaned up and now conduct motivational lectures in colleges and community centres


Ever since she armed herself with a camera, in 2011, Thakur has explored human stories that lie at the heart of sociocultural politics of the hills"
"Codenamed SM8250, the 5G chipset in two variants would be launched as the successor to Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset which has been used in Samsung's Galaxy S10 , S10 as well as on Galaxy Fold, PhoneRadar reported on Sunday.


""Qualcomm Snapdragon 'Kona55' Fusion sounds like SM8250 external 5G modem. Not internal. I thought they were going to merge 5G into the main SoC with the next gen,"" tech editor at Germany-based WinFuture news portal tweeted.


With the integrated 5G modem, the manufacturers will be left with some extra space which can be used for adding a slightly bigger battery or better cooling system, the report said."
"To empower farmers, the BJP promises to extend the income transfer scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna, to all farmers. (Ramesh Pathania/Mint)


From housing to food security to poverty eradication: BJP’s 2019 document attempts to woo the rural Indian


India’s agrarian sector growth has been tepid, despite several policy measures taken by the government in the last five years


The manifesto also promises proper houses by 2022 for those living in mud houses or having no shelter at all


NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) election manifesto unveiled on Monday walks the fine line between empowerment and entitlement to protect the party’s political interests, while preserving its reformist credentials."
"Sebi proposed a slew of measures including capping the maximum daily movement of up to 20% for all stocks


New Delhi: To check excessive price movements, capital markets regulator Sebi on Monday proposed a slew of measures including capping the maximum daily movement of up to 20% for all stocks including that are part of the future and options (F&O) segment.


There have been concerns that investors’ wealth is getting wiped out in a single day by recent falls in stocks on which derivative products are available, as no price band are applicable on them.


Besides, sharp plunge in the shares of several companies including Dewan Housing Finance and e-commerce player Infibeam have been noticed in recent times.


According to Sebi, the examination of price movement of scrips, on which derivatives are available, during the last six months, revealed 40 scrips witnessed intra-day movement of over 20%. Out of this, 29 stocks have seen intra-day movement between 20% and 30%."
"After declaring his true identity to Daenerys, Jon Snow is yet to resolve his issues with her but we still don’t know if he will fight for her against Cersei or stay in Winterfell


Jaime Lannister will also emerge as a key character in the next episode as he will possibly return to King’s Landing to face his sister who is now pregnant with his child"
"TCIL is also hopeful of a favourable valuation for itself, given also its existing stake in Bharti Hexacom which operates services in Rajasthan and North East.


""TCIL also wants to start a cyber academy now as a lot of training requirement is coming in,"" the official said underscoring the need for funds."
"Plenty of heavy duty stuff, but the quick writing and sharp wit, sprinkled with pop culture references make it quite appealing


 When Tiffany drags Peter into a unisex bathroom, he stammers, “Can I be in here?” She snaps, “Don’t be a Republican


” One would want to applaud loudly for Peter as he finally makes his first appearance as a comic at an open mic — wait for it — in leather pants and an accompanying strappy masque


Zoe Levin as Tiffany is a delight, as she balances the boyfriend-jeans wearing college student avatar with her Mistress May persona, replete with spike-heeled thigh-high boots and leather corsets"
"The Chinese smartphone maker has not revealed the name of its smartphones, but placed an emphasis on number 6 in its teasers. Photo: Reuters


While Xiaomi released the three Redmi 6-series phones spread across three months in China, it will launch all three at the same time in India


XiaomiRedmi 6Redmi 6ARedmi 6 ProRedmi 6 launchRedmi 6 priceRedmi 6A priceRedmi 6 Pro priceMi indiaMi 6AMi 6Mi 6 ProMi 6XRedmi 6XXiaomi Redmi 6A priceXiaomi Redmi 6 PriceXiaomi Redmi 6 Pro priceRedmi 6 specificationsRedmi 6A specificationsRedmi 6 Pro specifications"
"The project has been developed by author Gillian Flynn, best known for novels such as Gone Girl and Sharp Objects


The show, a remake of a British show, will follow a group of young adults who meet online and are mercilessly hunted by a shadowy deep state organization after they come into possession of a near mythical cult underground graphic novel"
"Was it easier to make this second film? Because you knew the ropes when you did the first, you knew which mistakes not to make, and getting funding was easier?Kothanodi was an ad-hoc, innovate-as-you-go-along project, and perhaps that was the only way it could have been made


 I had great producers who backed the project from inception, wonderful interactions with industry professionals at the script stage in film markets, and a cast and crew that rallied around the vision with passion and grit


When do you plan on releasing Aamis in India? Or do you plan to do the festival circuit some more before getting into theatres?I would love for Aamis to be seen by audiences in India and in particular, Assam


 But in all matters concerning the film’s marketing, distribution and release, I accede to the decisions made by the producers"
"Chinese smartphone Vivo launched the Vivo V15 smartphone in Thailand on Monday. The Vivo V15 is priced at 10,999 Thai Baht (about ₹24,500). The Vivo V15 is essentially a stripped down variant of the V15 Pro, which went on sale yesterday in India at ₹28,990.


The Vivo V15 sports the same pop-up camera mechanism, display and design as the V15 Pro but lacks a few key features. The V15 skips the 48MP primary rear camera and goes for the traditional rear-facing fingerprint sensor instead of an in-display sensor found inside the V15 Pro. The V15 runs MediaTek's Helio P70 processor while the V15 Pro runs Qualcomm's Snapdragon 675 SoC.


The Vivo V15 and V15 Pro offer the same design—a notch-less display at the front, a glossy back with dual tone gradient in the same colours. A centrally black strip holds the rear-facing camera module together, giving the smartphones a rather unique look. The back of the V15 Pro is clean otherwise while V15's back panel is interrupted by a fingerprint sensor."
"In an attempt to prove how durable their smartphone is, Redmi by Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 7 in space. The smartphone was nestled in a custom built case on to a gas balloon. According to the video released by Xiaomi, the custom rig rose as high as 35 km into the atmosphere with a temperature of -60 degree C. After the balloon exploded, the smartphone made its descent back to the surface of the earth.


According to GizChina, the 3D printed frame was designed to protect the handsets at that high altitude. The smartphone was found to be unscathed after its touchdown."
"The FaceTime bug is a blow to Apple’s reputation, otherwise known for its firm stand on user privacy. However, this isn’t the first privacy glitch involving Apple’s services. In March 2018, for instance, a bug in Apple’s voice assistant Siri allowed anyone to listen to hidden message notifications on a locked iPhone by simply asking Siri to read it aloud. Apple had fixed the issue through software updates. "
"Glackin insists that monsoon forecasts are important for Indian agriculture, especially as climate changes because farmers no longer can rely on just traditional knowledge.


But what exactly is this ‘Decision Platform’? Data is the first part of the platform, explains Glackin. It comprises weather data collected from remote sensing and satellite imagery and drones that are being used in some parts of the world.


The second big part is collating localized weather data, which could also be historical. This data helps IBM build an electronic field record to understand the historical context and current scenario. “If you are a lender, you may want to know the past record in that field or plot—risk of the particular farmer—what was grown there, for instance,"" explains Glackin. The third part is extracting insights from that data, which is where machine learning and AI are used.


The last piece is around “Decision Support""—exploring choices and making decisions. It’s here that AI (machine learning) helps in making decisions. “This is what we do in the weather world—we take forecasts from multiple sources and do machine learning on that to move it forward,"" says Glackin."
"HYDERABAD: Hyderabad: In just about a year’s time, the political landscape of Andhra Pradesh has changed completely, with the narrative now revolving around the demand of special category status for the state. The alliances between parties are also in complete reversal, with the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) now facing a serious threat from the main opposition YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), and finding itself without an alliance partner before the forthcoming assembly and Lok Sabha elections.


In 2014, the TDP, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena party (JSP) had joined hands to take on the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSRCP. This time, the electoral battle is likely to be a multi-cornered fight, with the TDP exiting the NDA in March last year, over alleged lack of enough central funding and demand for special status, and Kalyan withdrawing support to the TDP in 2018.


The JSP leader even surprised everyone by lashing out against TDP supremo and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his son and IT minister N. Lokesh, alleging that they were corrupt. Earlier this year, Kalyan had announced that he will contest the polls in alliance with Left parties. So far, the BJP, YSRCP, TDP and Congress have not announced any pre-poll alliance, like was the case in 2014."
"“As we see more things being connected I think that you’ll definitely hear people talk about security more and really looking at how would you secure the data,"" said analyst Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies.


An estimated 74 million Americans have smart speakers, according to the research firm eMarketer, with Amazon and Google controlling the lion’s share of the market.


One of the fears of customers is that these devices are always listening, potentially putting privacy at risk.


One device being launched at CES is called Mute from a startup called Smarte, creating a layer of protection to stop the devices from picking up conversations not intended for queries.


French startup Snips is offering its own digital assistant which can be installed on a device without an internet connection."
"If you are one of those very few people who have escaped the madness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but are keen to get in, this film is a must watch


 Not many knew the same at the time of its release, but Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an important part of the puzzle that will hopefully get deconstructed in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame


 The first Captain America film gave the origin story of Steve Rogers but his relationship with Bucky is taken to the next level in this film


Since Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an essential part of the puzzle, here’s a recap of all the great and not-so-great things about the film


 BuckySebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes was an important part of Steve Rogers’ life in the first film but it was in this film that his character truly evolved"
"Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net buyers in the capital markets, putting in ₹713 crore Monday, according to the provisional data.


The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.14% to 96.83."
"Huawei will release the foldable phone four days after Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Fold. However, the 5G connectivity gives it an advantage over Samsung Fold which is a 4G-only device.


Notably, Samsung is the first mainstream smartphone player to bring a foldable smart mobile device for users after first teasing a prototype at its developers' conference in November 2018."
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed his release and claimed the clashes with Pakistan were an Indian victory. Nationalistic passions in India have risen since the terror attack.


Recent social media posts showed a campaign poster on a billboard in Indian capital of New Delhi with Varthaman's face alongside Modi’s, along with the words: “If Modi is in power, it is possible! NaMo again 2019!"" NaMo is an acronym for Modi.


Later on Sunday, the Election Commission is due to announce the polling schedule for the upcoming general election, which will be the world's biggest democratic exercise."
"SC directs EC to take a decision on pleas seeking to advance the poll timing from 7am to 5am during Ramzan for the remaining phases of the general polls


Ramzan is expected to begin on 5 May, while the remaining three polling phases are on 6, 12 and 19 May"
"Alongside the new Watch and iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, Apple was expected to release the updated iPad Pro, MacBook Air, AirPods and AirPower wireless charger


AppleApple October eventMacBook AirApple wireless chargerAirPods 2iPhoneApple WatchiPhone XSiPhone XRiPhone XS MaxApple Watch EKG


Apple’s new range of devices was unveiled on September 12. This includes the three new iPhones — XS, XS Max and XR — and the new Apple Watch Series 4.


The new Apple Watch comes with cutting edge features like ECG and fall-detection. Apple’s new iPhones also pack the latest iOS 12, the 7nm-based A12 Bionic chip, and dual-SIM support. Apple has however been hushed about other products that have been anticipated to launch for a really long time now."
"A large number of people depend on farming. There have been many starvation deaths, as farmers and landless peasants are often forced to borrow at high rates from local moneylenders and are then unable to repay because agriculture is unproductive. Illegal mining and exploitation of labour are rampant. Forest cover forms nearly one-third of the geographical area of the state compared to the India average of 24%. It also provides livelihood to the Adivasis, who live in fear of their land and forest rights being diluted."
"Moreover, distributors are beginning to consider other brands as options too, though none of those who spoke with Mint mentioned Indian brands, specifically, as being under their consideration.


But the unintended side-effect of the disruption unleashed by Jio, which caused the temporary downfall of the feature phone, has been the massive expansion in the market itself. Many of the first-time mobile internet users may get on board via the feature phone—the erstwhile forte of the likes of Micromax and Lava.


Feature phone is also a segment where Indian brands never really lost their presence completely. In fact, in December 2017, Micromax claimed it had sold three million handsets under its Bharat range of cheap smartphones.


The launch of the Jiophone2 and Airtel’s nascent plans to launch its own low-cost device means telcos may be on the look-out for a number of tie-ups with phone makers.


Micromax’s Jain dreams of a future where the ideal smartphone strategy is not just new product launches, but tying up with telcos, so that consumers buy a phone and get 4G plans bundled with it.


“There’s a general belief in Tier III and Tier IV towns that if you’re using a smartphone, your data gets consumed automatically,"" said Jain. He thinks this is why the Jiophone was a subsidised feature phone, instead of a subsidised smartphone. “Slowly and steadily, consumers started consuming data... And even 1GB becomes too less for an entire month,"" he added.


IDC’s Navkendar Singh agrees that Micromax and Lava “still have juice left"", though he also mentioned that Intex has “almost moved out"" of the market. “They’ll have to pick and choose their battles. Don’t fight Xiaomi in the ₹ 7,000- ₹ 10,000 range,"" said Singh. He suggested that the right government and telco tie-ups could help.


Micromax recently won a ₹ 15,00-crore deal from the Chattisgarh government to distribute 50 lakh smartphones —part of an emerging trend in politics where free phones are dangled to win over youth support.


But merely relying on such populist sops, or possible tie-ups with telcos, isn’t much of a strategy. Unless Indian phone makers can quickly figure out a way to go down the “relatively cheap premium route""—a segment OnePlus completely dominates— their hopes of a dramatic return to the dominance of 2014 may be dangling by a very tenuous thread.


mint-india-wire long-reads xiaomi smartphonesoppo smartphonessmartphonesmicromax mobile phonesintex phonelava smartphonesLavaVivo smartphonesTranssionSamsungnokiasmartphoneschinachinese smartphones"
"Apple has argued the phones are not subject to the ruling because they are running new software that was not discussed at trial. Photo: AFP


On November 30, a Chinese court ruled Apple must immediately stop selling seven older iPhone models in China because it infringed on two Qualcomm patents


AppleQualcommApple Qualcomm disputeApple ChinaiPhone ChinaiPhone XiPhone XS MaxiPhone XSiphone 6SiPhone 6S Plus


Apple said it would update the software of iPhones in China to try to resolve a legal dispute that threatens to stop the company from selling older iPhones in the country."
"A factor that limits the audience for this laptop is that it runs Debian Linux—an operating system that not many are familiar with.


The RDP Thinbook isn’t a mainstream laptop, but it certainly holds its own against other low-cost laptops


The RDP Thinbook is priced at ₹10,000 and comes with 4GB of RAM, Intel Atom Processor and Debian Linus OS


A central problem in consumer technology is that the best products are usually very expensive. Hyderabad-based RDP Workstations Pvt. Ltd has been trying to solve that by producing low-cost alternatives."
"IDBI Capital in a report said that it expects “crude oil price to soften from FY20 onwards on the back of higher supply and moderating demand"". The brokerage maintains ‘Buy’ rating on ONGC stock, with revised target price of ₹178.


“Lower production from OPEC and US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela provides upside risk and expected 10% rise in domestic gas price would aid growth to its net profits,"" it added."
"The company added that developers and partners will not get access to personal data of its users. What is not clear is how Snapchat will put out ads on other platforms.


To keep the millennial busy on its platform, Snapchat has added more fun features. For instance, Lens Studio (real time tool for designing two and three dimensional filters) gets new templates for famous landmarks like Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, letting users customise them in more fun way they want to.


Users can now create and add live animations on moving objects, pets and themselves. So a user can add an interactive AR sticker on a face or object and the sticker will also change as the object will move.


Scan search (AR based camera search experience which allowed users to scan physical objects in front of the camera or barcode and use it to find them on Amazon for shopping) now offers more search experiences for users, like pointing the camera at a math equation and getting the solution."
"At the same time, nearly four out of five consumers (81%) said they are very cautious about the privacy of their personal data.


Data security breaches were the second-biggest concern for consumers in India, behind only feeling like their complaints were not dealt with in an acceptable manner, the findings showed.


""The large number of people willing to share more of their personal data for more efficient services at better prices underscore the role of digital technologies in the distribution of financial services in India,"" said Rishi Aurora, a managing director at Accenture who leads its Financial Services practice in the country."
"This undated handout provided on April 30, 2019 by a Samsung smartphone user, who asked to be identified by his surname Lee, shows a damaged Galaxy S10 5G device on South Korea's southern island of Jeju. - Samsung on April 30 stood by its new Galaxy S10 5G model after a South Korean smartphone owner claimed posted pictures of a charred handset claiming it had mysteriously ""burnt"".


The smartphone user said he hadn't done anything to the phone, which was left beyond repair since ""everything inside was burnt""


Samsung said an ""external impact"" had caused the damage, rather than an internal glitch and refused to reimburse for $1200 smartphone


Samsung on Tuesday stood by its new Galaxy S10 5G model after a South Korean smartphone owner posted pictures online of a charred handset claiming it had mysteriously ""burnt""."
"Directed by David Leitch, known for Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw releases on August 2"
"Quality of budget smartphones has improved a lot in last few years with 4G speeds available on many of them, but in certain aspects like display quality there is a glaring difference between them and mid-range smartphones. Phonemakers often use cheaper components in budget segment to keep the price in check."
"iPhones sales fell at their steepest-ever rate during the three months to the end of March but are showing signs of stabilising, the BBC reported.


Apple lifted its outlook for the three months to June, sending its shares over 5% higher in after-hours trading.


The company had warned on iPhones sales earlier this year, citing China where Apple competes with cheaper rivals such as Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi.


Apple chief executive Tim Cook though said sales were stronger towards the end of March, including in China where it cut iPhone prices to boost demand."
"“We’re grateful to Victor, Drew, and Timothy, along with fellow executive producers Tracy Katsky, Aaron Kaplan, Chris Miller and Ember Truesdell and the terrific cast, including Liv Hewson and Skyler Gisondo, and crew for three hilarious seasons for Netflix members to discover for years to come,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement"
"Amazon India has partnered with Samsung to sell smartphones at heavy discounts during the second season of the ongoing Great Indian Festival sale. Samsung’s flagship smartphone, Galaxy S9+, is being sold for ₹ 45,000 and Galaxy Note8 at ₹ 43,990, which according to Amazon is the lowest price ever on the mobile phones.


S9+’s 64GB model is being sold at ₹ 61,900, 128GB for ₹ 65,900 and 256GB for ₹ 69,900. Samsung’s Galaxy A8+ (6GB RAM with front dual camera of 16+8MP) is available at its lowest ever price of ₹ 23,990."
"The FaceTime bug allowed caller to hear the audio from the recipient right after a call was made, however, access to video wasn’t available from the beginning. Some users found they were leaking video after pressing the power button, while according to Twitter user Jessasisn, his video was getting leaked after he joined a FaceTime on another Apple device, while the call was still ringing on the destination device."
"Talking about the same, Ananya mentioned on Instagram, “That feeling of contentment when you share months of hard work with everyone to listen and enjoy"
"Even as advancements in technology such as brain-computer interfaces and sensor-lined caps with neural interface software could soon be used by brain researchers to control computers, robotic prosthetic limbs, motorized wheelchairs and even digital avatars, cyberattackers may be able to exploit memory implants to steal, spy on, alter or control human memories. And while the most radical threats are several decades away, the essential technology already exists in the form of implantable deep brain stimulation devices, according to a 1 November report by researchers from Kaspersky Lab and the University of Oxford Functional Neurosurgery Group.


As scientists learn how memories are created in the brain and can be targeted, restored and enhanced using such implantable devices, they simultaneously caution that vulnerabilities exist in the connected software and hardware and “these need to be addressed if we are to be ready for the threats that lie ahead"".


Known as implantable pulse generators or neurostimulators, these contraptions send electrical impulses to specific targets in the brain to treat disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, major depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.


The latest generation of these implants comes with management software for both clinicians and patients. They are installed on tablets and smartphones and connect via Bluetooth."
"In terms of optics, the Redmi Note 7 has 12MP and 2MP dual rear cameras and a 13MP selfie clicker. The smartphone runs MIUI 10 based on Android 9 Pie. It also comes with USB Type-C port for charging.


Starting at ₹8,999, the Realme 3 comes with an Helio P70 chipset paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It is lit by a 6.2-inch HD+ display and is backed by a 4,230mAh battery. The smartphone sports a 13MP+2MP rear camera configuration and a 13-megapixel selfie camera."
"The frothing, polluted Bellandur lake in south-east Bengaluru is a visible sign of the impact of the growing population on the city’s strained civic infrastructure. (AFP)"
"A part of the increase was also due to the Election Commission's efforts at cleaning up voter rolls to eliminate non-existent voters, but widespread voter anger also helped. The post-Emergency 1977 elections had also witnessed a huge turnout.


(2) Women voters: Female turnout spiked in 2014 to its highest levels ever and almost matched the male voter turnout.


(3) Faceoff: The 2014 hustings was a first for both the national parties as far as vote share was concerned: the BJP's vote share crossed 30% while that of Congress fell below 20%.


In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, amid its best-ever performance, the BJP won 26 Lok Sabha seats for the first time ever. These include eight seats in Uttar Pradesh and seven seats in Bihar. It also broke new ground beyond the Hindi heartland, notably with three seats in Telangana and two seats in Andhra Pradesh."
"In fact, the survey more specifically points out: “In the first place, there has been no statistical evidence of any increase in economic “bads"" such as consumption of alcohol and tobacco. On the contrary, in Bhil tribal village, there was actually a drop in consumption of alcohol since that is where people had liquidity to use for agricultural inputs and therefore one saw an increase in agricultural productivity and own cultivation effect.""


Interestingly, evidence from Africa, is also along similar lines. As Rutger Bregman writes in Utopia for Realists: “The great thing about money is that people can use it to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. And, as it happens, there is one category of product which poor people do not spend their free money on, and that’s alcohol and tobacco. In fact, a major study by the World Bank demonstrated that in 82% of all researched cases in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, alcohol and tobacco consumption actually declined.""


The Congress plans to tackle this problem by making the payment to women. In fact, former finance minister P. Chidambaram has said: “We will insist that every family should open an account in the name of the woman in the family and the money will be transferred to her account.""


The logic here is that free money from the government will make people lazy and this will lead to them dropping out of the labour force. Let’s look at this in the context of NYAY. An amount of ₹6,000 per month per household has been promised. An average Indian household has five individuals. So, this works out to ₹1,200 per month per individual, on an average. People who feel that individuals will opt out of the workforce because the unit members are earning ₹1,200 per month extra, have a very low opinion of the ambitions of Indians. Also, if they stop working, their situation may continue to be the same as it was earlier, and the entire benefit of the extra money will be nullified. This concern largely comes from the wrong belief of the rich and the middle class that the poor are poor because they are lazy.


There is evidence from different parts of the world which doesn’t suggest anything like this. As an August 2018 research paper titled Universal Basic Income: An Effective Policy for Poverty Reduction? published by the Centre for Social Justice, points out: “The extent to which UBI disincentives work is dependent on its generosity. The Alaska Permanent Fund pays out $2,000 annually, and analysis has shown that it has little to no effect on the supply of labour."" By that logic ₹1,200 per individual per month is not high at all.


In fact, the Canadian Mincome experiment carried out in the 1970s, had some very interesting evidence to offer on this front. As Standing points out: “In the Canadian Mincome experiment, ‘mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren’t under much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating’."" This is the kind of withdrawal from the labour force, which is good in the long term.


In fact, this is the most genuine concern. NYAY is expected to cost ₹3.6 trillion or around 1.7% of the forecasted gross domestic product (GDP) for 2019-20. As Chidambaram has said: “Our calculation shows that it will not cross 2% of the GDP, it will be 1.8% of the GDP at any given point of time."" This is a lot of money, something which can easily derail the scheme as well as government finances. In economics, there is no free lunch, hence, the question is where is this money going to come from."
"“I’ve increasingly come to believe that Facebook should not make so many important decisions about free expression and safety on our own,"" Zuckerberg wrote."
"Traffic is increasing, pollution is increasing and so are the global prices against the rupee. It's going to be long working days this diwali for us as we try our best to bring the same Power and Style to you at best prices. Hope diwali brings cheer to the rupee 


Realme’s current line-up consists of the Realme 2, Realme 2 Pro and Realme C1—all of which may become expensive in the coming days. The Realme 2 is currently priced at ₹ 8,990 while the Realme 2 Pro and C1 are priced at ₹ 13,990 and ₹ 6,999, respectively.


Realme is not the only company to hike prices of smartphones, though. Xiaomi, during the consolidated launch of the Redmi 6-series, mentioned that prices of the phones were “introductory"" and would be changed after Diwali."
"How reliable are foldable screens? Most of these foldable phones have more plastic substrates, which is what makes them bendable. Technically, plastic substrates are less prone to damage than glass, but can bend up to only a certain point. Royole Corp. claims that the organic light-emitting diode panel used in FlexPai has been tested to withstand bending over 200,000 times. Chinese display maker BOE  has developed a 7.56-inch foldable display that can bend more than 100,000 times. Experts feel bendable screens will have shorter life cycle than existing phones. “While technological advances, such as the polymer of the flexible displays are more durable, it would eventually wear out from a lot of folding and unfolding. This, in turn, could lead to a natural replacement cycle, cutting shorter the long upgrade cycles that the market is witnessing currently,"" explains Prabhu Ram, head (Industry Intelligence Group) at CyberMedia Research. 


How soon will we see them?: While FlexPai will start shipping from next month, Samsung is expected to roll out its foldable smartphone sometime during the first half of 2019 and ship at least one million units. Like most new technologies, foldable screens will be available at a premium. “Display is a major component in a smartphone, which accounts for 20-30% of the Bill of Materials cost in a premium smartphone. Therefore, higher display prices will directly affect the cost of the smartphone. The initial adoption will be limited to few models in the premium smartphone segment in 2019 and price diffusion to lower price tier will take substantially more time than any of the other recent new features,"" says Pavel Naiya, senior analyst (Devices and Ecosystem) at research firm Counterpoint.


Challenges:  The technology is still in its early stages. Manufacturers will have to tweak their interface, developers will have to customize their apps for the new form factor and aspect ratio, and display makers will have to find ways to enhance the life of the panel. Existing displays will not die away as there will always be buyers looking for a smaller screen. Smartphones with large foldable screens will be relevant for users looking for that extra bit of legroom for work and fun."
"Film editor-screenwriter Apurva Asrani is all set to make his directorial debut with a film that deals with mental health issues


 The yet-to-be-titled movie will feature National Award-winning actor Manoj Bajpayee in the lead role"
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets his supporters during an election campaign rally in Patan, Gujarat. (Reuters)


PM Narendra Modi invoked both Balakot and Pakistan at his campaign rallies in Gujarat and Rajasthan on Sunday


Modi invoking Pakistan in Gujarat and Rajasthan should be seen in the context of the high stakes for both the BJP and Congress in these two states"
"Randeep will next star in Imtiaz Ali’s remake of Love Aaj Kal, featuring Sara Ali Khan and Kartik Aaryan in the lead"
"""We had developed our software as early as 2005 and the LIX project was done in 2009-10 so the statement that we used this data to develop our algo-trading platform is wrong. Also, our product Chanakya is a algorithmic trading platform with no pre-built strategies. Since we don't have our own strategies, historical data is not required. Our clients, which include trading members, get their proprietary strategies developed on this platform and test it at their own offices which has realtime data, which is far broader in content, so that statement was factually not right. None of brokerage firms named in the orders are clients of our trading platform,"" she added.


NSE managing director and chief executive officer Vikram Limaye said in an interview on Tuesday that for employee-related matters (Lala) the exchange is exploring legal options.


“The examination conducted by Sebi revealed that trading data that was received by Infotech from NSE for research in the LIX project was being misused for developing algorithm trading products,"" said S.K. Mohanty, whole time member, Sebi, in the order.


Shah, however, said there was no conflict of interest or connection between building an index and an algorithmic trading platform."
"Sharing this clip, Student of the Year 2 actor Ananya Panday wrote, “So overwhelmed with all this love 💕 Thank u Jaipur!! We can’t wait to see what the next city has in store for us 😁 #SOTY2 #StudentTour"
"On one end there is Mumbai, India’s densest city with 19,652 people per sq. km (20,980 in suburban Mumbai as per the 2011 census) and on the other, there is Nandurbar, 360km away, with a population density of 277. Nearly 70% of Nandurbar’s population is tribal, making it the third district in the state with the highest share of scheduled tribes (ST).


Maharashtra’s Economic Survey 2017-18 says that in 2016-17, Mumbai added a gross value of ₹3.85 trillion at current prices. Meanwhile, Nandurbar and the neighbouring district of Dhule generated gross value of only ₹13,580 crore and ₹24,885 crore, respectively. Mumbai’s Human Development Index (2011 census) was 0.841, the highest in the state, and Nandurbar with 0.604 HDI is at the bottom of the pile. Even Nashik, which goes to polls on 29 April, has HDI of 0.746, which is in the highest category.


Given such diversity, voters’ expectations and priorities will differ as well. In Shirur near Pune, for instance, software engineer Abhjit Kadam, 28, says the farm crisis has driven many farmers to desperation and the youth from farming families do not want to continue working in the fields. “Thanks to the mushrooming of private engineering colleges, they have engineering degrees, but there are very few jobs available here, though a large part of the constituency has industrial estates,"" Kadam says.


In Navi Mumbai, which is part of the Thane constituency, civil engineer Dhiraj Upadhyay lists out his priorities that could resonate with a large section of the urban middle-class. “It is about governance, ease of doing business, change in laws and system as per the changing times, transparency, India’s standing in the international market, and, finally, how efficiently my hard-earned money paid through taxes is spent,"" Upadhayay says."
India's currency and bond markets are closed on Monday for annual account closing of banks. Trading will resume on Tuesday.
"His comments arrive after the president of Huawei Business Group, Richard Yu, laid out goals of making Huawei as the world's number one smartphone manufacturer.


Samsung accounted for 18% global market share followed by Apple at 17% and Huawei at 15%, according to Counterpoint Research data at the end of 2018.


Samsung has been pushing devices in the mid-range smartphone segment lately, which is currently dominated primarily by Chinese players like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme."
"In the Telangana assembly polls last year (which were scheduled to be held along with the Lok Sabha elections, but were advanced), the BJP could retain only one of the five seats it had won in 2014. It clearly showed that it did not have much strength on its own. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) led by chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao swept the polls by winning 88 of the 119 seats.


“Former state minister D.K. Aruna just joined us yesterday and we are planning to get some more Congress leaders into our fold, who will contest the upcoming elections. We are looking at five or six seats such as Secunderabad and Malkajgiri where we will put up a tough fight,"" said a BJP functionary from Telangana who did not want to be quoted."
"BSE Bankex hit all-time high during the day on liquidity rush and hopes of rate cut by the RBI in the upcoming monetary policy review on 4 April. “We grow more confident of our view that bank lending rate cuts will be the major macro theme in Indian markets in 2019. Recent lending rate cuts support our call of 50 basis points (bps) of cuts by March 2020 in contrast to 2018’s 30 bps hike,"" said Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global in a report on 27 March.


Foreign funds have pumped in more than $6 billion into Indian stocks this year on optimism of a revival in company earnings, continued low interest rates and the reinstatement of the incumbent national government. Investors are keen to see more indications if the rally has been overdone or there’s room for further gains."
"In a rather unusual but interesting pairing, Vijay Sethupathi will share screen space with Shruti Haasan in upcoming film Laabam"
"Irrfan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumour in March 2018 and soon left for his treatment in the UK


When Irrfan gave his first shot a few days ago, producer Dinesh Vijan said, “Having him (Irrfan) back on the set was a surreal feeling, he’s undoubtedly one of the best actors in the country"
"The 2019 manifesto said the party would continue to take action against the corrupt and would act against economic fugitives who have fled the country. The BJP has also decided to take forward its promise of providing safe drinking water to every home, made during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, with Modi announcing while releasing the manifesto that he would create a new ministry for drinking water if the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) returns to power. The ruling party also reiterated it promise to bring about administrative, police and civil service reforms.


The Congress said the manifesto lacked big picture ideas and the document was nothing more than a repetition of the promises made by the BJP during the 2014 Lok Sabha election.


“For its 2019 manifesto, BJP has simply copy pasted its 2014 manifesto & changed all previous deadlines from 2019 to 2022, 2032, 2047, 2097. Luckily they didn’t shift any deadlines to the next century,"" tweeted senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel."
"What this suggests is that lenders are warming up to big projects, though they remain cautious on others


While it’s well known that investment demand has remained lacklustre in the past few years, it looks like Indian banks have turned friendlier towards large projects."
"One of the fears of customers is that devices like smart speakers are always listening, potentially putting privacy at risk. Photo: Bloomberg


The message comes as gadget makers are concerned about data protection scandals and in many cases looking to make their own point about respect for privacy


CES 2019privacyCES 2019 privacydata securitydata breachGoogleFacebookAlphabet IncAmazon Echosmart speakersdata protection


Las Vegas: Apple is not among the exhibitors at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, but that didn’t prevent the iPhone maker from sending a message to attendees on a large billboard.


“What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone,"" Apple says in the message to be seen by tens of thousands attending the Las Vegas tech show."
"Akhilesh Yadav, Ajit Singh and Mayawati at Mahagathbandan Rally at Deoband Saharanpur UP. Photo By Ramesh Pathania/Mint


Mayawati said instead of giving minimum income support to poor, the SP-BSP alliance govt will provide them employment


The BSP supremo assured the electorate that if SP-BSP alliance voted to power, farmers will no longer be in debt


Deoband (Saharanpur, UP): BSP supremo Mayawati on Sunday slammed both the BJP and the Congress at the first joint rally with SP and RLD here, leas than a week before voting for the first phase of voting."
"Ahead of the general elections due in April-May this year, the interim budget for 2019-20 had a strong focus on the rural and agricultural sector, sops for the middle class and workers, along with a broader social push. However, there was a marginal slippage in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 fiscal deficit targets, resulting in a sharp increase in the borrowing quantum.


The government missed its 2018-19 fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of GDP and instead pegged it at 3.4%. It also budgeted the 2019-20 fiscal deficit target at 3.4% of GDP, missing the glide path target of 3.1%.


“Overall, the government presented an expansionary budget and prioritised populism over fiscal prudence. The deviation from the 2018-19 fiscal deficit target and the 'pause' on 2019-20 fiscal consolidation is a negative surprise, relative to our expectations,"" said Nomura in a note on 1 February.


It, however, added that the cumulative effect of the cash transfer to farmers and the middle income class will provide a boost to consumption, but likely at the cost of crowding out private investments. “This growth mix generally tends to be a negative for macro imbalances,"" Nomura added."
"“Economically we don’t see much impact; this is only short-term sentiment. Practically, Pakistan cannot afford a war with India; for example in the Kargil war India spent about $6-7 billion in today’s currency and Pakistan’s forex reserve is $6 billion.


They don’t have the financial muscle to do it. Today, we saw some long unwinding happening in the morning but no significant shorts have been created. Positions in the market seem light, Nifty may not be able to cross 10,900 in this expiry.


We expect some more pressure to set in and the Nifty may correct further to 10,700,"" Sahil Kapoor, chief market strategist, Research, Edelweiss Wealth Management said."
"On the traded volume front, 13.19 lakh shares were traded on the BSE and over one crore shares on the NSE during the day.


Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu on Tuesday directed his ministry's secretary to hold an emergency meeting on debt-ridden Jet Airways massively cancelling flights after grounding of a large part of its fleet."
"Both the states are new frontiers for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which aims to expand its political footprint. Telangana goes to polls in the first phase, while elections will be held in Odisha from 11 April.


“Both the Congress and the Biju Janata Dal have betrayed the people of Odisha. It’s time to punish them and bring in a double-engine government of the BJP at the centre and the state to build of a new Odisha,"" Modi said at Jeypore in Odisha.


Modi also criticized the chief ministers of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh during a campaign rally held in Telangana.


The prime minister questioned the decision of K. Chandrashekar Rao, the chief minister of Telangana and the chief of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), to prematurely dissolve the assembly last year and go for early elections. “He could have saved a lot of public money if the state and Lok Sabha elections were held together now. An astrologer had told him to advance the assembly elections, which is why he did it,"" Modi said at a public meeting in Telangana’s Mahbubnagar district."
"Asian currencies were trading higher. Philippines peso was up 0.24%, China Renminbi 0.22%, Thai Baht 0.18%, Taiwan dollar 0.12%, China Offshore 0.09%, South Korean won 0.07%, Indonesian rupiah and Singapore dollar were up 0.06% each."
"WhatsApp has introduced a fact-checking helpline, encouraging users to flag messages for verification. It also started re-circulating an old advertising video urging people to ""share joy, not rumors."" The video was first launched after the 2018 mob attacks.


""It is an adversarial space,"" said Kaushik Iyer, a Facebook engineering manager who works on election integrity and safety.


""What that means is that we will always see adaptation. We will always see new threats emerge,"" he told The Associated Press in an interview at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.


He said Facebook was getting better at tracking down the misrepresented and manipulated videos and audio that form a big chunk of fake content on their platform in India.


And for all its negatives, social media can also play a positive role in an election, especially for young voters who say it has enabled them to better understand candidates and engage with them.


""Rather than campaign rallies where we are just passive observers, social media is a better representation of our opinions,"" said Sarthak Singh Dalal, a history student at Delhi University.


Rai, the shop owner, said he has started to take a closer look at the social media content forwarded to him, trying to identify biases hidden in what he had just considered news."
“I’m honoured and thrilled to be collaborating with everyone involved to present an alternate world through the eyes of a young man somewhere in the multiverse who happens to also be a Kanye West
"Kunchacko gives his Love to all😘”As soon as Kunchacko shared the baby’s photo on Instagram, industry friends, including Vinay Forrt, Tovino Thomas, Vijay Yesudas and Samyuktha Menon among others, showered love and blessings on the couple and their newborn"
"The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided in this phase.


Among other key contestants in the fray are Kanhaiya Kumar (CPI), Baijayant Panda (BJP), Urmila Matondkar (Congress), Dimple Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Satabdi Roy (TMC) and Milind Deora (Congress).


Election in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP had cornered all but two of the total 54 seats in 2014, will begin in this phase. The Congress appeared to make a comeback, forming the governments in the states after last year's Assembly polls."
"The blockbuster hit was a sequel to Pandiraj’s Pasanga, another memorable movie featuring many first-time child actors in the lead"
"""While there is some downside protection for Vedanta in specific scenarios (not clarified by the management), returns are not guaranteed,"" Morgan Stanley said.


The stock slumped as much as 19.86% on Friday, the largest intraday fall since October 2008. More than 74 million shares — 7.4 times its 30-day average — had changed hands by early afternoon, making it the most-heavily traded security on the NSE index."
"A report by Seqrite claims that Indian companies faced more than 26 million threats in Q3 of 2018 alone


New Delhi: Cyberattacks are hurting enterprises across the world. Large companies in India on an average lose $10.3 million, while a mid-sized enterprise incurs losses of $11,000 to cyberattacks, according to a Frost and Sullivan study commissioned by Microsoft, on December 2018. The recently published Quarterly Threat Report by Seqrite, the enterprise arm of cybersecurity firm Quick Heal Technologies, claims that Indian enterprises faced more than 26 million threats in the third quarter of 2018 alone."
"It’s really a win-win for any regular buyer — any regular buyer who wants a Kindle to read books that is. But what about Amazon? The new Kindle, in all fairness, makes the other devices redundant. It’s tough to recommend any other Kindle now, unless for some reason you want a flagship-class Kindle only.


The key element of Amazon’s Kindles has always been their simplicity. They’re meant solely for reading. They don’t ping you with notifications, they don’t expect you to browse the web or do anything else for that matter. You buy one, buy/download books and comics and read away to kingdom come. Capiche? Ok.


Why would you spend anything more than ₹7,999 (what this Kindle costs) for that, if you get something that can store more than enough books, connect to the Internet and can be read anywhere, anytime?"
"There are about 4.4 billion internet users, and about 3.5 billion social media users with about 3.3 billion people using social media on mobile devices, according to data from wearesocial.com. Yet, of the billions of passwords floating online, the password '123456' has been found 23 million times in the breaches that Troy Hunt collected. The study was done in collaboration with the UK-based National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).


You might think that choosing a more complex password such as 'oreocookie' is better. But even that has been seen over 3,000 times, the report notes.


Only 15% say they know a great deal about how to protect themselves online, which relates to current protective behaviours. The lack of awareness is particularly prominent amongst older people, according to a 21 April NCSC blog. NCSC has also released a file containing the top 100,000 passwords from the 'Have I Been Pwned' data set. If you see a password that you use in this list you should change it immediately, recommends NCSC."
"Today, Student of the Year 2 actors Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria and Ananya Pandey will descend on The Kapil Sharma Show


 His teammates Krushna Abhishek and Kiku Sharda will also play a fun round of Kaun Banega Crorepati with the actors


Tiger Shroff experienced college life on SOTY2 setsTalking about the spectacular set of Student of the Year 2, Kapil Sharma will ask Tiger Shroff the difference between the set and a real college"
"When strangers visit, the app allows school security to confirm their identity by storing photos of their identity cards, their phone number and photo. The exit code is also sent to the stranger’s phone.


mint-india-wire Schoolstudents safetyenterprise appsschool securityRyan International SchoolIWS EdusolutionsEduNextdigital identity cardstechnology


New Delhi: In September 2017, a seven-year-old student from Ryan International School was murdered, leading to a CBI investigation and sparking a debate about safety in Indian schools. A string of such incidents prompted Aseem Ahuja to explore how technology could make schools safer."
"SAT had then remanded the matter back to the NSE for fresh examination. “In view of the fact that another forensic investigation report has come up, it would be in the interest of justice that the impugned order be quashed and set aside and the matter be remanded to the respondent stock exchange to have a fresh look in the matter,"" SAT said, referring to a forensic audit by Ernst and Young Llp, which was submitted to SEBI in June 2018.


NSE’s suspension notice to OPG was on the ground that secondary severs were a part of the contingency plan and members were supposed to log onto that only in case the first server failed."
"The dramedy stars Shain Boumedine, Ophelie Bau, Salim Kechiouche, Lou Luttiau, Alexia Chardard, and Hafsia Herzi


The film marks Kechiche’s returns to Cannes six years after winning Palme d’or for La Vie d’Adele (Blue Is the Warmest Color)"
"“The Congress unfortunately is in a delicate situation, and does not have many strong candidates. The party is not sure about how many of its leaders are loyal. While Revanth himself will not have any votes in Malkajgiri, the diversity of the seat itself will give the Congress a chance. But that seat also has loyal Telugu Desam Party (TDP) voters, who won’t mind voting for him as he himself has shifted from the TDP,"" opined Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.


Raghavendra Reddy also added that TRS supremo and Telangana chief minister will want to establish that his party has a strong presence in the state and the capital, and will do anything to win seats like Malkajgiri, Chevella and Secunderabad MP seats which fall in and around Hyderabad."
"Stocks: Copper inventories in LME approved warehouses at 183,825 tonnes are up from below 112,000 last Tuesday, but they are still more than 30% below the levels seen last August.


Higher stocks have seen the premium for the cash over the three-month copper contract shrink to $15 a tonne from $70 a tonne early in March.


Zinc: Stocks of zinc under LME warrant down nearly 80% to below 60,000 tonnes since August have also created a large premium for the cash over the three-month contract. The premium was last at $50 a tonne.


In contrast stocks in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange have climbed above 124,000 tonnes from around 20,000 tonnes at the end of last year."
"It is likely that the BJP may integrate both the “jai jawan"" and “jai kisaan"" themes in its communications to the voters—underscoring the recent largesse to the farmers in the 1 February interim budget, as well as celebrating the soldier after the recent Balakot air strike. “National security and his ability to be a decisive leader is surely a strong theme after Uri, Pulwama and Balakot. The farmer theme though is not as strong…during his regime, a lot may have been done, but on-ground, the feedback is not all positive.""


Goyal said nationalism could be a big poll theme this year and Uri, the movie, had set the tone. “The happenings at Pulwama and the retaliation at Balakot will surely be a big part of the Modi narrative in the elections. Nationalism is a big stroke. National pride is an even bigger stimulus.""


Unfortunately, nationalism in the garb of patriotism has become mainstream over the past five years, said advertising expert Sanjay Sarma, founder of SSarma Consults, a boutique branding and communications advisory. “That’s been one of the biggest achievements of this government. Since it has worked for them, I would imagine it to be the fabric that would hold their entire campaign together. While the BJP has always been about ‘nation first’, this time I see them pushing the envelope to propagate the 'us versus them' or 'national versus anti-national' theory in the voter’s mind.""


That is not all. The Modi government will most likely play up some of its achievements and highlight various schemes which have been announced over the past five years, and buy more time from voters to ensure their effective implementation. “That could be the primary plank to ask people to vote them in again. Secondly, in the absence of any strong opposition within or outside, Mr. Modi’s personality and leadership may be played up again. There is still a large population of Modi fans in this country, though not as high as 2014,"" Sarma said."
"""We are excited to expand our partnerships with civil society to advance crucial digital literacy skills that can help combat misinformation share on WhatsApp,"" Abhijit Bose, Head of India, WhatsApp, said in a statement.


""This training educates people throughout India to be mindful of the messages they receive and to verify the facts before forwarding,"" he added.


The training will be imparted by volunteers from NASSCOM Foundation who will launch the ""each one teach three"" campaign that mandates every volunteer to share their learnings with three more persons leading to a network effect."
"The story follows Jack who finds himself juggling brotherly duties to ensure his sister Hayley has the wedding of her dreams while unexpectedly being reunited with Dina (Munn), the woman he fell in love with and lost two years ago"
"“Sanctions are coming – November 5,” was written in text reminiscent of the Game of Thrones title font


The post hinted that Trump administration would be reinstating all US sanctions on Iran which were removed under the 2015 nuclear deal, which did not go down well with HBO even then"
"Similarly, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp launched a web portal in 2015 followed by desktop clients in 2016.


It could also pave the way for Facebook's upcoming unification of the back-end infrastructure for Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct that should expand encryption and allow cross-app chat, the report added."
"Since the start of 2019, as many as six companies have got listed on the bourses. Of this, five firms are trading above their issue price, fixed after their initial public offerings, as per an analysis of the performance of the new listings showed.


Among the new entrants, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, which got listed on April 11, has seen the biggest rally in its scrip, which jumped 21.31% from its initial public offer (IPO) price on the NSE.


Wires and cables manufacturer Polycab India, whose scrip debuted on April 16, zoomed 19.94% as compared to its issue price.


The scrip of Chalet Hotels climbed 14.64 per cent and those of Xelpmoc Design and Tech Limited rose by 7.57 per cent against the price at which they had issued shares to investors. Both the companies had made their market debut earlier in February this year."
"Chloe Grace Moretz is in negotiations to feature in live-action/animated hybrid film adaptation of classic cartoon series Tom and Jerry


The project, which hails from Warner Bros stable, will see the animated versions of Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse"
"24-year-old Akhil D.K. said that he was disappointed with the candidates and the parties. “There is no party that has done good work and I am disappointed with the range of candidates. I don’t know what this country is heading towards,"" he said.


With a population of over 10 million, Bengaluru sees one of the lowest voter turnouts in the state. The three seats in Bengaluru urban area had a combined voting percentage of just under 56% in 2014. Bengaluru rural, that also has parts of the city’s constituencies, recorded an average of around 66.45% in 2014. Karnataka’s voter turnouts is on the lower sides at around 67.20% when compared to other states.


Irrespective of its choice to give the Congress a higher number of seats in Bengaluru, the city’s population has largely sided with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when it comes to parliamentary polls. The Congress last won in Bengaluru when its veteran leader C.K. Jaffer Sharief managed to bag the north seat in 1999."
The film will be produced by Studiocanal along with Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman of The Picture Company
"In Diamond Harbour, senior CPI(M) leader Fuad Halim will be pitted against sitting TMC MP and Chief Minister 's nephew Abhishek Banerjee.


In the Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat, the Left Front has fielded CPI(M) leader Nepaldeb Bhattacharya against sitting TMC MP Sougata Roy.


The Left Front has also nominated Rejaul Karim, a medical practitioner, from the Birbhum seat. A doctor at a government hospital, Karim was suspended by the TMC government for participating in a rally against it in November last year.


The seven-phased Lok Sabha polls will be held from April 11 to May 19 and the counting of votes will be taken up on May 23. West Bengal will go to the polls in all the seven phases."
"Ahead of the issue, Centrum Broking Ltd had said that the issue was fairly priced. “At higher end of the price band of ₹880, the issue is priced at 40.2 times of its FY18 earnings and 37.3 times its nine months of FY19 earnings on an annualised basis, which appears fairly priced…Given the vast geographical presence, diversified and large tests menu catering to several ailments, along with the ability to capture future opportunities by way of presence in key growth areas, is likely to help Metropolis maintain its position and boost growth,"" the brokerage firm said in a note on 2 April.


Metropolis also has better return ratio with return on net worth (RoNW) at 24.7% for FY18 versus 21.6% for Dr Lal Pathlabs and 20.4% for Thyrocare Technologies, the brokerage firm added."
"Chinese smartphone maker Oppo on Tuesday launched the F11 Pro smartphone in India. The Oppo F11 Pro is priced at ₹24,990 and will go on sale starting 15 March with pre-orders starting today. The smartphone is available via Flipkart and Amazon.


The F11 Pro is Oppo's first smartphone in India to sport a 48-megapixel rear camera. With the F11 Pro, Oppo aims to join the likes of Xiaomi, Vivo and Honor that have an arsenal of smartphones with such a high megapixel count. Other highlights of the smartphone include a 6.5-inch FHD+ display with almost 90% screen-to-body ratio and VOOC Flash Charge 3.0."
"""Weak data indicates that the countries may have to undertake monetary easing measures, so that is a boost to gold prices,"" said Helen Lau, analyst, Argonaut Securities.


""Some investors are wanting to switch out of equity markets into the safe-haven asset class,"" she added.


Analysts polled by Reuters deduced that major central banks are done tightening policy especially with the global growth outlook fatiguing across developed and emerging economies along with scant prospects for a surge in inflation.


The view is supported by a recent slashing of its growth outlook by the Bank of Canada and Bank of Japan's disclosure that it will keep interest rates super-low for at least one more year."
"And that encourages us to experiment as now we know that people are having fun watching new things, different content


 So actor taking all the credit is boring and not true as a lot of things need to fall in place for us to reach this stage"
"The photo-messaging app's test feature is similar to Facebook's previously launched ""Watch Party"" feature — that lets users watch public videos in real time with a group of friends on the app.


Since launching Watch Parties in groups last July, Facebook says that it has facilitated more than 12 million ""Watch Parties"" within Groups alone, while ""Watch Parties"" also garner 8 times more comments than regular videos in Groups, the report noted."
"But expansion is also likely to be lucrative. While North America is still the largest market for online advertising sales, the fastest-growing markets are in Asia and Latin America, according to AppNexus. Six of the 10 most popular music videos on YouTube last year were in Spanish.


FacebookFacebook WatchFacebook Watch video serviceYouTubeFidji Simoentertainmentsports contenttechnology"
"To top it all, I got this auto ailment called Alopecia areata, which made me lose patches of my hair after almost six months of giving birth


”Born in Andhra Pradesh, Sameera is known for having been a part of movies like Race, Taxi No 9211 and Maine Dil Tujhko Diya"
"The new wireless earbuds come with a new earhook design, no cords, adjustable earplugs and better audio. They also sweat and water resistant.


Each earbud has up to 9 hours of listening time and more than 24 hours of combined playback with the magnetic closure case. With its fast charging technology called ""Fast Fuel"", Beats claims to provide 1.5 hours of playback after just 5 minutes of charging and up to 4.5 hours after 15 minutes of charging."
"In the second phase, Bihar led the way with the difference between female voter turnout and male voter turnout at nearly 5.97 percentage points. (Hindustan Times)


In an encouraging voter participation trend, female voter turnout in both the first two phases of Lok Sabha elections over the last fortnight has been marginally more than male voters. This could be seen in line with the 2014 general elections, when the female voter turnout was more in 16 states and union territories when compared to male voters."
"Consolidated revenues rose 1% in FY19. Despite the intense competition, operating profit dropped just 6%


If one excludes exit penalties received from customers, Bharti Infratel's revenues will fall 4.4% in Q4, while operating profit will drop 12.6% from the year ago


At first glance, it looks like tower infrastructure services provider Bharti Infratel Ltd exited FY19 on a rather steady note. It reported a 1% rise in consolidated revenues. The brutal competition in the sector notwithstanding, operating profit dropped just 6% and net profit was flat for the full year ended March 2019. The March-quarter results seem alright as well, with revenues down 2% and operating profits falling around 4%."
"“Representation is still few and far between, because, at the end of the day, most of the time we’re still being directed, written, seen and shot through a male lens


 They can cast a female lead but that doesn’t mean it’s a female-driven story, as you still need people behind the scenes to be of a different mind-state because that’s how you see progress"
"With the new launch, the iPad will come in four different screen sizes, ranging from 7.9 inch to 12.9 inch"
"Sharing that he has been conceptualising the idea of the film since 2011, Ayan wrote that he has been dreaming about making the movie since the time of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani


The filmmaker further shared that they are postponing the release since the visual effects team needs more time to work on the project, which has been planned as a trilogy"
"The first list also announced 16 candidates from party ruled Maharashtra. Union ministers Subhash Ramrao Bhamre will contest from Dhule and Hansraj Ahir from Chandrapur have been fielded. State president Raosaheb Patil Danve has been fielded from Jalna. Young face Pritam Munde, daughter of former union minister Gopinath Munde, is contesting from Beed. She had previously won the seat by a record margin of nearly 6.96 lakh votes in 2014 general elections.


The list also finds 21 candidates from the southern state of Karnataka where it has high stakes as well as 13 from Kerala where it is looking to expand its electoral footprint. Union ministers including Kiren Rijiju is contesting from Arunachal Pradesh, Santosh Gangwar from Uttar Pradesh and Babul Supriyo from West Bengal."
"As per reports, the star has turned down a fairness cream brand that approached her for a commercial, offering a whopping Rs 2 crore"
"With the new Redmi Note 7 Pro and now the Redmi 7, the company has switched to the glass-like (a version of plexiglass-like substance) back, which looks a lot more premium than the full metal jacket on the Redmi 6.


After the Redmi Note 7 Pro, Xiaomi has launched the more cost-effective Redmi 7. It will cost ₹7,999 for the 2GB/32GB variant, while the 3GB/32GB variant is priced at ₹8,999. The smartphone will be available through both offline and online stores and the first round of sales start today.


Design hasn't been a strong suit for Xiaomi’s budget phones. They have usually stand tall on their hardware prowess. With the new Redmi Note 7 Pro and now the Redmi 7, the company has switched to the glass-like (a version of plexiglass-like substance) back, which looks a lot more premium than the full metal jacket on the Redmi 6.


It looks a lot more appealing in the blue and red colour variants. Hefty phones with a glass back can be a recipe for disaster. At 180g, the Redmi 7 feels substantial yet it doesn't ever feel unmanageable. The brushed metal frame ensures a firm grip over the phone. The Galaxy M10 is lighter at 163g and comes in black and blue colours. However, it looks and feels like a budget smartphone with what seems like a glossy plastic back."
"Sky was an internationally renowned DJ, having supported famous artistes such as Fat Boy Slim, David Guetta and The Scissor Sisters"
"A huge fire broke out in Karan Johar’s production house Dharma Productions’ godown at Cama Industrial Estate, Goregaon East in Mumbai


 The first floor of the three-storey building caught fire during the wee hours of Tuesday and later it spread to all the three floors"
"The interactive content on Netflix allows users to make choices for the characters and shape the story. (Bloomberg)


IIT Madras researchers pointed out that tricking users into connecting to rogue routers or access points is quite possible for hackers


Chennai: Despite Netflix's move to encrypt all its video streams in order to better protect user privacy, hackers may still get to know what interactive content you watch on the popular streaming service, new research from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras suggests."
"An EUV mask, a sandwich of about 80 alternating layers of silicon and molybdenum, can fetch as much as $100,000. Only two companies – glassmakers Hoya Corp. and AGC Inc., both in Japan – manufacture the blanks. Lasertec’s machines can spot problems early on, which is critical to making the technology cost competitive. “For EUV, masks have to be perfect,"" Okabayashi said.


EUV lithography is so complex and expensive that so far only Samsung and TSMC have said they will use it to move to 7-nanometer chipmaking. Intel Corp. has delayed its introduction, while difficulties in making EUV economically viable have prompted Globalfoundries Inc. to reportedly abandon it altogether.


Samsung has said that the move lets it use chip area 40 percent more efficiently, improves performance by 20 percent and halves power consumption. Apple’s 7-nanometer processor is manufactured by TSMC and is specialized for machine-learning applications. In the past few months, Qualcomm Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. unveiled a 7-nanometer chip that will power 5G devices.


“It used to be that chip demand was completely dependent on product cycles for personal computers,"" Okabayashi said. “But then came smartphones and pretty soon we’ll be able to add AI, IOT and 5G to the list of applications driving demand."""
"In the digital world, companies also have to be able to keep up a million different one-on-one conversations at the same time. They have to provide customers with what they want and when they want it. “People don’t want choices anymore,"" Park said. If a company can provide the services people need, when they need them, in a trustworthy and reliable way, then people are also willing to share their data more easily. “The self-driving car is by far the safest car on the road today. Ten years from now, getting into a human-driven car would be risky,"" he concluded."
"Silver ready prices gained ₹20 to ₹39,120 per kg, while weekly-based delivery fell by ₹82 to ₹38,283 per kg. Silver coins, however, remained unchanged at ₹80,000 for buying and ₹81,000 for selling of 100 pieces.


In global markets, gold prices inched up today as lacklustre stock market and falling bond yields lifted safe-haven assets."
"Former chief minister Siddaramaiah appears to have kept control over his home district of Mysuru, which had become one of the biggest bones of contention between the two.


“Undoubtedly the Congress has won this round,"" said Harish Ramaswamy, political analyst and faculty at the Karnatak University, Dharwad.


JD(S) chief H.D. Deve Gowda had earlier said that his party wanted 12 seats. However, after the assembly elections held on 12 May 2018, the Congress made significant sacrifices, including giving up the chief minister’s post to its smaller partner in the hope that it could get a higher seat share, winnable ones at that, when it sat for seat-sharing talks."
"New users: For users planning to buy a new Kindle, the choice is between an entry-level All-New Kindle, the All-New Kindle Paperwhite and the top-of-the-line Kindle Oasis. All the models use a touch-enabled e-ink display with thin glass on top. Unlike LCD displays, which require consistent power supply to show content on screen, e-ink displays need power only when a user has to flip pages. That makes them battery efficient, allowing Kindles to last several days (around 2 weeks) on each charge.


However, size of the e-ink displays varies based on models, as do their resolution. For instance, the most affordable —the All-New Kindle ( ₹ 5,999)—has a 6-inch e-ink display, which relies entirely on ambient light to show text on the screen. So, you can’t use it in a dark room. However, a small, low-wattage light bulb is all you need to use the entry-level Kindle effectively. You can even use a book light, which can be clipped on top of the Kindle and costs under ₹ 1,000. Moreover, the absence of a backlight means there will be no strain on your eyes when reading, making the entry-level Kindle the digital equivalent of a real book. It offers 4GB of internal storage, which is enough to house over 1,000 books."
"Tambor was fired from Amazon show Transparent last year after he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women


 We have to feel as though we can say and do things that are not necessarily judged, particularly by the other people in the cast or crew,” Huston said"
"Its first microsatellite is scheduled to be launched from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (Jaxa’s) Epsilon-4 rocket that will lift off from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan on 17 January. In an interview with Lounge in August, an ALE spokesperson had explained how shooting star particles will be released from the microsatellite once it stabilizes in orbit around the earth. The particles will then travel approximately one-fifth of the way around earth and burn upon entering the atmosphere, replicating how natural meteor showers occur.


ALE’s microsatellite is one of the seven other satellites that will be sent to space on the Epsilon-4 rocket, as part of Jaxa’s “Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program"". The program is designed to provide components, instruments, microsatellites and cubesats designed by universities and give businesses a chance to demonstrate their functionalities in space."
"Akshay, who will play the titular role in the movie, took to Instagram to welcome Katrina to the team"
"The 16-year-old actor, who rose to fame on Dance Moms, will play a member of the Jets in the film, reported People magazine"
"Samsung is set to unveil the Next-Gen premium Galaxy S10 in San Francisco next month which may have 1TB internal storage.


""Samsung is committed to assuring the most reliable supply chain and adequate production quantities to support the timely launches of upcoming flagship smartphones in accelerating growth of the global mobile market,"" Choi added.


The 1TB chip also possesses exceptional speed, allowing users to transfer large amounts of multimedia content in significantly reduced time."
"“Here it could become like Hollywood, like everybody is good and have competence but only few will manage to stay up there like Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, etc"
"The one state where the BJP is unlikely to make any inroads is Kerala. Despite competing in a large number of seats historically against the Congress and the coalition of Left parties, the BJP is yet to win a single seat in the state.


Given this, even the recent polarization around the Sabarimala issue is unlikely to help the BJP secure a foothold in its last frontier in the country.


Save for a miracle then, historical data suggests that there is unlikely to be a dramatic turnaround in the BJP’s fortunes in South India in the forthcoming elections."
"But there are some market and technical realities which will not make the ban very effective on the ground and the possible issues and concerns will continue to bother people, especially increasingly worrying parents, according to market research firm techARC.


Any existing user of TikTok, who has the app installed on the smartphone, can share it with any such seeker through apps like ShareIt. Once the app is shared, the user can install the app and become a new user, said Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst at techARC.


""There is a need to have a holistic approach to get rid of such increasing digital menace, which cannot be absolved by technology and/or legal recourse alone,"" Kawoosa said.


New Delhi: With crores of people in India already using TikTok and all of them having the option to share the app with others, blocking its access on Google Play Store and Apple App Store may not have the desired results, say experts.


TikTok, which is very popular among children, is facing criticism from different quarters for circulation of ""pornographic content""."
"The screenplay was penned by Edgar Wright (director of Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs


 the World), Joe Cornish (co-wrote The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn), Adam McKay (director of the Anchorman movies and The Big Short) and Paul Rudd (you know who he is, a legitimate star)"
"Even as the majority of the shooting will happen in Thrissur, the film’s crew will also, reportedly, shoot some portions in Singapore


 It is Mohanlal’s third film with Siddique after Vietnam Colony (1992) and Ladies and Gentlemen (2013)"
"The 10-year bond yield was trading at 7.38%, down from its Monday's close of 7.39%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.


India's trade deficit in March was at $10.89 billion from $9.6 billion in February. The deficit is wider than the $9.7 billion median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 24 economists. Oil imports rose 5.6% year-on-year to $11.8 billion in March from $9.38 billion in the previous month."
"Realme has suggested the reintroduction of the diamond-cut design pattern, which was one of the defining features of the Realme 1 and 2 (Twitter/Realme)


Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth recently mentioned in a tweet that the Realme 3 will get the same processor as the Realme U1


Realme will also bring back the trademark diamond-cut design that was a defining feature of the Realme 1 and 2"
"The Nokia X7 was launched in China last month and it sports a 6.18-inch display with a unique Snapdragon 710 processor


mint-india-wire Nokia 8.1Nokia X7Nokia 8.1 IndiaNokia X7 IndiaHMD globalNokia IndiaNokia 5.1 PlusNokia 3.1 Plusnokia 7.1"
"Pete Ogley explained why he believes that the future of audio technology lies in voice interfaces and data-driven decisions


New Delhi: Audio products have evolved to a point where even the best-known firms are struggling to further enhance playback quality. In an interview, Pete Ogley, chief operating officer of consumer electronics at Sennheiser, explained why he believes that the future of audio technology lies in voice interfaces and data-driven decisions. Edited excerpts:"
"Using the popularity of Avengers: Endgame to drive its new smartphone teaser, Redmi by Xiaomi gave us the first look at its smartphone which seems to have a very interesting design.


Redmi teased the smartphone in a video on Chinese social media platform Weibo. The video has few shots borrowed from Marvel Studio's Avengers: Endgame trailer. The new smartphone is revealed towards the end of the teaser.


Going by the teaser, the new Redmi phone will have a pop-up camera and a bezel-less display, a design choice pioneered and made popular by the company's Chinese rival, Vivo.


The motorised camera sliding mechanism is used to reduce display bezels to achieve a higher screen-to-body ratio and offer end users a better media consumption experience."
"Modi held his first rally of the day at Ausa in Latur district of Maharashtra where he attacked the Congress party’s manifesto and appealed to first-time voters to dedicate their first vote to the soldier, farmer and the nation. The Prime Minister was joined by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who lauded the BJP manifesto.


Rahul Gandhi continued his tirade against Modi at Gaya. He said his party has come up with “NYAY"" (justice), the proposed minimum income guarantee scheme, to undo the “anyay"" (injustice) done by the centre. He was joined by actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who recently joined the party after quitting the BJP, and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi."
"Oppo F11 Pro Marvel’s Avengers Limited Edition comes in ‘Space Blue colour’ with the background covered in blue and an intricate hexagonal pattern at the back. It features gradient effects as the colour changes in different lights — from steel blue in the middle to midnight blue on both sides.


Oppo F11 Pro Marvel’s Avengers Limited Edition ships with a Captain America-themed case. Captain America’s shield on the case can be used as a pop socket. There’s also a stamped collector’s badge included inside the box."
"Later, she joined politics and after almost two decades, she is making her comeback with the Mahesh Babu film


 She is fondly known as Lady Amitabh among her fans for her aggressive cop and rebel portrayals in movies like Karthavyam and Osey Ramulamma"
"The Congress president has alleged that his constituency has been receiving step-motherly treatment ever since the BJP-led government came to power at the Centre, with various development works being stalled.


After laying the foundation stone of the rifle-manufacturing unit, he said these modern rifles will be made in Amethi under a Russia-India joint venture.


These rifles will be known as 'made in Amethi' and will help our jawans in encounters with naxals and terrorists, he said."
"While Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria would laughingly deny it, Tiger Shroff will surprise all by saying that he did have a crush on one of his teachers in school


Archana Puran Singh’s friendship with Jackie ShroffTo add more fun in the episode, Krushna Abhishek will dress up as Jackie Shroff


 And even when the actor wouldn’t have money, he would ask for it from people around him to give it to them"
"8) ""The Street is also anticipating further rate cuts to reverse the economic slowdown and sensing a return of consumption demand, post the election results. The banks continue to have a lion’s share in the ongoing rally and the onus to lead the earnings for Nifty will lie with the corporate banks,"" Mehta said. ""With two good primary market listings (Metropolis Healthcare and Polycab India) in two days and upbeat mood, all eyes are now set on the ongoing fourth quarter earnings season.""


9) Expectations are rising that the RBI could deliver yet another rate cut in June to boost the economy. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew at a measly 0.1% in February. Consumer inflation rose at a faster pace than anticipated in March, but remained below the central bank's target for an eighth straight month, increasing the chances for a key interest rate cut in June.


10) Crude oil price remains a key risk for Indian markets as any substantial movement beyond $70 per barrel is not conducive for the Indian economy, analysts say. Brent crude prices are hovering near five-month high of around $71 a barrel."
It was only recently announced that Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar will star as the lead in the Hindi remake of the film titled Laaxmi Bomb
"There will also be more on the Azure Blockchain Service, and Microsoft’s recently announced partnership with JP Morgan’s Ethereum platform, Quorum.


Interestingly, Microsoft has kept mum on the future of Windows. While Build usually sees some feature additions, announcements and developments around Windows not much is known this time. Wide expectations are for Microsoft to improve its cross-platform functionalities between Windows and Android/iOS."
"Many websites still contain the Coinhive JavaScript code though with no mining activity taking place.


Check Point's ""ThreatCloud Map"" database holds over 250 million addresses analysed for bot discovery, more than 11 million malware signatures and over 5.5 million infected websites, and identifies millions of malware types daily."
"The 3D-Touch feature has been around on iPhones since the iPhone 6S (with the exception of iPhone XR which uses Haptic Touch to provide essentially the same UI). To take advantage of this, WhatsApp has added a feature that allows you to preview a contact’s WhatsApp status in the Status tab. You can also mute a status if you wish using the same 3D Touch gesture. To try it out, touch hard on a contact in the Status tab.


WhatsApp new featureWhatsAppWhatsApp for iPhoneWhatsApp Private replyWhatsApp sticker on photoWhatsApp sticker on videoWhatsApp 3D touch status"
"In the recent interim budget, the Union government announced direct income support of ₹6,000/year in three equal instalments for around 120 million farmer households. This scheme is in addition to farm loan waivers and other income support schemes already announced by several states.


One should not be surprised if similar schemes are announced after the 2019 election as well. “In an election year, the risk of extra spending by the government on welfare schemes, post-elections, to thank the voters is always there,"" said an economist, who did not want to be named.


Brokerage firm UBS Securities India Pvt. Ltd estimates that overall capex in fiscal year 2020 may grow 6%, trailing the 20% increase in FY19. “This reflects deteriorating spending quality and a skew towards social welfare spending. In our base case, we expect gradual capex recovery from late FY20 onwards (March 2020 quarter onwards),"" said Tanvee Gupta Jain, chief India economist at UBS Securities India.


As for Indian companies, low capacity utilization levels, a focus on deleveraging and concerns about a global economic slowdown could keep them from increasing capital spend in the near term."
"Equities have priced in the possibility of the ruling party forming the next government with a reduced majority. A surprise victory for opposition parties could lead to an adverse reaction, Kumar said.


“Even if the current government comes back to power, as some expect, we’re expecting a draw down of as much as 5 percent post results,"" he said. “The markets are underpricing the risk of an adverse election outcome of the ruling coalition not getting a majority.""


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"So, what you get are 12MP photographs, hence maintaining the ideal, industry standard resolution of photos in terms of file size and quality. These photographs, after being shot with 48MP sensors, retain better colour details, textures and far superior low-light photography quality. This is because with Pixel Binning, the overall sensitivity to light of an image sensor is improved, which makes it “see"" more in darkness. It is this imaging technology that powers an upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and the recently launched Honor View 20, hence creating photographs that can almost emulate the photograph quality of dedicated cameras."
"If the new phones fulfill their makers’ ambitions, they will become a leap ahead for an industry whose origins can be traced to the old flip phones that consumers once embraced as cool and convenient. Foldable-screen phones, though, won’t need hinges because they have continuous displays that can bend.


In an indication of how difficult it is to make a flexible screen that’s also durable, Samsung first announced plans to build a folding-screen phone five years ago. It wasn’t until Wednesday, though, that Samsung finally provided a glimpse at what it’s been working on.


“We have been living in a world where the size of a screen could only be as large as the device itself,"" said Justin Denison, Samsung’s senior vice president of mobile product marketing. “We have just entered a new dimension.""


Except for a fleeting look at a device he held in a hand, Denison provided scant information about the phone. Samsung says it will be ready to hit the market at some point next year."
"“What I thought would be a cool thing to do, maybe one night, is a live reading of the movie, of the script, and sing all the songs as you’re reading the script"
"Mamata Banerjee-led TMC dominates the political landscape of West Bengal, where 42 Lok Sabha seats will go to the polls


In the 2014 elections, West Bengal's voter turnout was 82.16%, much higher than the all-India figure of 66.4%"
"Security researchers at the US-based IT security company, Lookout, revealed that the app could steal contacts, videos, photos, real-time location data from users' devices and tap their phone calls as well, The Verge reported on Monday.


The iOS enterprise certificate, that is meant ""solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organisation"" otherwise, allowed the ""Assistenza"" app to bypass the Apple certification and stay accessible for downloads through phishing sites outside the App Store.


Details on exactly how many users were targeted by the app and how much information was accessed remain undisclosed."
"Retail inflation rebounded in February, but was still benign enough to support calls for the RBI to lower interest rates


Indian rupee on Wednesday traded marginally higher against US dollar, tracking gains in local equity markets. At 9.08 am, the rupee was trading at 69.64 a dollar, up 0.11% from its previous close of 69.71. The home currency opened at 69.69 a dollar and touched a high of 69.63."
"The Redmi Note 7 is just a rupee shy of ₹10,000 and offers Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage


The first quarter of 2019 has seen quite a few smartphone launches in different categories in India. Many of these were for the budget category as well. Companies like Samsung, Xiaomi and Realme unveiled their latest budget competitors.


Redmi Note 7 sits just a rupee below ₹10,000 mark, with its base model starting at ₹9,999 with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The smartphone boasts a 6.3-inch FHD+ display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC, and a 4,000mAh battery."
"Other features of both smartphones include dual nano-SIM slot with VoLTE 4G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.


The Vivo V15 has a lower-spec triple camera setup at the back. It has a 12MP primary sensor, an 8MP secondary super wide-angle camera along with a 5MP depth sensor."
"According to a GizmoChina report, the ""Redmi 855"" will be lit by a big 6.39-inch screen and will come with 8GB of RAM and 128GB built-in storage. The report also said it will have a 32MP selfie camera and a 48MP+8MP+13MP triple camera setup.


Since Redmi is developing the smartphone, we can expect the 855 to be reasonably priced, well within the range of Poco F1. To cut costs, it might compromise on a premium glass-sandwich design as well as ""luxuries"" like an OLED display."
"Sony sold twice as many PS4s as Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One, even without relying on its usual tempo of price cuts. Photo: Bloomberg


Despite predictions that cloud-based gaming would make hardware obsolete, Sony Playstation enjoys one of the strongest product cycles seen in the business


Five years after its debut, Sony Corp.’s $300 console is enjoying one of the strongest product cycles seen in the business, thanks to a steady stream of popular game titles. That’s helped the Tokyo-based company ship twice as many PS4s as Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One, even without relying on its usual tempo of price cuts.


That puts Sony’s franchise in a strong position to counter the $34.6 billion console industry’s next challenge: games delivered via the web. After years of predictions that cloud-based gaming would make hardware — machines and games on discs — obsolete, the technology finally appears close to being ready. Google’s Project Stream this month began letting US users play the latest version of Assassin’s Creed on a Chrome browser from any computer. Amazon.com Inc., which bought gameplay-streaming website Twitch and has the No. 1 cloud-computing service, is in a prime position to push into cloud gaming."
"""The government crumbled under global pressure and signed the Shimla agreement and the matter was closed. PoW and the capture land were released. That was a golden opportunity to resolve the Kashmir dispute in lieu of the PoW,"" he said.


The prime minister said that it was a trump card in the hands of the government but the chance was missed and the entire country is facing its result today.


The statement from Modi came after Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot in his recent election rallies highlighted that a new nation (Bangladesh) was created by dividing Pakistan by Indian armed forces during the rule of former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1971.


""Otherwise, Pakistan used to give nuclear threats. What do we have? Have we kept it for 'Diwali' (Warna aay din nuclear button hai, ye kehte the. Hamare paas kya hai. Ye diwali ke liye rakha hai kya)"", Modi commented.


The Indian Army had conducted a surgical strike across against several terror launch pads across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir in September 2016, ten days after a terror attack at an Army camp in Uri in which 19 soldiers had been killed.


In February this year, the Indian Air Force struck at a terror camp in Balakote after a terrorist attack in Pulwama, which had left 40 CRPF personnel dead."
"Stocks: Copper stocks in LME-approved warehouses fell for a third straight day, by 2,000 tonnes to 192,425 tonnes, according to exchange data released on Friday, while copper inventories in warehouses tracked by the ShFE fell 5% from a week ago to 245,178 tonnes.


Trade: US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a US-China trade agreement would go ""way beyond"" previous efforts to open China's markets to US companies and hoped that the two sides were ""close to the final round"" of negotiations.


Arizona: Rio Tinto Ltd said it would invest an extra $302 million to develop its Resolution copper project in the US state of Arizona, as it looks to expands output to meet the lucrative market for new energy vehicles."
"Available in 5- and 10-metre variants, this smart LED strip can be used to set moods in your home, and can also be used as festival lighting.


The company offers some other creative ways to use them too. It has Alexa and Google Home support and can also be controlled using the company’s own app. You can also use the IFTTT app to set routines for these lights."
"In yet another dispute, the Federal Trade Commission accused Qualcomm of monopolist business practices, the initial volley in a web of litigation that now spans 3 continents. A judge in San Jose has yet to rule on the antitrust allegations following a 10-day non-jury trial in January.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"""Our finding that phone use that is unrelated to shopping negatively affects shopping behaviour was in stark contrast to beliefs held by consumers,"" said study author Michael Sciandra from Fairfield University, US.


For the study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the researchers observed more than 230 participants in a simulated shopping task."
"As the release date of the highly-anticipated Avengers: Endgame gets closer, Marvel Studios is upping their game as far as teasing fans with new TV spots is concerned


On Thursday night, team Marvel unleashed yet another clue to the giant puzzle of Endgame with a 30-second clip


 While the video in itself primarily consists of previously-shown sequences and dialogues, there is one tease, however, thanks to Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow"
"Others joining the parade of pain include Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. Both South Korean companies posted declines in operating profit last quarter and missed estimates. Samsung makes more than smartphones, but even its other divisions – chips and displays – depend heavily on that product category.


It’s important to note that those three companies are the largest non-Chinese names, and get only a minority of revenue from China. So if they’re hurting, then the whole world is probably hurting, too.


If there’s a silver lining to the recent slowdown in shipments it’s that the higher functionality requires more expensive components, which boosted gross margins at some suppliers. But margins only help when people are still buying those cooler, hipper, more-expensive devices.


That silver lining is also likely to darken this year because smartphone makers seem to be running out of of ideas. Instead they’re likely to resort to gimmicks like folding handsets and horrifically ugly 3D cameras, in an attempt to spur excitement. (Please, Jony, tell me this isn’t really the next iPhone)."
"People cannot move between bogeys as every coach is an independent car, which is unusual for a passenger day train. Passengers cannot buy bottled water or food from hawkers as they do not enter the train.


Oddly, one cannot stop the train in case of an emergency. It is not because there is no emergency chain; rather the emergency chain has been sealed permanently.


I believe even the railway staff has given up on cleaning the current train. Cockroaches could be seen skittering on the floor. The toilets were dirty and by the time train reached Rajkot, the taps in the washbasin had run dry.


As you are fully aware, trains are one of the cheapest and most flexible means of transport in the country. One does not need to book a ticket in advance, unlike an airline. Unlike buses, there are no unscheduled stops along the way."
"Even though he doesn’t swear, he’s very powerful, he could create some actual superpowers, whereas Deadpool’s just mostly sarcastic"
"To woo the farmers ahead of general elections, the government announced a scheme under which farmers with up to 2 hectares will get direct income support of ₹6,000 per year. The amount will be transferred directly into bank accounts of farmers in three installments. Around 12 crore farmers are estimated to benefit from this scheme, finance minister said.


Analysts cautioned against rising risk to the fiscal consolidation efforts from higher expenditure outlay in the budget.


""No new policies to increase revenues were announced, while a number of expenditure measures were announced that will increase outlays and put pressure on the government’s ability to meet its fiscal deficit target"", said Moody's Investors Service in a note. ""Ongoing slippage from the government’s budgeted fiscal deficit targets over the past two years, and our expectation that the government will face challenges meeting its target again this coming fiscal year (ending March 2020) does not bode well for medium term fiscal consolidation. We view this continued slippage as credit negative for the sovereign"", Moody's Investors added."
"The total number of satellite navigation patent applications in China has reached 54,000, ranking first in the world.


In China, about 6.17 million vehicles, 35,600 postal and express delivery vehicles, as well as 80,000 buses in 36 major cities, use BDS. The system is also used in 3,230 inland river navigation facilities and 2,960 marine navigation facilities.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The first episode of the reboot premiered April 1 and raked in the highest level of unique viewers ever on a premiere day for a CBS All Access original series, according to the streamer


The series is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films"
"New details regarding Ranbir Kapoor’s character in Ayan Mukerji’s upcoming fantasy film Brahmastra have come to light


 The story then traces his journey as he tries to fulfill his dreams and discovers his superpowers in the process,” the source said"
"But that process is not always precise. 'Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and frankly I agree,' Zuckerberg wrote in Saturday’s post. 'I’ve come to believe that we shouldn’t make so many important decisions about speech on our own.'


Zuckerberg said Facebook would welcome common standards for verifying political actors, citing practices deployed by advertisers in many countries of verifying identities before buying political ads. He also suggested updating laws to include 'divisive political issues' in addition to candidates and elections.


“Every day we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks,"" he said. “But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t ask companies to make these judgments alone.""


The billionaire said it’d be good for the internet if more countries adopted rules such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as a common framework.


Facebook has an incentive to play a strong role in the debate around technology companies’ data regulation. The company’s rapid revenue growth and billions of dollars in profits are fueled by collecting numerous data points around its customers and making that easily available to advertisers."
"In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won both the city’s Lok Sabha seats with comfortable margins"
"TikTok, a short video mobile application, allows users to create and share short videos with special effects which are hugely popular. (Bloomberg)


India's ban on popular Chinese video app TikTok is resulting in ""financial losses"" of up to $500,000 a day for its developer, Beijing Bytedance Technology Co, and has put more than 250 jobs at risk, the company said in a court filing seen by Reuters.


TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with special effects and is one of the world's most popular apps. It has been downloaded by nearly 300 million users so far in India, out of more than 1 billion downloads globally, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.


Earlier this month, an Indian state court ordered the federal government to prohibit its downloads, saying the app was encouraging pornography. Acting upon instructions from the federal IT ministry, Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google last week removed TikTok from their India app stores."
"The top part of the mouse is wrapped in a soft touch plastic while the bottom is made out of regular ABS. The button presses were precise initially, but after a couple of months, I have started noticing a few misses, especially while dragging things. The DPI modes range from 800 DPI to 2400DPI. This makes the mouse suitable for semi-professional gaming at best. It’s not extremely precise while gaming, but browsing through the internet is a breeze with this, especially because of the forward and backward buttons on the left. Also, every DPI mode has its own LED colour.


The scrolling wheel hasn’t become soft yet, but it does wobble a bit. The braided cable is also a nice touch.


The mousepad is adequately smooth. It doesn’t have the fancy bells and whistles like aluminium finish for a low friction surface, but it doesn’t tatter even after being abused for two months. I would have liked a wider pad, but at this price point they are just giving it away.


The headphones come with 40mm drivers with 32 Ohms impedance, 110dB sensitivity and a frequency range of 20Hz to 2KHz. You also have an omnidirectional microphone unit with an input power of 50mW and impedance of 2.2 KOhms. It also has LED lights which can be used only when you plug the headphones in the USB port."
"Voters outside a poling station on the outskirts of Srinagar on Thursday. Srinagar recorded a 25.7% turnout. (AP)


In Chhattisgarh’s Kanker and Rajnandgaon constituencies, the turnouts were 71.19% and 71.55%, respectively


With polling being conducted in five phases in Jammu and Kashmir, across six Lok Sabha seats, Srinagar and Udhampur cast their votes on Thursday"
"Lack of jobs and farm distress may go against BJP, although Ujjwala, Swachh Bharat and Ayushman Bharat initiatives may help the ruling party win support from some voters. Illegal immigration is an issue in Assam. Voting along caste and communal lines continues to happen in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Locals affected by curbs on iron-ore mining in Karnataka’s Bellary, Bagalkot and Koppal have threatened to boycott polling. For the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not fighting from any seat in Gujarat."
"Keyboard and Touchpad: Like earlier ultrabooks from HP, the keyboard on this one is on point. Key spacing is done well, so you have almost no learning curve to the keyboard.


The Touchpad is also responsive and manages all Windows gestures well. A larger touchpad surface would have been better though.


Verdict: The HP Spectre Folio is certainly one of the most unique laptops out there. But it’s really difficult to recommend a laptop that is priced at ₹1,99,990 and doesn’t bring the highest possible specifications out there. The Spectre Folio is certainly a dependable machine, but dependable at this price point isn’t good enough."
"The yield on 10-year Treasuries climbed two basis points to 2.61%, the highest in more than four weeks. Germany’s 10-year yield rose two basis points to 0.08%. Britain’s 10-year yield rose two basis points to 1.237%. Japan’s 10-year yield rose two basis points to -0.006%.


West Texas Intermediate crude increased 0.6% to $64.43 a barrel, the highest in a week. Gold fell 0.1% to $1,275.75 an ounce, hitting the weakest in almost 16 weeks with its fifth consecutive decline. The Bloomberg Commodity Index climbed 0.3%."
"The Wipro workers said they gain a window into lives as they view a vacation photo or a post memorializing a deceased family member. Facebook acknowledged that some posts, including screenshots and those with comments, may include user names.


The company said its legal and privacy teams must sign off on all labeling efforts, adding that it recently introduced an auditing system ""to ensure that privacy expectations are being followed and parameters in place are working as expected.""


But one former Facebook privacy manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed unease about users' posts being scrutinized without their explicit permission. The European Union's year-old General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has strict rules about how companies gather and use personal data and in many cases requires specific consent.


""One of the key pieces of GDPR is purpose limitation,"" said John Kennedy, a partner at law firm Wiggin and Dana who has worked on outsourcing, privacy and AI.


If the purpose is looking at posts to improve the precision of services, that should be stated explicitly, Kennedy said. Using an outside vendor for the work could also require consent, he said.


It remains unclear exactly how GDPR will be interpreted and whether regulators and consumers would see Facebook's internal labeling practices as problematic. Europe's top data privacy official declined to comment on possible concerns.


A Facebook spokeswoman said: ""We make it clear in our data policy that we use the information people provide to Facebook to improve their experience and that we might work with service providers to help in this process.""


US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and leading critic of social media, told Reuters in a statement that large platforms increasingly are ""taking more and more data from users, for wider and more far-reaching uses, without any corresponding compensation to the user."""
"In its Predictions 2019 report, Forrester predicts that over 40% of all enterprises will have digital workers next year


mint-india-wire groundbreaking technologiesartificial IntelligenceBlockchain technologyInternet of ThingsVirtual Reality3D PrintingRoboticsRobotic Process Automation5GEdge ComputingQuantum Computingtechnologies


New Delhi: This year, we saw some technologies mature while others became better understood. What was once a buzzword is now close to mainstream. And what was once a dream, is now closer to reality. We highlight 10 technologies, which we at Mint believe, will make a significant impact in 2019.


AI is creeping into almost every aspect of our lives. It’s in our smartphones, our cars, our email inboxes and in our smart homes. From companies implementing AI-powered human resource (HR) technologies to AI managing logistics and operations, and even helping click better photos on your phone, AI is everywhere—in the form of machine learning (ML), deep learning (an ML technique), computer vision or natural language processing (NLP). AI will accompany every other disruptive tech we speak of such as detecting facial and human emotions, and recognising people from their gaits. It will also be used to predict how humans will react to ads, movie trailers and more.


Blockchain is not just about powering cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. A distributed digital ledger format, it is also being used by manufacturing companies to improve their supply chains; by healthcare and electricity companies; and by the financial sector to make transactions more transparent.


For instance, NITI Aayog and Oracle plan to start a drug supply-chain blockchain ledger, which is meant to help fight counterfeit drugs in the country. The Telangana State Information Technology, Electronics and Communication department has tied up with IT services provider Tech Mahindra to launch India’s first Blockchain district in Telangana. However, most pilots are being done with private (permissioned) blockchains that can perform thousands of transactions per second. In India, for instance, banks have formed ‘BankChain’—an alliance of banks formed in February 2017 to explore and build blockchain-based solutions."
"REITs invest in commercial real estate. They earn rental income from their holdings which is passed on to investors. It has to distribute 90% of its cash flows to investors at least once in six months. Investors also benefit from capital appreciation in the underlying assets.


An infrastructure InVIT invests in infrastructure projects and has a similar structure. “REITs and InVITs are good substitutes for physical real estate,"" said Vinit Iyer of Wealth Creators Financial Advisors, a Pune-based Investment Advisory Firm. “Physical real estate also typically involves a lot of debt that the buyer takes on. This does not have to happen here, due to the small ticket size,"" he added."
"To start using this feature you’ll have to update your WhatsApp to the latest version (build v2.19.20). Depending on your settings, it will be updated automatically or manually. To manually update the app, go to the App Store, search for WhatsApp and check if your device has received the update. The feature is still in the rolling out phase, so it might take a while for your device to receive the update. WhatsApp for iPhone is 137.7MB in size and is compatible with iPhone models running iOS 8.0 and above."
"is so proud to be the cinematic home of the Wizarding World and is excited about the future of the Fantastic Beasts franchise


 It scored a rating of 37 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has glimmers of the magic familiar to Harry Potter fans, but the story’s spell isn’t as strong as earlier installments"
He was rushed to a nearby hospital by the crew members of the movie where he got 13 stitches on his cheek
"Apart from direct satellite access, the Thuraya X5-Touch also has dual-SIM capabilities, which can run 4G, 3G and 2G networks as well as WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou connectivity


The company claims the phone targets users who frequently move in and out of terrestrial coverage across a range of market sectors including government missions, energy projects, enterprise communications, and NGO deployments


Thuraya X5 TouchThurayasatellite phonesatellite smartphoneThuraya X5 touch featuresThuraya X5 specifications"
"”Bollywood producer Boney Kapoor, who will be stepping into Kollywood with Ajith starrer Nerkondai Paarvai, wished the actor good health and happiness


 “HAPPIEST MUSICAL BIRTHDAY to Dearest THALA #AJITH Sir !! One of the Most Humble , Simple ,Down to Earth, Sweet Humans !!! Keep Rocking & Entertaining us always sir !! #HBDThalaAJITH”, the caption read


Director Rajiv Menon, who worked with Ajith in Kandukondein Kandukondein, took a walk down memory lane and shared a throwback photo of the actor from a film’s sets


 “Happy birthday Ajith #ThalaAjith ! Rock on ! Racer! Flyer! Great cook! And Mr Nice Guy!”, he tweeted"
"Pop icon Britney Spears has reportedly left the psychiatric facility where she had been seeking treatment for mental health


The 37-year-old singer had checked herself into a 30-day programme in March in the midst of her father Jamie Spears’ ongoing health issues


According to E News, after checking out of the facility, Spears was picked up by her boyfriend Sam Asghari and she is now home"
"""If Samsung’s foldable smartphone becomes a hit, it will be a good factor for Samsung’s shares,"" Park Jung-hoon, a fund manager at HDC Asset Management which holds Samsung Electronics stock, told Reuters.


Samsung said operating profit was 10.8 trillion won ($9.7 billion) in the fourth quarter, in line with its estimates earlier this month. Revenue fell 10 percent to 59.3 trillion won.


Samsung stock fell 0.2% after the result on Thursday, in a flat broader market. The shares lost 24 percent last year amid investor fears over the impact of the US-China trade conflict.


The South Korean firm's chips power the handsets of most major smartphone makers, including Apple and China's market leader, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. Its memory and processor chips account for about 72% of overall profit."
"Ram Prasad Yadav (left) and Hanuman Prasad Yadav are small farmers from Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. They strongly feel that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return to power as he saved cows from slaughter and the country from terrorism. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)


Farmers in central Uttar Pradesh appear happy with the PM-Kisan scheme and are singing a nationalist tune


Lucknow/Amethi/Agra: The face of Sri Ram, a marginal farmer who doubles up as a village barber, sinks as he shows his bank passbook. The Sunday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a direct cash transfer scheme for farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur, about two weeks before the dates of general elections were announced on 10 March, Sri Ram’s account was credited with ₹2,000, a sizeable sum for someone who struggles to make ₹50 on an average day.


The credit was reversed the same day, Ram found out later from the bank but he wasn’t told why. The disappointment on Ram’s face shows that small sums of money do make a difference when incomes fluctuate from one day to the next. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme (PM-KISAN) announced in the interim budget in February, small and marginal farm households owning less than five acres of land are eligible for a direct cash assistance of ₹6,000 every year, credited to bank accounts in three instalments.


“For a farmer struggling to make ends meet any support is better than nothing, but the timing of the scheme which was launched just before the elections revealed the government’s true intentions,"" said Rakesh Singh, also a farmer, standing next to Ram. PM-KISAN is similar to how politicians bribe voters on the eve of elections, complained Singh, adding, the handout will not even cover the irrigation costs for growing an acre of wheat crop.


This discussion is taking place on the sidelines of a public hearing organized by a social worker in Jais-Bahadurpur in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi. Among the motley crowd are a group of scheduled caste women who are yet to receive the money. They too are disappointed but are more worried that their names are missing from the subsidized food distribution scheme.


Some distance away from the public hearing, residents of Amethi’s Pure Dhana Pandey village, who are mostly farmers and daily wagers, defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new scheme for farmers, after a host of other schemes, from soil health card to crop insurance, failed to make a mark. “Cash deposits are better than spending money on schemes… we have to bribe local officials to benefit from government schemes. Even bank officials take commissions for advancing (subsidized) farm loans,"" said Rajesh Kumar, a potato grower."
"BBM is also going to offer refunds for Stickers, though BBMojis are not being refunded. The refunds will be in the form of “reward balance"" and have to be redeemed before May 20.


“Your existing rewards need to be redeemed by 20th May 2019, or your accumulated points will be forfeited with on the BBM service shut down date of 31 May, 2019,"" says a FAQ post on BBM’s help page.


As with most of its products, BlackBerry’s primary hook for the BBMe platform is that it offers the company’s tried-and-tested security features. The app also allows group chats, voice and video calling, and the ability to edit, withdraw or set expiry times on their messages. Both the sender and recipient are given unique public/private encryption and signing keys."
"The first microsatellite that will implement an artificial meteor shower is scheduled to be launched on 17 January aboard a Jaxa rocket


The Tokyo-based space entertainment start-up, ALE is now one step closer to creating on-demand artificial meteor showers. ALE plans to create a meteor shower by releasing shooting star particles from two microsatellites in outer space. This is part of its Sky Canvas project, the world’s first artificial shooting star project, which was announced in March 2016."
"On the BSE, stocks of L&T opened on a negative note at ₹1,373.95 and slipped 2.23 per cent to ₹1,348.10.


L&T has entered into a deal to purchase Cafe Coffee Day owner V G Siddhartha's 20.32 per cent stake in Mindtree. It has also placed an order with brokers to buy another 15 per cent shares of the company from the open market."
"""I am not supporting anyone and no one should use my picture or outfit's flag for political campaign purposes,"" he said in a statement on Sunday, clearing any doubts if the actor would endorse any other political parties.


Rajinikanth's announcement coming days after Kamal Hassan, another iconic actor , said that the Makkal Needhi Mandran would contest all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu where stardom from cinema has been turned into political capital several times in the past.


Though Rajinikanth steered clear of endorsing another party, he said that the people should vote for a strong and stable government at the centre who can resolve the perennial water problem of the southern state."
"But it is highly likely that OnePlus would launch the new TV it promised last year, or maybe even a new smartphone since it is the ""Mobile"" World Congress, after all.


OnePlus CEO Pete Lau expressed his interest in the Smart TV space, with a special emphasis on the connected future.


""I dream about a time when technology is truly seamless, an effortless part of your life without being the focus. As other consumer electronics have evolved and improved our lives, televisions have remained conventional and cumbersome,"" said Lau."
"Filmmaker Wong Kar-wai is getting his films restored in 4K ahead of the 20th anniversary of In the Mood for Love, his most celebrated work till date


The director said the technology update was important for a better viewing experience as the projections are now done in 4K


 A few years ago I watched my film somewhere, looked at the monitor, and said, ‘Why does it look so messy?’ They said, ‘Now we are used to 4K projections, so you have to upgrade it, otherwise you will have those kind of feelings"
"According to a report by SBICap Securities Ltd, “Peak deficit looks unavoidable in FY26 given slow effective capacity addition. Lack of sufficient hydro and gas based power makes coal addition inevitable. Hence, ordering should start in FY21/22."" After the elections, orders from the union government should pick up, offsetting dependence on state power discoms.


Having said all this, a valuation rerating would hinge on order flows as well as revenue traction, which is still several quarters away. Only then would BHEL be truly powering up. "
"We can’t wait for viewers to meet the characters and for NL Film and KRO-NCRV, their ideal home, to take them on their own journey


 We hope Dutch audiences take them into their hearts as audiences have with the original,” said Kaja Wolffers, creative director of NL Film"
"For the first time, the Left Front has opted for a seat-sharing deal with its once arch rival -- the Congress -- for the Lok Sabha polls in the state.


Earlier in 2016, against the wishes of its Left allies, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had entered into a seat-sharing deal with the Congress for the state Assembly polls. Struck in a hurried manner, the deal had failed to evoke mass support.


In a press statement, West Bengal Left Front chairman Biman Bose said the 25 Lok Sabha seats included Raiganj and Murshidabad, for which the candidates were declared earlier.


""For the remaining 17 seats, some will be contested by the Congress and some by the Left Front. In some seats, there might be candidates who would be jointly supported by the Congress and the Left Front,"" the statement added.


The state CPI(M) leadership is in a fix over choosing between the Congress and its Left Front allies, who are not willing to leave the Purulia and Barasat seats, which they have been contesting for decades."
"(From left) Rashtriya Lok Samta Party’s Upendra Kushwaha, Congress’s Shaktisinh Gohil, Hindustani Awam Morcha’s Jitan Ram Majhi and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav in New Delhi. (PTI)


The Lok Sabha elections in Bihar are expected to be a two-way contest between the grand alliance and the NDA


Sharad Yadav, a former national convener of the NDA, will contest the Lok Sabha elections again on the RJD symbol"
"The move comes two months after Spotify launched in India, a price sensitive market already crowded by well-funded players like JioSaavn and Apple Music. (AFP)


Spotify Technology SA said it will remove all songs belonging to one of India's oldest record labels from its app after they failed to agree on licensing terms


Saregama India Ltd filed a petition with the Delhi High Court seeking an injunction against Spotify to stop it from using its songs"
"To be sure, the Union government has held two all- party meetings in the last fortnight. While the first one was called after the Pulwama attack on 16 February by home minister Rajnath Singh, another was called by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday after the air strikes by Indian Air Force (IAF) against terror launch pads in Pakistan.


“The opposition parties should understand that this is not the time to play politics for electoral benefits. The timing of the meeting and criticism of the government is only for political gains,"" a senior BJP leader said requesting anonymity while responding to the joint statement.


The criticism by the opposition parties at this juncture is significant as internal security and terrorism become key political issues ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. According to a senior Election Commission (EC) official, the poll watchdog is keeping a close watch on the security situation.


In its meeting on Wednesday, opposition parties condemned “Pakistani misadventure"" and praised the actions of the security forces, particularly the Indian Air Force. “The meeting paid homage to our martyrs and expressed solidarity with our Armed Forces in crushing the menace of terrorism,"" said a joint statement after the meeting."
"The share-swap ratio for the merger has been fixed at 1:0.14, which means that for every 100 shares of Lakshmi Vilas Bank held by shareholders, they will be entitled to receive 14 shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance, according to the exchange filing.


Based on the share-swap ratio, Indiabulls Housing Finance has paid a premium of 36% to Lakshmi Vilas Bank’s shareholders (as per the closing price of 5th April 2019), says domestic brokerage Motilal Oswal. This is despite a significant run-up in the price of Lakshmi Vilas Bank in the run-up to this merger announcement.


Motilal Oswal believes that the merger is a “win-win deal for both Indiabulls Housing Finance and Lakshmi Vilas Bank"" but RBI’s approval remains a key factor."
"Although the smartphone's final look hasn't been revealed yet, its protective cases suggest the smartphone will sport a triple camera setup. (Weibo/leijun)


The Mi 9 is expected to run Xiaomi's latest MIUI 10 based on Android Pie 9 and will sport a triple camera setup with a ToF sensor


It will be launched in Beijing a few hours before the Samsung Galaxy S10, which will be launched in San Francisco"
"Was it important to break the girl-next-door image that you have?Firstly, I would like to say that the entire credit for the glamorous looks goes to my team


 As you earlier mentioned that you consider Baarish as your comeback vehicle, what kind of roles are you now looking forward to?I think every kind of roles that excite me


 I am actually in talks with a couple of projects but there’s still a lot of time before I can talk about it"
"Emotix’s Miko 2 is a robot that can chat, play games and narrate stories to children, helping them learn new things in a playful manner. It has been designed keeping designs of homes in mind. Features like time of flight sensors allow it to assess its surroundings, while edge sensors prevent it from tripping over a table or staircase. It has a screen and uses in-built cameras for video chats.


Powered by an emotional intelligence engine developed by Emotix, the robot can remember faces, names and voices and can also sense a child’s mood from the conversation and tailor responses accordingly. Priced at ₹24,999, it is available at all Hamleys outlets in India.


iRobot’s Roomba is another exciting series of home robots designed to keep homes clean and dust-free. Roomba was one of the first home robots featuring autonomous cleaning and remote operability. Its latest versions Roomba i7 (priced at ₹69,900) and Roomba i7+, are a step ahead of their predecessors, offering features like automatic dirt disposal mechanism etc., as detailed in the full review of this product."
"For these countries, the future output sub-index—a gauge of business expectations for the coming 12 months—has improved from 65.4 in March to 66.6 April.


While this is a positive sentiment, its continuation is the key. It is no news that global growth is softening, and that could weigh on new export orders. Also, uncertainties regarding the trade wars persist.


It should be noted that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently downgraded its outlook regarding the global economy for the third time since October. IMF anticipates the global economy to grow 3.3% this year. This is the slowest expansion since 2016. Also, the present forecast is a 0.2-percentage point cut from its earlier estimate, released in January."
"In terms of physical dimensions, the smartphone measure 158.41x76.28x7.7mm and weighs 160 grams. It comes with a reflective back cover and 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass at the front.


Asus Zenfone Max M2Asus Zenfone Max M2 first saleAsus Zenfone Max M2 priceAsus Zenfone Max M2 discountAsus Zenfone Max M2 flipkartAsus Zenfone Max M2 featuresAsus Zenfone Max M2 vs Redmi 6 ProAsusAsus Zenfone Max M2 review"
"“People think a middle-class elderly man must have led such a boring life, but that is not the truth at all,” says Salman


Soon, we catch a glimpse of Disha Patani’s character Radha who presumably is a trapeze artist in Bharat"
"Their character arcs were given enough time to evolve and their superhuman abilities made the proceedings interesting


 The deception after Stark gets compromisedTony goes to retrieve the scepter and is compromised due to Scarlet Witch’s powers


 This scene plants a seed of deception in the audience’s mind as we don’t know how far is Tony going to go after his judgement has been tampered with


 Being a non-human entity, we were quite apprehensive about his intentions but with this film and Captain America: Civil War, we knew that Vision was one of the good guys and an essential part of the team


 Bruce Banner & Natasha RomanoffBruce Banner’s asocial attitude arises out of the fact that he still doesn’t have complete control over his Hulk avatar"
"A roughly 30-second video appeared on social media which appears to show the death of a relatively important character, Variety reported"
"The Galaxy M30 is aimed directly at the mid-range favourites like the Mi A2, Realme 2 Pro, Asus Zenfone Max M2 Pro and the upcoming smartphone from Xiaomi, the Redmi Note 7. The Redmi Note 7 will be launched on February 28 and will sport some firsts from the Chinese smartphone maker including teardrop notch, dual gradient back


Samsung's M-series debuted in January with the Galaxy M10 and M20 that start at ₹7,990 and ₹10,990 respectively."
"“The English-language Bible comes in many different written styles, making it the perfect source text to work with for style translation,"" said Keith Carlson, a PhD student at Dartmouth and lead author of the research paper.


An added benefit for the research team is that the Bible is already thoroughly indexed by the consistent use of book, chapter and verse numbers. The predictable organization of the text across versions eliminates the risk of errors that could be caused by automatic methods of matching different versions of the same text.


“The Bible is a ‘divine’ data set to work with to study this task,"" said Daniel Rockmore, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth and a contributing author on the study. “Humans have been performing the task of organizing Bible texts for centuries, so we didn’t have to put our faith into less reliable alignment algorithms."""
"The push back from the Congress aside, even senior leaders from the JD(S) tacitly expressing their reservations in fielding Nikhil, who they consider as an “outsider"" and has been paradropped by the senior leadership and overlooking local interests.


“Sumalatha is standing on the base of her husband’s achievements while Nikhil is being fielded on the achievements of the grandfather and father,"" a JD(S) minister said, requesting not to be named.


Though JD(S) has won all eight assembly segments under Mandya parliamentary seat, its challenges from within as well as its coalition partner are adding to Nikhil’s troubles. The presence of JD(S) dissidents in the district, who shifted to the Congress before the May assembly elections, not helping the situation either. The BJP stands to gain from the infighting in the region where it has little or no presence at all."
"It’s only a matter of time until the bearish bet pays off big, according to Crescat Capital LLC. While the Denver-based firm has only about $50 million under management, it has a history of outperforming the S&P 500 Index—with its Global Macro Fund returning 41% last year alone. Now the investment company says it’s ready to capitalize on an end of the economic cycle as indicators warn that a recession is imminent in the coming quarters.


The consensus is pointing to a recession in 2020 or 2021, Tavi Costa, a global macro analyst at Crescat, said by phone. “We think it’s a lot closer than that and we have a number of macro timing indicators that we look at.""


Going long gold in yuan terms and shorting global equities currently explains three-quarters of the hedge fund’s strategy. While the firm uses the MSCI World Index in models to visualize the trade, it goes a bit deeper with its short position, selecting individual stocks and exchange-traded funds to bet against.


Among the warning signs, Crescat cites corporate insiders who are currently selling stocks hand over fist—indicating a potential stock bubble burst. In early 2017, those investors heavily sold shares while the S&P 500 continued climbing. That happened again in 2018. With the smart money selling once again, “the third time should be the charm for the stubborn US market,"" Crescat wrote to clients over the weekend."
"All these schemes may have hit hurdles, but the perception is that it has begun to reach the target audience. It reinforces the claim of certitude that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has successfully incorporated in his public persona; the air strikes against terror locations in Balakot in Pakistani territory has only bolstered this perception.


In the final analysis, it is clear that there is a visible groundswell of support in favour of the BJP in both states. Regardless of whether this will be monetized in terms of votes will be known only on 23 May. But suffice to say that the entire region, especially if we take into account the North-East, is staring at a new dawn in electoral politics.


Anil Padmanabhan is managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics."
"On Fb.gg, gamers were able to attract people with the aid of Facebook's personalised recommendations based on users' activity and then monetise those viewers through a virtual tipping mechanism. (Reuters)


On Fb.gg, gamers were able to attract people with the aid of Facebook's personalised recommendations based on users' activity


Social networking giant Facebook has begun the initial roll-out of a dedicated gaming tab as part of the app's main navigation."
"“ByteDance’s content platforms enable people to enjoy content powered by AI technology,"" its website says. Its vision is “to build global creation and interaction platforms."" ByteDance’s wildly popular news and entertainment portal, Jinri Toutiao (translated as “Today’s Headlines,"") relies heavily on AI — not human editors, or a self-selected feed of accounts — to curate and create customized streams of largely user-and-partner-generated content tailored to each of its readers.


These are services where a sort of “filter"" bubble — isolating users into worlds of points of view — isn’t an unintended consequence. It’s the point. And it’s extremely effective: Both Toutiao and Douyin have drawn attention from Chinese regulators for, among many other things, some familiar to any large social-ish platform, and others unique to its speech-constrained political environment, capturing too much user time. As a result, TikTok’s “Digital Wellbeing"" settings include an option to enforce a password-protected time limit. The company’s other challenges can be addressed more assertively: an algorithm-first attention market isn’t just centrally ruled, it’s centrally allocated.


All of this goes a long way to explain why, at least at first, TikTok can seem disorienting. “You’re not actually sure why you’re seeing what you’re seeing,"" said Ankur Thakkar, the former editorial lead at Vine, TikTok’s other most direct forerunner. On Vine, a new user might not have had much to watch, or felt much of a reason to create anything, but they understood their context: the list of people they followed, which was probably the thing letting them down.


“It’s doing the thing that Twitter tried to solve, that everyone tried to solve,"" he said. “How do you get people to engage?"" Apparently you just ... show them things, and let a powerful artificial intelligence take notes. You start sending daily notifications immediately. You tell them what to do. You fake it till you make it, algorithmically speaking.


U.S. social platforms, each fighting their own desperate and often stock-price-related fights to increase user engagement, have trended in TikTok’s general direction for a while. It is possible, today, to receive highly personalized and effectively infinite content recommendations in YouTube without ever following a single account, because Google watches what you do, and makes guesses about who you are. And while Facebook and Twitter don’t talk about their products this way, we understand that sometimes — maybe a lot of the time — we use them just to fill time. They, in turn, want as much of our time as possible, and are quite obviously doing whatever they can to get it.


So maybe you’ll sit TikTok out. But these things have a way of sneaking up behind you. Maybe you never joined Snapchat — but its rise worried Facebook so much that its prettier product, Instagram, was remade in its image, and copied concepts from Snapchat reached you there.


And maybe you skipped Twitter — but it still rewired your entire news diet, and, besides, it’s how the president talks to you, now.


TikTok does away with many of the assumptions other social platforms have been built upon, and which they are in the process of discarding anyway. It questions the primacy of individual connections and friend networks. It unapologetically embraces central control rather than pretending it doesn’t have it. TikTok’s real influence going forward may be that the other social media platforms decide that our friends were simply holding us back. Or, at least, it was holding them back."
"Blank movie cast: Karan Kapadia, Sunny Deol, Ishita Dutta, Jameel Khan
Blank movie director: Behzad Khambata
Blank movie rating: One and a half starsA human bomb is created to trigger potential blasts in Mumbai: on this premise a two-hour film is stretched, and filled with a debutant actor supported by a veteran action hero, ‘tukde tukde’ gangs plotting the destruction of India, and brave cops keeping us safe


The trick to making us swallow improbable ploys is slick treatment, and keeping everything moving chop-chop"
"The Realme U1 carries forward the same design language of the Realme 2 Pro—you have the same polycarbonate resin back, faux metal railing and even the display on the Realme U1. The front of the device is lit by the same 6.3-inch IPS LCD display with the same resolution of 2340x1080. It even has the same dewdrop notch. The display is protected by 2.5D Gorilla Glass and has a screen to body ratio of 90.8%.


Powering the device is MediaTek’s flagship octa-core processor, the Helio P70, clocked at 2.1GHz. This is paired with either 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The phone supports dual 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, GLONASS and MicroUSB. The device is backed by 3,500mAh battery which doesn’t support fast charging."
"The Honor V20 starts at 2,999 Yuan (about ₹ 30,000) for the base variant and goes up to 3,499 Yuan (about ₹ 35,500) for the top specced model in China.


Honor India will host the launch event of the View 20 online on their YouTube channel as well as their Facebook and Twitter handles. The event starts at 12 noon. You can click on the links to catch the live stream and live updates."
"Avengers: Endgame is soon going to enter the coveted 2 billion dollars club at the worldwide box office


Currently, Endgame is at the fifth position among the highest grossing films in the world at the global box office, behind Avatar (2"
"Prior to the release, the actor had declared that this film has the best work he has done in his acting career so far


 I was also on my school cricket team, but I rarely got a chance to play in the game as I was not considered a valuable player


How important is the father-son relationship in this film?The entire film is based on the relationship between a father and son"
"The government in Beijing on Tuesday used its report to the annual National People’s Congress to lower its growth goal for the year to a target of 6% to 6.5% and pledged to keep the yuan basically stable at reasonable equilibrium levels, while also allowing greater flexibility.


That suits China’s own interests, given the risk of capital outflows and market instability that would be triggered by a currency slump. Yet it’s less clear how much sovereignty over the yuan China will want to cede in any trade agreement with the US.


""It looks unrealistic to us that China would accept any explicit clause putting down ranges for the dollar-yuan rate or incorporating a vigorous monitoring process,"" wrote Frances Cheung, head of Asia macrostrategy at Westpac Banking Corp., in a note Tuesday. ""A rigid exchange-rate policy would have wide implications on China’s multi-year reform on the foreign-exchange system and the opening-up of capital markets.""


China’s yuan surged 2.6% against the dollar this year, making it the best performing currency in Asia, and has rallied to the highest level since July versus a basket of exchange rates. That’s a far cry from 2018, when the yuan tumbled more than 5% amid concerns over the US-China trade war and monetary easing by the central bank."
"Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Piyush Goyal, J P Nadda and Nitin Gadkari are also likely to attend, party leaders said.


In 2014, Modi won the seat by a margin of over three lakh votes against Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal.


This time there is speculation that the Congress may field its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi against him."
"A bench headed by chief justice Ranjan Gogoi said it was not inclined to entertain the application filed by producers of the biopic challenging the EC's order.


The film ‘PM Narendra Modi’ was scheduled to release on 11 April, coinciding with the start of the Lok Sabha elections in the country. However, on 10 April, the Election Commission stayed the release of the biopic, citing violation of the model code of conduct. The EC in its order had said that any biopic made for any political entity that had the potential to disturb the level-playing field during the elections should not be displayed in the electronic media."
"The Sony Bravia A1 is arguably the best television to buy in the country today, in terms of picture quality. It also happens to be a truly smart TV, running on Google’s Android platform. If you can afford it, this TV is certainly worth considering.


One of the first companies to make an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV, LG is reinforcing its efforts in the TV space by adding artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities through its WebOS. To be sure, the AI here is somewhat rudimentary, especially in the Indian context. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the C8 produces absolutely spectacular picture quality, comparable to any high-end TV today."
"Xiaomi’s scanner has the dimensions of 25mm x 50.2mm, which is reasonably bigger than most other thumbprint sized in-display sensors. Photo: Lin Bin/Weibo


In-display fingerprint scanners are one of the most worked upon features of the smartphone industry. Chinese smartphone company Vivo pioneered the technology that allows people to unlock their smartphones simply by touching their displays. Other players, like Oppo, OnePlus and Huawei quickly caught on to include the technology in their smartphones.


The technology relies on an optical fingerprint sensor, which uses a light source to capture a high-resolution photograph of your fingerprints and uses algorithms to identify unique patterns. To capture a high-resolution image, it requires a light source, which has to be strong enough to illuminate your fingerprint. The problem arises when the light has to hit the sensor after bouncing back from your finger. As a result, this tech can work only with OLED displays, since an LCD’s backlight can get in the way."
"The announcement was made by India Head of Network Solutions, Market Area South-East Asia, Oceania and India, for Ericsson, Nitin Bansal during their flagship event ‘ Barcelona Unboxed’ in Gurgaon on Wednesday.


This agreement will result in deployment of the Ericsson Cloud VoLTE solution, an industrialized solution to deliver VoLTE services onto a customer data center. The solution enables high-definition voice (HD voice) and provides modern communication services experiences across many types of devices, over LTE, Wi-Fi, and future 5G access.


According to Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel: “This partnership with Ericsson will allow us to rapidly increase VoLTE capacity to serve our growing traffic, and make our network prepared to easily introduce new communication services today and in 5G."""
"The smartphone is expected to have a price tag north of ₹30,000 mark, which means it will be in the same category as budget flagships including Poco F1, OnePlus 6 and Nokia 8.1.


The Poco F1 and OnePlus 6 offer high-end specifications modelled around optimum performance—Snapdragon 845 processor, up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage."
"“We’ve fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services,"" he wrote.


The blows to Facebook’s reputation also have hurt the stock, which declined 24% this year through Thursday’s close, while the S&P 500 dropped 6.9%. The shares fell about 1% to $133.28 at 1:32 pm on Friday in New York."
"The Oppo K1 is lit by a 6.4-inch full-HD+ display with a resolution of 2340x1080. This gives the phone 91% screen-to-body ratio and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Oppo has taken the in-display approach for its fingerprint scanner. The display has a tear drop notch which houses a 25MP selfie camera.


Under the hood, the Oppo K1 is powered by Qualcomm's octa-core Snapdragon 660 processor clocked at 2.2GHz. The K1 comes in 4GB and 6GB RAM variants and 64GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card."
"The lead character in the film is named Indira Bandhopadhyay (played by Ananya Guha, Alokananda Guha and Ruma Chakraborty across ages) is called “Didi” in the trailer


At the trailer launch, director Nehal Dutta had hinted that he would be ready to defer the release of the film"
"The app is codenamed GreenTorch and it is currently under beta. As 9to5Mac reports, the new app will combine the same features as the two existing apps into a unified and improved version."
"The Realme 2 costs nearly the same as the Realme 1 starting at 8,990 for the 3GB RAM/32GB ROM version and going up to 10,990 for the 4GB RAM/64GB ROM version"
"The story suggested that Sandberg and Zuckerberg weren’t as involved with the serious issues facing the company as they should have been. Rather the two top executives were more concerned about continuing to defend Facebook’s reputation and embarked on an aggressive lobbying campaign to fend off critics.


The report has once again prompted the ire of lawmakers, who summoned Zuckerberg earlier this year for two days of Congressional hearings regarding the Russian affair and data privacy.


Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who has sought to increase transparency of online political ads, said Thursday that she would write to Facebook and the Justice Department to ask whether any elected officials were targeted in the opposition research. She said it could be a campaign finance issue.


In 2017, Klobuchar proposed legislation to compel Facebook and others to disclose who bought political ads on their sites. The Times said that after a call from Sandberg at the time, Klobuchar dialed back criticism of Facebook, although her office stressed she didn’t change the bill in response to the outreach.


Facebookfake newsmisinformationsocial networkUS presidential electionsdata privacyDonald TrumpHillary Clinton"
"While Shah Rukh is yet to announce a new project wherein he will be acting, the actor is currently basking in the success of his latest production venture Badla which featured Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu in pivotal roles"
"Mukesh Gadhilo, 24, (in checked shirt) is a graduate but works as a blacksmith with his father as he hasn’t found another job. (Photo: Lakhan Sharma/Mint)


Wasim Ahmed spends his days ferrying people to and from the famous Dargah Sharif in his autorickshaw in Ajmer. Packed with eateries, and flower and garment shops, the narrow lanes do not allow using bigger vehicles and Ahmed says he makes enough to make ends meet. But he’s worried about the future of his brother, who is studying law.


“He can’t do this job, can he? It’s okay for me but there are thousands of graduates in the country sitting at home. There are no jobs for them,"" said Ahmed, putting his finger on the biggest issue for the youth in Rajasthan, and the rest of the country. Fighting unemployment was the promise that played a role in bringing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014, but five years later, voters feel, it has not delivered."
"Traders said apart from subdued domestic demand, weak global cues influenced sentiment here thereby resulting in fall in gold prices


NEW DELHI: Gold prices on Thursday slumped by ₹250 to ₹32,620 per 10 gram at the bullion market here due to weak demand from jewellers amid weak global cues, according to the All India Sarafa Association.


Tracking gold, silver also declined by ₹825 to ₹37,700 per kg due to reduced offtake by industrial units and coin makers."
"The film also showcases a wide array of beloved Pokémon, each with its own unique traits and personality"
"The Redmi Y3 starts at ₹9,999 for the base model with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage and goes up to ₹11,999 for its 4GB RAM/64GB storage variant. The Redmi 7 has a price tag of ₹7,999 for the 2GB RAM/32GB internal storage variant and ₹8,999 for the 3GB RAM/32GB internal storage model.


The Redmi Y3 will go on sale on April 30 whereas the Redmi 7 will be available on April 29. The two smartphones would be available across mi.com, Amazon India and offline stores.


The Redmi Y3 is lit by a 6.26-inch HD+ ‘dot notch’ display covered in 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5 body with rounded edges. It has an aspect ratio of 19:9. Xiaomi calls the rear finish of the Redmi Y3 as the “Aura Prism Design"" and “Auro Smoke Design""."
"Other smartphones in its family, namely the Huawei P30 and P30 Lite are also scheduled for launch India alongside it.


The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are very similar in their underpinnings. They share the same Kirin 980 processor, run the same EMUI 9.1 based on Android Pie operating system and sport the same curved glass design and gradient colours.


However, the P30 Pro definitely has a few important additions. It sports a quad camera setup that comprises an 8MP telephoto camera with a Periscope lens offers up to 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom and up to a whopping 50x digital zoom."
"Xiaomi in May last year hiked the prices of the Note 5 Pro due to the depreciation of rupee against dollar and changes in PCBA import taxes.


Redmi Note 5 Pro has seen price fluctuations since its launch last year, but this is unarguably the biggest discount


Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 ProRedmi Note 5 Pro price cutRedmi Note 5 Pro price indiaRedmi Note 5 Pro specificationsRedmi Note 5 Pro saleRedmi Note 5 Pro units soldRedmi Note 5 Pro review"
"Avengers: Endgame, the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), is the end of the Avengers franchise that has three prequels


 It has turned the tables with record-breaking first weekend sales in India, where it released on April 26"
"'”On similarities between Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and Lyanna, Ramsey said, “They’re kind of kindred spirits


 They’re both these females who are sticking up for what they believe in and proving that girls can be just as strong as boys, women can be just as strong as men"
"Soni Razdan has always been trying — to push herself as an actor, make her space in the industry and to carve an identity independent of being the wife of a famous filmmaker and mother of a superstar


The actor made her debut with critically acclaimed 36 Chowringhee Lane and went on to feature in films like Mandi and Saaransh in the later years


In 1986, she got married to Mahesh Bhatt, and even though she continued to work, Razdan still struggles to be known more than just someone’s wife or mother


“I have always been known as Mahesh Bhatt’s wife and I would tell people ‘hello! I’m here!’ This has always been a struggle"
"The board’s decision “raises serious procedural and substantive concerns,"" Spotify, Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Sirius XM Holdings Inc.’s Pandora said in a statement. “If left to stand, the CRB’s decision harms both music licensees and copyright owners.""


Songwriters have long complained they receive too small a share of sales from streaming, which now accounts for 75% of the business in the U.S. — the world’s largest music market. The rates under discussion in this case govern payments from on-demand services such as Spotify and Apple Music, which make up the vast majority of streaming sales.


The technology companies waited until the last day to appeal the decision, undermining their recent efforts to court songwriters, said David Israelite, chief executive officer of the NMPA."
"The PM-Kisan cash transfer scheme launched on 24 February aims to benefit over 120 million farm households across India, and is being rolled out at a breakneck speed to ensure that farmers receive the first instalment before they cast their votes in the Lok Sabha elections starting 11 April. The scheme is expected to cost ₹20,000 crore in 2018-19 and ₹75,000 crore in 2019-20.


“In Uttar Pradesh up to 20 million farmers could benefit…and so far about 10.4 million farmers have received the money,"" said Soraj Singh, director of agriculture in the state. “If we convert the in-kind allocations for farmers under state schemes they get ₹2 per day per family, with PM-Kisan they are getting ₹17 per day in cash… bank accounts with tiny amounts like ₹200-300 are being credited by ₹2,000 in a go,"" said Singh, defending the scheme against criticism that the assistance is paltry.


Major farmer organizations have criticized the scheme calling it a “bribe"" ahead of elections while politicians like Congress president Rahul Gandhi termed it an “insult"" to farmers. Experts and economists too said cash transfers may curtail future public investments in agriculture, like in irrigation or research.


However, the majority of farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra, Amethi, Kannauj and Barabanki districts, where Mint travelled last week, perceive the scheme differently, although on ground only a handful of families said they have received the money. Mint chose to travel to these districts in central Uttar Pradesh, which are dominated by small land holding farmers, to understand the economic and electoral impact of PM-Kisan, unlike western parts of the state where farmers owe their relative prosperity to sugarcane cultivation.


Take for instance the opinion of Ram Prasad Yadav, a small farmer from Barabanki: “Is ₹6,000 nothing? At least we can buy salt and chilies, spend on school books and shoes, buy some clothes… farmers may not vote for Modi for this money but there are other reasons to vote for him.""


This “other"" reason, an apparent surge of nationalism, has seemingly possessed the rural voter in these parts, be it a young college student about to enter the job market, or a farmer staying awake the entire night to guard his crop from stray cattle. “This election is not about the kisan, it is about the nation,"" said 30-year-old Radheshyam Nishad from Agra, when asked how the state government and the centre have helped farmers to get better crop prices or manage recurrent weather risks. What about the stray cattle menace created by a ban on slaughter and risks in transportation of unproductive cattle? “We cannot expect the Prime Minister to come and guard our crop.""


The majority of farmers Mint spoke to contend that compensation for crop loss or the state-initiated loan waiver did not reach them due to corrupt bank or local government officials. The stray cattle menace is one of their own making, since it is they who have abandoned cows. The farmers and daily wagers in these villages admit that the federal government has largely ignored their plight but the dissatisfaction which was palpable a few months ago has been replaced by admiration and a sense of pride. More importantly, they are unwilling to blame the Prime Minister for their troubles."
"At the same time, its allies the trade unions too are struggling as the juggernaut of liberalization changes the country’s industrial structure.


“A new working class has been born, no doubt,"" said Binoy Viswam, a Rajya Sabha member from Communist Party of India (CPI) and former Editor of Trade Union Magazine, published by CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union Congress or AITUC, one of country’s largest trade union.


“A change in the content, composition, and character of the workers has to be taken into account by the Left. Its slogans have to be reversed from this point of understanding,"" said Viswam. “The Left has to redefine itself, notwithstanding its past and songs of struggles. Its basic commitment to the poor should stand uncompromised.""


The Left is more than just the organized Left. Many political parties that are secular—from Janata Dal (Secular), popular in Kolar, to Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, to Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu—have been influenced by the Left, although what they are actually practising now is another story.


There have always been enough people who do not feel very strongly about Left ideology. But there are also a lot of people who may have feelings similar to those embodied by Left ideology, but vote for other parties. The Left, in both cases, lose out electorally."
"While this kind of software is deemed to be legal, the programme's presence is often both unwanted and unknown by the user affected. In some cases, a programme's download page specifically states the software is intended to be used for secretly spying on the user.


Kaspersky Lab has thus decided to introduce a special alert for such programmes, enabling those affected to decide for themselves what they want to do about it.


Commercial spyware programmes are background-running apps installed on phones which can be used to monitor and track device activity."
"”That memory isn’t in isolation, for it was moments like these which helped the actor understand what goes behind making art, the efforts which largely go unnoticed


“What normally we see is the finished product, someone’s performance on screen, but behind the scenes a lot goes into it


”Aditya’s latest film Kalank is playing in theatres and after a brief sabbatical of two years, the actor now has three releases lined up"
"According to IndieWire, he was in conversation with actor Alec Baldwin as part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Director Series"
"Oppo's spin-off brand Realme's latest smartphone, the Realme 3 will go on its first sale today at 12 noon. The Realme 3 was launched last week at a starting price of ₹8,999.


During the sale, the Realme 3 will come with ₹500 instant discount applicable on HDFC cards. The 4GB RAM/64GB ROM variant will also come with an instant discount on EMI for buyers using HDFC bank cards. Customers will receive Jio benefits worth ₹5,300 as well. These offers will be available exclusively on Flipkart.com. Customers buying through Realme.com will receive 20% Supercash through MobiKwik.


Realme during the launch event last week also announced that the Realme 3 Pro would be launched in April."
"The listing also revealed the basic specifications which include 5.84-inch display and a 2,900mAh battery. There’s no word on the processor, RAM, internal storage and optics."
"While Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik-led BJD is looking to repeat its 2014 performance by winning all the six seats, BJP and Congress are giving it a good fight in Kendrapara, Jagatsighpur, and Balasore. (ANI)


NEW DELHI: Polling began for six Lok Sabha and 41 Assembly constituencies on Monday in the fourth and final phase of elections in Odisha, with initial estimates showing around 10% voter turnout in the first two hours of voting."
"I’ll never forget the experience and I’m more than happy and ecstatic to now call you my homie! Thank you for the kindness and wise words,” Logic had tweeted"
Bosco will also be giving a few participants from the show an opportunity to feature in his upcoming film
"The development of inland waterways has put a focus on connectivity in the river both for industries and for tourism. Government officials say the use of waterways for transportation reduces carbon emissions and increases employment opportunities.


“If you take the development of national waterways or the decisions to improve tourism, a lot of work has been done in the last five years. However, cleanliness is still an issue. The government has come up with interesting ideas, but they need financial backing,"" says Soumen Ganguly, a bank official in Serampore in Hooghly district.


West Bengal accounts for 42 seats in the Lok Sabha and is going to polls across seven phases. The state is seeing a contest between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is looking to make inroads in the state, and the Congress and Left parties, who are trying to improve their strength in the state. The BJP hopes to play a decisive role in the state during the Lok Sabha polls and replicate the performance in the assembly elections two years from now.


In November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the multi-modal terminal at Varanasi and, had subsequently, flagged off the first container cargo vessel that sailed on the Ganga from Kolkata to Varanasi. The cargo included 16 containers for PepsiCo. The waterway has since been used by other companies, including Maersk and IFFCO fertilizer. The World Bank-assisted Ganga waterways project, costing about ₹5,370 crore, for commercial navigation of vessels, is set to be completed by 2023."
"“It seems like a lot of this rally, which has been rather spectacular, has a lot of FOMO in it, meaning fear of missing out,"" Dave Haviland, managing partner of Beaumont Capital Management in Needham, Massachusetts, said by phone. “But we still have to look at, yes the markets are doing great, but what are the economic fundamentals?""


The post-Christmas rally that’s added 18% to US stocks appears to have run out of catalysts to propel it higher. Technical indicators, from closely watched moving averages to the relative-strength index, signal that gains from here may be difficult to come by. Investor focus will be trained on headlines out of this week’s negotiations in Washington and on any information coming out of the Fed that could shed more light on future monetary policy.


Elsewhere, the pound was steady as Prime Minister Theresa May headed back to Brussels in a last-ditch attempt to save her Brexit deal. Gold traded at the highest since May and palladium soared to a record as a shortage started to bite. Emerging-market shares rallied and their currencies advanced. South Africa’s rand fell as the government unveiled a bailout package for utility Eskom."
"Mumbai: India’s youngest private sector lender, Bandhan Bank Ltd, showed yet again how profits can be made through small loans, something that big established lenders are chasing with vigour of late.


Bandhan Bank reported an impressive 68% rise in its net profit for the March quarter, beating Street estimates by a mile. A Bloomberg survey showed that analysts had penciled in a growth of 45%."
"Stewart celebrates that decision along with statements from younger Hollywood stars like Sophie Turner, 23, who have refused to label their sexuality


“If you were to have this conversation with someone like in high school, they’d probably roll their eyes and go, ‘Why are you complicating everything so much?’ … Just sort of do what you want to do,'” she said"
"Pinterest Inc., meanwhile, has seen its shares soar since it priced its April 17 IPO below the last private valuation of $12.3 billion. The stock closed 52 percent above its trading debut Thursday at $28.80, valuing the digital image sharing company at $15.2 billion.


Uber is expected to set the terms for its IPO as soon as Friday before heading out on a road show to market the stock to potential investors, the people said. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. are leading the offering.


An $8 billion offering would be more than three time’s ride-hailing competitor Lyft’s $2.34 billion IPO, the world’s biggest listing so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It would rank Uber’s IPO as the ninth largest on a U.S. exchange and the biggest since Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s record $25 billion listing in 2014."
"There’s one other problem: VR isn’t very social, Petrock said. There’s no easy way to share the experience with others on social media or within the games themselves, making a VR experience less likely to go viral the way, say, “Fortnite"" has. “You have your headset strapped on and you’re in a virtual world but it is solitary,"" she said.


VR “is still is the next big thing, but anything good takes time and effort,"" said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. “The industry as a whole did overhype it.""


He compares the current VR industry to the TV industry when HDTV first came out. People bought new high-definition sets but were disappointed when there wasn’t anything to watch in the new format. For VR, “the kind of breadth and depth of content isn’t all quite there,"" he said.


CES 2019Virtual RealityVROculus RiftOculus GoXiaomi VRSamsung VRGoogle CardboardVR headsetsbeat saber"
"Demand is likely to fall this year by about 1%, Wiebe said, but would rise again in 2020 and 2021 as production of solar panels picked up and U.S. coin sales expanded.


Silver prices are affected by supply and demand but heavily influenced by investors who often buy precious metals as a perceived safe-haven asset during times of economic or political uncertainty.


Wiebe said he expects rising economic and political turbulence, along with a likely weakening of the dollar, to push prices higher, with silver averaging $16.75 in 2019 and $17.50 in 2020."
TMZ reported that Singleton suffered the stroke after taking a flight back to the United States from Costa Rica
"Daenerys and her fleet were attacked by Euron Greyjoy (who probably teleported himself and his fleet to the exact spot they needed to impale Rhaegal with giant arrows; there is no other explanation) and they had to retreat


The Night King, a supernatural being, killing a dragon was believable enough, but this is a considerable leap of logic


 However, the show as always nailed the spectacle part, one thing it still excels at, probably more so


 The CGI work and visual effects were marvellous on Rhaegal as he was shot through with multiple giant arrows


Tyrion and Varys discuss Daenerys and Jon: The two finest remaining players of the game of thrones are discussing who should end up ruling the Seven Kingdoms"
"“This app has a database of about 5 lakh criminals of the state and it will provide access of crime files and dossiers to my officers and personnel on the ground in a seamless and reliable fashion. This app is aimed to help them crack a case fast and ensure relief and justice to crime victims,"" Singh told PTI.


Explaining the features, the official quoted earlier said a cop at the scene of a crime can use artificial intelligence tools to identify a criminal through their face and photographs, through past FIRs where a person was named as an accused, explore links of a criminal with any gang, scan fingerprints and voice samples and can search the name of a criminal even if it is misspelled."
"The Huawei P30 Pro is powered by a Kirin 980 processor paired with 8 GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage


Chinese smartphone maker Huawei is all set to launch its new flagship smartphone in India on Tuesday. Named the Huawei P30 Pro, the smartphone was launched at an event in Paris in March for a price of €999 (about ₹77,800)."
"But Ben Wood, an analyst at tech research consultancy CCS Insight, said the appeal of foldable phones would be limited for now to ""gadget lovers"" who want the latest tech.


""This right now looks like a solution looking for a problem. Most consumers will look at it right now and go 'it is very, very expensive'. It is kind of an early stage product. I think we are kind of in the Stone Age of the flexible device,"" he said.


Aside from its steep price tag, problems with the devices include poor readability in sunlight, and a bulky design needed to protect the screen's fold, according to the research firm.


Analysts have also expressed concerns over the durability of the devices since folds are typically areas where problems are most likely to develop in electronic devices over time.


""Generally the trend has been to have a design that does not have any mechanical elements in a smartphone to make them more durable,"" said Ian Fogg, a senior mobile industry analyst at OpenSignal, which collects and analyses data from mobile networks."
"Xiaomi launched the Mi Men’s Sports Shoes 2 in India on Thursday. The Mi Sports Shoes 2 is the Chinese brand’s entry into the segment in India. The shoes will be available on the company’s crowdfunding platform before being made available on online and offline retail stores.


The Mi Men’s Sports Shoes are available at ₹2,499 on the Mi CrowdFunding online store. Xiaomi has set the goal of 5,000 units until it makes the shoes open for full-fledged sale and the shoes have already received 11,533 fundings with eight days to go."
"Here’s to many more girls nights!❤️💋 @aliaabhatt u Missed the madness by minutes! Love all u ladies!”Parineeti Chopra also shared a picture and wrote, “We made icecream at home! (And thats probably the only thing we can confess to doing on a public platform because what happens at girls night, stays at girls night!) Thankss @_iiishmagish your home is BEAUTIFUL!! @priyankachopra @radhikamerchant @srishtibehlarya @tam2cul"
"Consumers were comfortable sharing their location data and lifestyle information in exchange for lower pricing on products and services


At the same time, nearly four out of five consumers (81%) said they are very cautious about the privacy of their personal data


Seven in 10 consumers in India are willing to share personal information like location data and lifestyle information with their bank and insurer in exchange for lower pricing on products and services, a new report from Accenture said on Thursday."
"""Price cuts are a part of the pricing strategy to trim down the huge price gap between competitor offerings,"" Bhatia added.


The smartphone market in India is the world's second biggest after China, but the premium segment (above ₹35,000) constituted just three per cent of this market that shipped 142.3 million units in 2018, according to the market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).


This relatively smaller market is definitely less crowded than the budget segment, but that does not mean the competition is less intense.


Taking the price war, Apple earlier this month started offering a ""promotional offer"" to bring down the cost of its ₹76,900 iPhone XR (64GB) by as much as ₹23,000."
"These shell companies were reportedly using a front, We Purchase Apps, to buy legitimate apps, available on Google Play Store, from their developers to gain control over 125 apps with combined download of 115 million. Photo: Reuters


Cyber criminals behind the ad fraud were using botnets to maintain the appearance of a flourishing app with a growing user base to inflate as revenue


The unprecedented reach of smartphones has made them a major touchpoint for advertisers trying to reach out to more users. Like malware attacks faced by users, advertising and publishers are increasingly harangued by wave of fast evolving ad frauds."
"Besides the bragging rights of “doing good"", the website rewards users with ‘LoveCoins’, which works like reward points.


Users earn one LoveCoin for each rupee they donate, which can be redeemed in virtual ‘Love Shops’, which have on offer luxury, premium products from 28 brands, including Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Messika, etc., booking events and experiences with Bollywood and sports celebrities.


There is also a monthly lucky draw where active users get a chance to win exclusive items from luxury brands.


According to the 2019 India Philanthropy Report by Bain and Dasra, individual philanthropy grew 21% per annum in the last five years in India."
"Instagram has added an emoji shortcut bar so users can react quickly to a post instead of browsing through emoji options in the keyboard app.


While Instagram is primarily used to share photos and stories, it gives the option to chat via the direct message feature"
"Amid huge fanfare and the presence of Venkatesh and Vijay Deverakonda as chief guests, the trailer of Mahesh Babu starrer Maharshi was unveiled in Hyderabad on Wednesday


”The trailer begins with Rao Ramesh’s character asking Rishi, played by Mahesh Babu, “What are you going to do in your life Rishi?” and Rishi replies, “I want to rule the world"
"“Voting is not just our RIGHT, It’s our RESPONSIBILITY !! #castyourvote #choosetherightone #forabetterfuture #bearesponsiblecitizen #loksabhaelections2019,” he wrote on Twitter along with a photo of his inked finger


 He was photographed with Left front’s candidate from Ernakulam, P Rajeev and United front candidate Hibi Eden"
"Does that affect you professionally with most actors using social media to constantly connect with their fans?I am active on social media but I am not active on all the platforms


 It has happened in front of me that a few talented actors have been rejected work because they don’t have the Instagram following


 There are so many people who are brought into a project just because they have a certain amount of Instagram following


 If there is someone who believes in what I offer in front of the camera rather than how much following I have on Instagram, I would rather work with them"
"“Meet #BaileyChopra! And like in any other punjabi family — I (his aunt) named him!! Hahaha 💖 @priyankachopra @siddharthchopra89,” wrote the Kesari actor along with the photo"
The party has been trying to drum up support after the cross border air strikes to help it get another term in office
"Not everyone agrees that Rae Bareli has been developed. A section of voters would like a change, but say that they do not have strong alternatives to pick from. In this election, Sonia Gandhi’s main opposition is from Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Dinesh Pratap Singh. Singh is a former Congress leader and a former member of the legislative council. He has been in the BJP for a little over a year.


In previous elections, too, no party—neither the BJP nor the Bahujan Samaj Party—had fielded a ‘heavyweight’ who could put up a tough fight.


“Every constituency demands change. We would want to see how someone else works. We feel Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing a good job in the centre, but here, their contender is a former Congressman—how is that an option for us to consider? Why would we vote for someone who was part of the Congress about a year ago,"" said Alok Kumar from Munshiganj near Rae Bareli.


The BJP, though, is confident of improving its performance in both seats. “Both Amethi and Rae Bareli have a possibility of seeing change this time. The family narrative no longer works. People are fed up of dynastic rule. This time our candidate is strong. His past in the Congress does not matter, what matters is that the vote will be in the name of the development work BJP does,"" said Sushil Sharma, a senior BJP leader from the district, sitting in the party’s makeshift campaign office at a hotel in Rae Bareli."
"The new biometric feature was rolled out to WhatsApp for iPhone last week. It lets you add an extra layer of security to the application through Face ID and Touch ID. The new authentication system works similarly to the one found on Outlook and Signal iOS apps.


This, however, doesn’t lock individual WhatsApp chats—it just lets you open WhatsApp with your biometrics. It also lets you view WhatsApp notifications with the body of the message as well as receive or decline WhatsApp calls.


To enable this feature, you need to open WhatsApp and then go to Settings --> Privacy --> Screen lock. Now you’ll find the option to let you unlock WhatsApp through Face ID or Touch ID. Further, you get to choose to be prompted about this immediately or after an interval of a minute, 15 minutes or an hour."
"This suggests that it was neither the calm, nor the fun/fantasy associated with viewing a Marvel superhero movie, that was solely driving effects, but rather the specific exposure to ants and spiders in the context of a Marvel movie


Menachem Ben-Ezra from Ariel University in the US said that these results open a new direction in the efficacy of positive exposure which should be further considered


Such an interventions may also destigmatise therapy, especially in resistant cases, and encourage homework completion, often an integral part of cognitive behavioral therapy"
"However, Mayawati has kept the option of contesting elections later open. She said if there is an opportunity after elections, then she can contest from any seat, without any problem, to become a Lok Sabha member.


Explaining her decision on Twitter, Mayawati said she became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1995 without being a member of the assembly or council.


“Similarly is the provision at the Centre where a person has to be a LS/RS member within 6 months of holding office of minister/PM. Don’t be disheartened by my decision not to contest LS poll now,"" she said."
"Though Uriyadi 2 was released to mixed reviews, Vijay Kumar remains confident and tells us he made a good film


 Less than half an hour into the chat, the actor-director says with strangers he takes time to open up


 Caste issues are a raging menace in Tamil Nadu, and I wanted to make a film which will resonate with the audience"
"Shares of other Anil Ambani group firms also faced the heat. Reliance Capital lost 10.26% intra-day, Reliance Infrastructure 8.76%, Reliance Naval & Engineering 8.57% and Reliance Power lost 5.53%.


Reliance Group companies have sued HT Media Ltd, Mint’s publisher, and nine others in the Bombay high court over a 2 October 2014 front-page story that they have disputed. HT Media is contesting the case."
"Why south of the Vindhyas remains a bit of a conundrum for the BJP, and for an ordinary voter across the north"
"”Priyanka Chopra Jonas is, reportedly, in India for her brother Siddharth Chopra’s wedding festivities"
"The 6GB/128GB variant of the Galaxy A7 also received a price cut and now sells for ₹ 22,990. Similarly, the 8GB /128GB variant of the Galaxy A9 is now selling for ₹ 36,990.


Although there was no official word from Samsung and Amazon, the prices have started reflecting on the landing pages of the smartphones.


The Samsung Galaxy A9 has four cameras at its back arranged in a linear fashion. You can think of it as a dual-camera setup stacked on top of telephoto and ultra-wide cameras. The dual-camera setup consists of a primary 24MP sensor along with a 5MP depth sensor with a regular depth of field. Then you have an 8MP sensor with a 12mm ultra-wide lens and finally a 10MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom."
Airtel will deploy the Ericsson Cloud VoLTE solution to deliver VoLTE services onto a customer data centre.
"Consumers purchasing Nokia 7.1 using HDFC Bank Credit and Debit cards on EMI transactions done through Pinelabs terminals in offline stores will receive a 10% cashback.


The Nokia 7.1 comes with a 5.84-inch, Full HD+ LCD PureDisplay screen, which provides HDR10 cinematic quality. The display has a resolution of 2280x1080, which gives it an aspect ratio of 19:9 and pixel density of 432ppi."
"Moving on, Redmi has not revealed any other details about the smartphone, be it processor and memory storage or camera resolution. And since the teaser was aimed at Chinese audiences, Redmi hasn't made it clear if the smartphone would be available in India or not.


Xiaomi India MD and Global VP Manu Kumar Jain, however, talked about bringing Qualcomm's new chipset, the Snapdragon 730, to India in a Xiaomi smartphone.


Great meeting Rajen @rajen_vagadia & Kedar from #Qualcomm.@Xiaomi & @Qualcomm have always worked together to bring the latest & the best!


Breaking news: A new #Xiaomi phone with latest #Snapdragon 7_ _ (announced just 2 weeks ago) is coming to India very soon!"
"""The ability to post documents and presentations on LinkedIn is available globally to all LinkedIn members and Pages on desktop, and will be coming to our mobile app soon,"" Taormina noted."
"“A couple of friends had told her about it and I just said to her, ‘I would appreciate if you didn’t watch it"
"Trump said the trade talks were productive. “The US has made substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues,"" he said in a Twitter posting on Sunday evening.


Elsewhere, crude oil fell after Trump said in a tweet that prices were too high, while copper held on to gains over Chinese optimism. Gold was little changed, with Newmont Mining climbing on a hostile bid from rival Barrick Gold. The pound was little changed versus the euro as UK Prime Minister Theresa May pushed back the deadline for Parliament to vote on her Brexit deal.


The S&P 500 Index rose 0.4% as of 12:55 p.m. New York time, while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.3%, reaching the highest level in almost 20 weeks. The MSCI Emerging Market Index rose 0.9%, the sixth straight increase. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.7%, hitting the highest in more than 20 weeks with its sixth straight advance."
"The three states together have 168 seats and NDA had won 145 of them in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.


However, BJP has suffered setbacks in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where it lost power to arch-rival Congress just before the national polls. BJP had bagged 62 out of 65 Lok Sabha seats in these states in 2014.


The road ahead for BJP will be challenging as the party had won 282 seats in the 2014 polls, but its present strength in the Lok Sabha is 268, after losing 14 bypolls in the last five years.


A key loss was the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, which was represented by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. In Phulpur, BJP lost the by-election for the seat vacated by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. It also lost in Kairana.


The common thread in these three bypolls was that BJP was facing the combined might of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)."
A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice A J Bhambhani posed the query to RBI while hearing a PIL which claimed that GPay was acting as a payments system provider in violation of the Payments and Settlements Act as it has no valid authorisation from the central bank of the country to carry out such functions.
"It was this matter of fact-ness about sex that drew in the female audience of the show as finally there was a show where women spoke to their friends like how they did in real life


 The show wasn’t all that real with its characters’ expensive buying habits but that was the fantasy that made it desirable


The makers tried to milk the success of the television series by making two movies and it’s best to forget that the films were a part of the same franchise"
"Google has announced a new job search experience that allows its customers to make remote work opportunities in the US more discoverable on their career sites


Google already lets job searchers filter by commute time and type of transit, so it makes sense to add this work-from-home option"
"And it was in Winter Soldier and then the first year we spent developing Civil War that convinced us to offer them these two Avengers movies


 You have a very interesting fleet of directors in the MCU with strong, individualistic voice in terms of filmmaking


 It is the first film we have made that no matter when we were screening it, someone in the room gets emotional


 I can’t say that!Also read: Avengers Endgame directors Russo Brothers: Endings can be scary, but can also be best part of the storyQ


 And by the way, all of this talk of our dreams coming true or our expectations being exceeded is only because of those fans"
"In the FIR registered against the actor by the said woman, it states that Oberoi had raped the woman on the pretext of marrying her and had even filmed the act in order to blackmail her later


Also read | TV actor Karan Oberoi arrested on rape charges“Oberoi not only raped the woman and filmed the act but also demanded money from the victim threatening to release the video if she did not pay up,” police officials said quoting the FIR"
"From being one of the best just a month ago, the rupee is now one of the worst performers among emerging market currencies


Given that key variables such as domestic growth, oil prices, global sentiment, elections are still evolving, this could be a year of sitting tight for the rupee


Fundamental economic performance of countries underpins their exchange rates, but currency markets tend to swing more with the prevailing sentiment, friendly or otherwise."
"The computer mouse you use today had humble beginnings back in the 1960s. American computer engineers Douglas Engelbart and William “Bill"" English were working on something bigger when the idea of a “computer-aided display control"" was realized.


In 1962, Engelbart, working with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), published a report titled “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework"". This framework document led to the creation of the Augmentation Research Center which worked on a revolutionary computer collaboration system called NLS or the “oN-Line System""."
"Talking about Kalank, the 26-year-old actor said, “Janta ki adalat sabse badi adalat hoti ha (audience verdict is supreme)"
"“I was so thankful to have two other women in the cast and we would just like to cling to each other, and now the universe is expansive and we’ve got so many great actors, Danai, Brie, many now it’s a huge relief,” she said


In Endgame, Larson will reprise her role as Captain Marvel, after she starred in the studio’s first solo female-fronted eponymous superhero movie"
"Recently, a video featuring the Padmaavat star dressed in a school uniform was doing the rounds online"
"Bhansali is currently busy with his next directorial venture Inshallah, featuring Salman Khan and Alia Bhatt"
"The character was later integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he is currently being portrayed by Tom Holland


“I think I’ve been aware of that possibility that such a seminal, iconic role can follow an actor around and it takes a lot to shift the consciousness of an audience, and shift the consciousness of people"
"According to Counterpoint Research, Apple sold 1.7 million units of its iPhones in the country by the end of 2018, giving the company 1.2 percent market share in India. While the sales of iPhones have fallen, according to various reports, Apple has maintained that its focus on India is greater than it used to be."
"With his vast inheritance gone, she cashes in the last of her possessions and resolves to live out her twilight days anonymously in a modest apartment in Paris, accompanied by her directionless son (Hedges) and the embodiment of her husband in the form of the family cat, voiced by Letts"
"The tweet, accompanied by a photo of the actor, read, “Roger that! #NishantDahiya will play #RogerBinny, the leading wicket-taker of the ’83 World Cup! #CastOf83 #Relive83 @RanveerOfficial @kabirkhankk @RelianceEnt #MadhuMantena @vishinduri"
"TCS, India's biggest software exporter, said the company has achieved healthy order flows across multiple segments and from all major markets including Europe, the United Kingdom, India and the Middle East.


TCS bagged contracts of $6.2 billion last quarter, higher than the $5.9 billion of deals it secured in the December quarter.


“TCS’ strong order wins, improving growth in BFSI, all-round vertical growth, rising digital revenue and healthy Q4 exit rate drive confidence on underlying momentum, and we expect the IT major to comfortably post double-digit revenue growth in FY20. We are encouraged with margin management in a challenging environment. High payouts to shareholders in the form of buybacks, along with good visibility will ensure the stock remains at elevated valuations,"" Reliance Securities said in a note."
"Wysa has a current user base of over 300,000 people from more than 30 countries across age groups. Agarwal claims 600,000 people have talked to Wysa till date, and 21 people have written to the company to say the bot saved their life. The Journal of Medical Internet research (JMIR) recently published a peer-reviewed study showing that using Wysa can significantly reduce symptoms of depression, according to Agarwal. The company is also adding voice and language support so that Wysa can be available on AI assistants like Google Assistant.


Flyrobe is India’s leading fashion rental service founded by three IIT Bombay graduates—Shreya Mishra, Pranay Surana and Tushar Saxena. Founded in September 2015, Flyrobe offers designer wear on rent for men and women in 15 cities of India. “Our company’s DNA is that of a technology company as much as being a fashion company. We have also developed proprietary in-house technology for our back-end operations that we use extensively for logistics management, inventory management and customer service,"" according to Shreya Mishra, co-founder, Flyrobe. “ Flyrobe claims it has over 0.5 million app installs and a monthly website traffic of 0.5 million users. It was also one of the 17 start-ups from across the world to be selected for Google’s Launchpad Accelerator program in 2016.


Inclov is a matchmaking app for people with disabilities and helps them make friends and find love. “Our two major challenges lie in ensuring people with disability are empowered and enabled enough to use technology to their advantage like you and I can do today at our fingertips,"" explains founder Kalyani Khona. Since its launch in 2016, Inclov has brought together 12,000 couples, and has 35,000 subscribers across the country.


Through a project called Social Spaces, Inclov has already arranged nearly 50 meet-ups for those with special needs in 14 Indian cities, says Khona. Inclov has worked on making the user interface fully accessible to people with all kinds of special needs like autism and those having visual challenges. The next step, according to Khona, is to make the platform inclusive for amputees and people living with upper body immobility."
"Both super-wide and front camera lenses will be coated black to make them blend better with the surrounding bezel for an ""inconspicuous"" look, 9To5Mac reported on Saturday. Thus, it would be almost impossible to see the new lens, improving the apparent aesthetic symmetry."
"In the trailer, we are introduced to Sivakarthikeyan’s character Manohar, a man who has a keen interest in sports


Soon, we are introduced to Nayanthara’s character Keerthana, a super-serious and ambitious businesswoman"
"Former Prime Minister H.D.Deve Gowda was likely to contest from the Bengaluru North seat but the former decided instead to file his nominations from Tumakuru (Tumkur) parliamentary constituency. His decision adding to the simmering tensions between the coalition partners and its workers, who are unwilling to overcome past differences and work with each other.


S.P.Muddahanumegowda, the sitting Congress MP from Tumakuru filed his nomination on Monday despite the alliance agreement.


The Congress is trying to keep the alliance with the JD(S) intact as it would help the party stitch up more such partnerships across the country to help bring down the PM Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the centre."
"Google said in documents filed with the FCC that the effort emerged from the work of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group that focuses on development of mobile technologies.


The FCC said the Soli sensor captures motion in a three-dimensional space using a radar beam to enable touchless control of functions or features that can benefit users with mobility or speech impairments.


Google says the sensor can allow users to press an invisible button between the thumb and index fingers or a virtual dial that turns by rubbing a thumb against the index finger. In a video on its website, Google said a user could operate a smart watch, scroll through music or adjust the volume by simply motioning using the system.


Google added that the radar signal could penetrate fabrics, enabling controls that could work in a pocket or a backpack."
"Inflation has more than halved under Modi’s regime, averaging 4.8% since 2014. In contrast, consumer-price growth averaged more than 10% during 2009-2013.


Modi was voted into power, promising to double farmer incomes by 2022. He also pledged to fight persistent high food inflation, which had triggered anger towards the previous Congress-led government.


His administration tackled hoarders and carried out agriculture marketing reforms that have helped to break the monopoly of licensed traders and lowered marketing costs for farmers.


The introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) in July 2017 has also brought down food transportation costs, according to Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, while bumper harvests, both at home and abroad, have helped keep food prices tame."
"“It takes the pressure off me,"" said Erin Kraftchick, who typically keeps the cards in her wallet and hands them out when it’s time to make a purchase.


The Kraftchicks are part of a growing group of busy parents who are trying out app-controlled debit cards to give their offspring allowance, manage chores and teach them about money. Despite talk of a cashless society, physical cash is still widely preferred for small purchases, according to the Federal Reserve. But children may lose cash, or parents may not have it on hand when it’s time to pay up.


“We got tired of having a drawer full of dollars,"" said Brandi Tzonev, a sales manager and personal trainer in Lawrenceville, Georgia, who uses goHenry with her 15-year-old son, Alex, and 10-year-old daughter, Gabriella.


Some banks have long had accounts aimed at children and teenagers, and many families use prepaid debit cards — rather than traditional debit cards, linked to a checking account — as a way to help children manage money. But the newest generation of “smart"" debit cards are managed by advanced mobile apps that give parents detailed control over how much the young people spend — and even where they spend — with a few taps on a phone.


In addition to goHenry, which has been available in Britain for five years and moved into the United States this spring, the cards include financial technology startups like Greenlight, backed by Amazon and others, and Current, financed in part by an arm of Fifth Third Bank.


Details vary slightly by card, but in general a parent establishes an account or “wallet,"" linked to their traditional checking account. The app draws money from the bank account, and the parent transfers funds electronically to the child’s card. The child can spend only what is available on the card. Parents can set spending limits and restrict where cards can be used."
"Him: What is Avengers? Some Film? Or Series?After reading this text, I sent him a minute-long voice note in a shrill, supremely excited voice as obviously this news was too big to be handled over text


 Also, as the generous person that I am, I told him that he should not worry as I would be his mentor and guide and welcome the uninitiated into the Marvel family


After five unanswered texts and one nervous voice note later — which I heard and not replied to, he had offered to go watch Endgame with me, and also watch the 21 films that comprise the MCU


 At 10 am, with about 500 other movie-goers, most of whom were mostly pre-pubescent boys and young men, and some token girlfriends, I stood waiting, to be ushered into the theater


 Patiently lines were maintained and the cheap, single-use 3D glasses were taken, without elbow nudges or shoulder shoving


 The Delhi audience, which is otherwise quite impatient, unruly, and quite happy to call anyone and everyone out on anything, bore all this patiently"
"For Gully Boy, he spent two months with the people of Dharavi to understand their minds, their world and their daily life


Revealing more about his preparation for ’83, a source close to the film said, “Ranveer is supremely excited about the challenge and wants to again deliver an acting piece that lives up to the massive expectation of the people"
"Avengers: Infinity War ended on a cliffhanger and one could only guess how the story was going to move forward


 That combined with the international craze for the much-beloved superheroes turned the release of Endgame into a historic pop culture moment"
"Read the news in Malayalam Recently, the actor posted a heartfelt message for his wife Priya on her birthday"
"At least four brokerages raised their target price on the stock, though the lender posted a fall in third-quarter profit on Wednesday.


Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans, a measure of asset quality, fell to 7.75 percent at the end of December, from 8.54 percent in the previous quarter and 7.82 percent a year earlier.


ICICI Bank, however, accounts for a chunk of the country's bad loans. For an interactive graphic on the bad loans ratio at some Indian private sector lenders"
"The markets watchdog has proposed that relaxation might not be given to entities other than lenders in certain conditions as well as do away with the reference to 'competent authority' in the context of exemptions provided under its takeover regulations.


The proposals are expected to be taken up by the Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) board at its meeting scheduled to be held on March 1, the official said.


Under the Sebi norms, an entity has to make an open offer in case its shareholding goes beyond a certain threshold."
"It rocks a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor paired with Adreno 506 GPU. As mentioned earlier, the smartphone comes in two RAM and ROM options of 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB.


At the rear, the Redmi Y3 sports a 12MP+2MP dual rear camera setup with EIS, AI scene detection and dual-LED flash. At the front, the dot-notch houses a 32-megapixel selfie camera. It is the cheapest smartphone to offer such a high-resolution sensor. The selfie camera offers EIS, Full HD video recording, and AI portrait mode."
The excitement and anticipation for the record-breaking Marvel film has boosted cinema complexes across the city with people booking tickets twice and thrice over
"The protein undergoes a shape change when it binds to lanthanides, which is key for the sensor's fluorescence to ""turn on"", said the study.


To develop the sensor, the researchers from Pennsylvania State University in the US used a protein they recently described and subsequently used to explore the biology of bacteria that use lanthanides.


Rare earth metals are found in varying quantities in smartphones. Neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, terbium, gadolinium and lanthanum are found inside displays and other electronic components of smartphones. These are further re-purposed in making components for cars, airplanes, lasers and even next-generation armour plating."
"Performance: Simply put, the Galaxy S10 Plus is a fast phone. However, it’s not blazing fast like the OnePlus 6T. And you could say that this may work against Samsung. The Galaxy S10 Plus is one of the most expensive smartphones you can buy, yet it’s not the fastest Android phone out there.


To be sure, it does the job, and does it admirably. Lags and stutters are far and few, and unless you’re shifting to this phone from a OnePlus 6T, you will not feel the difference.


Display: Samsung has packed an absolutely top-notch display on this phone. It handles the widest colour ranges any phone can today, supports HDR10+ playback and it’s curved on both sides.


Samsung has also put a punch hole on the top right, to accommodate the front cameras, which gives it a more unique look than the notch designs other companies have used. Whether you like this, will depend on your personal preference. The display on the Galaxy S10 Plus isn’t a big upgrade to last year’s S9 but it definitely ranks among the best you can get today."
"This is a film for which I had prepared a lot … So I am more on the edge,” Varun told PTI in an interview


“A lot of eyeballs are there on this film because it is an ensemble and all this attention is making me anxious"
"Disney is hosting Wall Street analysts at its Burbank, California, headquarters to showcase the Disney app and provide additional details about its online media strategy.


The entertainment giant is trying to transform itself from a cable television powerhouse into a leader of streaming media. Chief Executive Bob Iger in February called streaming the company's ""No. 1 priority.""


The digital push is Disney's response to cord-cutting, the dropping of cable service that has hit its ESPN sports network and other channels, and the rise of Netflix Inc. The Silicon Valley upstart has amassed 139 million customers worldwide since it began streaming 12 years ago."
"What is comforting is that even with fast growth, asset quality has not got compromised. Bandhan Bank’s gross bad loan ratios improved sequentially, despite its exposure to troubled lender Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS).


In the third quarter of FY19, the bank’s chief, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, had said mea culpa on IL&FS after providing fully for the ₹385 crore exposure it had to the defaulting company."
He also revealed that he will be serving as a producer on the film along with David Stone and Ned Martel
"""For a couple of years, I've been looking at people's experiences with smartphones and listening to them talk about their frustration with the way they engage with their phones,"" said study co-author Alexis Hiniker, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington's Information School.


""But on the flip side, when we ask people what they find meaningful about their phone use, nobody says, Oh, nothing"".


They found a series of triggers, common across age groups, that start and end habitual smartphone use. The team also explored user-generated solutions to end undesirable phone use.


""The solution is not to get rid of this technology; it provides enormous value. So the question is: How do we support that value without bringing along all the baggage?"" asked Hiniker."
"Also read | Avengers Endgame movie review and release LIVE UPDATESChoosing the path it does, allows Endgame to flash back to the many high points of this franchise’s 22 films, set up some great encounters, show the evolution of its characters right from the first threads of their spandex suits, and underline the camaraderie that is ultimately the greatest strength of this bursting-at-the-seams cast


a Tony (Downey Jr) gets to settle his father issues, Captain America aka Steve (Evans) to have a shot at a normal life, Thor to choose between being god and man, Hulk aka Bruce to make peace with both his brain and brawn (though Ruffalo is Ruffalo, and sorely missed in his new green mass), Hawkeye aka Barton (Renner) acknowledges his feelings for Black Widow aka Natasha (Johansson), while the latter learns about her dad and has one of the most profound moments in the film, while just eating a sandwich


Starting with Downey Jr and Evans, the actors put their heart and soul into the goings-on, even when the film gets incredulous over its 3-hour-plus length and sags, like in Infinity War, in the real bang-for-the-buck bits


 However, the clear winner hands down is Hemsworth as Thor, now with straggly hair and a paunch, who has let himself go in the years following Thanos’s destruction of the world, wallowing in self-pity and beer"
"Pawar’s nephew Ajit hasn’t been able to step out of the Maval constituency where his son Parth is up against Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Barne to campaign for other NCP nominees.


As 14 Maharashtra seats go to polls on Tuesday, the NCP, founded two decades ago by Pawar, is fighting a battle for survival against a rampaging BJP-Shiv Sena-Republican Party of India alliance.


In 2014, the NCP won only four Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. One of its four members of Parliament (MPs) Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil shared the stage with Modi at a BJP rally last week in Akluj while Patil’s son Ranjeetsinh has already joined the BJP. In Dindori near Nashik, the BJP has poached Bharati Pawar from the NCP and fielded her.


“The Congress-NCP alliance invested lot of efforts in industrialization of Maharashtra which helped them build ties with the top echelons of the corporate world. But this connection has been disrupted by the new corporate class and a neo-intellectual class of voters which finds traction with the BJP. NCP has been put into a deep dilemma due to these socio-economic changes,"" said Prakash Pawar, professor of political science at the Shivaji University, Kolhapur."
"Sophisticated machine learning—considered a subset of artificial intelligence—and deep learning (a machine learning technique) algorithms are being trained on humongous amounts of data to draw inferences and patterns that can help firms make better business decisions. The increase in computing power is only helping artificial intelligence do this task, faster and almost in real-time. Artificial intelligence is already in your smartphones in the form of voice assistants, smarter cameras that can auto correct the focus and sharpen pictures, intelligent email inbox, etc.


Artificial intelligence is also doing image recognition, speech recognition, besides powering self-driving cars and powering smart home automation devices. Yet, there are concerns since unsupervised deep learning neural networks (loosely modelled on the human brain) are still largely unexplained black boxes. This has given rise to the concept of ‘Explainable AI’, pressuring the neural networks to explain how they arrived at a decision just as we humans do.


Blockchain, the technology that powers cryptocurrencies, is another tool that holds a lot of promise in terms of reducing costs, building efficiencies and establishing trust. But there are challenges like slower speeds (4,000 or so) of processing transactions (compared to say a master card or visa card that does almost 40,000).


Besides, most pilots across the world are being done with private (permissioned) blockchains that can perform thousands of transactions per second but cannot be termed as ‘true blockchains’ since they are ‘distributed digital databases’ being run on a private network. Nevertheless, in whatever form it runs, blockchain (or whatever we eventually may call it) remains a promising technology."
"Two days later, Xiaomi launched the Mi Mix 3, the most premium smartphone in its lineup with 5G. The phone boasts several firsts for Xiaomi—a nearly bezel-less 6.4-inch OLED display with 93.4% screen-to-body ratio, four cameras with slider mechanism and Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. It comes in three storage and memory variants with up to 10GB RAM and 256GB internal storage.


The answer is, it doesn’t. That’s because the 5G enabled Mi Mix 3 will start rolling out next year and it will be very different under the hood. It will be powered by the Snapdragon 845’s successor (which hasn’t been named yet) and will have a Qualcomm’s X50 modem that will allow 5G operations.


The modem will provide up to 5 gigabits per second download speed and will support advanced mobility features, including beam forming, beam steering and beam tracking. Qualcomm claims in fixed wireless applications the modem can replace fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) installations with wireless 5G connections."
"This time, Samsung will bring the Super-AMOLED Infinity V display to the M30, which will offer considerably better colours and contrast.


The M30 will be powered by Samsung's new Exynos 7904 processor which will be paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal memory variant. The device is also expected to have a 6GB/128GB variant. It will be backed by a 5,000mAh battery with support for fast charging. The device is expected to run the updated Samsung Experience UI based on Android Oreo 8.1."
"Gold prices today hovered near the four-month low hit in the previous session, after the US Federal Reserve dampened expectations of a rate cut in the near term, boosting the dollar and setting the bullion on course for a weekly drop. A stronger dollar makes gold costlier for holders of other currencies.


Spot gold was little changed at $1,272.01 per ounce. In the previous session, the yellow metal dropped to $1,265.85, its lowest since end-December. The bullion has lost about 1.1% so far this week. U.S. gold futures were steady at $1,273.30 an ounce.


On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said inflation risks flagged during the release of the US GDP data were only based on transitory factors, and that there was no obligation to readjust interest rates any time soon."
"The Huawei Band 3e is a completely stripped version of the Band 3, in a sports bracelet form. It comes with a new Footwear Mode: an application that provides precise running data with the press of a button.


With 50m water-resistance, Huawei claims the Band 3e is designed for completing easy everyday tasks as well as water-intensive activities like swimming.


The HUAWEI Band 3e provides treadmill running data at a 97% accuracy using a built-in 6-Axis Gyroscope based sensor in Footwear Mode. The performance data that is captured can help you enhance your daily performance. "
"Instead of animated snakes, the game represents different cities with buses and trains for users to choose from


Adding a fun-touch for users on April Fool's Day, Google is rolling out the classic ""Snakes"" game on Maps with a slight twist."
"It is lit by a 6.15-inch FHD+ LCD display with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. Under the hood, it is powered by a mid-range Kirin 710 chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The phone runs on Android Pie with EMUI 9.1 on top.


The P30 Lite sports a triple camera setup comprising a 24MP primary camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The front of the phone houses a 32MP selfie camera. It is backed by a 3,340mAh battery which supports 18W QuickCharge over a USB Type-C port."
"The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has just been banned and the separatists have called for a poll boycott. How do you think that situation will play out?


The boycotting of elections happens each time and everywhere. This has nothing to do with whether or not JKLF has been banned, or whether the Hurriyat has been affected. There are boys who are getting killed in Shopian and Pulwama, and as far as boycotting the polls go, we hope that the steps that Mehbooba Muftiji had taken when she was the chief minister to reach out to the people, will now help and people will come out to vote."
"The five southern states decide 130 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats that are up for grabs. Mint travels through a wide swathe of the south to discover the New India in this election season.


K. Manjunath's left hand moved to increase the volume of his car stereo immediately as the announcer on radio said, “Elections are here"". The station was beginning to interview a first-time voter from Bengaluru who introduced himself as Anish. ""I'm very excited,"" Anish said.


Anish explained in Kannada his dislike for the “jagada (fights)"" associated with present-day politics. Rather, he said, politicians should focus on real issues that were bothering the country's youth. ""Employment jaasti maadi. Education swalpam jaasti maadi (More employment, more education)."" In any case, he signed off saying, “Vote maadi (cast your vote)""."
"Omung Kumar, the director of PM Narendra Modi, a biopic on Prime Minister Modi, has said that although the movie had to be postponed, he is happy that the film finally has a release date


 Starring Vivek Oberoi in the titular role, PM Narendra Modi was initially going to be released on April 5"
"It will sport a Super-AMOLED Infinity V display, Exynos 7904 processor and up to 6GB/128GB of internal storage


Samsung's millennial-focused campaign will see the launch of another smartphone in its Galaxy M range of devices soon. The Samsung Galaxy M30 is tipped to be launched in February, according to a report by IANS."
"The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM— the principal enemy of Congress in Kerala— had last week announced P. Rajeev as their candidate from Ernakulam. Rajeev was lauded across party lines as a former Rajya Sabha member and has been in charge of the party in Ernakulam for the last few years and editor of the CPM mouthpiece, positions that allowed him to build a rapport in the constituency.


In short, Rajeev is not all a weak candidate and this may have prompted the party to give the seat to a relatively younger face. Eden, 35 is the son of late Congress leader George Eden, who rose up as a student leader to become a two-time Ernakulam MLA. He has been rising up the influence-ladder within the Congress party and making himself deep rooted pockets within the Catholic church as well as the masses in Ernakulam, according to a regional leader who did not want to be quoted.


On the ground, Congress leaders who were known to be close to Thomas once have turned against the veteran leader and are seen to be rooting for Eden now. “We will accept any candidate suggested by the high command and work for his victory. Perhaps the leadership thought Hibi has a more chance to win,"" said former MLA Dominic Presentation, also of the Congress ‘A’ group."
"Avengers: Endgame gave a closure to the story arcs of its original six – Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor and Hawkeye


 The film also had a mammoth opening worldwide with the audience calling it a perfect tribute to Marvel superheroes and their fans


 But amid all the hype, there continues to be questions about the characters, timelines and future films


Here are some of the things Avengers: Endgame director addressed:Why didn’t Natasha Romanoff get a funeral and could she be resurrected when the Soul Stone is returned?Director Joe Russo said, “[The] process is irreversible


 The tribute soul for the soul stone will forever be sealed in that place, therefore Black Widow is gone forever"
"The company made the changes in response to users' experiences with seeing their loved ones' profiles pop up on Facebook after they had died. Sometimes, the company said people might not be ready to memorialize a person's profile immediately after their death — it can feel like a big step they are not ready to take. Facebook says it will use AI to prevent that profile from showing up in places it might cause distress, such as in birthday reminders.


Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, whose husband died unexpectedly in 2015, is one of those users. She said seeing tributes to her late husband on Facebook have helped her cope with her grief."
"""We apologise to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,"" Riccio added.


The ""AirPower"" was reported to have faced internal development challenges due to which the Cupertino-based giant could not bring the product to market as smoothly as expected."
"The redesign is meant to make it easier for users to take part in communities, whether based on friendships, family ties or common interests, according to Simo. “It’s definitely part of Mark’s bigger vision,"" she said.


While counterintuitive, Facebook sees the change as potentially bringing people with opposing political viewpoints together rather than separating them in “filter bubbles""."
"Rahul Agarwal: We are getting a lot of data and like most organizations and most functions, we do not know what to do with it. There are very few examples globally, where data is being used to learn and gain insights. We are at a stage in our evolution, where there is a frenzy of collecting data. Everyone wants to collect data. But very few people have really found a meaningful use. When I look around, I feel that there is more hype than reality. I think the next 5-10 years will be spent in getting overexcited over this stuff and very few will be able to convert the data to deliver life changing experiences.


There will be some disruption due to AI and machine learning. There will be people who will not need offices. Will office spaces be relevant?


Karan Virwani: AI and automation will eliminate the roles that don’t need you to spend time on and actually, you can focus on solving much bigger problems. Ten years ago, you probably wouldn’t even believe a business like Uber or Swiggy would exist. Technology has given rise to a lot of new businesses, and there’s probably going to be far more exciting businesses in the next few years.


Rajesh Janey: The teamwork and collaboration will require all of us to come to office. But some of the tasks will be driven all through AI and algorithms."
"Earlier this month, a group of 20 people broke into dance in the middle of a market In Telangana as part of the campaign for Congress candidate Revanth Reddy, Times of India reported."
"The world is in danger with Idris Elba playing ‘Black Superman’, Brixton Lore, and it’s up to Hobbs and Shaw to save the world


The makers have hardly left anything to our imagination, but we are sure that the action scenes will compensate for any of the plot misgivings"
"The House panel observed that tech companies have failed to provide requested information on fighting terrorist content while Facebook did not respond. (AFP)


Google said it reviewed more than one million suspected terrorist videos on YouTube in the first quarter of 2019


Google said it spends ""hundreds of millions of dollars annually"" on reviewing content in a letter to US House Committee on Homeland Security"
"The exact number had yet to be determined, but archives with unencrypted user passwords were found dating back to the year 2012


Facebook on Thursday admitted that millions of passwords were stored in plain text on its internal servers, a security slip that left them readable by the social networking giant's employees.


""To be clear, these passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them,"" vice president of engineering, security, and privacy Pedro Canahuati said in a blog post."
"Asian currencies were trading lower. Malaysian ringgit was down 0.18%, South Korean won 0.11%, Japanese yen 0.08%, Indonesian rupiah 0.07%. However, Thai Baht was up 0.11%."
"It will be unfortunate if the EC supports voting machines instead of the voters, he added. Accusing the BJP of ""programming the EVMs"" to win the poll, Kejriwal claimed, ""People don't believe in EVMs anymore."" He said all opposition parties, except the BJP which is ""benefitting out of this manipulation of machines"", want the counting of at least 50% of the VVPAT slips.


“The loss of faith in the electoral procedure is raising a question mark on the country's democratic structure,"" he said.


He also accused the poll panel of ignoring the complaints of manipulations of EVMs. ""Why is the EC not listening or acting on the complaints? There is a serious manipulation of EVMs. Why is the EC ignoring this?"" he asked.


Claiming that all votes goes to the BJP irrespective of the buttons pressed on EVMs, Kejriwal asked why this discrepancy was not being investigated by the EC.


Asserting that the EVMs are not reliable, the opposition parties' key interlocutor Naidu said they are not satisfied with the Supreme Court order to the EC to increase the number of EVMs to be randomly verified from one to only five per assembly constituency. He said a fresh petition will be filed in the matter."
"Just a year after its introduction to Indian markets, Realme will launch its sixth device, the Realme 3, on 4 March. It will be the third sequel to the popular Realme 1 smartphone, the other two being the Realme 2 and 2 Pro.


Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth recently mentioned in a tweet that the Realme 3 will get the same processor as the Realme U1 i.e. the MediaTek Helio P70. The processor comprises eight cores and has the maximum CPU frequency of 2.1GHz. MediaTek claims it generates 13% more performance when compared to the Helio P60.


Realme has also teased the back of the smartphone, suggesting the reintroduction of the diamond-cut design pattern, which was one of the defining features of the Realme 1 and 2. Realme 2 Pro, C1 and U1 do not have this pattern."
"Oppo is all set to take the wraps off the Oppo K1 in India. The Oppo K1 launch will take place on Wednesday, 6 February. Flipkart has already created a landing page for the smartphone, confirming that the smartphone will be Flipkart exclusive device.


The smartphone was launched in China last year and its highlights include a Snapdragon 660 SoC, up to 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a dual-gradient back panel."
"From Wonder Women to quotes from Maya Angelou, this is the ultimate sticker collection of everything female empowerment. This pack is available only for Android.


This pack is created by Mexican artist Mayuli. WhatsApp claims this pack offers a sticker for any mood—whether you’re feeling like superwoman, or having a case of the Mondays. This pack is only available for Android users."
"“You are looking at a situation where growth is weakening at the margin"" and inflation is likely to remain below the RBI’s target next year, Gambhir, who’s been tracking the debt market for 24 years and now runs an advisory firm, said in an interview.


Five-year debt “looks the most exciting"" as the bulk of the central bank’s purchases are in the shorter-end of the yield curve, he said. The yield for these securities may drop to 6.75 percent by end-December, from 7.06 percent at present, he said."
"The new OMEN is surprisingly compact. HP has reduced the width of the bezels around the display, giving the screen a more edge-to-edge look, on the lines of the new Macbook Pro notebooks. But it has done so without compromising on the screen size. At 2.25kg, the OMEN 15-dc0085tx is lighter than any of the rivals with similar screen size.


Equipped with a 1,920x1,080p resolution and a refresh rate of 144Hz, the 15.6-inch display looks vivid and razor-sharp. The anti-reflective coating puts less stress on the eyes in brightly lit conditions. This puts the OMEN notebook on a par with Asus ROG Strix SCAR (₹1,54,990), which also offers a 144Hz display.


In terms of performance, the OMEN notebook was able to handle the likes of FIFA 18 and Far Cry 5 seamlessly, without any stutter. It has 16 GB RAM paired with Nvidia’s flagship GTX GeForce 1070 (8 GB) graphics and 128 GB SSD for quick boot-up of the Windows 10 operating system and apps. There’s also 1 TB HDD worth of storage to save games and other high-definition content. Like most gaming notebooks, the battery backup in the 15-dc0085tx isn’t one of its USPs. On full brightness, it can give an hour of non-stop gaming."
"The film has a huge star cast including Ravichandran, Arjun Sarja, Ambareesh, Ravi Shankar, Saikumar, Danish Akhtar Saifi, Sneha and Hariprriya among others"
"The Indus Water Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960 between the then prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and president of Pakistan Ayub Khan, brokered by World Bank, put constraints on the usage of water resources for hydropower generation and irrigation capacity building for Jammu and Kashmir. This involves an opportunity cost—the J&K state under the treaty provisions is entitled to use river water resources for hydropower generation and shall not create irrigation capacity building beyond 1.1 million acres.


Hydropower generation is possible provided there is a dam of requisite height. The three rivers, subjected to IWT bottleneck, are Sindh, Jhelum and Chenab flowing through J&K and these rivers survive on snowfall in winter, which in any case is a lean period for power generation because of low level of water, which lasts seven months. Against 2,200 megawatts (MW) of power requirement the state produces hardly one-third of it in the lean period and is bound to purchase power from the centre. It has no resource to buy requisite amount of power and purchases just one-fourth of requirement against payment of ₹6,000 crore, on an average per annum."
"However, the Note 7 is capable of shooting 2160p videos @30fps with EIS thanks to the Snapdragon 675 processor while the Oppo F11 is limited to 1080p videos @30fps.


The Galaxy A50 has a triple camera setup in a vertically stacked 25MP+8MP+5MP configuration. While the 25MP sensor has a regular field of view, the 8MP sensor is fitted with an ultra-wide lens.


The Redmi Note 7 has a 13MP selfie camera while the Oppo F11 and Samsung Galaxy A50 have 16MP and 25MP clickers respectively.


The Redmi Note 7 Pro is the cheapest smartphone of the lot and it starts at ₹13,999. The Galaxy A50 and Oppo F11 both start at ₹19,990."
"The build-up to the OnePlus 7 has begun. The company’s next smartphone is ruling search rankings in India and worldwide, but let’s take a look at what the leaks really mean for us consumers.


It seems OnePlus has finally learned its lesson after the OnePlus 3, 5 and 6 series. The company has often taken flak for launching the 3T, 5T and 6T models soon after the originals. This year, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau confirmed to The Verge that there will be two devices at launch, the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.


In his conversation with The Verge, and an earlier tweet, Lau said that the OnePlus 7 Pro’s display will “redefine fast and smooth"".


While Lau wouldn’t confirm the same, it’s likely that the company is taking a page out of Asus, Razer and others’ playbook. The new display is likely going to have higher refresh rates (90Hz and above), which would theoretically make it feel smoother during UI animations, games etc.


Refresh rate refers to the number of frames a display can show per second. So, 120Hz means 120 frames per second. Fast refresh rates are usually required for gaming, which is why gaming phones have had such displays."
"Actor Denise Richards is set to star in the sci-fi action movie Timecrafters: The Treasure of Pirate’s Cove


According to Variety, the film is the first in a proposed franchise about time-travelling seamen who try to retrieve a treasure map from kids in a local town called Pirate’s Cove"
"Results season is over and there have been some positive takeaways from them. Clearly, the auto sector and the ancillary makers have been under pressure with the largest auto maker Maruti seeing a slowdown. The impact of this is likely to remain for a couple of quarters.


The terror attack on the CRPF by a suicide bomber in Jammu and Kashmir -- the world has unitedly condemned the attack and asked Pakistan to take immediate action -- has added to the political tension, with elections due in about two months."
"Chants of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, ‘Vande Mataram’, ‘Jai Shri Ram’, ‘Narendra Modi zindabad’, ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Ghar-ghar bhagwa chhayega, Ram rajya aayega’ resounded the auditorium on loop


On May 12, Delhi will vote on seven constituencies — Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi, East Delhi, New Delhi, North West Delhi, West Delhi and South Delhi — in the sixth phase of general elections"
RRR is a fictional story based on the struggles of Telugu tribal leaders Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem
"Refresh rates (number of times the screen refreshes per second) of 75Hz is adequate, but for a better experience, 144Hz or higher is recommended. Developers of online multiplayer game PUBG also recommend using monitors with refresh rate of 144H or higher. Monitors that support Nvidia’s proprietary G-Sync technology reduce input lag and provide a tear free gaming experience.


Game controllers: While Sony and Microsoft bundle wireless controllers with their respective consoles, PC gamers have to get them separately. Microsoft’s Xbox Controllers (₹3,999) for Windows OS which connect via USB are the best available option."
"Although OnePlus hasn't released the date of rolling out the new build, it wouldn't take much longer as it's already in the beta phase of testing.


If you wish to try it out on your device after it gets the latest update, select a contact, tap on ""see all"" and finally choose ""video call""."
"Avengers: Endgame has received highly positive reviews as well, holding a 96 per cent score at Rotten Tomatoes


5 star review, “Having laboured over setting up the final battle in Avengers: Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years"
"“However, I feel people need to have the opportunity to leave the safe and familiar of their lives and go to a place where they can sit in the company of others and have a shared experience — cry together, laugh together, be afraid together — so that when it’s over, they might feel a little less like strangers


”Spielberg, who swings between serious dramas (“The Color Purple,” “Schindler’s List”) and big-budget fantasies (“Jurassic Park,” “Ready Player One”), appears to recognize that more is at stake at this moment in Hollywood than awards eligibility


 12, with Apple, WarnerMedia and Comcast not far behind — movie theaters could become even more reliant on superheroes, sequels and remakes


Could there soon come a day where popcorn movies like “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” arrive in theaters but more sober films like “Lincoln” go directly to a streaming service? It’s not a far-fetched concern given the film industry’s current trajectory


 Moreover, some important new voices whose work has emerged on Netflix — Dee Rees (“Mudbound”), Cary Joji Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation”) — have had their films excluded from theaters because the streaming service and the multiplex chains have been at loggerheads


Asked at a recent convention for movie theater operators whether he would consider reducing the 90-day period of exclusivity for certain film genres, Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC, responded by saying: “Shocking as it may be, it’s better not to have those negotiations in the pages of The New York Times


 Having said that, AMC has a willingness to consider alternatives to the current status quo — if, and it’s a big if, underline it with a red Sharpie — any change would benefit the shareholders of AMC


 The streaming company has generally resisted giving theaters any period of exclusivity, preferring to make films instantly available on its service worldwide


Netflix may bend further for “The Irishman,” an expensive crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese that is scheduled to arrive in the fall"
"As part of the expansion, ""Instant Tethering"" has now reached select HTC, Huwei, LG, Motorola, OnePlus and Samsung Android smartphones along with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung Chromebooks. "
"WhatsApp Pay, stuck owing to India's demand to store data locally, has not gone beyond the beta testing it did with nearly one million users last year.


""In Instagram and Facebook, you have shopping, and you have Marketplace and you have all the tens of millions of small businesses that use pages and a lot that use Instagram for sharing their inventory and being able to help people discover and pay.


""When you're using a messaging service, that everything there is very intimate and private so it feels like a more natural space to be interacting with a business in a private way for doing transactions,"" Zuckerberg added.


Facebook daily active users reached 1.56 billion, up 8 per cent compared to last year, led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines."
"The majority of mobility use cases can be served better by MaaS, or Mobility as a Service, than by ownership. (NYT)


Shared tech: GM is testing autonomous EV fleet of Chevy Bolts with plans to launch a commercial ride-sharing service this year


On the move: Toyota has partnered with Amazon, Uber for e-Palette— an electric, autonomous minivan for mass transit, deliveries and mobile offices


Some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs say things like “the home of the future will have no kitchen and no garage"". While this may seem far-fetched, in some cities it is possible to see how this might be true. The rise of ubiquitous connectivity and a generation that values convenience suggests that it is worth re-thinking the idea of the city of tomorrow.


First and foremost, it is critical to recognize that the city has always been intricately intertwined with mobility. The attractiveness of urbanization—access to opportunity, diversity, culture, education—is largely about social mobility, but none of that is possible without physical mobility.


The aspiration of city residents has led to outward expansion. Finding an affordable home with sufficient space, living in a community of like-minded people, and owning a vehicle for the freedom to get around have all become characteristics of the peri-urban lifestyle. The result is an aspirational society that spends at least one hour of the day getting from one place to another.


The urban sprawl starts for similar reasons: overshooting of intended density and then affordability, forcing growing populations to expand cities spatially. This leads to suboptimal density of urban settlements and, in turn, lengthens commute and vehicle kilometers travelled, which in turn leads to de-densification."
"The available stories range from tales about Blaze and the Monster Machines to more classic bedtime stories like Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood.


This is in addition to other story features like ""read along"", which automatically plays sound effects as you read from a number of Disney Little Golden Books, TechCrunch reported on Thursday."
"Enemy property refers to the assets left behind by people who migrated to Pakistan or China and are no longer citizens of India


Over ₹10,600 crore has come in from buyback of government shares by Central Public Sector Enterprises


New Delhi: Sale of 'enemy shares' and buyback of stocks by CPSEs have together yielded the government over ₹11,300 crore, thus helping the exchequer mop up ₹85,000 crore from disinvestment in the current fiscal — the second highest receipt ever."
"Huawei Mate 20 Pro comes with several interesting features and specifications, including the company’s Kirin 980 processor based on a 7nm process and the radially placed triple camera setup at the back. One key feature of the Mate 20 Pro, which comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and expandable up to 256GB, is wireless reverse charging.


Amazon India is offering several special offers for the purchase of Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It is offering 10% discount with IndusInd Bank cards and RBL Bank credit cards. No-cost EMI facility will be available on Bajaj Finserv and major cards. Idea/Vodafone users can also avail 20% rental discount or additional data benefits."
"On the other, the same guy hesitates to consider seeing a woman because he is told she is not good-looking


With rural pockets of Tamil Nadu witnessing a spate in caste-related violence in recent times, it’s necessary that filmmakers exercise enough caution while dealing with stories that are caste-driven"
"Would the AETHER Committee principles handle AI bias like what happened in 2016 with your company’s Tay bot when it was accused of racial bias?


One concern that arises with AI systems is that while human beings may have biases, they are at least not systematic. However, if an AI system captures the human bias and you replicate this application across the world, there might be this implicit embedded bias that’s systematic now. In the case of Tay, it was actually a malicious attack with people trying to get the systems to do strange things by finding vulnerabilities, and it taught us quite a few lessons about AI-related systems.


We are coming up internally with what we call a responsible AI standard in Microsoft that is applicable across the whole company. We also have a working group that is actually a hotline and mechanism for anybody in Microsoft—engineering team, sales team, field work—to sensitize them to the questions they actually wanted to ask. And there is an “Ask AETHER"" line—they can actually request and review or get some policy guidance on the use of AI consequences like does it involve the possibility of harm, emotional or physical, and does it potentially infringe on human rights issues."
"The BJP is confident that the higher turnout was due to voter awareness and the frenzy around Modi, who is seeking another term in office around issues like national security, especially after the cross-border airstrikes against Pakistan.


“It was as if voters did not want to Modi to miss out on being PM again,"" said Jagadish Shettar, former Karnataka chief minister and senior BJP leader. The BJP is confident of winning over 20 seats, that will not only add to the national tally of the party but also add to the problems of the H.D.Kumaraswamy-led coalition government that has been battling to stay afloat since the two parties joined hands in May last year.


The JD(S) believes that the higher turnout is not indicative of any wave for Modi, but the initiative of the voter to come out and exercise their respective duty."
"The Honor 8C was launched in November last year with offers including ₹ 4,450 ‘Jio Digital Life Benefits’, up to 100GB of 4G data and 5% instant discount on ICICI credit and debit cards while making EMI transactions. You can also go receive Cleartrip coupons worth ₹ 2,250, ₹ 200 cashback via Paytm and MobiKwik SuperCash up to ₹ 2,000.


The Honor 8C sports 6.26-inch HD+ LCD display with a resolution of 1520x720. The display comes with a notch, which provides it a screen-to-body ratio of 86.6%. Under the hood, the phone is powered by Qualcomm’s new octa-core chipset, the Snapdragon 632 which is coupled with Adreno 506 GPU and up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 256GB via a MicroSD card. The phone is backed by a 4,000mAh battery with support for 10W charging."
"Kunal, 35, is “overwhelmed” with the response coming his way for Kalank and he gives credit to producer Karan Johar for “trusting” him with his grand vision


”The actor will next be seen in Malang, which reunites him with his Kalyug director Mohit Suri and a long-awaited sequel to the zombie comedy “Go Goa Gone”"
"The introduction of a 5G-enabled iPhone could create a wave of upgrades and purchases, especially for high-end models (AFP)


Apple expert and predictor Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple would release 5G-equipped iPhones in 2020 powered by chipsets from Qualcomm and Samsung


Apple is also working on redesigning the printed circuit boards to be included in 2019 iPhone models using a new kind of material to clear out space for a bigger battery"
"Lok Sabha elections in the north-eastern states, except Assam, will be held over the first two of the seven phases of polling


BJP has been poaching leaders of other parties and aligning with regional outfits in the North-East for Lok Sabha elections"
"“The amount of inspection done over several days can be heavily optimized and completed in a few hours with the use of drones and the analysis of that,"" says Daniel Raj David, CEO and co-founder, DeTect. Under the new policy, drones will need permission via the Digital Sky platform before they can take off. The new regulations, despite being somewhat more stringent than in other countries, have been received well by drone companies in India.


Mughilan Thiru Ramasamy, CEO Skylark Drones feels this is just the beginning of a new era and in the next two to three years more such use cases will come up, where drones will be deployed by enterprises for monitoring far-off sites and infrastructure that are not easily accessible such as a reservoir or a cell tower."
"Referring towards Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who will contest from Mandya, a local Congress leader claims his party workers are unwilling to campaign for JD(S) candidate


The BJP stands to gain from the infighting in the south Karnataka region where it has little or no presence at all


BENGALURU: A local Congress leader from Mandya district, in Karnataka, on Tuesday publicly aired his views on the displeasure of party workers who he claimed were unwilling to campaign for the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections."
"For cobalt, which is a key battery material, Apple sends iPhone batteries recovered by Daisy upstream in its supply chain.


They are then combined with scrap from select manufacturing sites and, for the first time, cobalt recovered through this process is now being used to make brand-new Apple batteries.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The new sensor supports better face recognition used in phone unlocking and payment authentication, as well as augmented reality and virtual reality applications, it added.


According to Andreas Urschitz, president at Infineon’s Power Management & Multimarket division, 3D cameras will be found in most smartphones within the next five years and the German company will contribute a significant share."
"Other than that we feel the digital world is booming and we have nothing to fear as of now!What will be your message to all the YouTubers, especially dancers?Team Naach: Be consistent and put in the hard work to create very good content


 Also, continue learning and exploring different dance styles because it is never too late to start learning


 Coming from a small city, no money, nothing to create content with or even to say nothing to look up to"
"In the national capital, gold of 99.9 per cent and 99.5 per cent purities advanced by ₹340 each to ₹34,450 and ₹34,300 per 10 gram, respectively.


Silver ready declined by ₹130 to ₹41,530 per kg and weekly-based delivery saw a fall of ₹139 to ₹40,437 per kg."
"Vivo latest mid-range offering, the V15 Pro, is set to be launched on 20 February. The smartphone's highlight is the 32MP front facing pop up camera. Going by the advertisements featuring Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, the smartphone will have a clean, notch-free display and a glittery back panel. The AI-enabled triple rear camera module sits inside a black strip which seamlessly disappears upwards and makes way for the motorised camera module.


Amazon India has confirmed that the Vivo V15 Pro will be an Amazon exclusive device. Interested users can start registering by clicking on the 'Notify Me' button."
"It’s kind of like what my dad used to say, ‘If you can’t say anything nice, say something embarrassing"
"""Gmail's tabbed inbox feature was the first of its kind, helping you organise messages by category, so you can see what's new at a glance. AI-powered features like Smart Reply and Nudges helped you reply faster and stay on top of your to-dos,' the company added.


Google rolled out a big redesign of Gmail in 2018 and added several new features, including Smart Reply, email snoozing, follow-up Nudges and hover actions, as well as the inline attachments and images on Android.


Google in January released a new interface design for the mobile version of Gmail that includes new visual implementations, as well as feature additions."
"Since it carries the Android Go badge, it is expected to be an affordable device falling way below the ₹ 10,000 mark. Since it has been certified with IMDA, FCC and EEC, it is likely that it will be targeted at Singaporean, American and Russian markets.


Another Xiaomi smartphone also made it to the Chinese TENAA listing. Details on the smartphone’s platform are restricted to it having a CPU frequency of 2.3GHz. It will be available in RAM options of 3GB, 4GB, and 6GB and internal storage options of 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. The listing also showed the device runs Android Oreo 8.1. It is rumoured to be named Xiaomi Play."
"Apple has also redesigned the App Store, adding new sections such as the Today tab, which puts the spotlight on one app every day. “Every Day App Store"" editors handpick an app and put it at the top of the Today tab, where it can be seen by users in more than 50 countries. Numerics is one of the apps by an Indian developer to be featured in the Today tab.


Apple’s Design Awards is another platform which helps put lesser known apps by small developers on the global map. Chennai-based developer, Raja Vijayraman, became the first Indian to win this award in June 2018 at the Worldwide Developers Conference for Calzy 3.


mint-india-wire AppleApple iOS 12Apple app acceleratorApple developerApple developer conferenceWWDC 2018App acceleratorApp store"
"The vibrant tone of the trailer turns serious when we see that our hero is presented with a conflict which is bigger than himself


Also read | Bharat trailer release LIVE UPDATESApart from Salman, Bharat features Katrina Kaif, Tabu, Disha Patani, Sunil Grover and Jackie Shroff, among others, in pivotal roles"
"The Realme U1 is expected to be priced between ₹13,000 and ₹15,000, and will be pitted against the upcoming Redmi Note 6 Pro


Realme U1RealmeRealme U1 india launchRealme U1 specificationsXiaomi Redmi Note 6 ProMediatek helio P70mediatek p70Realme P70 benchmark


After revealing its new brand identity, Realme announced the launch of a new smartphone. The Chinese smartphone maker announced that it will take the covers off the Realme U1 on November 28 at 12:30 pm. The smartphone is expected to be sport new hardware, specifically the newest processor from MediaTek."
"While that unit beat analyst expectations with $10.8 billion in sales in the quarter ended in December, growth has slowed compared to previous years.


""Roughly 60 percent of our services business is outside the United States, and as you know, the U.S. dollar has appreciated in recent months,"" Maestri said. ""And in general, we tend not to reprice our services for foreign exchange on a very frequent basis.""


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"""Most of the user interface of the browser is a mix of Chrome and Edge, and Microsoft has clearly tried to add its own little touches here and there,"" The Verge reported on Saturday.


The setup screen prompts users to choose a style for the default tab page before they start browsing.


""When you first install the Chromium version of Edge, Microsoft will prompt you to import favourites, passwords, and browsing history from Chrome or Edge depending on your default choices,"" the report said."
"”She added, “There are other nice lines here, about failure and finding oneself, about “ending being part of the story of a hero’s gig”, about “no amount of money buying you a second of time”, about the choice between freedom and control, about the things that are better left alone (a Wakandan on an earthquake under the ocean), and about even time travel (“either all of it is a joke or none of it is)” — though some of it might sound less brilliant in retrospect"
"Apple has negotiated with the likes of HBO, Starz and Showtime but the centerpiece will be original programming


On March 25, a delegation of producers, studio executives and name actors will enter the subterranean 1,000-seat Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, for one of those Apple showcases, with the chief executive, Tim Cook, commanding the stage before a crowd of loyalists.


This time around, the focus won’t be on the next must-have device. With iPhone sales showing signs of fatigue, the event is intended to draw attention to the company’s billion-dollar-plus bet on entertainment, an initiative that will put Apple in direct competition with Netflix, Amazon and HBO.


The premiere date for the service is getting closer, with the first of a dozen or more shows likely to start streaming before the year is out. At next week’s presentation, Apple is expected to reveal details of what it has been working on with stars from both sides of the camera like Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Brie Larson, Jason Momoa, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, M. Night Shyamalan and Steven Spielberg.


The tag line, “It’s show time,"" appeared prominently on the invitations. For many of the show-business people, this will be their first trip to Cupertino, the corporate home of their new patrons.


Apple didn’t need stars before, but it needs them now. Although the company was the first publicly traded American firm to be valued above $1 trillion, its most recent earnings report showed flat profits and falling revenue.


So the plan is not only to sell devices, but to fill them with content. That has led the company into the alien territory of Hollywood, where local customs can clash with Silicon Valley folkways.


Apple is a relatively late arrival to streaming. Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have offered original programming for several years and are now formidable presences at the Emmys. In 2018, there were nearly 500 scripted television shows available in the United States, with Netflix spending at least $8 billion on new content. Amazon, the Walt Disney Co. and Warner Media have increased their programming budgets to keep pace.


Apple has decided to put more emphasis on its services — think Apple Music and Apple Pay — to increase revenues. The strategy will include an expansion of Apple News, which is expected to be highlighted at the showcase, and the star-studded streaming service. Apple has negotiated with the likes of HBO, Starz and Showtime to populate its screens, Bloomberg has reported, but the centerpiece will be original programming."
"A new line of products such as smart beds, pillows, blankets, etc. are said to help people sleep better.


It's still early days and doctors need to have more experience with such products before recommending them


mint-india-wire Sleep disordersgadgetssleep technologyAnti snoring pillowSleep IQSleep Number 360Responsive Air techsmart bedsmart pillowbed with sensors


New Delhi: Sleep deprivation, snoring, sleep apnea, insomnia and restless legs syndrome are some of the top sleep-related issues. While improving lifestyle, better eating habits and medication can help, there has been a lot of R&D on sleep technology. A new line of products such as smart beds, pillows, blankets, etc. are said to help people sleep better."
"“Luke went in and won that part and deserved that part and owned that part, so it’s really special that was a bucket list that he was able to work with Quentin"
"The TV character and the first-time candidate also overlapped at times on the campaign trail:Separatism and the war in the EastThe dispute over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a deadly separatist war in eastern Ukraine are likely to dominate Zelenskiy’s agenda


Zelenskiy, a Russian speaker from central Ukraine, said earlier this year he doesn’t see military force as an option for bringing either area back under Kiev’s wing


In the latest season of Servant of the People, Zelenskiy’s character, Vasyl Holoborodko, assumes the presidency of a country split into 28 independent states, some of which resemble actual separatist fiefdoms in eastern Ukraine


 We’re one country, we’re all Ukrainians,” the fictional President Holoborodko tells two separatist leaders in one episode of the TV show


 At the end of the latest season, Ukraine’s east and west come back together following a joint effort to help coal miners trapped underground


Overhaul of government After an exit poll predicted he won nearly three out of every four votes, Zelenskiy on Sunday reiterated a campaign promise to fire Ukraine’s prosecutor general for an appointee of his own


”In the first season of Servant of the People, the president character pushes out existing officials with reputations for corruption and abusing power"
He made his Netflix debut with The Ridiculous 6 in 2015 and then did the successful The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) in 2017
"Industry sources told IANS on Thursday that the sale of Galaxy 'M30' with a triple rear-camera system and a massive 5,000mAh battery will begin in the first week of March.


The South Korean tech company previously launched the Galaxy M10 and M20 devices in India that featured Samsung's brand new LCD Infinity V displays, which are Samsung's rendition of teardrop notches."
"OPPO A1K is equipped with ColorOS 6.0, the company's latest update to its intuitive operation system."
"Streaming service Netflix has begun trials of a new mobile-only weekly plan priced at ₹65 for users in India. This is the cheapest mobile-only plan offered by Netflix in India.


Netflix has pointed out that this is only a test and not a permanent price cut. This comes after the company started testing its cheaper mobile-only subscription plans in India last month.


The ₹65 weekly plan comes with the one-month free trial, but comes with limited access compared to other higher priced plans. Netflix users are restricted to a single screen at a time with this weekly plan and can access the service only on their smartphones and tablets."
"The ABS plastic of the keyboard is durable, no doubt, but seems ill finished and cheap to touch. The highlights of the keyboard include six macro keys with three macro modes, LED backlighting and 26 anti-ghosting keys.


I loved the flexibility of macro keys at this price point. The option to have four macro modes is extremely useful if you competitively play more than two titles every day. I found it more useful in games like DotA 2 than FPSes like PUBG since you end up saving more time while stocking up your inventory.


But there’s no cherry on the cake, and by that, I mean Cherry MX switches. It’s unfair to expect one at this price point, but what’s the point of buying a gaming keyboard, right?


Having used the keyboard for a couple months, I noticed the keys got a bit mushy. The keys are not bad for typing though. It does take a while to get used to the macro row of keys, but once you’re past that, it’s all easy."
"New York City: OnePlus on Monday globally unveiled the OnePlus 6T—the yearly upgrade to its flagship OnePlus 6. The launch, which took place in New York City, also saw the unveiling of the OnePlus Type-C Bullets earphones. The OnePlus 6T is priced at $549 (about ₹ 40,000) for the 6GB/128GB version, while the 8GB/128GB and 8GB/256GB variants cost $579 (about ₹ 42,500) and $629 (about ₹ 46,000) respectively. The OnePlus Type-C Bullets are priced at $19.


The OnePlus 6T is an incremental upgrade over the OnePlus 6, which was launched in May this year. The OnePlus 6T comes with a 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED display at the front with a resolution of 2340x1080. This gives it an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The phone sports a teardrop notch which helps it attain a higher screen-to-body ratio when compared to the OnePlus 6. Protecting the display is Corning’s new Gorilla Glass 6 which was launched earlier this year.


The phone features the same glass-sandwich design present on the OnePlus 6, but without a fingerprint scanner interrupting the back of the phone. Instead, the phone has an in-display fingerprint scanner underneath the screen."
"Under the hood, the Oppo K1 is powered by Qualcomm's octa-core Snapdragon 660 processor clocked at 2.2GHz.


Highlights of the Oppo K1 include a Snapdragon 660 SoC, up to 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a dual-gradient back panel"
"Filmmaker Ayan Mukerji had told the media in an interaction, “It’s a modern-day film set in India as it exists today"
"Titled Baghini: Bengal Tigress, the film by director Nehal Dutta is ‘inspired’ by the life of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee


”BJP’s West Bengal arm has already written a letter to the EC objecting to the release of the film on May 3"
"""By collaborating with the USB Promoter Group, we're opening the doors for innovation across a wide range of devices and increasing compatibility to deliver better experiences to consumers.""


""USB4's high throughput and advanced features enable new scenarios in consumer, enterprise, and intelligent edge markets, while maintaining interoperability with existing USB and Thunderbolt 3 devices,"" said Roanne Sones, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft OS Platforms. ""We are excited to work with our partners in the ecosystem to bring USB4 to market and showcase its benefits.""


The USB Promoter Group is comprised of Apple Inc., Hewlett-Packard Inc., Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Renesas Electronics Corporation, ST Microelectronics, and Texas Instruments.


The group also develops specification addendums (USB Power Delivery, USB Type-C and others) to extend or adapt its specifications to support more platform types or use cases where adopting USB technology will be beneficial in delivering a more ubiquitous, richer user experience."
"While the survey findings are still mostly positive, the declines are a worrying shift for Google, which prides itself on high employee morale, luxurious working conditions and high pay. If these things are beginning to erode, the company could lose talent to other technology companies, undermining its ability to build new services that drive its profitable advertising business.


Last year, tension between the company and employees exploded into the public realm. Workers clashed with management on a range of issues, including a lack of benefits for contract staff and the ethical use of artificial intelligence. Thousands of Google staff staged a walkout after a report that the company gave large exit payments to executives accused of sexual harassment.


Google added new questions to the latest survey, highlighting potential management concerns. Employees were asked if Google responds quickly and consistently to verified cases of proven misconduct. 53% responded positively. Staff were also asked if they understand how their compensation is determined, and 56% indicated yes."
"For the week of April 22-28, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships:Game of Thrones, HBO, 12"
"Revival of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is in the making with Dark Knight co-writer David S Goyer attached to pen the script


The revival treatment is being given by Gary Barber’s Spyglass Media Group and the company will finance, develop, and distribute the film worldwide"
"Assembly polls in Bihar are likely to be held within 18 months after the Lok Sabha elections. The general elections may, therefore, offer a peek into who holds the key to the next government in the state. The Lok Sabha polls could thus decide the political fate of regional satraps, most of whom are passing on power to the next generation of leadership. This includes Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, LJP chief and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar."
"On the work front, Kajal Aggarwal will next be seen in the yet-to-be-titled gangster drama Sharwanand


 In Tamil, her Paris Paris is gearing up for release and she will also be seen as the female lead in Komali"
"The Nokia 9.1 is expected to boast a penta-lens setup at the back, a Snapdragon 845 SoC and 8GB of RAM. It might be priced similarly to the Nokia 8 Sirocco


Nokia 9.1 PureViewNokia 9.1 PureView launchMWC 2019Nokia 6.2Nokia 6.2 launchNokia 6.2 MWC 2019Nokia 9.1 PureView MWC 2019 launch


Nokia had pretty eventful 2018—from the revival of the classic banana phone to the slew of Android One devices. The foundation of this incredible line-up had its roots in the Mobile World Congress, where Nokia showcased smartphones including the Nokia 8 Sirocco."
"Making healthcare more accessible and affordable using technology is the motto of Qure.ai. Founded in 2016, Qure.ai uses deep learning algorithms to interpret X-rays, CT scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) providing faster, more accurate diagnosis and better patient monitoring. According to Prashant Warier, CEO and co-founder, Qure.ai offers two solutions. A qXR for chest scans and qER for head scans. The algorithms detect the abnormalities from chest X-rays and scans and creates an automated report which is similar to a radiologist’s report but with greater accuracy. From the X-ray and/or MRI scans for abnormalities, Qure.ai generates a heat map of the abnormalities, making it easier for doctors to identify the presence and extent of the disease and thereby recommend personalized treatments."" Qure.ai solutions are offered via cloud services with limited local computing needs and are affordably priced. Alternatively, Qure.ai’s pay-per-use model also allows clinics and radiology centres in suburban and rural areas to utilize our solutions, adds Warier."
"“We will see new features and improvements likely to be introduced to the Google Assistant, alongwith updates to the Google Duplex AI. These new updates will be to further increase availability of Duplex AI, as well as build on the Google Assistant to make it more market competitive,"" added CMR’s Ram.


Duplex is currently available to users in 43 US states on Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S10 and Apple iPhones.


After failing to make much impact with VR gaming via its DayDream VR platforms, Google is eyeing the gaming community with a hardware-agnostic cloud gaming service called Stadia. Launched early this year, the platform allows gamers to play games on their web browser without having to download and install a game file on the device first. Players can access Stadia and games on it on any laptop, desktops, smart TV, tablet or smartphone that has a web browser. Support for mice, keyboards, USB controller, or Google’s wireless game controller are available for Stadia games.


Like any new platform, it’s success will likely depend on how many games are on it. At the developer event, Google might announce new games and tie-ups with game publishers for Stadia."
"The major issues are lack of jobs, prices of farm produce, water scarcity and national security. The state depends heavily on tourism. However, this is a seasonal industry and with a dearth of jobs in other sectors, the youth often go to Dharamshala, Shimla or outside the state in search of employment. The scarcity of water in summer is a cause for concern in Shimla. Tourist-heavy areas such as the state capital face the problem of encroachments. In a Rajput-dominated state, national security is an emotive issue."
"The back of the phone features a 12MP+13MP AI enabled dual camera with Optical Image Stabilisation. The lens of the rear camera is made by ZEISS. The front camera is an AI-enabled 20MP clicker.


The phone runs on Android One based on Android Oreo 8 which means it’s on the priority list for latest security and firmware upgrades from Google."
"In the run up to the release of Avengers: Endgame, every possible late night/day time/prime time talk show had done their bit to promote the film, which many have dubbed as the final crescendo-esque offering of the Avengers franchise (it’s true)


 Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in the franchise, even made a whole fake movie, starring himself and Paul Rudd, to talk about as during promotions they couldn’t talk about what they did in Endgame


 The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon made the Avengers cast sing a reworked version of Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire” – and voila in two-minutes flat they had surmised the entire cast and plot of the Avengers down to a hummable ditty


 True, that it will take me weeks to memorise the new Avengers lyrics – as it did with the original – but as a #marvelfangirl, who’s complaining?There is this boy I am texting with


 I sent him the Avengers: Endgame version of “We didn’t start the fire”, thinking that if he wasn’t a #marvelfan, at least the crossover of a Billy Joel classic would make him chuckle


 Excerpts from the conversation after the above-mentioned song was dispatched to his inbox:Me: In case you are clued into the MCU, and are waiting for Avengers Endgame


 (Read: Hoping to god you are, and would sit and watch all the 21 films with me before watching the first day, first show of Endgame with me"
"The company did not mention how many units were sold and for how long the online sale lasted before Amazon India put out the 'sold out' sign


Samsung on Tuesday released its two industry-first Galaxy 'M' smartphones — ""M10"" and ""M20"" — for sale on Amazon India that claimed to have witnessed an ""unprecedented"" first day sale record."
"Perhaps the most important usage for the ToF sensor though is in augmented reality. The sensor’s depth-mapping capabilities will help programs intermix the real and virtual worlds better.


In sum, ToF sensors certainly have benefits for users but whether they truly change smartphone cameras will depend on how manufacturers use them."
"The base model might come with a smaller 5.6-inch display with a resolution of 1080 x 2220 pixels resolution and screen density (DPI) of 440. Reports suggest it might be powered by a Snadpragon 675 processor, the same one found inside the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Both smartphones are expected to run at least 4GB of RAM."
"“I maxed out the 10-seat capacity that the ticket booking app allowed and saw the midnight show at iMax the next day


 I kept scanning the app, and we made quite an experience of watching the film,” says Tejas Menon, indie musician and founder of Geek Fruit, a podcast on pop culture


 Nishant Singh, 33, a Noida-based sales expert in industrial equipment, saw the film on Friday, at 8 am, alone


 My wife is not into this genre, but because I have gone crazy, she saw Avengers: Infinity War on TV, so she knows what to expect from Avengers: Endgame,” says Singh


 According to Bookmyshow, a leading entertainment aggregator and ticketing service, these figures will only grow"
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tweeted out to prominent people, including movie stars and cricketers, to encourage Indians to vote in large numbers in the Lok Sabha elections. (Photo: PTI)


Out of the 91 individuals and institutes Modi tagged, the top 15 boast follower counts ranging from 13-37 million


Senior actors Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and filmmaker Karan Johar were also encouraged to spread voter awareness


NEW DELHI: The official Twitter handle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took election marketing to a new level on Wednesday morning. In a move ostensibly to create voter awareness, Modi tweeted out to prominent people, including movie stars, cricketers, industrialists, journalists, spiritual gurus and even rival politicians, to encourage Indians to vote in large numbers in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections."
"Kashyap said the company is also looking at expanding the app to other Indic languages like Bengali, soon.


To ensure safety of the child, all personal information always stays on device. The users are also not asked for details like email ID and gender for logging into the app.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"When George secretly marries local widow Rose (Moss), an angry Phil wages a relentless war to destroy her by using her son Peter as a pawn,” the plot synopsis read"
"“I actually approached them to offer them a chance to watch the film with me and Nick and I hope that will happen one day,” he added


The biopic, which also features Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi, Mimi Keene and Pam Ferris, is due to land on May 10, more than 46 years after Tolkien’s death"
"Silver coins, too, faced pressure and fell by ₹1,000 to ₹79,000 for buying and ₹80,000 for selling of 100 pieces."
"Irrespective of the results, this will be the first election in the state since the passing of Jayalalithaa (in December 2016) and Karunanidhi (in August 2018).


If Karunanidhi dominated Tamil Nadu politics for half a century, Jayalalithaa shared this domination in a bitter rivalry with him for at least half of that period. Both left deep imprints on national politics as well. If Karunanidhi propped up at least two Union governments—the United Front in 1996 and the UPA I in 2004—Jayalalithaa toppled the BJP-led NDA government in April 1999 after giving it a hard time for 13 months, when its very survival depended on her support. Shortly after, she brought a Congress coalition tantalizingly close to power.


In the 2014 parliamentary elections, her party coined the slogan: “Modi or the Lady?"" Jayalalithaa swept the polls winning 37 out of 39 seats on her own, garnering an astonishing 44.5% of votes. But it was a pyrrhic victory, as the Modi-led BJP won a majority thus putting a wrench in her national plans, and Mamata Bannerjee’s ambitions as well.


Admittedly both Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa have cast a long shadow on Tamil Nadu politics. Predictions that the AIADMK will implode have been belied. The day of reckoning for the AIADMK government has been postponed with the chief minister Palaniswami skating on thin ice with more than a little support from New Delhi. If by-elections for 21 seats vacated by the disqualification of 21 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) for voting against the party’s whip is to be held simultaneously, it would amount to a general election to form the state government.


Elections 2019 will decide many things. How will the two Dravidian majors fare after the demise of their towering leaders? What will be the shape of the DMK in the post-Karunanidhi era? How many of AIADMK’s traditional voters will remain with the official party, and how much will be garnered by its challenger, Dhinakaran? Will smaller parties continue to tilt the scales?


But then these are the mere trees. One should not miss the woods. Ultimately, the big question is: who will have the finger on the nuclear button in the event of a coalition government? In plain terms, will Modi have a shot at power again by looking beyond the Hindi heartland? Or in other words, what can the BJP reasonably hope to gain from Tamil Nadu? Even a die-hard bhakt would not bet on more than one of the five seats. The bottom line for the BJP in Tamil Nadu boils down to little more than limiting the Congress’ victory.


A.R. Venkatachalapathy is an author, most recently, of a book on contemporary Tamil Nadu, Tamil Characters: Personalities, Politics, Culture."
"Since then Sandor has pyrophobia and runs from the battlefield whenever he sees a lot of it (like in the Battle of Blackwater Bay)


Daenerys Targaryen becomes the Mad Queen: Most of us thought it would be Cersei Lannister who will end up as the Mad Queen (in the fashion Aerys Targaryen was the Mad King who almost burnt King’s Landing down to the ground)


 And she also learnt that Jon Snow is not Jon Snow but a Targaryen like her and has a better claim to the Iron Throne, something she always desired"
"The set of Chiranjeevi’s period drama Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy was damaged on Friday, after a fire broke out at the Megastar’s farmhouse, which is located in Ranga Reddy district in Telangana


According to sources, there were no casualties or injuries as the fire broke out in the early hours of Friday"
"What happens now in the MCU? Despite no post-credit scene, Avengers: Endgame offers a lot of clues about MCU’s future


The newer superheroes like Carol Danvers, Peter Parker, T’Challa, Doctor Strange and others are going to lead the future crop of superheroes


Also, in a welcome move, we are going to see a more diverse cast of characters and more representation in terms of gender and race"
"“In these constituencies which include those that our alliance partner Shiv Sena is contesting, there was an equal or even greater demand for Modiji’s rallies but he cannot go everywhere. That is why we have structured his campaign schedule in such a manner that he at least addresses some meetings in the catchment constituencies, like Dindori which is close to Nashik or Madha which is close to Solapur,"" said the BJP campaign team member.


Nashik, where the sitting Shiv Sena member of Parliament (MP) Hemant Godse is locked in a tight contest against NCP’s Sameer Bhujbal, goes to polls on 29 April and the Shiv Sena leadership and Godse himself have been demanding Modi’s rally to tilt the balance in NDA’s favour, the BJP leader said.


In Dindori, the BJP and NCP are engaged in a fierce prestige fight as the former has poached Bharati Pawar from the NCP and fielded her against the NCP’s Dhanraj Mahale."
"To keep track of all the places users check-in at and with whom, the platform is also trying its hands on a feature called ""virtual passport"" as a private history which users could view or delete singularly, Social Media Today reported on Wednesday.


With these features, Snapchat seems to be targeting the ""gamification"" purpose of the platform that Snapchat has been known for, wherein users build records of exchanging snaps with each other every single day and call them ""Snap Streaks""."
"Apart from a female superhero (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel) who is the most powerful of the pack, there is also the first gay character in Endgame


 In the sequence, different people are seen sharing their stories of how they are dealing with the death or at least disappearance of their loved ones"
"Talking about the experience of working with Nani, she said, “Not once during the shoot Nani got irritated with my takes or language


”With Jersey ending up on Tamilrockers, it is yet to be seen if the film’s box office collection will get affected by this leak


com’s Manoj Kumar R, “Not just drama, Jersey has enough cricketing moments to draw you to the edge of the seat"
"Jyeshthoputro movie cast: Prosenjit, Ritwik Chakraborty, Sudipta Chakraborty, Gargee Roychowdhury, Daminee Basu
Jyeshthoputro movie director: Kaushik Ganguly
Jyeshthoputro movie rating: 3 starsIt has been exactly six years since his death but filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh still presides over Bengali cinema


 In a city slowly waking up to capitalism, malls and multiplexes, his films attracted a primarily middle-class audience that headed to standalone theaters like Minar, Bijoli and Chabighar to see characters go through emotions that were pertinent to them


 The quintessentially Bengali aesthetics of his films seemed so true to their times that they became almost aspirational for the audience


Towards the later part of his career, however, Ghosh chose to make films that were, for the lack of a better term, more indulgent


 Even his biggest fan will admit that films like Noukadubi (2011), Satyanweshi (2013) and Chitrangadha (2012) were not a patch on his earlier films, Dahan (1997), Asukh (1999) and Bariwali (2000)


In an episode of Ghosh & Company, Rituparno Ghosh’s eminently watchable talk show that made even Babul Supriyo sound interesting, Ghosh chides Aniruddha Ray Chaudhuri and Kaushik Ganguly, celebrated filmmakers of contemporary Bengal, for not being true to their craft"
"Chulbul Pandey is back! Salman Khan took to social media to share the first poster of the third iteration of the Dabangg franchise


Salman’s brother Arbaaz Khan, who directed the last movie in the series and is co-producing Dabangg 3, told indianexpress"
"A lower-than-expected demand for the new iPhones and Apple’s decision to offer more models has made it more difficult to anticipate the number of components and handsets the company needs, according to the paper.


Apple shocked investors a few weeks ago with a lower-than-expected sales forecast for the Christmas quarter, prompting certain suppliers to issue warnings that pointed to weakness in new iPhone sales."
"The two smartphones are also backed by the same 4,000mAh battery and run Android Oreo 8.1 but Micromax promises that the smartphones will receive the Pie upgrade within 45 days.


In terms of optics, the smartphone have a dual rear camera at the back consisting of 13MP and 5MP sensors. At the front, the N12 sports a 16MP selfie camera while the N11 has an 8MP sensor."
"The disarray within the state unit stands in sharp contrast to the focus given to the state by the BJP national leadership over the last few years


 Kerala is the only state, if one excludes the smaller northeastern states, where the party has not been able to win a parliamentary seat ever


BENGALURU: The fights to deny temple entry for menstruating women in Sabarimala, against a last year's supreme court order, was supposed to be transforming event for the BJP in 2019 parliamentary contest in Kerala."
"The suit, filed by Jay Brodsky in California, alleged that Apple did not get user consent to enable two-factor authentication, Apple insider reported on Saturday.


Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of security designed by Apple to ensure that you are the only person who can access your account, even if someone knows your password."
"Nick Jonas shared a couple of photos from the performance and captioned them, “AHHH that was amazing! #BBMAs” He also shared a Boomerang video with wife Priyanka Chopra and wrote, “The Jonai in Vegas"
"The survey shows that there are several issues such as jobs and safety of women, on which the youth share common views irrespective of their ideological affiliations. There is also considerable convergence of views on economic issues. Yet, on issues such as the consumption of beef and alcohol, those supporting BJP differ from those who don’t.


The survey shows that the millennial voter is highly engaged with politics and has a view on everything including controversial issues such as the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya."
"U.S. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and leading critic of social media, told Reuters in a statement that large platforms increasingly are ""taking more and more data from users, for wider and more far-reaching uses, without any corresponding compensation to the user.""


Warner said he is drafting legislation that would require Facebook to ""disclose the value of users' data, and tell users exactly how their data is being monetized.""


Human-powered content labeling, also referred to as ""data annotation,"" is a growth industry as companies seek to harness data for AI training and other purposes.


Self-driving car companies such as Alphabet Inc's Waymo have labelers identify traffic lights and pedestrians in videos to fortify their AI. Voice assistant developers including Amazon.com Inc have people annotate customer audio to improve AI's ability to decipher speech.


Facebook launched the Wipro project in April last year. The Indian firm received a $4 million contract and formed a team of about 260 labelers, according to the workers. Last year, the work consisted of analyzing posts from the prior five years.


After completing that, the team in December was cut to about 30 and shifted to labeling each month posts from the prior month. Work is expected to last through at least the end of 2019, they said.


The company said its analysis is ongoing so it could not provide any findings from the labeling or resulting product decisions. It has not told labelers the purpose or results of the project, and the workers said all they have inferred from their limited view is that selfies are increasingly popular.


The Wipro labelers and Facebook said the posts are a random sampling of text-based status updates, shared links, event posts, Stories feature uploads, videos and photos, including user-posted screenshots of chats on Facebook's various messaging apps. The posts come from Facebook and Instagram users globally, in languages including English, Hindi and Arabic.


Each item goes to two labelers to check accuracy, and a third if they disagree, Facebook said. Workers said they see on average 700 items per day. Facebook said the target average is lower."
"The pressure from moderation in aluminium prices can be seen on a sequential basis. Operating profit at the aluminium segment dropped 4.7% from the September quarter. But thanks to better volumes and realizations in the copper business, Hindalco (stand-alone plus Utkal Alumina) managed to maintain the operating profit at the September-quarter level.


With coal availability improving and crude oil-based raw material prices easing, the management expects the input cost base to either remain flat or moderate in the current quarter.


Further, with the US-based subsidiary Novelis Inc. seeing decent growth (operating profit up 5.6%), Hindalco should see another steady quarter (Q4 FY19), unless the global economic situation turns for the worse. “Cost competitiveness in Hindalco’s India operations driven by increased coal security, quick ramp-up of new capacities and high margins at Novelis/Aleris with higher proportion of automotive products in the mix continues to drive an upward earnings trajectory for the consolidated entity,"" analysts at JM Financial Institutional Securities Ltd said in a 5 February note. Novelis is acquiring Aleris Corp., and the acquisition is expected to be completed in the second half of this year."
"Currently, the 13-inch MacBook Pro maxes out at 16GB RAM, but Kuo suggests that the iPhone-maker may add a 32GB RAM option also.


""Kuo adds that the Apple Watch ECG function will come to additional countries this year along with a ceramic casing design and AirPods 2 will support wireless charging and upgraded Bluetooth connectivity,"" the report added."
"The CWC is the highest decision-making body of the party and is chaired by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.


Top Congress leaders, including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, A K Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni and Anand Sharma, will be present at the meeting.


Former chief ministers Siddharamaiah, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi and Harish Rawat will attend the meeting.


Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who took charge last month as AICC general secretary UP east and UP west respectively, will also be present."
"Congress leader Hardik Patel had been sentenced to jail for two years over charges of rioting and arson at Visnagar town. (Photo: HT)


Patel had been sentenced to two years in jail by a sessions court on 25 July in a four-year-old case of rioting and arson at Visnagar town


A Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices Arun Misra, M.M. Shatanagouda and Navin Sinha, said there was no urgency to hear the matter"
"On Thursday, the highest turnout of 76.07% was witnessed in West Bengal, while the lowest was in Jammu and Kashmir at 43.4%


NEW DELHI: Eleven states and a Union territory went to the polls in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, recording an interim turnout of 66% that the Election Commission said would increase after data comes in from remote areas.


“This (second-phase turnout) is an interim figure. We expect it to increase but we cannot say by how much unless we get the final figures,"" senior deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha told reporters.


Polling took place in 38 Lok Sabha constituencies, along with by-elections in 18 crucial assembly seats in Tamil Nadu. With the two phases completed, a majority of southern India has now voted in the 17th general elections."
"With over 9 million views on YouTube, the Holi spot ‘Rang laaye sang’ (loosely translated to colours that bring us together) which features an innocent bond between a little Hindu girl and a Muslim boy, has been targeted for Love Jihad vilification on social media platforms.


The campaign message of bringing people together and showing how colours can be an equalizer in society resonated with the netizens but not with the troll army which made #BoycottHindustanUnilever and #BoycottSurfExcel trend. However, there is an emerging parallel narrative on the micro-blogging platform with people standing up for the brand tweeting with hashtags #stopdivisiveness.


HUL said it stands by the campaign adding that in the last decade, the brand has advertised on the philosophy of ‘Daag Acche Hain’ (Dirt is Good). In its various campaigns, the brand has championed ‘doing good’ by showing kids getting dirty while playing, and in the process, demonstrating empathy for the less privileged, respect for elders, loyalty, caring and many other values.


“This is true of our current campaign as well—the Surf excel #RangLaayeSang campaign embodies the brand’s ‘Daag Acche Hain’ philosophy, and captures how the colours of Holi can be a force for good, melting differences and bringing people together. In the advertisement, you see two innocent children who demonstrate friendship and bonding in the true spirit of the festival. This reflects the true ethos of India as a caring, plural and secular society,"" said an HUL spokesperson in an email to Mint."
"Maruti Suzuki, the nation’s largest by market share, slid for seven days through Tuesday after saying April revenue declined 17 percent from the year-ago month. (Ramesh Pathania/Mint)


A slowdown in consumption amid a cash crunch in the banking system has left carmakers with a pile of unsold vehicles


India’s auto stocks have lost $42 billion in value in the last 16 months, and some analysts say the rout may not be over."
"This year, Huawei’s chief financial officer was arrested in Canada at the behest of the US. Photo: Reuters


Las Vegas: The CES 2019 gadget show, which kicks off Sunday, will showcase the expanding influence and sway of China’s rapidly growing technology sector. But some of its firms are stepping back from the spotlight amid rising US national-security concerns over Chinese tech and a trans-Pacific trade war launched by President Donald Trump.


Last year, a top executive of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei delivered a CES keynote address critical of AT&T’s abrupt cancellation of plans to sell a Huawei phone following espionage concerns raised by the US government. This year, Huawei’s chief financial officer was arrested in Canada at the behest of the US; Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Huawei’s founder, now awaits US extradition. No Chinese technology executives will deliver CES keynotes in Las Vegas this week.


There are fewer Chinese entrepreneurs buying up booth space to show off their latest technology — more than 20% fewer exhibitors than last year, according to registration numbers tracked by the South China Morning Post. Chinese firms still account for more than a quarter of the conference’s 4,500 exhibitors, second only to the US in sheer numbers. But some of the biggest names are taking a more subdued approach.


Internet company Baidu last year hosted a flashy event touting its self-driving software, but this year is sticking to a more conventional booth. E-commerce giant Alibaba is eschewing the big outdoor tent it helped erect last year in favor of quieter meetings marketing its voice assistant to business partners. The phone maker Xiaomi is simply skipping this year’s event altogether."
"Schools seem to be finding these ERP apps helpful. Krishnan Raju Nair, school administrator, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, explained that the user-friendliness of the Gateway to School app makes it easy for parents, security guards and other personnel to adopt the apps. “We did have to give some training (to the guards), but they all use touch-screen phones now, so they got it easily,"" he said.


mint-india-wire Schoolstudents safetyenterprise appsschool securityRyan International SchoolIWS EdusolutionsEduNextdigital identity cardstechnology"
"The LG will debut a smartphone on the first day of MWC, on February 24. LG hasn't mentioned the name of the smartphone, but it will most likely be the LG G8.


LG did mention about a 5G phone launch at the event—one of which will have a 4,000mAh battery and a Snapdragon 855 chipset.


LG has confirmed the presence of a ToF camera on this smartphone. The ToF camera will be designed by Infineon and will offer better low light performance, facial recognition times and augmented reality experience. By"
"HDFC's m-cap plunged ₹5,052.42 crore to ₹3,39,906.42 crore and that of HDFC Bank declined by ₹3,662.39 crore to ₹6,20,015.67 crore


IT heavyweight TCS m-cap jumped by ₹34,822.13 crore to reach ₹8,39,896.27 crore and Infosys ₹9,043.69 crore to ₹3,22,033.94 crore


New Delhi: Eight of the 10 most valued Indian firms together added ₹54,151.62 crore in market valuation last week, with IT heavyweight TCS accounting for the lion's share."
"The firm’s core digital strategy: Connected Factory, Smart Products, Connected Customer, Digital Workplace


The group’s digital transformation exercise began in phases four years ago and, today, the RPG Group spends more than ₹100 crore annually on digital initiatives


If you happen to visit the RPG Group headquarters in Mumbai early this month, you may end up stepping on a “hot spot"", which is basically a pressure tile that can detect a visitor’s presence. The pressure tile has in-built sensors and micro-controllers that will launch an application on a 20ft x 8ft LED digital screen, allowing you to control the narrative on the screen with your gestures that are tracked by a motion sensing device developed by Microsoft.


“The idea is to unleash our brand tagline ‘Hello Happiness’ in a digitally immersive and experiential way, and help people understand our story,"" says Samip Mutha, vice president and group head (digital and innovation), RPG Enterprises."
"Which party, then, would they pick as first-time voters in the ongoing general elections? It took only a slight squabble for a disyllabic consensus to emerge (or be articulated): “NOTA"". If “None of the Above"" were to turn out the top choice of the electorate, they held, then a repoll ought to be ordered. “It’s the only way to keep bad candidates out,"" said one. “The corrupt,"" specified another.


Would all the other voters out there agree? A mix of doubt and gloom appeared to hush the hostel room for a moment before Prashant Dixit, 23, ventured his analysis of Indian democracy’s principal problem: “andh-bhakti (blind devotion) and polarization"". He was particularly put off by a troll attack he’d suffered the other day for sharing a video clip of Ravish Kumar on social media. “Why do politicians only address sensitive issues? What about jobs? That’s No. 1 as a common issue. Health? Infrastructure? Education?"" It served as a cue for others to speak up. “Even a peon’s job takes a bribe."" “Recruitment exam papers always get leaked."" “In the name of jobs also, there is now divisive talk.""


“The youth are not being given a chance,"" said Sachin Kumar Yadav, 20, who’d been content to listen all this while. “Yes, why is that?"" added Dixit, “People will want an answer.""


The curse of caste politics didn’t take long to rear itself. “So long as the whole system is not reformed, this will go on,"" said Shukla, “Politicians won’t reform their ways, there’ll still be buying tickets to contest elections."" There was no getting away from the likes of Pragya Thakur and Azam Khan, said someone, at which reminders were exchanged of their ugly words. The courts, social media, Election Commission of India (ECI) and others were all complicit in this mahaul, this environment, said someone else, even as disgust was aired at lynch mobs, “anti-national"" labels and the national media—this time round, for not asking why Pulwama’s martyrs were denied an airlift. Bhakts, the gathering felt, were a creation of the media.


On defence, though, it was quickly pointed out, the Prime Minister had done good work. Whether this meant Modi would get another term in office was met with many a nod of agreement. As Pathak summed it up, “There is no vikalp (alternative).""


The sense that the 17th Lok Sabha was already in the BJP’s bag seemed to prevail even more heavily in Old Lucknow. At the Bara Imambara, this was what Aysha Anam, 26, made of the scenario: “The BJP is already in power, and if you look at the way it’s using this power with the EC and media, it’s not going to give up the throne.""


Adnan Siddiqui, 30, had a few words to put in. “Institutions have been hijacked,"" as he saw it. “Why can’t we switch back to paper ballots?"" Anam wanted to know. “In a democracy, we don’t choose a leader and then vote,"" she said, “It’s not just Rahul Gandhi in the Congress, there are many leaders. They’ve tarnished his image, but Priyanka’s, they can’t."""
"The back of the phone houses a vertically aligned dual-camera setup consisting of 13MP+2MP configuration. The front sports an 8MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture. All three cameras, on the front and back, are AI powered. Honor claims the camera app can recognise over 500 scenarios in 22 different categories. The 8C comes with HDR support to enhance shadows and highlights of pictures and an AR lens feature. An AI Shopping feature is also present that detects an object and searches for a similar item or its alternative online using the built-in Neural Processing Unit.


The phone supports dual-4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS/ A-GPS, GLONASS, Bluetooth v4.2, BeiDou, a Micro-USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack."
"There’s only one thing that bugs me though. In the minutes that I saw the Mate X for, and the videos of these phones I’ve seen, I saw no software innovation.


Every hardware innovation has been aided, in no small part, by software innovation. The software on the Mate X and other foldable phones is plain Android. There’s no effort, except in changing screen orientations (which was inevitable), to even do something clever with a screen that folds. Will we really use foldable phones for split screen apps only? Could Huawei not have put a clock on the curved part of the screen when it’s folded? And can Samsung think of something better? In fact, can the bar that holds the cameras on the Mate X have a separate battery that charges the phone whenever it is in ‘phone mode’? All questions worth asking.


Foldable screens are here, and unless the universe has other plans, they’re here to stay. But, it will be a while before they’re perfect and we will just have to wait for that"
"Congress president Rahul Gandhi along with other opposition party chiefs at Parliament House, in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI)


Opposition parties express solidarity with forces in crushing terrorism, demand that Modi convene all-party meet


Internal security and terrorism have become key political issues ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections 


NEW DELHI: On a day when tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, more than 20 opposition parties led by the Congress on Wednesday slammed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “politicizing the sacrifices"" made by the Indian Armed Forces and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately convene an all-party meeting to discuss the security situation."
"The messaging app, with 1.3 billion global users and over 200 million users in India, has been working closely on its business platform for a year now.


Nearly one year after debuting the WhatsApp Business application, the app is now used by more than 5 million businesses monthly."
"Their individual shortcomings stop them from taking their budding relationship forward but their chemistry in the film proved to be a nice subplot


 His devious plans coupled with his abundant power would have resulted in nothing had James Spader not voiced this character


 What was Ultron and how did he die?This was the question that many were left asking at the end of the movie


 Ultron was shown to exist inside the world wide web and even if we believe the extent of his powers, the way he was defeated certainly doesn’t add up


 Stark being a know-it-allStark has been boasting about his know-it-all brain since Iron Man (2008) but this time, he took it a little far"
"If you dig deep into the headline of ‘Stop killer robots’, it is not looking at the notion of a Terminator-like robot that will take over the world. It is more about weaponization, about using robotics and AI technology for fighting wars, and creating automatic AI that would make decisions to fire weapons for example, or differentiate between people during decision making. It’s those kind of cognitive levels decisions where somebody has to be involved.


At the moment, even if you have automated systems in the world, there is a direct line of responsibility that can be traced. So this campaign is saying that we should take care not to automate processes in such critical cases. The same could be said of healthcare robots as well. People are still uncomfortable about such robots taking significant decisions.


Tech luminaries like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have raised concerns over AI’s prowess while other academics have taken a pro-AI stance. What’s your take?"
"The app, at present, has been made available to senior police officers on their smartphones and will soon be shared with officials at the police station-level. Photo: AFP


The database has been created after bringing together criminal records of the state police, the prisons department and the GRP that guards the railway network in the state


New Delhi: Police in Uttar Pradesh will now be able to solve cases faster with an application that has a data base of five lakh criminals as well as AI, face recognition and a host of other tech features, officials said Thursday. Named ‘Trinetra’ or third eye, it was launched by UP Police chief O P Singh at a conference of senior officers during the annual ‘police week’ celebrations in Lucknow, a senior official said."
"The six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) will go to the polls in the first five of the seven phases. (Paras Jain/Mint)


New Delhi: Given Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K's) troubled history and a low voter turnout in the 2014 general elections, parties may face a tough time in the polls this time. Polling in the Anantnag parliamentary seat will be held over three phases. Mint looks at the electoral dynamics of the state."
"The only option with developers will be to increase the selling price, which may not be possible given the beleaguered state of the sector. A report from SBICap Securities Ltd says: “This is likely to raise the developer’s construction cost (ex-land), by ~18-20%.""


The impact of lower GST in the absence of input tax credit, therefore, will vary based on the region and the project. For instance, projects in Mumbai and Delhi or Gurugram, where land cost is high, may have less pressure on margins, as they can build in the increase in cost into the price. But those in south India, such as Bengaluru, and non-metros such as Pune, where cost of land is relatively lower, and the share of developmental cost is higher, will feel the heat on margins. Based on this, analysts are concerned about the negative impact on profit margins of firms such as Sobha Ltd and Prestige Estates Projects Ltd, which are developing projects at places where land cost is relatively lower."
"""The Eluga Ray 800 bundles a number of exciting features such as stylish looks, extended battery life and AI Arbo Hub - our one stop app to make life easier at an extremely affordable price,"" Panasonic India Business Head-Mobility Division Pankaj Rana said in a statement.


A big 4000mAh battery powers the phone that has a 5.5-inch full HD display with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass on top."
"In his winning speech, Hrithik thanked the judges, trainers, voice expert Ananth Vaidyanathan, his school and everyone who voted for him"
"In the 2G feature phone segment, Lava was second to Samsung with a difference of only 2% in market share.


""Over the years, we have been building capabilities within India in product design and manufacturing -- in order to make valuable technologies accessible and provide reliable products to our customers,"" Sunil Raina, President and Business Head, Lava International Ltd, said in a statement on Tuesday."
"Prior to this development, one by one, 10 Congress MLAs started defecting to the TRS in less three months after the assembly elections were held (on 7 December, 2018) last year. Other leaders like former state home minister D. K. Aruna (in joint Andhra Pradesh) also quit and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after she was denied a Lok Sabha ticket in the run up to the general elections (17 seats in Telangana).


Even after the 2014 assembly elections, the Congress had lost eight of its 21 MLAs to the TRS. In 2018, it formed a grand alliance by joining hands with the the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Communist Party of India, and the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), but it was match for the TRS, which won 88 of the 119 seats in the assembly."
"The decision came less than 24 hours after Human Rights Campaign said it was excluding a rating of Google for its Corporate Equality Index


The app was developed by a Christian group which says it serves people feeling conflicted about their faith and sexuality


Google Inc. will remove a controversial app that promoted “conversion therapy"" from its Play Store after pressure from a gay-rights lobby."
"The movie, which is an official adaptation of he Tom Hanks film Forrest Gump, will release on Christmas, 2020


Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to Twitter to share the update and wrote, “Mark the date… Aamir Khan’s new film #LaalSinghChaddha to release on #Christmas 2020… Stars Aamir in title role… Directed by Advait Chandan… Written by Atul Kulkarni… #Viacom18Movies"
"A win in Odisha Elections 2019 will give Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik a fifth term. (PTI)


A win for BJD in Odisha elections will give Naveen Patnaik a fifth term, any shortfall will be indicative of his dwindling popularity


While BJP has improved its strength in Odisha, the Congress would like to do a Chhattigarh in the state in upcoming elections"
"Though users may be attracted to the idea of quick access to games from any device, they may not get all the games they want. Financial analysts have questioned whether the tech companies will be able to charge consumers prices high enough to attract top game publishers that have a lucrative business selling games on discs.


Game publishers also may decide to launch their own streaming services, as film and TV studios have begun doing for their content in the last few years.


Google had launched a test of Project Stream last October, inviting users to play Ubisoft Entertainment SA's new game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey from their web browsers for free."
"Hollywood star Charlize Theron believes the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have brought about a positive change in the society and have made things better for women


The two movements were aimed at bring an end to sexual harassment and gender inequality and Theron said she is thrilled ”as a woman” to witness the shift, reported Contactmusic"
"Censors are omnipresent. Nothing goes unmonitored and anything that even vaguely smells suspicious invites immediate reprisal. When a few Chinese bloggers humorously compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to the cuddly Winnie the Pooh, the government blocked all search requests for the beloved fictional bear.


According to Amnesty International, China has the largest number of imprisoned cyber-dissidents in the world. And it’s getting scarier. China is training and providing technology to other authoritarian regimes on net censorship. This is a serious threat to democracy around the world.


The government says that this will protect the country’s internet from foreign cyberattacks or other threats. But international human rights groups and Putin’s opponents say it is an attempt to restrict information flow.


The proposal is to route all Russian internet and data through a central point controlled by the state. Theoretically, this would allow the government to cut off the Russian internet from the rest of the global network. The law would grant more powers to Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin’s federal censor. This will be, quite simply, the new iron curtain.


India has a much better record on internet freedom. Governments have mostly concentrated on blocking porn sites and specific URLs that were allegedly spreading misinformation. In democracy watchdog Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2018 report (bit.ly/2zhm7tu), India ranks 30th among the 65 countries surveyed. But that could change for the worse and it could be done so smoothly by a clever government that we might not even notice until our rights were already severely curtailed.


With the elections beginning within a fortnight from now, echo chambers and fake news are grave dangers. And in the last few years, social media in India has been flooded with fake news and hate speech. Deliberately falsified or misleading content is a powerful tool in the hands of politicians. But it cuts both ways. Politicians can also use “fake news"" as a pretext to suppress facts. Our rationality will be facing some very tough tests in the coming weeks.


So, 30 years on, the internet needs some serious fixing. The very future of how we run our lives and societies may be at stake. Is it possible at all? In the words of Sir Tim: “Given how much the Web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the Web as we know it can’t be changed for the better in the next 30. If we give up on building a better Web now, then the Web will not have failed us. We will have failed the Web.""


Sandipan Deb is a former editor of Financial Express, and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines."
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"""The term sheet has a greenshoe option allowing a total sale of 0.44% or up to 26.7 million shares. The terms indicate the shares will be sold between ₹255.4 and 260.8 apiece. That implies a discount of 3% to 5% to Thursday’s closing price,"" the report said."
"According to Variety, the family adventure series, set in Marvel’s X-Men universe, was produced by 20th Century Fox TV, which now is part of Disney, in association with Marvel Television


The show revolved around a suburban couple whose ordinary lives are rocked by the sudden discovery that their teenage children possess mutant powers"
"Redmi Note 7 Pro will be available for ₹13,999 for the 4GB+64GB variant starting on 13 March via Mi.com, Flipkart and Mi Home stores


New Delhi: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on Thursday refreshed the Redmi Note line-up in India with the launch of Redmi Note 7 Pro and Redmi Note 7 in the affordable segment.


The Redmi Note 7 Pro will be available for ₹13,999 for the 4GB+64GB variant and ₹16,999 for the 6GB+128GB variant starting on 13 March via Mi.com, Flipkart and Mi Home stores, Xiaomi said."
"The updates occur more frequently on Android compared to iOS, simply because there are more Android devices out there. According to a StatCounter report, 75.33% of mobile devices run on Android operating system (OS) while only 22.4% run on Apple’s iOS, as of March 2019. “Many users with a wide range of phones means there is more likelihood of your users experiencing a bug,"" says Sachin Dev Duggal, founder and CEO of Engineer.ai. Also, updates to iOS apps require a more stringent approval process than Android. Therefore iOS developer bunch together multiple bug fixes and do the updates less frequently, points out Anil Chopra, vice president-research and Consulting at CyberMedia Research. There is also the issue of OS fragmentation. According to the Android distribution dashboard published on 26 October, 2018, the four-year-old Android Lollipop runs on over 17% of devices while Marshmallow runs on 21% of devices.


Duggal points out that for numerous devices, a developer has to write multiple lines of code keeping in mind the Android OS and hardware compatibility. This can make the app bulky which is not so in the case of iOS.


Many of the updates are also rolled out to address bugs that originate due to compatibility issues with the custom user interface (UI) or version of OS."
"“This is a great example of how Hollywood like slaps you in the face when you start ageing,” she said, as quoted by USA Today"
"""By using cutting edge neuroscience, we can discover what makes successful founders, teams and companies,"" Pearson explained.


The lab, a 300-square metre custom built centre with virtual reality rooms, testing stations, brain stimulation devices, neuroimaging tech and research offices, will be used to develop products such as customised cognitive tests for start-ups and psychological interventions and online education programmes.


""Using technology such as gamified objective tests and mobile brain measurement, we will be able to develop tests that measure traits and abilities like creativity, resilience..."" the Professor said."
"His passing was very emotional for all of us, but it suddenly all came back to me just when I watched it,” Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige told Entertainment Weekly


The footage dates back to the origins of MCU with 2008’s Iron Man, in which Lee appeared on the red carpet outside a concert hall for a Tony Stark event and is mistaken by Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) for Hugh Hefner"
"To its credit, DHFL and its holding company Wadhawan Global Capital, have taken steps to prevent default on repayments. DHFL has cash holdings of around ₹5,000 crore. It will get a net cash flow of over ₹500 crore from its stake sale in Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd and its asset management business, the management said in a conference call with investors.


The management has indicated that it would increase the pace of securitization of its loan book and the share of such securitization would be brought to 35-40% of assets under management.


DHFL may have done well so far to liquidate assets and repay maturing debt. But how long can it continue to service debt in this fashion is a question that has investors worried. As such, time is of essence and, unless banks are willing to uncork lending and bond investors turn friendly, DHFL may indeed default. Not because it had no money, but because circumstances made it difficult to raise enough of it."
"”The 2013 film The Conjuring is based on the couple’s investigation into alleged events at a Rhode Island farmhouse in the 1970s


 She also spent time at her Connecticut home with actress Vera Farmiga, who portrays Warren in the movie and its sequels


 Farmiga expressed her condolences on Twitter Friday, saying she was “blessed to have known” Warren and “honored to portray her"
"With the launch of the localised website, users across India can also learn to keep their accounts private, the need to use strong passwords and avoid spreading personal information."
"Hefty claims are made by all political parties during campaigning. Mint analyzes if the claims made in the last month are true, exaggerated or simply false


NEW DELHI: Election season is a time for a big claims. Governments boast of their achievements while the opposition questions them. In the heat of campaigning, many such claims can go uncontested."
"Economic data, trade negotiations and the ongoing earnings season that’s given investors mixed signals are setting the tone for trading ahead of the weekend. Solid corporate reports bolstered technology shares earlier in the week, though Amazon’s disappointing sales forecast on Thursday damped optimism. On the trade front, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will head to China in mid-February for more talks after the Asian nation promised to expand purchases of US goods after the latest round of discussions.


“Having strong data back up the view that the economy is on a strong footing is good, but still there’s some lingering uncertainties out there, particularly with global trade,"" said Charlie Ripley, a senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.


The dollar was steady as US Treasury yields edged higher. Oil climbed past $54 a barrel in New York, reaching the highest since November."
"Interestingly, Sita is Kajal’s third film under Teja’s direction after Lakshmi Kalyanam and Nene Raju Nene Mantri


The entertainer also has Sonu Sood as the antagonist and Mannara Chopra is seen as a character named Rupa"
"Arguably one of the best flagships of the year, the OnePlus 6 is available at ₹ 34,999 for its 128GB internal storage/8GB RAM variant. It is important to note that OnePlus is also expected to launch the OnePlus 6T soon. The 6T will receive an in-display fingerprint scanner and a teardrop notch. Here’s the full review of the OnePlus 6.


The Moto E5 Plus which was launched earlier this year is selling at ₹ 9,999. The highlight of the phone is the 5,000mAh battery. It sports a 6-inch display with a resolution of 1440x720 and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage."
"The list was declared after a meeting of the Congress Central Election Committee chaired by party chief Rahul Gandhi earlier in the day.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"A case in point is the Asus Nova Go, which starts at $599 (around ₹ 42,8735). Jeffrey Mathews, analyst (PC) at IDC India, believes that if PCs with mobile chipsets are launched at the right price point, it could see large-scale adoption by vendors and also drive consumer traction towards these devices.


Mobile chipsets will likely make portable ultrabooks or 2-in-1s smarter, and more relevant, for professionals on the move, who need to be connected and require devices that last longer for work.


mint-india-wire mint-india-wire Portable PCschipsetsQualcommLenovolong-term evolutionLenovo 300e 2-in-1 ChromebookARM chipsets"
"New Delhi: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is offering some of its best selling smartphones like Poco F1, Mi A2, Redmi Note 6 Pro, Redmi 6A, Redmi Note 5 Pro and Redmi Y2 at a discount on its website as well as on e-commerce portals like Flipkart and Amazon. The sale, which began yesterday, will last till tomorrow, Saturday.


Amazon is running the ‘I Love Mi’ sale while Flipkart is having its Big Shopping Days sale during the same period — December 6 to 8. Amazon is selling Redmi 6A (32GB) at a discounted price of ₹ 6,999, Redmi Y2 (3+32 GB) at ₹ 8,999 and the 4+64 GB variant at ₹ 10,999, Mi A2’s 4+64 GB model at ₹ 14,999 and the 6 + 128 GB one at ₹ 16,999. The same offer is also on Mi.com."
"Prithviraj is back to acting after making a successful debut as a director with Lucifer, which set the box office on fire when it released last month


 Next, Lal Jr made his feature film debut with Honey Bee: Its Tripping (2013), starring Asif Ali, Lal, Bhavana, Sreenath Bhasi and Balu Varghese among others"
"Nokia 3.1, Nokia 5.1, Nokia 6.1 and Nokia 8 Sirocco have all received price cuts by HMD Global, Nokia’s licensee in India.


Nokia phone price cutNokia 3.1Nokia 5.1Nokia 6.1Nokia 8 SiroccoHMD GlobalNokia IndiaNokia 3.1 priceNokia 5.1 priceNokia 6.1 priceNokia 8 Sirocco price


Nokia’s Android smartphone lineup has been growing at a rapid rate recently. We have had several consecutive launches from the Finnish smartphone-maker this year. While the smartphones already had reasonable price tag , some have recently received price cuts.


There’s a trend in the slashing of prices by HMD Global, Nokia’s licensee in India. The models at the lower end of Nokia’s spectrum receive a smaller price cut while the top shark, the Nokia 8 Sirocco, receives the biggest. Here’s the list:"
(Photo: Karan Singh Grover/Instagram)Vidya Balan posted this clip of her team taking the #DhunBadloChallenge
"The soundbar has Bluetooth, AUX, SPDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface), Line In and Optical ports, along with two buttons for volume control. The fact that it has an optical port means that it will support very old televisions as well, which is a great addition by Xiaomi.


What it lacks is support for a remote, meaning you will have to toggle the volume manually whenever required. That’s not much of a compromise though, given the price. You also can’t toggle equaliser settings for it, meaning you’re stuck with the out of the box tuning Xiaomi brings."
"The court said the integrity of the EVM is of prime importance and if the people are not satisfied, the voting would become a futile exercise.


The apex court said that verification of five EVMs would ensure fool-proof results in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The physical verification process would “ensure greatest degree of accuracy and satisfaction in election process"", it said.


The court said that though it is less than the 50% verification demand by 21 political parties, it understands the infrastructural and logistical difficulties of the poll panel."
I have had journalists come and tell me how I can get the guests to talk about things that affect them so easily
"But her attitude is the same, that of a strong and powerful woman who probably plays an army officer in the movie"
"It takes a group of young men 45 minutes to locate a dusty photo of RJD strongman Lalu Prasad in his house in Phulwaria, the village where he was born. (Pradeep Gaur/Mint)


Lalu Prasad has built a reputation as a mass leader who drew crowds with his inimitable style of canvassing


In the 2015 assembly elections, Lalu Prasad led the alliance that blocked the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) entry in Bihar


GOPALGANJ/CHAPRA: Phulwaria in Bihar’s Gopalganj district is like any village in the Hindi belt, and chances are most people haven’t heard of it. But, it is the absence of its most famous former resident that puts it centre stage in this Lok Sabha election. Phulwaria is the birth place of Lalu Prasad, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president and former chief minister, now serving a jail sentence in the fodder scam.


Though Prasad sought bail, which was rejected, to carry out “essential responsibilities as a party president"" ahead of the election, there are no photos or statues of him in his village. On one “new year greeting poster"" by a local RJD leader a tiny mugshot of Prasad jostles for space with 16 other leaders. It takes a group of excited young men and a 45-minute hunt to finally locate one dusty old photograph of Bihar’s former chief minister—but they are effusive in their praise of him.


“He is everything, our hero, our God. He once belonged to his village; now this village belongs to him. His absence has made this campaign dull. He was the voice of backward communities and that is missing now,"" said Chandan Yadav, a 23-year-old student who lives in the village. He dismissed Prasad’s conviction in the fodder scam as “a political conspiracy"".


Currently serving his sentence in Ranchi, this is the first election in which Prasad is not campaigning since launching the RJD in 1997. It’s also the first election he’ll be missing in more than 40 years since joining student politics in the 1970s. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1977 at the age of 29. He has since served as five-time MP, four-time MLA, Union railways minister, twice chief minister and Rajya Sabha member.


Prasad has built a reputation as a mass leader who drew crowds with his inimitable style of canvassing — whether his animated mimicry of opponents, his catchy one-liners or social engineering like his appeals to ‘MY’, or Muslim-Yadav support base. RJD is contesting 20 seats this election as part of the ‘mahagathbandhan’ or grand alliance with the Congress, which is contesting nine seats."
“And that drives me to make sure we don’t screw this up and we actually do this in a way where it can be sustained and be something that’s talked of in the past – caveman style
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed
"The move also upsets the group equations in Congress. Eden is from what is known as 'I' group within Congress, led by Chennithala, while Thomas belongs to rebel 'A' group which is loyal to former chief minister Oommen Chandy.


Eden is the only sitting MLA in the poll fray as of now, a move that could be read as the party's tight contest against high profile panel announced by its main enemy in Kerala, the communists-led Left Democratic Front."
"As per Cersei Lannister’s plan in the previous season, the living have defeated the dead and she now plans to defeat Daenerys Targaryen as they fight for the Iron Throne


 It is to be noted that Daenerys has lost most of her army in the fight against The Night King but Cersei still has her troops along with Euron Greyjoy’s Golden Company"
"Will Smith, who was last seen in critically panned Netflix film Bright, had taken a year-long break from movies


 The star is in need of a big success right now and only time will tell whether Gemini Man will be able to do the trick"
"'The goal of AI is to augment intelligence,notreplace it. AI is a tool, and like all tools it just amplifiesthework that people do'


New Delhi: Subram Natarajan, chief technology officer of IBM India/South Asia, shares his thoughts on digital technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), blockchain and 5G, and their impact on companies. Edited excerpts:


On AI (machine learning, deep learning), blockchain, IoT, AR-VR, 3D printing, automation and robotics."
"RBI, in its special article on investment, stated that on the basis of the project pipeline sanctioned in preceding years, the planned capex could rise by 16% in FY19 over the previous year."
"The film revolves around the battle exploits of Kunjali Marakkar IV, the naval chief under the Zamorin in 16th century Kerala


 Interestingly, Kunjali Marakkar IV is also the subject of National-Award winning filmmaker Priyadarshan’s upcoming film Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham"
"BJP, which has emerged as a strong contender to BJD, has targeted the ruling govt over issues of jobs, migration


Prabin Mohanty works as a crane operator in Gujarat. He is on a visit to his village in Puri district to spend some time with his parents and to exercise his franchise in the ongoing elections. A high school drop-out, Mohanty likes his workplace, Sanand, in Ahmedabad, but given a chance he would like to settle down and work in his home state.


“I would like to stay and work in Odisha, but jobs are a real challenge here,"" he said at the Panchasakha complex in Puri district, which is known for its role in India’s freedom struggle and evolution of linguistic identity of Odisha.


Mohanty, 24, is not the only one. His two elder brothers are already working in Gujarat. His friends, including Manas Sethi and Somanath Malik, are also preparing to leave Odisha in search for jobs. These youngsters represent two key challenges for Odisha—jobs and migration, which happen to dominate the political discourse in the state.


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is emerging as a strong contender to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), is making a conscious effort to highlight these challenges."
"The ride-hailing company is planning to start marketing shares to potential investors in a price range of about $44 to $50 each, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. Uber could aim to raise about $8 billion to $10 billion in the listing, though the final details of the pricing may still change, the people said.


At the lower end of the range the price would value Uber just above its last private funding round, in which Toyota Motor Corp. invested at a valuation of about $76 billion. Uber is taking a conservative approach to its valuation and could later raise the price depending on investor demand, the people said. Last year, bankers jockeying to lead the offering told Uber it could be valued at as much as $120 billion in an IPO.


The IPO is reportedly drawing big-name investors. PayPal Holdings Inc. will buy roughly $500 million of shares via a private placement at Uber’s IPO price, the Wall Street Journal cited unidentified people as saying.


Some recent big listings by technology unicorns have seen valuations come back down to earth after years of access to huge pools of private capital. Shares of Lyft Inc., which made its market debut in March at a $20.5 billion valuation, have since dropped 22 percent to well below their IPO price. Uber’s ride-hailing rival has a market value of $16.1 billion as of Thursday, much closer to its last private funding round at $15.1 billion."
Elevated tea prices and rising competition is making it difficult for Tata Global Beverages Ltd (TGBL) to pass on costs to customers
"Holding elections in world’s seventh largest nation by area and second most populous country is humongous and complex


There will be 15 million voters aged 18-19 years voting in this year’s poll and millions more first time voters


NEW DELHI: It’s election season in India. The South Asian nation is preparing to hold general elections in April and May, in which about 900 million Indians -- more than the population of all the countries of Europe combined -- will cast their votes to select a new federal government.


India’s elections have been notoriously difficult to predict because of the endless possibilities of coalitions. It will be no walk in the park for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retain power -- after five years in office his popularity is receding over concerns about his government’s failure to create the promised millions of jobs and as well as a lag in economic development.


But it’s no cakewalk either for the opposition Congress party -- led by Rahul Gandhi -- and its allies to snatch power as they have yet to gain traction with the electorate. Add to that, the political scene will become even murkier when the powerful regional parties spell out their strategy on multi-party alliances. Contributing to the uncertainty, it’s difficult to fully trust India’s opinion polls as they have repeatedly failed to predict outcomes.


Voters are electing lawmakers for the 543-member lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha. In 2014, the Election Commission of India deployed 3.7 million polling staff, 550,000 security personnel, 56 helicopters and 570 special trains to conduct a five-week-long exercise in close to a million polling stations."
"But the beauty about the whole thing is that the actors, who did this film, like my dad, Sharmila ji, Amit ji Jaya ji Om prakash ji and others had a personality that they brought to that film and a director, who brought that out of them


The original, which is a comedy of errors about a botany professor (Dharmendra), who tries to play a prank on his wife’s brother-in-law (Om Prakash) by disguising as his driver, has aged well, and is today revered for Mukherjee’s typical slice-of-life treatment and situational humour, enriched by Gulzar’s witty one-liners"
"China’s yuan surged 2.6% against the dollar this year, making it the best performing currency in Asia, a far cry from the 5% fall in 2018. (Bloomberg)


 While a US-China trade deal is expected to include a provision for China to hold the yuan stable, Donald Trump is shifting his gaze to the dollar’s strength


For China, a possible weaker dollar will lead to a stronger yuan, pressuring officials to halt its appreciation as the economy slows


Hong Kong: The US and China are edging closer to resolving differences on currencies that have bogged down economic talks for nearly two decades. The only question is how meaningful the deal will be."
"“It would give an opportunity to include Indian designs, figurative elements and goods in the international classification systems. The accession is expected to instill confidence in foreign investors in relation to protection of IPs in India. The accession would also facilitate in exercising rights in decision making processes regarding review and revision of the classifications under the agreement,"" an official statement said. "
"I am trying to take a moment for myself, but everything that’s happening is just making it harder for me


 You may not know this about me, but I am strong, and stand up for what I want! Your love and dedication is amazing, but what I need right now is a little bit of privacy to deal with all the hard things that life is throwing my way


According to Billboard, the singer checked herself into a 30-day programme in March in the midst of her father Jamie Spears’ ongoing health issues"
"Besides, the EC sent a show-cause notice to Union minister Mahesh Sharma over comments made on 16 March at a rally in Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh. According to the EC, Sharma’s remarks could be seen as criticism based on ‘unverified allegation or distortion"". It also gave extension of up to 7 May to Congress president Rahul Gandhi to give his response to a show-cause notice following comments made on 23 April in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, where he spoke about a tribal law."
"When these groups were first discovered by the Foundation in an earlier study form last year, they were found to be using third party applications to host invite links to these groups. When the matter was reported to Google, the third party apps used for the purpose were taken down from the Play Store in December.


On its part WhatsApp is aware of the misuse of its platform for distribution of CSAM and is constantly stepping up their capabilities to keep the platform safe. In an official statement to Mint, a company spokesperson said, “WhatsApp cares deeply about the safety of our users and we have no tolerance for child sexual abuse. We rely on the signals available to us, such as group information, to proactively detect and ban accounts suspected of sending or receiving child abuse imagery. We have carefully reviewed this report to ensure such accounts have been banned from our platform.""


To be sure, WhatsApp is turning to all available unencrypted information including user reports to detect and prevent circulation of CSAM. In the last three months, WhatsApp has banned approximately 250,000 accounts each month suspected of sharing such content. The company is using a photo-matching technology called PhotoDNA that proactively scan profile photos for CSAM. If their systems detect any such image, they ban the user and the accounts within that group. The company is also encouraging users to report such or any problematic content to the company."
"What about Maharshi convinced you to be a part of it?I was blown away by Vamshi’s 40 minutes narration


 I had told him that I have two films to complete and I would be able to work on Maharshi only after that


 It looks like you are drawn to films with social messages, for example, Srimanthudu and Bharat Ane Nenu"
"Voting for 91 of 543 Lok Sabha seats spread over 20 states and Union territories takes place on 11 April. Polling also takes place for assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha on the same day. Odisha will have the first phase of its assembly elections on 11 April when 28 seats go to polls, while the other three states will have elections to all assembly seats in the single phase.


The first phase of Lok Sabha elections comprises all Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland, Lakshadweep, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Other states where polling would be held in the first phase are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Tripura."
"Acquisition rekindled investors’ worries that the group is piggybacking on APSEZ’s financial strength


Shares of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) plunged 8.4% on Monday after the company said it will purchase Adani Agri Logistics Ltd from Adani Enterprises Ltd for ₹945 crore. In market cap terms, APSEZ lost more than ₹6,100 crore in value, which seems like an overreaction, given the size of the transaction that triggered the fall.


However, the acquisition rekindled investors’ worries that the group is piggybacking on APSEZ’s financial strength."
The Bharat 5 Infinity comes with facial unlocking and fingerprint scanning while the Bharat 4 Diwali Edition skips the two.
"In a poll campaign that has witnessed some high-voltage exchanges on nationalism and national security, Rajasthan’s south-western border belt is curiously quiet on the topic. The southern half of Rajasthan (comprising 13 of the state’s 25 Lok Sabha seats) goes to polls on Monday.


Despite the lukewarm traction for a strident anti-Pakistan viewpoint in these parts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaign in Jaisalmer-Barmer has relied heavily on it. In a rally in Jaisalmer on Thursday, BJP candidate Kailash Choudhary declared: “Pressing ‘kamal’ (lotus, the BJP’s symbol) is like shooting down one terrorist"". Despite leading farmer agitations in the past and contesting in a state where farmer anger is rife, Choudhary’s only pitch is nationalism.


The BJP campaign in the Jaisalmer-Barmer region has been filled with errors. First, popular local scion Manvendra Singh (BJP veteran Jaswant Singh’s son) defected to the Congress in September 2018. Then, the BJP spent months trying to find a strong candidate and fell back on Choudhary, who is seen to be backed by the RSS. Finally, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje is widely perceived to be angry about being left out of candidate selection in southern Rajasthan. After weeks of “will she, won’t she"", Raje arrived in Jaisalmer-Jodhpur for the last two days of campaigning. But her arrival was met with mockery. “Maybe it’s a plot to make Choudhary lose,"" said Padam Shankar Singh, who was at Raje’s rally. The anger against Raje, who was voted out in December, is palpable.


Despite the odds, both Congress and BJP insiders say a “tough contest"" is on the cards and the result may come down to local caste dynamics. The reason: the Modi “leher"" (wave). BJP would have perhaps found the going easier in Jaisalmer if the campaign had been “nationalism plus"".


Most Modi backers in the arid western edge of the Thar Desert speak about vikas (development), not the Balakot airstrikes. “Vikas is my first priority. Everything else comes next,"" says Swarup Bhargav (21), a first-time voter in Ramgarh. “Nobody believes Rahul Gandhi’s (minimum income) promise of ₹72,000. I voted for the Congress in the assembly polls but now I’m voting for Modi. He (Rahul) has no ability to run the nation."" Bhargav hardly mentions Pulwama, but adds, “Modi ek bhavana hai (Modi is an emotion)."""
"Producer Imran Khan says his upcoming project Main Bhi, featuring Alok Nath as a judge, is struggling to find a distributor as no one wants to touch the film owing to the rape allegation against the veteran actor


The producer claims some distributors along with his publicity partners are shying away from the film as Nath’s image has been “tainted”"
"Avengers: Endgame movie cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Runner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan
Avengers: Endgame movie director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Avengers: Endgame rating: 4


5 starsIf — and that is a big if — this is indeed the endgame, there could scarcely have been one better


 Having laboured over setting up the final battle in Infinity War, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo get their act together to give a proper, emotional, funny and, yes, even spectacular, send-off to a cast of characters we have come to know (and, mostly love) over 22 films and 10 years


Where they seemed to be having trouble tracking the many heroes, and superheroes, and justifying their pay grade and presence last time, the Russos find a way to hold it all together now — though, admittedly, they have fewer heads than in Infinity War given that Thanos had made many vanish


 Still, when the storyline seems to be getting out of hand — as tales involving time travel, quantum physics, and infinity stones can invariably do — the Russos with commendable clarity reel it back in"
"AP CM Chandrababu Naidu, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Congress leaders Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and others at a press conference in New Delhi, Sunday. (PTI)


TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu says 21 political parties have demanded matching of the VVPAT slips with at least 50% of the votes cast through the EVMs


Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi says the opposition parties will launch a nationwide campaign on the issue of ‘discrepancies’ in EVMs


NEW DELHI: Persisting with their doubts over the credibility of EVMs, several opposition parties Sunday said they will move the Supreme Court again to seek verification of at least 50% of the polled votes against VVAPT slips. Opposition parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Samajwadi Party, CPI and CPI(M), jointly addressed a press conference to highlight the issue of transparency in the election process and protection of voter rights and gave a call to ""save democracy"".


Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of ""programming"" the electronic voting machines to win the Lok Sabha polls, while his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu said 21 political parties have demanded matching of the VVPAT slips with at least 50% of the votes cast through the EVMs.


Naidu had met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora Saturday to raise the issue of alleged malfunctioning of EVMs."
"It is the biggest opening for any Hollywood film in India and the third highest opener, after Prabhas’ starrer Baahubali: The Conclusion and Rajinikanth’s 2


”Also read | Movies in May 2019: Student of the Year 2, India’s Most Wanted and othersUntil now, Avengers Endgame has amassed a collection of Rs 189


 “The craze for Avengers among the audience is so high that the consumers are not feeling the pinch of high-priced tickets"
"""Google's Chrome OS has long offered a solution called 'Instant Tethering' that makes the process of tethering devices to mobile data automatic, but so far, this only worked for a small set of Google's own Chromebooks and phones, starting with the 'Nexus 6',"" TechCrunch reported on Monday.


The feature automatically turns off mobile hotspot on phone as well as the connected device if the Internet connection has not been used for more than 10 minutes."
"”So I want to say if you admire this profession, which you don’t have to, then I’m no different to that child


 That’s what I want to share with those people because they suffer like my parents suffered,” he said"
"Then there are apps that provide remote access to doctors. Users can chat, use video calls, to explain their symptoms to the doctor. If a doctor needs some readings they can plug an ECG or blood pressure reading wearable to and share the readings via the app for a real time assessment.


These apps are being used for psychiatric help as many of the patients may not feel comfortable walking into a hospital. They are also being used by paediatricians for child-related crisis at night.


Hospitals such as Rainbow and Ovum offer these services through their own apps, or through tie-ups with other apps. These apps are filling up for the lack of immediate access to hospitals or doctors in vicinity. Some apps like Zoctr are enhancing the healthcare experience by bringing hospital-level medicare at home for patients. One can book a session with a doctor, physiotherapist; hire nurse/carer for elderly or baby; or even get hospital equipment set up at home until the treatment is over. Mobile apps now are also getting health insurance companies on board. Insurance company Max Bupa, for instance, partnered with GOQii, Practo and 1mg last year and offers digital health insurance service to subscribers of these apps."
The film’s cast got together in Dharamshala a few weeks ago where they practiced with senior cricketers
"The actor will join Irrfan Khan, Deepak Dobriyal and Radhika Madan on the shoot of Angrezi Medium from May 15


 Since she’s playing a cop for the first time, she’s been discussing her character with director Homi Adajania"
"In 2014, BJP won the seat with a margin of about 300,000 votes. The constituency has approximately 2 million voters"
"We also see more of Black Widow in the video, which obviously shows that Marvel Cinematic Universe is strategising neatly for a female superhero flick on the character


 But it seems that Scarlett might not be the only star attraction of the standalone MCU film on Black Widow after all"
"The telecom playbook should be extended to mobility: active policy-setting, regulatory leadership, technology adoption, and private sector participation, leading to ubiquitous and equitable access to all forms of transportation.


Actors across finance, transport, and logistics come together in real-time while facilitated by a cloud service.


While this coordination is evident, it often goes underrepresented in the measured aspects of the mobility economy, barely accounting for 7.1% of the GDP contribution. In this light, MaaS has significant potential in India. We need to make it possible to get from one place to another, regardless of the mode of transit, with an easy-to-use interface and seamless payment.


With multimodal routing, booking, and billing, MaaS has potential to cater to the current market by creating a roaming ecosystem, wherein the perception of competition between public transport and para-transit is reduced. Various modes of transportation work together to form a single service. Involvement of a variety of transport leads to reduced over-reliance on one mode, while at the same time increases the attractiveness of public transport.


National and state governments should continue working together to further empower the digitization of urban mobility. This will strengthen the role of public transport investments and shape our cities to be fundamentally different from an inevitable expansive sprawl.


Anand Shah is vice-president and part of the leadership team at Ola. He heads The Ola Mobility Institute, a policy research and social innovation unit."
"“There is no doubt that a section of senior leaders of the SP have been opposed to the alliance with Mayawati. Akhilesh had to speak to Mulayam for this public meeting,"" said a senior SP leader involved in organizing the meeting.


SP members said Mulayam continues to have a substantial connect with the Yadav voter base of central Uttar Pradesh and that the public meeting is an endorsement of the alliance by the senior Yadav.


“Mulayam is playing a grand game to protect and promote his son. That is why he is trying to keep BJP happy by praising Modi while allying with Mayawati,"" said A.K. Verma, political science professor at Christ Church College, Kanpur."
"Modi, meanwhile, has donned the role of a statesman since becoming the Prime Minister of India, at least on Twitter. It is the second rung of the BJP which has kept its Twitter blades sharpened. Rahul’s aggressive debut in late 2017 also coincided with the opening of the floodgates into a new era of antagonistic political messaging on social media. All the major parties were by then online, and many had realized their electoral prospects and brand images were sufficiently impacted by what happened on social media. Congress leaders joined Twitter en masse; Akhilesh Yadav went from chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to opposition leader; and Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee moved to openly confronting Modi, and presenting herself as the consolidator of the regional challenge to the BJP regime.


Mamata has for nearly two years focused significantly on potential allies in other parts of the country. Mamata’s “national ambitions"" were initially crafted via banal Twitter greetings and birthday wishes, much before an “anti-BJP alliance"" became a publicly stated political goal. The firebrand Bengali leader exchanged online pleasantries with many politicians, from Omar Abdullah to M.K. Stalin, through 2017 and 2018.


However, being a non-Hindi speaking leader has its limitations. Mamata has been pushed to tweet far more in English than Bangla (see chart 3), denting the projection of an online persona which is closer to her aggressive, street fighter image. The Mamata on Twitter is a far cry from the Mamata in real life, although, even online, the issue of a national strongman invading Bengal is one of her favourite topics.


Unlike Mamata, Akhilesh has turned almost entirely inward, with Uttar Pradesh-centric issues dominating his attention span. Up until mid-2017, he had very little confrontational posturing, but the proportion of antagonistic tweeting increased dramatically around late 2017—uncannily mirroring Rahul Gandhi. Something clearly changed in the “political hawa"" in the run-up to the Gujarat polls of December 2017. Akhilesh who also largely tweeted in English till 2016 now relies almost exclusively on Hindi (see chart 3).


Mamata Banerjee mostly tweets in English in an effort to reach a wider national audience. Amit Shah and Akhilesh Yadav, however, rely heavily on Hindi.


Unlike Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah, whose antagonistic tweeting lean much more significantly towards name-calling, Akhilesh uses a quirky “Lucknowi"" style of sarcasm, humour, and rhyme in his political attacks. Of all the politicians, Akhilesh is the most adept at metaphor and turns of phrase. In short, language and style are central to the public outreach of Akhilesh Yadav. As a result, almost unnoticed, Akhilesh has emerged as a key oppositional voice in the Twittersphere.


But the biggest beneficiary of online confrontation remains Rahul Gandhi, whose reach and virality have skyrocketed since the winter of 2017. Three significant findings emerge from a temporal analysis of Gandhi’s tweets. First, Rahul consistently gets more replies to his tweets than most other politicians and most of them tend to be from detractors. In short, while his messages are more viral, there is also a much more aggressive countering of his messages through direct replies."
"According to Cook, the world has seen approximately 100 new data protection laws being put into practice in the last year or so. And, for many of these countries, these are first-time laws.


India itself is expected to enact a new privacy law soon that should be on the lines of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).


“This means data protection is becoming a part of normal business for any organization. It has become an integral component of strategy and business,"" Cook said.


Data privacy today touches “every single component"" of an organization’s business, according to Cook. Just like cybersecurity was being discussed many years ago, and was eventually built into business processes, it’s time for the same approach to be given the same priority. “It has become an integral component of strategy and business,"" he said."
"According to a New York Times report from April 2019, after the NotPetya cyber attack on warehouses of Mondelez International (owner of Cadbury chocolates) in 2017 in US, the company reported financial losses of over $100 million. To the company's shock, their insurance provider, Zurich Insurance, rejected their claim, citing the war exclusion clause in the insurance contracts, which protects insurance companies from bearing costs related to war damage.


According to the same NYT news report, several insurance providers in US have tried to use war exemption to avoid claims related to cyberattacks.


However, a Risk and Insurance report claims that the policy in question in the Mondelez case is related to property with a bolted-on cyber element and is not a standalone cyber policy."
"Realme's U1 smartphone is available at ₹8,999, down from ₹12,999. Amazon is offering an additional ₹1,000 discount on all bank debit and credit cards. There's also a no-cost EMI option of ₹1,500 per month.


The Oppo F11 Pro is available at ₹24,990 during the sale along with a no-cost EMI of ₹2,083 and an exchange offer of ₹2,500. The Oppo F9 Pro has also received a price drop from ₹25,990 to ₹17,990. It is available with a no-cost EMI of ₹2,221 and a ₹2,500 exchange offer.


Vivo's V15 Pro and Y83 Pro are available on discounts during the Amazon sale. The Vivo V15 Pro is available at ₹28,990 along with a no-cost EMI offer starting at ₹2,416 per month with up to ₹3,000 extra off on exchange. The Vivo Y83 Pro is priced at ₹10,990 can be availed with ₹1000 Amazon Pay cashback on prepaid orders."
"Facebook CEO Zuckerberg says for some issues, like election interference or harmful speech, the problems can never fully be solved


FacebookMark ZuckerbergFacebook CEO Zuckerbergprivacy issuesfake newsmisinformationpersonal dataelection interferenceharmful speech


San Francisco: Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, criticized for months by lawmakers, privacy advocates and some investors, said he was “proud of the progress we’ve made,"" fighting misinformation and protecting users’ personal data during one of the company’s most tumultuous years."
"Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan also blasted Google during the hearing for pulling out of its defence contracts.


Last October, facing President Donald Trump administration's ire over its censored Chine Search engine project, Google CEO Sundar Pichai met Pentagon officials during his trip to Washington and discussed the controversial ""Project Maven"".


Pichai met ""a group of civilian and military leaders mostly from the office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence the Defence Department directorate that oversees the Artificial Intelligence (AI) drone system known as Project Maven"".


After facing backlash over its involvement in the Pentagon project ""Maven"", Pichai in June emphasised that the company will not work on technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm."
"OnePlus will try to build on that success by building a solid successor to the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. Going by its previous releases, OnePlus is expected to launch the OnePlus 7 in May or June this year.


The aesthetics and underpinnings of the OnePlus 7 are still under covers, so the only way to guess what the OnePlus 7 holds for us is by going through the leaks and renders that appear online.


It won’t be a surprise if the upcoming smartphone boasts the latest chipset from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 855 coupled with at least 10GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, given the fact that the McLaren Edition comes in that configuration. The new chipset might also be 5G enabled."
"Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces Apple News+ during a launch event at Apple headquarters on 25 March 2019, in Cupertino, California (AFP)


The new service, called Apple News+, will be incorporated into the existing Apple News app that comes pre-installed on iPhones, iPads, and Macs


San Francisco: Apple Inc. presented its long-anticipated magazine subscription service on Monday, bundling access to selected glossy titles, websites, and newspapers for $10 a month."
"The US, for its part, worries that the spread of Chinese technology and ideology in Southeast Asia means Beijing will increasingly push a strategically vital region toward authoritarianism, even as individual countries grow wary of becoming beholden to China. The spread of a Chinese-style internet is a problem for U.S. internet giants from Facebook to Google wrestling with increasingly draconian regulations over what they carry on their platforms, and how they store and handle the information pivotal to their dominance. Fragmented laws governing data are anathema to giant corporations used to harnessing the cloud for everything from search to video.


“If authorities in the region can convince Silicon Valley to play by their repressive rules, we’re going to see a drop in standards of privacy, surveillance, and freedom of expression on those platforms,"" said Tanya O’Carroll, head of technology and human rights at Amnesty International. “How Silicon Valley chooses to engage with the likes of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia could set major precedents. They must not treat those countries as testbeds to tinker with people’s rights online.""


For now, U.S. social media is popular enough that in countries like Thailand they’re able to publicly resist attempts to rein in content. But in the longer term, there’s a real risk American companies could get supplanted by the likes of WeChat, TikTok and Alipay -- Chinese powerhouses that are venturing aggressively abroad, into music and social media or e-commerce. Tencent, Alibaba and Bytedance Ltd. are also seeding the region’s startups, courting a younger mobile-savvy consumer -- a generation that politicians need to maintain their grip on power.


“This issue was not on my radar and not on other people’s radar a year ago,"" said Brian Harding, deputy director with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington for now is more focused on the political impact of Chinese investments in infrastructure from ports to refineries, he added."
"After making headlines for not casting his vote in the Lok Sabha 2019 elections, Akshay Kumar issued a statement regarding his Canadian citizenship which many speculated was the reason behind his absence at the polling booth


The Kesari actor took to Twitter and wrote, “I really don’t understand the unwarranted interest and negativity about my citizenship


 While all these years, I have never needed to prove my love for India to anyone, I find it disappointing that my citizenship issue is constantly dragged into needless controversy, a matter that is personal, legal, non-political, and of no consequence to others"
"Chen said that discussion around security concern from Huawei telecom gears are more based on psychological factors


Chen alleged that Australian and the US laws have provisions of snooping but Chinese law does not asks for it


Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei Thursday alleged that the US is lobbying against its business in India while the company complies with global security requirements."
"New Delhi: China’s Xiaomi Corp., the biggest smartphone seller in India, is planning to increase offline sales channels and introduce a new line of franchised outlets called Mi Stores in tier-III and tier-IV cities as part of its plan to get almost half of its revenue from offline sales.


The consumer electronics company, which sells products ranging from smartphones to televisions in India, currently gets 70% revenue from online sales and the rest through offline channels such as Mi Homes and Mi Preferred Partners.


“Mi Stores will be an extension of our retail business. We started evaluating possibilities in rural markets a year ago and tried to understand the expectations of a rural customer. We realised that other brands present in rural areas don’t focus on user experience, don’t stock the full range of products and the distribution cost is really high,"" Manu Jain, vice-president, Xiaomi, and managing director, Xiaomi India, said on Tuesday."
"Leading the change, Facebook would be smart to hire as many prominent voices in online privacy as it can attract and hiring critics is a straightforward way to build trust in the meantime, a TechCrunch report said.


""Its going to be an enormous challenge professionally but I'm ready for it,"" the new Privacy Policy Manager for WhatsApp added. "
"The party later announced that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav would contest from Kannauj, where she is the sitting MP.


The party has decided to field MPs Dharmendra Yadav and Akshay Yadav from the current seats of Badaun and Firozabad, respectively.


Babbar said the Congress has also decided to leave the Lok Sabha seats of Gonda and Pilibhit for the Apna Dal."
"According to Comscore, reach of a website means the number of people who have visited that website during a given time period. (AP)


Google sites cumulatively garnered 282,687, 000 unique visitors across mobile and desktop platforms at both home and work locations


E-commerce platforms like Paytm.com, Flipkart.com , Reliance Jio Digital Services and payment platform PhonePe.com figured among the top 10 most-visited Indian sites"
"Using AR, online sellers can provide that complete experience of the product from where they are. In one of the AR campaigns of a handbag on Facebook, customers could see how big the bag actually was, leaving no room for confusion in their mind, points out Neogi.


In the case of magicpin, players can keep track of gamers in their vicinity as well as those at the top of the leader boards.


Their AR game was built on Google ARCore for Android devices and Apple ARKit for iOS and integrated with Unity. They also use standardized AR technologies from Kudan to project an object in the real world at a certain coordinate."
"A recent leaked report of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) showed that unemployment in India is the highest in 45 years, giving the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) ammunition to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi.


The election is also being fought on the planks of national security, agrarian distress, and corruption.


Karnataka has long challenged Modi’s pet “Gujarat model of development"" claiming to have attracted more investments and created more jobs. Most of them have been around urban centres such as Bengaluru, forcing people to migrate to cities for small jobs that don’t help them save, let alone take care of families back home. Some of them have joined the gig economy, driving cabs or delivering food from tech platform companies."
"Now it can be action, so we get plenty of it, but if the first-timer cannot hack it alone, he needs to be backed up"
"The film revolves around Lindy, a no-nonsense bouncer with anger-management problems that she controls with the help of an electrode-lined vest she uses to shock herself back to normalcy whenever she gets homicidal"
"All things considered, if Amazon had to flaunt a “flagship"" Echo device today, this would be it. Which brings us to the speaker’s big downfall.


For a device that wants to flaunt the screen, the Echo Show has a screen that doesn’t belong in this era. Its 800p display is dim, lacks colour and unattractive. Amazon should not only have chosen a higher resolution display, but a much better panel with better colour reproduction. In an era where content is regularly being pushed in high dynamic range (HDR) resolution, the Echo Show really isn’t the screen you enjoy looking at.


And that brings us to the price of this device. Do you want to spend ₹22,999 on a device that does everything its counterparts do, but fails at the one feature that makes it unique? Personally, I wouldn’t. But hey, if you really want your smart speaker to feel more natural, go right ahead."
"The film tells the true story of a squadron of recruits from art schools, advertisement agencies and other creative businesses who were tasked with fooling the Nazis into thinking the US had larger troop numbers than it actually did


The book follows a group of young GIs, including fashion designer Bill Blass, painter Ellsworth Kelly, artist Arthur Singer, photographer Art Kane, and others, who conduct a secret mission"
"Disney’s newest theatrical films will head to the new streaming platform after their runs in movie theatres and home video. That includes Captain Marvel and the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin and Toy Story 4. The company previously had deals with Netflix and others to offer its content, but Disney gave up those partnerships— and the revenue—to make its own service more desirable.


For Iger, Disney+ is a bit of a swan song. The company’s longtime steward reiterated Thursday that he expects to step down as CEO at the end of 2021, when his contract expires.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"""Swinburne University of Technology's lab director for intelligent software systems Ryszard Kowalczyk has been appointed as the professional chair of AI. He is also the head of AI and intelligent agent technology research group at the university,"" said the city-based IT behemoth in a statement here.


The outsourcing firm and the Melbourne-based university also plan to set up a joint innovation centre to conduct an industry-focused research in AI and ML with specific applications for digital health and smart cities.


""Our partnership will also focus on making innovations in AI that would benefit enterprises in Australia and Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) region,"" said the company in the statement."
"Aamis starts off with a what-could-be-conventional growing attraction between an older woman and younger man, and then swerves sideways swiftly, carving an unimaginable connection between a kind of flesh and passion, eating and sated-ness


 Can a certain kind of hunger ever be fulfilled? And where do you draw the line in fulfilling that hunger? It is a contemporary morality tale, and using the most unusual cautionary notes, it goes where very few Indian films have dared to venture


 And in the space of four years, and two films, Hazarika has shown he is a true original, and one of the most rewarding filmmakers working in India today


 Excerpts from an interview:What made you start thinking about Aamis? It is your original story?It is an original story that came out of observations and discussions around food and desire, sin and punishment, taboo and perversion


 It was an idle thought at first, but people’s reactions to the idea were so encouraging that a plot started developing around it"
"Makers of Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao starrer Mental Hai Kya on Saturday denied that the film discriminates against people battling mental health issues and in fact encourages the audience to “embrace their individuality”


The response from the production house Balaji Motion Pictures comes a day after the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) wrote a letter to the censor board to object against the film’s recently released posters"
The Mirzapur star said the film initially had a run time of 20 minutes but got stretched to over 40 minutes and he believes it turned out to be “beautiful”
"There’s some more not-so-good news on the cost front. Raw material prices are beginning to inch up. Skimmed milk and wheat prices have increased about 12% in the past two months, according to analysts. That can continue to put a cap on margins in the coming quarters.


The pleasant news is that the company’s revenue growth continues to be in double digits. Revenue has been growing and has even met analysts’ forecasts, rising 11.17% year-on-year in Q3. Average revenue growth in the past eight quarters has been hovering at these levels. Analysts also mention that Nestlé India’s quarterly revenue growth has increased from single digits to low-teen levels on average."
"”Unlike big Bollywood films, which release on more than 4000 screens, Avengers: Endgame released on just 2845 screens and yet, it is earning way more than any Bollywood film


 Even Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, which united the North and South Indian audiences like never before, could get past Rs 100 crore mark only after three days"
“I’ve been a fan of Clive’s work since the original Books of Blood paperbacks and The Hellbound Heart novella
"Facebook has been the target of probes by various governments after news broke about a year ago that it allowed the personal data of tens of millions of users to be shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Earlier this month, it came under fire for taking too long to take down a live video of a shooting in New Zealand and allowing it to be circulated across the internet. Millions of users also had personal information accessed via a recent breach.


Over the past year, lawmakers have focused greater scrutiny on the company and its immense influence, asking its executives -- including Zuckerberg -- to testify in front of Congress to explain the proliferation of misinformation, hate speech and election manipulation on the platform.


In his post, Zuckerberg proposes that 'regulation could set baselines for what’s prohibited and require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a bare minimum.' The tech industry has long said that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is vital to its ability to operate open platforms. The provision exempts companies from being liable for user-generated content.


Facebook built a content-scanning system that over the years has added rules based on reactions to changes in user behavior or public uproar after an incident such as the New Zealand mass shooting. Last week, the company moved to ban content that references white nationalism or white separatism from the platform.


When the website’s users or computer systems report posts as problematic, they’re sent to one of the company’s 15,000 content moderators around the world, who are allowed to take content down only if it violates a rule."
"Youngsters in smaller towns and cities can now be seen playing two such battlefield Internet games — PlayersUnknown Battleground (PUBG) and Fortnite — as smartphone penetration increases in leap and bound (there are nearly 430 million smartphone users in India now).


These ""survival of the fittest"" games where mobile users fight each other in real-time using virtual warfare techniques, have eclipsed single-player mobile games, say industry experts.


According to a report by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Kantar IMRB in association with POKKT, a smartphone advertising platform for mobile games, the mobile gaming industry in India is projected to reach $943 million in 2022 driven by rising smartphone use and growing mobile app market.


""We also have post-millennials who are heavy on gaming and smartphone brands are responding to this by pushing devices with greater processing power than before, as a result of which, games like PUBG and Fortnite are here to stay,"" Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR told IANS.


According to the report, three out of four Indian gamers play mobile games at least twice a day, for an average of over 60 minutes, each day."
"Typically, the theatrical permission is that you have to start the last show before midnight, but we have taken special permission to have post-midnight shows


”A few multiplexes have designed Avengers-themed menus and they also plan to give away original Avengers: Endgame merchandise to the audience


 We are also running contests where the winner gets a chance to own authentic Avengers movie merchandise"
"But there are plenty of obstacles. Facebook has weathered more than two years of turbulence for repeated privacy lapses, spreading disinformation, allowing Russian agents to conduct targeted propaganda campaigns and a rising tide of hate speech and abuse.


Zuckerberg submitted to two days of grilling on Capitol Hill last April. All that increases the challenge of convincing users that Facebook really means it about privacy this time.


Encrypted conversations could alleviate some of those problems, but it could make others worse. Security is an ""admirable goal,"" said Forrester Research analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo.


""I'm just not sure it addresses the bigger issues Facebook is facing right now."" Facebook grew into a colossus by vacuuming up peoples' information in every possible way and dissecting it to shoot targeted ads back at them.


Anything that jeopardizes that machine could pose a major threat to the company's share price, which would also affect its ability to attract and retain talented engineers and other employees.


In a Wednesday interview with The Associated Press, Zuckerberg predicted Facebook's emphasis on privacy will do more to help the company's business than hurt it. While most of the stock market slipped in Wednesday trading, Facebook's shares gained $1.25 to close at $172.51."
"It’s surprising, since Honor already has a device with the same name and it is also aimed at young audiences.


XDA Developers, a tech blog who spotted the listing, mentions the new smartphone line-up from Xiaomi will not feature a radically new design. TENAA says the Xiaomi Play has dimensions of 147.76×71.89×7.8 and it will weigh in at 150 grams. It will sport a 5.84-inch diagonal LCD display with a 2,280×1,080 pixel resolution. Details on the smartphone’s platform are restricted to it having a CPU frequency of 2.3GHz. It will be available in RAM options of 3GB, 4GB, and 6GB and internal storage options of 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. The listing showed the device runs Android Oreo 8.1."
"The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh in the 2014 polls and also captured the assembly in 2017


Mint decodes the poll arithmetic in the apple-growing state that votes in the final phase of the general election on 19 May"
"Coming to the specifications of the Redmi Note 7, it is expected to feature a 6.3-inch display and will be backed by a 3,900mAh battery. The listing also mentions three colour variants of the Note 7, but there’s no word out on the kind of processor and memory options the smartphone will run.


While design elements of the Redmi 7 will be shared with the Redmi Note 7, it is expected to be Xiaomi’s first smartphone to come with a 48MP sensor. While the listing doesn’t mention anything about its SoC, rumours suggest the smartphone will run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 675 chipset. It will be backed by a 4,000mAh battery and might sport a triple camera setup. It will have the same 6.3-inch display at the front."
"The film’s synopsis reads, “21 BRIDGES follows an embattled NYPD detective (Chadwick Boseman), who is thrust into a citywide manhunt for a pair of cop killers after uncovering a massive and unexpected conspiracy"
"WandaVision is spawned from the highly successful Marvel Cinematic Universe and will feature Olsen as her character Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch alongside Paul Bettany’s human android, Vision"
"The survey results suggest that the millennial voter who wants a leaner state is an endangered species, even in urban India. The YouGov-Mint Millennial Survey was conducted online—among 5,038 respondents from YouGov India’s panel of internet users spread across more than 180 cities. As many as 2,709 of the 5,038 respondents were millennials (with 1,489 younger millennials), 1,188 were from the Gen-Z (born after 1996).


Of the remaining 1,141, nearly three-fourths belonged to the Gen-X (born between 1965 and 1981) and the rest were older. Millennials and post-millennial adults together account for roughly half of India’s electorate, with an estimated population, based on census projections, of 459 million in 2019.


Millennials or post-millennials are as likely to support or oppose reservations in jobs as the older lot. In fact, a slightly greater proportion of the older lot (42%) said that reservations should be abolished compared to millennials and post-millennials (37%). A similar proportion (38%) of millennials and a slightly higher proportion of Gen Zers (42%) think that reservations should be based on economic criteria rather than caste.


Again, there is not much difference across party affiliations on these issues. There are some key issues on which there are differences between those who support the BJP and those who don’t. BJP-leaning youth think the government has done well in implementing GST and curbing cross-border terrorism but those who don’t support the party beg to differ.


A sizeable section of both BJP-leaning youth and non-BJP-leaning youth consider the cleanliness drive or the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to be a key achievement but even here, there is a big gulf between those who support the BJP and those who don’t."
"According to the revised method, all sectoral indices except for Nifty Tata Group, the weightage of each stock in the indices will be calculated based on its free-float market capitalization such that no single stock shall be more than 34 per cent and weightage of top 3 stocks cumulatively will not be more than 63 per cent at the time of rebalancing, said NSE


For Nifty Tata Group, the weightage of each stock will be calculated such that no single stock will be more than 25 per cent and weightage of top 3 stocks cumulatively will not be more than 63 per cent at the time of rebalancing, bourse added."
"The team of Bond 25 gathered in Jamaica to launch their film, but despite fans’ expectations, the title of the film was not revealed


 But the big announcement came in the form of the revelation that Rami Malek will indeed be a part of Bond 25


It was earlier speculated that Malek will be playing the antagonist in the film, but there was no confirmation about the same"
"A senior TDP leader, who did not want to be quoted, said that Kalyan’s party might win anything between five to 10 seats, with a vote share of 10 %. “We don’t know the JSP will fare, and that is the million dollar question. As far as TDP is concerned, we will lose seats in the West Godavari district, and gain in the Rayalaseema region (which is dominated by the YSRCP and a little over 50 assembly seats),"" he told Mint, and added that the TDP expects to win anything between the 90 to 100 seats this time.


“Pawan Kalyan will mostly win in the East/West Godavi districts, and in pockets of Krishna and Guntur districts, where the Kapu community is numerically more dominant (believed to be about 20% in certain places). So in a close contest that we are likely to witness between the TDP and YSRCP, the JSP contesting elections will make a big difference in about 20 or 30 assembly seats, which might tilt the scales in someone’s favour,"" opined a political analyst, who requested anonymity."
"Before shooting for Coolie No 1, Varun Dhawan will be seen in two massive projects – period drama Kalank, which releases on April 17, and Street Dancer 3D, the third installment of the dance franchise ABCD


 During the interaction, the actor spoke about the physical challenges he has been facing while shooting for the film"
"Avengers: Endgame caps off phase 3 of the MCU, also ending the story arc that began with 2008’s Iron Man


 The remaining superheroes will take the fight to Thanos, wherever he has excused himself to, and also find a way to bring back their comrades who turned to dust after the snap


Endgame may also set up the future movies in the MCU and give a send off to the arcs of characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers among others"
"The income earned by a REITs or InVIT is taxed in the form in which it is received. For example, if a REIT receives rental income, it is taxed as income from house property. Similarly, interest income of a REIT is taxed as interest income (under income from other sources).


Earlier, retail investors were only able to take exposure to these products indirectly through vehicles like mutual funds and National Pension System (NPS). Mutual funds, typically, permit exposure up to 10% to REITs and InVITs (see graph). In the case of NPS, exposure to REITs and InVITs is available up to 5% of the pension corpus under Asset Class A, which invests in alternative assets such as REITs, InVITs and mortgage-backed securities."
"LG V40 Thinq is one of the most underrated and understated flagship smartphones of 2018. It’s got everything a smartphone requires—an HDR10 compliant 6.4-inch QHD+ display, the top processor from Qualcomm, a premium build and finish and even that boombox loudspeaker. To add the cherry on top of that glassy cake, you have a triple camera setup.


The camera module consists of a 12MP sensor with a 27mm lens, another 12MP sensor with a telephoto 52mm lens capable of providing 2x optical zoom and finally a 16MP sensor with a 16mm ultra-wide lens. The cameras are optically and electronically stabilised.


The front of the smart also gets two cameras—an 8MP sensor with a standard lens and a 5MP sensor with a 21mm wide-angle lens.


The smartphone runs Android Oreo 8.1 with a near stock Android UI and is backed by a 3,300mAh battery.


The LG V40 Thinq is yet to be launched in India, but speculations suggest it will be priced above the ₹ 70,000 mark.


mint-india-wire Huawei Mate 20 ProHuawei P20 Prosamsung galaxy a9Samsung Galaxy A7LG V40 Thinqsmartphones with 3 camerassmartphones with 4 cameras"
"Bhubaneswar: Facing certain amount of anti-incumbency after 19 years of power, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik is adopting innovative campaigns this election season to reach out to youth and build a conscious narrative that he is still the credible face for 4.5 crore Odias.


After a fitness video to quell the doubt over his ill-health, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has now come out with micro videos where he is interacting with youth of the state and discussing how the central government is not giving the state its due on coal royalty and neglecting it on railway connection.


He is heard telling that seven of the 30 districts of Odisha still do not have rail connection despite Railway earning nearly ₹20,000 crore revenue from the state and the centre has been neglecting the coastal state. “Guess how much of that (Rs. 20,000 crore) is invested in Odisha…they spend Rs.1000 crore. After BJP came to power, they have increased it to just 1100 crore. Odisha is the most neglected state. Even after 72 years of independence, still seven of our districts are not connected by the railways. Injustice to Odisha is injustice to our youth and their future,"" he says."
"On the other hand, silver coins held flat at ₹80,000 for buying and ₹81,000 for selling of 100 pieces."
"For example let’s take roads—earlier roads were constructed, but in the last five years, the constructuion of roads has doubled.


Similarly, the work in railways has doubled, electrification of rail routes has gone up three times. Has all this been possible without employment?


Today, our country has received the maximum foreign investment. GDP has remained stable, inflation too has come down. Our government has given loans to 170 million people without any bank gurantees. Of these people, 42.5 million are those who have taken loans for the first time. Considering that they have taken loans, they must have started some work with the money also. In the last five years, six lakh new professionals have joined the economy. These professionals must have employed some people. Is this not employment generation?


New vehicles have come to this country, so jobs for mechanics and drivers too must have been generated. According to a CII report, 60 million people have got jobs in medium and small enterprises. In the last 2-3 years, 5.5 million new people have enrolled for the government pension scheme.


All this data suggests that compared to previous years, employment has risen in the country. Even during the (Atal) Vajpayee government’s time, the Congress ecosystem spread slogans that there was no employment.


During the Vajpayee government, 60 million people got employment, while successive governments could generate employment for only 12.5 million people.


There are three aspects to the employment question—formal employment, informal employment and symbolic (employment). Let’s looks at formal employment. According to EPFO and ESIC data, we have created one million jobs every month and 12 million jobs every year. In the last four years, 5.5 million new subscribers have joined NPS (National Pension System). Approximately 10 million people are benefitting from employment generation programmes.


NASSCOM report also shows that employment in the IT sector has grown. Formal sector accounts for 15% of the total employment.


Now, let’s look at the informal sector, which accounts for 85% of the employment in the country. In the last four years, 170 million people have been given loans. A CII survey shows that in the last four years, 60 million new jobs were created in the MSME sector. In the last four years, tourists and tourism in our country has grown by 50%. Don’t you think that this would have generated new jobs in this sector?


Lakhs of Jan Seva Kendra are functioning across the country, don’t you think employment must have been generated here?


For the past many years, India has been the fastest growing economy. If we were to compare governments after 1991, it transpires that the average growth has been the highest during our government. Is all this possible without employment generation?


International reports suggest poverty has reduced drastically. Is this possible without employment generation? Foreign investment too has touched a record high. Is this possible without employment?


India has become one of (the) biggest startup hubs globally. Development of many app-based services has contributed to our startup economy. Is this possible without employment? West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha governments claim to have created new jobs. Is is possible that states are generating employment but the centre is not?


People who make these allegations have done great harm to the country. We have followed the same system, same arrangements and same methodology which have been followed by previous governments. Just because the results now are better, questions are being asked about the processes followed, and the integrity of institutions are questioned.


If you lose an election, EVMs are blamed. If judgments are not to your liking, impeachment proceedings are initiated against the Chief justice of India. If the media does not report according to your liking, you call it sold out.


IMF and World Bank have accepted India’s growth story. The world believes that India is the fastest growing economy. If Modi has to be opposed, oppose him, but in the zeal to oppose Modi don’t attack and devalue institutions and India globally.


These days it is seen that abusive language has crept into electoral politics. Are political leaders at the top making efforts to deal with it?


I don’t believe that this thing has happened overnight. Earlier, news used to come 24 hours after the event and there was little space for reporting such developments.


Once, while campaigning in Gujarat, I said that a cat had crossed my path. Next day, newspapers reported that Modi called Sonia Gandhi a cat. What do you say to such a thing?


Just look at the language of the people who give lessons on use of graceful language. Look at the kind of reports media files when the parliament is in session. They call the house a battlefield. What will you say to comments of Sonia Gandhi who called Atal Bihari Vajpayee a traitor and Modi a Maut ka Sudagaar (merchant of death). It’s not that we haven’t faced the brunt of abusive language, but these days it's become fashionable to twist comments and give lessons on use of courteous language.


The BJP organized a big rally in West Bengal and the state is seen as the BJP’s new laboratory. How successful will you be in Bengal?


It’s not correct to say that the BJP sees Bengal as its new laboratory. Since 2013, I have maintained that in the absence of balanced regional development, India has suffered the most. From Punjab to Kerala, India has remained economically vibrant.


Despite the eastern part of the country being the most resource-rich region, it has lagged. This part of the country has produced the largest number of intellectuals, IAS and IPS officers. It’s been my belief that for the balanced development of the country, we have to make the eastern region strong by creating infrastructure and making investments. My task for the next five years is to make the eastern part of India economically strong.


Of the developed India’s image that I have in mind, the eastern region is a part of it and not a part of some politics. Someone might say that I went to Arunachal Pradesh twice, and may see politics in it. But my government has a different take on the development of the northeastern part of the country. Every 15 days, one or the other minister from my government visits the northeastern region of the country and spends time there.


Earlier, chief ministers from the northeastern states used to camp in Delhi and still not get time to meet ministers. I have changed all of this.


Similarly, I believe that West Bengal can become the epicentre of the development story in the eastern region. I want Kolkata to enjoy the same status as Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad in the economic sphere."
"Neha Bhasin’s rocking performanceApart from the celebrated cricketers, playback singer Neha Bhasin will also grace the show


Mountaineer twins Tashi and Nungshi Malik join the funThe Kapil Sharma Show will also host mountaineers Tashi Malik and Nungshi Malik, the twins to have climbed the Seven Summits, reach North and South Poles and completed the Three Poles Challenge and the Adventurers Grand Slam"
"It will also help Apple meet the 30% local sourcing rule that would allow it to open its own stores in the country


Foxconn Technology Group is within weeks of starting trial production of the latest iPhones in India as Apple Inc. seeks to revive its fortunes in the country, people familiar with the matter said.


The trial run of the iPhone X range of devices would come before Foxconn starts full-scale assembly at its factory outside the southern city of Chennai, the people said, asking not to be identified as the plans are private. Wistron Corp. already produces older models, such as the iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7, at a plant in Bangalore."
"One of the aspirations that the Indian government has stated is that they want 40% of the service provision around AI to be delivered by Indian companies over the next few years. India is investing hugely in data warehousing. Therefore, we want to see some of the UK’s leading companies linking with leading Indian companies to develop AI technology with a certain type of protocol. For instance, British Telecom has a very large capability in developing AI. And here in India, Infosys Ltd too has a similar capability. You can quite easily see both these companies working together on a specific project which would allow data to be easily available to allow AI to be created.


With regard to data sharing agreement between India and the UK, a critical part would be the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Indian Data Protection Bill. How would you achieve parity when GDPR is more advanced and more specific than the Indian law?


UKIBC urges the UK and Indian governments to create a business-led data garage under the UK-India Tech Partnership. This data garage would explore AI and associated technologies on a controlled open-source basis via sandbox protocols, link to the proposed National Centre for Artificial Intelligence, and work closely with a network of Centres of Research Excellence and their UK counterparts. Data agreement would be an enabler to a data garage. In theory, data garage will be like a virtual special economic zone."
"Congress has nominated Jaiswal, who has represented the seat thrice. Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Shree Ram Kumar is also contesting the election from this seat.


The leather industry was once a key source of employment in Kanpur and the neighbouring area of Unnao. But the BJP-led state government ordered the closure of the tanneries in December. The directive, issued ahead of the Kumbh mela, was in line with the central government’s mission to clean Ganga.


“The tanneries were the main source of income. Each tannery employed 100-150 people who have now been left without jobs. The owners are looking to move to other states such as West Bengal where the rules are not as stringent. Our machines have been shut for months now. In such a situation, we want a change in government who can help us,"" said Ashraf Karim, who runs a leather tanning workshop in the region.


The opposition parties are trying to make the most of the situation. Addressing a public meeting after her roadshow in Kanpur’s Badda Chauraha, Congress’ general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, highlighted the concerns of the people who lost their jobs after the tanneries were shut down."
"Elections to Odisha’s 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly seats will be held simultaneously across the first four of the seven-phase polls. Biju Janata Dal's (BJD's) Naveen Patnaik is still the tallest leader, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made some inroads into the state. Mint brings you a snapshot of the electoral joust.


Odisha’s literacy rate is 72.87%, as per Census 2011. It has a high rural population of 83.3% and a sex ratio of 979. The number of Odiyas in government and private sector jobs has risen, though its 17.54 million workers account for less than half of its population of 41.97 million. Odisha has the third-highest population of scheduled tribes among Indian states. Scheduled castes comprise 17.1% of the population. There are 31.84 million voters in the state. Odisha was a very backward state for long, but under chief minister Naveen Patnaik, it has made rapid progress in industrialization."
"As part of the upcoming iPhones, Apple plans on using modified-PI Magnetic particle Inspection (MPI) material instead of using the Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) material which was used in the antennas of iPhones XS, XS Max and XR.


According to Kuo, the LCP limits the Radio Frequency (RF) performance of the handsets due to technology limitations and production issues, CNET reported on Sunday.


However, Kuo believes that the Cupertino, California-based company could still use LCP as the primary material for 5G antennas in 2020 iPhones."
"Witherspoon also addressed another installment back in 2016, adding she would love make Sweet Home Alabama 2"
"Espresso Labs aims to redefine luxury through voice with its AI-powered virtual concierge by building “applications for smart speakers like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa, which can be used as a concierge in a hotel room"". “Guests can simply talk to the device in their native language and the device will understand, translate and also automatically notify the staff,"" says co-founder Pallavi Gupta. Her company is currently running pilots with hotels in the Delhi-NCR including hotel chains like Hyatt Regency and Roseate House.


A luxury hotel, on average, gets more than 1,000 guest requests per day and all these requests are noted, logged and assigned manually, explains Gupta. This error prone process results in hotel staff missing out on 6% of service requests daily leading to a negative guest experience. Espresso’s suite of applications include Android, desktop and iOS apps and a complaint management software.


mint-india-wire tech startupstech startups by womenAnushka ShettyPlopWysaJo AggarwalFlyrobeInclovEspresso LabsKalyani KhonaPallavi Gupta"
"""I've nominated on Thomas Chazhikadan to justify the sentiments of my party workers. They were against giving the seat to Joseph,"" he said.


The KC(M) is the third biggest ally of UDF in Kerala. The Joseph group was part of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) as a separate faction until 2010, when it merged with KC(M) and allied to the Congress. Mint had reported last week that the Communists are also trying to woo Joseph to return to LDF. "
"The project, which hails from FilmNation Entertainment, will be directed by Damian Szifron from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jonathan Wakeham, reported Variety"
"The Congress ceded the Mandya parliamentary seat to its alliance partner, JD(S) as part of its pre-poll agreement


Bengaluru: Actor-turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh on Monday said she will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate, ending weeks of speculation on her choice of platform to contest from Mandya, about 100 kilometres from Bengaluru.


Accompanied by popular Kannada stars and scores of fans, Sumalatha's candidature puts her up against Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, whose son Nikhil Kumaraswamy has been named as the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition's choice from Mandya.


""For the people of Mandya and fans of Ambareesh, I have taken this decision to contest the upcoming elections on my own,"" she said."
"Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone were a vision as the two Bollywood divas strutted through the pink carpet of Met Gala 2019


 While Priyanka appeared with her husband Nick Jonas, Deepika, just like the last couple of years, made a solo appearance at the event


Keeping up with the theme ‘Camp: Notes on fashion’ for Met Gala 2019, PeeCee opted for an avant-garde Dior gown, Chopard pendants and a dramatic crown"
"The good thing is the viewfinder mirrors itself on both ends of the fold. This means the subjects get to see themselves while the picture is being clicked.


I didn't get a chance to receive or make calls with the smartphone. I couldn't spot an earpiece in the device so it'll be interesting to know how a user would have to hold it to take calls. 


It also took me time to get used to the placement of the power button and the volume rockers. Since there are so many ways to hold the foldable phone, you will end up finding the button in different places.


Summing up, the FlexPai is a very crude and rudimentary rendition of the first generation of foldable smartphones. Samsung and Huawei have both shown that the real potential of foldable smartphones can be unleashed only with proper software optimisation.


However, the FlexPai has somehow outlined a few things early adopters of the technology should look out for, including button placement, app optimisation, seamless transition from one foldable form to the other and the durability of the display especially around the hinge area."
"Asian currencies were trading higher. South Korean won was up 0.41%, China renminbi 0.34%, China Offshore 0.31%, Indonesian rupiah 0.29%, Malaysian ringgit 0.21%, Philippines peso 0.13%, Japanese yen 0.05%, Thai Baht 0.05%."
"Mumbai: Repo rate cut? Check. Inflation forecast lowered? Check. Growth forecast lowered? Check. As monetary policies go, Thursday’s statement had all the elements that showed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wants to grab this interlude on inflation and won’t hesitate to cut rates further to spur growth. After all, by their own forecast, headline inflation is likely to remain below the 4% target for two consecutive years now.


The central bank knows this is the right time to give a hand to manufacturers, by bringing down their cost of borrowing, thus giving a boost to economic growth. For this, RBI has brought its repo rate down by 25 basis points and governor Shaktikanta Das said that banks need to do more to pass on these rate cuts.


The key reason for this could be that although the central bank has brought the price of money down, it has done little to make its availability easy."
"Experiencing Avengers withdrawal in the wake of Endgame? Then consider classic comic-book stories featuring Marvel’s mightiest heroes


 These tales — from the team’s earliest days to more recent times — are chock-full of superheroes and adversaries that you may not yet know


The Avengers were founded by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963 when Ant-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the Wasp battled the evil Norse god Loki


 This hardcover collected edition contains that story and the next nine issues of the original series as the team bounced from a close encounter with Namor, the Sub-Mariner, to the addition of Captain America and the formation of the Masters of Evil


 In 2004, Joe Casey and Scott Kollins gave readers Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which took a closer look at this formative era by expanding on moments between adventures"
Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has cautioned his fans that the posters of him hosting a charity show in Bijnor are fake and he is not associated with the event in any capacity
"“My publicity and advertisement partners, who had given me the word to pump in money for release, have now backed out"
"Mi.com will hold several online events like ""Play and Win,"" ""Fun and Furious"" and ""Re 1 Sale"" during the sale


Xiaomi on Monday announced its annual Mi Fan Festival 2019. The festival marks the anniversary of Xiaomi and is set to host a series of incredible offers for its Mi Fans and customers across India starting from 4 April till 6 April. The Mi Fan Festival will be held across Mi.com, online partner platforms partners, Mi Home, Mi Store and partner offline stores."
"It's Diwali week and not everyone likes the sound of crackers. So, noise-cancelling headphones might just be the answer


mint-india-wire noise-cancelling headphonesheadphonesbest noise-cancelling headphonesSony headphonesBose headphones


New Delhi: It’s Diwali week and not everyone likes the sound of crackers. So, noise-cancelling headphones might just be the answer. Incidentally, the best options in the market don’t just excel in terms of noise cancellation, they are among the best audio products you can buy. So, if you are an audiophile looking for good audio quality along with noise cancellation, here are the top options."
"Developed by a London-based start-up, Teslasuit has been named a CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honoree in virtual and augmented reality.


Among other options there are the Plexus VR gloves which work with existing VR platforms including Oculus Rift, SteamVR and Microsoft’s Mixed Reality VR. Developed by San Francisco-based Plexus Immersive Corp., the Plexus VR glove is made of silicon fibre with haptic feedback built into every finger. It can also track every single joint position of the finger to offer a real-world-like dexterity with objects in the virtual world. Priced at $240 it is available on the company’s website."
"Realme launched its 5th smartphone, Realme U1, in India today that will be sold exclusively on Amazon from 5 December with prices starting from Rs 11,999.


During the Diwali festive season sales, Realme captured 9% market share in India's smartphone market which was led by Xiaomi (29%) and Samsung (19%). Launched just 6 months ago, Realme jumped to third spot in overall sales volume performance and also became the second largest in the online segment with 18% share.


mint-india-wire realme smartphonesrealme mobile phone salerealme u1smartphone sales in indiaxiaomi phonessamsung smartphones"
"The bug emerged on Data Privacy Day when Tim Cook called for 'action and reform for vital privacy protections'


San Francisco: Apple Inc. customers discovered a software bug on Monday that lets people listen in on other users by way of the company's FaceTime video chat service."
"Azor: There’s also the education factor here. People can experience more products now, we make them available through stores, through competitions, etc. It’s all starting to create an organic growth in the market.


Krishnakumar: I don’t think affordability is an issue. But what we’ve seen is that people ask more questions at stores now. So, we run financing schemes which makes it easier for people to afford these devices."
"It is powered by Qualcomm's latest flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 855. The octa-core chipset has four Kryo 485 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.8 GHz along with three high-performance Kryo 485 Gold operating at 2.42 GHz and another higher-performance Kryo 485 Gold core operating at 2.84 GHz. It promises 47% performance gains compared to the Snapdragon 845 SoC. The Snapdragon 855 SoC is paired with Adreno 640 graphics unit, which promises to provide great gaming and media consumption experience.


The Mi 9 is a 5G-enabled smartphone—Qualcomm's X50 modem is paired with the SD855 chipset in this smartphone.


It runs Android Pie 9 with Xiaomi's MIUI 10 running atop and is backed by a 3,300mAh battery with support for 27W Turbo Charging (wired) and 20W wireless charging."
"Daisy will disassemble and recycle select used iPhones returned to Best Buy stores throughout the US and KPN retailers in the Netherlands, the company said in a statement ahead of Earth Day that falls on April 22.


Apple also announced the opening of its ""Material Recovery Lab"" dedicated to discovering future recycling processes in Austin, Texas.


The Lab will work with Apple engineering teams as well as academia to address and propose solutions to today's industry recycling challenges.


""Advanced recycling must become an important part of the electronics supply chain, and Apple is pioneering a new path to help push our industry forward,"" said Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives."
"Samsung will also put on display the Galaxy Tab S5e, a tablet with a 10.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2560x1600


The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 is all set to be kicked off on 25 February in Barcelona. The tech tradeshow will go on till 28 February and will showcase what tech companies around the world have to offer in 2019 - be it 5G or foldable smartphones.


Although the event is still a day away, Samsung has already announced what would be available at its booth at the Fira de Barcelona."
"The big Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Avengers: Endgame has crossed the Rs 150 crore mark in a jiffy


 After Thanos wiped out half of all life in the universe, including some major superheroes, the remaining superheroes regroup to take the fight to him and bring back their comrades"
"As part of a signed deal, Huawei would develop the ""non-core"" parts like antennas and other network components for the UK's 5G infrastructure, The Verge reported on Tuesday.


However, several politicians in the country criticised the decision fearing that Huawei's alleged ties to the Chinese government could expose British people, companies and government agencies to cyber attacks and hacking cases, for which the Chinese government is infamously known for.


After several cases of cyber attacks on tech majors, government organisations and multinational organisations in the US, President Donald Trump has been trying to pressure allies to refrain from using Huawei equipment."
"The Asus Zenfone Max M2 will go on sale for the first time today in India. The phone made its way to India last week and shared the stage with the Zenfone Max Pro M2. The smartphone is more affordable than the latter but retains some physical and internal similarities like 6.26-inch LCD display, dual rear camera and the large battery.


The smartphone will go on sale at 12 pm today, i.e. 20 December, exclusively via Flipkart. The smartphone will be available at ₹ 9,999 for the base variant with 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM. The higher variant of the Zenfone Max M2 with 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM is priced at ₹ 11,999. Offers include ₹ 750 discount on HDFC debit and credit cards, no cost EMI and discounts on Flipkart’s Complete Mobile Protection programme."
"Sterling and Wilson promoters, including chairman Khurshed Yazdi Daruvala, will sell shares in the IPO. (Pradeep Gaur/Mint)


Shapoorji Pallonji expects to raise $1 billion in the Sterlin Wilson IPO by bringing in outside investors


Sterling Wilson is among the world’s largest solar EPC companies providing pure-play, end-to-end solutions


Mumbai: Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s solar power business Sterling and Wilson Solar Ltd on Tuesday filed the draft prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO), which will see promoters sell shares worth around ₹4,500 crore."
"A Mint analysis of the NFHS data shows that households with internet access are concentrated in the prosperous North Indian belt spanning Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi. Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram and Nagaland also reported high internet access, but the sample sizes for these states are relatively small.


The NFHS surveyed more than 600,000 households across the country in 2015-16. It is a rich source of data on household ownership of assets and amenities, though the database is primarily used to assess health outcomes. The telecom regulator provides some disaggregated data on internet connectivity for more recent years, but that data is skewed because of multiple internet connections in the same household. The NFHS data are thus the latest estimates of actual internet penetration from an official and large-scale, nationally representative survey.


A disaggregated district-level analysis shows that in 123 of the 640 districts from where data was collected, at least one-fifth of the population had household access to internet. In 50 districts, at least one-third of the population had household access to internet. It is in these districts that the internet battle for hearts and minds will be the fiercest. All estimates have been weighted by the number of individuals in a household to account for the differences in household sizes across income classes."
"During the rally Sunday, Mayawati said the Congress was busy dividing the votes and cautioned the gathering to guard against any such attempt.


""In western UP, where people of all communities live...in Saharanpur, Bareilly, where there is a huge Muslim population...I want to tell the Muslim community...don't divide your votes...give it to the BSP, SP and RLD alliance,"" she had said."
"After Apple announced the prices of its latest devices, it was clear that not only does it want to drop your jaw with its innovations, but also with its pricing. The iPad Pro starts at ₹ 71,900 for the “base"" 11-inch model, while the WiFi + Cellular model is priced at ₹ 85,900.


The 12.9-inch model starts at ₹ 89,900 while the top-of-the-line variant has a price tag of ₹ 1,03,900."
"Digital payments platform PhonePe launched a special keyboard on Tuesday that will allow users to transact conveniently and securely with just a click, anytime and anywhere while using their Android phone.


The PhonePe keyboard will allow users to send and request money, check their account balance and invite friends and family to explore the PhonePe platform, across all apps and use cases on any phone where a keyboard is required. The UPI-powered PhonePe keyboard integrates seamless money transfers while offering the full functionality of a keyboard."
"Intel and Samsung have supported the FTC in friend-of-the-court filings, arguing Qualcomm’s defense is outdated since its years of “dominance through innovation and hard work"" have been replaced with monopolistic practices. Those practices “suppress competition and harm consumers,"" Intel said in a May 2017 filing.


The FTC case and Apple’s rapid follow-up caused a selloff in Qualcomm’s stock on concern that its ability to charge for patents was under threat. That in turn led to a hostile takeover bid by Broadcom Inc. that was thwarted by the US government on national security grounds.


A key issue in the FTC case is how Qualcomm gets paid for licensing its technology. The company owns the invention by which multiple data streams can use the same set of radio frequencies.


None of its opponents deny that Qualcomm came up with innovative technology that is key to industry standards. They challenge the extent to which Qualcomm uses its patents on those inventions to extract fees. Currently the company gets paid a percentage of the total selling price of each phone sold. Even amid non payments and disputes, that revenue totaled $5.2 billion in its most recent financial year.


Qualcomm’s adversaries claim that’s unfair because there’s so much other technology that makes a phone attractive and useful to consumers that comes from elsewhere. They argue the company should set fees based on the price of the component that uses its technology. That’s a drop to the low tens of dollars from a basis in the hundreds of dollars.


The way Qualcomm sees it, without its technology smartphones wouldn’t be able to access the internet -- an iPhone would be an expensive iPod."
"Andrew Garfield says post the critical and commercial debacle of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, he made it a priority to maintain distance from comic book-based films


 The follow-up’s failure made Sony put a stop to a live-action Spider-Man movie universe and led the studio to partner with Disney"
"Both Mittal and Bansal have plans to eventually monetize the platforms. They say the data from the platform can be valuable to researchers, publishers and media. According to Mittal, such apps can eventually compete with services such as CVoter that usually provide election-related information to media and other organizations.


As the user feedback here is public, it’s more transparent, Mittal says. Neta is also working on technology to enrol people onto the voter list through the app.


Besides involving users in the political conversation, civic technology apps are also helping get citizens’ feedback into policymaking. Civis.Vote, a non-profit organization, works with government officials and legislators to get user insights for consultation papers and policy decisions.


Hardly a year old, Civis also functions through a web platform but plans to launch an app soon. The platform’s founder, Antaraa Vasudev, says they plan to focus on policy and consultations, instead of elections and politicians.


However, Civis doesn’t allow conversation between users. While you can see your own responses, you can’t see what others are saying. This has been done to avoid herd mentality."
"Foldable screens will accelerate the convergence between smartphones, tablets and laptops, progressively unleashing a new form factor.


According to Paul Miller, Senior Analyst at Forrester, early experiments in augmented and virtual reality have matured and we'll see tangible proof points of real value at the MWC.


""Endless pilots and proofs of concept in IoT are also maturing, reaching beyond the operational teams where they began into the mainstream business, where they simplify existing processes and open the door to new service-based business models,"" he added."
"“We aim at delivering search results that are faithful to the query and completely unfazed and incorruptible by promoted or sponsored data,"" he says. “With Aarzoo, the search happens in real time and as the information is not filtered, the user will get unfiltered results without any bias.""


Besides, Sujan will offer companies a dashboard for ₹ 1 per user per month, which will give them unfiltered search results’ data. He plans to launch the search engine on 15 August 2019, and says his key customers will include procurement companies, who will be able to get pinpointed data about any item, without any bias."
"Jio Phone Gift Card, which was introduced in October, extends the benefits of the “Jio Phone Monsoon Hungama"" offer in the form of a Rs1,095 gift card. This basically means you can exchange an old phone for a Jio Phone with a refundable deposit of Rs501 and then with the remaining money (Rs594) you will get 6 months of unlimited voice calls and data and a complimentary data voucher worth Rs10.


Reliance JioJio Diwali Dhamaka offerJio 100% cashbackJio cashbackReliance DigitalReliance digital voucherMyJioRs 1699 plan jioRs 149 plan jio"
"”It further read, “On knowing that there is already a movie scheduled for a release on that date, we did everything in our purview to ensure the other parties that there will be no mud slinging and it will be a dignified release


so all brickbats directed to me pls! I’m my own person !!!”Mental Hai Kya was initially scheduled to release on March 29 but was later postponed to June 21"
"Amanda Seyfried had read for Regina (played by Rachel McAdams) and we really liked her but then (producer) Lorne (Michaels) suggested, ‘Why don’t we make her Karen?'” Liroff told Cosmopolitan UK"
"The company now has only a minimal presence in the country, offering only taxi- and licensed-hire vehicle services.


KakaoTalk is used by more than 80% of South Koreans, and in recent months tens of thousands of taxi drivers have held mass rallies in Seoul to condemn its upcoming car-pooling service.


Uberkakao talkSouth KoreaSouth Korea driver strikeKorea driver strikeride sharingcab servicetaxi service"
"Meanwhile, Apple has also submitted a blueprint of a bendable smartphone at the US Patent and Trademark Office, indicating Apple's progressive development towards building a foldable device."
"Plop is the brainchild of Anushka Shetty who is trying to carve a new entertainment category of digital storytelling. What inspired Shetty to explore story telling was that people spend a lot of time on social media and texting apps. “This is when we thought that people are very comfortable texting and consuming large amounts of content via messenger and other chatting apps. So can we tell amazing stories in the form of chat messages?"" Thus Plop started in early 2018 along with co-founder Vineet Shetty.


“We currently use many of the mobile phones’ native features like vibration, and backlights to add special effects to the stories. And we are experimenting with virtual reality to make the stories come alive,"" say Shetty. A majority of Plop’s users come from developed countries like the US, Japan and New Zealand.


Wysa, an AI-based “emotionally intelligent"" bot, aims to help people learn skills to build emotional resilience. Developed by Touchkin, the AI-based virtual coach responds to emotions you express and uses evidence-based cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBT), meditation, breathing and yoga to help you build mental resilience skills and feel better. Wysa also tracks your sleep and activity.


“Wysa is an attempt to scale mental health support using AI. People are more comfortable talking anonymously to an AI bot about their issues. Available 24X7, Wysa doesn’t judge or give opinions. It just asks the right questions to guide you through self-help techniques"" says Jo Aggarwal, co-founder, Wysa."
"WhatsApp is also working on the biometric authentication feature for its Android version. The feature was introduced to iPhone users in February and it allows unlocking of the app by using Face ID and Touch ID.


WhatsApp also gives users options to automatically lock WhatsApp after 1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or immediately. If WhatsApp doesn’t recognise the fingerprint and there are too many failed attempts, WhatsApp will be locked for a few minutes."
"Amazon isn’t the only company that periodically gets caught up in cases of private records mistakenly made public


Facebook shared this kind of information freely with third-party developers for years, before cracking down more recently


Researchers at UpGuard, a cybersecurity firm, found troves of user information hiding in plain sight, inadvertently posted publicly on Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud computing servers. The discovery shows that a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed how unsecure and widely disseminated Facebook users’ information is online, companies that control that information at every step still haven’t done enough to seal up private data.


In one instance, Mexico City-based digital platform Cultura Colectiva, openly stored 540 million records on Facebook users, including identification numbers, comments, reactions and account names. The records were accessible and downloadable for anyone who could find them online. That database was closed on Wednesday after Bloomberg alerted Facebook to the problem and Facebook contacted Amazon. Facebook shares pared their gains after the Bloomberg News report.


Another database for a long-defunct app called At the Pool listed names, passwords and email addresses for 22,000 people. UpGuard doesn’t know how long they were exposed, as the database became inaccessible while the company was looking into it."
"Not just the audience but even Tollywood celebrities are heaping praise on the film that opened to positive reviews


Actor Shraddha Srinath shared a few photos on Twitter and wrote, “Celebrating last night with the heroes of #Jersey"
"A double whammy of muted consumption demand and delayed capex revival is weighing on economic growth. (Vipul Sharma/Mint)


While RBI agrees there's a slowdown in economic activity, it believes there are upside risks to the Indian economy as well


Given the risks to inflation from rising crude oil prices and fears of a below-par monsoon, RBI may not change its stance in a hurry"
"iPhone 7 runs iOS 12, is water-resistant and houses a 12MP camera, Retina HD display, great battery life and stereo speakers.


Apple has already begun reducing the price of iPhone in China and may follow the same in India where iPhone is considered expensive.


According to a report in Caixin on Monday, Apple has cut prices for several of its products including iPhones."
"“It is our sincerest hope that our beautiful Stefanie, my angel and love of my life, will rest in eternal peace,” he added"
"In January, 43 per cent of the app's new users were from India, compared to just 9.5 percent in January of 2018, said Sensor Tower founder Oliver Yeh in a recent blog post.


In fact, 25 per cent of TikTok's downloads to date have come from India, for an estimated total of 250 million there. The app enables its users to shoot short videos and share it with others."
"German factories: German industrial orders fell by 4.2%, their sharpest rate in more than two years, in February, hit by a slump in foreign demand.


Trade talks: US-China trade talks made ""good headway"" last week and the two sides aim to bridge differences during talks that could extend beyond three days this week, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said.


Las Bambas: A Peruvian judge ordered three years of jail time for three lawyers representing indigenous villagers who have blockaded shipments from a massive copper mine, worsening the dispute."
"A film adaptation of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David W


An adaptation of a New York Times series, called “Overlooked,” about people whose deaths were previously not reported by the newspaper


Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents: A half-hour series for preschoolers that will “take young children and their families around the globe on an adventure that tells us the story of our food"
"’’Season 2’s Gaitonde track will be helmed by Anurag Kashyap, while Neeraj Ghaywan will direct Sartaj’s story


 Based on Vikram Chandra’s book of the same name, the second season of Sacred Games will premiere later this year"
"The company says that “even though these controls are virtual, the interactions feel physical and responsive"" as feedback is generated by the haptic sensation of fingers touching.


Google says the virtual tools can approximate the precision of natural human hand motion and the sensor can be embedded in wearables, phones, computers and vehicles.


In March, Google asked the FCC to allow its short-range interactive motion sensing Soli radar to operate in the 57- to 64-GHz frequency band at power levels consistent with European Telecommunications Standards Institute standards. Facebook Inc raised concerns with the FCC that the Soli sensors operating in the spectrum band at higher power levels might have issues coexisting with other technologies.


After discussions, Google and Facebook jointly told the FCC in September that they agreed the sensors could operate at higher than currently allowed power levels without interference but at lower levels than previously proposed by Google."
"The net-long Brent position — the difference between bets on higher prices and wagers on a slide — climbed 2.7% to 358,141 futures and options contracts for the week ended April 9, according to London-based ICE Futures Europe. Long positions rose 0.3%, reaching their highest point since late October."
"Instagram added notifications feature in 2016, and later in 2017 added Explore and some other features for web users.


With a 1-billion user-base worldwide, the app still does not allow web users to post Stories from the desktop.


Rolling out a web version of Direct could prove to be a full-fledged SMS alternative rather than just a tacked-on feature for discussing the photo and video app's content, the report said."
"WhatsApp is also working on a much-awaited dark mode that will provide a dark background to the traditional WhatsApp interface.


The swipe to right feature will allow users to instantly reply to messages simply by swiping right on them after they appear on top of the notification bar"
"While the world is waiting for the movie to hit the screens, here’s how the exhibition chains in Mumbai are preparing for this event film


Mumbai has special plans for the film as most cinema chains are working to provide the best audience experience


com spoke to representatives from PVR, INOX and Carnival cinemas as they have Avengers: Endgame shows running round the clock in many locations in Mumbai"
"”Jacqueline Fernandez, who is from Sri Lanka, wrote, “Extremely sad at the news of bombings in Sri Lanka


 This has to stop !”Also Read | Sri Lanka bomb blasts LIVE Updates: Eighth explosion hits Colombo, over 160 deadSidharth Malhotra wrote, “My heartfelt condolences & prayers are with the families affected in #Srilanka"
"The month of May will conclude with the release of Raj Kumar Gupta helmed espionage thriller India’s Most Wanted on May 24


 The short teaser of the film showed Arjun preparing to avenge 52 blasts in India between 2007 and 2013 with his four companions"
"Rao, one of the biggest proponents of a non-BJP, non-Congress front, has indicated that he would probably join the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance. Such an alliance risks alienating and losing the support of Asaduddin Owaisi led All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which influences minority votes in Hyderabad and other parts of the state.


With the bifurcation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the Congress had expected to retain power in the former state in 2014 when assembly and Lok Sabha elections were held simultaneously in the two Telugu states. However, the polls witnessed the rise of the TRS, while the N. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party won in Andhra Pradesh.


The Congress won 21 assembly and two Lok Sabha seats in 2014, but was completely wiped out in AP, failing to win even a single seat in either the Lok Sabha or the assembly and getting less than 5% of the votes. The loss was mainly attributed to the Congress being blamed for dividing the state by citizens.


Five years later, the scenario has become worse for the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, with the rise of the YSRCP. Hit with anti-incumbency, Naidu’s political future is perhaps at stake, as he is also leading the anti-BJP coalition with the Congress at the national level. TDP leaders who did not want to be quoted said that the Andhra Pradesh chief minister aims to play a significant role if the Congress wins the general elections."
The state office of the EC said a staggering ₹135.41 crore in cash has been seized in Tamil Nadu since the poll announcement
"The choreographer-actor-director has amped up the formula used by him through the Kanchana series since it began in 2007


Also Read | TN +2 Result 2019 declared: How to check result Plus Two result online and via SMS?VellaipookalThis film marks the comeback of seasoned comedian Vivekh in the lead role


 The film is set in the United States and is the story of a retired Tamil Nadu cop who is drawn into a case of serial kidnappings"
"Arun Jaitley said these promises are not for future as the government has fulfilled them in its five year term


The poor, the middle class and the neo-middle class will be at the centre of the BJP's electioneering


NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley Sunday launched the party's campaign themes for the Lok Sabha polls and asserted that the choice for people in the elections will be between the ""cohesive and tested"" government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ""chaos and mahamilawat"" offered by the Opposition.


Taking a swipe at the Opposition, he said people have to decide between a government led by one captain or a team of 11 players, and that of 40 captains."
"She pulls off some sensuous dance moves with grace as the audience enjoys the thumping beats of the song


After the film’s release, Leone shared a video on Instagram where her fans were seen dancing and rooting for her in front of the screens in the theaters"
"According to the new list of regulations released by the DGCA, drones can be flown only during daylight. An exception can be made for micro drones flying upto 200 feet above the ground in well-lit conditions.


DGCA has for the first time released a set of rules regulating the fly of all drones for civil use in India. Here is a list of all do's and don'ts which you need to keep in mind before flying drones.


mint-india-wire drone indiadrone dgcadrone lawsdrone permissiondrone policydrone regulationsdrone rules


Before you start flying drones as a hobby, for fun or to get aerial photographs, you need to understand the set of new regulations which will be in place from December 1. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has released a lengthy 37-page-long set of rules for flying drones in India. Indian Air Force will monitor all drone movements in the country in coordination with Airports Authority of India while the DGCA will have the power to suspend any permit given to you to fly drones in case of violation of regulations. Violators can also attract police action in case any applicable IPC section is violated."
"San Francisco-based Fitbit said the Versa Lite smartwatch will cost $160 (about ₹11,000), down from $200 for the full version. While still tracking workouts and heart rate, it will lack some features such as the ability to store music directly on the watch.


In 2018, Fitbit sold 5.5 million smartwatches, behind the biggest seller Apple Inc's 22.5 million units, but just ahead of Samsung's 5.3 million units, according to data firm Strategy Analytics.


Indeed, rivalry for a greater share of the market has heated up as Apple and Samsung have added features for health tracking, Fitbit's core focus. The Apple Watch included an electrocardiogram feature last year, and Samsung this year added a blood pressure sensor to its Galaxy Active Watch."
"The new film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Michael Koryta, which follows a teenager in a witness protection programme hiding out from a pair of killers in a wilderness skills set-up while a fire engulfs Montana"
"This means Vivo V15 Pro's pop-up camera, design and display might have to make up for the compromises made in the performance department.


Vivo V15 Pro's launch event will commence at 12 pm in New Delhi. You can watch its live stream on Vivo India's Facebook and YouTube handles. You can also follow updates of the event on the Chinese smartphone maker's Twitter page. The embedded link below will also let you view the launch."
"In my view, it is an achievement if the audience connects to the protagonist’s emotions and travels with him/her throughout the film


 They have everything sorted – from what should happen in the first 10 minutes to what should happen in the next half an hour of a film


 Of course, we have had directors such as K Vishwanath and Dasari Narayana Rao and others who have followed the same pattern, but you don’t learn until you work under them


 Was there a reason behind choosing Nani as Arjun?Nani is a terrific actor and I had the confidence that he is one such actor who would give a shot to an out-of-the-box character and story"
"Apple says the faulty adapters that are now wearing off were found to have been shipped along with Mac and certain iOS devices between 2003 and 2010 and were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit. (Apple)


For now, the programme covers wall plug adapters that were designed for use in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK


San Francisco: Apple has announced a ""Voluntary Recall and Exchange Programme"" for wall plug adapters allowing users to exchange their possibly affected adapters with new ones."
"The extended reach of the ban “might affect the legal analysis of whether this is an overly broad measure to address a perceived security risk,"" said Robert D. Williams, a Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law and the Executive Director of the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.


“This is a very steep hill for Huawei to climb,"" Williams said. “The question is whether the law is punitive or preventative — was Congress trying to punish the company or prevent a risk? The government doesn’t have to demonstrate that this is the most narrowly tailored solution it could have chosen. And courts, generally speaking, are deferential to Congress and the president on matters of national security.""


American officials have long been concerned about the risk of using Huawei equipment. A 2012 report by the House Intelligence Committee urged US businesses to avoid the Chinese company’s products and called for blocking all mergers and acquisitions involving them.


In January, after unveiling indictments against Huawei and its chief financial officer, FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined the potential risk of growing too dependent upon foreign technology.


“These cases make clear that as a country, we have to carefully consider the risks that companies like Huawei pose if we’re going to allow them into our telecommunications infrastructure,"" Wray said. “That kind of access could give a foreign government the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, to conduct undetected espionage, or to exert pressure or control."""
"Launched in 2015, DigiLocker is changing the way people carry their personal ID proofs, be it at the airport or on the road. Graphic: Mint


While the DigiLocker app has made to carry Aadhaar, driving licences, CBSE certificates and PAN card, the app's user experience has been wanting in several areas


mint-india-wire digilockerdigilocker appdigilocker benefitsaadhaardriving licencepan cardsoft copiespersonal id proofdigilocker airportdigilocker cbsedigilocker uidigital india


New Delhi: Kashyap Patel, a Surat-based engineer at Hazira LNG Pvt. Ltd, was travelling from Mumbai to Surat by train early this month, when he was asked to produce an identity card for ticket verification. He realized he was not carrying a physical ID proof but that did not faze him. He simply flashed his smartphone, displaying one of the identity documents issued to him from his DigiLocker account.


Launched in July 2015 and available on Android, iOS and web, DigiLocker is changing the way people are carrying important documents and certificates issued to them by government agencies. Patel, for instance, is just one of the over 17 million registered users in India for the DigiLocker service, according to the government’s website."
"The new show will premiere on BBC One in the UK and on Netflix outside of the UK/Ireland, and China where the service is not available


Gatiss and Moffat will also serve as executive producers on the project alongside Sue Vertue for Hartswood Films and Ben Irving for BBC"
"All four phones run Android Oreo 8.1 with different UIs. The Note 6 Pro runs MIUI 10 while the Vivo Y95 runs Funtouch OS 4.5. The Realme U1 and Oppo A7 both run ColorOS 5.2. There’s no word out on Android Pie updates to any of these devices as of now.


The Redmi Note 6 Pro sports a dual camera setup at the back consisting of a 12MP primary sensor and 5MP secondary sensor with f/1.9 aperture. The front of the phone also has a dual camera setup comprising 20MP primary and 2MP secondary sensors.


The Oppo A7, Realme U1 and Vivo Y95 have 13MP+2MP dual rear camera setup at the back with f/2.2 aperture and PDAF. The front cameras of these phones are different though—the Oppo A7 has a 16MP selfie camera while the Vivo Y95 has a 20MP clicker. The Realme U1 has a 25MP Sony IMX 576 sensor which is capable of backlight correction, thanks to the AI capabilities provided by its chipset.


mint-india-wire Realme U1Redmi Note 6 Prorealme U1 comparisonOppo A7Vivo Y95Realme mobilesOppoVivoXiaomiRedmiAmazonFlipkart"
"The joyful faces on stage brought the well-heeled room — including Lea Michele, Caitlyn Jenner and Maria Shriver — to their feet with applause


Alicia Keys, on hand to introduce Winfrey as the recipient of the first Empowerment in Entertainment award, took the stage right after


”By the time Oprah made her way to the stage to accept the award, henceforth to be called the Oprah Winfrey Empowerment in Entertainment Award, her eyes were dry and she was ready to rock the room with an inspiring speech in which she looked back at her own history of fighting for equal pay for herself and then others"
"Rating agencies have finally noted the housing lender’s plight and DHFL has lost its crown of being AAA rated


When investors didn’t like the answer to this question in September, the small-ticket housing financier’s stock plunged more than 42% in a single day.


The management took steps to alleviate concerns by stating their intent to repay every paper on maturity without fail. And, so far, DHFL has indeed repaid all maturing debt on the due date.


But the question continues to haunt investors even today, especially those who have put their faith and money in the company’s bonds."
"Senior AIMIM leaders said that there are about 10 districts (total 36) in the state which the party is looking to capture


The AIMIM is also likely to contest more seats than the 25 it contested (in 2014) in the Maharashtra assembly elections


Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which is contesting the Aurangabad seat in Maharashtra in alliance with the Prakash Ambedkar-led Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM), is looking to consolidate Muslim votes across the state."
"The rupee was trading at 69.71 a dollar, down 0.06% from its previous close of 69.67. The home currency opened at 69.59 a dollar.


Oil extended gains to the highest since early November as geopolitical conflicts in Libya and Iran escalate. So far this year, crude surged over 32%."
"Agrees Sunder Sarangan, chief marketing officer and general manager, Software Product Engineering at Persistent Systems: “Comparing creativity with technology is akin to asking whether language skills or communication matter more than STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills...what will matter most is the right balance or combination and the ability to combine the two most effectively,"" he asserts.


According to D.D. Mishra, senior director and analyst, Gartner, “Creativity is often the catalyst for change. In addition to this, the differentiation between products and services is fast diminishing. In order to stay ahead of the curve, we need to innovate to differentiate. Innovation comes from creativity and if the organisation’s culture revolves around creativity, differentiation becomes easy."""
"""Domestic factors including concerns over the central bank's independence and heightened political uncertainty surrounding the general election are likely to weigh on the currency.""


The rupee's path will also be guided by the Reserve Bank of India's latest policy decision on Feb 7 - the first under a new governor after former chief Urjit Patel left abruptly toward the end of last year.


The RBI is likely to soften its stance later this week and cut interest rates by mid-year at the latest - an extraordinary U-turn in policy expectations - according to the latest Reuters poll of economists.


""Under RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, the policy stance is likely to be shifted from 'calibrated tightening' to 'neutral', with lower levels of inflation and growth the basis for this change,"" analysts at MUFG wrote in a note to clients."
"According to Variety, the streaming giant has ordered six episodes of the half-hour limited series, in which Myers will play multiple characters"
"It is currently seen on the Netflix Android app, specifically, v7.6.0 build 19 34157. It is unclear if the feature will be rolled out to a wider audience."
"Her vulnerability, as she opens up about her desire to ‘fix’ everything, including herself, is endearing


 Brendan Scannell, as the insecure, mumbling gay man equipped with a scathing tongue also makes you smile


With a 17-minute run time, the episodes have a kind of half baked feel — especially with the inherent thrust that is placed on streaming platforms to encourage binge-watching


 Also, what happens with Rolph, the live-in submissive of Tiffany?As for the BDSM bit, we don’t know how accurate it is, or if the community would endorse it"
"If you wish to check out PiP on WhatsApp Web, you need to first check if your WhatsApp Web has been updated to version 0.3.1846. If not, you might have to wait till you get the update, as there’s no way to do it manually.


The browser version of WhatsApp web doesn’t currently support the new feature, so you might have to wait a while before it becomes functional."
"Laakhon Mein Ek 2 has received a positive response from the audience for its hard-hitting story and spectacular performances


 Starring Shweta Tripathi, the eight-episode series deals with the life of a young doctor and the challenges she faces when she is asked to conduct a cataract surgery camp in a small village


An ex-IITian, Biswa rose to fame with his stand-up comedy acts and the hilarious ‘Pretentious Movie Reviews’ that he did with Kanan Gill"
"""And so, beginning today, customers in the US who do not yet have a Prime membership or a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited will now be able to listen to an ad-supported selection of top playlists and stations for free with Amazon Music on compatible Alexa-enabled devices,"" the company wrote in a blog post late on Thursday.


With this, users would now have access to play a station based on a song, artist, era, and genre, and to hear some of Amazon Music's top global playlists including Country Heat, Fuego Latino and more."
"On the new browser, the software giant has added a dedicated extensions page and sync support for approved extensions.


""You'll also be able to install Chrome extensions from Google's online store by just flipping a switch in the extensions settings. Currently testers can sync favourites, but not settings, history, extensions, open tabs, passwords and auto-fill information,"" the report said."
"In terms of optics, the back of the Redmi Note 7 boasts a 48MP+5MP AI-enabled dual camera setup. It has a pixel size of 1.6 microns and an aperture of f/1.8. Thanks to the size of its sensor and pixel binning, the Note 7 promises good low light performance. The front of the smartphone sports a single 13MP selfie camera under the dew drop notch.


The Redmi Note 7 is priced at 999 Yuan (about ₹ 10,000) for the 3GB/32GB variant, 1,199 Yuan (about ₹ 12,500) for 4GB/64GB variant and 1,399 Yuan (about ₹ 14,500) for the 6GB/64GB variant."
"“The last couple of years, especially 2018, have been a washout for small and medium-sized firms, and despite recent earnings showing signs of economic recovery, investor reaction hasn’t been favorable,"" said Dharmesh Kant, head of research at Indianivesh. “The buybacks show the founders are confident about their business models.""


Even state-run firms, including Coal India Ltd., hydro-power generator NHPC Ltd. and iron-ore miner NMDC Ltd. are on a buying spree to help the government — their biggest shareholder — meet its asset-sale target."
"Policy support will be vital to preventing skewed market structures that adversely impact the demand-supply dynamic, thereby challenging financial sustainability, while simultaneously balancing obsolescence with time and need to secure returns on technology investments.


Smart technologies can optimise energy use across buildings, transport and utilities; enhance safety and security; assist in improving the financial performance of city administrations and improve convenience through IT enablement and smart devices.


A large portion of this investment is in the devices and equipment that shall detect change in conditions, relay it to a central processing centre and on receipt of relevant commands therefrom, and actuate such equipment so as to trigger the desired responses.


Intelligent lighting, energy saving devices, safety alarms, and intelligent transport are just some of the iceberg tips that can reduce the carbon intensity of our cities."
"And as they move forward in time, they would have a different experience about how they abused resources before"
"Facing flak from the government over dozens of lynching incidents in the country last year which were linked to rumours spread on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service introduced several new measures, including limiting the number of messages that a user can forward to five and appointing a grievance officer for the country.


""One of the most exciting features we're building is WhatsApp Payments. Leveraging services from the 'India Stack' such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface), we're making it possible for people to easily transfer money to each other or their favourite merchants,"" informed Bose.


WhatsApp Payments, stuck owing to India's demand to store data locally, has not gone beyond the beta testing it did with nearly one million users last year."
"Last, but not the least, running an air purifier for the entire day can be a costly affair and shoots up the power consumption. Also, the filters have to be changed after six or eight months and that means additional cost.


mint-india-wire Air purifiersBest air purifiersDiwali PollutionAir PollutionDiwali air pollutiontop air purifiersAir in DelhiAir quality in Delhi"
"“We will provide issue based support only. It won’t be an issue with the AIMIM. Our main goal is to form a federal front with KCR leading it,"" said the TRS leader, when asked about the situation. A senior AIMIM functionary from Hyderabad, who also did not want to be quoted, said he was confident that KCR would not support BJP.


Political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy however said that the TRS’s stand on providing support to the NDA is not surprising and in tune with what it has been doing over the last five years. “Only if KCR decides to formally join the NDA and be a part of the union cabinet will things will change and Owaisi will then take a call on the AIMIM’s relationship with the TRS,"" he added."
"Besides, the manifesto also promises to take the number of institutions of eminence to 50 from the current plan of 20. “We will take all necessary steps to increase the number of seats in Central Law, Engineering, Science and Management institutions by at least 50% in the next five years. In the past five years, our emphasis has been on quality higher educational institutions and Institutions of Eminence have been a step in that direction. We will take it forward …and create 50 such institutions by 2024,"" the saffron party’s manifesto said.


To be sure, the central institutions seats are going up by 25% due to implementation of the economic weaker section quota over the next couple of years. The manifesto is not clear whether this 50% hike is above the EWS quota limit or including the growth in seats due to EWS quota."
"Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with his Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia addresses the media, in New Delhi, (PTI)


The party wants to focus on their demand for statehood, which is the central theme of their campaign in Delhi


The AAP is in power in Delhi assembly where they came to power after winning 67 of the 70 seats in 2015"
"The Samsung Galaxy Fold phone is shown on a screen at Samsung's Unpacked event in San Francisco. (AFP)


It’s hard to imagine how smartphones could get much better. Most are already zippy and equipped with jumbo screens, powerful cameras and face scanners. So what else can we look forward to?


It turns out, plenty. For a peek at the future of the phone, look to Samsung, the world’s largest handset-maker. On Wednesday, the South Korean company showed off a family of four new Galaxy phones that incorporate new technologies and features that may start spreading to other smartphones.


Of the four new devices, one will work on next-generation ultrafast 5G cellular networks, which means it can download a movie in seconds rather than minutes. Three of the models will have slightly larger screens and more complex camera systems than their predecessors.


And Samsung is also teasing a fifth device that can be folded and unfolded like a book to decrease or increase the phone’s screen size to suit its owner (though it’s unclear whether this gadget will go on sale this year).


There’s a lot to unpack here. Here’s what you need to know about what’s coming with screen sizes, cameras, 5G and the elusive foldable phone.


Many phone-makers, including Samsung, Apple and Google, have focused on making screens larger without adding bulk to their bodies. To do this, they stretched the screens from one edge to another while shrinking the bezels, or the borders surrounding the screen.


Samsung is continuing this trend. Its new Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus phones have 6.1-inch and 6.4-inch displays, up from the 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch screens on last year’s Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus. Even though the screens are bigger, Samsung said, the devices’ body sizes are more compact than their predecessors."
"According to research firm eMarketer, Amazon's Echo is expected to capture 63.3 % of smart speaker users in 2019


Facebook Inc is working to develop a voice assistant to rival the likes of Amazon.com Inc's Alexa, Apple Inc's Siri and Alphabet Inc's Google Assistant."
"The price reduction comes after iPhone prices were lowered in China for the second time this year, as Apple wrestles with a prolonged sales slowdown in the world's largest smartphone market partly due to a slowing economy.


In India, Apple's iPhones are up against the more competitive pricing of rival handsets from South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and China's OnePlus.


""The focus of this entire (price cut) exercise is to win customers who would have thought of going to Samsung or OnePlus, to make them think whether they can spend some extra money on an iPhone XR - it's more bang for the buck,"" said Rushabh Doshi of tech research firm Canalys."
"But when someone is waiting, then the responsibility of the act and carrying it forth is placed on them and no longer on the person who had asked them to


Sarthak Dasgupta’s film The Music Teacher, streaming on Netflix, meditates on the dual aspect of this act


 A wife abandoned by her husband is waiting for a companion to fill in the void, a father is waiting for his son to return, a music teacher is waiting for his estranged student to remember him and the town is waiting eagerly for a singer to come to the hills


The film mainly focuses on the refusal of the music teacher Beni Madhab (played by Manav Kaul) to forget his student Jyotsna Ray (Amrita Bagchi) and his wait for her to remember him


 Nursing dreams of becoming a singer in Hindi films and going to Bombay, he treats his homecoming as a brief detour from his plans


 But when we meet him for the first time, bespectacled and weary, he is still there, the name of Jyotsna Ray stinging him with every utterance and remembrance"
"The BJP on Wednesday fielded her from the Bhopal seat, where she is set to have a direct contest with Congress heavyweight and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh.


Her statement against Karkare raised a political storm Friday with opposition parties attacking the BJP and the Congress demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi."
"The Galaxy A9 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 SoC paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 129GB of internal storage which is expandable up to 512GB via a MicroSD card. It runs Android Oreo 8.1 with the “Samsung Experience"" UI and is backed by a 3,800mAh battery.


The front of the Galaxy A9 is lit up by a 6.3-inch SuperAMOLED display with a resolution of 2220x1080. Since the smartphone doesn’t have a notch, the forehead of the smartphone contains a 24MP selfie camera.


The Samsung Galaxy A7 is Samsung’s first try at making a smartphone with more than two cameras. The Galaxy A7 has a camera configuration very similar to the Galaxy A9, just that it skips the 10MP telephoto camera."
"Netflix bond prices were little moved immediately after the announcement, but can be expected to fall, as the additional debt adds to the company’s credit risk


Bengaluru: Netflix Inc announced its third tap of debt markets in a year on Monday, aiming to raise about $2 billion as the streaming video pioneer invests heavily in original shows and acquiring content to fend off intensifying competition.


Netflix bond prices were little moved immediately after the announcement, but can be expected to fall, as the additional debt adds to the company’s credit risk. Shares in the company dipped 1% in early trading."
"David is returning to direct the new movie, which is produced by Vashu Bhagnani who also backed the 1995 film


“It’s official… After 25 years David Dhawan and Vashu Bhagnani come back together to adapt their timeless comedy, ‘Coolie No 1’"
"After the massive success of Viswasam in Tamil Nadu, the film is all set to get the Sandalwood treatment


Although the official announcement is yet to be made, Shiva Rajkumar said that it is most likely to be finalised soon"
"""After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,"" Dan Riccio, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering at Apple, told TechCrunch on Friday.


Apple had said it would launch ""AirPower"" in 2018, but it never did. It was a rare miss for Apple, which typically has a good track record of following through on product announcements."
"Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, who accompanied CEO Jack Dorsey to India in November last year, had to apologize on the ""Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy"" poster row.


The Parliament's Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur, is tasked with examining several aspects related to data security and privacy.


The house panel has 21 members from Lok Sabha that include Hema Malini, Prasun Banerjee, L.K. Advani, Raosaheb Patil Danve and others and 10 members from Rajya Sabha that includes Raj Babbar, Beni Prasad Verma and Subhash Chandra.


The tech giants are in a huddle over the abuse of their platform, especially when the elections are inching close."
"When you are shooting something like this or even a film like ‘No One Killed Jessica’, it’s never that you come and start shooting it


 You have this added responsibility of doing justice to the subject or that situation, which is not easy"
"With more than 200 films to his credit in many languages, he was last seen in Rohit Shetty’s Singham


 Bina supported all the atrocities of her five daughters and even saved them from their father’s wrath


 Shoma’s recent performances include films like Kyaa Kool Hai Hum and Kal Ho Naa Ho and TV show Yaro Ka Tashan


Priya Tendulkar as Anand’s first wifePriya Tendulkar, who played the dead wife of Ashok Mathur, had the most challenging role as she was confined to a photo frame throughout the show


 But she also helped Anand make peace with his family in difficult situations and always gave him the best advice


Known for the Priya Tendulkar Talk Show and playing the titular role in Rajani, the actor was known for her fiery attitude"
"The Congress had filed a complaint against Modi in this regard, but the poll watchdog said it did not find the statements violative of the model code of conduct (MCC).


“A detailed report of the chief electoral officer, Maharashtra, was obtained. The matter has been examined in detail in accordance with the extant advisories, provisions of the MCC and, after examination of complete transcript of the speech... the commission is of the considered view that in this matter no such violation of the extant advisories/provisions is attracted,"" the EC said."
"Former union ministers Vincent H Pala and Paban Singh Ghatowar have also been fielded from Shillong and Dibrugarh, Assam. Pala is also a sitting MP and has been fielded from the same seat.


Senior SC leader P L Punia's son Tanuj Punia has been nominated to contest from Barabanki (SC) seat in Uttar Pradesh. 


The party has also nominated Swarup Das from Karimganj (SC) and Sushanta Borgohain from Jorhat (both Assam), K L Chisti from Nagaland and Bharat Basnett from Sikkim."
"In the trailer, Vishal is seen playing a morally corrupt cop who indulges in excessive unethical practices"
"The sprawling cast of the show comes together for one final time, and this time the war is for the Iron Throne, the only war that matters (sorry, Jon Snow, you were wrong)


 After what happened in The Last of the Starks, Daenerys Targaryen is not going to leave any stone unturned in burning King’s Landing to the ground if that’s what it took to end Cersei Lannister"
"Weinstein is charged with assaulting two women in New York City, but prosecutors want jurors to hear from many of the dozens of other women whose allegations against Weinstein haven’t led to criminal charges


Burke said closing the courtroom for the hearing was “the only means available to avoid the tainting of the jury pool” because the proceeding dealt with material that “is prejudicial to the defendant and is highly inflammatory


”News coverage, he said, would serve no purpose other than to stir negative public sentiment toward WeinsteinLawyers for news organizations, including The Associated Press, argued that the prosecution and defense arguments didn’t meet the high legal standard for banning the media and the public


Weinstein’s case is “a matter of immense and legitimate public interest,” and the allegations against him are already widely known, said Robert Balin, a lawyer for the news organizations


Prosecutors said it was necessary to close the courtroom, both to protect Weinstein’s right to a fair trial and to shield the identities of accusers whose names and allegations were expected to come up during the hearing"
"Bengaluru: Gold prices held at 10-month highs on Wednesday, supported by global slowdown concerns and a weaker dollar, with markets eyeing the release of the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy meeting minutes later in the session.


Spot gold was marginally lower at $1,339.61 per ounce as of 0021 GMT, having touched $1,341.78 per ounce in the previous session, its highest level since April 20.


Palladium rose 0.3 percent to $1,484.00 per ounce, within striking distance of $1,500 after it hit a record $1,485.50 on Tuesday on concerns about a sharp supply deficit."
"This foam-based headband can tell when the user is in deep sleep, and plays a low tune to enhance the phase


Its frame emits a UV-free green light that mimics the effect of sunlight to reset a person’s body clock


Band-Aid-sized waterproof tags that can be stuck on clothes, and can track breathing, sleep patterns and the heart rate


mint-india-wire Sleep disordersgadgetssleep technologyAnti snoring pillowSleep IQSleep Number 360Responsive Air techsmart bedsmart pillowbed with sensors"
"As experts demand Facebook-owned WhatsApp to disclose information about where a message in question has originated from, the company has reiterated that such proposed changes are not consistent with the strong privacy protections important to people.


WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption by default which means only the sender and the recipient can see the messages in circulation -- not even WhatsApp.


In a recent media workshop, WhatsApp categorically said that tracing the origin of message is not possible given the end-to-end encryption that it provides and it would require the company to re-architect WhatsApp, leading us to a different product, one that would not be fundamentally private."
"There’s only so much a voter can take of politicians talking about Pakistani terrorists, Sri Lankan terrorists, Bangladeshi actors and American wrestlers, much less the really stale stuff like joblessness, growth prospects and the farm crisis


A spectre is haunting India—the spectre of a dreadfully boring election, made all the more unnecessary and avoidable by some of the lustiest hitting yet to be seen on the television screen by batsmen who are then promptly dropped from the Indian squad.


There’s only so much a voter can take of politicians talking about Pakistani terrorists, Sri Lankan terrorists, Bangladeshi actors and American wrestlers, much less the really stale stuff like joblessness, growth prospects and the farm crisis that we’ve been hearing about since, well, 1947.


Never mind. To help the politician keep us all from dropping off serially, here’s a list of 10 things that you could talk about on the hustings."
"Launched in India in 2018, TikTok has 120 million active users in the country, most of them youngsters in small towns and cities. (Reuters)


According to Google Trends, interest in the search term 'TikTok download' has increased in India considerably since the ban


ByteDance plans to invest $1 billion in India over next three years, says it remains 'very optimistic' despite the TikTok ban


New Delhi: Four days have passed since the TikTok ban. But, despite the fact that Google and Apple have removed the TikTok app from their respective app stores, not only does the China-based short video sharing app continue to be downloaded in India, it has seen the number of downloads from third-party websites increase phenomenally."
"TCIL had evinced interest in a 'piggyback transaction' of about 10%, a proposal that Digital Communications Commission — the highest the decision-making body of Telecom Ministry — had recently approved.


The government plans to sell up to 15% stake in the IPO to mop up about Rs900 crore. Separately, TCIL wants to issue fresh shares to the tune of 10%, which could fetch the company up to ₹600 crore."
"Although the makers were keen to get Adaa Khan also, she is already busy with her other show (Sitaara)


While Karanvir Bohra hasn’t signed any daily after Naagin 2, he was one of the finalists in Bigg Boss 12


 Arjun, who played the lead in the first season of Naagin, is currently seen as the anti-hero in Ishq Mein Marjawan"
"Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who is here for the special screening of his film Zero at the Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF), believes India and China should co-produce films that highlight family values, a link that binds together both the cultures


The actor said cinema and art speak to people beyond language and they will always be at the centre of people-to-people dialogue


“Technology, exports and imports all that is going to happen but cinema is always going to be at the forefront or art is going to be at the front of people-to-people exchanges,” Shah Rukh said in an interview to state-run CGTN


“Culture, reading, writings, these are going to be the things that are going to enhance people-to-people connect because the language of art is beyond semantics and understanding and the actual grammar,” he added


Gifts, flowers and countless kisses is how his admirers greeted Shah Rukh at Beijing International Airport as many of his fans in China had travelled over 2,500 kms from Xinjiang Autonomous Regions to catch a glimpse of their favourite celebrity, CGTN said in its report"
"The cast also includes Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Said Taghmaoui, Jason Mantzoukas, John Leguizamo, Jerome Flynn, Tobias Segal, Hiroyuki Sanada and Cecep Arif Rahman, among others"
"At least four major leaders of the BJP want to contest from the seat—the party chief Pillai, union minister of state for tourism Alphons Kannanthanam, BJP general secretaries K Surendran and MT Ramesh— who are not willing to contest from anywhere else.


Pillai has been making a pitch to contest from Pathanamthitta early on, taking credit for the Sabarimala fight and highlighting his rapport with upper caste Hindu organisation Nair Service Society, according to a BJP leader who declined to be named. But Pillai's flip-flops during the Sabarimala campaign received him backlash from the two major factions in Kerala BJP, who have been lobbying for their loyalists for the Pathanamthitta seat. One faction led by V. Muraleedharan has been pushing for Surendran and the other led by P.K. Krishna Das have been pushing for MT Ramesh, said the leader.


Ramesh has previously said he did not wish to contest the polls if not picked for Pathanamthitta. While Surendran initially wanted to contest from Thrissur constituency, the seat is expected to be given to ally Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), as its leader Thushar Vellappally showed interest to contest. Afterwards, Surendran's focus shifted to Pathanamthitta. By last week, Kannanthanam, also openly raised claims for the Pathanamthitta seat."
"Work began soon after the party’s dismal performance in the assembly polls in 2016, with the BJP garnering a mere 10% vote share"
"Both, the Moto One and Moto G7, have a glass sandwich design, however Moto One has an boat-shaped notch, while Moto G7 offers a smaller waterdrop styled notch. Moto G7 also has curved edges as opposed to the rounded ones on Motorola One.


At the back of the Moto One are two cameras placed vertically on the top left corner. The Moto G7 carries the signature circular shaped rear cameras. At the front, the Moto One is lit by a 5.9-inch HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 19:9. Moto G7 has a bigger 6.2-inch display with Full HD+ resolution."
"Also Read | Avengers Endgame overthrows Avengers Infinity War to become the biggest global opener of all timeBiggest first-day haul in North America: Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened with 119 million dollars on the first day in North America


 The Force Awakens, incidentally, wind up as the highest grossing film in North America, and Endgame might actually come close, despite this summer being totally clogged up with big releases"
"According to the Mumbai Fire Brigade, the fire was confined to the electric wiring and electric installation


 It destroyed stock of raw material, cans of chemical, wooden furniture, office record, office files and temporary shed on the terrace"
"Once you have got that sorted out, take a look at the power output. A 100-watt setup is an overkill for an apartment; a 10-watt setup is measly when you have Rob Bourdon on the drums. A 15-20 watt setup might be sufficient for most beginners and intermediate guitar players.


Then take a look at other options—pre-amp or gain, overdrive and gimmicks like an in-built BOSS pedal. See the dynamic range of the speakers. Play around with the EQ knobs. If you’re playing solos you’d require a good mid response, if you’re playing rhythm, you’d require great highs and lows. To really get the idea of how an amp sounds, it’s advisable you go to a guitar store and listen to it yourself.


It’s always advisable to get a separate pedal for getting creative with your tone and not rely solely on your amp.


Good beginner amp options include Fender Champion (20W), Roland Cube 20GX and Ibanez IBZ10G V2 (10W).


A stomp pedal or an effects pedal is a foot switch connected between your guitar and amplifier to provide more tonal creativity. Try listening to any Hendrix song played on an electric guitar—that’s a sound made by an effects pedal.


The types of effects are a function a pedal maker’s creativity (read craziness)—there are pedals that make different notes of a guitar sound like the notes in Super Mario’s intro track. Needless to say, the most popular are the less tacky ones. To begin with, you can choose from overdrive (mimicking the loudest volume on a valve amp), fuzz (listen it out here), reverb (repeating a note again and again every few milliseconds), loop (repeats a phrase you play until you turn it off) and “Wah"" (creates a “wah"" sound when the pedal is depressed).


A pedal has a particular effect with relevant parameters you can fuss around with to get the perfect sound, so it can be a bit expensive to create a “pedalboard""."
Reports also suggest the actor will join hands with director Mysskin for the sequel of Thuparrivalan
"Cabinet also nods promulgation of Daman and Diu Civil Courts (Amendment) Regulation, Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Civil Courts and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Regulation


NEW DELHI: The union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the general elections to the Lok Sabha 2019 for issuance of statutory notifications under Representation of the People Act, 1951. It provides for calling upon the parliamentary constituencies to elect members to the house of the people, on the dates to be recommended by the Election Commission of India in its proceedings."
"""The Redmi Note 7 series is a remarkable addition to our Redmi Note line,"" said Manu Jain, Managing Director, Xiaomi India,


Equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, the Redmi Note 7 Pro features a 48MP primary camera and a 13MP front camera."
"Bearish bets against Netflix’s existing $8.4 billion of junk-rated bonds have more than tripled this year to an all-time high of $347 million, Reuters reported last week.


“The short balance in the actual bonds reflects a view that (the bonds) will decline in value if or when they issue more debt,"" said Samuel Pierson, analyst at IHS Markit."
"A lot is happening here and it is interesting that a full-on battle against the Night King has already started in the third episode


The battle is going to be a long affair, probably two episodes long and we do not have an idea what comes next"
"Downloadable content (DLC), which you usually have to buy from online stores, is something that casual gamers do not quite enjoy because it feels like you’re paying twice for the same game. But if there’s one game that can compel you to buy DLC, it’s Hitman 2. You will spend hours and hours killing more creatively and learning more about the art of stealth. If your child is below 18, they should probably not be playing this game.


mint-india-wire Hitman 2Hitman 2 game reviewHitmanSilent Assassinps4 xboxps4 pro xboxGamingTechnology"
Congratulations mom… your ability to challenge yourself to excel at everything you do has inspired us to be the people we are today! Here’s to many more milestones!”Priyanka Chopra looked as pretty as ever as she posed with her mother and the staff of the clinic
"""If consumers don't see the level of personalization, offers and products they want from their banks or insurers, they will certainly look for it elsewhere,"" he added.


While 29% of Indian consumers surveyed go to the physical location of their bank at least once a week, 76% use their smartphones or tablets to check their bank accounts at least once a week.


""About 67% of Indian consumers said they like their bank, slightly above the 62% global average,"" said the report."
"When I look at my son’s generation playing video games, I find them chatting with each other while doing it. So it is not necessarily all bad. With any new technology we need to learn how to keep control of it. If people are getting depressed, sometimes spending time online can be more comforting than in the real world.


When I was in school (around 1976-77) I was one of the first to use a calculator and my classmates said my brain would deteriorate. But it allowed me to concentrate on other things. I think social media should augment our intelligence rather than make us dumber. But there is still some risk with social media, which needs to be discussed.


mint-india-wire David WoodSymbian operating systemartificial intelligenceAIhealthcareInternet of ThingsArtificial Emotional Intelligence"
"WhatsApp Beta's latest update for the Android version recently received an update which introduces two new features. The first one is the redesigned settings menu, with new icons and, most noticeably, the addition of Payments option. Earlier the Payments option was buried inside the Account section. The second feature is the addition of network usage information, which can also be found in the settings.


WhatsApp has introduced new iconography for all the settings. The icons are now a bit slimmer and tidier. The individual settings also contain more text within their respective section that let the users know about the contents of a particular setting."
"The third edition of the Pune International Queer film Festival (PIQFF) will be held in a country where homosexuality is no longer a crime


 So, the festival will showcase the struggles that paved the way to the landmark judgement — Section 377 was read down in September 2018 by the Supreme Court — and continue for many individuals in an unequal society


The first of the 35 films to be screened at the festival is Queer Lives Matter- How LGBT-Activists Change The World, a documentary about young LGBTQ activists from all corners of the world who have fought for equal rights despite social oppression


 Another film, Taiwan! Let’s Get Married, is about the country’s quest to become the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage


“While one fight has been won, we want to remember that communities such as the transgenders and lesbians are still fighting for self-expression, acceptance and a safe life"
"“Whether that’s a privacy concern or not depends on how cautious Amazon and other companies are in what type of information they have manually annotated, and how they present that information to someone,"" he added.


When the Echo debuted in 2014, Amazon’s cylindrical smart speaker quickly popularized the use of voice software in the home. Before long, Alphabet Inc. launched its own version, called Google Home, followed by Apple Inc.’s HomePod. Various companies also sell their own devices in China. Globally, consumers bought 78 million smart speakers last year, according to researcher Canalys. Millions more use voice software to interact with digital assistants on their smartphones.


Alexa software is designed to continuously record snatches of audio, listening for a wake word. That’s “Alexa"" by default, but people can change it to “Echo"" or “computer."" When the wake word is detected, the light ring at the top of the Echo turns blue, indicating the device is recording and beaming a command to Amazon servers.


Most modern speech-recognition systems rely on neural networks patterned on the human brain. The software learns as it goes, by spotting patterns amid vast amounts of data. The algorithms powering the Echo and other smart speakers use models of probability to make educated guesses. If someone asks Alexa if there’s a Greek place nearby, the algorithms know the user is probably looking for a restaurant, not a church or community center.


But sometimes Alexa gets it wrong—especially when grappling with new slang, regional colloquialisms or languages other than English. In French, avec sa, “with him"" or “with her,"" can confuse the software into thinking someone is using the Alexa wake word. Hecho, Spanish for a fact or deed, is sometimes misinterpreted as Echo. And so on. That’s why Amazon recruited human helpers to fill in the gaps missed by the algorithms.


Apple’s Siri also has human helpers, who work to gauge whether the digital assistant’s interpretation of requests lines up with what the person said. The recordings they review lack personally identifiable information and are stored for six months tied to a random identifier, according to an Apple security white paper. After that, the data is stripped of its random identification information but may be stored for longer periods to improve Siri’s voice recognition.


At Google, some employees can access some audio snippets from its Assistant to help train and improve the product, but it’s not associated with any personally identifiable information and the audio is distorted, the company says. "
"The phone is backed by a 3,300mAh battery and comes with connectivity options that include WiFi, dual 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS and USB Type-C."
"“My experience is that co-leadership doesn’t work,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a management expert at Yale University, wrote earlier this month


 “As a general rule, doling out chieftainships across an organization’s upper echelons only serves to undermine and dilute the leadership role


 Mark Hurd and Safra Katz have been co-CEOs of software giant Oracle since 2014, a partnership that has benefited the company


 Still, Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, remains at the firm as executive chairman, an arrangement that suggests he may still be the ultimate authority


 A 2014 paper by Ryan Krause, a management professor at Texas Christian University, and two colleagues studied 71 publicly traded firms led by co-CEOs


 They found that the arrangement could increase a company’s efficiency, but only if they were not actually sharing power"
"While Shahid Kapoor posted a video of himself with son Zain Kapoor, Tiger Shroff and Arjun Kapoor shared teasers of their upcoming films


Tiger Shroff posted the latest teaser of his upcoming film Student of the Year 2 and wrote, “Pishori ka fukra ya St"
"He further added, “Phenomenal biz of #AvengersEndgame is an eye-opener, wake up call for our industry… #AvengersEndgame is competing with the biggest hits from *Hindi* film industry… Has stamina to cross *lifetime biz* of #Dangal [highest grosser of *Hindi* industry]


34 billion dollars worldwide and so far, it looks like this will be the highest earning film in history"
Supreme Court calls Election Commission 'toothless' for failing to act against political leaders who make polarising speeches
"The Chinese smartphone manufacturer today introduced the Redmi Note 6 Pro in the Indian market, the successor to the Note 5 Pro, pricing it at ₹ 13,999 for the base variant. Boasting an additional camera on the front housed inside a notched display, the Note 6 Pro has a few subtle tweaks here and there, but it’s very strong to its roots.


Keeping everyone busy with the buzz about the Note 6 Pro, Xiaomi silently killed the successor to its sub-Rs 10,000 champ. The Note 5 featured a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. A 5.99-inch display lit up the front of the phone along with a lonesome 5MP selfie camera. The rear of the phone sported a single 12MP camera with f/2.2 aperture. There was no word from Xiaomi on the successor to this phone.


Let’s superimpose the specifications of another similarly priced smartphone from Xiaomi, the Redmi 6 Pro. It’s got the same underpinnings, and costs just a thousand rupees more the Note 5. It has a slightly different display, measuring 5.84-inches diagonally with a notch. Some purists may argue that’s a reasonable decrease, but if you squint harder, Xiaomi has cleverly kept the same length but a shrunk down the width of the display. The dimensions of the Redmi 6 Pro seem smaller because the notched 19:9 display is spread much further to the bezels. It even weighs the same."
"Consider, for instance, the partnership Dell announced with Microsoft Corp. on Monday, during his keynote at Dell Technologies World 2019 in Las Vegas. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who attended the event in person, explained the rationale for the tie-up.


""In my close to 30 years of working in technology, I have not seen a trend like digital transformation. But what is needed to fuel that, is great infrastructure -storage, compute (computing power) and networking."" The idea is to bring together the ""best of VMware and best of Azure"", he added.


Through this collaboration, the companies will jointly deliver VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure (VMware has an exiting partnership with Amazon Web Service (AWS) too). Additionally, Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to manage Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and the Azure Active Directory. According to Dell, the ""goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud--an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future"".


With Azure VMware Solutions, Dell Technologies and Microsoft hope to give their customers the power to ""seamlessly migrate, extend and run existing VMware workloads from on-premises (private cloud) environments to Azure without the need to re-architect applications or retool operations"", Dell Technologies said in a press statement.


By integrating with Azure services, customers can also infuse advanced capabilities like AI, Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) into their applications. Microsoft and VMware are also exploring initiatives to drive further integration between VMware infrastructure and Azure."
"After Salman Khan starrer Bharat, the actor will be seen alongside Akshay Kumar in Rohit Shetty directorial Sooryavanshi


 However, the film might face a box office clash with Salman’s next Inshallah as both are scheduled for Eid 2020 release


 But Katrina is pretty confident that Dabangg Khan will not let the two films clash at the box office"
"Mackie and Evans were at the latter’s house, when Evans questioned him about his feelings regarding donning the Captain America suit


 “We were at his house and he goes, ‘You excited?’ And I go, ‘What are you talking about?’ and he goes, ‘You don’t know?’ He jumps up, runs out of the room and comes back in with the script,” Mackie said"
"6. Don’t fly drone over groups of people, public events, or stadiums full of people without permission.


9. Don’t fly drone in controlled airspace near airports without filing flight plan or AAI/ADC permission (at least 24 hours before actual operation).


mint-india-wire drone indiadrone dgcadrone lawsdrone permissiondrone policydrone regulationsdrone rules"
"And, as the two researchers showed, a neural network can learn to write phishing messages by inspecting tweets, Reddit posts and previous online hacks.


Today, the same mathematical technique is infusing machines with a wide range of humanlike powers, from speech recognition to language translation. In many cases, this new breed of artificial intelligence is also an ideal means of deceiving large numbers of people over the internet. Mass manipulation is about to get a whole lot easier.


“It would be very surprising if things don’t go this way,"" said Shahar Avin, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. “All the trends point in that direction.""


Many technology observers have expressed concerns at the rise of AI that generates Deepfakes — fake images that look like the real thing. What began as a way of putting anyone’s head onto the shoulders of a porn star has evolved into a tool for seamlessly putting any image or audio into any video.


In April, BuzzFeed and comedian Jordan Peele released a video that put words, including “we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the internet,"" into the mouth of Barack Obama.


The threat will only expand as researchers develop systems that can metabolize and learn from increasingly large collections of data. Neural networks can generate believable sounds as well as images. This is what enables digital assistants such as Apple Siri to sound more human than they did in years past.


Google has built a system called Duplex that can phone a local restaurant, make reservations, and fool the person on the other end of the line into thinking the caller is a real person. The service is expected to reach smartphones before the end of the year.


Experts have long had the power to doctor audio and video. But as these AI systems improve, it will become easier and cheaper for anyone to generate items of digital content — images, videos, social interactions — that look and sound like the real thing.


Inspired by the culture of academia, the top AI labs and even giant public companies such as Google openly publish their research and, in many cases, their software code."
"Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home speakers aren’t particularly useful for Indians just yet. However, they can be useful for senior citizens at times. You can control lights and some other devices through voice commands, ask for news, listen to some radio channels and more. They’re just more convenient at times, which senior citizens might enjoy.


If you’ve ever seen your parents struggle between the set-top-box and TV remotes, you can present them with a universal remote. The remotes need to be programmed for different devices, but can handle multiple devices simultaneously, making things less confusing. You can easily buy one from Amazon or your neighbourhood stores.


Apple Watch Series 4Walabot HomePanasonic SeekitXiaomi Mi home security cameraSaReGaMa CarvaangadgetsSmart Speakerssenior citizens"
"Under the hood, the Oppo K1 is powered by Qualcomm's octa-core Snapdragon 660 processor clocked at 2.2GHz. The K1 comes in 4GB and 6GB RAM variants and 64GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card."
"The first generation of in-display fingerprint scanners has been criticised for being small, slow and unreliable. Huawei Mate 20 Pro and OnePlus 6T have one of the better ones, and they still suffer from the same issues.


Xiaomi has been particularly slow in adopting this technology—Mi 8 is the only smartphone from the Chinese manufacturer to sport the in-display scanner. However, president and co-found Lin Bin recently posted a video on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, showing off Xiaomi’s own version of the technology."
National Award-winning filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor says he is excited about venturing into the Telugu film industry with his upcoming movie but is also “terrified
"Hours after the cryptic tweet sparked speculation that he would be taking a political plunge, he dispelled the rumours, saying “Grateful for all the interest shown in my previous tweet but just clarifying in light of some wild speculation, I am not contesting elections


 He has also featured in government ads on issues such as menstrual hygiene, anti-smoking and traffic safety rules"
"Calling the debate over electoral bonds—a tool to donate funds to political parties—“ill informed"", Jaitley said the system is “reasonably transparent"".


“The only non-transparent factor is that how you distribute it (bond) is known to you as a donor,"" Jaitley said.


The finance minister’s comments come a day after the Supreme Court said it would hear petitions challenging the government’s electoral bonds scheme on 5 April. Last month, the Election Commission told the apex court that rules related to political funding could have serious repercussions on transparency."
"To define “style"" for the study, the Dartmouth researchers reference sentence length, the use of passive or active voices and word choice that could result in texts with varying degrees of simplicity or formality. The team used 34 stylistically distinct Bible versions ranging in linguistic complexity from the “King James Version"" to the “Bible in Basic English"". The texts were fed into two algorithms—a statistical machine translation system called “Moses"" and a neural network framework commonly used in machine translation, “Seq2Seq"". Neural networks are algorithms modelled on the human brain.


While different versions of the Bible were used to train the computer code, systems could ultimately be developed that translate the style of any written text for different audiences. As an example, a style translator could take an English-language selection from Moby Dick and translate it into different versions suitable for young readers, non-native English speakers, or any one of a variety of audiences, according to the researchers.


mint-india-wire BibleBible AIArtificial IntelligenceBible translationsBible King James versionBible in Basic EnglishDartmouth Collegetechnology"
"The rules will also include misleading information about requirements for voting, including identification requirements, misleading statements or information about the official announced date or time of an election.


The platform will start with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in India and the European Parliament elections and then roll out to other elections globally throughout the rest of the year, Twitter said in a statement."
"“This decision if genuinely implemented will change the political landscape of Indian parliamentary politics. Women are emerging as a political force in Indian democracy as visible in the past two elections...with this, they will have (a) bigger voice in decision making. All the other parties which are paying lip service will have to follow; if not, will eventually lose their women base,"" Kumari added.


Continuing the battle for equal participation of women in politics, women activists from across the country in July 2018 launched a charter in the national capital, demanding the central government ensure that 50% seats in Parliament and legislative assemblies are reserved for women.


Praveen Rai, a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, in his study published in South Asia Research journal, termed women’s increasing participation in Indian electoral politics as a silent feminization.


“The increased participation of women in formal politics reveals a process of feminization of Indian politics with positive, people-driven developments that augur well for Indian women and for India. The political parties that played a destructive role in scuttling the Women’s Reservation Bill in the last Lok Sabha have become redundant after the general elections in 2014,"" Rai said in the study."
"At ₹4,999, the Mi Soundbar really is a no brainer. It’s much better than the audio quality a mid-ranged TV brings to the table and enhances the overall TV viewing experience manifold. Though it doesn’t hold a candle to higher end soundbars from companies like Sony, Bose and others, it’s better than comparable offerings from F&D etc.


The product would perhaps have been more enticing if Xiaomi could build some smart features into it, but the price still makes a compelling case. If you have a medium to large sized room and want a better audio experience while watching television, the Mi Soundbar is certainly worth buying."
"While the scenes featuring Tony Stark and Ty Simpkins are truly heart-touching, for the most part of his journey, Tony is without his suit and Jarvis


Spotlight on War MachineAnother good thing about Iron Man 3 is that it throws ample spotlight on Colonel Rhodes’ War Machine


 He is finally the kind of strong sidekick that Iron Man needs and arrives at the battle scene at exactly the right time


 Unlike the previous Iron Man films, Don Cheadle has a lot to do with his character now and he is every bit as good


 Not only are the set pieces bigger in this action treat but the sequences featuring the crumbling buildings and mid-air explosions are also done more efficiently"
"The book’s editor, Chris Jackson, said in a statement that The Beautiful Ones was “a beautiful tribute to his life


”“It’s also much more than that: it’s a genuinely moving and energizing literary work, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image,” said Jackson, whose other authors have included comedian Trevor Noah and Ta-Nehisi Coates


 “It’s a treasure not just for Prince fans but for anyone who wants to see one of our greatest creative artists and original minds at work on his greatest creation: himself"
"Kanchana 3 is showing no signs of slowing down at the box office as the film has grossed Rs 130 crore within 10 days of its release


Film trade analyst Ramesh Bala noted that Kanchana 3 is holding its ground at the box office despite facing stiff competition from Avengers: Endgame"
"A Congress official said the BJP had the funds to reserve most of India's fleet of helicopters for hire for 90 days, making it difficult for opponents to get hold of them.


""We have never ever seen an election with such disparity. Financially, we cannot compete with them,"" said another veteran Congress politician, who asked to remain anonymous.


He and another high-ranking Congress official said they expected the BJP to outspend them by a factor of ten. A third Congress source estimated the disparity at twice that.


Two BJP officials declined to provide an estimate of spending, but one said the ""BJP definitely has a big war chest and has more funds at its disposal than the Congress.""


Congress has received far fewer funds because of a perception it is unlikely to win the election, political strategists said. The opposition party has been hampered by its inability to forge a national alliance to take on Modi and has struggled to capitalise on discontent against the BJP over a lack of jobs and distressed farm incomes.


Modi has been topping polls as India's most popular politician, well ahead of Congress President Rahul Gandhi.


Money has become critical in elections given the country's 1.3 billion population, its voting over 39 days and the sheer complexity of the electorate, in terms of region, religion, language, and caste.


A tradition of doling out freebies to sway voters only adds to costs. Authorities say they have seized goods and cash worth about $456 million since March 26.


""This war chest gives the BJP significant advantages,"" said Milan Vaishnav, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's South Asia programme. ""Money is useful for wooing voters but also for keeping networks of party workers and influencers well lubricated."""
"Credited with having conceptualised PVR Director’s Rare vertical, Bora earned a name for himself for spotting quirky, untold stories and bringing them to the screen


 He was the CEO of Drishyam Films — the independent production house that has films like Newton, Masaan and Ankhon Dekhi to its credit


 His debut directorial venture, Aap Ke Aa Jaane Se, touches upon the themes of unfinished desires, social media trends and fake news"
"The game is no stranger to being a cult phenomenon. It has been played, streamed and viewed by not just ordinary gamers, but also celebrities that include pop artists like Drake and Nick Jonas and even basketball players like Josh Hart.


""It has, in a sense, brought me closer to my favourite celebrities. Watching Drake's duel with Ninja on Fortnite was not only entertaining, but it made me feel like we both share a mutual interest,"" Kabir says.


""Isn't this what technology is supposed to do—bring me closer to friends. I'm excited every time a new Fortnite event comes up. This is it, this is the future for me."""
"The price cut brings the Nokia 3.1’s MRP down to ₹9,999 and makes it the cheapest smartphone in the Nokia lineup


Nokia 3.1 plusNokia 3.1 plus price cutNokia 3.1 plus priceNokia 5.1 plus priceNokia 5.1 plus vs Nokia 3.1 PlusNokia 3.1 vs Nokia 5.1


Nokia’s nomenclature of its smartphones with numbers and decimals has been a bit confusing. It’s not clear if Nokia 3.1 Plus is a better smartphone than the Nokia 5.1 Plus given the fact that it’s priced a bit higher and has lower specifications than the latter."
"6) Market analysts expect that the Reserve Bank of India will add to its surprise February rate cut this week to boost growth. According to the median estimate in Bloomberg survey, economists expect the central bank to lower the benchmark repo rate by 25 basis points to 6%. The RBI's interest rate decision is scheduled to be announced on April 4.


7) Some analysts however believe that Indian equities could turn volatile as the earnings season begin.


8) ""With the start of the result season, the volatility in the stocks will double as politics will also maintain its shadow on the indices,"" said Umesh Mehta, head of research at SAMCO Securities. "
"It recently joined other social media companies in a voluntary code of ethics for the general elections with the Election Commission of India (ECI).


The code includes measures like a dedicated communications channel for notice and take-down after receiving a legal order, processing of valid requests in the blackout period ahead of voting and voter education efforts. Even policymakers, candidates and their staff are being trained to improve their cybersecurity and awareness for how their accounts could be hacked or abused.


“During elections, times of conflict or political turmoil, these accounts can be at higher risk of threats and abuse, so we help them learn how to be proactive and look for signals that their accounts could be harmed,"" Mohan added."
"“I am in pre-production on The Suicide Squad, which I am enormously excited about,” Gunn told Entertainment Weekly"
"One powerful moment amid the mansion’s post-battle wreckage finds Captain America in tears, but resolved to rebuild


 1In 1997, after a failed reboot of many of Marvel’s heroes, writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Pérez brought the classic versions back


 This collection has more than 40 issues, and includes a fight with the medieval sorceress Morgan Le Fay, who gives the heroes Renaissance Faire-like names and costumes


) There’s also a devastating battle against Ultron, and the time-travel tale Avengers Forever, drawn by Carlos Pacheco, sheds light on the past and teases the future


 Jackson? We will never know, but the Ultimates, which began in 2002, six years before the actor would start appearing in the role, was the first story to depict Jackson as Fury, offering Avengers for modern times"
"This order was in addition to a larger one against the NSE for allegedly violating norms of fair access when brokers accessed its co-location and algorithmic trading platform. NSE has to disgorge nearly ₹1,200 crore for this violation.


Dark fibre, an unused fibre which can be leased and used later, provided connectivity between co-location facility between the NSE and the BSE. As such, there is nothing wrong with using this facility. However, the NSE had lapsed by allowing an unauthorized vendor to lay down the fibre, which was used by two brokerage firms—GKN Securities and Way2Wealth.


Co-location allows brokers to locate their severs in the exchange premise for faster access to data and exchange systems.


These two brokerage firms, along with OPG Securities, which was barred from accessing the capital markets for five years, besides a fine of ₹15.57 crore for securing unfair access to systems of NSE, have also appealed against the Sebi order."
"DisplayMate's in-depth Lab Tests of the OnePlus 7 Pro OLED Display have just been completed, earning our Highest A+ Display Rating. Our in-depth Display Shoot-Out will be published here on May 14.


OnePlus 7 Pro has also received ‘Safety for Eyes’ certification from the VDE Testing and Certification Institute for its ability to better filter out harmful blue lights. OnePlus says its eye protection features allow for an adjustable temperature and brightness to enhance eye comfort.


OnePlus CEO Pete Lau was previously quoted by The Verge, talking about the device's new display technology. “The first time I saw it [the display] myself, I was stunned,"" said Lau."
"Carved out of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand may not have been able to stamp its electoral significance, but has produced many key leaders"
"The film follows five unlikely heroes who join forces to catch one of India’s most wanted criminals, without firing a single bullet


 I hope this man, who is responsible for so many deaths, is brought to justice as soon as possible,” Gupta told reporters"
"According to Nevo, it was this belief that led Google and his team to build a flood forecasting system trained using machine learning (ML) to provide a more accurate idea of which areas will be flooded so that people could be alerted in time. In fact, Nevo and his team ran a pilot in Patna, Bihar, during the 2018 monsoon, and achieved over 90% accuracy in terms of providing the actual representation of the water situation on the ground.


Google’s forecasting system is based on a scalable high resolution hydraulic model which, according to Nevo, can simulate the behaviour of water across the floodplain more accurately. The model helps in understanding how much water is going to be within a river system and exactly where it will flow. Existing forecasting systems that are modelled on the widely-used elevation data sets, like the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), often miss details of the topography resulting in water overflowing everywhere and spilling throughout the whole map, argued Nevo. He added that “SRTM’s maps are almost 20 years old""."
"The coalition is hopeful of mobilizing backward classes and minority votes in the north to counter the dominant Lingayats, believed to side with the BJP.


However, analysts said the Lingayats cannot be seen as a single voting block, especially after the BJP opposed its minority religion status, granted just before the assembly elections by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government.


Addressing a recent rally at Bagalkot, Modi had accused the Congress of trying to divide the Lingayats for political survival, which analysts see as another attempt by the BJP to consolidate its support among the dominant community."
"Even as Mahat Raghavendra’s overtures towards Yashika, in the beginning, looked playful, the relationship between them got serious when they both started expressing how they feel about each other


 Given that everyone was aware of the fact that Mahat was dating Prachi, the viewers were curious to know how the love triangle will play out"
"Sources later said the Commission insisted that no intermediary should allow political advertisements without the prior approval of certification committees set up in districts.


It was of the view that IMAI should coordinate with intermediaries to periodically monitor cases of violation."
"“Britney Spears checked out of the treatment facility this morning and was taken home by her boyfriend Sam


 It was her decision to leave, but she will still be monitored from home,” a source close to the superstar told the outlet


The singer had recently broken her silence on social media after her supporters started a campaign for her release from the facility"
"Security researchers have long warned that misuse of enterprise developer certificates, which act as digital keys that tell an iPhone a piece of software downloaded from the internet can be trusted and opened. They are the centerpiece of Apple's program for corporate apps and enable consumers to install apps onto iPhones without Apple's knowledge.


Apple last month briefly banned Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc from using enterprise certificates after they used them to distribute data-gathering apps to consumers.


The distributors of pirated apps seen by Reuters are using certificates obtained in the name of legitimate businesses, although it is unclear how. Several pirates have impersonated a subsidiary of China Mobile Ltd. China Mobile did not respond to requests for comment.


Tech news website TechCrunch earlier this week reported that certificate abuse also enabled the distribution of apps for pornography and gambling, both of which are banned from the App Store.


Since the App Store debuted in 2008, Apple has sought to portray the iPhone as safer than rival Android devices because Apple reviews and approves all apps distributed to the devices.


Early on, hackers ""jailbroke"" iPhones by modifying their software to evade Apple's controls, but that process voided the iPhone's warranty and scared off many casual users. The misuse of the enterprise certificates seen by Reuters does not rely on jailbreaking and can be used on unmodified iPhones."
"With many storylines coming to an end, it is yet to be seen which characters will take over in the next phase of MCU"
"“Sebi traditionally always had one chief general manager (CGM) as the head of the department for investigations. Now, owing to the case load, Sebi has increased the number to four,"" said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.


The four CGMs are Anita Kenkare, Debashis Bandyopadhyay, Sura Reddy and V.S. Sundaresan, said a second person aware of the matter. Both declined to be identified. V.S. Sundaresan was the only CGM for investigations so far.


An email sent to the Sebi spokesperson Tuesday remained unanswered till publishing of this story. Sebi’s move assumes importance in the wake of increased cases and complaints of market manipulation and unusual volatility in a select few stocks."
"In response, Apple said it had approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotify's behalf, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app.


""The only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows,"" Apple said in a statement.


""Spotify is free to build apps for - and compete on - our products and platforms, and we hope they do,"" it added."
Apple Arcade is a subscription that gives you access to more than 100 games at launch. The games are exclusive too—they aren't present on any other platform or any other subscription service. These games would be available for offline access and can played across Apple platforms which include iOS and Mac OS. Apple Arcade would be available this fall in over 150 countries. Apple hasn't revealed the pricing of this service.
"""If you received an in-app message stating your account is 'Temporarily banned' this means that you're likely using an unsupported version of WhatsApp instead of the official app,"" the company wrote in a post on Monday."
"A four-page print ad published on the New York Times confirmed the presence of a triple camera system, pop-up camera and what seems to be a copper heat pipe


Wired magazine even got its hands on what seems to be a production-ready prototype of the OnePlus 7 Pro and has posted camera samples of the device from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix


Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus will take the wraps off its upcoming flagship duo on May 14. Ahead of the launch event in Bengaluru, the company has teased the smartphones, especially the OnePlus 7 Pro, several times on the social media."
"The high-end device, to be unveiled in London along with a host of other devices on May 21, will also have side-mounted SIM tray, in-built Amazon Alexa and Fortnite game.


Honor 20 and Honor 20 Pro are expected to have 6.1-inch and 6.5-inch OLED display panels, respectively."
"""The Internet, especially social media, over the past few years has emerged as one of the most powerful tools for empowering women from across India's diverse social economic backgrounds and varied cultural roots,"" Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director, Facebook -India, South and Central Asia, said in a statement.


""With GOAL, we seek to make the digital medium more accessible and usable for young girls from our resource rich but economically weak tribal communities in the country."
"The Galaxy A50 has a Super AMOLED display, which can be a massive advantage over the other two smartphone when it comes to media consumption


Mid-range smartphones have already flocked the Indian in the first quarter of 2019. Cameras with extremely high resolutions, premium build quality and chipsets with the stomach to fight the flagships devices of the yesteryear (to an extent) have become trademarks of these smartphones.


Three such smartphones are the Redmi Note 7 Pro, Oppo F11 Pro and Samsung Galaxy A50. Although belonging to somewhat the same price bracket, the three devices have very little in common. So which one is the right fit for you? Let's find out.


The Redmi Note 7 Pro follows Xiaomi's new all-glass design philosophy. The smartphone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both, the front and the back. Underneath the back glass is a dual tone gradient, which is also present on the Oppo F11 and Galaxy A50. The Galaxy A50 is the only smartphone in the lot with a plastic back.


In terms of heft, the Galaxy A50 is the lightest, weighing at 166g, while the Note 7 Pro and F11 weigh around 186g and 190g respectively."
"New Delhi: With Delhi set to cast its vote on 12 May, in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Aam Aadmi Party National convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal released the party’s manifesto, on Thursday, with other senior party leaders Gopal Rai and Manish Sisodia in attendance.


While the party’s major poll plank has been the demand for full statehood for Delhi, Kejriwal stated that it was imperative for the national capital to be granted that status in order for all state machinery to work independent of the Centre’s intervention."
"Chinese smartphone maker Huawei today launched a new flagship smartphone in India - Huawei P30 Pro. Priced at ₹71,990, the smartphone will go on sale via Amazon.


At the launch event, Huawei also announced the P30 Lite. Priced at ₹19,990, the P30 Lite is essentially a stripped down version of the Huawei P30 Pro.


Offer on the smartphones include a no-cost EMI of up to 18 months and 5% cashback on purchase from Amazon and Croma stores. Buyers can also pay ₹2,000 extra to get a Huawei Watch GT worth ₹15,990."
"Netflix declined to discuss its reasons for ending new subscriptions through the app store. But its move drew more attention to an app store tax that other technology companies have already attacked as an abuse of the power that Apple has amassed since opening its app store years ago.


Almost three years ago, Spotify also stopped accepting new subscriptions through Apple's app store. Its move followed the debut of Apple Music, which obviously doesn't have to pay any commissions.


""They're trying to have their cake and eat ours, too,"" Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince told The Associated Press in 2016. ""We find it bad for consumers, unfair to consumers and ultimately something that could stifle music streaming subscriptions across the board.""


Spotify regularly harps on the unfairness of Apple's app-fee system in its securities filings. The company didn't respond to interview requests for this story.


Few other apps reach as many customers as Netflix and Spotify, making it unlikely that the rebellion against Apple's app store commissions will greatly swell, said Amir Ghodrati, director of market insights for App Annie.


Apple doesn't seem to be worried. In fact, it's reportedly demanding an even higher commission — roughly 50% — for a Netflix-like news service that it is trying to create with a variety of publishers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report based on unidentified people familiar with the negotiations."
"Eramet: French mining company Eramet said its loss-making SLN nickel division had received a boost from the New Caledonia government, which authorised SLN to export 4 million tonnes of nickel ore annually for 10 years.


Rusal: Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer outside China, is making its first investment in the United States since Washington lifted sanctions against the Russian aluminium giant, teaming up with US manufacturer Braidy Industries to build a mill in Kentucky.


Trade: United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told Fox Business Network on Monday that trade negotiations between Washington and their Chinese counterparts were ""making a lot of progress.""


Investors will shift more attention towards the progress of the trade talks should the Chinese economic data disappoint, Argonaut's Lau said."
"Purchases of silver investment bars in India, meanwhile, surged by 160% to 69.4 million ounces, lifting global bar and coin investment by 20% to 181.2 million ounces, Wiebe said.


Use in electronics rose slightly, but efforts by solar panel manufacturers to cut costs by reducing silver use dragged industrial demand down 1% to 578.6 million ounces.


Supply of silver, meanwhile, dipped 3% to 1,004.3 million ounces owing to reduced mined and scrap output, leading to a physical market deficit of 29.2 million ounces, the report said."
"The app was still available on Apple's platforms late on Tuesday, but was no longer available on Google's Play store in India.


Google said in a statement it does not comment on individual apps but adheres to local laws. Apple did not respond to requests for comment, while TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Google's move.


TikTok, which allows users to create and share short videos with special effects, has become hugely popular in India but has been criticised by some politicians who say its content is inappropriate.


It had been downloaded more than 240 million times in India, app analytics firm Sensor Tower said in February. More than 30 million users in India installed it in January 2019, 12 times more than in the same month last year.


Jokes, clips and footage related to India's thriving movie industry dominate the app's platform, along with memes and videos in which youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-sync and dance to popular music."
"This has been going on for quite a while, but the last two episodes have been especially symptomatic


Still, The Last of the Starks was a relatively quiet episode but with a few big developments that are going to significantly affect what happens in the final two episodes


However, the fourth episode of the show’s eight and final season still boasted of some remarkable moments


SPOILER ALERTDaenerys Targaryen and Sansa Stark: The intrigue and the war of words between Sansa and Daenerys is one of the best things about the show right now


 These two are “good” characters and have a disagreement over the matter of who will rule the Seven Kingdoms"
"Modi and nationalism may work in rest of India, but in Chennai, water and basic infrastructure matter the most


Whether the candidate is a newbie or a veteran, the voter blue or white collar, across Chennai, it is local issues that dominate campaigns and conversations


CHENNAI: On a recent Sunday afternoon, about 150 residents of Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) in Chennai’s southern edge settled into plastic chairs in the basement of a building in Sholinganallur—waiting for the candidates contesting from the Chennai South constituency to show up, take questions, and give their respective stump speeches.


One group was discussing tax-saving investments, another was busy listing out new real estate projects to invest in, and a third was joking about whether the candidates will try to slip them any money, since Tamil Nadu politicians are after all masters of cash-for-vote schemes. “I heard Semmancheri (a low-income neighbourhood down the road) got ₹500 a house and they’re angry because the going rate this year is ₹2,000,"" said a man as the others in the group chuckled.


On Tuesday night, in the frenetic final hours of campaigning, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) family’s prominent New Delhi face, Kanimozhi, was caught up in the middle of an income tax raid. Nothing of substance was found and the southern state went to bed after adding a few more conspiracy theories to the long list that has been circulating in Tamil Nadu ever since the DMK’s M. Karunanidhi and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK’s) J. Jayalalithaa exited the political landscape.


In the Sunday afternoon circle, though, which was filled mostly with members belonging to the Federation of OMR Residents’ Associations (FOMRRA), cash distribution was hardly the key electoral issue. The federation is a citizens’ group which claims to represent close to 300,000 households in gated communities and apartment complexes that dot a posh 15-kilometre (km) stretch by the sea. They invited all the Chennai South Lok Sabha candidates, who would otherwise not be allowed into gated communities, to campaign, and most accepted. Among this group of city residents, cash-for-votes and nationalism don’t sell. What matters is more mundane and every day—water and sewage lines.


If pushed to talk about larger policy issues concerning national politics, Chennai voters pick the imposition of the NEET, and GST, and centre-state relations.


OMR or the IT corridor, officially called Rajiv Gandhi Salai, is one of the newer parts of the city—built hurriedly in the wake of an influx of information technology (IT) firms in the early 2000s. But even the relatively rich cannot escape the egalitarian failures of haphazard urban planning. In large sections of the IT corridor, water and sewage lines have not yet been laid, and the gated communities depend on a fleet of water tankers, and have their own sewage treatment plants."
"""One thing is that corrupt persons must not rule India. And Modi should come. He is a clean person with a clean image,"" Guru Mallesh, a 72-year-old retired school principal said.


The elections is seen as a fight between Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP and the opposition, led largely by the Congress. The elections are being fought over issues like national security, corruption, jobs and the alleged misrule in the last five years that opposition parties claim has weakened institutions and the economy.


“I just want no corruption in this country. That is the biggest issue we are facing,"" said 19-year-old Sachin Giri, a first time voter in Bengaluru south."
"The Portuguese actor will portray villainous Ratcatcher in the James Gunn-directed film, reported Variety"
"It’s like an out-of-body experience, the way his camera guides us through the verandah of the household past the lanes of the village, to the open fields of the Bengal countryside


 Tea served to guests, the awkward pleasantries exchanged between mourners, the strained conversations and the heaps uneaten fruits (mourning food) – add up to create an atmosphere of a sadness that is almost philosophical


Ganguly chooses to be inordinately verbose in a film where most of the drama is based on the inability of the characters to articulate their emotions


 This works primarily because of the stellar performances of the ensemble cast, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Ritwik Chakraborty, Gargee Roychowdhury, Sudipta Chakraborty and Daminee Basu


They are effective in their intense face-offs, yes, but are brilliant in the cutaway shots of sideways glances and whispered asides


 That is conveyed through a typically understated sequence — this is not a film that milks its twists for dramatic impact — and all the more devastating for it"
"LIC also has plans for automating its operations, but its approach is different from that of banks. “Insurance is very different from banking. We have to be cautious while digitally empowering agents. But at the same time, things need to be automated to an extent. There are times when it is important to distinguish what can be automated and what requires the human touch,"" Garg said.


Enterprise Tech Mint India Wire LICLIC digital servicesLIC claimsLI C policy holdersLIC automationLIC agentsIntegrated Complaint Management System"
"Despite the app merger plan, Apple has said it won’t combine iOS and macOS into a single operating system.


Apple isn’t the first company to streamline its app ecosystems. Before Microsoft Corp. discontinued Windows for phones, it pushed a technology called Universal Windows Platform that let developers create single applications that would run on all of its devices. Similarly, Google has brought its Android mobile app store to some laptops running its Chrome OS operating system.


Apple plans to hold its annual software conference from June 3 to June 7 in San Jose, California, according to permit filings reported recently by website MacRumors.


At the event, Apple also plans to debut new software features for its devices, including a dark mode for easier nighttime viewing and new productivity tools for the iPad. The company has also internally weighed previewing a new version of the high-end Mac Pro, according to people familiar with the deliberations."
"During his appearance on MTV’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Howard said that he had “serious discussions” with Disney for the potential series"
"Also, all the kissing shots between Daenerys and Jon Snow went missing, leaving the bits which show an intimidating Drogon, one of Daenerys’ three dragon children, scaring Jon to back off from their mother


The scene where young Lord Ned Umber’s dismembered body is discovered at his home by Edd Tollett, Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion was also partially censored


In the scene, Umber is pinned to a wall with hacked off limbs fashioned around him in a spiral, which Beric terms as a message from The Night King


It is, later, revealed that Umber is now a wight when he wakes up and tries attacking Tormund who has his back towards the wall


 The successive close-up of the burning spiral and deafening screams of the child wight were cut off from the footage


While Chinese viewers fumed on their Twitter equivalent, Weibo, interestingly, there weren’t any Indian Twitter users complaining about the censored version of the show"
"At the forefront of Google’s mobile software is the ninth rendition of Android, also called Android Pie. While the previous generations of Android focused on making everything fast, this is probably the first time Google made a major emphasis on security and wellbeing features.


However, Android has a bad reputation for one thing—timely updates for the entire spectrum of Android supporting devices, which is somewhat changing now.


Android Pie was publicly released in August, and the fact that at least 6 major smartphone manufacturers already have smartphones running the platform is a lightyear jump.


Samsung is known to be extremely slow with its software updates, but lately, it’s been pretty swift with keeping the ball rolling. To give you some perspective, my 2016 Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus received the Oreo update two whole years after it was launched. But the fact that the latest flagships from Samsung, namely Samsung Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S9 and S9+ will soon be receiving Android Pie updates."
"Though some games provide users the option to minimize game details, resolution and frame rate, they still use up more resources than their lite version, points out Kawoosa. For instance, PubG Mobile even when played on lower graphics settings requires 1.5GB of space.


Prasad adds, as developers move towards progressive web apps, there is a lot of interest in HTML games and lite games with low 3D graphics. Ultimately, game developers want people to play their games. Even if the games are free, they can make money through ads. Lite games will help them tap gamers in that segment."
"The phone runs on Android One based on Android Oreo 8 which means it’s on the priority list for latest security and firmware upgrades from Google.


mint-india-wire NokiaNokia X7Nokia 7.1 plusNokia 7.1 plus priceNokia 5.1 plusNokia 3.1 PlusNokia 6.1 PlusMi A2Redmi Note 5 proRedmi 6 Pro"
13-year-old Hrithik on Sunday emerged as the winner of singing reality show Super Singer Junior Season 6
"The Galaxy Fold’s 7.3-inch screen teased how users can juggle three apps at once and view video with more clarity. (AP)


Samsung had forecast it will produce at least 1 million foldable phones this year, a fraction of its overall shipments in 2018


Some test models of Samsung Electronics Co.’s new foldable phone have suffered defects after only days of use, casting a shadow over next week’s introduction of a $1,980 device meant to rejuvenate a flagging market and showcase the Asian company’s technology expertise.


Several publications, including Bloomberg News, outlined a bevy of problems with test versions of the device, which folds inward like a notebook. Bloomberg’s review unit experienced issues after a plastic protective layer was removed on Monday. By Tuesday night, a small tear had developed at the top of the hinge, where the gadget opens. Then the display failed to operate properly."
"MUMBAI: Mumbai: DLF Ltd, India’s largest real estate firm by market value, announced Monday plans to raise around ₹3,000 crore by selling shares to institutional investors. In a filing to the BSE, the company said it will sell 173 million shares through the qualified institutional placement (QIP) route at a floor price of ₹193.01 per equity share.


The money raised will be used for prepayment and repayment of loans, besides other general corporate purposes as per the growth and business requirements, the filing said. The company said it may also offer a discount of not more than 5% on the floor price in the QIP."
"If you wish to avail further discounts on the devices you’re eyeing for, you might as well try the Cracker Ninja interactive game which lets users win the POCO F1, Redmi Y2, Mi power banks for discounted prices. The game went live on October 20 and will go on till 25 October, 11.59 pm. There’s another section on the site called “More Likes, More Discounts"" which is self-explanatory—more likes on a product, the more discounted it will be.


PayTM wallet holders will get up to ₹ 500 cashback on purchasing Redmi Note 5 Pro or POCO F1. SBI credit card users will get a flat ₹ 750 discount with a minimum transaction value of ₹ 7,500. Amazon Pay cashback will also be available on Mi TV 4A variants (32-inch and 43-inch) only if you purchase the smart TV via the Amazon app.


XiaomiDiwali with MiMi salePOCO F1Redmi Note 5 ProMi A2Redmi Y2Mi TV 4Mi diwali salediwali sale miXiaomi diwali sale"
"The fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections on Monday is the smallest, with polling being held in 51 seats. However, it features one of the biggest contests: Rahul Gandhi versus Smriti Irani in Amethi. Mint takes a look at the numbers, faces and places in this round.


Seven states are going to the polls in the fifth phase. Polling has so far been completed in 18 states and five Union territories. In Tamil Nadu, elections have been held in all the 39 seats, except Vellore. Phase V will see polling being completed in Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir. Voters in 12 seats of the desert state will exercise their franchise, while in India’s most troubled state, two seats, including Anantnag, will go to the polls. The biggest battle is in Uttar Pradesh, where 14 seats will witness elections in this phase. Polling will also be held in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal."
He not only acted in the films but also turned producer with the first part and a director with the sequel
"For now, no stickers, filters, light enhancements or other creative tools have been added on the Twitter Camera app. (iStock)


The redesign reflects on the company's plans on focusing on offering more visual content clicked on real-time lens"
"Karan, during his latest appearance on The Kapil Sharma Show, was made the Prime Minister of Bollywood and he had to choose his cabinet"
"At its iPhone launch event in September, Apple introduced the lower-cost iPhone XR, made of aluminum, along with two other models, the XS and XS Max.


Five years ago, Apple cut production orders for its plastic-backed iPhone 5C a month after its launch, fueling speculation of weak demand for the model."
"”Also Read | Manabadi TS Telangana Inter Results 2019 HIGHLIGHTS: Girls shine in both 1st, 2nd yearThe pre-release event of Jersey was graced by Venkatesh


 Calling it a “genuine film”, the veteran actor said, “These kind of movies are very inspirational and motivational


 Everybody struggles in their life but when they don’t give up and comes back to achieve what they want – that’s the real essence of life"
"Customers buying the device via Amazon between February 6 and February 17 will receive an extra exchange discount worth ₹2,500.


The new 6GB RAM variant comes with 128GB of internal storage, up from 64GB of storage in the 4GB RAM variant"
An attorney for the 49-year-old Wedding Crashers star entered a no contest plea to the misdemeanour count Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court
"Will the ones lost in “the snap,” remain gone? Unclear (although some who have upcoming movies, like, say Spider-Man, won’t)


 But the cast and filmmakers aren’t giving anything up, or even commenting on the fact that this might be the last of Evans as Captain America, which the actor himself tweeted about months ago


“I still don’t know what happens in this movie,” said Larson, who actually even filmed her scenes in Endgame before Captain Marvel, which came out earlier this year


Filming proved an emotional experience for many of the actors, a lot of whom have now been working together for almost a decade or more


 Johansson noted that she’d been developing her character for 10 years now, and is excited that Black Widow has evolved from a “sexy secretary” type to a more fully realized woman


 “We were constantly talking about when it all started to how we pulled this off and what we were a part of"
"Thackeray was deep in love with Modi and the “Gujarat model"" through 2013-14. However, the unalloyed bhakt has turned a ferocious antagonist, a hard-hitting challenger. Thackeray is the opposition juggernaut that Modi-Shah, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had not bargained for, did not prepare for when election campaigning began. By the time Thackeray winds up his caravan, he could end up changing the state’s political matrix.


The bhakti, he now says, was an error of judgement—he fell for Modi’s public relations exercise, listened to people like Ratan Tata, visited Gujarat as Modi’s guest, but he has since woken up to the dangers of the Modi model. It’s a clever admission. It carries a subtext—Thackeray is telling Maharashtra that he, like many people, made a mistake in 2014 and they shouldn’t repeat it now.


In his utterances, demeanour, and willingness to take on the powerful, Thackeray is now the main opposition voice in Maharashtra. He is doing the work, the campaigning, the activism, and the confrontation that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) should have; his earlier parochialism, muscle-flexing methods, violence as political tool are forgotten in the moment. The Congress and the NCP have, in a rare import from business to politics, out-sourced their work to Thackeray.


That Thackeray, a political write-off in 2014, is now Maharashtra’s chief campaigner for opposition parties shows the paucity of imagination in Congress-NCP and erosion of the opposition space. In the 15 years of Congress-NCP governments till 2014, the BJP and the Shiv Sena vied with each other to be the principal opposition party. Between BJP’s Eknath Khadse and Fadnavis, and Sena leaders including Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav, they made sure that successive Congress chief ministers were kept on their toes with exposes of scams and critique of policies.


In May 2014, the Lok Sabha tally of 42 of 48 seats to the BJP-Sena coalition and the then prevalent Modi-mania made the BJP believe that it was time to end its 25-year-old alliance with the regional force. It called off the alliance with barely a month to go for the October 2014 election to the state assembly. The BJP emerged as the single largest party, with 122 seats in the 288-member assembly, but short of a majority. The Sena, battling odds, netted 63 seats. Eventually, it joined the government but it is an uncomfortable alliance.


The Sena, miffed at the treatment it received in Delhi and Mumbai in Modi-Shah-Fadnavis era, lost no opportunity to hit back, criticise and question Modi and Fadnavis. Its words were acerbic and meant to hurt the BJP, they were louder than those of Congress-NCP. Uddhav Thackeray came close to calling off the alliance a number of times but realpolitik prevailed. Through this, the Sena donned two hats at once – it was in government and it also became the “opposition""."
"Highlights of the Moto G7 Power include 5,000mAh battery which the company claims to deliver 60 hours of ""work and play"".


The Moto G7 Power will be available in offline retail stores at the price of ₹13,999 and will soon be available at online retail stores including Flipkart. The smartphone will come in a single colour variant—Black."
"To teach people about resources or to fulfill his demented vision of the universe?”We’ll find out, won’t we?Avengers: Endgame releases on April 26"
"What SIP stoppages may or may not achieve, this shift in market leadership will ensure. The acute valuation gap between companies will trigger this trend. Global flows could accelerate this market shift. Investors seem oblivious to this as they believe that a change in sentiment will once again revive the valuations of recently fancied stocks and sectors. They continue to own them in the hope of a swift rebound and still seem to be happy sitting on the last cycle’s big winners. When a sense of urgency resurfaces, we could see rapid churn that will puzzle the most seasoned investors. The stocks they least expected to move and avoided owning may well turn out to be the big movers. The reason is simple. Investors are not yet ready to be nimble. Elections clearly will set the house on fire."
"So I think it’s gonna be one of the more unique movie-going experiences for audiences in a long, long time,” Joe Russo said"
"A glance at four of the most critical emerging trends that could help us leapfrog from 'digitally advancing' to 'digitally evolved'


As India’s digital consumer rises fast-and-furious in 2019, enterprises need to develop new technology-based offerings and adopt business approaches that stand the best chance of pulling ahead of rivals in the future. We look at four trends that will emerge as most critical.


‘Size-does-matter’. With 462 million internet users in India today and looking to reach 821 million by 2021, this truly outlines the massive potential digital holds for India. Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) analysis—Digital Consumers, Emerging Markets and the $4 Trillion Future—looks at emerging markets closely, and finds countries passing through three typical phases of digital development; Digitally Aware, Digitally Advancing and Digitally Evolved. India is seen Digitally advancing with the likes of Brazil and Indonesia, while Digitally Evolved mostly has western countries with the exception of China. So, what would make us leapfrog from Digitally advancing to Digitally evolved; and what can consumers and business’s expect in the days to come. In this article, we look at the key driving forces that make a difference."
"India is likely to enact new privacy laws soon on the lines of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation


Data privacy is often seen today as a compliance issue. However, according to Barry Cook, privacy and group data protection officer at VFS Global, there’s more to the subject.


VFS Global is the company that handles visa- and passport issuance-related tasks for many governments worldwide.


It caters to 144 countries and 62 governments worldwide, processing over 190 million visa applications, over 70 million of which include dealing with biometric data."
India will unveil election results on May 23 following six weeks of voting in a ballot that will determine whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins a second term as leader of the world’s largest democracy. India’s benchmark Sensex Index has gained about 60 percent since Modi secured the biggest electoral victory in three decades in 2014.
"Internet users made their way to Twitter to complain about the hours-long service disruption with hashtags such as ""#FacebookDown"", ""#InstagramDown"" and ""#Whatsapp"".


Meanwhile, the social media outage became the butt of jokes on Twitter. Several Facebook users took to the micro-blogging website to tickle their funny bone with satirical comments, jokes and memes."
"87 year old Shamnur Shivashankarappa, who is named as the Congress candidate from Davangere constituency, has decided not to contest the polls giving any advantage it had to the BJP. Shivashankarappa, who was not considered for a ministerial berth in the H.D.Kumaraswamy cabinet due to his age last year, was announced as the party’s choice even though the octogenarian claims never to have asked for it.


His son, S.S.Mallikarjun, who had unsuccessfully contested from the same seat in the past, is one of the many aspirants from this seat. "
"The Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) has written a letter to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), arguing that the posters of Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao-starrer Mental Hai Kya depict mental illness in poor light


In a letter addressed to CBFC Chief Prasoon Joshi, the IPS said it takes objection to a “number of issues”, as the movie, backed by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures, seems to violate many sections of Mental Health Care Act, 2017"
"""When central banks surprise like this some investors wonder whether that infers things are much worse than they thought,"" said Gavin Friend, a senior market strategist at NAB.


""Our initial take is these developments are pressing down on market confidence, seen in lower bond yields and equities.""


Yields on German and French 10-year bonds dived to their lowest since 2016, while banking stocks took a beating. The euro duly sank to depths last seen in mid-2017, sending the safe-haven U.S. dollar and yen surging.


The next hurdle for investors will be US payrolls data for February, with analysts uncertain how much payback there might be for January's outsized jump. There was also a chance the jobless rate could fall by more than forecast given the recent strength in employment.


The numbers are still likely to highlight the relative outperformance of the U.S. economy, especially against the European Union, and further encourage dollar bulls."
"The studio is currently looking forward to the release of Avengers: Endgame, which is touted as the culmination of the decade long journey of the MCU, comprising 22 films"
"Google aims to support the entire retail ecosystem -- from shopping sites and large retailers to small local shops -- by giving them access to the tools, technology, and scale to thrive in the new digital economy, he added.


Chatterjee said merchants will not have to pay any fee for listing their products for Google Shopping."
"The cynosure of all eyes in this phase, however, is the Begusarai seat which will witness an electrifying contest between the political Left and the Right with CPI debutant Kanhaiya Kumar taking on firebrand BJP leader Giriraj Singh.


In all the six seats in Madhya Pradesh, a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP is on the cards. The state's new power centre is witnessing a unique father-son electoral show with Chief Minister Kamal Nath and his son Nakul in the fray, hoping to boost not just the Congress but also strike roots as deep as the tree from where this region takes its name.


While the chief minister, a nine-time MP from the area, is contesting an assembly bypoll, Nakul Nath is hoping to get elected to the Lok Sabha from Chhindwara, named after the wild date palm tree known as Chhind.


Over 45.26 lakh voters will decide the fate of 59 candidates in the first phase of polls for three Lok Sabha constituencies in Jharkhand.


Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan Bhagat is seeking re-election from the Lohardaga(ST) seat.


Polling will also be held in Kulgam district, which is part of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency is spread over four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama with 16 assembly segments. The Lok Sabha polls to this constituency are being held in three phases due to security reasons.


Election to 542 Lok Sabha seats is being conducted in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. Election in Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu has been cancelled following excess use of money power. Results will be declared on May 23."
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 97.207, up 0.01% from its previous close of 97.202."
"Apple Music subscribers who own Echo devices will be able to listen to Apple Inc's library of 50 million songs


Amazon.com Inc said on Friday Apple Music will become available on its Echo smart speakers starting December 17, signalling increasing collaboration between the tech heavyweights."
"”With the early reviews of the Robert Downey Jr and Chris Hemsworth starrer already in, it appears Marvel has surpassed all expectations to deliver a perfect conclusion to the 22 films Infinity Saga


Girish Johar also shared, “The pre-release buzz of Avengers Endgame is unprecedented, reviews are positive and in China where it opened yesterday, it has already broken records


 They have already sold a million tickets and there are few theaters which are also running shows 24×7, which have got 60 per cent occupancy in advance"
"Previously, when asked over a smartphone for a story, Assistant would come out with a short inspirational quote or a joke."
"First reported by WABetaInfo, a website dedicated to the newest WhatsApp features, the update brings a new option for image search on WhatsApp. It lets users search an image on the web that they’ve received on WhatsApp — similar to Google’s image search feature. Users can long press on an image and select the ‘search image’ option. Users will be able to do a Google search of the image and find out more details. 


The ‘Search Image’ on WhatsApp is not visible for beta users as yet. Also, features on beta do not necessarily confirm an official release. WhatsApp regularly tests different features and changes on its beta apps for Android and iOS."
"Xiaomi’s latest successors to the Redmi Note 3 and Mi 5 are the Redmi Note 6 Pro and Mi 8. While the latter has not been made available in India, the Redmi Note 6 Pro comes with a 6.26-inch display, Snapdragon 636 SoC paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It also has dual cameras at the front and back. You can read more about the Note 6 Pro here.


XiaomiRedmi Note 3Mi 5MIUIMIUI 10Xiaomi custom romsXiaomi software support endRedmi Note 3 custom UIMi 5 custom UIcustom UIsRedmi Note 3 custom ROMSMi 5 custom ROMs"
"Hats off to Gautam Tinnanuri for choosing such a subject and executing it with conviction and brilliance


 Bro @NameisNani , you have hit the ball out of the park with a stellar performance! Brilliant, Brilliant, BRILLIANT! I will cherish your performance for a long time to come and I am super proud of you #Jersey”Meanwhile, indianexpress"
"Nothing energizes more than a cup of joe in the morning, and for many, that would be courtesy Nestlé India Ltd’s Nescafe coffee powder. But, such a gratification has been sadly missing from the company’s latest quarterly figures.


Its December quarter (Q3) net profit rose a mere 9.6% to ₹341.7 crore, the lowest in the past four quarters. To boost sales and volume growth, Nestlé India has been incurring higher other expenses. After a string of launches, it has been vigorously promoting its chocolates, confectioneries and beverages. This has pushed up its advertising and promotion costs.


Although this is typical after product launches, this has dragged down the Ebitda margin by 210 basis points. Ebitda is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization."
"Realme 3's launch will be live streamed online at 12:30 pm via the company's YouTube and Facebook pages


Flipkart's dedicated microsite has confirmed that the Realme 3 will come with a MediaTek Helio P70 processor


Realme's fourth flagship handset, the Realme 3, will be launched today at an event in New Delhi. The Realme 3 will sport a dew drop notch, a MediaTek Helio P70 SoC and a 4,320mAh battery."
"Two Essel Group companies, Konti Infrapower and Multiventures Pvt. Ltd and Edisons Utility Works Pvt. Ltd, failed to repay in full the investment of the FMPs. (Reuters)


Sebi has asked Kotak AMC to clarify under what provisions of the existing rules it has held back redemption of FMPs


Sebi has sought to know from HDFC AMC what happens if it does not get 100% consent from investors to roll over FMPs


Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has asked Kotak Asset Management Co. Ltd to clarify under what provisions of the existing rules it has held back redemption of fixed maturity plans (FMPs), two people familiar with the development said.


Sebi wrote to both Kotak AMC and HDFC Asset Management Co. Ltd late on Thursday with questions on the FMPs."
"Facebook said the hackers accessed names, email addresses or phone numbers from these accounts. For 14 million of them, hackers got even more data — basically anything viewable on your account that any of your friends could see, and more. It’s a pretty extensive list: user name, gender, locale or language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places you checked into or were tagged in, your website, people or Pages you follow and your 15 most recent searches.


The company isn’t giving a breakdown of where these users are, but says the breach was “fairly broad."" It plans to send messages to people whose accounts were hacked.


Facebook said the FBI is investigating, but asked the company not to discuss who may be behind the attack. The company said it hasn’t ruled out the possibility of smaller-scale attacks that used the same vulnerability.


Facebook Vice President Guy Rosen said in a Friday call with reporters that the company hasn’t ruled out the possibility that other parties might have launched other, smaller scale efforts to exploit the same vulnerability before it was disabled."
"As a result, semiconductor spending by the top 10 OEMs increased significantly and their share reached 40.2% of the total semiconductor market in 2018, up from 39.4% in 2017.


""Huawei increased its chip spending by 45%, thus jumping in front of Dell and Lenovo to the third spot,"" added Yamaji."
"However, an iOS-only email client named ""Spark"" will be launched for Android right around the time Google retires ""Inbox"".


""This, according to the tweets it has been replying to Inbox users on Twitter. Perhaps 'Spark' will be able to fill a void that will be left by 'Inbox',"" the report said."
"Xiaomi is set to launch its flagship smartphone, the Mi 9 in China today. The launch event will commence at 11:30 am IST. Xiaomi has posted quite a few details about the Mi 9 on its handle on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.


The Mi 9 is expected to boast a 6.4-inch Full HD+ display with a waterdrop notch and will be powered by Qualcomm's newest flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 855.


The launch will take place a few hours before another major flagship launch—the Samsung Galaxy S10. The Galaxy S10 will be launched at the Unpacked event held at San Francisco at 12:30 am IST on 21 February."
"The high turnout was despite allegations of faulty voting machines in several places, and a generally hot weather. It was also an unusually peaceful elections, except for sporadic instances of violence in high profile seats such as Kannur and Vadakara. Around 11 voters died while standing in the queues, but Election Commission said prima facie these are natural deaths."
"Apple could also settle its disputes with Qualcomm and revert back to its modems, but that's unlikely as the two companies are locked in a multi-year legal battle surrounding patent infringements. (Bloomberg)


Apple is 'in a difficult position' given its reliance on Intel’s modem products, and it has four options to deal with the situation, 'none of which is ideal'


One option would be to 'source a 5G modem from Samsung' though it would likely come only on 'tough commercial terms'"
"Flipkart claims, the AGVs will enhance the throughput from the existing facility without the need to expand space or increase the headcount. Their internal tests showed with 100 AGVs can improve process efficiency by 60%. This will allow them to redirect the manpower into other areas of the supply chain network.


Soukya facility employs around 1000 workers and processes lakhs of shipments on a daily basis. The setup will be operated by existing staff who will be trained to handle them internally."
"Mahesh Bhatt on Wednesday refused to react to Kangana Ranaut’s sister Rangoli Chandel’s claims about his offensive behaviour towards the actor during her initial days


Rangoli, in a recent Twitter rant, claimed that upset over Kangana rejecting his film, Mahesh threw a slipper at the actor


 At the screening of Yours Truly on Tuesday evening, when asked for his reaction to the allegation, Mahesh said, “Our morals teach us that we don’t point fingers at our children"
"Modi has been criticized by the opposition for not fulfilling his promise of creating 10 million jobs each year—a promise that won him the hearts of India’s youth in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In the absence of timely and credible data, it’s difficult to estimate the number of jobs created during Modi’s term.


Separately, the Congress is likely to pledge a one-time farm loan waiver and focus on “have nots"" in a bid to win voters. The party will also promise a minimum income guarantee to the poor, said M.V. Rajeev Gowda, convener of the panel drafting the Congress’s manifesto, in February."
"""The country has decided as to whether a weak centre (government) will be in the country's interest or a decisive prime minister heading a majority government,"" he said.


On one hand is a cohesive and tested government and on the other is the choice of chaos and mahamilawat (grand adulteration), he said.


The Modi government succeeded in keeping inflation low while also expanding the tax base, reducing taxes on the middle class and spending money on welfare measures and exercises like One Rank One Pension, he said."
"Going by its Chinese launch, the smartphone is lit up by a 6.21-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2280x1080. It is powered by Huawei’s in-house octa-core processor, the Kirin 710, which claims to provide 75% more performance than the Kirin 659 found on the Honor 9 Lite. There’s also a GPU Turbo feature that promises to improve graphics performance and efficiency by 60%.


The back of the smartphone sports a 13MP+2MP dual camera setup. At the front of the Honor 10 Lite is a single 24MP selfie shooter. The front and back cameras are AI-enabled and allows automatic scene recognition."
"Xiaomi, at the launch of the Redmi Note 7 in China, announced making Redmi an independent sub-brand. Under the new strategy, the sub-brand launched the Redmi Note 7, Note 7 Pro, Redmi Y3 and Redmi 7, among others, in India. All devices are significant upgrades over their predecessors launched last year, with flashy new two-tone gradients and U-shaped notches, along with newer-gen processors."
"The actor, who rose to fame with Banoo Main Teri Dulhan in 2006, had a lavish wedding in the city in the presence of his family and close friends


 Fan pages and some of the actor’s friends shared photos and videos from the wedding ceremony on their social media handles"
"Cyber vulnerability is at an all-time high. The proliferation of internet-connected devices—many with poor security—along with the explosive growth of data, automation and outsourcing are creating exponentially higher risks. Boards that are informed, engaged and ask the right questions are perhaps the most critical line of defence in strengthening an organization’s security posture.


Nitin Bhatt is EY’s global risk transformation leader and heads the firm’s technology sector in India."
"""Alia Bhatt speaks up on Kalank failureAlia Bhatt’s latest film Kalank did not receive positive reviews from critics and the audience


 Talking about the same, the 26-year-old actor said, “Janta ki adalat sabse badi adalat hoti ha (audience verdict is supreme)


”Also read | Alia Bhatt on Kalank: When the audience does not accept the film, it should not do wellKalank earns Rs 69"
"Two of Xiaomi's bestselling smartphones, the Mi A2 and Redmi Note 6 Pro have received a price cut. The two phones now have the same price tag of ₹11,999. This puts the buyers in a very interesting spot, as the two smartphones have very different specifications which might interest different kinds of users.


The 4GB/64GB variants of both, the Mi A2 and Redmi Note 6 Pro, are now priced at ₹11,999. However, things are mostly different thereon.


The Mi A2 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 processor, which is considerably faster than the Redmi Note 6 Pro's Snapdragon 636 chipset. The Mi A2 also has a superior camera, with a 12MP+20MP dual rear camera setup capable of shooting 2160p videos at 30fps with EIS. The Redmi Note 6 Pro has a 12MP+5MP rear camera configuration which can record 1080p videos at 30fps."
"For first half of 2019, the company reported a loss of ₹43.67 crore while revenue was at ₹469.87 crore. For fiscal year 2018, the company reported a profit of ₹31.16 crore, down 75.55% from ₹127.44 crore a year ago. Revenue rose 23.8% from a year ago to ₹873.78 crore. As of September 2018, the company has total debt of ₹2468 crore.


Chalet Hotels (CHL), a part of K. Raheja Corp group, is the owner, developer and asset manager of high-end hotels in key Indian metro cities. CHL operates across five hotels, with 2,328 keys as of September 30, 2018."
"Apart from the base subscription, you also have a 6-month and 12-month plan priced at ₹ 1,345 and ₹ 2,332 respectively. Amazon Audible members also get 30% discount while purchasing additional audiobooks, apart from their monthly credit.


Amazon is also providing Indian subscribers one credit a month which can be used to buy any audiobook, irrespective of its price. The book should, however, be a part of the Audible India catalogue. Audible subscribers can also hold on to their audiobooks in their library even after cancelling their subscription, exchange audiobook titles and roll over up to six unused credits to the next months.


Some notable titles in Amazon’s audiobook catalogue include Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, This Could Hurt by Jillian Medoff, the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling and Victorian Secrets by John Woolf."
"The process of cleaning is itself very meticulous as the i7+ cleans in straight lines, cleaning an entire room before moving on to the next one, and if its battery runs low or its bin fills up before it’s finished, it will remember where it stopped and return to that spot after getting recharged.


Sensors in the robot recognize particularly dirty areas, such as doorway entrances, and prompt the robot to clean them more thoroughly. Two multi-surface rubber brushes work together to effectively clean both carpets and hard floors, automatically adjusting the height of the cleaning head so that the two brushes can directly engage with the floor.


What is unique to the i7+ are the reports after it has completed a job. The app tells the user exactly how many square feet has been cleaned, how many “dirt events"" there were, and how long it took to finish the job. It also shows a map of all the areas it hit during the cleaning run."
"Lasertec Corp. is the world’s sole maker of equipment that tests glass squares slightly bigger than a CD case that act as a stencil for chip designs


In 2017, Yokohama, Japan-based Lasertec solved the final piece of the puzzle when it created a machine that can test blank EUV masks for internal flaws, giving it a monopoly


Tokyo: After two decades in development, chipmakers are making a costly bet on a technology that will cram even more transistors onto silicon. Their success may hinge on a little-known company in the suburbs of Tokyo.


Lasertec Corp. is the world’s sole maker of equipment that tests glass squares slightly bigger than a CD case that act as a stencil for chip designs. By shining light through the squares, circuits smaller than the width of a few strands of DNA are imprinted onto silicon wafers in a process called lithography. These templates have to be perfect: even a tiny defect can make every single chip in the batch unusable."
"WhatsApp new features: Reply privately in groups, add stickers to photos and videos preview statuses with 3D-Touch


WhatsApp new featureWhatsAppWhatsApp for iPhoneWhatsApp Private replyWhatsApp sticker on photoWhatsApp sticker on videoWhatsApp 3D touch status


WhatsApp recently received its first major update of the year on the iOS platform. The update allows users to reply privately in groups, add stickers to photos and videos and preview statuses using 3D touch. The new updates were previously tested on the beta version of the app."
"”Sachin Pilgaonkar started his career with Ha Maza Marg Ekla and went on to appear as a child actor in films for more than decade


He then featured in films like Nadiya Ke Paar, Sholay, Balika Badhu, Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se and Satte Pe Satta


“There are lots of people who have done nothing else but acting, these are big names, and they’re happy with it"
"In the lawsuit Kessler had alleged that he pitched a project at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival to the Duffers, and they went on to stole his idea for a show set in a small town where a secret governmental project exists investigating the paranormal


Netflix issued a statement after the lawsuit was dropped and said the company was pleased with the decision"
"The director said the film is set in Mathura and Ayushmann will be heard speaking Haryanvi and Hindi languages in the local accent


The director said the inception of Dream Girl can be traced back to 2013, when his co-writer Nirman approached him with the concept"
"When I access my Vu Android TV through the @Google Home app, and check the linked accounts, it basically lists what I imagine is every single person who owns this television. This is shocking incompetence.


Google replied to the user's query by asking him if he was connected to a public or private Wi-Fi network and if he tried resetting his Android TV with built-in Chromecast. Google further asked if he was using an external Chromecast a built-in one.


Google finally suggested the user reach out to his TV's manufacturer for help in resetting his device again.


Another user @aarjithn posted that this issue wasn't restricted to Vu Android TVs and was present in his iFFalcon Android TV. This might suggest the bug might be present in the Android TV platform."
"The scam is in the form of a message warning users about a virus. It arrives in the form of a video claiming to be a new update for WhatsApp


WhatsAppWhatsapp new featureWhatsApp goldWhatsApp fake newsWhatsApp virusWhatsApp featuresWatsappWhatsup features


WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app, is vulnerable to many scams. An old hoax called “WhatsApp Gold"" has made a comeback on the messaging platform. The scam is in the form of a message warning users about a virus. It arrives in the form of a video claiming to be a new update for WhatsApp."
"The actor shared a photo on Instagram and captioned it, “Happy birthday fellow Street Dancer! @varundvn You’re an amazing friend, co-actor and most importantly a really nice person


 Have the best birthday!!! Love you 😘💜”Street Dancer 3D director Remo D’souza wished Varun on Instagram"
"Our phones have become smarter, interfaces slicker, and communication faster. But other predictions haven’t come to pass. Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint


Less than a tenth of the 289 billion-dollar startups are working on next-gen innovations. Why has everybody dropped the ball?


long-reads mint-india-wire Big technologystartupsPeter Thielartificial intelligenceStanley Kubrick2001: A Space OdysseyAutomated assistantsSiriAlexaUberSwiggySoftbankAI


This may seem like an odd time to question the ingenuity of the technology sector. With news of artificial intelligence (A.I.), automation and machine-learning swirling around, the technology space looks like a bright spot in a dull economy. Mega venture funds and frothy startup valuations seem to bear out this optimism.


Yet, fifty years ago we imagined a very different future. Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey released during the heyday of the space program assumed that by the early part of this millennium, space travel would be routine; machines would be terrifyingly intelligent; and computers and humans would have intelligent conversation.


By that yardstick, the present is decidedly underwhelming. Our phones have become smarter, interfaces slicker, and communication faster. But other predictions haven’t come to pass.


Most space programs are limited to unmanned expeditions. After the lull of the past few decades, space travel is in the news again. But even Elon Musk, the eternally confident founder of Space X, expects to send a manned expedition to the moon only in 2023, the first lunar journey by humans since 1972.


Driverless vehicles are not ready to replace humans yet. The vagaries of human traffic are just too much for these ordered systems. Robots, which are used extensively in manufacturing and distribution, haven’t been able to adapt to routine human tasks. Automated assistants like Siri are great for one-off tasks, but it’s near impossible to hold a conversation, especially with a thick accent.


There are around 290 unicorns, or unlisted startups valued at more than $1 billion, across the world. In theory, these unicorns represent the best of our ideas. Investors seem to agree, ploughing over $980 billion into these companies."
The project will go on floors by September or October and is likely to release in the first quarter of next year
"The move is significant as the 10 seats going to polls in the third phase of the elections, on 23 April, are in central Uttar Pradesh, a bastion of the SP’s Yadav voter base.


Mulayam’s support for his son and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who was also present at the rally, is significant for another reason—the SP patriarch has so far opposed an alliance with the BSP.


“Mainpuri is our district and the people are our people. Today Mayawatiji is here and we welcome her and are very glad she is among us and I will not forgot this. I appeal to you that Mayawatiji should always be respected because whenever the need has arisen, she has supported us. We are very happy that she is here today to support us,"" Mulayam told the meeting.


He said the poor are unhappy and women are being discriminated against and ill-treated in the NDA regime, adding: “You should elect us with full majority. This is my request to all of you."""
"Smith is also awaiting the release of the live-action version of Disney’s Aladdin wherein he plays the genie


Meanwhile, filmmaker Ang Lee is also in desperate need of a big hit after the failure of his 2016 movie Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk"
"It is also highly likely that the Nokia 9.1 PureView might be launched before the MWC 2019, somewhere around the end of January.


Nokia 9.1 PureViewNokia 9.1 PureView launchMWC 2019Nokia 6.2Nokia 6.2 launchNokia 6.2 MWC 2019Nokia 9.1 PureView MWC 2019 launch"
"In Uttar Pradesh, it’s a battle between caste and religion, championed by the grand alliance and BJP, respectively. These could overshadow concerns about lack of jobs and farm distress that go against BJP and the success of its Swachh Bharat, Ayushman Bharat and Ujjwala initiatives. Voters in Amethi, Rae Bareli, Lucknow and Hajipur tend to go with the party or the candidate. Modi’s image of a “doer"" is still BJP’s main plank, especially in UP where the upper castes are not too happy with Yogi Adityanath’s government."
"Traffic jams were reported on some highways leading to the capital as taxi drivers drove their vehicles at a snail’s pace across the river Han, raising concerns of evening traffic chaos on the giant Mapo Bridge. Photo: AFP


Drivers say the service being introduced by KakaoTalk -- the country's largest mobile chat app -- will threaten their livelihoods


Uberkakao talkSouth KoreaSouth Korea driver strikeKorea driver strikeride sharingcab servicetaxi service


Seoul: Tens of thousands of taxi drivers in South Korea went on a nationwide strike Thursday, snarling up traffic in Seoul, in the latest protest at a planned Uber-like ride-sharing service."
"According to Check Point’s blog post, the vulnerability was in an app called Guard Provider, which is meant to detect malware and protect the phones. “Briefly put, due to the unsecured nature of the network traffic to and from Guard Provider, a threat actor could connect to the same Wi-Fi network as the victim and carry out a Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attack,"" the company wrote in its blog."
"We can see how the government has been proactive since last few years trying to get him to be called as a threat


”Asked if the story bore any resemblance to that of Yasin Bhatkal, alleged co-founder of the terror organisation Indian Mujahideen, and his arrest in 2013, Gupta said the film is based on real-life events"
"The rise of 4G capability in feature phones would be one of the key trends moving forward which would allow the feature phone segment to remain relatively resilient in the medium term.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The XR falls between the XS and the Max in size. Its screen is about 7% larger than the XS and 12% smaller than the Max. But the XR is closer in width to larger Phones such as the Max and older Plus models, so anyone upgrading from an iPhone 7 or 8 will have to get used to a new grip.


As with the XS, the XR's display extends close to the phone's edges, translating to 45% more screen space than the iPhone 8 and 6% more than the 8 Plus. The XR and the XS both use facial recognition to unlock the phone, and both have a notch at the top for sensors, similar to shades on a car's windshield. The notch will take getting used to.


Speaker quality on the XR and the XS were comparable, and the mics on all new models offer stereo recording for the first time.


The phone displays, however, are different, and those disparities can make a difference. The screens on both XS models have better contrast and more vibrant colors than the standard LCD screen on the XR. Autumn leaves in the cartoon ""The Secret Lives of Pets"" stand out more, while greater hints of orange appeared in a space drama's rocket exhaust flames. Whites are whiter, making the screen appear brighter even though it's not."
"Original vocals by Kishore Kumar have been retained in the song and additional vocals have been given by Vishal Dadlani and Payal Dev


This recreation is quite reminiscent of the recreated versions of “Bachna Ae Haseeno” and “The Disco Song”, both of which have been done by Vishal-Shekhar"
"Shares of Rail Vikas Nigam or RVNL today closed at 20% upper circuit of ₹23.65, valuing the state-run company at nearly ₹5,000 crore. Including today’s gains, Rail Vikas Nigam shares are up 25% in three days after getting listed on Thursday. On Day 1 of listing, shares of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) made a tepid market debut on Thursday and closed flat at ₹19.05 against the issue price of ₹19.


Rail Vikas Nigam’s ₹480-crore initial public offer was subscribed 1.8 times earlier this month and price range for the issue was fixed at ₹17-19 per share."
"Apart from Ajay, Rakul and Tabu, the film also stars Javed Jaffrey, Alok Nath and Jimmy Shergill in pivotal roles"
"The 35-year-old actor also opened up about the dynamics between the pair’s characters in the MIB movie


“We certainly want to have the characters pitched pretty far apart and be opposites so there’s a lot more fun to be had there of figuring out that conflict of how to traverse that relationship and trying to get on the same page and missing constantly"
"Kanchana 3, which is the fourth installment in Raghava Lawrence’s horror-comedy franchise, has been ruling the box office ever since its release


According to film trade analyst Ramesh Bala, the movie was released on more than 2600 screens across the world"
"Last week, leaked stills gave an insight into how episode three, which revolved around the Battle of Winterfell, would unfold"
"While Facebook has been creating a catalogue of events near you, here are some apps that can come in-handy


New Delhi: Aarati Mehta, a Delhi-based designer, was tired of going to clubs and bars for parties. Her problem was that she would typically be around the same people at these parties.


A number of people today believe that bars and clubs have outgrown their usefulness, and are looking for alternative venues for parties. Some technology platforms are trying to take advantage of that.


A friend of Mehta recommended that she explore MyScoot—a web-based platform that lets people find house parties in their city. The platform started about a year-and-a-half ago from a Google form that was circulated on the internet. The company today plans to launch Android and iOS applications within months and currently operates in Delhi/NCR and Bangalore. “The platform is mostly for socializing. We started it because we ourselves weren’t able to find any avenues to meet new people,"" said Somvir Yadav, founder of MyScoot.


A similar platform called Lemonade Social began with the aim of helping creative professionals connect with an audience, and in the process help people meet each other. “Artists don’t want to play at bars and restaurants anymore because people go there to eat and drink. And you have a bunch of community-driven platforms that come out and say the same things that bars say—that they will keep the money but give you an audience. What we found was that users want experiences like this, but there’s no platform that’s combining different experiences, like music, food, etc,"" says Kritarth Chhabra, co-founder, Lemonade Social."
"The demand by the parties comes days before the 2nd phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections on April 18, when the a total of 97 constituencies across 13 states go to polls. The first of the seven-phase polls was held on April 11.


The Supreme Court had on Monday asked the Election Commission to increase the random matching of VVPAT slips with votes cast through EVMs at five polling booths per assembly segment, from one at present, in the Lok Sabha polls. It had given the direction saying the measure would provide greater satisfaction not just to political parties but the entire electorate. The opposition parties, including the Congress, have been demanding that at least 50% of all votes polled through EVMs be verified against the paper slips of the the voters' verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs) machines.


A VVPAT is an auxiliary, independent device linked to an electronic voting machine to allow voters to see if the votes cast by them have gone to the right candidate. The VVPATs are also meant to help detect any possible ""election fraud"" or malfunction of EVMs.


The Election Commission of India has decided to use VVAPTs with all the EVMs in the ongoing elections to impart greater transparency and credibility to the country's poll process.


The BJP, meanwhile, termed the opposition parties' meet in Delhi an exercise ""to find excuses for their impending massive defeat"" in the Lok Sabha polls."
The first look of Darbar was recently unveiled and it was revealed that Rajinikanth will be playing a cop in the film
"Under the hood, the Redmi Note 7 is powered by Snapdragon 660 SoC paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It is backed by a 4,000mAh battery and supports QuickCharge 4. It ships with a 10W charger; although for even quicker charging, Xiaomi is also separately selling an 18W charger. External connectivity options include USB Type-C and a 3.5mm jack.


In terms of optics, the back of the Redmi Note 7 boasts a 48MP+5MP AI-enabled dual camera setup. It has a pixel size of 1.6 microns and an aperture of f/1.8. Thanks to the size of its sensor, the Note 7 promises good low light performance. The front of the smartphone sports a single 13MP selfie camera under the dew drop notch."
"Further, the widening net of e-commerce in India is expected to further boost the growth of data centres. Other demand drivers include the government’s smart city initiative and the rapid adoption of technologies like the internet of things (IoT), cloud services and big data analytics. Despite having immense potential to become a data centre hub in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, the report also identifies several challenges. For one, several states in India are yet to formulate policies for this segment. Additionally, cumbersome approval processes for the acquisition of infrastructure and prolonged environmental clearances also need to be addressed. The report also highlights testing the viability of a data centre’s location for high-seismic zoning, probability of floods, and extreme heat conditions–all of which could be a huge deterrent for players looking to set up centres in certain cities."
"Hackers can use an unpatched exploit in the Internet Explorer to both spy on Windows users and steal their local data


The vulnerability affects Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2, according to a researcher


Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) that has dealt with a reputation for poor security for years, now makes PCs vulnerable even if it is just installed in them, a security researcher has found."
"The BJP also continues to maintain its hold among upper castes and the non-Yadav OBCs. Similarly, the party has support of the upper and middle-income class. However, the agrarian crisis and mass migration remain key issues in this region along with the menace of stray cattle. For the local public, farm loans, electricity, water, employment, etc. remain an issue.


The region has considerable number of SC voters followed by OBCs, Thakurs, and Brahmins. Muslims have a very marginal presence in this region. Bundelkhand witnessed considerable social churn once BSP made its entry in UP politics and Kansiram and Mayawati played a crucial role in altering the political landscape of the region. However, it could not retain its hold among the SCs as it offered ticket to general category candidates and also to the wealthy by denying the legitimate claims of the community.


SP, being in a strong organizational position, is managing mobilization in all four constituencies. BSP on its own may find it difficult to win as it suffers from poor organization and infighting. It gets compensated by the support of its core voters like Jatavs."
"Cab aggregators Ola and Uber and food ordering and delivery firms like Zomato and Swiggy are not present in Porbandar (Mint)


In 1915, Mahatma Gandhi travelled from Porbandar to Kolkata to discover India. Mint tries to gauge the mood of the tiny town on the western tip of Gujarat, also known to the world as the birthplace of Gandhi, on the eve of the general elections


Porbandar: Since Independence, Porbandar, a tiny town on the western tip of Gujarat, is known to the world as the birthplace of Mohandas K. Gandhi.


Make no mistake: People take pride that one of the greatest leaders of the last century was born here.


Still, many are angry at the apathy by multiple governments in the past in failing to set up new industries. This has only led to fewer jobs, forcing young students to look at bigger cities in the state and elsewhere for a better life."
Mohanal added that the story revolves around Barroz who has been guarding Gama’s treasure for over 400 years and he will hand over the treasure to only the true successors of Gama
"The company also plans to create spaces where the customer can exclusively experience products and accessories from Realme. “We also want to create a zone where we can have a display of our offerings. We are planning to have few experience stores in the second half of this year in top metros,"" Sheth said.


Within six months of its launch, Realme has entered 10 markets, including India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, Burma and Singapore.


“We are expanding in South-East Asia. We are looking at Bangladesh, Nepal and the Middle East. We will also go to Europe in the second half of this year,"" Sheth said.


The company, however, has decided to stay away from big advertising and marketing activities as it believes that the segment that it targets does not need that brand push."
"Bengaluru: Music streaming service Spotify Technology SA said it will remove all songs belonging to one of India's oldest record labels from its app after they failed to agree on licensing terms, months after the Swedish company's launch in the country.


According to a court document, Saregama India Ltd filed a petition with the Delhi High Court seeking an injunction against Spotify to stop it from using its songs."
"The TDP is also banking on a host of welfare schemes to win the forthcoming polls. In January, the Naidu-led government had announced an annual financial assistance of ₹10,000 for women in self-help groups under the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas programme. This will benefit 9.4 million women, who will get the money between February and April.


This alone will cost the Andhra Pradesh exchequer ₹9,750 crore, said one of the TDP leaders mentioned above. The state government will also implement the Annadata Sukhibhava scheme (for farmers), which was announced in February. Senior TDP leaders said that about ₹15,000 crore will be spent by the Andhra government on welfare schemes to target various beneficiary groups.


“If you look at AP closely, an interesting trend is taking place. The number of leaders jumping parties is unusually high. It was high in 2014, but the situation then was confusing due to the state’s bifurcation. Sitting MLAs from both the TDP and YSRCP are moving across both parties. BJP’s situation, in particular, is really bad. After losing four sitting seats in the 2018 Telangana polls, it does not look any better for it. Some big Congress leaders have also joined the TDP with the hope of winning,"" said political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy. He added that the JSP might have some influence in the East and West Godavari districts. “But the situation is still fluid, and surveys now show that things are neck-and-neck."""
"The release date of Comali, also starring Samyuktha Hegde, KS Ravikumar and RJ Anandhi, is yet to be announced"
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.979, up 0.2% from its previous close of 97.177."
"In an age where cameras are coming up everywhere, making sense of all the hours of stored footage is where the next big policing breakthrough is likely to come from. (iStock)


A new technology is beginning to alter policing. It may have already helped crack a major case, the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh


While gait analysis has been used as supportive evidence in the UK, its use for forensic purposes has been limited elsewhere


In September 2018, a special investigation team of the Karnataka police identified Parashuram Waghmare as one of the alleged killers of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead in 2017 at her Bengaluru residence. The lead came through the examination of the walking pattern of the killers as captured in the CCTV footage at the time of the murder. The Directorate of Forensic Sciences in Gujarat, which was working with the police on the investigation, used a technique called forensic gait analysis to match the walking pattern of the killers with that of the suspects.


Forensic gait analysis is based on the premise that every individual’s walking pattern is unique. It comes in handy to identify a person in cases where the CCTV camera has captured the act of the crime but couldn’t capture the face of the perpetrator due to poor lighting, the position of the camera, or because the face was covered with a mask or cloth. The technique was first admitted as evidence by a London court in a murder case in 2000. The perpetrator caught on CCTV footage had a bow-legged gait matching one of the suspects, which according to the gait expert who offered testimony during the trial was found in only 5% of the country’s population.


During gait analysis, the walking style of the perpetrator from the CCTV footage is examined to generate a pattern called gait signature. It is then compared with the gait signature generated from a second footage of suspects, which can be from a CCTV footage captured before or after the crime or a re-enactment of it by law enforcement agencies during the investigation as was done in Gauri Lankesh murder investigation. Gait signature is drawn from combination elements such as the posture of the body while walking; hand swing; the position of head, neck and shoulder; knee-flexion during stance; distance between the steps; angle of feet; pelvic rotation and weight distribution.


If done right, forensic gait analysis could possibly revolutionize policing in ways similar to the impact that fingerprint analysis had on the field in the early 20th century. Crime solving is all about matching the remnants of a scene to the person who might have been there. While a fingerprint or hair or blood are clear markers of identity, the way someone walks could be as unique and integral to identity. And in an age where cameras are coming up everywhere, making sense of all the hours of stored footage is where the next big policing breakthrough is likely to come from.


Gait analysis can be done manually by carefully examining every frame of the footage and then drawing a conclusion based entirely on observations. The other and considerably more reliable approach is the computer vision approach, which uses specially designed algorithms to determine a person’s gait from a video footage and then compares the gait pattern of the perpetrator with that of the suspect. This approach uses software tools to measure lengths or angles of the limbs during movements across each frame."
"Jet Airways has already lost considerable market share. Returning to normalcy can be an uphill task. (Naveen Kumar Saini/Mint)


Banks have shown they have nerves of steel with regards to the Jet Airways crisis. The question now is whether a strategic investor will display equal bravado and take on the beleaguered airline


""It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic,"" Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines, once famously said. Lenders to the beleaguered airline, Jet Airways (India) Ltd, have shown they have nerves of steel with regards to the troubled investment, but the moot question is if their continued support of the airline borders on neurosis.


The lenders, led by State Bank of India (SBI), said on Monday that they will pump in another ₹1,500 crore into Jet Airways, to get the airline in shape for an eventual sale. At the end of December, Jet Airways had an unmanageable net debt of ₹7,299 crore."
"com asked Soni about the kind of relationship advice she shares with daughters Shaheen and Alia Bhatt


 So whatever I get to know is quite late and so my conversations with them about their relationships are usually in hindsight


”We wondered if there was a time when she read something about Alia in the newspaper, which she didn’t know"
"It remains to be seen whether the 5G smartphone will make its way to India, which is a key market for OnePlus.


OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said the company will have the first flagship smartphone to feature the Snapdragon 855 that will be rolled out next year in Europe. 5G services -- which promise to bring in faster data speeds for users -- are expected to be rolled out in the US, parts of Europe, South Korea, China and Australia in 2019 but in India, such a rollout would happen after spectrum auction.


oneplus smartphonesoneplus smartphone launchoneplus latest smartphoneoneplus new smartphoneoneplus india phonesoneplus mobile phones5g phonesoneplus 5g phone launch


Hawaii: Chinese handset maker OnePlus will join the growing roster of handset makers rolling out their 5G smartphones with a flagship device next year, featuring the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform. Speaking at the Snapdragon Tech Summit here, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said the company will have the first flagship smartphone to feature the Snapdragon 855 that will be rolled out next year in Europe in partnership with telecom operator, EE."
"A state BJP leader, requesting anonymity said Tuesday’s public rally would go a long way in not only reviving the “warmth in the relationship but also build harmony and confidence among the BJP-Sena cadres"".


The Lok Sabha elections are being held in four phases in Maharashtra, with the first seven seats in Vidarbha going to polls on 11 April. Senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari is seeking re-election from Nagpur."
Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal on Tuesday evening announced on Instagram that he and partner Gabriella Demetriades will soon welcome their first child
"The cabinet also approved the proposal for accession of India to --the Nice Agreement concerning the international classification of goods and services for the purposes of registration of marks, the Vienna Agreement establishing an international classification of the figurative elements of marks, and the Locarno Agreement establishing an international classification for industrial designs.


The government said that the accession to the Nice, Vienna and Locarno agreements will help the Intellectual Property Office in India to harmonise the classification systems for examinational of trademark and design applications, in line with the classification systems followed globally."
"“We were seeking implementation of the Agenda of Alliance while trying to evolve some mechanism to engage the youth,"" PDP’s youth leader Waheed ur Rehman Parra said. “In Kashmir, the people who dominate the streets are below 18. Even militancy recruitment stops at 25. But we had nothing to engage with them. Regardless of the withdrawal of cases against first-time offenders, thousands of the youth started facing law and thanna became their only centre of adverse engagement. This led to the crisis.""


“Mark my words,"" Omar Abdullah said days after Burhan’s killing. “Burhan’s ability to recruit into militancy from the grave will far outstrip anything he could have done on social media."" His grave actually became the ‘new recruiting shrine for militancy’. In 2018, Kashmir witnessed 99 anti-militancy operations and 57 of them took place in south Kashmir. As many as 85 civilians were killed in the region in 2018.


Today, south Kashmir has more homegrown militants than foreigners. Every death required a funeral and every funeral was a huge gathering. “The politics took a different route for engagement,"" Parra said. “These funerals were a rejection of the idea of democracy; these were celebrations of death as BJP ensured PDP fails to deliver.""


These young, well educated, homegrown rebels are a breed apart. “While I was desperately looking for my brother and cousin so that I could convince them to renounce militancy, I visited 112 families of militants; almost 90 of them told me the security grid interventions forced them to join militancy,"" Syed Tajamul Imran, a management graduate said. He has already buried his militant brother but his cousin, a police deserter, is still at large.


In Kareemabad, the PDP got 1,400 votes in 2014. “Now we have seven graves there. How will we go to seek a vote and how will they actually oblige us?"" Parra asked. “In the first term, PDP gave Awantipore the Islamic University and in the second term an AIIMS. In the aftermath of Pulwama suicide attack, a school teacher was brutally killed. This devoured the development narrative from us. We have not even visited the area.""


This situation created indifference towards democracy well before the Lok Sabha elections were announced. In the 2018 fall, when Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik decided to hold urban local body elections against the advice of the PDP and NC, south Kashmir responded interestingly. There was very low participation—130 of the 263 municipal wards remain vacant.


Right now, talking publicly about PDP in most of the region is a sin. But its loss is unlikely to be an NC gain because the PDP continues to be the major political force in the region. That is where the fault line lies. A tectonic alteration can be disastrous."
"The smartphone follows a ""Gradient Unibody Design"" which is basically Realme's rendition of a dual gradient back. It comes in two colours—Dynamic Black and Radiant Blue.


At the heart of the Realme 3 is a MediaTek Helio P70 processor with a maximum CPU frequency of 2.1GHz. It is paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. A 4,320mAh battery powers the Realme 3, which is about the same as its predecessor, the Realme 2."
"5) Investors are closely watching the progress of this week’s high-level US-China trade talks ahead of a March 1 deadline for higher tariffs. Back home, the government will announce inflation data for January and industrial output data for February later today.  (With Bloomberg Inputs)"
"In China alone, an average of two new models were released each day last year for a total of 764. In 2017, that figure hit 1,054, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.


The saving grace for smartphone makers these past few years has been the addition of new functions, which allowed them to reverse a previous slide in average prices and actually sell devices for more money.


Apple Inc. thinks that average sales price is more important than shipment numbers, which is why it decided to no longer tell you how many iPhones it sells but merely how much revenue it makes from them.


That didn’t prevent the Cupertino-based company from missing its original sales target for the December quarter. Apple blamed it on China, while my colleague Shira Ovide blames it on Apple and explains why the shoe was bound to drop. In fact, Apple isn’t the only one struggling in the world’s biggest smartphone market. Industry-wide shipments in China fell more than 15% last year, according to CAICT, even worse than the 12.3% drop in 2017."
"The Congress tried to retain all of its 10 MP seats but was unsuccessful in keeping Tumakuru seat from its alliance partner, the JD(S). Former Prime Minister H.D.Deve Gowda announced that he would contest from Tumakuru seat after he relinquished his Hassan constituency for his 28 year old grandson, Prajwal Revanna.


The sitting Congress MP, S.P.Muddahanumegowda has announced that he will file his nomination on Monday as well, adding to the simmering tensions between the two parties, that have shared a tempestuous past in parts of South Karnataka."
"And I feel I’m just a bit more comfortable that I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in a sense of just coming back to being known as an actor that is interested in lots of different kinds of stories and different kinds of characters,” Garfield told Uproxx"
"Similarly, Apple talked recently about its new neural engine on the 2018 iPhones, which can perform 5 trillion operations per second. Both Qualcomm and Huawei have put neural processing engines on their newest chipsets, to handle ML operations. It’s not that ML algorithms can’t be run on current processors. However, having a separate co-processor allows better and more efficient output.


mint-india-wire Smartphoneartificial intelligenceSiriGoogle AssistantBixbyAmazon AlexaGoogle Pixel 3Huawei Mate 20 ProAppleAI technology"
"Their job was to create a travelling road show of deception, armed with inflatable tanks and sound-effects records"
"She comes with no professional comedy experience but her insight and honesty help in making the show better as they decide to play on Thompson’s strengths


Alongside Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, the film also stars John LithgowWatch the trailer of Late Night here:Late Night premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 and received mostly positive reviews"
"Both TVs come with 20W stereo speakers with DTS HD-surround sound, Bluetooth remotes which support voice recognition and an Android-based interface called PatchWall which natively supports Hotstar, Hungama, Sony Liv, Voot, Eros Now, Zee5, Hooq, Epic ON and more.


The 4X Pro comes equipped with 64-bit Amlogic quad-core chipset with Mali-450 GPU, 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The 4A Pro comes with the same chipset and internal storage, but with only 1GB of RAM. Both TVs support WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz/5GHz. I/O options include 3 HDMI slots, 2 USB ports and one Ethernet and PDIF port each."
"The Realme 3 is lit by a 6.2-inch display with a maximum brightness of 450 nits. The display has a dewdrop notch which hosts the 13MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture.


The smartphone follows a ""Gradient Unibody Design"" which is basically Realme's rendition of a dual gradient back. It comes in two colours—Dynamic Black and Radiant Blue."
"With his eyes on the road, Manjunath, the cab driver who was driving me to Bengaluru airport, nodded in agreement. Manjunath, Anish and I are connected by a common thread--we are part of the 245 million Indian millennials below 35 years of age who will be crucial in the national elections starting Thursday, the biggest democratic exercise of its kind. We may be a constituency, with a shared mindscape of moods and expectations, but we may very well be from different planets.


As long as he can remember, Manjunath's family grew millet and silk in a countryside 10 km from Bengaluru airport. He turned into a cab driver when farming became difficult. The once green pastures ran dry with overuse of groundwater, a story that repeats itself across Indian states. People in his village could not find water even 1,000 ft below the ground, he said."
"The Samsung Galaxy S10 launch event at San Francisco saw the launch of nine devices, including a foldable smartphone and wireless ear buds


The Samsung Galaxy S10 starts at $899 (about ₹64,000), while the top-of-the-line S10 Plus goes all the way up to $1,600 (about 1.13 lakh) for the 12GB/1TB variant


Samsung launched nine devices, including Galaxy Fold, S10, S10 Plus and S10e at its Unpacked event held in San Francisco on Wednesday. Although headlined by the aforementioned devices, the event also saw the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active, Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Buds.


The Galaxy S10 family comes with a completely refreshed design—a near bezel-less Infinity-O display at the front with a laser cut hole to accommodate the front-facing camera(s) and horizontally placed rear camera system.


The changes obviously aren't just cosmetic—the innards have received an upgrade as well. Samsung's Exynos 9820 or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 SoC is standard on all devices. Memory and storage options range from 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage on the base Galaxy S10e all the way up to a whopping 12GB of RAM and a terabyte of internal storage on the Galaxy S10 Plus. All Galaxy S10 variants run Samsung's new One UI based on Android Pie 9.


Other specifications like front and rear cameras, fingerprint sensors and battery capacities differ from model to model. Here's how they look:


Undoubtedly the most anticipated device of the lot, the Galaxy S10 boasts a 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with QHD+ resolution. The Infinity-O cutout here is for a single camera—a 10MP clicker."
"However, as of now, there is no confirmation about what developers or games would choose to integrate Snapchat's Bitmoji avatars.


There's currently support for Unity, Unreal and British VR gaming start-up PlayCanvas already inside Snapchat. The Bitmoji for Games website tells players to stay tuned for more updates, according to the Engadget."
"San Francisco-based Fitbit Inc launched its cheapest smartwatch on Wednesday in a bid to defend its place in the wearable electronics market, as larger rivals roll out devices aimed at helping users track their health.


Fitbit said the Versa Lite smartwatch will cost $160, down from $200 for the full version. While still tracking workouts and heart rate, it will lack some features such as the ability to store music directly on the watch."
"At the wedding, we spotted celebrities such as Shashank Vyas of Balika Vadhu fame, Zain Imam, Harshad Chopda and Rashami Desai


Earlier, Kratika Dheer, Ssharad’s friend, took to Instagram and wished a happily ever after to the newly-weds"
"”Sapna Choudhary, who became a national sensation after her appearance on Bigg Boss 11, also shared her excitement for her debut single on Instagram and wrote, “Hello friends Ram Ram"
"Both phones are capable of gaming, but don’t expect top-end, mind-blowing stuff—the highest default graphics setting available on PUBG is medium.


The most utilitarian phone of the lot, the Zenfone Max Pro M1 is easy to be overlooked. But once you get past the glamour of other phones, you see the genius of this one. It comes with up to 64GB of internal storage, 6GB of RAM, Snapdragon 636 processor and a humongous 5,000mAh battery. While the camera performance can be named as run-of-the-mill, this is the perfect smartphone for those who are always on the go and don’t have the time to charge up their phones. The UI is one of the more bearable ones and has some really useful features as well.


The Motorola One Power is very similar to the Zenfone Max Pro M1, except that it has a better 6.2-inch display with a pixel density of 402ppi which is more spread out to the edges. It has the same 5,000mAh battery which has fancier charging options like Turbo Charging with a USB Type-C port.


Motorola also has promised a Pie upgrade for this phone, so it is definitely a must buy for those with a peeve to be updated with the latest Android versions.


The Note 6 Pro is a marginal upgrade over the already awesome Note 5 Pro, except that it could have waited a bit longer. It gets an upgrade in its battery capacity, which has been upped to 4,000mAh and an additional camera at the front. The rear camera is great, just like its predecessor, and can give the best camera phones mentioned above a run for their money. The display is also spread out further to the bezels. The rest of the phone, from the processor to the overall design, remains the same. It is still a very good buy at ₹ 15,999.


mint-india-wire phones under Rs 20000Poco F1Realme U1Redmi Note 6 Prorealme 2 proHonor PlayNokia 7.1Nova 3iAsus Zenfone Max Pro M1"
"Many major game publishers have largely avoided the field so far, and venture funding for VR software development has nosedived this year. Photo: Reuters


Some of the biggest consumer complaints involve expense, laggy or glitchy graphics and the fact that many systems still tether the headsets to gaming consoles or PCs.


CES 2019Virtual RealityVROculus RiftOculus GoXiaomi VRSamsung VRGoogle CardboardVR headsetsbeat saber


New York: Just a few years ago, virtual reality was poised to take over the world. After decades of near misses, the revolution finally seemed imminent, with slick consumer headsets about to hit the market and industries from gaming and entertainment to social media ready to hop on the bandwagon.


But the buzz over VR has faded to a whisper. At the CES 2019 tech show in Las Vegas, Facebook’s Oculus unit isn’t holding any glitzy press events, just closed-door demos for its upcoming Oculus Quest, a $399 untethered headset due out in the spring. Other VR companies are similarly subdued. HTC announced two new headsets — one with only sketchy details — while Sony has some kiosks for its $300 PlayStation VR set in the main hall."
"Game of Thrones co-showrunner David Benioff believes the character of Sansa Stark has transformed enormously over the course of show’s previous seven seasons


In the first season Sansa, played by Sophie Turner, appeared as a starry-eyed to-be-queen but over the next six seasons, the character underwent massive personality changes, courtesy the tumultuous turn of events around her"
"Film trade analyst Ramesh Bala wrote on Twitter, “#Kanchana3SuperHit @offl_Lawrence ‘s #Kanchana3 takes a Mass Opening all over South"
"The yield on 2028 debt has climbed 22 basis points so far this year, as foreigners pulled $738 million from rupee debt, the most among Asian markets tracked by Bloomberg.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"I worked with amazing actors and one day if you do see it, you may not agree with my decision but that’s what mum decided to do’,” she added"
"Apple is in the process of lining up contributors to the new offering, which has been dubbed Apple News Magazines


The service is designed to let consumers subscribe to a bundle of newspapers and magazines for a flat monthly fee"
"There are over 500,000 women SHGs in Odisha and they are seen as a huge support base for the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) led by chief minister Naveen Patnaik. BJP said it will establish 314 special stores to procure products made by women self-help groups.


Going ahead of the ruling Biju Janata Dal’s cycle scheme for girl students, BJP said it will introduce a new scheme to “provide a two-wheeler free of cost to all meritorious girl students"" upon completion of 12th standard.


The party said it shall launch a scheme titled ‘Subhadra Samriddhi Yojana’ wherein every girl child on enrollment in 10th, 12th class and graduate level will receive ₹10,000, ₹15,000 and ₹10,000 respectively. Also on completion of graduate education she will receive ₹15,000 in her bank account."
"Actor Jeremy Renner recently revealed he was initially hesitant to take on the role of Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe


 It is just our lack of information or knowledge or ignorance towards a certain event or thing that makes us fearful


 I think my first fear, initially, when it came to the MCU was I don’t know if I wanted to be 50 years old and wearing tights"
"Over the last week which had two trading holidays, the Sensex fell 104.07 points, or 0.26 per cent; while the Nifty shed 42.40 points, or 0.36 per cent.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"To safeguard the environment, protect human health and deliver sustainable, inclusive growth, the Nigerian government, Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UN Environment have joined Dell, HP, Microsoft and Philips to launch a $15 million investment to create a formal e-waste recycling industry in Nigeria.


The partnership is convened on the World Economic Forum's Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy.


Funding comprises a $2 million GEF investment, which will be leveraged for an additional $13 million private-sector co-financing. With 100,000 people estimated to be informally working in the e-waste sector in Nigeria alone, the investment will not only unlock economic growth, but also provide safe and decent employment for workers."
"ALSO READ | OnePlus 6T: From Jio’s ₹ 5,400 instant cashback to no headphone jack, here’s what you need to know


The new smartphone runs on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset with 8GB RAM. The entry-level variant will have a glass back, but there will be no wireless charging. Due to the in-display fingerprint sensor, the OnePlus 6T is going to cost slightly more than the predecessor, presumably catapulting OnePlus fully into the ₹ 40,000 price segment. At this price, the OnePlus 6T will be competing with the likes of Vivo Nex ( ₹ 44,900) and even the Samsung Galaxy S9 (starts at ₹ 57,900), both of which can be considered to be strikingly more premium than this phone.


mint-india-wire OnePlus 6TOnePlus 6T price in IndiaOnePlus 6T price in IndiaOnePlus 6T reviewOnePlus 6T AmazonOnePlus 6T variantsOnePlus 6T specsOnePlus 6T vs OnePlus 6OnePlus 6T saleOnePlus 6T 128 GB"
"Oppo on Wednesday took the covers off the Oppo K1 smartphone. The Oppo K1 was launched in China last year and its highlights include a Snapdragon 660 SoC, up to 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a dual-gradient back panel.


The Oppo K1 is priced at ₹16,990 for the only 4GB/64GB model it's available in. The smartphone will go on sale on Flipkart starting 12 February. The smartphone will be available at a 90% buyback value of up to ₹15,300 with an additional Citibank discount of ₹1,690 for up to 8 months"
"The BJP has named V P Saroj as its candidate from Machhlishahr (SC), replacing sitting MP Ram Charitra Nishad.


Meanwhile, two-time Congress MLA from Tiloi assembly constituency, which comes under the Amethi parliamentary seat, joined the BJP on Wednesday."
"Going by the voter turnout trend over the years, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka have registered highest ever voter turnout since 1962 or in the last 57 years after independence.


""This particularly suggests that now citizens are more aware about their rights and responsibility, thanks to relentless campaign by multiple stakeholders starting from election commission to civil societies who are encouraging all to cast their vote,"" said Ecowrap.


The SBI's research report also notes that young, elderly and women all seems to taking part in Indian elections."
"We removed the headphone jack on the Eluga X1 and X1 Pro for a cleaner and minimalistic design, but expect them to come back on their successors, says Pankaj Rana, Division Head-Mobility Sales Division, Panasonic


Panasonic expects acceptance in the ₹ 5,000-27,000 range and we want to target the right audience, which can really experience the innovations that we bring to our devices, Pankaj Rana, Division Head-Mobility Sales Division, Panasonic, tells Shubham Raheja in an interview during Brand Studio Live. Edited excerpts:


As you would already know, it’s a very tough market. We have changed a few things this year—earlier we were selling phones only in the volume segment or the segment between ₹ 5,000 and ₹ 12,000. We have changed our focus and we are now selling devices between ₹ 12,000 and ₹ 27,000. This essentially means our price bracket ranges between ₹ 5,000 to ₹ 27,000.


Panasonic, being a well-positioned brand in the Indian market, expects acceptance in this range and we want to target the right audience, which can really experience the innovations that we bring to our devices.


We are also building our own AI-backed platform, which we are calling Arbo Hub. Arbo Hub is the amalgamation of many applications and content on one single app, which can provide a very interesting user experience to the end customer. They can use multiple services on one platform."
"Powering the device is Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset based on a 7nm process. The octa-core processor is also present on Huawei’s current flagship, the Mate 20 Pro. It is paired with a Mali G76 MP10 GPU along with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The View 20 runs Magic UI 2.0.1 based on Android Pie 9.


The back of the smartphone sports a 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensor which was launched in June with the highest megapixel count in the world for a smartphone camera sensor. There is also a secondary Time of Flight (ToF) stereoscopic sensor for capturing the depth of an image. The front camera is fitted with a 25MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture.


The device packs a 4,000mAh battery and supports fast charging and has connectivity options which include Dual 4G LTE, Bluetooth v5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (dual-band—2.4GHz and 5GHz), A-GPS, and USB Type-C."
"Also starring Sharman Joshi, the romantic tale sees the couple fight all odds – family’s opposition and status difference to find solace in each other


Asha made her debut on the small screen with Sapnon Se Bhare Naina and became an overnight sensation playing Purvi in Pavitra Rishta


 Apart from a few appearances, Asha has been missing from action after her last show Kuch Toh Hai Tere Mere Darmiyaan wrapped up in 2016


 How did Baarish happen to you?Well I had taken a break from acting because I wasn’t quite happy with the kind of roles that came my way"
"“Only one party is against the counting of VVPAT slips because the EVM malfunctioning is clearly helping them,"" said Kejriwal, national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party. “These EVM machines are programmed to vote only for BJP. How is it possible that every malfunctioned machine malfunctions in favour of BJP?""


Naidu met CEC Sunil Arora after reports that some EVMs had malfunctioned at the start of polling across the state. He claimed that in some places polling began as late as 1pm on 11 April due to problems with the voting machines. Naidu, in a letter to Arora, asked EC to use paper ballots.


After this meeting, Naidu and his team met Sudeep Jain, deputy election commissioner in charge of EVMs, and D.T. Shahani, chairman of its technical expert committee, on the same day. The two officials will meet TDP representatives on Monday. Naidu has also demanded re-polling in some booths, citing EVM malfunctioning.


EC, however, objected to the presence of Hari Prasad Vemuru, who was part of Naidu’s team and is alleged to have been involved in an EVM theft in 2010. A letter was sent to TDP’s legal cell head, K. Ravindra Kumar, informing the same, adding that any other expert without such “antecedents"" could meet EC officials on Monday."
"In the ranking of top-10 firms, RIL remained at the number one position, followed by TCS, HDFC Bank, HUL, ITC, HDFC, Infosys, SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank.


During the past week, the Sensex dropped 72 points, or 0.18 per cent to close at 39,067.33 on Friday. PTI SUM ABM ABM"
"The 21.5-inch iMac now features 8th-generation quad-core and for the first time 6-core processors — delivering up to 60% faster performance.


The 27-inch iMac now for the first time features up to 9th-generation 6-core and 8-core processors, delivering up to 2.4 times faster performance.


AMD's Radeon Pro Vega graphics come to the 21.5-inch iMac, delivering up to 80% faster graphics performance."
Actor Suriya on Tuesday took to Twitter to share the first look of wife Jyotika and Revathi’s upcoming film Jackpot
"""Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be filing his nomination later this week and given his track record as a Member of Parliament and Prime Minister, Varanasi will be looking forward to welcoming him,"" BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said."
"He certainly doesn’t take advice from others, he works alone usually, and then in this particular instance they’ve teamed up together outside of either of their first choice


 I think she’d probably rather be saddled with someone a little more on book, but as I said it gives us somewhere to go and gives us a nice arc,” he said"
"The AAP contested national elections for the first time in 2014 where they managed to win four seats in Punjab. The party is currently in power in Delhi where it came to power after winning 67 out of 70 Assembly seats in 2015.


The poll panel is yet to announce the dates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. According to senior party leaders, the names have been announced in advance so leaders can start working on their campaigns. The announcement also rules out any alliances for the party in Delhi."
"The accessories aren’t cheap either—the new wirelessly charging Apple Pencil is priced at ₹ 10,900, while the new “Smart Keyboard Folio"" has an MRP of ₹ 15,900 for the 11-inch iPad Pro and ₹ 17, 900 for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.


So if you’re the kind of person who wishes to use the new iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles, the iPad Pro will cost you just north of ₹ 1.4 lakh ( ₹ 1,42,600 to be precise for the top 12.9-inch variant)—and that’s excluding USB-C accessories like adapters and cables."
"Stating that she is considering this as her comeback project, Niyati said, “I personally believe that out of sight, out of mind works for the TV industry"
"The main YouTube app continues to be the way it was. There is going to be a Premium tier to it, which changes the consumer experience: Lyor Cohen, global head of music for YouTube.


Along with a free 30-day trial, YouTube Premium subscribers would be allowed to request specific albums, songs, artists and playlists on-demand


Subscribers would get to use other player controls like unlimited skips and song replay on smart speakers"
"Another senior AIMIM leader from Hyderabad, also requesting anonymity, said a team had been sent to Maharashtra to study the possible outcome of AIMIM contesting the seat some days ago. “Though the Aurangabad seat has a huge Muslim voter base, there was a concern that the Dalit votes might not transfer to us. Historically, Muslims as a community are used to voting for non-Muslim candidates, hence, we were discussing the matter,"" he said.Imtiaz Jaleel is the sitting MLA from the Aurangabad central assembly seat.


AIMIM also represents the Byculla seat in South Mumbai.In Telangana, Owaisi is likely to win the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat for the fourth straight term. The AIMIM has been winning it since 1984, when his father Salahuddin Owaisi had won it for the first time. The constituency is seen as the AIMIM’s bastion, as it has a considerable Muslim population, primarily covering the old city areas of Hyderabad."
"The news comes as the first tech fair of the year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), nears its end and the buzz of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) begins.


The event will take place on 20 February at 11 am PT (21 February at 12:30 am IST) at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.


Samsung Unpacked events are perhaps one of the most exciting ones of the year, as they showcase the latest innovations from the South Korean electronics major. But this year it means a big deal for the chaebol as the smartphone industry is seeing a major slump in sales. Samsung enjoys the top spot nevertheless, as Huawei breathes down its neck. Huawei leapfrogged Apple in sales last year with its killer innovations like a triple camera setup, wireless reverse charging and, to some extent, flashy design choices."
"K13 movie cast: Arulnithi, Shraddha Srinath, Yogi Babu, Gayathrie Shankar
K13 movie director: Barath Neelakantan
K13 movie rating: 2 starsIt doesn’t hurt to watch a bad film


 But what really hurts is seeing a potential piece of creative work getting diluted midway—without achieving what it wanted to accomplish


 In general, gripping thrillers make you feel the clock ticking with every dialogue, thought and emotion rushing through the characters, but K13 doesn’t do any of that"
"Teresa ka dude – it will all be decided soon! #SOTY2Chapters @karanjohar @apoorva1972 @tarasutaria @ananyapanday @punitdmalhotra @dharmamovies @foxstarhindi @zeemusiccompany #SOTY2


”Sharing this video from Saand Ki Aankh’s wrap up, Bhumi Pednekar wrote, “That’s me screaming the loudest"
"“I play the protagonist who, with her knowledge, instinct, and presence of mind, emerges a winner after being trapped in an unfortunate situation,” the 19-year-old said in a statement


Priya Prakash Varrier will make her Bollywood debut with Prashanth Mampilly directorial Sridevi Bungalow"
"Indian rupee strengthened against US dollar on Friday, tracking gains in Asian currencies. At 2 pm, the home currency was trading at 71.16 a dollar, up 0.11% from its Thursday’s close of 71.24. The currency opened at 71.19 a dollar, touching a high 71.13 and a low 71.26.


The 10-year government bond yield stood at 7.377%, as compared to its previous close of 7.350%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions."
"On Jumbo, clean-up features for frivilous apps like Instagram and Tinder are also in the works. (AFP)


The privacy app 'Jumbo' has started rolling out for iOS users and will soon be made available for Android users as well


The privacy app comes with the capability to automatically adjust 30 Facebook privacy settings, delete old tweets after saving them on the phone"
"Nikon Z7 impresses with many good points, but if you don’t want to spend so much there are less pricey options available, like Sony’s Alpha 7 R II"
"To cut through the noise and hype, Mint analyses the verifiable claims of government ministers and opposition leaders based on a database of their tweets compiled by Mint’s partner, howindialives.com.


The analysis considers all claims made between 10 March and 10 April, the first month of campaigning since the model code of conduct took effect."
"The thing with run-of-the-mill loyalty programmes is that “earning and burning"" of reward points takes place with the same brand family. We have gone out of the way with our B2B partners— from digital wallets to online bookings. Any Honda customer enrolled in the “Joy Club"" can utilise their points at a Shoppers’ Stop or even Levi’s.


We are also using technology to maintaining our existing dealers, as well as the next generation of dealers who are more tech-savvy. We can always utilise their enthusiasm and their updation of the latest technology. So we evaluate the digital well-being of the dealership and make sure they can easily connect with us with cutting edge technology.


More than 20,000 people work at our dealerships and it’s impossible to go to each and every one of them. Further, they are the first point of contact with our customers. So we have come up with an e-learning programme whenever a new product or software comes up. We can also monitor how many people have actually downloaded the programme and how many of them went through it.


So we are employing several technologies that are increasing the efficiency of our operations and volume."
"Zinc prices: London zinc dropped 1.2%, on track for a second straight fall, while the most-active zinc contract in Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) fell 1.7%.


Zinc inventories: Zinc inventories in LME-approved warehouse as of Friday shot up 7.5% from a day earlier to near a three-week high of 56,125 tonnes, latest data showed.


On-warrant zinc stocks in warehouses tracked by ShFE also marked a 7-percent daily increase on Monday to 51,976 tonnes.


""Zinc came under pressure after inventories on the LME rose sharply. The 7.5% increase was the biggest gain in almost a year,"" ANZ said in a note."
"The SC has directed the EC to decide on all pending complaints against Modi and Amit Shah by 6 May. (PTI)


EC gave a clean chit to Modi over comments made at a rally in Barmer on 29 April invoking the armed forces


Congress had filed a complaint saying that Modi’s action was a ‘brazen violation’ of the model code of conduct"
"With the success of Aamir Khan’s Dangal, China has emerged as a potential big market for Indian films


In recent years, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Secret Superstar and Andhadhun have performed well at the box office in China


BIFF has also listed five Indian films, including Satyajit Ray’s classic Pather Panchali, for screening under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries category despite strong reservations expressed by India over the trillion-dollar project


It is significant that China has included the Indian movies, clubbing them along with those from the BRI countries ahead of this month’s second Belt and Road Forum (BRF), which New Delhi has already signalled to boycott as it did the first one in 2017"
"Dileep had earlier contested that it is of prime importance that the actor gets his hands on the memory card, which he believes has been doctored


 But there is a snag in the case since the government counsel has stated that the law does not say every material evidence should be shared with the accused"
"For mock trading, the log in time begins at 0900 hrs to 1000 hrs, while continuous trading commences at 1000 hrs till 1300 hrs."
"""Even though it's a survival game that involves a lot of shooting, the concert area had weapons disabled. A regular game lasts about 20-25 minutes and once you're killed, the game is over. During the concert, Fortnite had enabled respawning, so players could come back and enjoy the performance. Little nuances like Marshmello shouting ""Put your f***ing hands up"" also reinforced the feeling of me being actually present at a concert. At no point of time did it feel redundant.""


Another Fortnite player, Sahil Singh, says the addition of ""emotes"" or dance moves added to the realism.


""It was pretty much like a real concert. The characters were performing emotes on the beach. There was even a build-up to the concert where you could find posters at Pleasant Park to make players aware about it,"" adds Sahil."
"While those films had somehow managed to work for the audience then, it remains to be seen if this tried and tested pair manage to woo the viewers together a second time around"
"Xiaomi made this announcement on Twitter. It is said it will make four more announcements in the coming hours.


Mi fans! Here's the 1st BIG #High5 announcement! Get #MiA2 at a never before price. Massive discount of ₹4,500!


The base variant of the Mi A2 with 4GB RAM/64GB ROM is available at ₹ 13,999 while the 6GB RAM/128GB ROM variant is selling at ₹ 15,999. The original prices of the two variants are ₹ 17,499 and ₹ 20,500 respectively."
"West is attached to executive produce the Showtime project, which marks his debut into small-screen production


A limited half hour-long anthology series, Omniverse aims to explore the concept of perception in a parallel universe"
"“I thought it was a one-time thing, but the contract said if they wanted me they could use me for five films, but I didn’t think they’d use me for four so it was a surprise"
"Both the Congress and the AAP has engaged in public posturing over an alliance with its top guns discussing the issue on social media. Interestingly, both the parties had drawn a blank in 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the BJP had won all the seven seats then."
"Silver, however, declined by ₹130 to ₹41,530 per kg due to subdued offtake by industrial units and coin makers.


Traders said, increased demand from jewellers pushed the prices of yellow metal. However, weak global cues capped the gain in the prices of precious metal, they added."
"Stockholm: Spotify has introduced a new subscription model for two individuals who are sharing the same space and now want to share their music. Called Premium Duo, the subscription costs $14.99 per month.


According to a description on the official Spotify website, Premium Duo allows two people to have their separate accounts with a single subscription. There are no ads either."
"San Francisco/Los Angeles: Facebook Inc. is launching Watch, its video rival to YouTube, internationally and expanding the financial incentives that encourage people to share their content there.


Video makers in five countries will be eligible to take a percentage of the ad revenue that comes from their content around the world as long as their videos on Watch are popular enough and meet Facebook’s standards, the Menlo Park, California-based company said. The ad incentives will be expanded to other countries in the fall. Meanwhile, Facebook will increase its spending on content deals for the video site, to account for the international audience.


“The amount we’re investing in this obviously is going to scale with the size of the opportunity, and obviously we’re scaling to the entire globe,"" Matthew Henick, Facebook’s head of content strategy and planning, said in an interview."
"We’d enjoy the beauty, have great conversations & just bond! He’s 10 years older than me & has 2 kids


 Maybe it was the fact that we’re so different–he’s more private & not ‘Bollywoodised’, but I imbibed that from him"
"The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose less than 0.1 percent, after reaching the lowest level in almost three weeks. The euro gained 0.1 percent to $1.1346. The British pound strengthened 0.3 percent to $1.3087. The MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index rose 0.4 percent, touching the highest in more than three weeks.


The yield on 10-year Treasuries climbed three basis points to 2.68 percent. Germany’s 10-year yield rose one basis point to 0.11 percent. Britain’s 10-year yield increased two basis points to 1.18 percent.


West Texas Intermediate fell 3.7 percent to $55.16 a barrel, the first drop in nine sessions. Gold dropped 0.1 percent to $1,326 an ounce. The Bloomberg Commodity Index declined 1.1 percent, the first retreat in more than a week."
"The yield on 10-year Treasuries decreased three basis points to 2.59%. Germany’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 0.08%. Britain’s 10-year yield dipped four basis points to 1.144%.


West Texas Intermediate crude gained 1.7% to $60.02 a barrel, a four-month high. Gold fell 0.5% to $1,299.95 an ounce."
"mint-india-wire CES 2019technologygadgetsLG Rollable OLED TVSamsung micro LED TVAirplay 2iTunesSamsung Galaxy FoldSmartphones


New Delhi: The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas has typically been the Mecca for tech gadgets and trends. Not so any longer. CES 2019, for instance, is showcasing a bunch of iterative consumer technology products. Here’s why some of the top product announcements at CES 2019 have failed to excite us:


LG might call this the TV of tomorrow, but it’s more like the TV from yesterday. That’s because while the company launched the first mainstream television with a rollable OLED screen this year, it originally debuted at CES 2018, which in turn was an expansion of the rollable OLED technology the company showcased in 2016."
"The 25-year-old airline defaulted on loans after racking up over $1 billion in debt, and owes money to banks, suppliers, pilots and lessors - some of whom have started terminating their lease deals with the carrier.


Jet now operates only 41 aircraft, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has said. Several passengers have been affected due to the grounding of Jet flights."
"There is hardly any violence in the Ted Bundy movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which premieres on Netflix on Friday and stars Zac Efron as the notorious serial killer


 It was a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmaker, Joe Berlinger, now something of a Bundy scholar with this fictionalized film and his popular Netflix documentary series, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes


Plus, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is told from the point of view of Bundy’s girlfriend, Elizabeth (Liz) Kloepfer, a single mom who dated Bundy for about six years starting in 1969 and through some of his trials


“It’s based on what Liz would have seen, which is nothing,” said actress Lily Collins, who plays the part of Kloepfer


 “In order to make the audience feel like they’re in the mindset of Liz at the very end of the movie, you have to earn that


 And it almost heightens the anxiety because you’re teetering on the edge of ‘is he or isn’t he guilty?'”Collins and Efron decided to take the leap into the darkness of this story together"
"Crude markets have tightened this year as the US imposed sanctions on oil exporters Iran and Venezuela (Reuters)


Goldman Sachs expects benchmark Brent crude prices to average $66 per barrel in 2019, against its previous estimate of $62.50


Goldman Sachs has raised its forecast for crude oil prices this year, with supply hit by the ""shock and awe"" implementation of OPEC-led output cuts and by US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela."
"Previously, Mike Shinoda said the band could return to the music scene with a new singer in place of Bennington, who committed suicide in July 2017"
"It would seem Bhaskar Hazarika is aiming for the opposite, going by some of the shocked how-can-he-do-this reactions to his cracking debut feature, Kothanodi, working from a bunch of Assamese folk tales to present a landscape that was distinctly dark, discomfiting and thought-provoking


Kothanodi was a striking embrace of the dark side, and its ensemble cast, including Adil Husain and Seema Biswas, fit the bill perfectly


 It gave us, among other intriguing characters, malevolent mothers, weak fathers, and humans comprehensively lacking in the milk of kindness


 Kothanodi won the National Award for the Best Assamese Film in 2016, posting notice of an interesting new voice in Indian cinema


With his second feature, Aamis, Hazarika, in his early forties, takes the exploration of uncharted territory to the next level"
"Further talking about the bond with her daughters, Soni Razdan said, “We talk very openly and I do share whatever insights and wisdom I can


 Also, I think this generation, boys and girls, they all have a much better understanding than we had at their age


”Since love and relationships were on the table, we asked Soni about rumours around Alia and Ranbir Kapoor’s wedding"
"The most attractive deal is undeniably the OnePlus 6T. Following its permanent price cut in China, OnePlus 6T is available with a flat discount of ₹3,000 on all of its variants. Its base variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage now starts at ₹34,999.


Honor's top offering, the View 20, can be bought at ₹37,999 with an additional discount of ₹3,000 on exchange. There's also a no-cost EMI offer starting at ₹4,222 for the Honor View 20. The Honor Play is available with a discount of almost ₹6,000, bringing its price down to ₹13,999. The Honor 8X can be purchased at ₹12,999.


Apple's former flagship, the iPhone X, is available at ₹73,999 during the sale. The iPhone X originally retails at ₹91,990. No cost EMI on iPhone X starts at ₹8,222 per month."
"""These passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them,"" the company said.


KrebsOnSecurity, citing a senior Facebook employee, said the an internal investigation by the company so far indicates that between 200 million and 600 million Facebook users may have had their account passwords stored in plain text."
Pradeep recently revealed that Jayam Ravi will be sporting nine different looks including that of a British slave and a caveman in the film
"PC gamers have plenty to rejoice about as Nvidia has announced three new products in its GeForce GPU (graphics processing unit) line-up. At the top of the ladder is the RTX 2080Ti, followed by RTX 2080 and the RTX 2070. What sets them apart from the GTX 1080 and other Series 10 GPUs from 2016 is the new Turing architecture, which is designed differently from the Pascal architecture used in its predecessors. Turing-based GPUs are built on the 12nm (nanometer) manufacturing process, support GDDR6 memory and come with Tensor and RT (Ray Tracing) cores, in addition to Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) cores. GPUs based on Pascal architecture are built on 16/14nm manufacturing process, support GDDR5 RAM and consists of CUDA Cores. According to Nvidia, this makes the GPUs six times faster and better at handling 4K HDR gaming at 60fps than its predecessors. “Turing opens up a new golden age of gaming, with realism only possible with ray tracing, which most people thought was still a decade away,"" said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, at the Gamescom gaming event last week in Germany


CUDA, is a GPU technology, which speeds up the processing power by executing thousands of tasks simultaneously using its multiple cores. The new GPUs have up to 21% more CUDA cores than the earlier versions."
"For the very first time since 1996 assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir have not been held on time. The Lok Sabha polls, however, will be a dry run for the BJP, PDP, NC and the Congress and help them assess where they stand if assembly elections are conducted after the Lok Sabha polls.


The ruling party at the centre has its work cut out in the region, with zero presence in the valley, according to political analysts.


“There is a sharpening polarization when it comes to valley-based parties and the BJP. It’s too small a time frame to expect any kind of metamorphosis. If the Election Commission gives the go-ahead for polls, no party will contest that. However, everything will depend on what happens on 23 May (the day the results of the general elections will be announced),"" said Ellora Puri, professor of political science, Jammu University.


Jammu and Kashmir goes to polls in the wake of unabated militancy, with 2018 proving to be the deadliest year since 2008, with 586 fatalities, including 270 terrorists, 157 civilians and 159 security personnel."
"Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ sudden exit from Bharat may have left fans disappointed, but filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar says he understood the actor’s decision and continues to share a close bond with her


Priyanka was originally set to star opposite Salman Khan in the film, but she opted out of the project as a part of the film’s schedule was clashing with her wedding with American singer Nick Jonas"
"I have really enjoyed putting this record together,” says Farhan Akhtar, who will also be performing live shows in the US starting May 20, and hopes to perform in India too


 Creating music and performing are two very different things and I hope the audience enjoys the shows,” he says


Currently shooting for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s sports drama Toofan, Farhan Akhtar says he is enjoying hip-hop and rap these days"
"It also exposes non-Apple hardware users to the company’s products, potentially pushing them to Apple devices when it is time to upgrade.


The move will give Apple another revenue source for people who purchase movies and TV shows through iTunes, and signals another potential slot for the company to place its long in the works original video content service, which is plans to introduce as early as this year.


In order to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime’s original content offerings, which have been around for a number of years, Apple will need as much reach as possible. Samsung TVs held 33% of the smart TV market last year, beating out Vivo, LG, and Sony, according to Statista.


According to Munster, the deal also signals that Apple has no imminent plans to enter the physical TV space. Opening up iTunes to Samsung TVs means that Samsung television users no longer need to purchase an Apple TV set-top-box in order to access Apple content. The deal also includes support for AirPlay, which means iPhone users will be able to stream video content from their phones to Samsung TVs."
"Verdict: The OnePlus 6T is a more advanced version of OnePlus 6. The fact that OnePlus has managed to keep the price under ₹ 40,000 and yet offer 128GB storage makes it an even better bet. However, it wouldn’t qualify as an upgrade, or even a real update to the OnePlus 6.


mint-india-wire OnePlus 6TOnePlus 6T reviewOnePlus 6T price in IndiaOnePlus 6T India priceOnePlus 6T specsOnePlus 6T 128 GB priceOnePlus 6T AmazonOnePlus 6T availabilityOnePlus phones in India"
"OPG said constant problems and technical glitches in the primary server compelled it to switch to the secondary server


Delhi-based brokerage firm OPG Securities Ltd has moved the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) against the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)’s order, barring it from accessing the capital markets for five years, besides a fine of ₹15.57 crore for securing unfair access to systems of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE)."
"Xiaomi India MD and Global VP, Manu Kumar Jain on Thursday teased the launch of the Redmi Note 7 smartphone on Twitter. In an upside down post with an attached photo showing a smartphone with a dual gradient ba, Kumar tweeted ""We’re gonna turn this industry upside down"". He also highlighted the device's 48MP camera, confirming the fact it is in fact the Redmi Note 7. Manu stood next to Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun in the tweet.


The Redmi Note 7 was unveiled in Beijing a couple weeks ago. It is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to sport a dewdrop notch. It also has a radically different design, especially for Xiaomi smartphones—a 2.5D glass back panel with dual tone gradient."
"According to Icra Ltd, the pace of financial closure for infrastructure projects had improved by 50% between FY16 and FY18 from 430 days to 194 days, which gave investors the comfort to back these firms.


Sadly, in the last few months, delays in announcing the appointed date even after financial closure by banks, has become a concern, and stocks have mirrored the sentiment. This, despite the high order books and revenue growth in the nine months of FY19. Shares of Dilip Buildcon tumbled 55%, while that of NCC Ltd, Sadbhav Engineering Ltd (the engineering, procurement and construction or EPC) arm of Sadbhav Infrastructure) and IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd were down 35%, 52% and 41%, respectively, in the past year.


The delay in mobilization advance paid by the government (which happens after the appointed date is fixed) has increased the working capital outlay for some firms. This is not a good sign. It implies higher interest cost, which in the final analysis, affects the rate of return on the project."
"The show, created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, follows four families in the fictional German town Winden, as they investigate the disappearance of several children and a mystery that tied back to the same town in 1986, as well as a local nuclear power plant"
"To another question, Chaturvedi said she had never even asked for a ticket from Mathura, though her family came from there.


Welcoming Chaturvedi into the party, Thackeray said the former Congress spokesperson would be given responsibilities in the Shiv Sena according to her “talent, intelligence, and capabilities"".


Asked if there was a big “change of heart"" involved in her leaving the Congress and joining a political organisation that was diametrically opposite to the Congress ideology, Chaturvedi said no “change of heart"" was required."
"Dileep has denied the accusations and had filed a plea in the apex court, requesting access to the memory card which is said to contain evidence


However, the Kerala government has opposed the actor’s plea and has asked for more time from the Supreme Court in order to decide whether the memory card in question can be considered as a document or material evidence"
"“Lite apps were developed by social media companies to penetrate the user base which still buys entry-level devices. A similar trend is now being seen in the gaming segment, where developers are willing to trade-off elements like real-world graphics to attract entry-level gamers,"" says Faisal Kawoosa, founder and chief analyst, techARC.


Some of the popular lite games on the Google Play store include Nautilus’ Real Cricket Go, which asks for 35MB of space, while the original Real Cricket 2018 takes up more than 300MB of space."
"The CA firm in the report also referred to “deviations"" in relation to post-sanction monitoring of fund use by some borrowers.


“There are certain instances of deviations and non-adherence to the terms of sanction of loans having major risk implications, especially in relation to post-sanction monitoring of fund use by borrowers. As such, non-compliances with the terms of the borrowing and possible diversion of funds, if any, by the borrowers would have escaped attention of the company,"" the report said."
"In the Kaspersky case, the company sold software to the US government until 2017, when American officials expressed concern the products could be used by Moscow to spy on federal information systems. The Department of Homeland Security directed federal agencies to remove its products from government systems and Congress then codified the ban against the Russian company under the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which President Donald Trump eventually signed.


Kaspersky filed two lawsuits: One sought a declaration that DHS harmed the company’s reputation and sales without due process; The second claimed the NDAA violated the Constitution’s “Bill of Attainder Clause,' which forbids Congress from enacting laws that inflict punishment on individuals and corporations without a trial.


A federal judge in Washington dismissed the suits saying the bans were within the scope of government authority. A federal appeals court agreed, concluding Congress had the right to block purchase of a specific vendor’s software if it has legitimate security concerns, saying the ban was a “prophylactic, not punitive"" measure.


“Given the not insignificant probability that Kaspersky’s products could have compromised federal systems and the magnitude of the harm such an intrusion could have wrought, Congress’s decision to remove Kaspersky from federal networks represents a reasonable and balanced response,"" the appeals court said.


Huawei’s Texas lawsuit offers a new twist, arguing the US extended the ban to include not just its own purchases, but to government contractors and those who receive federal money. Without due process, the Chinese company said the prohibition amounts to a “death penalty"" for its business."
"""IED is a weapon of terrorism, and voter ID is a weapon of democracy,"" he told reporters after voting, referring to improvised explosive devices and India's voter identification cards.


Jayendra Singh, 44, a businessman in Gandhinagar, also voted early on Tuesday and said the economy, women's safety and unemployment were major issues for him.


However, he disapproved of Modi talking up the air strike in Pakistan, which led to aerial clashes between the nuclear-armed rivals.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Consumers take it for granted that gadgets will keep getting slimmer, more powerful and cheaper, but the chip companies are running out of ways to etch ever smaller circuit patterns onto silicon. (AFP)


After two decades in development, chipmakers are making a costly bet on a technology that will cram even more transistors onto silicon


After two decades in development, chipmakers are making a costly bet on a technology that will cram even more transistors onto silicon. Their success may hinge on a little-known company in the suburbs of Tokyo.


Lasertec Corp. is the world’s sole maker of equipment that tests glass squares slightly bigger than a CD case that act as a stencil for chip designs. By shining light through the squares, circuits smaller than the width of a few strands of DNA are imprinted onto silicon wafers in a process called lithography. These templates have to be perfect: even a tiny defect can make every single chip in the batch unusable."
"As was his son-in-law and actor Dhanush who even urged fans to go out and vote on his Twitter handle.


Rajni’s rival Kamal Haasan who has also officially entered politics with his Makkal Needhi Maiam party, was next in line with daughter Shruti Haasan. The actor had announced his decision not to contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections or the bye-polls due in the state earlier this year."
"However, many of the participants feared that the photos of children could lead to cyberbullying, stalking and kidnapping. “Identity theft is no joke. Photos can reveal a lot about your lifestyle, your habits, and they can unintentionally give away your data,"" cautions Toni Birdsong, family safety evangelist for McAfee, who authored the survey.


A few years ago, Google was accosted by a Canadian woman whose photo in a compromising position was captured by a Google Street View vehicle while she was relaxing on the steps of her home. The photo ended up in the Street View platform.


Though Google had blurred the face of the woman, they did not blur the number plate of her car which made her identifiable. In 2014, an iCloud flaw led to a major privacy breach involving hundreds of private photos of celebrity users. In another more recent case from March 2019, a mobile tracker app, MobiiSpy used by parents to monitor their children, was accused by security experts for leaving 95,000 images of users unprotected on servers that were accessible to anyone.


Clearly, these incidents pose a serious question on how many of platforms are handling users’ photos and whether they are taking the requisite steps to protect them from cybercriminals."
"Soon, music composer Devi Sri Prasad took over the stage and promised to the audience that they won’t be able to leave the theater without shedding a tear or two


 It is always fun to work with Mahesh sir on his films because he chooses to do films that have entertainment and social responsibility in a balanced manner"
"OnePlus on Friday hit a speed bump in its rather smooth run so far in the smartphone market. The Chinese smartphone maker was set to globally unveil the new OnePlus 6T on October 30 in New York City as an attempt to make its presence felt in the North American market. But when Apple broke the news that it would host its second launch event on October 30 in New York City, OnePlus was taken aback.


“We have only just begun our journey and cannot afford to let one of the most important products in our history be affected by another great product launch,"" Pete Lau, CEO, OnePlus said in a post on OnePlus forums.


“After deep reflection, we have decided to move the OnePlus 6T launch event in New York City to October 29,"" he said."
"The whole feels like a giant set, stately and ponderous and minus impact; the cast all costumed and perfumed and largely life-less, sparking only in bits and pieces"
"In April last year, there were rumours about her demise which then also led to Tanya issuing a denial on social media"
"Holosuit is a startup focused on changing the way people learn and interact in the real and virtual world. It has developed a bidirectional, wireless and full-body motion capture suit. The full-immersion sensor-packed jumpsuit allows users to point, touch and feel 3D objects, creating a 4D immersive experience.


It contains options for multiple embedded sensors and haptic feedback devices dispersed across both arms, legs, and all 10 fingers."
"In 2014, the UPA, Manmohan Singh and Congress were sliding. Now, we have Modi sarkar, and the BJP is quite resourceful. They have not achieved what they promised in 2014, but the BJP campaign in Odisha is very new. BJP is very aggressive in the state. They say we are a defunct (electric) transformer, our reply is: We are no more dependent on transformers, as we have set up electric grids. Organizationally, BJP is not strong, but they occupy public space via the audio-visual media which propagate their view. The election resources with them are a huge challenge (for us). Was it necessary to have a four-phase election in Odisha? You have one-day elections in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, but four-phases in Odisha. Once you lengthen the election process, it targets the regional party to a great extent.


That’s not true. Naveen babu is our leader, he is the chief minister. Our policies revolve around him. In the last five years, his stature has grown, especially among youth and women. Reservation of 33% seats for women has gone down well. We are highlighting how both the BJP and the Congress have betrayed the interests of Odisha in the last 10 years. We will support a government (at the centre) that will protect the interests of the state. We believe no national party will be in a position to form a government on its own.


It’s not that people are forced to migrate. Undergraduate girls are trained here in sewing and are working in Coimbatore and Tirupur for better opportunities. We have started garment factories in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. More will come up. Yes, those going to Telangana to work in the brick kiln industry are exploited. It’s difficult to stop migration. The more our people go out, they earn more, the state becomes richer."
"The TV business has also become enormous for all stakeholders in the ecosystem. Telcos and ISPs like Jio and Airtel want to ensure they have a lot more knowledge on the video consumption pattern. The Apples, Facebooks and YouTubes of the world feel it is their business because they have access to customers through direct consumer inquiries, Hussein pointed out.


But we also face some challenges. One is a better understanding of the customer. The second is how to ease distribution. Distribution continues to be an existing challenge with videos being heavy."
"India is the world's largest importer of edible oils. Palm oil accounts for the bulk of the total edible oils imported annually, with most purchases coming from Indonesia and Malaysia. Most of the crude soyoil is imported from Argentina, the world's third largest producer of soybean.


The country’s vegetable oil imports rose 26% on year to 1.45 mln tn in March, according to data from the Solvent Extractors' Association of India."
"Earlier this month, Google said Nest Secure would be getting an update and users could now enable its virtual assistant technology Google Assistant on Nest Guard.


The device's published specifications did not mention a microphone, however the updated product page now mentions one."
"The top TVs on this list may prove to be too expensive for most of us. And that’s where TCL’s 65-inch 4K TV comes in. There are notable compromises compared to the other three brands, but this TV has an excellent panel and is substantially cheaper than Sony, LG and Samsung’s offerings here. It’s a value buy.


mint-india-wire TVlarge screens TVsbuying a large TVAIQLEDSony Bravia OLED A1LG OLED ThinQ C8 AISamsung QLED Q8CPanasonic FZ1000 OLED TVTCL L65P2MUS 4K UHDtechnology"
"Indian rupee on Monday strengthened against US dollar, tracking gains in other Asian currencies on expectations that the US-China trade tensions are easing. The fall in crude oil also helped the home currency. At 9.08 am, the rupee was trading at 71.01 a dollar, up 0.18% from its previous close of 71.14. The home currency opened at 71.03 a dollar.


Asian currencies gained after US President Donald Trump said he will extend a deadline to raise tariffs on Chinese goods beyond this week, citing “substantial progress"" in the latest round of trade talks that wrapped up Sunday in Washington."
"The latest to join the bandwagon is Bumble, backed by actor Priyanka Chopra that was launched late last year. The US-based brand has three platforms on a single app—Bumble Date, Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz that enable users to find love, make friends and network within a professional capacity, respectively. Bumble is the first app of its kind to bring dating, friend-finding, and career-building onto a single social networking platform. Available in Hindi and “Hinglish"" on iOS and Android, Bumble gives women the option to only mention the initial of their first names—giving them the choice to disclose only what they want."
"“He has been elected from here for a long time and chances are that even in his absence his party will do well from here. However, he could never build the party beyond the pocket borough. Like most other smaller parties, Paswan joined hands with everyone in power and made it family centric,"" said Dinesh Chaurasia, a small trader from Sadulpura in Hajipur constituency.


While Hajipur is witnessing a change with a new candidate, the LJP too is scripting a slow transition with second generation leaders coming to the forefront. Paswan’s son and actor-turned-politician Chirag Paswan (36) is taking up key responsibilities. A sitting Lok Sabha member from Jamui seat, Chirag too is seeking re-election."
"The information on the eSIM can be rewritten by all compliant telecom operators over-the-air. This completely eliminates the need to buy a new physical SIM card while getting a new mobile number.


Currently, only two mobile operators in India support this service — Jio and Airtel. This basically means customers of other telecom operators are cornered into taking a second connection from either Airtel or Jio."
"The OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro are expected to sport flagship specifications like Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC along with 8GB RAM.


We expected OnePlus to reveal the launch date of the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro yesterday, but it turns out we might have to wait a bit longer for that."
"The channel carries the picture of Modi on its logo. It was launched on March 31, nearly two weeks after the Model Code of Conduct came into effect and ahead of the Lok Sabha polls beginning April 11.


The channel, available on various DTH and cable TV platforms, broadcast election rallies, speeches of the prime minister and interviews of BJP leaders.


Maintaining that ""the contents are being broadcast in complete violation of the rules and regulations of cable televisions"", the Congress, in its complaint, said the Union ministry's list of permitted private satellite channels in the country did not mention NaMo TV, so either the channel ""Content TV"" is being broadcast as a ""government-sponsored channel"" or lacks official clearance from the ministry.


The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also complained to the EC, saying the BJP had launched the channel and though a party could have its own channel, it asked the EC if permission could be granted ""even after the Model Code of Conduct is enforced"".


Though the ruling BJP has maintained that it does not own the channel or the platform, its official Twitter handle had urged people to watch it for the prime minister's election campaign.


Union minister Piyush Goyal had also tweeted about the channel number while asking viewers to watch the prime minister's events."
"The PMK’s decision to join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance could be deemed opportunistic, since it had until recently publicly criticised both the AIADMK and the BJP. The alliance is also expected to rope in actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam.


Both AIADMK-BJP and DMK-Congress alliance is expected to face considerable opposition from new entrants such as cine superstar Kamal Hassan’s Makkal Needhi Mandran, which will contest all 39 seats. "
"The poll watchdog found no violation of the model code of conduct (MCC) in the statements where Modi had slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for contesting from Wayanad in Kerala.


The move is significant as the opposition Congress has stepped up pressure and petitioned the Supreme Court over alleged inaction by the EC on complaints against Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah. The EC’s decision on the Wardha speech came just a day after the apex court agreed to hear Congress’ petition.


In a complaint filed with the EC, senior Congress leaders earlier this month alleged that Modi referred to Gandhi’s contest from Wayanad as a seat where the “minority is majority"" and that he had made a reference to “Hindu terrorism""."
"Senior AIMIM leaders from Hyderabad said the party has set eyes on about 10 districts out of the total 36 in Maharashtra which have 10% or more Muslim voters. “The proportion of Muslims in Maharashtra is about 14%, and clubbed with the Scheduled Caste (SC) and tribal population, the three communities comprise about 35% of the state’s population,"" said a senior AIMIM leader, who did not want to be identified.


He added that through the alliance with BBM, which has also formed a coalition with several SC, Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Muslims, known as the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), both parties are looking to pull away a good chunk of the 35% of minority and SC/ST votes in these districts."
"”Written and directed by Rajesh Selva of Thoongaa Vanam fame, Kadaram Kondan is bankrolled by Kamal Haasan’s production company Raaj Kamal Films"
"Abhishek, Aishwarya and Aaradhya got customised bicycles to ride and the Manmarziyaan actor shared a photo of those on his Instagram story


”The power couple of Bollywood tied the knot on April 20, 2007, in a private ceremony at Bachchan’s residence Jalsa"
"Pichai, who had previously said the project was in its early stages, seemed to have rolled it back further on Thursday when he characterized the search engine for China as an experiment. The CEO’s comments contradicted reporting by The Intercept suggesting the project was in its mature stages."
"After presenting Bollywood with one of its highest grossing films of 2019, Uri: The Surgical Strikes, Ronnie Screwvala, under his production banner RSVP Movies, is all set to launch a short form animated digital series


 The series, to be launched on YouTube, is touted to be India’s version of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons"
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"Dhinakaran gave anxious moments when he defeated the official AIADMK candidate in the R.K. Nagar assembly constituency that fell vacant after Jayalalithaa’s death. Thanks to the BJP’s support, it has been a steady ride downhill for Dhinakaran—his houses and property were raided; he was himself jailed on charges of bribing an election commission official in his bid to win the official electoral symbol of the AIADMK. Despite this, the beaming smile on his cherubic face gives the AIADMK leadership the jitters. Most political pundits agree that, even if his party, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), cannot win a single seat, he can seriously dent the AIADMK’s victory chances.


Despite providing opportunistic and self-serving support, the BJP has kept the AIADMK on tenterhooks. The present Tamil Nadu government has had the houses of both its chief secretary and the director general of police raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Raids on a couple of minister’s houses add to this dubious distinction. Not too long ago, BJP president Amit Shah dubbed the AIADMK as the most corrupt government in India and heralded a “kazhagangal illa Tamilagam (a Tamil Nadu without the Kazhagams)"", analogical to a Congress-mukt (free) Bharat.


Why then the decision to ally with the AIADMK? Put simply, the BJP has nothing to lose. Since 2004, neither the AIADMK nor the DMK has allied with the BJP. What the BJP can bring to the alliance table is exponentially less than the damage it can do to its ally. In other words, aligning with the BJP amounts to the proverbial Dhritarashtra Aalinganam (embrace)—in idiomatic English, the kiss of death.


In 2004, the BJP contested six seats in alliance with the AIADMK. Fifteen years later, after completing a full term as the first majority government in a quarter of a century under a charismatic leader as prime minister and a shrewd strategist as party president, the BJP will, in fact, contest one seat less! Surgical strikes, across the border bombing of terrorist camps, etc., seem to have had little bearing on seat sharing. How does one explain this curiosity?


Perhaps no other sitting prime minister has scored so low on the popularity charts in Tamil Nadu. H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral were obscure, but not unpopular. The euphoria evoked by Narendra Modi in many sections of the Indian populace and regions has singularly been absent in the state. Anti-Modi slogans are deeply popular. #gobackmodi is a trending hashtag whenever he deigns to visit the state. Inexplicably, everything that goes wrong in Tamil Nadu is attributed to him.


In the hugely popular pro-Jallikattu protests in January 2017, anti-Modi slogans were legion though he had little if anything to do with bullfighting. It was a repeat during the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) controversy (the national common medical exam was seen as Delhi’s imposition against the wishes of Tamils). Every slight to Tamil pride, every perceived threat to Tamil identity gets associated with Modi.


Last year, on a visit to Chennai, he barely stepped on Tamil soil. Unfortunately, it is hard not to think that the prime minister has taken this personally. By refusing to meet distressed farmers from the Kaveri delta, by making only a token appearance when the Ockhi storm hit, of all places the only constituency had BJP won; and not visiting the state at all after Cyclone Gaja struck, the prime minister has tended to alienate himself from the Tamil electorate.


The feuding party leaders of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu wing have not helped in mitigating this unpopularity. Tamilisai Soundararajan, the party’s state unit president, has made it a regular habit of putting her feet in the mouth. H. Raja’s intemperate remarks have caused much revulsion. As a shrewd commentator remarked, as long as the BJP relied on the likes of Tamilisai and Raja, Tamil Nadu was safe from Hindutva."
"At this year's IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin you can expect products like the Samsung's Bixby speaker and LG's CLOi SuitBot


IFASamsung Bixby smart speakerLG Suit botLGHuaweiAppleifa consumer electronics showberlin trade fairikea 3d furniture app


Electronics manufacturers are betting on artificial intelligence weaving itself ever more tightly into our relationships with their products on show at this year’s IFA, the sector’s annual Berlin trade fair.


From Friday, “new releases in the artificial intelligence niche will be the ones everyone is talking about"" at the industry event in the German capital, predicted Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann.


South Korean giant Samsung, through a new connected speaker, Home Galaxy, equipped to respond to spoken commands, may send its voice assistant Bixby into battle with Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri for dominance of living rooms and kitchens."
"Disney+ also will include The Simpsons, a show acquired in Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox Inc. entertainment assets last month.


Borrowing the show’s cheeky tone, Disney showed a clip of the Simpsons family with a statue of Darth Vader on one side and Iger on a pedestal nearby. A signed photo of Rupert Murdoch— the billionaire mogul behind Fox—was in the trash. There was a “Welcome Synergy"" sign above.


“I salute our new corporate overlord,"" Bart Simpson told his family, while holding Disney mouse ears. “Put on those ears."""
"Varun Dhawan requests fans not to share spoilersVarun Dhawan posted on Twitter, ""KALANK in theatres now #Zafar aap ka hain


""Step into the world of Kalank: Karan JoharKaran Johar wrote on Twitter, ""It begins today, step into the world of #Kalank! In cinemas NOW! @duttsanjay #AdityaRoyKapur @Varun_dvn @aliaa08 @sonakshisinha @MadhuriDixit @abhivarman""Abhishek Bachchan wished luck to Kalank teamAbhishek Bachchan took to Twitter and wished luck to Kalank's team


 He wrote, ""All the best @karanjohar @duttsanjay, @MadhuriDixit, @aliaa08, @Varun_dvn, @sonakshisinha, Aditya and Varman for the release of #Kalank today


 Go watch guys!""'Mesmerised by the magic of Kalank'""Mesmerised by the magic of #Kalank ! @aliaa08 we know ur an incredible actor & in this ur beyond beautiful too! @Varun_dvn the blood,sweat & tears u put into Zafar shows


 Loved each n every performance in the film Varun Dhawan is mind blowing as always Aditya Roy Kapur has shocked with his powerful performance Sanjay Dutt is intense Alia Bhatt is brilliant as always Sonakshi Sinha is superb Kunal Khemu is very good and Mudhuri Dixit is such a treat to watch


 A must watch""Hiten Tejwani on Varun Dhawan in KalankActor Hiten Tejwani, who has a special appearance in Karan Johar's epic drama Kalank, is all praise for Varun Dhawan


 The actor took to Twitter and mentioned, ""He’s gonna blow your mind with his power packed performance 


Tomorrow #kalank""'Alia Bhatt is divine'Milap Zaveri tweeted, ""#Kalank is an epic SAGA directed like an auteur by @abhivarman His vision is HUGE! @Varun_dvn is EXTRAORDINARY! Ekdum FIRST CLASS! @aliaa08 is DIVINE! Aditya is BRILLIANT! @sonakshisinha wins and breaks your heart! Bravo @karanjohar Sajid bhai @FoxStarIndia What DILDAAR producers


 Twitter doesn’t allow enough characters so a separate tweet for @karanjohar @apoorvamehta18 @WardaNadiadwala Sajid bhai @FoxStarIndia for #Kalank To support the vision of a director the way they have is BRILLIANT! 👏👏👏👏👏""'Kalank is a visual treat'Shashank Khaitan shared on Twitter, ""#Kalank is a visual treat 


@karanjohar @apoorvamehta18 @DharmaMovies""'Loved every character of this classic romance'Neha Dhupia posted on Twitter, ""#kalank 


Loved every character of this classic romance @MadhuriDixit so graceful #SanjayDutt so powerful,Adi n @sonakshisinha so gorgeous @kunalkemmu so impactful n the ones I could nt take my eyes off @aliaa08 @Varun_dvn"
"Also read | Bharat: Salman Khan’s new poster reminiscent of his 90s avatarHelmed by Ali Abbas Zafar, Bharat will hit the screens on June 5"
"“They have a code and you know when you give somebody your word it’s your word because it’s all you have is your word


When the host asked De Niro, 75, why he could not give Trump a chance, the actor said he had, but he believes the president has “proven himself to be a total loser”"
"First reported by TechCrunch, Facebook Research is an app that the company used to pay teenagers who volunteered to install it. The app asked users to keep Facebook’s virtual private network (VPN) service running on their phones, allowing the social network to monitor their regular usage.


The Facebook Research app asked users to keep Facebook’s virtual private network (VPN) service running on their phones, allowing the social network to monitor their regular usage.


Following reports of the app, Apple initially withdrew Facebook’s ability to test consumer facing apps on its platform but has since restored the same, while Google is yet to take any action. In fact, the search giant in turn removed one of its own apps (Screenwise Meter), which worked similarly to Facebook Research. Further, there are many more Android phones in India than iPhones.


Vishal Darsheel, a 22-year-old blogger and Internet marketer from Bihar, said the Facebook Research app has earned him $5,000."
The Greatest Showman minted USD 435 million at the box office and also went on to win the best compilation soundtrack for visual media at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards
"However, the supra-aural style may not be good for everyone. The headband can be extended to fit your head, but the fact that these are “on"" your ear, instead of over them, makes them quite uncomfortable to wear over the long term.


To sum up, the Sony WH-XB700 are a marked improvement on earlier headphones in this series, in terms of audio quality. However, many of the older versions were more comfortable to wear than these. At ₹8,999, this may be a hard sell, though it still does fit the profile for a large number of listeners in India."
"The Note 6 Pro was previously launched in Indonesia at a price of 2,800,000 Indonesian Rupiah (about ₹13,745) and we expect the phone to be launched at the same price point in India as well


While the launch of the Redmi Note 6 Pro is set to take place on 22 November, the Chinese phone maker has now revealed that the smartphone will a Flipkart and Mi.com exclusive product. The sales of the phone will start at 12 pm on the day following its launch, i.e. 23 November."
"The Honor V20 starts at 2,999 Yuan (about ₹ 30,000) for the base variant and goes up to 3,499 Yuan (about ₹ 35,500) for the top specced model in China.


Honor View 20Honor View 20 priceHonor View 20 indiaHonor View 20 pre booking indiaHonor View 20 amazonHonor View 20 offersHonor View 20 india launch"
"We grew up in an experience where people were like, ‘You’re what?! How do you relate to each other?’ To see that on screen and normalised was huge for me"
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"Axis Bank's new CEO Amitabh Chaudhry inherited a loan book that was healing. He has now laid out a cautious yet aggressive strategy to improve Axis Bank's growth metrics. (Vipul Sharma/Mint)


Axis Bank CEO Amitabh Chaudhry is making all the right noises on strategy, RoE target of 18% by FY22 now seems achievable


Axis Bank shares have risen 20% so far this year, while stocks of larger rivals HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank have grown 9% each"
"Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, infrared port and a USB Type-C port. 


The Redmi Note 7 had managed to sell 200,000 units within ""a few minutes"", according to Xiaomi India MD Manu Kumar Jain."
"Xiaomi says Mi Pay provides safe and secure transactions with all data stored locally in India servers in an encrypted format.


The payments service would also allow several utility payments ranging from phone bills, phone recharges, water or electricity bills


New Delhi: Aiming to take on the likes of Google Pay and Paytm, Chinese handset maker Xiaomi on Tuesday launched its Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based payments application ""Mi Pay"" for its MIUI users in India."
"But on a personal front, did she ever give you any special advice to survive the industry?All that my mother told me was never to take success to my head and failure to my heart"
"”She can also curse like a true Southern lady, which is just enough to set people at ease and give them a laugh


”In the special she talks about her 2010 speech on vulnerability that has become one of the most watched TED Talk speeches, now viewed about 39 million times


 “I need a political system where the people who make the decisions actually are required to live by them and are not in such an elite position where they make policy and laws and financial decisions that don’t affect them"
"Facebook makes the bulk of its money from digital advertising but has dabbled with e-commerce in the past.


It has pitched its Messenger service as a communication platform for shops or brands to connect with customers."
"Three demands. That’s what entrepreneurs in Bengaluru have for any government that comes to power at the centre. One, iron out issues related to angel tax for startups that have already received notices. Two, offer regulatory clarity on emerging business models and create a balance between the state and the central government. Three, don’t bury startup entrepreneurs with paperwork.


“The government came up with a regulation that will exempt companies from angel tax in the future,"" said one of the 2,000 entrepreneurs who received angel tax notices. “However, for companies that received a notice, there is no clarity on what’s the way forward,"" said the entrepreneur mentioned above.(Read more...)"
"The Vivo V15 Pro will go on sale starting 3 March on vivo.com, Flipkart and Amazon while its pre-bookings will commence today


Vivo launched the Vivo V15 Pro smartphone in India at an event in New Delhi on Wednesday. The Vivo V15 Pro is priced at ₹28,990. The highlights of the Vivo V15 Pro include a pop-up front facing 8MP camera and a notch-free display."
"Devarattam movie cast: Gautham Karthik, Manjima Mohan
Devarattam movie director: M Muthaiah
Devarattam movie rating: 1


 While his debut venture Kutti Puli revolved around the lives of a mother and a son, his second film Komban was about a man and his father-in-law


 Similar to any other rural outing, set in Madurai, this Gautham Karthik-starrer also has a bunch of loudmouthed-white-veshti-clad-men with handlebar moustaches, who live by an-eye-for-an eye principle"
"The feature supports 26 international languages including Hindi, English, Arabic, Korean and Portuguese among others.


Users can ask Assistant to ""turn on interpreter mode"" to invoke the feature on compatible devices and choose which languages they desire to use.


""When you hear the tone, start speaking in either language. You don't have to alternate between languages for the interpreter mode to work,"" the port said."
"Apple Music’s association with upcoming artistes in India goes back to October 2017, when they tied up with A.R. Rahman’s Music school, KMMC, to set up a Mac OS Lab at their Chennai campus to teach Logic Pro X, Apple’s professional music creation and editing app, to the students. A similar lab will be set up at KMMC’s upcoming campus in Mumbai. Apple Music is also funding full-time musical scholarships for 10 students from underprivileged backgrounds.


With a library of 45 million songs, Apple has become the favourite music app of over 50 million users across the world. By providing upcoming and independent artists space on their app, Apple is not only adding variety for its listeners, but is also helping new talents reach out to a wider demography of listeners."
"Having Android TV doesn’t guarantee you Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc, and Xiaomi doesn’t have that. Admittedly, the company has upped its game when it comes to regional content offerings, all of which can be accessed directly from PatchWall OS, but there’s still serious work to be done.


According to Xiaomi, Prime Video should be added by the end of Q2, 2019, but Netflix addition will take longer. You get support for Hotstar already. Adding a Amazon Fire TV Stick will remain the best option for you.


What’s somewhat disappointing though is that PatchWall OS doesn’t really look inviting. Sure, content aggregation is done well, but the TV seems to focus on showing popular content rather than showing content you would like."
"The childhood hometown of Mahatma Gandhi, who was always rather sceptical of rapid industrialization, is home to more than 500 small and medium manufacturing units. Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest carmaker, sources about 90% of its supplies from foundries or small factories in and around Rajkot.


Western Gujarat’s fourth-largest city, Rajkot is the seventh fastest-growing city in the world, according to a report published last year by UK-based forecasting and quantitative analysts Oxford Economics. Ramesh Monani, a retired banker and resident of the city, credits much of the growth of Rajkot to the industrious nature of the Patel community, which accounts for 13% of the state’s population.


The rapid industrialization is putting to the test the resolve of civic authorities and elected representatives as residents flag many infrastructure problems that come with a fast-growing city. Rajkot does not have a Metro, which means that most workers don’t have access to cheap, reliable and fast public transport. The migration of hundreds of workers from the Saurashtra peninsula of the state puts Rajkot under pressure to provide shelter, clean water, healthcare facilities and education.


As the city’s more than 1.88 million voters prepare to cast their ballots on Tuesday, these are among the issues on their minds. Posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi populate most busy intersections with the occasional banner of Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the sides of roads."
"The POCO F1 is the cheapest smartphone in the comparison quartet, starting at ₹ 19,999 and going up to ₹ 26,999 for the top-end Armoured Edition.


The OnePlus 6T comes in four variants starting at ₹ 37,999 and going all the way up to ₹ 50,999 for the recently launched McLaren Edition.


mint-india-wire Nokia 8.1Poco F1OnePlus 6TOppo R17 ProNokia 8.1 vs POCO F1Nokia 8.1 vs OnePlus 6TOnePlus 6t vs Poco f1OnePLus 6t vs Oppo R17 ProOnePlus 6t comparisonNokia 8.1 comparison"
"“We request you to pay tribute to the unsurpassable genius, his craft, his humility and give a solemn thought to our appeal"
"""Naamdar keeps saying that he is ready for investigations but at least 20-40 notices have been sent to him but he never takes part in investigations. During the UPA rule, his friend benefitted in arms deal. These people do not follow rules and sometimes court has to intervene,"" said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday at a public meeting in Prataparh, Uttar Pradesh.


Modi further said that Congress and the alliance of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were trying to defeat him because they fear that they will have to go to prison if investigations are completed in the corruption cases against them."
"Apart from these names, sitting Kurnool member of parliament (MP) Butta Renuka is also likely to join the YSRCP. TDP leaders said that this was expected as the Kurnool Lok Sabha seat will be given to Kotla Surya Prakash Reddy this time. Surya Prakash Reddy is a son of former AP chief minister Kotla Vijay Bhaskar Reddy, who quit the Congress and joined the TDP recently.


“We were surprised by Prabhakar Reddy’s jump. He was even given the Nellore (rural) assembly seat as asked,"" a TDP leader told Mint. So far, the TDP has announced 126 names for the upcoming assembly elections, which will be held along with the general elections."
"Revenue of domestic operations including Utkal Alumina, its aluminium refining unit, rose 8% from a year ago. Operating profit is up 4%. Thanks to prepayment and repricing of loans, finance costs dropped 12%. This helped the company report a 10% rise in profit before tax.


Thanks to beter realizations and product mix, Hindalco Industries has reported a decent growth in operating earnings.


The growth figures may not look exciting on absolute basis but seen in the backdrop of a 6% fall in international aluminium prices and elevated input costs, the earnings performance is decent."
"One should make idols out of people who have contributed to society in bigger ways,” the 44-year-old said


 He has wrapped up the shooting of his next titled Raat Akeli Hai, which also stars Radhika Apte in the lead role"
"Game of Thrones actor Bella Ramsey says she will miss shaming “a load of grown men”, a trait her on-screen character, Lyanna Mormont is celebrated for


Trust Lyanna Mormont, also called the Lady of Bear Island, to cut to the chase and speak up what is bothering everyone in the room, but are holding back due to fear or authority"
"Moreover, while digitization is about taking, say, a process and making it better, faster and cheaper using digital tools and technologies, digital transformation is a customer-centric value proposition, he adds.


For example, digitizing a service such as Meru cabs will make it run faster, cheaper and more efficiently. However, digitally transforming Meru will mean converting it to (a business model like that of) Uber or Ola—a totally different customer value proposition."
"While the dark web masks a user's identity, location and any traces of persona, Holt's findings reveal the need for further investigations, and potential growth and impact.


The dark web does not produce new weapons; it merely acts as an enabler of trafficking, with weapons and ammunition having to be shipped and delivered in the ‘real world’. Therefore, the researchers note, good traditional policing and investigative techniques will remain vital in responding to this threat."
"A day after its Chinese launch, Honor has announced in partnership with Amazon.in that the Indian variant of the Honor V20 smartphone, the Honor View 20, will be sold exclusively through the e-commerce website.


Speaking on this tie-up, Noor Patel, Director – Category Management, Amazon India said, “With this partnership, we continue to build a strong portfolio in the smartphones category, providing customers with a vast selection, unmatched value and fast & reliable doorstep delivery.""


Going by its Chinese launch, the View 20 comes with a 6.4-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2310x1080. As mentioned earlier, the display has a punch-hole cutout which sits at the top left corner of the display. This gives the smartphone a screen-to-body ratio of 91.82%."
"Besides, it also promised to establish a medical college in every district of the state, grain warehouse at panchayat level and offer marine fishermen with 300 litres diesel and kerosene at 50% subsidy every year.


The party talked about bringing a new IT policy for the state and work to construct a metro rail network between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. On jobs front, the saffron party’s state manifesto said if voted to power in the state, it will “provide employment/ self-employment to one member in every household of the state. (And) establish a Skills Odisha Fund of ₹3,500 crore to skill (train) 20 lakh youth under the Odisha Skill Development Program over the next 5 years"".


BJP leader and union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said BJD has proved worse than Congress in Odisha and his party and his party will rebuild the state to be one of the best in the country."
"Redmi Note 7 ProRedmi Note 7 Pro priceRedmi Note 7 Pro launchRedmi Note 7 Pro processorRedmi Note 7 Pro cameraRedmi Note 7 Pro India launchRedmi Note 7 india launchRedmi Note 7 Pro vs Redmi Note 7


Redmi by Xiaomi is expected to launch the “Pro"" variant of the Redmi Note 7 smartphone as early as February. Much like the previous generation Pro variants of Redmi’s Note series, the Redmi Note 7 Pro is expected to come with a more powerful processor and camera."
"The Moto G7 Plus is the most powerful of the lot, boasting a Snapdragon 636 SoC. It shares its display and battery capacity with the regular Moto G7. The rest of the specifications have received slight bumps. For instance, the G7 Plus gets a 6GB RAM/128GB ROM variant and a 16MP+5MP camera setup with OIS at the rear. The front camera also has a higher spec 16MP sensor. The smartphone comes with 27W Turbo Charger.


The Moto G7 Power is the battery focused smartphone of the quartet, with a 5,000mAh battery coupled with Motorola's Turbo Charging capabilities. The smartphone comes with the same 6.2-inch display but with a resolution of 1520x720. The display has a regular rectangular notch instead of the teardrop notch present on the G7 and G7 Plus. The back of the smartphone has a 12MP sensor while the rectangular notch at the front accommodates an 8MP sensor. The smartphone is powered by the same Snapdragon 632 SoC on the G7, but with lower memory and storage—3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage."
"Lok Sabha polls 2019: Modi has already held over 50 public meetings in the last three months. (Reuters)


This is the first time Modi will hold public meetings after the dates of the general elections were announced


New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to launch his campaign for the 2019 general elections on Thursday with three public meetings scheduled to take place in the politically crucial western Uttar Pradesh town of Meerut, the second rally is in Uttarakhand while the last will be held in Jammu."
"Among the goods on display: a waterproof Gillette razor that heats up to 122 degrees; an Oral-B toothbrush that tells you if you’re missing areas when brushing; and a wand-like device called Opte that scans the skin and releases serum that covers up age spots and other discolouration.


Although some of the products have been sold in test runs, pricing hasn’t been set yet. But expect to pay a lot more than the ordinary stuff currently on drugstore shelves.


People feeling overwhelmed by their array of connected devices can invest up to $700 on another device meant to feel more artisanal.


Mui Lab, based in Kyoto, Japan, has designed an internet-connected wall panel made of sycamore wood that you can touch to send messages, check the weather or control other home devices such as lights and thermostats. Lighted letters and icons appear on the wood panel when it’s being used — and disappear when it’s inactive.


While you’re at it, you can make your home smell better. Feeling like more lavender and less jasmine? Or want your holiday party to smell like a blend of Christmas tree, fireplace and cookies? The Moodo “smart-home fragrance diffusers"" made by Israeli fragrance company Agan Aroma enable users to adjust blends from their smartphones. Each $139 device holds up to four capsules with different scents."
"”The production hired curanderos as consultants to make sure the curandero in the film was portrayed accurately and with sensitivity, Warner Bros


The Curse of La Llorona, starring Linda Cardellini and Raymond Cruz, centers on the Mexican folklore of La Llorona, a crying female spirit who takes children


 Cruz, who plays a curandero and protector in the movie, is one of many Latino actors featured in a cast that includes comedian Paul Rodriguez and Marisol Ramirez, who plays La Llorona


Curanderismo is the art of using traditional healing methods like herbs and plants to treat various ailments


 Long practiced in Native American villages of Mexico and other parts of Latin America, curanderos also are found in New Mexico, south Texas, Arizona and California"
"KB created not just characters, but beings so human that even 30 years later, the audience responds to his films with the same excitement


Do you think the audience will accept you as a retired cop?Your approach has to be honest—irrespective of the roles


 When I was approached with Vellaipookal, I thought to myself—hey, I never dreamt I would do something like this—so what’s wrong with doing it? I loved the premise of the story"
"However, he believes the road ahead is not going to be as smooth with rival Oppo bagging the Cricket World Cup sponsorship and Samsung launching the new M series of ""value for money"" smartphones.


Oppo’s online sub-brand Realme, which was launched in Q2 2018, managed to break into the top five with a 4.2% market share and 1.3 million unit shipments. Oppo’s market share hasn’t changed much as still own 9.3% market and shipped as many units as they did a year ago."
"The Redmi Note 7 Pro comes equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, a 48MP primary camera and a 13MP front camera. It is also available in a 6GB/128GB variant priced at ₹16,999.


Both smartphones run Android Pie 9 with Xiaomi's MIUI 10 custom ROM running atop and are backed by 4,000mAh batteries. The front of the two smartphones features the same 6.3-inch display with a U-shaped notch that houses the front-facing camera."
"WhatsApp has been pretty active in putting out updates this year. The instant messaging app has been spotted testing two new features lately— Consecutive Voice Messages and Group Call Shortcut. While the former allows you to play multiple voice messages one after other, the other provides a shortcut for making group calls. Both features were first spotted by WABetaInfo, a website dedicated to the newest WhatsApp features in beta testing.


The new feature allows automatic queuing of voice messages. All you will have to do is to tap on the play button and WhatsApp will play all the voice messages in a row for you. This feature was spotted on WhatsApp beta for iOS (v 2.18.100) and is only present in the code of Android Beta version (v 2.18.362) which is likely to be enabled remotely."
"Despite the heavy clampdown on piracy and shutting down of some of the leading portals world over, piracy of videos is rampant. Users turn to proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs) to override the take down orders by government and enforced by operators within their country.


While these pirated platforms allow users to access TV shows and movies that are otherwise not available on legitimate streaming platforms die to geographical licensing deals, they are also opening users to malware attacks and putting their entire device and accounts on it at risk."
"Targeting the previous UPA regime, Modi said, “In 2014, the people comprehensively rejected the UPA.""


NEW DELHI: Soon after the election dates were announced, Prime Minister Narendra Modi put out a series of tweets welcoming the ‘festival of democracy’ and urging voters to support the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for a second consecutive term.


Modi, while thanking the Election Commission, also listed the work that the National Democratic Alliance government had done. He said that the 2019 elections were ‘about a spirit of confidence and positivity with which India is fulfilling the aspirations of its people’."
"”Parineeti Chopra wrote, “Could never have thought a quiet country like #Srilanka could be attacked like this


 All my love and prayers always …”Arjun Kapoor tweeted, “Really disturbed to hear about the monstrous attack in #SriLanka on such an auspicious day"
"Brené Brown’s books on shame, vulnerability and courage have given her A-list fans like Oprah and Melinda Gates and made her a go-to leadership consultant for both Pixar and the Seattle Seahawks


But Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, thought she’d spend her career writing for other academics, not making the New York Times’ best-seller list


“My goal was to put it in peer-reviewed articles that no one would read but like five people and they would just read it to check to make sure they were quoted,” Brown told The Associated Press from her home in Houston


Five best-selling books later, Brown is debuting her first Netflix special on Friday, Brené Brown: The Call to Courage, based off her two decades of research"
"The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of major currencies, was at 97.802, down 0.06% from its previous close of 97.857."
"While IBM will be using AI to develop the technological model for improving agricultural output and productivity for various crops and soil types for the identified districts, NITI Aayog will use the data insights generated through these AI models to help farmers and other stakeholders.


A large part of this agriculture platform has been developed by IBM researchers from India, according to Himanshu Goyal, India sales and alliances leader for The Weather Company, which IBM acquired three years back.


IBM has been focusing on agriculture globally too, points out Mary Glackin, head of science and government affairs at The Weather Company, which is the world’s largest private weather enterprise. The company provides up to 26 billion weather data and insights daily via Weather’s application programming interface(API) and its own digital products like The Weather Channel (www.weather.com) and Weather Underground(www.wunderground.com).


In the agricultural sector, The Weather Company adopts a “whole ecosystem"" approach which includes suppliers, seed and fertilizer companies, farmers, lenders and distributors, according to Glackin. “We seek to provide a decision platform where we can bring together the information across these players to help everyone take informed decisions,"" she said in a recent interview."
"Lively, 31, revealed her pregnancy when she appeared on the red carpet of New York City premiere of Pokemon Detective Pikachu with Reynolds"
“Dinesh Vijan (producer) had the idea and I was working on the film as a creative-director but later I got attached to it and felt I should direct it
"6) Global central banks, including US Federal Reserve, have adopted a softer stance, leading to increased flows into emerging markets like India.


7) The European Central Bank could further delay an interest rate hike and may look at measures to mitigate the side-effects of negative interest rates, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Wednesday, warning that risks to growth were on the rise.


8) “Nifty internals suggest that recent rally has been broad-based compared to previous ones as 29 stocks from the index have outperformed Nifty so far – A perfect ingredient for a sustained rally. We expect Nifty to continue its northbound journey and attempt 12,100 levels,"" Pritesh Mehta, senior vice president for research at Yes Securities."
"According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon’s comedy Late Night, featuring Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson, will close the festival"
"7-Eleven’s choice of its India partner is seen as a vote of confidence for Future Retail. The first 7-Eleven convenience store is expected to open this year. (Naveen Kumar Saini/Mint)


The deal can help Future Retail tap into 7-Eleven’s sourcing and tech expertise, which can in turn help EasyDay


7-Eleven is set to benefit from Future Retail’s vast experience in India and understanding the local consumer


Future Retail Ltd, recognized more for the popular Big Bazaar hypermarket chain, could well use a success story in another store format. EasyDay, the Indian retailer’s chain of small convenience stores, has been its weak spot."
"MUMBAI: The Indian rupee on Friday strengthened further against the US dollar after the Federal Reserve signalled a prolonged pause in monetary tightening' due to slowing growth and muted inflation.


At 9.15 am, the rupee was trading at 68.63 a dollar, up 0.32% from its previous close of 68.83. The home currency opened at 68.70 a dollar"
"Be it the intermittent squabble between Groot and Rocket or the fact that the characters never let the gravity of the situation affect them, Guardians of the Galaxy had its comic moments spot-on


 A story of underdogsUnlike the previous MCU origin movies which singularly follow the making of a superhero, Guardians of the Galaxy is the story of five underdogs and how they team up against biggest forces threatening the galaxy


 While these bunch of bandits were initially only interested in making money by selling the orb (with the infinity stone in it), they find it in themselves to fight for a greater cause


 Visually pleasing intergalactic adventuresAs is obvious from the film’s title, Guardians of the Galaxy involves a whole lot of planet-hopping and intergalactic adventures on the part of our heroes


 While not a lot of time is spent on forming a backstory for all of the locations, it is definitely aesthetically pleasing


 Kick-ass characters and the perfect castWhile Chris Pratt is just perfect as the man-child Peter Quill, the camaraderie between Groot and Rocket (voiced by Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper) is definitely the most fun part of Guardians of the Galaxy"
"Since then, Qualcomm has filed a series of patent actions timed to conclude before the antitrust trial and rack up smaller victories against Apple. So far, Qualcomm has won a preliminary finding of infringement by U.S. trade regulators and partial iPhone sales bans in China and Germany, although the Chinese ban has not yet been enforced and Apple has resumed shipping phones in Germany after making changes.


U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw will open an eight-day trial on Monday to determine whether Apple violated Qualcomm patents around helping phones turn on more quickly and save battery life during tasks such as playing video games. Qualcomm alleges that phones with Intel modem chips, which connect phones to wireless data networks, violated the patents."
"The new Apple TV app aggregates TV channels, streaming services and movies in one single platform. Apple lets you choose the content you want to watch instead of going for a big package that you'd never be able to consume entirely. The app has a new interface and recommendation engine. The app is available on Mac as well as smart TVs including those made by Samsung, LG, Sony, and Vizio. It is also available on Roku and Amazon Fire Stick. Apple is planning to support TV app in more than 100 countries."
"Expressing concern over the ""pornographic and inappropriate"" contents on TikTok, the high court had directed the Centre to ban the app.


The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to lift the ban on TikTok and set April 24 as the next hearing date.


Owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, TikTok claims that it has over 120 million monthly active users in India.


Although the app is now not available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, people can get them from the third-party app stores such as apkpure, androidapkbox, uptodown and apkmirror, techARC said."
"Wipro in its response rues such a traceability requirement could lead to breaking of encryption on apps such as WhatsApp and Signal, and this will be a major threat to the privacy rights of citizens as enshrined in the Puttaswamy judgment of the Supreme Court.


Commenting on the 72 hours timeline for furnishing user data, the Internet Freedom Foundation says that such short deadline for compliance can only be fulfilled by large social media platforms. This might make smaller companies over compliant to government demands for immunity resulting in a total disregard for user privacy.


Regarding taking down of unlawful content, technology policy researchers form National Institute of Public Finance & Policy (NIPFP) caution that overzealous implementation along with over reliance on technological tools for the detection of unlawful content would lead to the curtailment of online speech. They pointed out the instance where Facebook had removed posts documenting the ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas as it had classified Rohingya organisations as dangerous militant groups."
"The world’s second-most populous country is also the fastest-growing geography for sales. Photo: Bloomberg


Every smartphone maker, from Apple Inc. to Samsung and Xiaomi, is looking to India to boost their fortunes


The three M series devices, all priced below ₹20,000 apiece, will launch on February 5 on the Samsung India online store as well as Amazon India"
"Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest offering Avengers: Endgame has been knocking it out of the park since the day of its release


Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh recently tweeted, “#AvengersEndgame refuses to slow down… Crosses ₹ 200 cr on Day 5 [Tue]… Sets sights on ₹ 400 cr… Fri 53"
"The Obamas are intent on avoiding any material that could inflame tensions at a red-hot political moment, particularly as the 2020 presidential election begins to ramp up


“Touching on issues of race and class, democracy and civil rights and much more, we believe each of these productions won’t just entertain, but will educate, connect and inspire us all,” Barack Obama said in a statement


Making movies and television shows can be time consuming and messy, and there is no guarantee that some projects in development will ever be made


Here’s an early look at the shows and films the Obamas are planning:American Factory: A documentary that examines life in Ohio where a Chinese billionaire opened a factory in a former General Motors plant and hired 2,000 people"
"The Huawei Mate 20 Pro can be we wirelessly charged via the Qi charging standard, no surprises therebut the quartet can also wirelessly charge other smartphones as well. Read on to know how


mint-india-wire HuaweiHuawei Mate 20 ProHuawei Mate 20 Pro reverse charginghow reverse charging workshow wireless charging workselectromagnetic inductionHuawei Mate 20Huawei Mate 20 X


The Huawei Mate 20 launch event saw the unveiling of several products, which includes the quartet of Mate 20 smartphones, Huawei Watch GT and the Huawei Talk Band 3. While the theme of the entire event was to take everything that’s right with 2018 smartphones and make it better, there were a few unique innovations as well.


For instance, the Mate 20 pro can be we wirelessly charged via the Qi charging standard, no surprises there—but the smartphone can also wirelessly charge other smartphones as well. To make this stand out even more, the demonstration video showed an Apple iPhone XS being charged with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. This feature is called “wireless reverse charging"".


Doing so is simple—just dig into the settings and enable the option and voila! You can let a friend charge their phone wirelessly."
"The campaigning for the phase witnessed a new low with SP leader Azam Khan making an ""indecent"" remark, targeting his opponent Jaya Prada in Rampur by allegedly speculating on the colour of her underwear and attracting the saffron party's wrath, besides that of the National Commission for Women.


Khan, who also faced a 72-hour ban by the Election Commission of India on his campaigning after making the underwear jibe, was among the three other leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati, who faced the poll panel's wrath for making ""provocative"" speeches.


The political heavyweights, whose fate will be decided in the third phase of elections here, include Mulayam Singh Yadav, Union minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar, who is fighting from Bareilly and BJP's Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit.


The Lok Sabha polls are being conducted in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. The election results will be declared on May 23."
"Also on the list are two other former state unit chiefs—Ajay Maken from New Delhi and J.P. Agarwal from Chandni Chowk—in addition to Arvinder Singh Lovely (East Delhi), Rajesh Lilothia (North West Delhi) and veteran leader Mahabal Mishra (West Delhi).


BJP announced its first list on Sunday, fielding four current lawmakers: Harsh Vardhan in Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari in North East Delhi, Parvesh Verma in West Delhi and Ramesh Bidhuri in South Delhi. On Monday, BJP released its second list. Minakshi Lekhi has been fielded from New Delhi, while former cricketer Gautam Gambhir will contest from East Delhi.


It would now be interesting to see if BJP is able to repeat its 2014 performance or AAP retains the political dominance it has in the assembly or whether the Congress can script a revival."
"But it’s precisely this single-minded agenda of “getting Modi out no matter what"" that could work against TMC, Congress and other parties.


“Absolute power to one party at the national and state level is not ideal. If the opposition parties are strong in West Bengal and in Delhi, it will strengthen democracy. But we need viable options to Modi, and that is missing in this election,"" said Ayan Chakravarty, a 50-year-old lawyer at the local court in Serampore.


The dismal performance of the Congress and Left in state and general elections has convinced voters that neither party can defeat TMC nor challenge BJP."
"Since you started at a very young age, did you ever feel any pressure while going about your career?There is a responsibility but no pressure as such


 My mother was also very clear that I never did a daily show as I would miss school, owing to the long hours of shoots


Having started your career as a child artist, does it get difficult to establish yourself as a lead actor?I have been very lucky that whichever projects I have done until now, I have played the central character"
"The announcement underscores the BJP's bid to wrest its lost territory back from the Congress, which handed it a massive defeat in the assembly polls last year.


The Congress had won 68 seats, reducing the tally of the BJP, which was in power in the state for 15 years, to a mere 15. The difference in the vote share of the two parties was a huge 10%."
"Here, the game-changing features to look for—or hide from, if you’re more concerned with privacy than being an early adopter.


No matter what your search, Google is watching. (And if you use a voice assistant such as Google Home, it might also be listening.) But what feel like random, daydream-inspired searches—’best tacos in Mexico City,"" maybe, or “ how to do yoga on horseback""—offer excellent clues that tell Google where you might be interested in going next.


Now the engine is using those searches to file away “Potential Trips,"" folders with information about hotels, restaurants, and activities you’ve previously researched in specific destinations.


“If you’ve recently started looking at hotels or activities in Los Angeles but haven’t booked anything yet, we will organize this information in Your Trips, along with destination-specific searches, tracked flights (if you have any), and more tips,"" explains Richard Holden, Google’s vice president of product management, who says the tool will help travellers pick up where they left off if their travel plans are delayed. “We want users to consider this as their travel bucket list, and now when they search, they can easily access and leverage any research they’ve done to date related to a destination,"" he tells Bloomberg.


How to use it: For now, it’s a bit cumbersome to find your potential trips. They’re not saved within an app such as Inbox or accessible from an easy-to-reach drop-down menu on Chrome. You have to manually type this URL into your mobile browser: google.com/travel/trips. Click on any of destinations you’ve researched and you’ll find your recent search queries, Google’s travel guide to the destination, and any routes you might be tracking on Google Flights. Once you book, the whole folder moves to a separate heading called “Upcoming Trips,"" where all your reservations are centralized and viewable in itinerary form."
"With all three teams battling it out neck-to-neck, it would be interesting to see who will manage to win the task


Ringmaster Rannvijay Singh will then inform that the winning team will be safe from the next vote-out"
"With 50,000 forces already present across the state, an additional 10,000 forces of paramilitary personnel have also been deployed


NEW DELHI: Four months after Chhattisgarh wrapped up the assembly elections, the state – fraught with Naxal violence – is once again preparing for the Lok Sabha elections on a war-footing, even as sporadic episodes of Naxal violence persist in the state’s Bastar region.


Even as one Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldier was killed and five others injured in Bastar’s Dantewada, while nine civilians were injured after Naxals targeted a civilian vehicle in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Bijapur last week, the state is rolling out watertight security measures for the upcoming polls."
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 97.004, down 0.05% from its previous close of 97.05."
"The pace and plot both sag, as we keep circling back to the nightmarish dreams that visit Hanif (Kapadia) as he deals with a bump on his head and a memory lapse on his way to achieve his dastardly mission, ATS chief Diwan (Deol) flexing his vocal cords and barking orders at his team, a posse of cops in swish uniforms and ponytails running around Mumbai trying to crack the case, and characters barking ‘abort’, ‘clear’ and ‘go’, all very Hollywood style


Kapadia, son of Simple, nephew of Dimple, fares well enough when he is throwing his punches, but will need to work hard on emoting skills"
"So far this year, the rupee lost 1.93%, while foreign investors have sold $129.18 million and $726.16 million in the equity and debt markets, respectively."
"This includes publishers like LA Times, WSJ, Vogue, Wired and National Geographic. Apple is also allowing family sharing of the service and the first month is free. It will go live today in the US. It will also be available in Canada with Canadian magazines in both English and French. The service will be further extended to Australian and European markets later this year. Indian availability hasn't been announced yet.


Apple has partnered with Goldman Sachs to bring this service and it's powered by Mastercard on the payment processing end. The card will be linked with the Wallet app and will have no CVV number, no expiration or signature. Apple said users will get a per-device card number that's stored securely while the transactions can be done via Face ID and Touch ID. Apple also mentioned it won't charge penalty rates if you miss a payment. It mentioned it will offer low interest rates, but hasn't let out more details on that. Apple hasn't announced its availability in markets other than the US."
"It speaks volumes about the writing on display when a really dialogue-heavy episode of a show manages to hold the viewers in a spell until it ends


 The second episode of the final season of Game of Thrones was basically an extension of the first episode


 This episode was about the human moments, and we might miss this in the upcoming episodes when it is all about the dead and the undead


The cliffhanger from the last episode — Jaime Lannister ending up face-to-face with Bran Stark — was resolved almost immediately


 Daenerys Targaryen was not as kind, though Tyrion Lannister and Brienne of Tarth’s interventions and later Sansa Stark’s conviction saved Jaime"
"But what’s surprising is the reported Aramco-Reliance deal valuation. The TOI report suggests RIL will carve out its refining and petrochemicals divisions into a separate entity, which will be valued at $55-60 billion. This values the downstream businesses at about seven times estimated Ebitda for the year ended 31 March. This will be attractive from Aramco’s perspective, but far from lucrative as far as RIL is concerned.


Note that a number of broking houses have valued the downstream businesses at much higher levels already. The median across the Street is upwards of $70 billion. It’s not like Reliance is a distress seller either. While its indebtedness has increased considerably in recent years after its aggressive foray into the telecom sector with Reliance Jio, leverage ratios haven’t gone out of whack. Net debt to Ebitda is around 3.7 times based on the current year’s debt and earnings estimates.


“RIL’s oil businesses generate high cash flows, which will take care of its debt. There is no pressing need to sell a stake in its refining and petrochemical assets,"" said an analyst at a domestic broking house. The only motivation to sell is if the deal includes a condition to procure crude from Aramco at discounted rates, the analyst added."
"After the threat of Night King is done with, the protagonists turn their eyes to Cersei, who has bolstered her army with the elite mercenary force called the Golden Company


 There is certainly going to be a conflict between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen over the former’s true lineage"
"The Honor View 20 is the world’s first smartphone to sport a 48MP Camera and a punch-hole cutout. The smartphone is powered by Huawei’s top-spec Kirin 980 SoC based on a 7nm process. The octa-core processor is also present on Huawei’s current flagship, the Mate 20 Pro. It is paired with a Mali G76 MP10 GPU along with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The View 20 runs Magic UI 2.0.1 based on Android Pie 9.


Apart from the 48MP sensor, the back of the phone also has a secondary Time of Flight (ToF) stereoscopic sensor for capturing the depth of an image. The front facing camera is fitted with a 25MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture."
"Vishal Singh as Sanjay aka SanjuSanjay, fondly called as Sanju, was a fun young boy who, according to his mother, was always picking up his girlfriends’ parents from the airport and station


 The title track even had the visuals of Sameer pulling off Sanju’s towel, leaving him only in his underwear


 Kirti was always at loggerheads with her brother Sanju, and the two fought the most for the telephone


Post a few television shows, Natasha made her Bollywood debut with Mission 11 July, which unfortunately failed at the box office


Arhhan ‘Sunny’ Singh as Vishal and Karishma Acharya as AabhaThe two kids of Sameer and Sunita – Vishal and Aabha were mostly seen holidaying with their maternal grandparents


 Joining hands with Sanju and Kirti, Vishal and Aabha would bring the house down with their naughtiness"
"The allegation is that Twitter has bias against ""rightwing"" accounts as general elections loom — serious enough for the government to call Twitter for a hearing before a House panel.


This is in line with what we have seen with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifying and being grilled last year by lawmakers in the US and in the European Union (EU) over data privacy, political interference and fake news.


The big question is: Who will represent Twitter in the India hearing on February 11 at 3 pm in Parliament Complex?


The company currently has an interim head in Balaji Krish who is Twitter's global head of revenue strategy and operations after Country Head Taranjit Singh quit in September.


Mahima Kaul, who is Head of Public Policy and Government, is very active when it comes to fire-fighting."
"""The second image claims that the handset will be debuting as OnePlus 7 Pro. The above image shows that the upcoming OnePlus 7 smartphone will be sporting a bezel-less design since it is fitted with a curved OLED display.


""The chin of the device is a bit thick whereas the other bezels are almost non-existent. The case renders of the OnePlus 7 that have surfaced in the recent past have revealed that it will be arriving with a notch-less display and a pop-up selfie camera,"" the GizmoChina reported on Wednesday.


The leaked photos also suggest that the display of the phone would feature an in-screen fingerprint reader, similar to what we saw on the OnePlus 6T."
"Brokers through Association of National Exchange Members of India (ANMI) will send representation to SEBI saying the new guidelines will have an adverse impact on liquidity and volumes, said an ANMI member.


“Instead of fostering growth in the markets and integrating cash and F&O segments, SEBI has enhanced the eligibility criteria. This under the new physical settlement regime is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of lower volumes and higher spreads, thereby making stocks ineligible for derivatives,"" said an ANMI member who did not wish to be named as they are yet to send their representations to the regulator.


SEBI had also mandated physical delivery of stocks in a phased manner. The first 50 stocks with smaller market capitalisation were to move towarda physical settlement by April this year, the next 50 in July, and the next 50 by October.


It is not just ANMI and brokers who believe that the enhanced criteria for F&O are hampering the segment."
"“We want to avoid paying too much of a valuation premium for the comfort of a name, or a brand, because overpaying invariably catches up with you,"" Shah said, referring to large-cap stocks that have been this year’s popular trade.


India has sat out the rally that’s driven Asian equities to a four-month high as the flare up in tensions between India and Pakistan added to the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming elections. While Shah declined to comment on the skirmishes, he remains unfazed about the outcome of the national ballot.


“Irrespective of the government at the centre, if you have bought stocks where there is growth and downside protection in terms of valuation, the portfolio will outperform in the days to come,"" he said."
"”The film is backed by Lyca Productions, the banner which was also behind Rajinikanth’s science-fiction flick 2


Anirudh Ravichander will compose the music for the movie whereas Santosh Sivan will serve as the cinematographer"
"Other companies, too, are working on security solutions. Ashish Jain, director of marketing, EduNext, points out that schools have started taking security more seriously. EduNext has been developing technologies for schools for eight years, but has taken up the security aspect only in the last three years. According to Jain, India has over 300 players in the education ERP management software industry.


Like Gateway to School, EduNext’s solution is also linked to the school’s ERP system. When a student enters school, they use radio-frequency identification processes to mark their attendance. Their parents are simultaneously notified about it. EduNext currently works with over 350 schools across India, including 55 branches of the Delhi Public School, nine branches of GD Goenka and 22 branches of Seth MR Jaipuria school. Jain said that while the adoption of these services is higher in Tier 1 cities, and from private schools, schools in smaller towns have also been exploring options like these."
"Like Warner Bros movies in recent past, Disney released it before the US, and it paid rich dividends


Biggest Hollywood and non-Chinese movie in China: Avengers: Endgame’s nine-day earnings (it release two days earlier there) stand at 512


5 million dollars, which is way more than the previous biggest Hollywood movie in the country: Fate of the Furious with its 392 million dollars"
"""Banning has had adverse impact on the user base of this app, losing close to 1 million new users per day ... It is estimated that approximately six million requests for downloads could not be effected since the ban came into effect,"" the company said in the filing.


The Supreme Court has so far not provided any interim relief on repeated pleas by Bytedance and referred the case back to the court in Tamil Nadu, where the case will next be heard on Wednesday.


Memes and music videos thrive on TikTok, although some clips show youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-syncing and dancing to popular tunes.


Its growing popularity has drawn criticism from some Indian politicians and parents who say its content is inappropriate. The Tamil Nadu court, which ruled against TikTok after an individual filed a public interest litigation, has said the app could also expose children to sexual predators."
"The chit fund scams in which people lost savings have fuelled anger against the TMC government, and turned people towards the BJP. TMC members were named in the investigations in the Narada, Sharada and Rose Valley scams, and Banerjee is seen as having shielded the accused. This anger, along with violence during the March panchayat elections, has been exploited by the BJP in its election campaigns.


“I lost ₹1.2 lakh in the chit fund scam and the state government has done nothing to act against the people responsible for it. We were not allowed to vote during the panchayat elections, but this time we are determined to vote. The presence of central forces will keep us safe. We do not trust the state police,"" said Nayan Krishna Ghosh, a 26-year-old farmer in Gangarampur village in Bholpur constituency.


There is also a perception that Banerjee is soft on the minority community and on illegal migrants from Bangladesh.


“We want the national register of citizens (NRC) to be implemented in West Bengal. There are many illegal migrants from Bangladesh and the state government is doing nothing. We will become a minority in our own state soon. The state government does not look at the rights of Hindus, it is only concerned about one section of people. The people of Bengal are not getting work because of illegal migration,"" said Dilip Biswas of Rao Tadi Choumata village in Ranaghat constituency.


Banerjee has ruled the state for nearly eight years, resulting in a sense of anti-incumbency, which the BJP is exploiting. Even if the party does not win a majority, it wants to build itself up as the main opposition in the state. The next assembly election in West Bengal is due in May 2021, and Banerjee will have completed 10 years in power by then."
"Ahead of the release, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar went live on Twitter to answer a few questions that they had received on #TeamBharatonTwitter


 One of the fans asked Salman about his experience of working with Sunil Grover, who co-stars with the superstar in the Ali Abbas Zafar directorial"
"In typical Oppo fashion, the camera wants you beautify you. Realme says it “factors in the aesthetic views of local youths in tuning cameras and optimizes selfie beauty features accordingly"".


It essentially makes your skin appear without blemishes and smoothens everything out, makes your eyes bigger, jaw slimmer and cheeks more protruding—depending on your settings. You can also put everything on the AI to make you look pretty.


Selfies without the AI selfie mode also look good, and I personally prefer myself with my small eyes. They are well lit and thanks to the wide aperture and pixel size, you consistently get well-lit images. I wish this was the camera at the rear of the phone.


The rear camera comprises a 13MP+2MP module, which is also powered with AI. Camera modes include AI scene recognition, multi-frame noise reduction, portrait lighting, pro mode and slo-mo. While the AI-scene recognition works well in well lit and semi-well lit scenarios, it’s a little difficult to use at night. Everything appears a bit too smooth, since high ISO and noise reduction are working hand in hand.


The pro-mode has one of the best implementations in any camera app period. It’s extremely intuitive and easy to use. No circular dials, no mumbo-jumbo, it is spot on.


Realme U1 ticks nearly all the boxes required to be a good sub-Rs 15,000 smartphone. A phone with the top MediaTek processor is a good addition to the Realme line-up and so is that selfie camera. The resemblance with the Realme 2 Pro is uncanny, but once you’re past that it’s a good phone very worthy of its price tag.


mint-india-wire Realme U1Realme U1 reviewRealme U1 priceRealme 2 Pro priceRealme 2 Pro reviewRealme 2 ProRealmeredmi Note 6 Pro"
"Actor Mohanlal on Tuesday cast his ballot as voting in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections began


”Tovino Thomas, last seen in Lucifer, took to his official Twitter handle to request people to exercise their right to vote"
"On the sidelines of the film’s premiere here, Efron told Metro, “I’ve never played a role in which I really have to separate myself from when I go home at night and it was almost impossible


”The film, which was recently picked up by Netflix, has been subjected to a lot of criticism as many people say that it glamourises the killer by portraying him as a suave, handsome and desirable figure"
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.739, up 0.11% from its previous close of 96.637."
"The Realme U1 is priced at ₹11,999 for its base (3GB/32GB) variant while the top (4GB/64GB) spec model is priced at ₹14,499


mint-india-wire Realme U1Realme U1 reviewRealme U1 priceRealme 2 Pro priceRealme 2 Pro reviewRealme 2 ProRealmeredmi Note 6 Pro


Realme has had a phenomenal run right after its launch in India. A counterpoint report said that the Oppo spinoff had become the third largest smartphone brand in India in six months. It also recently gave itself a new identity altogether, with a new logo and typeface, focusing on the youth.


One thing becomes clear after observing their new campaign—the company pictures the youth as a selfie and gaming obsessed crowd. A month ago, they launched the Realme 2 and Real 2 Pro, right after launching a video online which goes by the name “Proud to be Young"". While the Realme 2 was marred with a lacklustre processor and low-res display, the Realme 2 Pro was more of a complete package.


Then on Wednesday, the company launched the Realme U1, a phone they call the “Selfie Pro"". Boasting the newest (and the best) chipset from MediaTek, the phone is expected to add more variety in the sub-Rs 15,000 market. But does it really make sense for Realme to put out two very similar smartphones in quick succession? Let’s find out.


An untrained eye will fail to distinguish the Realme 2 Pro and Realme U1 from the outside. Both have exactly the same design, display, physical dimensions, weight and even the camera and loudspeaker grille placement. The only way to distinguish the two phones would be by their colour schemes.


The Realme U1 comes in three colour variants—Ambitious Black, Brave Blue and Fiery Gold. While Ambitious Black and Brave Blue are extremely similar to Blue Ocean and Black Sea variants of the Realme 2 Pro, the Fiery Gold is a new colour and that is the only way you can distinguish the two phones physically.


Realme claims rotating the phone’s back under different light sources (daylight, lamplight, colored light) reveals light pillars, which deliver a “strong sense of quality"". I second that."
"Under the hood, it is powered by MediaTek’s Helio P70 processor paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It runs ColorOS 6.0 UI based on Android 9 Pie. The smartphone is fuelled by a 4,000mAh battery with VOOC 3.0 fast charging support."
"""This time last year, 0 per cent of potentially abusive content was flagged to our teams for review proactively. Today, by using technology, 38 per cent of abusive content that's enforced is surfaced proactively for human review instead of relying on reports from people using Twitter,"" Hicks and Gasca wrote.


""The same technology we use to track spam, platform manipulation and other rule violations is helping us flag abusive Tweets to our team for review,"" they said.


Twitter said 100,000 accounts were suspended for creating new accounts after a suspension during January-March 2019 -- a 45 per cent increase from the same time last year.


With a focus on reviewing this type of content, Twitter said it had expanded its teams in key areas and geographies."
"BJP leadership had decided that senior leaders aged 75 years or more will not hold any public office  


NEW DELHI: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has denied tickets to veterans leaders, who were instrumental in building the party, as part of a major makeover in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections."
"The National Film Awards will be declared after the Lok Sabha elections when the poll code seizes to be in force to ensure that the power of the media is not used in a manner which affects the level playing field during the election process, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry said on Wednesday


The selections for the National Film Awards are made by an independent and impartial jury consisting of eminent filmmakers and film personalities and declared in the month of April every year, the ministry said"
"The former opening batsman played a key role in India's triumph in the 2011 World Cup and the 2007 T-20 World Cup. He was recently conferred upon the Padma Shri award.


Gambhir said he was impressed by the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will work for the country's welfare as a member of the party."
“I’m a very unique case in Hollywood because there are very few women who look like me and are working a lot in movies
"Other than these pieces, we also have views on how AI combined with genetics has the potential to address the malaria menace and even improve our diet to help us lose weight, if applicable.


It’s our sincere hope that you will be able to draw meaningful insights from the enriching sessions at the Mint Digital Innovation Summit, which we bring to you in this edition of the Digital Dossier.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Dialogues that he delivers, for instance, “Manna thottavana kooda vittudalam, aana ponna thottavana vidave koodadhu”, create no impact


 The makers aimed to project him as the ‘mass hero’ with Devarattam, but they don’t quite succeed in this attempt"
"Facebook said the passwords were stored on internal company servers, where no outsiders could access them. (Bloomberg)


Facebook had inadvertently stored passwords in plain text, making it possible for its thousands of employees to search them"
"Earlier, Vinu had noted that an actor and screenwriter of Sreenivasan’s stature agreeing to do his film was a validation of the story of the film"
"Apple CEO Tim Cook believes that regulation of tech companies is inevitable. Cook said that while he is a big believer in the free market, the mechanism is not functioning well, necessitating regulation. Mint analyses the reasons for regulation and the likely impact on India.


After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where personal data of around 50 million Facebook users was illegally acquired by the UK-based political consulting firm and misused to influence voters during the US polls, regulators have become more sceptical about how tech firms store and share user data. Tech firms have failed to plug data leaks. In September, a bug in Instagram compromised email IDs and phone numbers of up to six million users. In October, Google said that data from up to 500,000 Google+ users might have been exposed to third-party developers by a bug."
"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on April 30, 2019 in San Jose, California. (AFP)


Zuckerberg identified private messaging, ephemeral stories and small groups as the fastest-growing areas of online communication


Facebook Inc debuted an overhaul of its core social network on Tuesday, taking its first concrete steps to refashion itself into a private messaging and e-commerce company as it tries to move past scandals while tapping new revenue sources.


Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a fresh design for the world's biggest social network that de-emphasized its News Feed. It also ditched the signature blue banner that has been on the app since its launch.


The new design showcases Facebook's messaging app, online marketplace and video-on-demand site, while giving greater prominence to the popular photo-driven Stories feature.


The company also rolled out features aimed at encouraging users to interact with their close social circle as well as with businesses, such as a ""Secret Crush"" option for Facebook Dating and a tool for appointment booking.


""As the world gets bigger and more connected, we need that sense of intimacy more than ever. That's why I believe that the future is private. This is the next chapter for our services,"" said Zuckerberg, speaking at Facebook's annual F8 conference, where the company gives developers a peek at product releases."
"Nicholas Hoult says he would love to reprise his role in the X-Men series if there are plans to bring the mutant back in other films in the Marvel franchise


Filmmaker Simon Kinberg, who has directed the upcoming Dark Phoenix, recently said the Sophie Turner-led film marks the “culmination” of all the movies made under the X-Men franchise"
"Amit will even add that it was his wish to work with SD Burman that unfortunately never got fulfilled


How Amit Kumar got a breakKapil Sharma will be astonished to hear that Amit Sharma has crooned the popular song “Bade Acche Lagte Hai”"
"A report by IndiaShopps suggested the presence of a Snapdragon 710 SoC, which is significantly powerful than the Snapdragon 675 chipset present in the category favourite Redmi Note 7 Pro.


Realme has confirmed the smartphone will carry the VOOC 3.0 fast charging technology from Oppo. It is capable of delivering 5 hours of talk-time in 10 minutes of charge.


More details would be available at the time of launch. If you wish to check out the live-stream, you can view it on Realme's Twitter, Facebook and YouTube handles."
"By the third quarter of 2018, the market was flooded with smartphones that sported a notch cut-out, with varying shapes and sizes. In August, Oppo announced the F9 Pro, with a dew drop/tear drop/water drop notch. This quickly caught on with its sister brands, including OnePlus, and we saw devices like the OnePlus 6T, Realme 2 Pro and Vivo V11 Pro.


But Samsung refrained from using any notches on its smartphones and instead focused on bringing its “Infinity Display"" to its affordable handsets.


While Vivo Nex is widely regarded as “that smartphone with a pop-up camera"", it was also one of the first to sport an in-display fingerprint scanner, a technology that several other smartphone makers started to seek. The technology relies on an optical fingerprint sensor, which uses a light source to capture a high-resolution photograph of your fingerprints and uses algorithms to identify unique patterns. To capture a high-resolution image, it requires a light source, which has to be strong enough to illuminate your fingerprint. The problem arises when the light has to hit the sensor after bouncing back from your finger. As a result, this tech can work only with OLED displays, since an LCD’s backlight can get in the way.


The rudimentary renditions of this tech were quite cumbersome, especially in my experience. The speed is already slow to begin with (it takes anywhere between half a second to two seconds), and any type of interference—be it tempered glass or scratches on the display leads inaccurate fingerprint capture. If you’re a person prone to dropping your phone, this tech isn’t for you.


The first quarter of the year also saw facial unlocking become more accessible to people. While it is a little less secure than a physical fingerprint scanner, it’s more convenient.


But it’s unfair to assume that most smartphone tech surrounded around the display. Flip a 2018 smartphone and you’ll see a drastic difference from a smartphone of any era. You have glass backs, number of cameras ranging between one and four and striking colour gradients—it has become crazy out here.


While glass backs add an element of luxury, they also make smartphones extremely fragile. To fix this, some smartphones have started adding polycarbonate resin (a fancy name for faux glass plastic), which is shatter resistant and is more durable. It is also heat resistant, so during winters, these smartphones don’t get uncomfortably cold to touch."
"After making a successful debut with Dhadak, the actor has signed a slew of projects with some of the most popular names in the industry


 However, Janhvi still remains close to her Dhadak family as she recently posted a photograph with the core group on her Instagram handle"
"Shah Rukh, who made his maiden visit to China on April 17, took part in the festival, specially in the “China-India Film Cooperation Dialogue” along with film director Kabir Khan"
"com’s Marah Eakin tweeted, “My reactions to #DetectivePikachu: so cute! Fun for the whole family! Pokémon obsessives will be pleased, but Poke novices will be able to follow along—and will maybe even get sucked into the whole world


 He shared on Twitter, “#DetectivePikachu has the fantastic worldbuilding, fun adventure & cute creatures that Fantastic Beasts franchise needs"
"Under the Sebi norms, an entity has to make an open offer in case its shareholding goes beyond a certain threshold. (Mint)


The open offer exemptions under ICDR and takeover norms could be continued for allotment of shares to lenders


NEW DELHI: Regulator Sebi plans to put in place a stricter framework for providing exemption from open offer requirements with respect to corporate debt restructuring activities, a senior official said."
"Loon joins a long line of ambitious projects aimed at helping underserved Africans. Facebook Inc. in June ditched a program to build passenger jet-sized drones to deliver Internet because global aviation and spectrum regulations don’t support the system. Instead, Facebook has said it will work with partners like Airbus SE on high-altitude connectivity.


Facebook in 2016 had to abandon an effort to provide internet via satellites when a SpaceX rocket carrying the rig exploded on the launchpad, but the company is working on another satellite program. And SpaceX itself plans to launch more than 4,000 low-orbit satellites to build a global broadband network—an initiative that will cost billions. “The continent is waiting for the promise of low-earth-orbit satellites to materialize,"" says Joao Sousa, a partner at tech consultancy Delta Partners. “If balloons beat the odds and succeed, it would be a game changer.""


Carriers are also trying to work around problems like a lack of rural power, with mixed success. Vodacom Group Ltd. has built solar-powered base stations and cell-phone towers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Lesotho.


Loon is betting its Kenya project can be replicated elsewhere. Westgarth says he’s in contact with countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia about similar agreements, which he says can lead to a profitable global operation.“When we first started talking with potential customers, the number of African operators that wanted a partnership was huge,"" Westgarth says. “As much as we want to do something good for people, we are a business, and we want to be a profitable business."""
"The balloons have solar panels to recharge their batteries and can stay aloft for several months before they must be brought down for servicing. Photo: Loon


Loon, spun out of the search giant's X innovation lab in July, is teaming up with Telkom Kenya Ltd. to build a network of high-flying balloons to connect people in the east African country starting next year


Bringing fast, widespread internet to rural Africa has proven vexing for companies that have tried—and largely failed—with strategies ranging from drones to satellites. Now, a sister company of Google says it has the answer: balloons.


Loon, spun out of the search giant’s X innovation lab in July, is teaming up with Telkom Kenya Ltd. to build a network of high-flying balloons to connect people in the east African country starting next year. The prize for Alphabet Inc., the parent of Google, is the opportunity to profit from advertising and other businesses tied to bringing the web to more of sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of millions of people lack net access.


Loon’s Kenyan project is modelled on technology used to temporarily connect people in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria last year knocked out power supplies and phone service. In Kenya, Loon says it will start with about a dozen balloons—enough to cover roughly 10 percent of the country—and gauge how many more are needed. Loon has begun work with the operator to install ground stations in Nairobi and the city of Nakuru in the western highlands that will beam signals to the balloons."
"The Masaan girl, who made her Tamil debut with Mehandi Circus recently, says one has to be open to doing any role as long as the story is strong


”Though Rangaraj is the male lead of Mehandi Circus, Shweta Tripathi says her character drives the story forward"
"The Congress and JD(S), who have fought bitter battles across south Karnataka, are hoping that the alliance can bring together warring workers, who can barely see eye-to-eye.


In response to the announcement by JD(S), the Congress on Monday said there were “many aspirants"" for these seats from both parties, but insisted that no decision had been taken on seat sharing yet. The Congress’ stand indicates that it is still trying to resist giving up the two seats for JD(S). The two parties are expected to conclude the seat sharing talks within a week.


The Bharatiya Janata Party is hopeful that workers miffed with the state-level alliance are likely to move to the saffron outfit, which has little or no presence in south Karnataka."
"Interestingly, Akshay and Katrina have previously worked together in Namastey London, Humko Deewana Kar Gaye, Singh is King and Welcome"
"Brent crude hit $75 a barrel supported by the US decision not to renew sanctions waivers on Iran and curbs to Russian oil flows to parts of Europe. Crude oil gained for the fifth consecutive session and rose 5.3% in this period. Year to date, it has risen over 40%.


""Several factors such as monthly expiry in F&O for the April series, election outcomes in May, a strong dollar and global oil mania clouded sentiment of market participants today,"" said Umesh Mehta, head of research, Samco Securities.


Brokerage firm Choice Broking expects that at this juncture, due to positive earnings and volatile crude oil and election uncertainty, one needs to be extremely stock specific by following a proper exit strategy."
"""The fact that some of the largest corporations in the world are unable to tell us what they are specifically doing to stop terrorist and extremist content is not acceptable,"" said the panel.


With these platforms becoming more and more ubiquitous in peoples' lives, these companies have an obligation to Americans to ensure - and prove - they are doing everything possible to stop the spread of this vile content, the panel argued."
"Ryan Morgan, whose political consulting firm Veracity Media arranged attack ads for a US House race in Iowa, said Google barred those mentioning “white supremacy"" until his team could explain the ads advocated against the racist belief.


Five campaign strategists told Reuters they adjusted advertising tactics in recent weeks based on what the databases revealed about opponents’ spending on ads and which genders, age groups and states saw the messages.


Ohio digital consultant Kevin Bingle said his team reviewed opponents on Facebook’s database daily to take advantage of gaps in their strategy.


Morgan said his team tripled its online ad budget to $600,000 for a San Francisco affordable housing tax after Facebook’s database showed the other side’s ads were reaching non-Californians.


That political intelligence “let us know that digital was a place we could run up the score,"" he said."
"PC gamers have plenty to rejoice about as Nvidia has announced three new products in its GeForce GPU (graphics processing unit) line-up.


Nvidia's RTX GPUs are based on the new Turing architecture and offer 6x better performance than predecessors"
"The S&P 500 added 0.4% at 9:31 am in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%, while the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.8%. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.3%. The MSCI All-Country World Index increased 0.1% to the highest in more than six months. The MSCI Emerging Market Index jumped 0.4% to the highest in 10 months.


The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dipped 0.1%. The euro gained 0.2% to $1.1307, the strongest in more than three weeks. The British pound climbed less than 0.05% to $1.3051. The Japanese yen rose less than 0.05% to 111.99 per dollar."
"You will be able to report misleading information about how to vote or register to vote for review from within the platform


The new tool is in addition to its existing approach to tackling malicious automation and other forms of platform manipulation on Twitter"
"“You should be listening to our music before you start getting confused and hating yourself,” says a character to the male lead at one point in the clip


 Going by similar dialogues alone, it’s not difficult to guess that Blinded by the Light is not your regular tribute movie, but the kind of film that will seek to find its character’s identity and go with him on a ride as he discovers his roots and motivations to be the person he ultimately wants to become"
"""We are going to stick to, and encourage, that line because competition is a good thing for an industry like ours.""


Australia and New Zealand have stopped operators using Huawei equipment in their networks, and the European Commission is considering a de facto ban.


European telecoms executives say this could set back plans to roll out advanced ""fifth-generation"" 5G technology by at least two years. Industry analysts warn that shutting out Chinese vendors could also trigger retaliation from Beijing.


""What it loses in the West, it will win in the East,"" said Bengt Nordstrom, CEO of Swedish industry consultancy Northstream.


""I would expect severe disruption to the telecoms ecosystem – this for me is very similar to the Lehman Brothers situation in 2008,"" he added, referring to the Wall Street bank whose collapse triggered the global financial crisis.


A delegation of at least eight U.S. officials is expected in Barcelona, two weeks after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Huawei equipment would jeopardise European allies' partnerships with the world's largest economy.


Huawei, an associate member of the GSMA, denies engaging in intelligence work for any government, and its founder has taken to US and British media to emphasise this in recent days."
"But the Nokia 3.1 Plus recently received a ₹1,500 price cut which has brought its MRP down to ₹9,999, making it the cheapest smartphone in the Nokia lineup.


NokiaPowerUser, a website dedicated to Nokia products, reports that it spotted the price change in retail stores. HMD Global is yet to update it on Nokia’s online store."
"Overwhelmed with the warm welcome, King Khan told Chinese publication CGTN that he didn’t expect this level of excitement among people in China and thought that all the cheering was for “something else or someone else


 I am Red all over!!”Shah Rukh will be attending the screening of his 2018 release Zero at the film festival


 While the Aanand L Rai directorial was panned in India, the actor, in the interview, mentioned he was sceptical about the Chinese audience’s response to the movie"
"OnePlus is expected to launch an additional device this year, that is expected to be called the OnePlus 7 Pro. This variant is expected to sport a larger display than the regular OnePlus 7 and will also come with a pop-up camera. The device might also come with a curved display.


The OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro are expected to sport flagship specifications like Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC along with 8GB RAM."
"The couple, who tied the knot two years ago, are already parents to daughters four-year-old, Inez and James, two"
"In an interview with Mint, Gowda spoke about the consultations, the focus of the document and how the proposal for a separate farmers’ budget came up


NEW DELHI: The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress released its Lok Sabha election manifesto on Tuesday. The 55-page document titled, ‘Congress will deliver’, largely focuses on issues such as rural distress, unemployment, and the state of the economy, as well as provisions for social security.


Rajeev Gowda, senior Rajya Sabha member and convener of the Congress’ manifesto committee, held public and expert consultations during the process of preparing the party’s manifesto. In an interview with Mint, Gowda spoke about the consultations, the focus of the document and how the proposal for a separate farmers’ budget came up. Edited excerpts:


How is this manifesto different from the party’s previous manifestoes, particularly with respect to the crowdsourcing of various inputs?"
"”Johnny Galecki, who plays husband Leonard Hofstadter to Cuoco’s Penny, thanked the audience and called the top-rated comedy’s 12-season run “a dream come true for all of us


”It was definitely a pinch-me moment for those lucky — and persistent — enough to be on hand for episode No


 Some, urged by audience warm-up comedian and emcee Mark Sweet, paid tribute to the series that turned the really smart set into unlikely crowd-pleasers


Malerie Shakter of Oakland, California, who works in the tech industry, said she’s been inspired by the powerful female characters portrayed on the sitcom"
The film will be Zee Studios’ in-house production and the choreographer said he wanted to explore his skills in the dancing world without trying to attempt a film on the lines of “Step Up”
"The Note 6 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC, which was also present on its successor, the Note 5 Pro. Paired with this is up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is expandable up to 256GB via a MicroSD card.


The Zenfone Max Pro M2 is powered by a higher-spec Snapdragon 660 SoC which is paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The Max Pro M2 comes with higher expandable storage, going all the way up to 512GB via a MicroSD card. The higher clock speed of the processor helps in navigating through apps quicker and gives the Zenfone Max Pro M2 a noticeable advantage in gaming and camera departments.


The Redmi Note 6 Pro runs Xiaomi’s MIUI 10 while the Zenfone Max Pro M2 runs ZenUI. Both interfaces are based on Android Oreo 8.1 and there is no word out on when the phones will receive the Pie upgrade.


The back of the Note 6 Pro features a 12MP+5MP dual camera setup with an aperture of f/1.9. In terms of videography, it is capable of shooting 1080p videos at 30fps. The camera is stabilised electronically.


The front of the Note 6 Pro sports another dual camera setup, this time with 20MP+2MP configuration with an aperture of f/2.0."
Having him and Homi (director Homi Adajania) together was something all three of us have always wanted
"The second episode of the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones was a lot like the first as it set up the upcoming wars, big and small


 We all know of the impending war between the living and the dead, but there are personal conflicts brewing that may end up being more interesting in the end


”Bran Stark, or the Three-Eyed-Raven as he calls himself now, shot Jaime Lannister’s words (“The things I do for love”) back at him


 In the very first episode of the show, Jaime had pushed Bran to kill him, for the kid had witnessed Jaime in an incestuous union with his sister, Queen Cersei


 Now, although Bran is not interested in revenge, he must have taken a little pleasure out of Jaime’s reaction when he repeated his words"
"And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer


”Hollywood Rewind: Half Nelson | Fight Club | Doubt | American Psycho | Julie and Julia | Forrest Gump | The Silence of the Lambs | Finding Neverland | Roman Holiday | American History X | Tropic Thunder | Before Sunrise | Scent of a Woman | Finding Forrester | Sixteen CandlesHere is the lesson You’ve Got Mail teaches us — when cheesy is done right, it can work wonders for the film, and it will be hard to find a better example than this Nora Ephron directorial"
"Hyderabad: With polling reaching an end in south India earlier this week, Andhra Pradesh (AP) chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is a key member in organizing the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition, is all set to campaign in other states with other regional leaders. Naidu, who has become a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is eyeing a bigger role at the Centre if the BJP loses and Congress comes to power, said Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders from AP.


Naidu, who exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) last year in March over funds provided to AP by the Centre, has been actively campaigning against Modi. “Most of the opposition leaders, from Farooq Abdullah in Jammu and Kashmir to M. K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, have accepted Naidu. Only (Bahujan Samaj Party chief) Mayawati has not done so completely, and (West Bengal chief minister) Mamata Banerjee has been cordial, but slightly reserved on the topic of a coalition,"" informed a senior TDP leader who did not want to be named."
"Hundreds of people came out to take part in the rally filled with chants about nationalism and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Dressed in bright orange and waving flags with pictures of national leaders while speakers blasted party songs, the crowd waited for hours for Shah to show up but were left disappointed as the latter left without addressing the supporters.


The road show lasted about 40 minutes as Shah arrived late and had to conclude the event before 10 pm in order not to violate the poll code.


""If at 25 an IAS or IPS officer can become DC's (district collector) and SP (superintendent of police). If a person can become captain of the Indian cricket team at 26 and that age people can become start-up CEO's then a 28-year old can become the voice of Modi's young new India,"" Surya said earlier."
"The election commission said the rule allowing political parties to receive donations from foreign companies having majority stake in an Indian company would “allow unchecked foreign funding of political parties in India, which could lead to Indian policies being influenced by foreign companies.""


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"A majority of election awareness campaigns are digital and GIFs and microsites, long- and short-form videos, in particular, have emerged as the go-to choice for brands. Flipkart is running the “Equals Day"" video featuring citizens across ages, regions, and economic backgrounds finding a common thread in the form of the right to vote. Automotive lubricant brand Castrol Activ is urging young riders to ensure they drive one voter as a pillion rider to the polling booth this election in a digital video campaign.


“Digital lends itself beautifully to any long- or short-format videos which most of the current elections campaigns are made of. Facebook and YouTube continue to be the two most leveraged platforms because they offer the highest reach but this election we have seen brands leveraging over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Hotstar to capture the attention of millennials as well,"" said Gopa Kumar, chief operating officer, Isobar, a Dentsu Aegis Network-owned digital agency. Companies such as Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting are, however, making a big splash on conventional advertising mediums. Santoor, a beauty brand from the company’s stable, is running a 360-degree campaign, Young dikho, Young socho on television, print, and digital to motivate first-time voters to be responsible and cast their vote.


“This campaign aims to educate the youth on this relevant and important issue. This will also help Santoor connect better with our consumers. Casting votes is an important activity in a democracy. We felt through Santoor we should motivate youth and first-time voters to cast their vote and fulfil their duty,"" said Anil Chugh, president, consumer care business, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting."
"The two products, widely expected to be Xiaomi's Mijia range, are already available in China. However, Xiaomi has neither mentioned a tentative launch schedule of the products nor their pricing in India.


The Mijia Rice Cooker starts in China at 599 Yuan (about ₹6,000 ) while the Mijia Induction Cooker starts at 199 Yuan (about ₹2,000). The accessories of the cooktop start at 99 Yuan (about ₹1,000)."
"Zinc gained as surging premiums for cash metal on the London Metal Exchange pointed to a shortage of nearby supply


London: Copper prices rose on Tuesday as investors bet that top consumer China would respond to weak factory data with stimulus measures and the US dollar weakened, making metals cheaper for buyers with other currencies.


Zinc also gained as surging premiums for cash metal on the London Metal Exchange (LME) pointed to a shortage of nearby supply.


The metal used in power and construction is up around 8% this year on hopes that China can prevent a sharp economic slowdown, but prices have been trapped around $6,500 since late February.


""It is more likely (after the Chinese factory data) that we will see further stimulus measures,"" said Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann."
"The AirPower wireless charger announced last year with the iPhone X has still not seen a shipping date. Apple has also been long rumoured to update its wireless AirPods. Other products, like a new iPad Pro, Mac Mini and MacBook Air, have also been expected by customers.


The MacBook Air line-up received its last upgrade last year and still runs outdated fifth-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. Even the 1,400x900 LED-backlit display has started to look outdated, along with its massive bezels. The MacBook Pro in contrast has received an upgrade this year to eight-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and features a much better OLED-retina display with a better resolution and other niceties like an OLED-touchbar, which you may or may not like.


The iPad Pro hasn’t received a cyclical upgrade either like it normally does during summers, paving way for massive expectations. It is yet to receive an up-to-date processor and the “premium"" biometric treatment of FaceID, along with a refreshed design that goes in-line with the latest iPhones.


Bloomberg in August reported that Apple was planning to come up with new low-cost MacBook with a Retina display and bezel-less design to replace the MacBook Air. In another report last year, Bloomberg stated that Apple was working on an iPad redesign without a home button and an OLED display. But there was no mention of them anywhere during the event."
"The film is reportedly female centric and while Nagesh is tight lipped about the plot, he says the story has been with him for a long time"
"iPhone Xs Max has a 6.5-inch screen. Galaxy Note 9, which was released in August, and has a 6.4-inch screen. Photo: Bloomberg


Apple and Samsung's models both include two camera lenses to the rear one wide-angle, one telephoto which capture pictures at a resolution of 12 megapixels


iPhone XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9iPhone XS Max featuresiPhone XS Max performanceiPhone XS Max cameraiPhone XS Max Samsung Galaxy Note 9 comparisoniPhone XS Max review


London: Apple Inc. introduced the world to its largest-ever smartphone on Wednesday, the iPhone Xs Max. With a 6.5-inch screen, it dwarfs the 3.5-inch display on the original iPhone that Steve Jobs unveiled to the world in 2007. It’s also one of the biggest and most costly phones to hit the market, with prices starting at $1,099. Onlookers will be forgiven for seeing the Max as a response to the popular Galaxy Note series made by Samsung Electronics Co. The latest in that line, the Galaxy Note 9, was released in August and has a 6.4-inch screen.


Samsung’s Note 9 is the lighter of the two phones, weighing 201 grams compared to Apple’s 208 grams. But the iPhone is about 13 percent thinner. A big contributor to this difference is the inclusion of Samsung’s stylus, or S Pen, which is stored within the Note’s chassis."
"Being his arrogant but proud self, RDJ’s Iron Man was an instant hit in 2008 and he maintained that winning streak in the sequel as well


 Monaco Grand Prix sceneThe Grand Prix scene when Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko corners Tony Stark’s car is truly one of the best scenes in the film


 Tony can’t get out of the mess but just at the right moment Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan arrive to save Tony


 Stark’s portable suitUp until then, we had just seen Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit in the first movie and it blew us away so watching him adorn the portable suit in the Grand Prix scene left us amazed


 Natasha’s introductionScarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow was introduced in this film and while at the time we did not know that she was going to be an important part of the MCU, she still managed to leave an impact"
"Variety wrote, “With her declarative snap and ability to go for the jugular, Thompson truly seems like a born talk-show host


”“An amusing conventional comedy about two women’s struggles in late night TV,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter"
"While many would remember her for playing Shah Rukh Khan’s son in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Ahsas Channa has grown up to become a beautiful and talented actor


 After trying her hands in movies and a few TV shows, the 19-year-old has taken the digital medium by storm


Playing various characters in the sketches by Girlyapa and TVF, Ahsas is currently seen in Kota Factory as the firebrand girl Shivangi


 The series revolves around the lives of IIT aspirants based in Kota, the coaching centre industry and the various ups and downs in a student’s life"
"Ever since Shah Rukh Khan and Atlee were spotted sitting next to each other at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, speculations were abuzz that they were teaming up for a film


 Earlier, it was rumoured that the Theri director was initiating talks with the Badshah of Bollywood for the Hindi remake of Vijay-starrer Mersal


 If SRK considers this offer, this will be his second film in Tamil, after Hey Ram (2000), and not his debut project, contrary to the reports of many websites"
"Will Smith and Kapil Sharma’s connectionTiger Shroff will take the chance to talk about his experience of working with Will Smith


 The actor will share that he was really excited about getting to share screen space with the international star


 He will tell the comic star that both of them are so grounded and humble even when they are such big stars"
"While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has given more tickets to upper castes as well as other and extremely backward classes, the opposition is attempting a balancing act with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) fielding more Yadav candidates, and the Congress focusing on upper castes. The opposition mahagatbandhan is also appealing to smaller groups through caste leaders like Upendra Kushwaha, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Mukesh Sahani.


This time, the mahagatbandhan’s caste arithmetic looks strong on paper with the RJD confident of drawing support from Yadavs (14%), Manjhi from Musahars (3%), Upendra Kushwaha from Kushwahas (6%), Sahani from Nishads (6%) and Congress from a section of upper caste voters (17%), going by estimates. The NDA draws its support from the BJP’s chunk of upper caste (17%) and non-Yadav OBC voters, JD(U)’s Kurmi (4%) and EBC support and Lok Jan Shakti Party’s Paswan base (5%), which are also estimates.


As elections become more closely fought contests, caste consolidation will have to go beyond vote shares and convert into seats to yield electoral success. For instance, in the 2014 general election, the BJP had less than one third of the vote share (29.86%) but won more than two-thirds of the seats it contested (22 out of 30). On the other hand, the RJD won just four seats with a 20.46% vote share and the JD(U) just two seats with a 16.04% share. With such a keen focus on caste, voters feel the outcome of the general election will depend on which alliance is able to consolidate more on a seat-to-seat basis.


“It is rare to find leaders who work for everyone. If we vote in someone not of our caste, they will not work for us. We vote for our caste because we have to choose from what political parties offer. Frankly, there is very little to choose from because parties decide candidates on the basis of caste,"" said Prem Kumar Rai, a farmer from Gopalganj who also runs a general store."
"While Spidey had a boyish charm, Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa was solemn and even angry due to the death of his father


Ideological tussleSuperhero movies may be dismissed as childish by ‘adults’, but some superheroes have depth in terms of their themes and ideas"
"Rapid advancements in AI and machine learning, supported by increased computing power, have enhanced the sophistication of robots, which continue to replace redundant and hazardous work activities once performed by humans. We see industrial robots playing a pivotal role in the rise of Industry 4.0 and countries with declining or ageing population, such as Korea, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, and Germany will be the front-runners in industrial robots adoption. Industrial robot sales in India also has rocketed and is expected to continue its momentum, driven by use cases across logistics, agriculture and manufacturing.


Blockchain is seeing significant investment across a range of industries. We see successful use cases where the trust paradigm needs to be decentralized (via the elimination of a central counterparty), large ecosystems need to be integrated and automation is critical. Governments across the world are leading the way and in some cases are mandating the use of this technology as they build next-generation citizen services and infrastructure platforms. However, on-boarding all players in an ecosystem is not easy and several critical technical issues including scalability will need to be addressed for this technology to achieve mainstream adoption.


VR (immersive computer-generated world) and AR (overlaying virtual environment onto the real-world) have been touted as technologies that will transform how we interact with the world, but their adoption across enterprises has been underwhelming. In the coming years, we expect the adoption of AR-VR in enterprises to grow rapidly, especially across use cases related to advertising, retail, healthcare and education and training. The AR-VR market in India is still in its infancy but is expected to grow due to positive impetus from the government, industry bodies and investors."
"""Ananya Panday took to Instagram and wrote, ""Happiest birthday to the student I will always be crushing on""Taapsee Pannu shared a photo giving a throwback to Judwaa 2


""Arjun Kapoor shared an adorable photo and wrote, ""My Brother from another Mother… Humare Guruji, our #VDin3D the street dancer, the coolie, the marketer, the child who refuses to grow up… Happy Birthday @varundvn hope u lay the smack down on this coming year !!! Ps – This amazing double role image brought to u by @shanoosharmarahihai !!!""Kartik Aaryan wished Varun Dhawan with a tweet that read, ""Happy birthday my golden hearted friend @Varun_dvn, Keep spreading laughter and happiness""Producer Tanuj Garg wished Varun on Instagram"
"The numerous tax incentives are unlikely to have a huge effect on realty firms in the listed universe. Here’s why.


The extension of the tax exemption for affordable housing projects by one more year until FY20 may spur more projects in the segment. As it is, between Q2 FY18 and Q2 FY19, about 55% of home sales were from units priced less than ₹50 lakh across eight tier I cities in India.


However, higher sales volume would be offset by a fall in the average ticket size of residential units. According to Crisil Research, “For ticket size above ₹1 crore, the share of units launched between 2017 and 2018 declined to 10-15%, compared with 30-35% before 2017. The timeline extension will only support momentum in affordable housing."" Revenue and profit accretion would therefore take time, since this segment has much lower margins as well."
"The two smartphones come with similar specifications except their processors, displays and rear facing cameras


American smartphone maker Motorola Mobility launched two new smartphones this week—the Moto G7 and Moto One. The two smartphones are priced in the mid-range segment for budget phones, at ₹16,999 and ₹13,999 respectively.


The Moto One is the company's second Android One device in India, the first one being the Moto One Power. The Moto G7 is the company's latest addition to its G-series of smartphones in India. Motorola hasn't launched the two other smartphones in the Moto G family: the Moto G7 Plus and G7 Play. Motorola hasn’t yet mentioned when the two smartphones will launch in India."
"The Oppo F11 Pro will sport a motorised pop-up selfie camera along with a rear camera module which includes a 48MP sensor


The Oppo F11 Pro will sport a motorised pop-up selfie camera along with a rear camera module which includes a 48MP sensor. The rear camera module resembles the one found on the Vivo V11 Pro, which will be launched in India on 20 February. This shouldn't be a surprise, as the two companies belong to the same conglomerate—BBK Electronics that is based out of China."
"Compounding the issue is an information vacuum. Page Industries did not specify how much of an impact the accounting change had on its revenue. Further, as analysts at ICICI Securities point out, it stopped disclosing segment-wise data, making it difficult to track category-wise product growth.


This is fuelling concerns about growth momentum at its mainstay inner wear business, where companies such as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd are making headway.


Of course, the shift to the organized sector on the introduction of GST will create enough elbow room for all market participants. But the question for investors is whether Page Industries can retain its market share."
"In 2014, Kerala’s 20 Lok Sabha members were elected with an average of just 4% vote share margin, compared to the all-India average of 14%, according to a recent Hindustan Times analysis.


Kerala is the only large state, where the BJP has not been able to win a single Lok Sabha constituency despite a huge presence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Its vote share is only 10.8% in Kerala as of 2014.


“It (the 2019 Lok Sabha polls) is the most caste-based and communalized election in the recent past,"" said Kerala-based political analyst J. Prabhash.


“The BJP made its biggest effort to create a Hindu vote bank based on the Sabarimala issue. But we don’t know yet how the public is going to react. Now it is only on the realm of inferences. On one side, people had come out in favour of the court order. On the other, people had rallied in favour of the faith. A surge in turnout also indicate that there was some wave on the ground,"" he said."
"“Last time I voted for the BJP because I wanted to give them a chance, but I was not happy with what they did, especially with their religious agenda. I like the candidate this time, but I won’t vote for the BJP on principle, and I’ll vote a non-BJP and non-Congress party,"" said Dr. Meghana Reddy, 28, a voter from Hyderabad.


Reddy feels TRS supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao is on a “power trip"", but will nonetheless vote for that party. “There is power and electricity available now, unlike some years ago. So work has been done,"" she said.


Many like her from Hyderabad and other districts think that Rao has emerged as a leader who can possibly go on to the national stage as well."
"5G technology was used in a surgery conducted on a pig last year, when a doctor from 301 Hospital in Beijing removed part of a pig's liver using two robot arms in Fuzhou.


Beijing: The first remote surgery on a human using 5G technology was successfully conducted in China.


The surgery, a collaboration between tech companies Huawei and China Mobile, and the Chinese PLA General Hospital, was conducted on Saturday, the Global Times reported."
"Digital Wellbeing, gesture navigation and App Actions are Android One exclusive features, so Google didn’t make them available to the Nokia 8.


HMD Chief Product Officer Juho tweeted out that subsequent Android Pie builds will bring the missing features to the Nokia 8


Nokia 8Nokia 8 pieNokia 8 digital wellbeingNokia 8 gesture navigationNokia 8 App ActionsNokia smartphones"
"Shruti Haasan and her Italian boyfriend Michael Corsale have parted ways after dating for a couple of years


 Michael took to Twitter to talk about his break up but also said that Shruti will always be his best friend"
"Benguluru-based NoPo Nanotechnologies is driven by a vision to enable every human being to access space


Emotix is a robotics company focused on solving consumer problems by creating emotionally intelligent solutions


Emotix is a robotics company focused on solving consumer problems by creating emotionally intelligent solutions. Founded by three IIT Bombay post graduates in January 2015, Emotix’s products leverage proprietary artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and internet of things (IoT) solutions.


Their first product line, the Miko series of robots, targets the need of parents who seek a positive and trusted gateway of technology that caters to the learning and development needs of their children.


Emotix co-founder and CEO Sneh Vaswani says the firm’s latest product, Miko 2, is India’s “first advanced personal robot created... for global audiences that makes learning fun"". It can help revise educational concepts and coupled with conversational learning, ensures quick academic development of the child. With more sensors in the device, Miko allows video interactions, and parents can log into the robot, drive it around the house and keep a check on their child.


With a positive response from the Indian market, Emotix wants to bring its platform solutions to every household globally, with a vision of reaching 20 million homes across verticals such as childcare and elderly care by 2023."
"Director Raj Kumar Gupta is set to narrate a thrilling story inspired by real-life incidents in his upcoming project – India’s Most Wanted, starring Arjun Kapoor


 Gupta, who has helmed critically acclaimed films such as Aamir (2008), No One Killed Jessica (2011) and Raid (2018), said that India’s Most Wanted has an emotional cost attached to it"
"mint-india-wire smartphonessmartphones in 2018best smartphones in 2018iphone xsiphone xs maxoneplus 6thuawei mate 20 prosamsung galaxy note 9Realme 2 proOppo R17 ProVivo V11 Proin display finger print scannerfacial unlockingAndroid PieAndroid OreoGesture navigation5Gfoldable displays


New Delhi: When you take a look at the smartphones of the past few years, it’s not difficult to call out which one belonged to which era. Here’s a fun thing you can try out: here are six pictures with six smartphones belonging to different manufacturers and different years. Try to guess the year the smartphones were manufactured in:


The first smartphone in the first picture is the Samsung Galaxy S4 launched in 2013, the second is the iPhone 3GS launched in 2009 and then you have the Xiaomi Redmi 3 launched in 2015. In the second picture you have the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge launched in 2014, the Apple iPhone X launched in 2017 and finally the Huawei Mate 20 Pro launched in 2018.


As you can see, there is a gradual shift in design and aesthetics of smartphones, and lately, it’s been dictated by four aspects—screen-to-body ratios of the display, the front and rear camera placement, choice of back panel materials and textures, and finally biometric options like a fingerprint scanner.


Many people like to think the race to eliminate display bezels was kickstarted this year by two major players—Vivo and Oppo—two brands belonging to the same umbrella company, BBK Electronics. It is no surprise that the two brands share their resources, along with Realme and OnePlus.


Vivo in June announced the Vivo Nex—the world’s first smartphone to feature a motorised front facing camera. Since there was no camera to obstruct the front of the phone, the display could be stretched further to the bezels; in fact, the Nex has a screen-to-body ratio of 86%, the highest at the time of its launch.


As more manufacturers explored possibilities in this area, we received rather interesting devices like the Oppo Find X, the Honor Magic 2 and the Mi Mix 3.


While this was a feature many premium smartphones carried, manufacturers also made the notch ubiquitous in affordable smartphones—a feature that was a symbol of luxury, thanks to Apple iPhone X."
"If 'conflict' metals can be recovered from old phones, there'll be less incentive to mine gorilla habitats, says a new paper"
"WhatsApp is rumoured to incorporate a fingerprint lock mechanism within the app to address privacy concerns that plagued tech and social media firms for most of 2018.


The feature will come into play every time a user opens the app to check a message and removes the need to install a separate fingerprint lock app from Google Play or the App Store.


For a premium user experience WhatsApp Video Preview feature will enable users to see a video right from the notification tray. The current version of WhatApp allows viewing of only GIFs and images from the notification bar but not videos."
"”Talking about her funeral, he added, “Did you forget when the heroes where mourning for her after they returned from past? Maybe her funeral happened off screen


 Maybe it will be shown in future installments, because there are still tons of stories in MCU that are waiting to be told


”Why was Iron Man chosen to wield the Infinity Stones and could he be brought back using the Time Stone?“The reason we choose Iron Man in the end was because he was the closest one to Thanos at the time


 In all the futures, Doctor Strange foresaw Iron Man was the only one who could get close to Thanos and do the snap


 When his death was able to bring back hope, to save half of the universe, then his death was powerful and meaningful,” Joe Russo said"
"""The 27-inch iMac with Radeon Pro Vega now delivers up to 50% faster graphics performance,"" said Apple.


With up to 14.7 million pixels, one billion colours and 500 nits of brightness, iMac's Retina display aims to deliver an immersive experience and the ability to edit 4K video at full resolution.


macOS Mojave also brings iOS apps, including News, Stocks, Voice Memos and Home to the Mac and features a redesigned Mac App Store with addition of apps from top developers, including Microsoft and Adobe."
I had thought about going to New York and studying acting in a film school but things did not work out
"Gold prices on Thursday held near eight-month highs hit in the previous session, as the dollar weakened after the US Federal Reserve paused its monetary tightening cycle, putting bullion on course for its fourth straight monthly gain.


Spot gold was steady at $1,319.72 per ounce by 0308 GMT. Prices rose to their highest since May 11 at $1,323.34 on Wednesday. US gold futures were up 0.6% at $1,317.70 per ounce. Spot gold has risen 2.8% so far this month. The Fed held US interest rates steady on Wednesday but said it would be patient in lifting borrowing costs further this year as it pointed to rising uncertainty about the economic outlook.


""Gold is getting a double whammy from a dovish Fed and US-China trade talks. The US dollar has been sold off across the board, supporting gold,"" said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst, OANDA. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell after the Fed's cautious statement. Gold tends to rise on expectations of lower interest rates, which reduce the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion.


Meanwhile, attention turned towards the US and China high-level trade talks that began on Wednesday, aimed at digging out from their months-long trade war."
"You’ve Got Mail cast: Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, Dave Chappelle, Greg Kinnear
You’ve Got Mail director: Nora Ephron
You’ve Got Mail rating: 4 starsWhat would be the best romantic comedy to rewatch from the years gone by? Ideally, the kind that balances the excitement of meeting a perfect stranger through the internet with just a dash of nostalgia about how romance played itself out before social media


The Nora Ephron directorial is a winsome movie that perfectly encapsulates the angst of being in love with someone you think you can never be with


 However, despite all the obstacles, love ultimately wins, as it always does in case of romantic comedies"
"Created by David Guggenheim, the show is executive produced by Mark Gordon, Sutherland, Baer, Suzan Bymel, Simon Kinberg, Aditya Sood and Peter Noah"
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"Indians bought more than 140 million smartphones last year, with just 1.7 million sold by Apple, as consumers favored cheaper models from China. On Xiaomi Corp.’s Indian website, the Redmi Note 7 has a price of ₹9,999 ($143), which is a 10th the price of Apple’s iPhone Xs in the country.


In the first two months of 2019, Apple shipped about 150,000 devices in India and is likely to see about a 50 percent drop in the March quarter from the year earlier, according to Shah.


A spokeswoman for Apple didn’t respond to emailed questions about India production. Foxconn didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment."
"This industry is an industry built on human relationships and their dynamics but still, never take anything personally


 Don’t take things too deeply to your heart but at the same time, it is ok to feel as, after all, you are a human


”The Bollywood personality Katrina trusts completelyKatrina revealed she shares a good bond with director Zoya Akhtar


 She is a person who I may not speak to every day but I consider her a friend and someone who is on my side"
"~Fast moving consumer goods makers to deliver slower pace of growth as rural demand has tapered off, while lower sales realization and rupee appreciation kept the performance of metals producers subdued.


~Cement and power companies may report double-digit growth; IT firms to benefit from demand in U.S. market


~Telecom losses likely to have widened from a year earlier but be improved from the prior quarter due to higher tariffs


~January-March earnings will be a repeat of those seen in the previous quarter, with financials driving performance


~State-run banks will benefit from benign year-on-year comparisons, while non-bank finance companies may face “significant"" deceleration in profit growth


~Top large-cap picks: ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Maruti Suzuki, Titan, Coal India, Bharti Airtel, L&T, Infosys, ACC


~Top mid-cap ideas: Federal Bank, Shriram Transport, Godrej Agrovet, Indian Hotels, Marico, IGL, Exide, Jindal Steel, Alkem Lab"
"The company’s latest laptop is aimed at students from families with income of under ₹2 lakh income per annum. RDP worked with a team from IIT Bombay, to make a special version of the Thinbook, meant for college students and bulk orders.


Design: Out of the box, the Thinbook actually impresses in terms of design. While it has a plastic body, the focus here is on keeping things utilitarian, but functional. The laptop weighs just over 1kg, helping keep a student’s bag light. It’s also thin and compact enough, so that it fits in almost any college bag along with books.


Performance: A factor that limits the audience for this laptop, though, is that it runs Debian Linux—an operating system that not many are familiar with. That said, if the primary audience is students who will use this to practise coding and access the internet, this may not be a problem.


One could easily argue that the Thinbook is extremely slow, except that alternatives like those made by better-known brands such as iBall or Micromax aren’t much faster either. The Intel Atom processors in these laptops were originally designed as mobile alternatives to PC processors, and they function accordingly with desktop software. The laptop has 4GB of RAM, improving on its predecessor."
"Higher Ground Productions described the film, produced by Participant Media and directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, as “early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America


” The documentary was already shown at the Sundance Film Festival, and Higher Ground Productions said it would be its first release


Bloom: A drama series set in post-World War II New York that will explore the “barriers faced by women and by people of color in an era marked by hurdles but also tremendous progress"
"An October 2018 report by Sensor Tower said PUBG was the most downloaded game on Apple’s App Store in the first quarter of this year. It is among the top five most downloaded games on Android in India right now, according to Google Play rankings.


In India, people are playing the game mostly on their phones. While Puri plays PUBG on a OnePlus phone, Akash Kargupta, a fraud analyst with a multinational firm, plays it on his iPhone. Another player, Agnibh Mudi, plays on a much cheaper, Xiaomi Redmi 4 smartphone.


In a country where full-fledged online gaming events have often been hamstrung due to the low prize money, the total prize pool for the PUBG tournament was a whopping ₹ 50 lakh. According to players, PUBG’s simplicity keeps them engaged. The game doesn’t require you to spend hours on it. A half-an-hour session is about all it takes to finish a round and you don’t have to play every day, something Fortnite (a PUBG competitor) requires, according to Puri."
"Jersey movie cast: Nani, Shraddha Srinath, Sathyaraj
Jersey movie director: Gowtam Tinnanuri
Jersey movie rating: 4 starsAs a 90s kid, I could relate to the setting of Jersey


 I fondly remembered an era where people enjoyed the bliss of fewer options in the market before they were spoiled by the consumerist culture


 It was the time when people were not buying things just because it was ‘neighbour’s envy and owner’s pride’


Jersey is set in an era, where Sachin Tendulkar’s poster on the inside door of a cupboard and an action figure made out of flimsy plastic was enough to pamper a child on his birthday


 Nani (Ronit Kamra), however, begins to show signs of being influenced by the consumerist culture that was fast catching up in the country at the time"
"The latest OxygenOS Open Beta for OnePlus 6, 6T, 5 and 5T brings a new interface for the system updater and the extension of the quick reply feature in landscape mode."
"Unlike other manufacturers, though, Apple is doing this with its eSIM technology, except in China where the phone will have two actual SIM cards inside


mint-india-wire AppleApple dual SIM iPhonesApple IndiaApple eSIMsiPhone XSiPhone XS MaxiPhone XR4G connectivitytechnology


New Delhi: Let’s face it! Apple Inc. was never going to launch a “cheap"" iPhone for India. However, the company did effect one important change in its flagship device that makes sense in this country—iPhones now support two SIM cards."
"However, we noticed a significant frame drop when the laptop was running without the power adapters plugged in. This is because the laptop’s desktop-grade hardware requires the 330 watt and 180 watt adapters to be plugged in to deliver the best results. These two adapters are a lot bigger than regular laptop adapters, and carrying them with the laptop everywhere is going to be a challenge. The laptop’s cooling mechanism works pretty effectively and keeps the chassis cool.


The notebook runs Windows 10 and has a command centre tool where users can calibrate game controls, access all games from multiple platforms at one place and optimize and customize RGB lights. In the top variants, user gets up to 2TB SSD which is more than enough to house multiple AAA games simultaneously.


Display and keyboard: The 17.3-inch display offers an almost desktop-like experience, but the resolution is just about 1,920x1,080p. While some may lament the lack of 4K resolution, we didn’t really miss it as the colour reproduction and brightness levels were impressive. The wide viewing angles were good and the anti-glare coating ensures the screen does not reflect in brightly-lit rooms."
"— Honor 9N's 4GB RAM/64GB ROM variant is available at ₹9,499, ₹4,500 down from its launch price of ₹13,999.


— Honor 9 Lite's 4GB RAM /64GB ROM variant is priced at Rs. 9,499 as well, with a discount of ₹5,500. Honor 9i's 4GB/64GB variant is listed at ₹10,999 while the Honor 10 6GB/128GB variant is priced at ₹24,999.


— Honor 10 Lite's 4GB RAM/ 64GB RAM is priced at ₹12,999 while Honor 7A's 3GB RAM/32GB ROM variant is priced at ₹6,999. Honor 7S' 2GB RAM/16GB ROM variant is available at ₹5,499."
"Actor Pankaj Tripathi, who plays the role of a laundryman in Abhiroop Basu’s Laali, says it took him just a moment to say yes to the short film


 The producers of the film Sireesha Kadiyala, Madhu Singhee and Sushila Jain are group of three young ambitious women who approached me for this film and narrated me the story at the Mumbai Airport in a span of 45 minutes and I agreed to play the part in Laali instantly,” Tripathi said in a statement"
"It was a long wait for Alia, who had auditioned for Bhansali’s 2005 movie Black at the age of nine, but was rejected


Talking about how her pairing with Salman will be presented in the film, Alia says, “I don’t want to talk much about it"
"Interestingly, this comes a year after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was found permanently deleting his messages amidst the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This was seen as a breach of trust been Facebook executives and users and so, in an interview with TechCrunch, Facebook revealed its plans to introduce this feature soon to everyone.


We can also see this as the next step in the unification of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp messengers as Instagram and WhatsApp already have had this functionality for quite a while."
"Xiaomi is all set to target all the price points in the sub- ₹15,000 segment with the Redmi Note 7 and Redmi Go..


Even after teasing the Redmi Note 7 on multiple occasions on social media, Xiaomi hasn't put out a final date of launch for the smartphone. Xiaomi Global VP Manu Kumar Jain teased the launch of the Note 7 in a tweet in January.


In an upside down post with an attached photo showing a smartphone with a dual gradient back, Kumar in January tweeted ""We’re gonna turn this industry upside down"". He also highlighted the device's 48MP camera, confirming the fact it is in fact the Redmi Note 7. Manu stood next to Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun in the tweet."
"I’ve written about the futility of cash transfers and how they do not help. Both parties are ambivalent on how the expenditure will be funded, or they will continue alongside existing subsidies. Partisan economists on both sides are busy picking holes in the other party’s scheme without recognizing the inherent weakness of all cash transfers.


In trying to hard-sell their own versions of the cash transfer schemes, both parties have unwittingly revealed their characteristic frailties. The BJP announced the scheme only for farmers with 2 hectares but has now promised to expand it to all farmers. The fine print in the Congress scheme discloses that actual payouts are likely to be delayed with the means-testing taking some time.


The overall tenor of the BJP manifesto is meant to appeal to the majoritarian, urban middle class with national security concerns, rather than a sluggish economy, occupying headlines. The 2014 manifesto had some pretensions of universality, which ""Sankalp Patra"" dispenses with.


The Congress manifesto, on the other hand, is bound together with a more inclusive and humane thread but is weighed down by one key genetic flaw: a subtle patronizing attitude, which is highlighted when the manifesto talks about enforcing anti-corruption laws without a tinge of irony."
"Xiaomi will also launch the Mi 9 Explorer Edition with a see-through back panel. The transparent glass in the Mi 8 Explorer lets you see the insides of the smartphone, which comprise a dummy electronics module. The dummy electronics module is printed and the actual electronics sit below this covering."
"Some of the company’s product launches have received a good response in the market. The management highlighted that almost all its product categories experienced double-digit growth. Sales have been particularly strong in product categories such as prepared dishes, beverages, chocolates and milk products, thanks to its strong brands.


The good news is that analysts are once again raising the optimism bar on Nestlé India’s revenue growth due to its string of product launches.The company has been focusing on increasing market share over profitability. “We like the improving execution of Nestlé and the focus on driving volumes and top line. Although margins would see an impact in the interim, we believe it is necessary for creating new growth drivers and increasing the overall share of growth from new categories,"" said Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd in a note to clients."
Developing its own mobile phone chips instead of using outsourced ones allows Huawei to keep more of its revenue and reduces the risk of disruption of U.S. supplies.
"She flits between being sombre, petulant, compassionate and jealous and is particularly watchable in her scenes with her tenant (Pankaj Tripathi)


 Though she remains uneven as the quasi-narrator of the story (she reads letters written to the announcer aloud), the pathos in her eyes fill in the silences like very few things do


 She makes loneliness seem both generic and universal and not as the effect of the cause that is solitude


Nag’s film soars precisely for revealing that it is loneliness that is inherent and infuriatingly constant, that it is not related to waiting for someone and is not dispelled when someone arrives"
"However, the superstar will be teaming up with music composer Anirudh Ravichander for the second time after the success of their last venture Petta"
"The decision had threatened to add to the rising tensions between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) whose leaders and workers are unwilling to overcome past differences and work with each other despite the state level coalition.


Tumakuru fell in the share of the JD(S) as part of the coalition seat sharing agreement and former Prime Minister H.D.Deve Gowda has announced his candidature from the seat.


Muddahanumegowda said that he had pulled out of the race after Congress president Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary (Organisation) K.C.Venugopal spoke to him and in the larger interest of the party. However, he sounded unsure of his own participation in the campaign to help Deve Gowda win. His displeasure of being denied a seat despite his performance likely to have larger implications in the district and adding to the disgruntlement of its workers who have made their reservations public."
"”Avengers: Endgame is meanwhile breaking box office records almost daily and it has only been three days


 It has broken the record for the biggest box office opening of all time at the worldwide box office with its first weekend collection of 1"
"Sriram Raghavan’s dark comedy Andhadhun, starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu and Radhika Apte, is having a remarkable run at the Chinese box office


 In fact, it has become the third highest grossing Indian film in China, crossing the Rs 300 crore mark in the country"
"“Expiry Prime Minister, keep in mind that it does not bode well for the PM to lie. I challenge you that our government has done more work in 100 days than you in five years and we are number 1. You don’t know West Bengal… I am not Modi, I don’t tell lies... You made a fool of people and garnered votes,"" she added.


During Modi’s day-long campaign, he said that opposition parties were coming together against him because his government at the centre had provided homes, toilets, electricity and gas cylinders to the poor.


“Some people, who were opposing Modi, are now working against the interest of the country. They doubt air strikes, surgical strikes and doubt the achievements of our soldiers. Didi and her supporters are saying things against India because they are losing political ground in this election,"" Modi said in Kolkata."
"According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film elaborates on the themes of friendship and respect, which were at the centre of Nakache and Toledano’s French box office blockbusters The Intouchables


The Specials will screen after the festival’s closing ceremony May 25 and the announcement of the Palme d’Or"
"The new Pure Cool also has a uni-body design, so the top and bottom halves can no longer be separated. Graphics: Sarvesh Kumar Sharma/Mint


Better sensors detect changes in air quality faster. With constantly shifting readings on the screen, you feel it works


mint-india-wire DysonDyson products in IndiaDyson Air PurifierDyson Pure Cool LinkAir Purifiers in IndiaAir Quality Indexvacuum cleanershair dryers


New Delhi: Dyson Inc. of the UK entered India less than six months back but it’s already revamping its product line, which includes air purifiers, vacuum cleaners and hair dryers."
"Only a handful of stocks, including RIL, Infosys Ltd. and TCS have driven the gains in the NSE Nifty 50 Index


The market may begin to broaden now that the Nifty has reclaimed the key psychological level of 11,000


Mumbai: The benchmark equity gauge of India’s 50 biggest companies reclaimed the 11,000 level after four months on Wednesday, but not all investors are celebrating."
"Nobody: The user will always receive an invitation when someone wants to add them to a group. The user cannot be automatically added to a group.


My contacts: The user can be added to a group by people from his contacts. The user will receive an invitation to join a group if the person is not his contact list."
"New Delhi: Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus on Tuesday launched the OnePlus 6T—an upgrade to the OnePlus 6 launched earlier this year. The OnePlus 6T comes in three storage variants—6GB/128GB priced at ₹ 37,999, 6GB/256GB priced at ₹ 41,999 and 8GB/256GB priced at ₹ 45,999. The OnePlus 6T will be available exclusively on Amazon starting 1 November and will go on open sale starting 3 November on offline (Reliance Digital) and online channels.


It has been raining smartphones in the premium segment in the last couple of months. After the Apple iPhone XS (review) series and iPhone XR (review), Google Pixel 3 and 3XL (review), and Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro, it is time for the OnePlus 6T. As expected, the smartphone will replace the OnePlus 6, which was launched six months ago, as the OnePlus flagship in the market.


While it retains most of the design element of the OnePlus 6, it manages to look new, thanks to the teardrop-shaped notch on the top. It takes a lot less space than the earlier notch. However, not all apps support the teardrop and one can see black bars at the top while using them. Also, the lower bezels (sometimes called the chin of the phone) are slimmer than the predecessor, giving users a slightly bigger (6.4-inch) screen to fiddle with, but in the same overall size."
"DLF launched its QIP on Monday at a floor price of ₹193.01 per equity share but said it might offer a discount of up to 5% on the floor price


New Delhi: Realty major DLF's QIP issue has been subscribed over two times, enabling the company to raise around ₹3,200 crore.


On Monday, DLF, the country's largest real estate firm in market value, had launched its qualified institutional placement (QIP) offering up to 17.3 crore shares to investors.


According to market sources, the DLF's QIP offer has been over-subscribed by two times at a price of around ₹183-184 apiece."
"It incorporates a 3rd Gen Qualcomm AI Engine, Qualcomm Spectra 165 ISP (Image Signal Processor) and Qualcomm Hexagon 686 DSP (Digital Signal Processor).


Qualcomm says that the new AI engine offers up to 2X faster AI processing. The AI engine, combined with the new ISP also offers better AI scene recognition, AR text translation and portrait relighting. The chipset is now capable of supporting 4K video capture, 720p slo-mo video capture @240fps, 3D face unlock, multiple camera support (up to three cameras), multi-frame noise reduction and spatial noise processing. It can support sensors with up to 48 megapixels resolution. It also comes with an X12 LTE modem module capable of WiFi speeds up to 600 Mbps.


Support for Vulkan 1.1, a graphics library that integrates enhanced developer tools results in 20% less power than Open GL ES. This means it can offer better graphics and longer battery life while gaming.


The Snapdragon 730 is an octa-core processor based on an 8nm process. It is powered by eight Kryo 470 cores that can be clocked up to 2.2 GHz. It is paired with an Adreno 618 GPU with support for Vulkan 1.1. It can support up to 8GB RAM with speeds up to 1866 MHz."
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows his ink-marked finger after casting his vote outside a polling station during the third phase of general election in Ahmedabad, (Reuters)


In all, 188 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in 117 constituencies during the day across 15 states


BJP has aggressively pushed Modi's national security record as it seeks to offset the opposition's charges of economic mishandling


New Delhi: Voting began in the third and largest phase of India's staggered general election on Tuesday, including in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat and in opposition Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi's seat in Kerala.


In all, 188 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in 117 constituencies during the day across 15 states and federally controlled territories. India's parliament has 545 members."
"The smartphones are powered by Samsung's in-house Exynos processors and sport dual cameras at the back with an ultra-wide lens


Samsung on Monday launched a brand new series of smartphone in India—the Samsung Galaxy M-series. This is the first smartphone launch event of the Korean smartphone maker in India this year and the smartphones are aimed at the millennials, hence the moniker M. The two smartphones in the series, the Samsung Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 start at ₹7,990 and ₹10,990 respectively. This is a heavily populated segment of the market where Chinese budget champs like the Redmi Note 5, Redmi 6 and 6 Pro, Realme 2, Realme 1 are well established.


The Samsung Galaxy M20 is priced at ₹12,990 for the 4GB/64GB variant, while the 3GB/32GB variant costs ₹10,990. Galaxy M10 is priced at ₹8,990 for the 3GB/32GB variant and ₹7,990 for the 2GB/16GB. The smartphones would be available on Amazon.in and Samsung.com from 5 February, 2019.


The Samsung Galaxy M20 comes with a 6.3-inch FHD+ Infinity-V display. The Infinity-V is basically Samsung's rendition of the teardrop notch. The Galaxy M10 has a lower spec 6.2-inch HD+ display with the same Infinity-V notch."
"From Ajith’s ‘I am back’ punchline to Vijay’s action sequence from Mersal, the star comedian strikes a chord"
"Among smart beds, Sleep Number 360 is quite popular in the US. It uses a proprietary Responsive Air tech to sense a user’s posture and movement, and then automatically adjusts the firmness and support for greater comfort. It can also tilt the head side of the bed upwards if it “hears"" the user snore and switches on the foot warmer if the user’s legs are cold. It has built-in sensors called Sleep IQ to monitor the user’s heart rate, breathing, movement and sleep quality. It is available in the US for $999.


Then there is the Sunrise smart pillow, which is slightly curved in the middle to provide more ergonomic support. The pillow has LED lights built into the sides that gradually brighten to simulate a natural wake-up process. It can also monitor the sleep quality, read out e-books and has a built-in alarm. Then there are anti-snoring pillows, which monitor breathing and gently turn the head to the side if the user starts snoring.


“Turning of the head to the side increases the gap between the tongue and throat, which stops the vibration of the soft tissues in the upper airways and reduces the snoring sound as well as allows better breathing,"" said Dr Sandeep Nayar, director and head of Centre for Chest and Respiratory Diseases at BLK Super Speciality Hospital in Delhi.


Another interesting innovation in sleep-tech is smart night pyjamas such as Restore. Developed by sleepwear company Lunya, Restore is made of cotton and Celliant, a synthetic fibre made from polyethylene terephthalate, with optically active particles embedded into the core. It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017. It can absorb and convert body heat into infrared energy and then recycle that energy back into the body for sound sleep. It can also increase oxygen levels to help relax the muscles."
"Prakash Behera, a legislator who left the Congress for BJP last month, agreed. “Several workers and leaders, who were working for the party, were ignored and their concerns not addressed, forcing them to leave the party,"" said Behera, adding that the party leadership in the state seemed to be favouring their own families while selecting candidates.


There is a buzz in the state about how the Congress abandoned its new “one family, one ticket"" rule. Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik is fighting from two assembly seats. His son is fighting as a Congress candidate from Balasore Lok Sabha constituency. Senior Congress leader Bhakta Charan Das is contesting from Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat and his son Sagar Das is fighting the assembly elections from Bhawanipatna, a segment in Kalahandi. Among others, the father-son duo of George and Rohit Tirkey is contesting for Lok Sabha and assembly elections."
"“Info Edge’s Ebitda missed our estimate by 6%, mainly because of higher ad expenses, up 25% QoQ and 97% YoY. Management noted a higher spend in Jeevansathi, in particular, leading to a sharp increase in losses, in response to greater competitive intensity,"" said Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd in a note to clients.


Thanks to all the valuation gains, the Info Edge stock is quoting at a rich one-year forward valuation of around 63 times earnings. However, the rise in valuations at this point perhaps reflects more-than-higher expectations built in as a result of Zomato’s recent funding round."
"And after this is all done, this movie is done, those moments will still continue with my friendships and bonds that I have created with a whole lot of amazing, wonderful people


”The trailers of Avengers: Endgame show Jeremy Renner training a girl, who presumably, turns to dust in the aftermath of the snap"
"Each new app is another revenue opportunity for Apple because it takes a cut of many app-related purchases and subscriptions. The company has positioned its services division as a major growth area. It plans to announce two new services — a premium Apple News subscription offering and an original video content initiative — at the end of March, Bloomberg News reported recently.


Later this year, Apple plans to let developers port their iPad apps to Mac computers via a new software development kit that the company will release as early as June at its annual developer conference. Developers will still need to submit separate versions of the app to Apple’s iOS and Mac App Stores, but the new kit will mean they don’t have to write the underlying software code twice, said the people familiar with the plan.


In 2020, Apple plans to expand the kit so iPhone applications can be converted into Mac apps in the same way. Apple engineers have found this challenging because iPhone screens are so much smaller than Mac computer displays.


By 2021, developers will be able to merge iPhone, iPad, and Mac applications into one app or what is known as a “single binary."" This means developers won’t have to submit their work to different Apple App Stores, allowing iOS apps to be downloaded directly from Mac computers — effectively combining the stores."
"Trend Micro researchers, too, pointed out last month that IoT has given rise to complex IoT environments (CIE) comprising at least 10 IoT devices that are functionally chained together and integrated into an environment using an IoT automation platform. For instance, a smart home has an internet connection throughout the entire CIE, which requires Ethernet or fiber wiring and modems and Wi-Fi routers.


Devices integrated into the environment can include a gateway, smart bulbs, smart locks, speakers and TVs. The complexity afforded by automation platforms, note Trend Micro researchers, expands the possibilities in smart homes and buildings and other setups in various settings. However, they caution that the increasing complexity with each additional device and automation rule also means an expanding attack surface.


For instance, if smart locks are installed and connected to the CIE, attackers could modify automation rules that would allow them entry into the home and make the sensors either recognize them as one of the homeowners or leave the doors unlocked. Attackers could also analyze and clone the owner’s voice and play the resulting sound file to bypass any voice recognition checks by connected devices in the CIE.


Homeowners, thus, should check automation rule files and make backups, advise the Trend Micro researchers. They should also enable two-factor authentication where applicable."
"The consolidation in the sector has hit tenancies and revenues, with companies such as Vodafone Idea Ltd getting rid of duplicate tower infrastructure. For Infratel, this meant that the sharing factor in the total tower base declined from 2.25 at the end of FY18 to 1.87 last fiscal (FY19). Total co-locations on the company’s towers dropped as much as 16% last quarter from the same period last year.


The impact of this will continue to be felt by Bharti Infratel. Several customer tenancies are in their notice period. Technically this lets Bharti Infratel to continue charge them. But such revenues will cease once the contracts end, further eroding Bharti Infratel’s earnings. “There were as many as 4,308 tenancies for which the company received exit notices, but were billed during 4QFY19. This is nearly 2.5% of the company's end-4QFY19 tenancy base. EBITDA could go down another 3-3.5% when billing on these tenancies stops,"" analysts at Kotak added."
"Google is testing a new feature, “Navigation suggestions for lookalike URLs"", that detects lookalike URLs (uniform resource locators) and flags them. It has rolled out Password Checkup, which tells users if their passwords have been compromised. The Chrome team is testing a “Never Slow Mode"" that trims resource-intensive web pages by limiting the resources to be allocated to images, style sheet, scripts and fonts. Google is changing the way ad-blocking extensions work by enforcing a new application programming interface (API) for extensions to enhance performance and user privacy.


Registering fake web pages with similar domain names is a common tactic used by hackers to lure users on to malicious web pages. Google’s move will help users who do not carefully read the URL names. Similarly, the Password Checkup feature will tell users which passwords are not safe any more, so that they can change or update them. With the new features, Google is trying to add a few extra layers of security within the Chrome browser. With Chrome version 68, rolled out in October 2018, it has started labelling all non-https (hypertext transfer protocol secure) websites as not secure."
"Cook at the Time 100 Summit in NYC said we have to be intellectually honest and admit that what we're doing isn't working


He said he does not promote going overboard with depending on the government or leveraging the government with favours for improving data privacy


San Francisco: Apple CEO Tim Cook believes that governments need to regulate technology in order to ensure data privacy for common people."
China-US trade tensions have rattled financial markets since last year and also underpinned the dollar's safe-haven appeal.
"In the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the ruling TRS led by Rao, is looking to win 16 out of the 17 parliament seats in Telangana


Pitching his idea for a non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front, Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Sunday said that he will launch a new national front after the results of upcoming general elections are out. Rao censured both the BJP and Congress, and went on to call both prime minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi “thieves""."
"Sumit Saini, Hargun Kaur, Simran Choudhary and Adnan Ahmad are the finalists who will battle it out for the top spot"
"Apple is also working on redesigning the printed circuit boards to be included in 2019 iPhone models using a new kind of material to clear out space for a bigger battery, he added.


In addition to Kuo's predictions, the iPhone maker is also working on improving the cameras on its 2019 phone line-up.


While the front camera would be upgraded from 7MP to 12MP, the triple-camera set-up would be implemented in the upcoming 6.5-inch and 5.8-inch OLED iPhones, along with a new super-wide 12MP lens."
"India is one of the largest gold importers in the world, and the imports mainly take care of demand from the jewellery industry. Gems and jewellery exports too dipped by 4% to $32.9 billion during the 10 months of the current fiscal.


India's current account deficit (CAD), or the difference between outflow and inflow of foreign exchange in the current account, widened to 2.9% of the GDP in the second quarter of the fiscal, against 1.1% in the year-ago period, mainly due to a large trade deficit.


In volume terms, the country's total gold imports increased by 22.43% to 955.16 tonnes in 2017-18. It stood at 780.14 tonnes in 2016-17."
"An economic slowdown doesn’t bode well for any risky asset class and these FII inflows will peter out if concerns about a recession in the US do not recede.


“There isn’t much room below 68.50/USD for the rupee to appreciate. China has been on a weak footing as far as growth is concerned. Even on the trade war front, things haven’t been sorted out completely. So these will likely remain the risks for the Indian rupee. We see the rupee ending 2019 at 73/USD. Being a high-yield currency, it would have natural depreciation pressures,"" said Sajal Gupta, head (forex and rates) at Edelweiss Securities Ltd."
"On the ground, the core support base of the BJP feels that the combination of Modi and Kumar gives the alliance the edge and the policy schemes of the central government, particularly rural electrification, adds its weight.


“Bihar is a contest between two alliances. One alliance has a prime minister and another has too many prime ministerial candidates. For people like us, the choice is clear as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done good work while the opposition camp is only about a few leaders coming together to defeat Modi,"" said Vijay Kumar, a seed shop owner in Danapur. The lack of a cohesive and larger opposition narrative other than ousting Modi is a factor in Bihar too as in other states.


Kumar could be a decisive factor for the NDA’s performance in the polls. While he is a popular chief minister who has returned to power, a section of voters hold it against him that he switched sides to join the NDA in 2015 after ditching the RJD-Congress combine.


“In 2014, in the general election, BJP got a lot of traction because the opposition camp was totally fragmented. This time what also matters is whether Nitish Kumar’s return to NDA bolsters its chances or not. While some in my village feel it has helped NDA, others feel Kumar could damage their prospects as he betrayed the mandate of 2015,""said Badri Narayan Shah, a farm labourer from Mehia village near Chapra."
"In a BSE filing, the company said it is seeking shareholders' approval for buying back up to 32,30,76,923 fully paid-up equity shares of ₹2 each, representing up to 5.35 per cent of the total paid-up equity share capital of the company, at a price of ₹325 per scrip, for an aggregate amount of up to ₹10,500 crore.


The company has fixed April 19, 2019 as record cut-off date for eligible shareholders for the buyback plan."
"If you ever look at your Android phone’s app collection, you might be surprised to find the number of unknown or “ghost"" apps the phone has. Not all of them are bloatware. There are some apps that Google places for specific purposes. You don’t see these apps as icons on the screen, but they perform important functionalities that you should know about.


Android Accessibility Suite: Earlier called Google TalkBack, it is meant for people with disabilities. It lets your phone read/describe things on the screen aloud, gives you vibration feedback and more. It also allows “switch access"", which lets you control your phone with an external device."
"When Udaipur goes to polls on Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be looking to break a pattern. Since the 1996 general elections, voters in the Lok Sabha constituency have always made sure they chose a new party and a new member of Parliament every five years.


“The Udaipur Lok Sabha seat mirrors the electoral pattern of the state of Rajasthan in the assembly elections. People like to change governments every five years so that politicians are held accountable and continue to work for them. This time, though, we may see a different pattern in Udaipur. People here are happy with the way the government has worked. This is the land of Maharana Pratap who was known for his bold steps, so we should get a government like that as well,"" said Parsavnath Mehta, a shopkeeper in Udaipur. (READ MORE)"
"The XR screen also falls short of full high definition, unlike the XS displays, although it can display video at 720p quality. Apple says that with LCD screens, higher resolution drains the battery faster, a trade-off that's minimal with the XS because its screen doesn't need a backlight.


That said, the differences are often hard to spot, even with the phones side by side. Where quality really matters, you'll probably want a bigger screen such as a tablet or a TV anyway.


Although the Max has the largest battery in an iPhone, the XR was typically on par with or exceeded the Max in battery performance when viewing video, especially at lower or medium brightness. In any case, either phone should give you enough battery life for routine use.


Cameras improve with each generation, and the new iPhones are no different. For many shots, the new iPhones blend four exposures rather than two, allowing for better lighting balance and more detail. In some shots taken in suboptimal conditions — against direct sunlight — the XR still showed trees in dimly lit areas, while last year's iPhone X produced pitch back. The new cameras also have better focus and low-light capabilities."
"It is a fabulous role,” Sonakshi said, adding she was approached for a film on the same story in the past"
"“We need 2,000 to 2,500 litres of diesel for a two-week trip. All the costs for a fishing expedition, including food, wages and diesel, add up to ₹2 lakh or ₹2.25 lakh for a single trip,"" said Satish Patil, a fisherman who owns two boats. “Most trips barely cover the costs.""


Machimar or the fishing community accounts for a sixth or 42,000 of the city’s 246,119 votes. This seems like a substantial vote bank but for politicians, it’s not large enough. The city of Porbandar, along with six land-locked municipalities that comprise Porbandar district, has a total of 16.6 million voters. The number of fisherfolk votes in the district total about 65,000. This is one reason why the concerns of fishermen are not on the agenda of either the BJP or Congress as the state prepares to vote on 23 April. How does the fishing community plan to address this issue?


“We have many options. One way is to decide as a block that we will not vote. We’ll see what happens. But this issue needs to be addressed immediately,"" says Modi. A fisherman’s life, even if you own a boat, is no longer a respectable profession, and for this reason, most members of this community do not want their children to get into fishing. The number of fishermen in the district is increasing but it’s because of immigrants from neighbouring districts and states rather than the local communities themselves teaching their children the skills and traditional knowledge of the sea .


“I have two children. The older one is 17 and the younger one is 11 years old. Both are studying in private schools. With all these hardships we face as a community, none of us fishermen who can afford to offer a better life to our children will let them come into this business."""
"The government has already floated two ETFs — CPSE ETF and Bharat-22 ETF — which have mopped up ₹17,000 crore and ₹8,325 crore respectively this fiscal.


""You should not see ETF as an individual share. In an ETF, we bring all the shares together to reduce the systemic risk,"" he said, adding that DIPAM is looking at the possibility of forming basket of shares from the same sector and design an index.


Chakraborty further said the government is also examining the possibility of listing the existing ETFs on overseas bourses."
"The EC announced seven phased national polls on Sunday evening along with four state assembly elections including Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. While the number of phases has been reduced from nine previously, most states are witnessing more number of phases.


Among all states the most staggered polls are in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal which have seven phase polling. This effectively means the states will go to the polls on each of the polling dates in the election schedule.


""I have been informed by some senior journalists that there will be another strike. What strike I will not say. In the name of so-called. So-called. So-called. In the month of April. That is why it (voting process) will continue till May 19,"" West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters in a controversial remark in Kolkata on Monday according to a news report by Press Trust of India."
"Haryana has gifted a memorable phrase to Indian politics, “aaya Ram, gaya Ram"". A humorous and yet a telling commentary, it refers to a turncoat and is inspired by a member of the state’s legislature, Gaya Lal, changing parties thrice within a fortnight in 1967. Considering that Jats dominate the state’s politics, it is difficult for them to accept a non-Jat as a chief minister—the current CM is a Punjabi. Haryana, like Punjab, is home to self-styled godmen such as Rampal and Guru Ram Rahim Singh Ji, who have a dedicated following and can influence voting. Both Rampal and Ram Rahim are in jail.


BJP, Congress and Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) are the three main parties. The Jannayak Janta Party and the Aam Aadmi Party have formed an alliance."
"Copper was slightly lower at $6,465 a tonne, aluminium added 1.8% to $1,904, lead rose 1.3% to $2,111


London: Zinc prices held close to an eight-month high on Wednesday as sinking stocks of the metal on the London Metal Exchange (LME) market fuelled supply concerns even as inventories grew elsewhere.


Inventories of zinc in warehouses certified by the LME touched 58,950 tonnes, their lowest since October 2007.


This boosted the premium for cash zinc over the three-month LME contract to $52 per tonne on Tuesday, its highest on 8 January."
"There will also be new features that are tailored to different kinds of groups. “Through new Health Support groups, members can post questions and share information without their name appearing on a post. Job groups will have a new template for employers to post openings, and easier ways for job seekers to message the employer and apply directly through Facebook. Gaming groups will get a new chat feature so members can create threads for different topics within the group,"" the company wrote.


Lastly, the company is adding a “Meet New Friends"" option that allow people to “start friendships with new people from their shared communities like a school, workplace or city"". This is an opt-in feature, meaning you will only see people who have opted in to this feature.


For Instagram, Facebook seems to be taking a more engagement focused route. At F8, the company announced that it will be removing the like counts of photos and videos from profiles, feeds and permalinked pages. The company wants followers to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get"". The feature will be under test in Canada right now.


Furthermore, the app will have a new “Create Mode"", which is meant for influencers to make posts directly from the app instead of using external sources. The company is also redesigning the app’s camera."
"Varun Dhawan shared this video of himself dancing to a pop number and wrote, “17 seconds mein itna naacha #Sd3 #NEWSCHOOL


”Malaika Arora shared this commercial on her Instagram handle and wrote, “Is there a more perfect way to embrace the chill summertime vibes? Thank you @storiafoods, cause paradise is now a sip away!”Arjun Kapoor shared a clip of his upcoming thriller India’s Most Wanted and wrote in the caption, “Distance cannot destroy his determination"
"Shreyas, 43, made his directorial debut with 2017’s Hindi film Poster Boys featuring Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol and himself"
"The search engine giant began testing the feature ahead of its Google Marketing Live event which is scheduled to be held on May 14 where the company is expected to announce over 10 new digital marketing products.


Amazon's growing advertisement business could have prompted Google to start focusing on other revenue streams since ads are a key source of its income, the report added."
Actors Evangeline Lilly and Ike Barinholtz are set to play the lead roles in the independent comedy Happy Life
"Jadhav’s resignation brings the total of the lower house to 223 seats and the JD(S)-Congress tally to 116 (excluding the speaker). The BJP has 104 seats and is hoping to capitalise on the friction between the coalition partners and dissent within the Congress to its own advantage and help it form the government in Karnataka, that is considered the gateway into other south Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where it is trying to win some representation in the upcoming polls.


Meanwhile, the Congress and JD(S) said that its seat sharing discussions were moving in the ‘right direction"" even though JD(S) supremo and former PM H.D.Deve Gowda has already made his intent clear to discuss seat sharing only with Rahul Gandhi and not with any state leaders.


Even though the discussions are yet to conclude, the JD(S) has already announced the Nikhil Kumar, son of Kumaraswamy and Prajwal Revanna, son of H.D.Revanna will be contesting from Mandya and Hassan, heralding the entry of the third generation of politicians from the Gowda household."
"The company added that it expects allotment to be made on or around May 6, 2019, as mentioned in the offer document"
"The four seats—Wayanad, Alappuzha, Attingal and Vadakara— were finally settled on Tuesday, after about three days long discussions, two Congress leaders told Mint, declining to be named. The party is expected to officially release these names later today: T. Siddique from Wayanad, Shanimol Usman from Alappuzha, Adoor Prakash from Attingal and K Muraleedharan from Vadakara, they said.


In the first list, Congress had chosen some heavyweights for the poll contest in Kerala, such as sitting MP Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram and former MP K Sudhakaran from Kannur. It also led to some crisis moments as sitting MP from Ernakulam KV Thomas was axed, and which sent a buzz of his leaving the party and defecting to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But eventually, Thomas was pacified by the leadership.


The inordinate delay of the list is a result of the pitched fight between the two groups in Congress, the 'I' group led by opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and the 'A' group led by former chief minister Oommen Chandy. For example, both groups wanted to field their loyalists in Wayanad, ending up in a tussle. In the words of Congress leaders Joseph Vazhakkan, even a broom fielded under Congress name can win from Wayanad this time. Chandy wanted to field his loyalist T. Siddique from there but the 'I' group was unwilling to part away from its sitting seat."
"The back of the phone features a 12MP+13MP AI enabled dual camera with Optical Image Stabilisation. The lens of the rear camera is made by ZEISS. The front camera is an AI-enabled 20MP clicker.


The phone runs Android One and has already received the Pie upgrade. The Android One badge also means the smartphone is on the priority list for the latest security and firmware upgrades from Google."
"As for AI stagnation, I think the area to watch there would be examples of companies that are looking at one-dimensional automation—just looking say at the back-office side and the cost side. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a great tool but our view is that you need to look at RPA + analytics + AI. It’s the combination that will give you value.


We believe 90% of jobs will change because of AI but only about 15% of jobs will go away, though that’s a lot of jobs.


From a survey we did, we found that in India, for example, 80% executives believe the workforce isn’t ready for AI. In the rest of the world, that’s 65%. But in India, hardly any company is investing in training the workforce. The rest of the world is no better—only 2%.


People appreciate the problem and understand that the workforce isn’t ready but they are not taking enough action to reskill their people. We believe that’s a big challenge, grand challenge of our generation."
"In a previous post, Lu mentioned something about a Redmi 855 with ""stronger performance, longer battery life, better camera, higher screen ratio"". Would the Redmi X be the Redmi 855? Seems likely."
"Actor-writer Kumail Nanjiani praised the power of diversity and called on the industry to do better in terms with inclusion, saying “everyone named Chris” had all the power in Hollywood


The Pakistani-American was speaking at The Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural Empowerment in Entertainment gala Tuesday"
"He also served as an off-camera consultant on the final 2017 film in the series, The Last Jedi, helping to tutor his successor in the Chewbacca role on the ways of convincingly playing a Wookiee"
"Union Minister and BJP leader JP Nadda shows the first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, at party office in New Delhi. (PTI)


The BJP announced a total of 184 names in its first list including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah


BENGALURU: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced 21 out of the 28 candidates for Karnataka and retaining 14 sitting members of parliament, indicating how the outfit was forced to continue with the same people despite anti-incumbency and opposition against several leaders from within its own party.


Karadi Sanganna Amarappa, the sitting MP from Koppal has been left out of the first list of those it named to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to begin from the second week of April."
"The Indian smartphone market has seen a plethora of Chinese smartphone companies coming in due to Xiaomi Corp’s success. The company, which entered in India in July 2014, initially used sell its products through online marketplaces. Today it targets to get half of its revenue share from offline channels. The company currently has about 1,500 stores and targets to sell products through a total of 10,000 retail touch-points by this year end, according to Mint.


Seeing this success brands including Vivo, Oppo, One Plus and Real Me also forayed into India killing the Indian smartphones makers like Micromax and Lava. Success of these Chinese companies is giving tough competition to former market leader Samsung. To keep up with heating competition Samsung did a major revamp in its strategy and launched M-series and A-series, which targets the younger population."
"Here’s praying & hoping for a terror free world!”Swara Bhasker tweeted, “Heartbreaking & tragic news from #SriLanka Curses upon the monsters who carried out this inhumanity! On a joyous festive day! 😔😔😔😔 What is the world coming to????? Prayers & strength to the victims & families


”Siddhant Chaturvedi, who debuted in Bollywood this year with Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt starrer Gully Boy, tweeted, “It makes me sad"
"“To all my fans I’m happy to announce that #JR25 will be Directed by @dirlakshman Music by @immancomposer & Prod by @theHMMofficial Sujatha Vijayakumar 😇 @onlynikil @shiyamjack Other details soon #Breaking25”, the actor tweeted"
"Others in the village have more pressing arguments. “People will vote on the basis of the kind of benefits given,"" said Ravi, who runs the local milk cooperative society. Most political parties have made a lot of pledges, ranging from farm loan waivers to direct cash transfers to minimum income guarantee schemes. However, comparing benefits alone may not work in Karnataka, according to locals.


The Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S), and Congress swiftly circumvented last year’s fractured verdict in the assembly elections by adding up numbers, in the process overlooking the rough equation between the traditional rivals, who share a bitter and violent past. Since then, the level of distrust between workers, leaders and top brass of the two parties appears to have plummetted—it’s worse than when they worked as individual parties.


“Wherever there is a JD(S) candidate, the Congress vote will split and vice versa. That is likely to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),"" says Mahadev Prakash Shivanna, a Bengaluru-based political analyst.


A seat-sharing agreement has deepened the divide, especially in south Karnataka, where workers of the two parties can barely see eye-to-eye. Congress workers are refusing to work for the JD(S) candidate in Mandya, Nikhil Kumaraswamy, the son of H.D. Kumaraswamy, and are instead rallying behind independent Sumalatha Amarnath (Sumalatha Ambareesh), wife of Kannada actor M.H.Amarnath who died in November last year, who has the support of the BJP.


The situation is reversed 40km south in Mysuru-Kodagu, where JD(S) workers are unwilling to work for C.H. Vijayashankar, the Congress candidate, who is backed by former chief minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress."
"Some key seats are Vijayawada, Guntur, Rajahmundry, Anantapur, Kurnool, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam. In the outgoing Lok Sabha, TDP had 15 members, YSRCP three, BJP two, while five seats were vacant.


The state has had it rough in the last decade. It lost YSR in 2009 and was bifurcated into Telangana in 2014. There is anger against national parties for dividing the state. Telangana, the newest state, got a large share of resources and the state capital. The parent state was denied a special package by BJP, a key reason for Naidu to walk out of NDA. A “special status"" is thus on everybody’s lips in the state. Voters are also likely to confront political parties on two big issues facing the country—the lack of jobs and rural distress."
"The Galaxy Buds are reminiscent of Apple's AirPods—wireless earphones offered with a charging case. Going by the teasers and promos from Samsung, the case can be wirelessly charged through the smartphones' Qi-charging compliant backs. The Buds will be backed by 58mAh batteries while the case will have a capacity of 252mAh.


The Galaxy Watch Active is Samsung's answer to the Apple Watch. Samsung will likely ditch the Galaxy Gear branding as well as its trademark rotating dial. Reports suggest the Watch Active will sport a 1.3-inch circular AMOLED panel with a resolution of 360x360. It will be powered by Samsung's Exynos 9110 chipset that will be paired with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.


Coming to the talk of the town, Samsung will also announce the Galaxy Fold foldable smartphone at the event. Samsung announced its intent to launch foldable devices at its developers' conference held last year in November.


The Galaxy Fold will aim to offer a versatile smartphone that can be doubled up as a tablet seamlessly. It will offer a large foldable OLED display that will offer a tablet-like experience which can be folded in the middle like a book to reveal a smaller 4-inch display. It will have hardware specifications similar to the Galaxy S10 but will house two 2,190mAh batteries on the two sides."
"XiaomiPOCO F1POCO F1 salePOCO F1 discountPOCO F1 FlipkartFlipkartPOCO F1 reviewFlipkart Big Diwali sale


The most affordable of all flagships in the market, the POCO F1, is now even more affordable on the Flipkart Big Diwali sale. You can buy the POCO F1 at a discounted rate from the sale right away, or until 5 November, when the sale ends."
"Separately, Amazon on Thursday also announced that it had made up with Google and would again offer YouTube on Fire TV, while Amazon Prime Video will make a comeback to Chromecast devices."
"Uniform civil code, Ayodhya Issue, citizenship amendment bill has troubled BJP and put much pressure on the party.


The identity of BJP is to do with these kinds of issues and to talk not only about national integration and social cohesion, but about the constitutionalism as well. When Jan Sangh was yet to take shape, the Constitution framers had talked about doing away with Article 370 and dozens of rulings coming from Supreme Court urging the government to form a common civil code. It is not just the BJP agenda, it is the national agenda. Other parties are ignoring the issue for want of pursuing their vote bank politics. We respect Constitution. Simply by garlanding the statues of B R Ambedkar, you cannot serve the Constitution. It is we who are protecting the Constitution.


National economy is evolving and so changes will keep on happening. But an element of continuity would remain."
"Ma took a digital microscope and connected it to a modestly powerful Ubuntu based laptop with Intel’s Neural Compute Stick connected to it. The entire system cost less than $500. The neural network at the heart of the system was able to successfully determine the shape, colour, density, and edges of the Escherichia coli (E. coli) and the bacteria that causes cholera."
"Polling officials at an empty polling station in Anantnag during the third phase of the general election. (Reuters)


Dissatisfaction with the state administration and lack of development are keeping voters away from polling booths


State elections matter to people. If they had been conducted with the Lok Sabha polls, the turnout may have been better, say analysts


NEW DELHI: The town of Pulwama in south Kashmir was shaken by the 14 February suicide bombing that killed 40 security personnel. Since then, it’s seen a steady roll of gun battles between militants and security forces, caught in the throes of turmoil just as Jammu and Kashmir began to prepare for elections.


Leaders and political workers here have largely stayed indoors, shying away from canvassing after being warned by the state police and paramilitary personnel against heightened militant attacks."
"The Sebi order did not go into whether any financial gain was made by the alleged misuse of the NSE data.


Among the multiple angles investigated by the stock market regulator in the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) co-location case, one pertains to the alleged misuse of exchange data for commercial gains.


In one of the five orders it put out after a four-year-long investigation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said Ajay Shah, a senior academic with the government think-tank National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), along with his wife and sister-in-law, misused market data obtained from the NSE for commercial gains.


Sebi has held that Shah, along with his sister-in-law and an NSE official, “have collusively worked to fulfil their commercial goals by fraudulently using the data that was obtained by them from NSE to develop an algo trading software and products"". This trading software was used for sale to market participants for dealing in the securities market. Some of these products were allegedly used by firms for unfair access to NSE’s systems."
"Management commentary during the earnings conference call on demand outlook was lacklustre. Rural demand, too, did not offer much assurance.


“We have seen a slowdown in the market in recent months,"" said the Britannia management in a press release. Analysts, however, point out that the company has gained market share from competitors such as Parle Products Pvt. Ltd in a declining market.


This has been aided by new launches, which have boosted sales. In the March quarter, the company launched Treat Burst, Treat Stars, Whole Wheat Marie and Milk Bikis Choco Cream.


“Britannia continues to gain market share in its core biscuits category, coupled with a stepped-up focus on building new categories,"" said analysts from Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd in a report on 2 May.


But new launches also mean higher marketing expenses, which is why margins fell in the March quarter. “While new categories would aid topline growth in the near term, they would restrict margin expansion given investments needed in the scale-up,"" added the Jefferies India report."
"Pramod Kumar Ram, a senior RJD leader and state secretary from Gopalganj, recalls seeing Prasad for the first time during the Mandal agitation in the early 1990s in Patna. Ram describes how Prasad leapt out of a jeep on the way to Gandhi Maidan and dared security personnel to arrest him. “I was drawn by his fearlessness. Whenever he held a public meeting, people would cycle hours from villages to get a glimpse of him. He was chatty, engaging and funny at his meetings. He could remember people’s faces and names, and that really is the greatest quality of a leader,"" Ram said.


For two decades, RJD and its election symbol, the lantern, have been synonymous with Prasad. At rallies, his photographs form the backdrop and publicity material is replete with his words and pictures though he is not on the trail.


“Naturally, our party and its campaign would have been stronger (with his presence). Our opponents would have been weaker. He is a mass leader and his presence makes a difference. But still, if one goes out with the flag of Laluji’s party, people like you, and they stand up for you,"" Tejashwi Yadav, Prasad’s younger son, told Mint.


In an earlier interview, Tejashwi said, “Last time we met, seat-sharing talks were on. When we meet him in Ranchi, we talk about everything. We talk about home, we talk about politics. He gives advice.""


Early in April, Prasad wrote an open letter to his voters, which was released on his Twitter handle, from the hospital ward in Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, where he has served eight months of his prison term. “Everything is at stake in this election - country, society, Lalu, who in other words gave you the aspiration to move about as equals with your heads held high and your rights, self-respect and dignity,"" he wrote.


The family is in touch with him regularly. “Every key decision—seat-sharing, choice of candidates, the party’s focus on reservation—is vetted by him,"" said a senior party member, requesting anonymity.


But giving advice from far cannot substitute being on the ground. “The organizing capacity that Lalu brought to the table is no longer there. In an earlier era, even in his absence, his party would draw unimaginable crowds, but now that is not happening. Even Yadav strongholds, like Patliputra, are beginning to show chinks in the armour,"" Ranjan said."
"""In light of the announcement of Apple and Qualcomm, we assessed the prospects for us to make money while delivering this technology for smartphones and concluded at the time that we just didn't see a path,"" said Bob Swan, Intel CEO.


Intel on April 16 said it plans to cease working on modems for 5G, the next-generation of wireless technology expected to supercharge mobile connections.


The news that Intel had exited the 5G modem business came barely hours after the Qualcomm-Apple agreement was announced."
Guru Randhawa has gone international with his latest track “Slowly Slowly” featuring Pitbull or rather we could say that Pitbull has gone desi with this track by T-Series
She claimed that all she has to do is to go and file nomination papers and her party workers will discharge their responsibilities to ensure her victory.
"Deve Gowda is likely to contest from Bengaluru North, though there is no official word on this at the moment.


The Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping to cash in on the friction between the two parties, especially in south Karnataka where the Congress and the JD(S) workers have shared a bloody and violent past.  "
"Viswanathan: My picks are data analytics and cybersecurity. In future, the problem with offshoring is going to be how we deal with data. Do we have capacity to deal with data privacy and information security?


Makhija: I believe the one that has been most impactful is deep learning, taking large data sets and deriving hypothesis from it. The second one I would want to talk about is the digital twin technology.


Hari: In India, we are going to see a lot of data coming in and the biggest thing is connectivity. Today, most of India stays in places where connectivity is still a problem and I think that will improve dramatically with 5G. A villager should be able to send a data file to Mumbai or Chennai and I think that is going to have far more impact than any other technology.


Kolla: I also think deep learning is huge. About 80% of Netflix’s shows are the ones recommended by its recommendation engine. Similarly, 35% of all of Amazon’s sales are those its algorithms recommend. In the industrial sector, I would pick the Internet of Things (IoT)."
"AAP’s East Delhi Lok Sabha candidate Atishi and Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia in New Delhi on Monday. (PTI)


No alliance between Congress and AAP for Delhi as leaders of the respective parties file nominations for the seven seats in the capital


It now remains to be seen whether AAP and Congress are able to prevent a repeat of 2014 when BJP won all seven seats in Delhi"
"There was dismay that Quentin Tarantino missed out from being included with the highly anticipated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie


 Cannes Artistic Director Thierry Fremaux lamented to critics during the press conference that the movie was still in editing — explaining that Tarantino’s insistence on using laborious 35mm will delay its completion


Spanish director Almodovar will be back on the festival’s red carpeted steps with the new film Pain and Glory — a self-referential movie about an aging filmmaker played by Antonio Banderas, alongside longtime muse Penelope Cruz"
The actor had also shared that he will be seen wearing a turban in the movie and in a much slimmer avatar as the film requires him to shed 20 kilos for the role
"More than 1,000 km away, another centenarian, V. Santhanam, cast his vote in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar constituency. Santhanam, who lives in Noida, had voted even in the provincial elections during British rule. “He has voted in those elections when only those paying income tax could vote. He has obviously taken part in each election conducted since Independence,"" said his daughter Saraswati Rajgopalan. Santhanam’s first vote was for the Swatantra Party’s leading light, Minoo Masani, in the then Bombay Presidency provincial election, she added. “He does it as his fundamental duty, as commitment, and he has done that with lot of enthusiasm over the decades. All these years, his passion hasn’t dipped one bit."""
"Powered with roadshows and winged by Priyanka Gandhi on his side, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi is expected to arrive in Wayanad on Wednesday


Wayanad has one of the lowest per capita incomes, lowest literacy rates, poorest infrastructure and medical facilities


WAYANAD: When this correspondent’s bus arrived in a local market in Kerala’s Wayanad on Tuesday, the customers of a tea shop were tinkering with the poll buzz. “Rahul Gandhi is coming! What will you do now?"" Sandeep, the hotel worker, teased at a communist party worker coming to the shop. As an afterthought, Sandeep, who claims to be a supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, added: “Our guy (BJP candidate) Thushar Vellappally is coming too! You guys are going to lose."" The communist party worker immediately shots back: “So is Rahul Gandhi going to solve all your problems?"" For a moment, there was an awkward pause. Either everybody seems to know the answer of that question or nobody knew how to tackle it."
"Don’t you think we should also seek inspiration from Indian dance forms? What measures are you taking to ensure the same?Team Naach: There is nothing wrong with being inspired by Western dance forms


 Having said that, we enjoy creating content which is Bollywood or using regional music and we will continue to do so


 We always teach such routines in our class to make them better understand expressions, story-telling and rhythm


With so much competition now, how do you plan to take your uniqueness forward?Team Naach: Create diverse content with not only Western but Indian styles as well"
LG Electronics introduced its first 5G smartphone with a detachable secondary screen at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona last month.
"Pradeepta Nayak, assistant programme manager at Delhi-based non-government organisation PRIA (Participatory Research in Asia), who also leads a maternal health programme in the district, said Banswara had one of the worst maternal mortality rate of 255 in Rajasthan. “It’s a patriarchal tribal society where maternal health is of lowest significance and not a priority for the community. We are trying to strengthen the local governance system taking along local communities so that people get sensitised and demand better health services,"" he added.


Narayan, 50, a farmer at the Chhoti Sarban village is aware about the NYAY scheme, but not sure if it’s good for his family. “Whether Modi ji or Rahul ji comes to power, the government should focus more on farmers. We also need better irrigation facility. Whether we use electricity for water pump or not, we get electricity bill every month. Farmers should be exempted from paying electricity bill.""


However, he denounced claims by some experts that free money under NYAY could distort the labour market. “Why won’t people go for labour work? In a family there are 7-8 people here, they can’t survive with ₹6,000 per year,"" he added."
"Indeed, the caution is warranted. Delays in product launches are commonplace, and the recent specialty drug launches did not see the kind of growth as initially envisaged. This should be reason enough for investors to exercise some caution.


Complex and specialty drugs require significant upfront investments. Slow growth can not only prolong the payback period, but can also increase risks to earnings projections. How well the companies ramp-up this business will be crucial.


“These investments are significant, and also bring in more risks as the probability of success is lower, along with higher gestation periods,"" pointed out Gupta."
"This might be the cheapest option on this list, but the FIIL Diva Pro isn’t to be trifled with. It has touch controls, voice filters (allowing ambient noises in when the headphones are on), and can rival some of the top headphones in audio quality. They might also be the best looking among noise-cancelling ones in the market.


mint-india-wire noise-cancelling headphonesheadphonesbest noise-cancelling headphonesSony headphonesBose headphones"
"As part of its strategy to take on competitors, Samsung had last year said it would introduce latest innovative features on its A series


BANGKOK: South Korean electronics major Samsung Wednesday unveiled the A80 model, the flagship of its A series mid-range mobile phones which are expected to play a key role in its efforts to wrest back lost market share from Chinese competitors in India.


As part of its strategy to take on competitors such as Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus, Samsung had last year said it would introduce latest innovative features on its A series of devices as well instead of just the top-end Note and S smartphone series.


The company is expected to launch in India the A70 model - which has already been globally unveiled soon - later this month, followed by the A80."
"Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd warned of weaker earnings in 2019 as it posted a 29% drop in fourth-quarter operating profit on Thursday, hit by a slowdown in demand for memory chips.


The global market leader in computer chips and smartphones said it expected ""overall annual earnings to decline"" this year, although sales of memory products would begin to revive in the second half.


Uncertainties over US-China trade tensions and China's sluggish economy bode ill for global electronics makers in 2019, pressuring demand for memory chips, smartphones and display panels, analysts say.


But some investors are hoping for a recovery for Samsung in the second half, fuelled by chip sales to data centres, the rollout of 5G wireless technology and the launch of new gadgets including its long-promised, high-end foldable smartphone."
"Based on Monday’s share price, Jet Airways’ enterprise value (EV) works out to ₹31,800 crore. This includes the present value of future rentals, using a rough capitalization factor of seven times rentals, and calculates market capitalization using an expanded equity base. This would mean an EV-Ebitdar ratio of 12.5 times using FY18 earnings, a relatively stable period for earnings.


In comparison, the same measure for market leader InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which runs IndiGo airlines, stood at 11.6 times. While there is no reason anyone would want to pay a premium over IndiGo to buy Jet Airways, perhaps a potential buyer may factor in possible cost savings, which result in a lower valuation multiple.


Besides, Jet Airways’ international slots are an attractive selling point. The big swing factor may well be the change in board composition, given that reports had earlier suggested interest from the Tata Group, with one of the conditions being full control."
"How can you identify these kinds of apps? “These are remote control apps and have device administration permissions. You can go to permissions list of the app and see all device administration apps. Most important is to check for SMS permissions. Only SMS app need SMS permission, nothing else. Giving SMS permissions and device admin permission to any app is inviting trouble,"" said Amit Jaju, senior managing director for India at FTI Consulting. The most crucial thing is do not share password, PIN, CVV, or other details needed for online transaction. Also don’t download apps without verifying it."
"“No one knows what the ideal design is yet,"" said Bryan Ma, vice president of devices research at IDC. “The time is ripe for experimentation. Many of these designs won’t be successful, but industry players will learn valuable lessons along the way.""


A spokeswoman for Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung declined to comment on plans for new foldable phones.


Samsung plans to unveil the vertically folding phone late this year or early next year, and is using mock-ups to fine-tune the design, the people said. The gadget is designed with an extra screen on the outside, but the manufacturer may remove it depending on how customers respond to a similar display on the Galaxy Fold, they said.


The outfolding device, which already exists as a prototype after being considered as Samsung’s first foldable gadget, will roll out afterward, the people said. It will be thinner because it has no extra screen, they said."
"iPads have followed the same design ever since the first one came into existence—a slate like design that can be held only with two hands, with a home button at the front and volume buttons on the side. It has mainly been an extension to the productivity of an iPhone. A large screen has endless applications—attach a keyboard and you have a compact laptop, drag two running applications on top of the other and you’re instantly multitasking like a boss, add a Pencil (with an awkward charging port) and you’re a graphic designer—you get the idea.


The essence of the iPad will remain the same, albeit with a few changes, which have been long due now. The iPad might finally get FaceID, which means the omission of the iconic home button as well. As a result, the display can now stretch far more than the previous iterations. It will have the same firepower as the latest iPhones—an A12 bionic chipset. Details on RAM and storage aren’t out yet, but we’d like to have at least 4GB to run resource hungry apps."
"He switched to direction with his hit TV show Tu Tu Main Main in the ’90s and donned the hat of a writer, editor, singer and choreographer


”The actor credits bearing no ego and accepting change as the reason for his longevity in the industry"
"Crypto currencies are a high-risk asset class that could have profound utility if they gain greater adoption, says Nicolas Cary (right), co-founder, Blockchain.


Nicolas Cary, president of UK-based start-up Blockchain, on why cryptocurrencies will have an impact in India


The value of virtual crypto currencies, such as bitcoins, have remained volatile ever since the bitcoin code was first released. Yet, Nicolas Cary, co-founder and president of UK’s cryptocurrency wallet start-up, Blockchain, is optimistic. In a recent phone interview from London, Cary explained why he still believes that bitcoin is “digital gold"" and why he is optimistic that India will embrace crypto currencies. Edited excerpts:"
"The Redmi Note 7 comes with a 6.3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2340x1080. Xiaomi seems to take pride in the fact that the display of this smartphone has bezels up to 0.8mm thick. The display has an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and has maximum brightness of 450nits.


Under the hood, the Redmi Note 7 is powered by Snapdragon 660 SoC paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It is backed by a 4,000mAh battery and supports QuickCharge 4. It ships with a 10W charger; although for even quicker charging, Xiaomi is also separately selling an 18W charger. External connectivity options include USB Type-C and a 3.5mm jack.


In terms of optics, the back of the Redmi Note 7 boasts a 48MP+5MP AI-enabled dual camera setup. It has a pixel size of 1.6 microns and an aperture of f/1.8. Thanks to the size of its sensor, the Note 7 promises good low light performance. The front of the smartphone sports a single 13MP selfie camera under the dew drop notch


The Realme U1 was launched keeping the “youth"" in mind. This basically means three things—selfies, gaming and looks. The smartphone boasts a 6.3-inch LCD display with a dewdrop notch, faux metal railing and polycarbonate back with acrylic coating. The back of the phone produces “vertical light pillars"", which may or may not be tasteful to people."
"The dollar index versus a basket of six major currencies was lower at 96.495 on increasing optimism for a breakthrough in the trade talks, bolstering appeal for gold. [USD/]


U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that trade talks with China were going well and suggested he was open to pushing off the deadline to complete negotiations, saying March 1 was not a ""magical"" date.


U.S. Federal Open Market Committee will release the minutes from its January 29-30 policy meeting at 1900 GMT."
"Clear History was first announced at last year’s F8, the company’s event for developers and partners, in response to an outcry about data collection and privacy lapses on its sites. The tool still hasn’t been launched, and it wasn’t mentioned Tuesday. Late last year, Facebook admitted that Clear History is taking longer than expected — it turns out that browsing data, which the company uses to help send more targeted advertising to users on its social platforms — is more deeply ingrained into Facebook’s systems than anyone realised. Simply finding and deleting the correct data without disrupting Facebook’s advertising and analytics businesses has been a big enough challenge that the product hasn’t gotten off the ground, although the company said earlier this month that the feature will debut this fall.


“It’s going to take time,"" Zuckerberg said of Facebook’s privacy-focused future. “I’m sure we’re going to keep on unearthing old issues for a while, so it may feel like we’re not making progress at first. But I think that we’ve shown, time and again as a company, that we can do what it takes to evolve and build the products that people want.""


To be sure, these are challenging problems to unravel. Facebook’s business was built on harvesting detailed user data to show people precisely targeted ads — not the kind of thing you simply undo overnight. Still, some privacy experts argue that the new announcements are little more than a veneer to assuage consumers, while changing little about its core business model.


“A lot of the focus is on changing the way that consumer-to-consumer interaction works,"" said Greg Sparrow, senior vice president and general manager at CompliancePoint, a data privacy and security consultancy. “While that is laudable and it’s great that they’re doing that, but fundamentally it doesn’t address the problem on the back-end side, which is businesses gaining access to this information and how they’re using it from a data monetisation perspective."""
"Samsung currently sells A10, A20, A30 and A50 models under the A series priced between ₹8,490 and going up to ₹22,990 at present in India.


""The A80 will be the flagship of the A series. It has been designed to cater to the changing consumer pattern from the era of self to the era of live (video),"" Samsung Electronics Regional Product Manager Adele Tan said.


Company officials said the A series will play a key role in Samsung's strategy to enhance sales, especially in the mid-range segment.


As part of the strategy, the company has planned to launch at least one new model under the series every month in the first half of 2019 in India."
"US stocks opened little changed on Monday as investors took a wait-and-see stance after an earnings-heavy week which included strong US jobs growth data, with Alphabet's results expected after the bell."
"Another one deals with graphics processing and battery life while the third lets apps on your phone download data more easily.


The amount is not much for Apple but ""a victory for Qualcomm would help to brandish its reputation as a mobile components innovator and lend credibility to the idea that much of those innovations went into iPhones,"" said the report."
"In West Bengal, voters tired of the violence, corruption and nepotism of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress are leaning towards BJP. Ten of the state’s 42 seats have voted so far, and as eight more go to the polls in the fourth phase on Monday, Mint’s Gyan Varma lays out the ground realities


For 30-year-old businessman S.M. Imran, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is a symbol of resistance against the steadily growing influence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has slowly become the main challenger to the electoral might of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).


The ongoing election battle between the TMC and the BJP has largely been tagged as a contest between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Banerjee."
"The Redmi Note 7 is tipped to sport the Snapdragon 660 SoC along with a similar design language as the Redmi 7.


Samsung will also be launching its brand new M-series of smartphones. We can expect them to be named M10, M20 and M30 and they will be priced between ₹ 9,000 and ₹ 15,000. The M-series smartphones will be produced at Samsung’s Noida factory. The smartphones will also have massive battery capacities ranging between 3,500mAh and 5,000mAh. Other specifications will be revealed at the time of its launch which will take place by the end of January.


XiaomiHuaweiHonorSamsungHonor View 20Honor 10 LiteHuawei Y9Xiaomi Redmi Note 7redmi 7Honor View 20 india launchHonor 10 Lite india launchHuawei Y9 india launchXiaomi Redmi Note 7 india launchredmi 7 india launch"
"The View 20 comes with a 6.4-inch LCD display which has a resolution of 2310x1080 and a screen-to-body ratio of 91.82%.


The device packs a 4,000mAh battery and supports fast charging and has connectivity options which include Dual 4G LTE, Bluetooth v5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (dual-band—2.4GHz and 5GHz), A-GPS, and USB Type-C."
"From left: Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, president Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh display copies of the Congress Party's election manifesto in New Delhi on Tuesday (Ramesh Pathania/Mint)


The Congress manifesto is a policy framework stitched around the narrative of creating 'wealth and welfare', says Rahul Gandhi


BJP questions financial viability of the promises made in the Congress manifesto, calls it unimplementable and dangerous


New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday unveiled the Congress manifesto for Lok Sabha Elections 2019, with a focus on delivering jobs, helping farmers and combating poverty—an overarching social justice platform that Gandhi said had been gleaned from conversations with ordinary people. The renewed welfare pitch by the party is aimed at addressing the problems being faced by two key social groups—the poor and farmers."
"Award recipients: (fifth from left) Joydeep Mukherjee, head, technical services group, Voltas; (seventh from left) Ashish Tripathi, assistant vice-president, HDFC Bank; Nilesh Panchal, head, digital transformation, KEC International; Samip Mutha, vice-president and group head (digital and innovation), RPG Group; Rahul Raghuraman, senior manager, group strategy office, Mahindra and Mahindra; Saurabh Pushkarna, deputy general manager, Mahindra Truck & Bus; (twelfth from left) Abhijit Singh, head of technology, ICICI Bank.


At the Digital Innovation Summit, Mint and EY felicitated firms that have leveraged new technologies in their businesses


A subsidiary of RPG Group, KEC International, is one of the leading engineering, procurement and construction companies in India. Its ability to estimate project cost at the time of bidding helped it win projects, deliver margins and mitigate risks. These estimates were based on the analysis of contour maps and physical surveys, which was both time-taking and prone to human errors. After trying out several alternatives, KEC decided to go with autonomous surveys using drones. Once the data was captured, it used image analytics, computer visions, and machine learning models to calculate excavation and backfilling of land. This allowed its bidding team to estimate project costs more accurately and this improved its bid-to-win ratio significantly. In terms of cost savings, the spending on excavation and backfilling quantity was reduced by up to 30%. Now KEC can survey 250 acres in five hours, which earlier took more than five days. This has also allowed it to build a repository of data in digital format for future use."
"And those other things about myself that I need to learn, things I can do better, I trust that people that love me and are close to me in my life, will tell me those things


”Some fans have issues that Marvel introduced such a powerful superhero so late in the game though her stand-alone film has done record numbers at the box office


Larson has admitted to feeling like “a new kid” on the sets of Endgame, which will see superheroes suit up to fight Thanos after his finger snap that wiped off half of the universe’s population


There is a lot of anticipation and some apprehension about how Larson’s Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, who was given a distress call by Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson) moments before he turned to dust at the end of Infinity War, will impact the impending fight"
"Chinese smartphone major OnePlus has started rolling out the Open Beta builds for OnePlus 5, OnePlus 5T, OnePlus 6, and OnePlus 6T; bringing some changes in the UI and performance improvements.


OnePlus routinely rolls out its Open Beta updates to gather testers’ feedback about its latest features before incorporating them into the stable builds of OxygenOS. Almost every fortnight, OnePlus rolls out these updates to make sure that issues or bugs in any particular feature are removed before the majority of users get them."
"The word NYAY is also the reference to Nyuntam Aay Yojana which is party’s minimum income guarantee promise


New Delhi: Congress party on Sunday launched its publicity campaign for 2019 Lok Sabha elections with an over arching slogan of “Ab Hoga Nyay"" or justice will happen now. The word NYAY is also the reference to Nyuntam Aay Yojana which is party’s minimum income guarantee promise."
"Irrfan had earlier shared a photo from the sets of the film where he introduced his character Champak, who is a sweet shop owner


 Manu Rishi plays a distant cousin who owns the most popular sweet shop and adds to the rivalry within the family"
"The chipset will come in two variants—one with an integrated 5G modem and another with an external modem


This will help manufacturers by leaving some extra space which can be used for adding bigger batteries and cooling systems


San Francisco: US-based chipmaker Qualcomm is expected to launch the 5G-enabled Snapdragon 865 chipset in two variants — one with a built-in 5G modem and the other with an external 5G modem."
"Also, people who are famous on the digital space or are youtubers will have their own audience and all these people will be stars"
"Raaj Shaandilyaa says his directorial debut Dream Girl is a sweet simple comedy that features Ayushmann Khurrana as a man who dresses up as female characters like Sita, Draupadi and Radha


 What I can tell you is that Ayushmann becomes Sita from Ramayana, Draupadi from Mahabharata and Radha from Krishna Leela"
"Interesting contests are expected in Tehri, where BJP has pitted twice MP Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah against Pritam Singh, in Nanital where its senior leader Ajay Bhatt, who is making his poll debut, is pitted against Harish Rawat.


In Odisha four Lok Sabha and 28 assembly seats, including several naxal-hit areas, are going to polls.


In the North East, campaigning for Tezpur, Kaliabor, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur constituencies in Assam has ended and fate of 41 candidates will be decided. Lakhimpur has the highest number of 11 candidates.


Seven seats in Maharashtra, four in Bihar and two each in West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Arunahcal Pradesh will see polling in the first phase.


Lone Lok Sabha seats going to polls on April 11 include Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Chhattisgarh Nagaland, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, and Lakshadweep.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Customers in the US, who do not have a Prime membership or Amazon Music Unlimited will be able to listen to the ad-supported version with Amazon Music, the company detailed on its official blog.


With this, users would now have access to play a station based on a song, artist, era, and genre, and to hear some of Amazon Music's top global playlists including Country Heat, Fuego Latino and more."
"Even as technology substitutes some forms of work, new types of work will be created. Photo: Aalok Soni/HT


India can create enough new jobs to offset automation and employ new entrants into the workforce, if it makes the required investments


A lip-reading system more proficient than a professional human lip-reader. An artificial intelligence (AI) system that can diagnose pneumonia from chest X-rays better than expert radiologists. These are just two real examples of how machine intelligence seems primed to substitute work activities that currently only humans can do. Looking ahead as technology progresses faster and faster, will human intelligence still be a useful resource? Will there really be enough work for humans to perform?


Some predict these technological trends to be catastrophic, culminating in mass unemployment. But our analysis suggest that the future of work can hold opportunity and the promise of more and better work—provided investment steps up, enabling growth in productivity, and the nation simultaneously gears up for workforce skill transitions.


First, it should be understood that not all human activities are easily automatable based on currently proven technologies. McKinsey Global Institute’s (MGI’s) analysis of more than 2,000 work activities across more than 800 occupations shows that automatable tasks include those done in predictable and structured environments, or involving routine data collection and data processing. But other activities will be much less susceptible to automation, such as managing teams, solving non-routine problems, and interfacing with stakeholders in unpredictable situations. Overall, about 30% of the time spent in most occupations could be technically automated—but in only about 5% of occupations are nearly all activities automatable. The pace at which automation will be adopted depends on several factors besides technical feasibility. Among these are the cost of technology deployment, workforce quality and wages, and the benefits of technology beyond reducing cost—for example, as a spur to innovation or quality.


Moreover, even as technology substitutes some forms of work, new types of work will be created—and this is not a new phenomenon. The introduction of the automobile created almost 7 million net new jobs in the US between 1910 and 1950, based on our estimates. It displaced workers who manufactured wagons, carriages, harnesses and saddles, as well as horse breeders and metal workers. But it created ten times as many jobs, in a host of new occupations: for workers in automotive supply chain, warehouses and logistics, auto dealerships, auto repair, gas stations, and convenience stores, amongst others."
"While the damages awarded Friday aren’t significant to either company, from Qualcomm’s perspective, valuing just three of its more than 10,000 patents at $1.41 per phone shows the overall worth of its inventions. About 1.4 billion smartphones were sold last year, according to IDC.


In the broader licensing fight, Qualcomm has lost billions of dollars in revenue after Apple, through its Asian manufacturers, stopped paying patent royalties in 2017. The companies had a falling out in 2016 when Qualcomm -- which had been the exclusive supplier of iPhone chipsets for five years -- halted quarterly royalty rebates it had been paying Apple. The chipmaker has said it ended the rebates because Apple instigated antitrust investigations of Qualcomm and lied to regulators.


Apple has switched to using Intel Inc. chips in its phones. The Cupertino, California-based company has accused Qualcomm of using its control over so-called standard essential patents, which covers technology uniformly adopted by telecommunications providers and equipment makers, to extract excessive royalties for the entire patent portfolio, including non-essential patents, that it licenses to smartphone makers."
"Since November 2014, Verma and his friends have been organizing Subah-e-Banaras, pujas replete with chants of Har Har Mahadev, Hindustani classical music and yoga. He says the ghats are cleaner now, but a lot needs to be done to revive the river.


Outside Uttar Pradesh, which holds the key to power for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress in the 2019 elections, the Namami Gange and National Clean Ganga Mission continue to make headlines for their “unprecedented success"".


The real picture on the site is, however, different. Even members of the Ganga Mahasabha, ideologically close to the BJP’s mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are sceptical.


In Varanasi, Govind Sharma, general secretary of the Mahasabha, says Madan Mohan Malviya, who founded the organization in 1905, had two objectives."
"In March this year, the studio went back on its decision and reinstated Gunn as the director of the third part of the franchise"
"“IAMAI and social media intermediaries willingly agreed to come up with a ‘code of ethics’ for the industry, laying down operational details by Wednesday evening,"" the EC said in a statement on Tuesday."
"To celebrate their success in India, YouTube celebrated with the Indian music fraternity where artists like Badshah, Guru Randhawa and Harshdeep Kaur performed alongside international DJ Alan Walker.


Other senior executives from music labels and prominent personalities from the Indian music fraternity such as Javed Akhtar also marked their presence in YouTube Music's celebration."
"It has been composed by Gopi Sundar and the lyrics of the peppy number are penned by BK Harinarayanan


 In the voice of Sithara Krishnakumar, the song has already been received well by the audience of Madura Raja, a sequel to Mammootty’s 2010 hit Pokkiri Raja"
"Known for her stint on Bigg Boss 6, along with films like Jai Ho and Wajah Tum Ho, Sana wrote adorable posts for Melvin to mark his birthday


Sharing pictures with Melvin, Sana began by writing, “I never knew I could love someone this much until I met you"
"There is pathos in levity here and levity in pathos, with writers Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (who have many Avenger films on their resume) tackling love, fatherhood, motherhood and parenthood with a light touch which would do even better films proud


It also ultimately gives us a great villain in Thanos — brilliantly performed in motion-capture by Josh Brolin


 A villain convinced not just of the motivations of his own villainy but also that it may just be a set piece in the larger endgame of the universe — in his words, a man like him, believing in and triggering the cycle of extinction and renewal, for continuum, is “inevitable”


 For the sake of avoiding spoilers, let’s just say it’s fraught with risk where Endgame chooses to meet him — though expected given the pensive ending of Infinity War — and how it sets up the clash this time"
"At its annual Google For India event, Google announced that it has tied up with Indian smartphone makers like LAVA, Micromax, Nokia and Transsion to create Android Go smartphones at much affordable prices


Google IndiaAndroid GoAndroid Go PieSamsung Galaxy J2 CoreNokiaLAVAMicromaxGoogle AssistantGoogle Assistant MarathiGoogle GoMaps Go"
"None of BJP’s top leaders, including Modi, have made any mention about the temple in public meetings ever since elections were announced on 10 March. While Modi held a public meeting in Gosaiganj near Ayodhya on Wednesday, his larger pitch was development. Like in 2014, in this election too, the BJP has reiterated its commitment in its national manifesto to ‘explore all possibilities’ within the Constitution to expedite the temple construction but it’s not talked about.


“Naturally, the city is inseparable from the issue of the land dispute but no one wants clashes. For us here, development is what concerns us. We want better roads, infrastructure and access to services, and that is the crucial issue in this election,"" said Ismail Mohammad, who owns a bangle shop in Ayodhya. “We’re still lagging behind on development.""


This time around, Faizabad will see a three-cornered contest with BJP’s sitting MP Lallu Singh taking on veteran Congressman and former Faizabad MP Nirmal Khatri and Samajwadi Party’s Anand Sen. Since 1999, BJP has won this seat twice, with Khatri winning in 2009 and BSP in 2004. In 2014, BJP won the seat with a margin of just 27.65%, with the SP candidate coming in second. In 2009 too, SP was in second place coming even closer to Congress’ Khatri with a margin of just 7%


“Elections are for the entire country and not just for Ayodhya. Of course, I’m upset that the temple construction has not progressed, but I believe the government and Modi have their reasons for not doing it. In Ayodhya, everything else has happened other than the temple construction,"" said Mewa Lal, a 40-year-old who owns a shop selling religious items."
"Ranveer Singh has been prepping up to play legendary cricketer Kapil Dev in Kabir Khan’s ’83 for quite some time now


The film ’83 brings alive the epic 1983 Cricket World Cup win of India against West Indies on screen and plans to recreate the winning moment at the iconic match at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in England, where then captain Kapil lifted India’s first ever World Cup"
"In more than 100 districts of the country, at least one-fifth of the population had access to internet in their household by 2015-16


Analysis suggests that the impact of different media on poll process is likely to vary significantly across different parts of India


The results of the latest National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS 2015-16) showed that only a little above 11% of the country’s population had access to internet at home in 2015-16. However, the raw unit-level data from the survey released last year shows that there was wide divergence in internet access based on caste, class and region.


This means that the impact of online campaigns, including propaganda material and fake news, for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is likely to be much larger in certain pockets and among certain segments of the population than others."
"These attacks targeted a range of sectors, from media and entertainment to retail and gaming. Hackers target large video and entertainment brands, because access to verified accounts could be sold or traded in underground marketplaces, Akamai report said.


In the video media sector alone, three of the largest credential stuffing attacks in 2018 increased from 133 million to nearly 200 million, the study said.


""Credential stuffing attempts can advance to full-blown account takeovers and compromises because people tend to use the same password across multiple websites — or the passwords they are using are easily guessed, and they generated credentials,"" the report said."
"While James Marsden is the goofy hero cop, Jim Carrey plays a dangerous-looking villain whose only motive is to spoil the hedgehog’s plans"
"The official synopsis states, “The first-ever live-action Pokémon adventure, “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu” stars Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu and is based on the beloved Pokémon brand—one of the world’s most popular, multi-generation entertainment properties and one of the most successful media franchises of all time


 Fans everywhere can now experience a Pikachu on the big screen as never before, as Detective Pikachu, a Pokémon like no other"
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will share a stage on Tuesday while campaigning for their alliance in the 17th Lok Sabha elections. The public meeting at Ausa in Latur district of Maharashtra’s Marathwada region will be the first since December 2016 that the two leaders will address together.


Modi has addressed a few rallies in Maharashtra, including at Wardha and Gondia in Vidarbha, apart from Nanded in Marathwada from where state Congress president and former chief minister Ashok Chavan is seeking re-election. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Maharashtra said the Prime Minister and Shiv Sena president are likely to hold at least two more joint rallies in Maharashtra during the campaign, including on 26 April in Mumbai."
"Most players whom Mint spoke to said they play during breaks, metro rides and whenever they are free. Mudi, a head chef at a restaurant in Delhi, says he often finds his staff members slacking off because they’re playing PUBG. Another player, Shrey Pacheco says he gets calls at 10pm from friends, who want to form a crew and play PUBG. Kargupta says he and his colleagues play the game during breaks. “Each session runs for about half an hour, so we end up taking a lot of half-hour breaks,"" he said.


As per the Sensor Tower report, PUBG was downloaded more in the first quarter of 2018 than apps such as YouTube, Netflix and Snapchat. With the game gathering momentum in India, the numbers are only set to rise.


mint-india-wire PUBGPUBG IndiaPUBG tournamentsPUBG Mobile Campus ChampionshipPUBG Mobile. PUBG downloadGoogle PlayApp Storemobile gamesonline gamingGaming in India"
"New breed of hackers: Hacking as we knew it has changed. While in the beginning it was the handiwork of overenthusiastic individuals honing their cyber-skills by finding loopholes in live systems, hackers today are financially motivated and run their operations under the aegis of organized criminal organizations, according to the 2019 Security Report by Checkpoint Software Technologies Ltd, released this month. The hacker arrested by the US department of justice in September 2018 for the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017, for instance, was part of a criminal organization called the Lazarus Group with alleged links to the North Korean government.


Further, with more businesses moving their operations online, vast amounts of financial and critical business-related data is now stored in data centres. For cybercriminals, this is a huge opportunity as they can not only break into company systems and steal data but can take control and lock out the owners of their own systems. For instance, the Petya ransomware, which affected 2,000 enterprises in 65 countries, had locked users out of their own systems.


Hackers know what to target: According to Checkpoint, more than 10,000 different malicious files are detected per day while 700 malware families are being used on a daily basis. Initially, most of the ransomware attacks such as WannaCry and Petya didn’t have any specific target. Cybercriminals have changed tactics and are now striking at their most vulnerable point of the target."
"Lyanna Mormont: The fierce lady of Bear Island had refused to listen to her cousin Ser Jorah Mormont to stay in the crypts


 She fought a freaking giant (undead of course) and died, but not before stabbing it in the eye and killing him — for good this time


 We did not know for certain then, but her death was confirmed when the Night King made her rise as a wight"
"Karnataka has a caste-centric political system with three major parties—BJP, Congress and JD(S). Voters tend to vote for a different party in the state and at the centre. While JD(S) has little presence outside the southern districts, BJP considers Mumbai-Karnataka and the coast its bastions. Though the Congress is the only party with a pan-Karnataka presence, its rocky equation with JD(S) could give BJP entry into regions in the south. The state is also divided based on regions. The south boasts of high industrial growth, better access to irrigation, IT and development, while the north has some of the most backward regions in India.


The Congress and JD(S) have a state-level alliance and are jointly contesting the Lok Sabha polls as well. JD(S) relies on votes from the Vokkaliga community, while BJP believes it enjoys the support of the upper caste Lingayats. The Congress depends on minorities and a fragmented support base of backward classes and scheduled castes. However, the Vokkaligas and Lingayats are still upset with former chief minister Siddaramaiah, which could swing votes away from the coalition. The Congress and JD(S) hold on to their almost captive caste groups and are willing to trade only if the gesture is mutual."
"Fourteen of UP’s 80 seats — including the Congress bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli — will vote on 6 May in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha election. Mint visits three key constituencies to gauge the sentiment on the ground


It is Friday morning and Arvind Panday (37) and Dev Prakash Mishra (35) share a bench under a tree near a tea shop. They also share a similar past—both belong to farmer families from Amethi district, both voted for the first time in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, and both supported Rahul Gandhi, who made his political debut that year. They’ve voted for Gandhi, now Congress president, in every general elections since. This election, however, they’ve diverged on their political views.


“My vote this time too will be for Rahul Gandhi,"" declares Mishra, sitting at the tea shop under the banyan tree in Musafirkhana, a town in Amethi district. “His family has done so much for this constituency. This is a crucial election and he needs our support more than ever. This constituency is not going any other way,"" says Mishra, who runs a small business. (READ MORE)"
"The Mouse House will join the market at a time when audiences are facing a host of choices, and monthly bills, for digital entertainment. iPhone maker Apple Inc, AT&T Inc's WarnerMedia and others plan new streaming services.


To bolster its potential digital portfolio, Disney recently purchased film and TV assets from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox and gained prized properties such as ""Avatar.""


In a January regulatory filing, Disney reported losses of more than $1 billion for streaming-related investments in Hulu and technology company BAMtech."
"Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew passed away on April 30 leaving his on-screen companion Harrison Ford and Star Wars teammates Mark Hamill, George Lucas among other Hollywood celebrities heartbroken


Mayhew, who played the affable Wookie giant Chewbacca, a friend to Ford’s Han Solo, in Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, was 74


In a statement, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Ford said Mayhew dedicated his life to portraying Chewbacca and he will never forget his contribution to the franchise


 He invested his soul in the character and brought great pleasure to the Star Wars audience,” the actor said


 He knew how important the fans of the franchise were to it’s continued success and he was devoted to them


Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the franchise, paid tribute to Mayhew in a heartwarming post on Twitter, calling him the “gentlest of giants”"
"WhatsApp previously added a bunch of new features on its app, including stickers, picture in picture, suspicious link, forward limit, video and voice group calling and mark as read. You can click here to read more about them


mint-india-wire WhatsAppGoogleWhatsApp backupWhatsApp google driveWhatsApp chat backupWhatsApp Google backuphow to backup whatsapp chats manually"
"Instagram also said it will allow the use of third-party apps such as DUO Mobile and Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication to help users securely log in to their accounts. Photo: AFP


Instagram's 'About This Account' feature that will allow users to see the advertisements an account is running, the country where the account is located, username changes in the past year as well as other details


InstagramAbout This AccountInstagram usersfake accountsFacebookaccounts authenticitysocial mediaphoto sharing apptechnology"
"His earlier statements that “All Modis are chors"", referring to Lalit.K.Modi and Nirav Modi, faced a backlash.


Lalit Modi, founder of the Indian Premier League, on Friday threatened to sue Gandhi for his remarks. “The #papu@rahulgandhi says “All MODIs are CHORs"". Well he will be taken to court in the UK by Me. But reality is that the world knows 5 decades of daylight #looting of #India was and is done by none other than the #Gandhi #family 🙏 @narendramodi,"" he wrote on Twitter.


The Congress has been trying to push the BJP into a corner for letting several economic offenders flee India, lending credence to its slogan ‘Chowkidar chor hai’."
"Amazon Prime members will get 12-hour early access to the best deals, starting 12 noon on January 19.


The sale will see price cuts on smartphones from OnePlus, Honor, Xiaomi, Realme, Samsung, Apple and 10.or. Consumers can also avail up to ₹ 30,000 off on laptops, up to 60% discounts on external hard drives. Price cuts of up to ₹ 35,000 on refrigerators would be available during the sale while TVs will receive maximum discounts of ₹ 40,000 on certain models. Air conditioners will receive up to ₹ 25,000 off."
"But a tiny superhero and comic actor Paul Rudd teaming forces for a movie, that to me seemed like an unlikely success at first


 Not because Rudd is not talented, but because the actor had up until then been seen as someone who only had the potential to deliver comedy"
"Cornering the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused the government of compromising in dealing with the challenge of terrorism."
"The View 20 comes with a 6.4-inch LCD display which has a resolution of 2310x1080 and a screen-to-body ratio of 91.82%.


The device packs a 4,000mAh battery and supports fast charging and has connectivity options which include Dual 4G LTE, Bluetooth v5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (dual-band—2.4GHz and 5GHz), A-GPS, and USB Type-C."
"“But in terms of the Digital Silk Road, interest is rising very quickly,"" he said. “Data localization is a real challenge for U.S. companies -- localization policies make it difficult to have economies of scale in doing business across the region.""


Chinese cadres have long proselytized the concept of a rigidly policed web that can still be a wellspring of innovation. Tencent’s billionaire-founder, Pony Ma, joined government officials in declaring in December it’s their country’s destiny to become an internet power.


Southeast Asia has thus become a testbed for Beijing’s political objectives, a jumping-off point in a long-term campaign to extend its influence around the globe. The U.S. fears the Communist Party’s vision of a web where governments pull the strings could wind up the model for the next billion users. That’s what prompted ex-Google honcho Eric Schmidt to declare the internet will split down the middle within a decade.


“The most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America,"" the former Google chief executive reportedly told a private venture capital gathering in September. “Globalization means that they get to play too."""
"Post Pulwama, there seems to be a national consensus that Pakistan needs to taught a lesson and PM Narendra Modi has been seen to be performing well on that front. (AFP)


BJP is banking on the popularity of PM Narendra Modi and the work done by the current government to win Elections 2019


New Delhi: Elections 2019 has seen a shift in the narrative with the Pulwama attack and the subsequent air strikes in Balakot, Pakistan, overshadowing issues related to development, jobs and farm crisis.


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance, which swept the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, is banking on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the work done by the current government to win Elections 2019."
"A bug in Facebook Messenger allowed websites to gain access to users' data, including who they have been chatting with


As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed making his platform more secure, a bug in Facebook Messenger allowed websites to gain access to users' data, including who they have been chatting with, say researchers."
"The back of the phone has a dual camera setup consisting of 12MP primary sensor and 5MP depth sensor, while nearly everything else, including the battery remains the same.


Yes, it was originally launched as a “Lite"" variant of the Mi A2 in Madrid, but the specifications clearly narrate a different story."
"That would mean a blotch on the central bank’s record of not keeping inflation at or above 2%, which is of course ironic for a country once threatened by high inflation. The MPC’s mandate is 2-6% inflation range, with 4% as the mid-point target to achieve on an enduring basis.


But what tilted the odds to the rate cut were inflationary expectations. Indians now expect inflation to be benign as the central bank’s survey of households revealed. Households’ expectations on inflation in the next three months have fallen by 80 basis points (bps) and for the next one year by 130 bps, said RBI. A basis point is 0.01%.


This is music to a central bank’s ears, siSarvesh Kumar Sharma/Mintnce monetary policy targets inflation expectations. The revision in the headline inflation forecast for the entire 2019 was a massive 60 bps, with RBI’s models forecasting that inflation would be at best 3.9% by the end of this year. That suggests a 4% target is already a checked box and RBI can afford to bring down cost of borrowing for individuals and companies.


“Now that the MPC has advanced the rate cut, the chances of another cut soon have increased; of course subject to the incoming prints of consumer price inflation, which will be a key factor to watch,"" adds IndusInd Bank’s Kapur."
"The Congress, on the other hand, is trying to reposition itself as the main opposition party, having suffered a humiliating rout in 2014. It is trying to bring some focus on plummeting farm incomes and the lack of employment opportunities for the youngsters joining the labour force . The party is hoping to leverage the deep disgruntlement among farmers (most of whom have seen their incomes stagnate) and unemployed youth. Unsurprisingly, its manifesto devotes the first chapter to jobs.


In reality, economic hardships have exacerbated over the past three years and both parties make extra efforts to appear sympathetic. Both are relying on their individual versions of social welfare schemes and safety nets to appeal to the voter. One welfare scheme—cash transfers—has caught the fancy of both parties, adding custom-built bells and whistles. A basic guaranteed income has been promised, with clear targeting.


This is where lines both diverge and converge, contradictory as it might sound. Both parties have avowedly different ideologies but seem to cohere to a broadly common economic programme which cedes primacy to the market and re-imagines an expanded role for India’s private sector alongside a shrinking role for the state.


The cash transfer scheme is a back-handed acknowledgement of failure to reform the economy, abolish poverty, reduce inequality or sort out the structural issues that keep the economy from achieving its full potential. Instead of fixing the deep-rooted troubles (such as eliminating entrenched vote banks that deny farmers their rightful income) and investing in robust primary education and healthcare infrastructure, both parties have opted for the easier route of throwing around somebody else’s money."
The actor made her Bollywood debut alongside Tiger Shroff in 2014’s Heropanti and then went to star in a multi-starrer hit Dilwale
"It had the screenplay by DN Mukherjee and Gulzar, who also wrote the dialogues, rumours have been that T-Series and filmmaker Luv Ranjan will collaborate for a remake, which will have Rajkummar in Dharmendra’s role


com while promoting his upcoming film, Blank, Sunny shared his thoughts on the much-loved film getting remade"
"The film, directed by Irfan Kamal, was earlier scheduled to release on July 5 this year but now has been moved to September 6, the makers said in a statement"
"The directors, who did Winter Soldier, ‘Civil War and Infinity War said it was the hardest of their life


“I think the only reason we stuck around, is because they were committed to an ending and we’re deconstructionists,” said Joe Russo


 Winter Soldier the good guys became the bad guys, Civil War, we divorced the heroes, Infinity War, we killed half of them


 What if the audience totally rejects it?'”Speaking just a few weeks before Endgame is unleashed on the world, Feige has found himself in a familiar spot


Feige said: “It’s not until the movie is completely finished, which Endgame is now completely finished, when you can’t touch it any more that you go, ‘Wait a minute: Should we have touched it more?'”"
"Another version of the Reno with a whopping 10x optical zoom lens starts at 3,999 yuan ( ₹41,000) for the base 6GB/128GB variant and goes all the up to 4,499 yuan (about ₹46,000) for 6GB/256GB and 4,799 yuan (about ₹49,500) for 8GB/256GB variants.


The regular Reno is lit by a 6.4-inch OLED screen, without a notch. The 16MP front-facing camera is housed inside a motorised wedge-shaped pop-up mechanism. Instead of a physical fingerprint scanner, it has an in-display one."
"Darshan plays the role of Duryodhana in Kurukshetra, which is directed by Naganna from a script by screenwriter J


The Mahabharata-themed film, which is also Darshan’s 50th film, will be released both in 2D and 3D formats"
"The silvery-white metal has more than tripled since January 2016, and Citigroup Inc. said this month that further gains may be in store, warning the market will only balance with a shock to demand and prices may hit $1,600. The global deficit looks set to “widen dramatically"" this year, according to Johnson Matthey Plc, a leading maker of autocatalysts, and BlackRock Inc.’s Evy Hambro told Bloomberg TV this week that a “massive shortage"" has built up as the auto market moves away from diesel-powered vehicles.


“Until you get an increase in supply coming onstream, which isn’t going to happen for a few years yet, this is going to result in a tight market and prices generally trending higher,"" Philip Klapwijk, managing director of Hong Kong-based consultant Precious Metals Insights Ltd., said on Wednesday.


Tighter supplies of the metal, used mainly to curb emissions in gasoline vehicles, have prompted users to lease material from exchange-traded fund holders to meet their needs. Heraeus, a refiner, said physical palladium ETF holdings fell to 700,000 ounces at the end of 2018, down from a peak of 2.9 million in 2014. It’s hard to gauge the exact level of global stockpiles, but various sources have estimated a range between 10 million and 18 million ounces, which equates to roughly one to two years of demand, Heraeus said.


Still, some analysts are questioning the durability of the rally. Car sales in China continued to drop in January after their first full-year slump in more than two decades. Plus, markets in Europe and North America are shrinking as ride-hailing and car-sharing services make it less necessary to own a vehicle."
"The PiP feature works with third-party video apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter


The feature had been under testing for a few months and users can finally test it out by updating the application through the Google Play Store


WhatsAppWhatsApp new featureWhatsApp picture in pictureWhatsApp pipWhatsApp webWhatsApp QR codeWhatsApp consecutive voice messagesWhatsApp swipe to replyWhatsApp feature"
"Starting Tuesday, the photo-sharing app is testing a shopping feature, called Checkout, with a handful of retailers including Nike Inc. and designer fashion platform Revolve.


“Over time, as we are creating value for people, this could be a significant part of our business,"" said Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product."
"In this day and age, you’d think that people would be able to separate reality from fiction,” Portman old Esquire"
"Researchers are increasingly striving to help machines translate words from one language to another the way professional translators would. This implies that machines must understand the context of words and sentences, and make sense of idioms, phrases and jokes.


However, despite the fact that billions of words are being translated daily by multilingual machine translation services such as Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and Systran’s Pure Neural Machine Translator, machines have a long way to go before they can function as fluently as humans do.


The Dartmouth research team saw in the Bible “a large, previously untapped data set of aligned parallel text (or translation/s)"", according to a 23 October press statement by the university. For instance, each version of the Bible contains more than 31,000 verses that the researchers used to produce over 1.5 million unique pairings of source and translated verses for machine learning training sets.


According to the research published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, this is not the first parallel data set created for style translation. But it is the first that uses the Bible. Other texts that have been used in the past, ranging from Shakespeare to Wikipedia entries, provide data sets that are either much smaller or not as well suited for the task of translation."
"In the war strategy classic, The Art of War, Sun Tzu said that “the one who wishes to fight must first count the cost.""


Certainly, what happens at the border has vast repercussions, including on stock market. The stock market’s response to the Indian Air Force’s attacks on Tuesday was reactionary at first, but it showed a sharp recovery later in the day.


The Nifty 50 corrected 1.5% intraday on Tuesday, but closed 0.41% lower. Consequently, the NSE’s fear gauge, the India Volatility Index (VIX) jumped nearly 18% during the day to 18.10, and closed lower at 17.05."
"He told me that is precisely why he is making the film cause no one else thinks about telling their stories


You were surprised about the fact that a middle-aged woman will be playing a central role but don’t you feel times have changed now? Haven’t people become more accepting?Yes, it has definitely changed


 While the Indian digital space is still in the nascent stages, soon it’s going to become a hungry monster


 Also, the level of writing and production has really improved and it’s going to be a completely different scenario soon"
"The report titled 'Cloud – Next Wave of Growth in India', prepared with Google Cloud and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, said cloud spending in 2018 was estimated to be about six % of the total IT spending.


Indian infrastructure as a service (IaaS) spending was estimated to be about $ 1 billion in 2018, and is forecast to grow at 25 % per annum to reach $ 2.3–2.4 billion in 2022.


Factors that can drive the IaaS uptake in India are improved infrastructure, economic benefits, increased innovation, vibrant startup and connected ecosystem, the report said."
"The smartphone also has a pop-up selfie 16MP camera. The F11 Pro comes with a 4,000 mAh battery along with support for VOOC 3.0 fast charging technology. On the software front, it runs ColorOS 6 based on Android 9 Pie.


“The bold red Avengers ‘A’ collides with the blue background to form the classic red-blue colour-blocking and also echoes the red switch button on the side, highlighting the Avengers’ logo,"" said the company."
"""He was forced to respond to multiple false allegations which led to severe stress and hardship,"" Bah said in the complaint.


Apple and Security Industry Specialists Inc., a security firm that’s also named as a defendant, declined to comment on the suit."
"Narendra Modi touches the feet of SAD leader Parkash Singh Badal before filing his nomination papers in Varanasi on Friday. (twitter@bjp4india)


In the first three phases so far, polling has been held in 303 seats. The fourth phase of voting is due on 29 April


NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers that contestants from other political parties were not their enemies because they too were working to strengthen democracy.


Addressing BJP workers in Varanasi before filing his nomination papers for the Lok Sabha seat, Modi said an election was not a war, but a festival of democracy. He said there was a pro-incumbency wave in the country."
"Wood was in India for a CEO event ‘Predicting 2025: Business & Work Life’, organized by Blue Circle. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint


mint-india-wire David WoodSymbian operating systemartificial intelligenceAIhealthcareInternet of ThingsArtificial Emotional Intelligence


David Wood, futurist and part of the team that developed the Symbian operating system for mobile phones (discontinued in 2014), believes India has a great role to play in future technologies. In an interview, he explained the reason and also shared his thoughts on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) among other things. Edited excerpts:


India has great potential. First of all because it has got so many people and many are educated. India can lead the world in healthcare initiatives. Indians are not afraid to innovate and have some of the world-class healthcare facilities. Looking at the vast number of clever people who can take advantage of each other’s ideas, I think some of the great initiatives of the future will be born and developed here."
"The Samsung Galaxy A20 clicks pictures with a dual rear camera setup with a 13MP+5MP configuration. The Infinity-V cutout at the front houses a 5MP selfie sensor with an f/2.0 lens.


The Samsung Galaxy A20 is backed by a 4,000 mAh battery with support for fast charging via a USB Type-C port. Samsung claims Galaxy A20's battery lasts an entire day. The back of the smartphone also sports a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor."
"At the same time, we are super excited about AAA titles (like PubG) coming to mobile. AAA guys are learning from mobile developers how they can create short session gameplay, running games as a service, etc.


Kochikar: Think of games as a specialised vertical, who have their own senses about things — how to design a game, etc. By doing an Indie Games Accelerator, we bring in specialised experts who are game centric. We could have brought venture capitalists (to speak to the developers), but instead we brought in CEO’s of game companies, experts in game design, people who understand game performance etc.


The author was in Singapore, at the invitation of Google, to attend its Indie Games Developer conference


mint-india-wire google playindie gamesgoogleKunal SoniPurnima KochikarMobile appsMobile gamesmobile developersupigamestechnology"
"The Realme 3 Pro will go head-to-head with the Redmi Note 7 Pro, and will be priced similarly in the sub ₹20,000 bracket


It is confirmed to be bundled with a VOOC charger and have camera features such as ""Speed Shot"", ""Super Slo-Mo"" and an advanced night mode


Chinese smartphone maker Realme is set to launch a new smartphone, the Realme 3 Pro, at an event in New Delhi today. Touted to be a 'Redmi Note 7 Pro killer' and aimed specifically at the youth, the smartphone will be launched in typical Realme fashion at Delhi University's North Campus at 12 noon. Realme 3 Pro's predecessor, the Realme 2 Pro, was launched last year at Amity University, Noida."
"When asked if he plans to stay focused on films or will be back on TV soon, Vikram shared, “For me, content is the priority"
"""The objective of the programme is to develop an ecosystem of faculty in the AI space, which translates into talent ready to be absorbed by the industry into its workforce,"" said the statement.


The programme will be offered initially in technical colleges and universities in Karnataka and will extend across the country later.


""We aim to upskill about 2,000 faculty members in AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning through multiple interventions and impact about 25,000 under-graduates pursuing AI-related courses,"" said Nasscom's FutureSkills Chief Executive Amit Aggarwal on the occasion."
"But Tessa Thompson, who plays the role of Valkyrie in MCU, has said that a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok, the last Thor film, is in the works, and director Taika Waititi is expected to return


Marvel Studios has already announced various projects in the next phase of the MCU, but Thor 4 is yet to be confirmed"
"The Huawei P30 Lite was launched in Canada a few days after the P30 Pro launch. It has mid-range specs and costs CAD 429.95 (about ₹22,100).


It is lit by a 6.15-inch FHD+ LCD display with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. Under the hood, it is powered by a mid-range Kirin 710 chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The phone runs on Android Pie with EMUI 9.1 on top.


The P30 Lite sports a triple camera setup comprising a 24MP primary camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The front of the phone houses a 32MP selfie camera. It is backed by a 3,340mAh battery which supports 18W QuickCharge over a USB Type-C port."
"Overall, Vivo led the number of launches with 7 models having the latest Android OS version shipped out of the factory.


The second spot was taken by Nokia which launched four models, followed by Tecno (3), the report said."
Realme will open exclusive stores in India where prospective buyers can get a hands-on experience of Realme devices
"OnePlus had earlier integrated Google Lens in its camera application. You can enable Lens by tapping on its icon sitting above the toggle camera button.


Google Lens allows you to click an image of a product and get more information about it from Google without having to specifically search for it. It even lets you search QR codes."
"The LDF leader had made the statement at a time when the party was speaking about renaissance and progressive values and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan claims to ensure women security, she alleged.


However, Vijayaraghavan on Tuesday clarified that his remarks against Haridas were distorted by the media and he did not intend to insult or hurt anyone.


""I have never intended to tarnish the image of anyone. It was a political speech... Ramya is like a sister to me.. I am a person who respects women,"" he told reporters when his reaction was sought."
"The Fourth Industrial Revolution (i4.0) could transform the way we live and work – presenting both opportunities and challenges. It could lead India into the arc of global progress; entrepreneurs, CEOs, leaders, and start-ups are rapidly adopting technologies involving AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D-printing, advanced robotics and neuroscience.


In this context, it is gratifying that KPMG in India’s survey of Indian CEOs showed that more than 90% of them see technology disruption as more of an opportunity than a threat. This i4 openness is what makes India stand out as an emerging economy.


So what will the Fourth Industrial Revolution mean for India? Among the many important aspects of i4.0 is the confluence of interconnected technologies that enables new approaches to multiple issues such as energy access, food security and building efficiencies. Mobility is expected to witness exponential growth; a leading cab aggregator is already working on air taxis and drones are being used across industries to identify and monitor work. Such advanced tech interventions will enhance pan-industrial functioning and processes.


Gartner says a 30-fold increase in connected devices will “significantly alter how the supply chain operates. Global firms recognise IoT’s transformational role, particularly in manufacturing, retailing and service industries. IoT is set to revolutionise the supply chain with both operational efficiencies and revenue opportunities. The supply chain today is a way to gain an edge on competitors and build your own brand. Smart devices can therefore really make a difference in their ability to closely monitor and deal with more variables than ever."
"Realme 3's base 3GB/32GB variant is priced at ₹8,999 while the top variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage is priced at ₹10,999


Oppo's spin-off entity Realme launched a new smartphone in India on Monday—the Realme 3. Starting at ₹8,999, the smartphone boasts a glossy back with a glitter finish, MediaTek Helio P70 SoC paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.


While the Realme 3's base 3GB/32GB variant is priced at ₹8,999, its top-of-the-line variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage is priced at ₹10,999."
"Sinha is the ""best politician who was earlier with the wrong party"", said Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal while welcoming him into the party fold from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).


A popular leader in Bihar, Sinha represents the Patna Sahib constituency in the Lok Sabha. He will contest from the same seat, this time on a Congress ticket, against the BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad in the upcoming general elections."
"Whether you’ve a dual-SIM card smartphone or live two lives—using two WhatsApp numbers on the same phone can be very convenient. But WhatsApp doesn’t allow users to access two WhatsApp numbers simultaneously on a single device. WhatsApp even discourages users to swap between devices too often, without actually citing a reason on their official blog.


However, there are several workarounds, on the Play Store as well as by custom ROMS, to use multiple WhatsApp numbers on a single device. Here are the three main ways you can do it:


Custom UIs from, mostly from Chinese smartphone makers, like Asus, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor and Samsung allow you to either duplicate apps or create an entirely new user account (like you would on a Mac or Windows system)."
"At day’s low, Dr Reddy’s Lab fell as much as 29.77% to ₹1,872. This was the biggest intraday fall in Dr Reddy’s shares in over 17 years


The selling pressure in Dr Reddy’s shares also hit other pharma shares. The Nifty pharma index fell over 3%


NEW DELHI: Shares of Dr Reddy’s Lab fell as much as 30% in intra-day trade before recovering to close 4% lower at ₹2,556. Investors turned wary after Jefferies in a research note said the US drug regulator reiterated some concerns about the drugmaker’s Bachupally, Hyderabad, plant. At the day’s low, Dr Reddy’s Lab fell as much as 29.77% to ₹1,872. This was the biggest intra-day fall in Dr Reddy’s shares in over 17 years."
"And it was great to be able to share that character with the world and see that power can go through the screen to other people as well,” Brie said


Also read: Robert Downey Jr: Impossible to predict what is going to happen in Avengers EndgameAvenger: Endgame is set to release in India on April 26"
"The battleground states in Elections 2019 are those that are traditional powerhouses and also those that have come to hold the levers of power in the post-2014 scenario.


The BJP will look to make up for a likely shortfall in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh in West Bengal, Odisha and the Northeast


Also, as compared to 2014, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka will have a greater significance for BJP and Congress in Elections 2019


MUMBAI: Mumbai: Lok Sabha Elections 2019, dates of which were announced Sunday, will be contested in territories that could be called the battleground states. These are not only states which choose themselves for their size and significance, such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, but also smaller ones that will play an outsized role.


The party or alliance that wins Elections 2019 is going to be determined by the states that are not necessarily big but which nevertheless can swing the outcome in terms of the arithmetic of alliances and the competing narratives that have dominated the post-2014 landscape, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the northeastern states.


West Bengal too assumes a greater significance for Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the main challenger—the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—this year than it did in 2014.


Essentially, the battleground states in Elections 2019 are those that are traditional powerhouses and also those that have come to hold the levers of power in the post-2014 scenario."
"Matondkar had joined the Congress after meeting Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday and had later said that she was ""here to stay"".


Meira Kumar have been contesting from her Sasaram parliamentary constituency for many years but had lost in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls."
"The broader issue is that a large portion of this financing has been done by mutual funds and some of it by NBCs. The golden run of mutual funds which saw huge inflows through SIP post demonetization seems to have run its course and come to a complete halt. Live SIP accounts have fallen to 1.87 lakh accounts in December 2018 from 4.81 lakh accounts in April 2018. With the current state of the market being what it is, this situation is likely to worsen as returns are negative from the stock market.


The week ahead is likely to see the market under pressure and test key support levels. There are multiple supports and we have about three to four major levels of support in a span of 300-350 points on the Nifty. If these levels hold, it would be a reason for the markets to rebound. In case they fail, there could be some panic before value buying comes in."
"After Allo's exit, Google is going all in on Rich Communication Services (RCS) — the successor to SMS that's been a long time coming — to give Android a successful messaging app.


Google has incorporated some of Allo's features like smart replies and desktop support into the Android Messaging app


After pausing investments in its ""Allo"" mobile messaging app, Google has finally bid goodbye to the platform that was launched with much fanfare in 2016."
"Sharing a lovely picture of himself with Priya, he wrote, “Little did I know that I would be crooning the name of the girl who was going to be the Lady of my Life!! My most ardent Fan🤗, My most cruel Critic🕵🏻‍♀, My 24/7 Entertainment System📣, My best Home-maker🏡, My Mood-enhancer😊, My Support system💪🏼, The Woman with the best sense of Humor🤣,…My Best Half🤩!! 🎉Happiest of Birthday wishes to my WIFE(Wife Is For Ever)🎁”On the work front, Kunchacko Boban will be next seen in the Malayalam movie Virus"
"The former opening batsman joined BJP in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad


Former international cricketer Gautam Gambhir Friday joined the BJP and is expected to be fielded in the Lok Sabha polls from one of the seats in the national capital.


The 37-year-old joined the party here in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad."
"Arvind Tiwary, founder of SangEnnovate and co-chair of IoTNext organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bengaluru, says startups, co-working spaces, venture capital and angel networks, the city’s STEM education, and the Karnataka government’s initiatives are converging. “The state government’s Elevate and Idea2PoC programmes (to provide early-stage funding to ideas or concepts that are yet to establish the proof of concept in the real world) have been well executed without the usual bureaucratic problems. Competency centres in life sciences, IoT, and data science are also a good beginning,"" he says.


Gaurav Gupta, principal secretary in the Karnataka government’s department of technology, biotechnology and science and technology, says Bengaluru’s strength lies in the institutions the government has developed along with the tech community. “Notable among them is the setting up of the first incubation warehouse in 2013 that was called Nasscom 10k warehouse for startups,"" says Gupta. In 2016, the state government set up centres of excellence in IOT and later AI and data sciences, both with Nasscom. It is also working with the Indian Institutes of Information Technology on machine learning and robotics, with the Indian Institute of Science on cybersecurity, and with Dassault of France on aerospace and defence. What if the next government at the centre is not led by the party that leads the state? Experts believe the state will always get attention. “Governments have recognized the value of the Indian technology industry, and no administration can negate the value this sector brings, including the contribution to GDP, revenues, jobs, skilling, and technology implementation to solve social problems,"" says K.S. Viswanathan, vice-president, industry initiatives at Nasscom, Most governments have a consultative process to address challenges, he says. “We have seen very good intent from policymakers in the past, and we will keep working with the administration to build a sustainable business ecosystem for India,"" says Viswanathan."
"Asian currencies market were trading lower amid growing expectations that central banks globally will have to ease to cope with slowing growth.


Thai Baht was down 0.36%, Indonesian rupiah 0.25%, Malaysian ringgit 0.14%, Philippines peso 0.11%, Singapore dollar and South Korean won were down 0.1% each, Taiwan dollar 0.07%. However, Japanese yen was up 0.1%."
"The young girl received the award for her heroic act of saving a boy from drowning earlier this year


 A sports enthusiast, Bhargasetu is an NCC cadet and even achieved the second position in 400-meter freestyle in Khel Mahakumbh 2017


 A humanist by nature, she is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW) from Maharaja Sayajirao University


The Roadies judges were completely blown away by Bhargasetu and her humility when they met her for the first time


 Neha Dhupia had even stated that she would want her daughter Mehr to imbibe some of Bhargasetu’s qualities when she grows up"
"The actor has been part of movies that were commercial and critical failures, but Trisha always made sure she backed it up with resounding hits


In an unforgiving industry, where female actors are expected to constantly adhere to narrow beauty standards and deal with widespread objectification on a daily basis, Trisha’s presence comes as breath of fresh air"
"(Pun-intended) Overall, Kanchana 3 is a frustratingly cringe-worthy piece of work masquerading as “horror comedy” that makes you squirm"
"""This year, virtually every major Android [phone maker] will be launching a phone with 5G,"" said Ignacio Contreras, head of 5G marketing for Qualcomm.


In its iPhones released last year, Apple dropped Qualcomm's chips in favor of those from Intel. Apple disclosed in a court hearing last month that it had held talks with MediaTek and Samsung about supplying modems for 2019 iPhones, but Bloomberg earlier reported that 5G iPhones will not appear until 2020."
"Their unusual profession has been credited with sparking popular interest in the paranormal, as well as the television shows and films now dedicated to the subject


“When nobody was really even talking about ghosts, they were just two people from Bridgeport, Connecticut, who came together and fell in love and Ed happened to have had a lot of paranormal instances when he was growing up and Lorraine was always the sensitive clairvoyant,” said Larry Dwyer, a staff writer at the Horror News Network, a website that covers the horror film industry


 He said the couple realized they could use their “gifts” and Catholic faith to help people who believed they were being tormented by ghosts or demons"
"Most other Asian currencies were trading higher. Malaysian ringgit was up 0.14%, South Korean won 0.12%, Philippines peso 0.11%, Japanese yen 0.05%, Singapore dollar 0.05%. However, Indonesian rupiah was down 0.11%, Taiwan dollar 0.06%.


The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.876, up 0.01% from its previous close of 96.873."
"The Bharat 5 Infinity comes with facial unlocking and fingerprint scanning while the Bharat 4 Diwali Edition skips the two.


MicromaxMicromax Infinity NMicromax Infinity N launchMicromax new phone launchMicromax Infinity N live stream"
"But it could have been even longer, the screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus explained while talking to the New York Times"
"The actor has, reportedly, flown down to India to attend the wedding festivities of her younger brother Sidharth Chopra


 In the photo, she is seen dining with her mother Madhu Chopra, brother Sidharth and other family members"
"If Google Pixel 3 is about the camera, and Apple iPhone XS about speed, Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus is about the best balance


 It’s certainly the most unique-looking flagship smartphone, but it’s more a jack of all trades and master of none


The Galaxy Fold may have dominated the headlines this year but Samsung’s marketable device for now is the Galaxy S10. Officially launched in India, the Galaxy S10 Plus is the yearly update to Samsung’s flagship devices.


If the Google Pixel is about the camera, and Apple’s iPhones about speed, Samsung’s phone is about the best balance in the flagship segment. Other than its design, there’s really nothing unique about this smartphone. But is that a downer?"
"He wrote on Twitter, “Happy birthday to the most talented, confident & self-made @Samanthaprabhu2 … wishing you a year ahead with full of happiness & success Sam💐💐👍”Hansika Motwani shared on Twitter, “Happy birthday gorgeous ☺️ stay blessed always


 @Samanthaprabhu2”On the work front, Samantha Akkineni is riding high with back-to-back box office hits – Super Deluxe and Majili"
"Some of the films bankrolled by Dharma Productions include Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Dostana, Agneepath, Kesari, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Wake Up Sid"
"Indian markets came under strong selling pressure today, tracking selloff in other global markets on concerns about decelerating global growth. The Sensex fell 355 points to 37,808.91, though its ended off its day's low of 37,667. The broader index Nifty settled 0.90% lower at 11,354. Asian markets fell sharply today, with the equity gauge in Japan sliding 3%. European markets also slipped today. On Friday, all three major US stock indexes clocked their biggest one-day percentage losses since January 3 and US stock futures suggest further declines on Wall Street. Here are 10 things to know about today's trade:


The broader markets also succumbed to the selling pressure, with BSE midcap and smallcap indices falling over 1%.


Banking, metal, IT and FMCG stocks led the decline in Indian markets. Among the Sensex stocks, RIL, SBI, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, M&M and Tata Motors fell between 1% and 2.5%. Jet Airways shares soared 13% today on BSE to ₹254.50 after Naresh Goyal, the founder of the airline, resigned from the board of the cash-strapped airline.  "
"“After her first visit, Marie Seton developed such an attraction for India, she virtually became a citizen of this country,” Prof


 Satish Bahadur of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) wrote in his centenary tribute to Seton in The Hindu in 2010


 Surely, she appeared to be all ears for Ray and pushed all issues in his name to make the Film Society Movement the toast of the 1960s and 1970s


 In December 1959, when the Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) was being formed, Gandhi—who had not joined politics yet—agreed to become FFSI’s vice-president for a brief period when she was told that Ray was the president of the organisation


 Ray’s presence at FFSI and Gandhi’s admiration for his films ensured that film society movement had all the patronage from the government of the day


 “She suggested getting her a letter from Manik da on this and Manik da was ever obliging as President of FFSI


 And Mrs Gandhi as Information and Broadcast Minister waived off censorship for film society films,” Vijay Mulay, a long-time activist of Delhi Film Society, said in an interview"
"In this context, the important question is how policies should keep pace with the rapid pace at which these emerging technologies are disrupting our lives and changing business models.


Singapore, for instance, has released a set of national standards to guide the local industry in the ‘safe’ development and rollout of autonomous vehicles, outlining guidelines related to vehicle behaviour, functional safety, cybersecurity, and data formats.


India will need similar policies, not just for AI, IoT, robotics (as it did for drones) and blockchain but also strengthen its data protection and privacy laws and not just leave it to “informed consent"", which in most cases is uninformed or simply unavoidable consent."
"James Watt would perhaps have never visualized what his steam engine would morph into, professor Sadagopan explained. Today, that engine is used to power cars, pumps and many more. It has even transformed into electric engines now, he pointed out. Over time, engines created a whole new profession, called engineering. According to professor Sadagopan, we’re seeing a re-enactment of brawn power amplification to brain power amplification—that is AI."
"He also slammed the BJP for denying ticket to party veterans L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi ""without their consent""."
"GSMArena also says the smartphone might be launched as the Nokia 8.1 Plus in Taiwan with the aforementioned configuration. For other markets, it might pack a Snapdragon 710 chipset."
"Sensex closed at 39,054.68, up 489.80 points, or 1.27%, while the 50-share Nifty was at 11,726.15, up 150.20 points or 1.30%"
"A January blog post from Living Hope Ministries that protested Apple’s decision to remove the app from its App Store disputed a connection to conversion therapy. Living Hope Ministries didn’t return an email seeking comment.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"However, only time will tell if bringing Hollywood star Will Smith on board helped the movie’s case or not


The film’s official synopsis reads, “A thrilling and vibrant live-action adaptation of Disney’s animated classic, “Aladdin” is the exciting tale of the charming street rat Aladdin, the courageous and self-determined Princess Jasmine and the Genie who may be the key to their future"
"Also, the government’s strategic holding in Axis Bank, ITC and L&T, held through Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), has been put in the ETF basket.


This would be the second ETF offering by the government in the current fiscal which ends in March. In November last year, the government had raised ₹17,300 crore through a follow-on offer of another exchange traded fund — CPSE ETF, which comprises shares of 11 public sector enterprises. This was the biggest-ever fund raising from an ETF domestically."
"Apple on Wednesday released the trio of its latest flagship smartphones, out which one stands out the most—the iPhone XR. It is more of an upgrade to the iPhone 8 rather than the iPhone X; here’s why.


The iPhone XR carries the legacy of the iPhone 8’s LCD display, and it might well be the last one to have one. Apple likes to call this notched 6.1-inch LCD display the ‘Liquid Retina’ display. It sports a resolution of 1792x822, which means its below 1080p, and a pixel density of 326ppi, which is also a bit off. It also lacks the contrast ratio of 1:1,00,000 that’s present on the OLED display of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. However, it offers a wide colour gamut than its siblings."
"Brighter and waterproof: The All-New Kindle Paperwhite ( ₹ 12,999 onwards) offers 8GB storage and is also waterproof (up to 2 metres for 60 minutes in fresh water). Its front-lit screen keeps the text visible on its own and the fact that it offers more pixels per inch (ppi)—300 compared to 167 on the entry-level variant —makes the text look sharper. It has a 4G variant too and is priced at ₹ l7,999. Unlike smartphones, 4G on Kindles will not be tied to your carrier plans. On Amazon’s Kindles, you don’t pay separately for the 4G connectivity and you can use it for downloading books on the go, checking dictionary, etc.


Top-of-the-line: The Kindle Oasis, priced ₹ 21,999 upwards, is also water-proof and has a front-lit but bigger (7-inch) screen. Its design simulates that of a book with one side folded backwards. It has a wide bezel on the right, allowing you to hold it in one hand without accidentally touching the screen. There are physical buttons on this side too, to flip pages. The Oasis also runs on a faster processor, making the pages turn faster. In fact, both the Paperwhite and Oasis are considerably faster than the entry-level Kindle, making the overall reading experience more seamless."
"The tech giant, which three years ago was forced into an expensive and embarassing global recall of its Galaxy Note 7 devices over exploding batteries, told AFP an ""external impact"" had caused the damage, rather than an internal glitch.


But the smartphone user, who asked to be identified by his surname Lee, claimed his Galaxy S10 5G phone had burnt ""without reasons"".


""My phone was on the table when it started smelling burnt and smoke soon engulfed the phone,"" Lee told AFP, adding: ""I had to drop it to the ground when I touched it because it was so hot."""
"MUMBAI: In a rare intervention in the election process, Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman Mukesh Ambani has endorsed Congress candidate from the key Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency and former union minister Milind Deora. In a video shared by Deora on his twitter handle on Thursday, Ambani, a South Mumbai resident, describes the Congress candidate as “the man for South Mumbai. Having represented South Mumbai for ten years, I believe Milind has in-depth knowledge of social, economic and cultural eco-system of the South Bombay constituency"".


Deora has also got a similar backing from billionaire banker and another prominent South Mumbai resident Uday Kotak in the same video. Kotak says he “genuinely feels that Deora is able to relate to Mumbaikars and his family has been associated with Mumbai for a long time. Milind truly represents Mumbai ka connection."""
"But Joseph group leaders confirmed to Mint that their leader may leave the party in protest, splitting KC(M) into two.


The quagmire between the two leaders and the potential implosion of KC(M) not only risks the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) of a rebel candidate in a crucial constituency, but also of losing support of two MLAs in the assembly-- Joseph and his faction's leader Mons Joseph.


Joseph has been demanding a seat in the Lok Sabha contest ever since Mani's son Jose K. Mani was nominated to Rajya Sabha recently on a Congress ticket."
"Huawei, however, will be skipping a major smartphone launch this time. The much anticipated Huawei flagship, the P30, will launch after the MWC 2019—on 26 March. And just like its predecessor, the P20 and P20 Pro, it will be launched at the French capital of Paris.


The Chinese communications giant posted a tweet on Wednesday with a video flashing shots of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Notre-Dame de Paris that reads ""Rules were made to be rewritten. Paris, 26.03.2019.""


According to some reports, the P30 family will remain unchanged in terms of variants. We can expect P30, P30 Pro and P30 Lite devices to come out at the time of its launch."
"And now, reports suggest that actor Jagapathi Babu has been roped in to play the antagonist in this yet-to-be-titled film


It is well known that Jagapathi Babu, who was struggling to get the needed boost in his career a few years ago, got his big break with Legend starring Nandamuri Balakrishna"
"""The device offers market-leading specifications by pushing the boundaries of smartphone design, providing long battery life with a waterdrop screen to deliver seamless and powerful performance, which ensures the best experiences to Indian smartphone users,"" said Charles Wong, CEO OPPO India and President South Asia.


The OPPO A1K is built with MediaTek 6762 CPU, supporting up to 17 hours of daily usage. It has an 8MP rear camera and 5MP front camera."
"The BJP on Sunday released names of four candidates in Delhi. The party has retained their sitting MPs Harshvardhan in Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari in North East Delhi, Parvesh Verma in West Delhi and Ramesh Bidhuri in South Delhi.


Almost two months ahead of polling, the AAP had released names of candidates for all the seven constituencies even as the party continued to hold talks with the Congress for an alliance. The AAP is keen on an alliance to pool together anti-BJP votes."
"The development comes less than a day after AAP's Atishi filed a criminal complaint against Gambhir and accused him of being enrolled as a voter in two constituencies.


""First, Discrepancies in nomination papers. Then, Criminal offence of having 2 voter ID's. Now, FIR for illegal rally. My question to @GautamGambhir: When you don't know the rules, why play the game?,"" Atishi said in response to the development."
It is heartbreaking when your family or friends question you over something they read in a gossip column
"Talking further about his future projects, Sharman said, “There is Mission Mangal that with Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan and others"
"Citing meetings with top Doordarshan and All India Radio officials and correspondence received from the two, the committee said, tt is clear that Doordarshan has only used the feed provided by a private agency and the All India Radio has taken audio output as broadcast by Doordarshan News for dissemination over its network.


Doordarshan said, the telecast of the address was not live and the source was the play out of the video received from the private agency. The DD also told the EC that the PM's message was telecast on more than 60 news channels in addition to Doordarshan.


The Commission said the panel set up by it examined the PM's address in the light of the provision in the model code dealing with 'Party in Power'.


The provision says, ""Issue of advertisement at the cost of public exchequer in the newspapers and other media and the misuse of official mass media during the election period for partisan coverage of political news and publicity regarding achievements with a view to furthering the prospects of the party in the power shall be scrupulously avoided."""
"Within the same size (11.5mm x 13.0mm), the 1TB chip doubles the capacity of the previous 512GB version by combining 16 stacked layers of Samsung's most advanced ""V-NAND"" flash memory and a newly-developed proprietary controller.


Smartphone users will now be able to store 260 10-minute videos in 4K UHD format with 1TB eUFS (embedded Universal Flash Storage), whereas the 64GB smartphones are capable of storing 13 videos of the same size, the company said in a statement.


""The 1TB eUFS is expected to play a critical role in bringing a more notebook-like user experience to the next generation of mobile devices,"" said Cheol Choi, Executive Vice President of Memory Sales and Marketing at Samsung Electronics."
"Such upward revaluations of investments are not new, but it assumes these firms will raise further rounds of funding at higher prices. It also does not take into account cash burn in such businesses, which are still at a nascent stage of development. Zomato, for instance, still burns cash and is at a growth stage.


In its flagship business of recruitment, Info Edge has been seeing better revenues. While Naukri.com also has a roster of nearly 62 million resumes, one worry is rising competition. LinkedIn has been hot on the heels of Naukri.com.


To fend off competition and make further inroads into the market, however, Info Edge has been increasing advertising spends. This ate into Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) margins last quarter."
"The size of the notchless display would be 6.67-inch and it is expected to carry support for full HD+ resolution


Beijing: Images of the upcoming OnePlus 7 smartphone have surfaced on Weibo, one of China's most popular social platforms, indicating that the smartphone is likely to be equipped with a curved OLED display.


One of the leaked images indicated that the OnePlus 7 variant with model number ""GM1915"" would hit the market as OnePlus 7 Pro.


""The second image claims that the handset will be debuting as OnePlus 7 Pro. The above image shows that the upcoming OnePlus 7 smartphone will be sporting a bezel-less design since it is fitted with a curved OLED display."
"""BJP will lose this election because of policies inspired by hatred.. especially their ""chowkidar"" campaign... no matter how much the chhote, bade chowkidars try, the BJP will not win,"" she said.


Addressing the rally in the presence of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Ajit Singh, she said, ""The Congress has failed despite ruling for so many years,""


The BSP chief said, ""Our government, instead of giving minimum income support, will give employment to poor people. Indira Gandhi too made a 20-point programme to remove poverty, but was it effective?"""
"Ericsson showcased tech like Spectrum Sharing, Intelligent Managed Services and Communication on Smart Devices


Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced that it has selected Ericsson to expand its pan-India voice over LTE (VoLTE) services"
"On 3 April, the Madras high court asked the central government to prevent TikTok downloads, saying it was ""encouraging pornography"". As a result, the app was taken off by both Apple and Google app stores.


On 22 April, the Supreme Court directed the Madras high court to decide on a plea in the hearing scheduled for 24 April, failing which it said the order would stand vacated. The Madras high court, after hearing a plea from ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, reversed its 3 April decision."
"The automaker’s VR platform provides 360-degree videos of the working of its Furio trucks in real-life environment. It puts the customer in the co-passenger seat while the driver can explain the various features of the truck. It includes a VR headset developed by Procus and a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro smartphone that comes preloaded with a Furio VR App and mobile device management service.


It is being used for customer/driver meets or local events and during individual customer showroom/office visits. M&M is hoping the use of Furio VR will help improve the conversion ratio of leads to sales and save around ₹15-30 lakh per dealership."
"The feature is expected to be introduced to WhatsApp Beta soon. WhatsApp Beta receives the latest features from the instant messaging platform before they are made available to the stable version. If you wish try it out, you can do so by becoming a beta tester by clicking here. WhatsApp Beta lets you check out the latest WhatsApp features that are in testing. The beta version is also prone to a lot of bugs and crashes. If you face issues on a regular basis after downloading WhatsApp, you can withdraw from the testing program by clicking on the same link."
"Sebi held this view as the two brokerage firms indulged in the so-called illegal paired contracts on the NSEL trading platform, which violated the norms of the Forward Contract Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Maharashtra Public Interest Depositor (MPID) Act. That caused a serious ‘reputational’ risk for the firms, Sebi said.


NSEL was, in July 2013, NSEL was barred from launching any fresh contracts after it was found that it allowed paired contact on its platform, which were violating FCRA and the terms on which NSEL was granted registration as a spot exchange. As a result, the exchange was unable to meet its settlement obligations of around ₹5,548 crore to nearly 13,000 investors .


Sebi, in the order, also held that brokers had a close association with NSEL and allowed themselves to “become a channel"" and an instrument for the exchange to promote paired contracts.


Given the close association of the firms to NSEL and the paired contracts, and the relatability of the same to the noticee, the serious adverse observations of the various courts and authorities seriously eroded the reputation and belief in competence, fairness, honesty, integrity and character of the firms, Buch said in the order."
"The new launcher comes with better customizability and categorisation, so you won’t be looking around for your apps here and there. You can sort apps in the app drawer according to their genre and even search for them.


At the launch event, Jai Mani, product head of POCO, announced that POCO will receive the Android Pie update later this year, so those looking for upgradability are also sorted.


Wrapping up, the phone is so fiercely priced for a package this well rounded that it is hard for us to not recommend it to anyone, doesn’t matter if it is above or below your budget. No doubt, it does cut a few corners to keep the price low, but it gets right what’s being advertised — speed.


If you’re interested in knowing how the POCO brand is trying to dethrone OnePlus as a flagship killer, you click here.


Xiaomi POCO F1 reviewPOCO F1Poco F1 salePoco F1 pricePoco phoneXiaomiPoco f1 reviewpoco f1 flipkartpoco f1 mi.compoco f1 first impressionspoco f1 batterypoco f1 performancepoco f1 screenpoco f1 chipsetpoco f1 processorpoco f1 india"
"Screening a seven-second excerpt of a spider scene from Spider-Man 2 reduced participants’ post-viewing spider phobia (arachnophobia) symptoms score relative to their pre-viewing score by 20 per cent, according to the research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry


This impressive cost-benefit efficacy was similarly obtained for ant phobia (myrmecophobia) when viewing a seven-second excerpt from Ant-Man


However, when participants were queried either about general insect phobia both pre- and post-viewing a seven second Marvel opening scene — common to all Marvel movies — or a seven second natural scene, there were no significant symptom reductions for insect phobia"
"The numbers, however, exclude ABB’s power grid business in India, wherein the local entity and its parent are divesting. Given the sizeable contribution and the lack of clarity on the divestment proceeds, the announcement has been met with scepticism.


The ABB India stock is down more than 10% since the divestment announcement in mid-December. The power grid business contributes 40% to its revenue.


In this backdrop, the December quarter results give some idea of how the residual entity is performing. The residual business is growing faster than the power grid segment, where revenue grew 6% last quarter."
"Chadwick Boseman starrer 21 Bridges’ trailer is out and unfortunately, for an action-thriller, it looks astonishingly bland


 Kirk is popular for having directed multiple episodes of HBO show Game of Thrones and Showtime’s Brotherhood and The Tudors"
"The front has the teardrop design with higher screen to body ratio of 86.83%. The Samsung Galaxy M10 has the same design but with a smaller chin, and a higher screen-to-body ratio of 90%.


Unlike its predecessor, the Redmi 6, there isn’t a big difference in the screen-size of the Redmi 7 and Redmi Note 7. The former has a 6.26-inch screen, but with lower resolution of 1,280x750p. One could argue that it isn't a deal-breaker and is reasonable for the price, as even without full HD resolution, the Redmi 7’s screen doesn't disappoint.


Colours in videos and games look good. The Samsung Galaxy M10 has similar screen-size and resolution, but the Redmi 7’s screen offers better contrast, which makes watching movies more enjoyable on it.


Interestingly, Xiaomi has used Corning Glass 5 on the display. It won't scratch too easily and should withstand some light drops."
"The company’s updated TV app, including a new subscription for original movies and TV shows, will launch on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. But it will also be available via gadgets from Amazon.com Inc. and Roku Inc., and smart TVs from LG Electronics Inc., Sony Corp., and Samsung Electronics Co.


One company that went unmentioned in the iPhone maker’s two hour presentation: Google, owner of Android, which powers about 85% of the latest smartphones.


At first blush, this seems like an injudicious omission by Apple. There’s a lot riding on the company’s new services, and its video subscription in particular. Apple said it plans to launch in more than 100 countries, and in most of those places Android is even more dominant. Not making an Android version of the TV app ignores on hundreds of millions of potential paying viewers, especially outside the US.


On closer inspection, though, Apple is making a calculated bet that it doesn’t need those Android phone users — or has other ways of reaching them that don’t require cosying up to arch-rival Google."
"Facebook has said the attackers gained the ability to “seize control"" of those user accounts by stealing digital keys the company uses to keep users logged in. They could do so by exploiting three distinct bugs in Facebook’s code. The company said it has fixed the bugs and logged out affected users to reset those digital keys.


At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg—whose own account was compromised—said attackers would have had the ability to view private messages or post on someone’s account, but there’s no sign that they did."
"Backed by Dharma Productions and helmed by Ayan Mukerji, the film also stars Alia Bhatt, Nagarjuna and Mouni Roy in prominent roles"
"NEW DELHI: Returning the electoral favour, the Congress party on Sunday announced that it would leave 7 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh for the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) which have formed an alliance. The alliance had earlier decided against fielding candidates in the Gandhi bastions of Amethi and Raebareli."
"On Wednesday, Cook announced a potential drop of 25% in sales in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the most recent quarter. A sharp falloff like that suggests that Chinese consumers are following a trend in other emerging markets like India and Indonesia, where consumers have long passed over iPhones for cheaper, almost-as-good devices from Apple’s competitors.


People aren’t buying iPhones like they used to. With smartphones now in nearly every pocket in the developed world, new customers are hard to come by. So Apple has increasingly relied on enticing existing customers to toss their old iPhones for faster, slimmer, pricier successors.


Cook said this week that customers are waiting longer to replace their iPhones, with many instead swapping in new batteries to extend their life. Apple fuelled that trend when it cut the price of battery swaps to $29 from $79 in response to revelations that its software slowed down iPhones with old batteries.


That presents a dilemma for Cook. Apple wants iPhones to be durable and long-lasting so consumers will see them as worthy investments. (Many now cost more than a refrigerator.) Apple also knows that the longer consumers use their iPhone, the more they pay for apps and Apple services, a rapidly growing and increasingly important part of Apple’s business.


Apple’s sophisticated supply chain is among the great wonders of modern business, incorporating hundreds of suppliers in a complex web of factories and shippers to keep up with global demand for one of history’s most popular products. And Cook, who was Apple’s operations guru before he became chief executive, is largely credited with its creation.


But it soon might be in Trump’s cross hairs. Apple, one of the quintessential American brands, assembles most of its products in China — and Trump has noticed. He criticized Apple on the campaign trail, saying he’d force it to start making its products closer to home. While president, he has said Apple plans “to build a lot of plants"" in the United States — even though it hasn’t announced plans to do so. (Cook hasn’t publicly corrected him.)


While Apple avoided an iPhone tax in the first rounds of tariffs, it might not be so lucky if Trump is looking for more products to target. If that happens, Apple will be in a pickle. Its supply chain is entrenched in China, and finding another country that can match China’s scale and skill in the labour market will be difficult. The iPhone is also already among the world’s most expensive phones. Increasing the price to pay for tariffs would most likely scare away even more buyers."
"Within five years, for instance, scientists expect to be able to electronically record the brain signals that build memories and then enhance or even rewrite them before putting them back into the brain.


A decade from now, the first commercial memory boosting implants could appear on the market and, within 20 years or so, the technology could be advanced enough to allow for extensive control over memories, according to the researchers.


Scientists such as Ken Hayworth, a cognitive neuroscientist and president of Brain Preservation Foundation (brainpreservation.org), are not only trying to understand the brain but also preserve it for posterity and eventually upload a human mind into a machine if a human being so desires."
"“It just absolutely baffles me that if I wanted to completely get rid of Facebook that it essentially would still be on my phone, which brings up more questions,"" Winke said in an interview. “Can they still track your information, your location, or whatever else they do? We the consumer should have say in what we want and don’t want on our products.""


Consumers have become more alert about their digital rights and more vigilant about privacy in the past year, following revelations about Facebook’s information-sharing practices and regulators’ heightened scrutiny of online data collection. Some people have deleted their Facebook accounts in protest of the company’s lapses, while others simply want to make sure they have the option to do so. Many Android phone users have begun to question Samsung’s deal to sell phones with a permanent version of Facebook -- and some of them are complaining on social media.


A Facebook spokesperson said the disabled version of the app acts like it’s been deleted, so it doesn’t continue collecting data or sending information back to Facebook. But there’s rarely communication with the consumer about the process. The Menlo Park, California-based company said whether the app is deletable or not depends on various pre-install deals Facebook has made with phone manufacturers, operating systems and mobile operators around the world over the years, including Samsung. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, wouldn’t disclose the financial nature of the agreements, but said they’re meant to give the consumer “the best"" phone experience right after opening the box.


Balwinder Singh’s experience wasn’t what he would consider the best. Singh, who lives in the Susquehanna Valley of the eastern US and works in transportation, bought his Samsung phone seven months ago. He first tried to delete the Facebook app when he was setting up the device.


“My news feed was full of negative stuff, people going crazy on social media,"" he said. “It was affecting me emotionally and mentally."" Even after disabling the app, he was bothered to still have it on his phone."
"The first Asian edition of the festival is being organized by the Gurugram-based e-sports company Nodwin Gaming and will offer prizes to the tune of ₹ 1 crore. Apart from trying their hands at leading games such as Dota and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, gamers will also get a chance to experience a retro zone, which will feature arcade machines with classic games such as Pinball, Tetris and Mario Bros."
"The new iPad Air has a few main changes—a newer and faster processor, support for the Apple Pencil and a slightly larger screen


While support for the Apple Pencil makes it better suited to a particular niche of creators, it’s worth noting that the new Air supports Apple’s first generation Pencil


It’s been about two years since Apple upgraded its iPad Air line. The company stopped selling the Air 2 sometime in 2017, making the 2019 iPad Air the third in this range.


It makes sense, too, since Apple was pushing the iPad Pro, a more creator-centric device, meant to replace laptops. As similar as the new iPad Air and iPad Pro are, it’s clear that the latter is meant to be a Microsoft Surface-like device, while the former is a tablet first.


The new iPad Air has a few main changes—a newer and faster processor, support for the Apple Pencil and a slightly larger screen."
"Samsung forecasts production of at least 1 million foldable phones this year. The launch of the device comes as the world’s biggest phone maker tries to lure back consumers who have become used to incremental upgrades and are being wooed by Chinese manufacturers’ lower-priced smartphones.


Samsung, which also produces memory chips and televisions, makes the foldable displays itself and supplies technology to rivals such as Apple. The South Korean company shipped 291.3 million phones last year while Huawei sold 205.8 million, according to Strategy Analytics. Samsung will probably sell more than 40 million units of its flagship Galaxy S10 in the first year of release, according to Counterpoint.


Samsung spent eight years developing the Galaxy Fold and has worked with Google to adapt the Android operating system for a foldable screen. The company also envisions smartphones with rollable and stretchable displays in the future, Samsung Executive Vice President Chung Eui-suk said on the corporate website last month."
"”So “new” in fact that Feige won’t even discuss what’s to come beyond the July release of Spider-Man: Far From Home


 He won’t confirm reportedly in-the-works projects like the Black Widow stand-alone, The Eternals or Shang-Chi, or talk about plans for the 20th Century Fox properties like Deadpool and X-Men that are now under his purview


They have the next five years mapped out; they’re just not letting audiences peek behind the curtain until after Endgame


But how does one talk about a movie that no press has seen and no actors or creators are allowed to discuss in detail? Well, carefully and cryptically


), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) are dealing with the devastating loss post-snap while trying to figure out what to do with Thanos


 A helpful “Avenge the Fallen” campaign served as a reminder of who survived and who didn’t (some of the dusted were even a surprise, like “Black Panther’s” Shuri)"
"The DLF's QIP comes close in the heels of successful launch of India's first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), launched by Blackstone and Embassy Group, to raise ₹4,750 crore.


DLF's group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ashok Tyagi recently said the QIP proceeds and further infusion of ₹2,500 crore from promoters against the issue of warrants would help the company significantly reduce the debt that stood at around ₹7,200 crore as on 31 December 2018.


DLF promoters K P Singh and family have already infused ₹9,000 crore in the company and would pump in ₹2,250 crore more.


The company made a preferential allotment of compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) and warrants to the promoters against the infusion of funds."
"Actor Sameera Reddy, who has been away from the limelight for a while, recently opened up to IANS about the pressure of looking perfect post pregnancy


 Sameera, who is expecting her second baby soon, said that she had become a recluse after giving birth to her firstborn"
"Considered the next generation of wireless technology, 5G enables secure connectivity between devices other than smartphones, such as sensors, vehicles, robots, and drones.


That opens up the possibility of industry-altering changes in sectors ranging from agriculture and healthcare to manufacturing and warehousing.


The government last year set up a high-level panel tasked with creating a road-map for 5G rollouts in India. The government already has a test bed for 5G trials at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. Huawei’s rival Ericsson has also set up a test bed at IIT Delhi and Huawei has plans to set up its own test bed for trials."
"The 60-year-old actor, who most recently featured in Bumblebee and Mission: Impossible Fallout, joins Karen Gillan and Lena Headey in the film, reported Deadline"
"The teaser ends with Nivetha Pethuraj’s rejection to act in front of the camera for the narration she is given by Satya Dev


 Sai Sriram is the cinematographer and Ravi Teja Girijala is the editor for this dark comedy entertainer"
"The fourth movie in the Muni series, Kanchana 3 has been written, directed and co-produced by Raghava Lawrence and stars him in the lead along with Oviya, Vedhika, Nikki Tamboli, Kovai Sarala, Soori, Devadarshini, Manobala, Sriman and Anupama Kumar"
"Mayawati was issued the notice for her speech in Deoband appealing to Muslims to not vote for a particular party. The BSP chief had prima facie violated the model code of conduct, the poll panel found.


Adityanath was served the notice for his ""Ali"" and ""Bajrang Bali"" remarks while addressing a rally in Meerut."
"Avengers: Endgame released in India today and looking at the unprecedented buzz surrounding the movie, it is set to be the biggest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe


 Its worldwide box office opening figures are pegged at around 900 million dollars, meaning it will enter the 1 billion dollar club before the week is out


Let’s take a look at how the last five Marvel movies performed at the global box office, starting from the earliest"
"Call it development—an election battle cry first popularized way back in the 1990s by Gadkari, then a member of state legislative council who was so obsessed with flyovers that he would go on to build 50-plus of them in Mumbai alone when he became the public works minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government in 1995. Now he’s joined in by Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, a local lad who is fast emerging as a new power centre in the post-2014 growth story of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Gadkari, once his mentor, is today seeing a new challenge in Fadnavis.


New Nagpur with all its good and bad bears a Gadkari-Fadnavis signature, a marked departure from the waves of transformations of the past. The plan, according to the Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, is to build big towers along the metro routes by giving higher floor space index (FSI), and in return increasing the resources from the real estate 500 metres on either side of the metro corridor.


Nagpurians doubt if we could ever bring in such businesses, though an Oxford Economics report pitted Nagpur to be among the 20 fastest growing cities in the world from 2019-35. Nagpur is an education and a medical hub; an economy driven by services, small enterprise and trading, and regional government offices.


It began with a handful of few young men. In the dusty by-lanes of Mahal, the old town, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar formed a small group of swayamsevaks (volunteers) who would build one of India’s biggest socio-cultural and political organizations, the RSS—the right wing behemoth that reigns over the country today through its political arm, the BJP. For decades, while the RSS shakhas proliferated across the city, its political arm, the Jan Sangh and later the BJP, remained on the fringes.


“The Sangh is not a political organization, it is an organization of the entire Hindu society, and the society is a complex function,"" veteran Sangh ideologue M.G. alias Baburao Vaidya says. “The RSS volunteers gradually entered into many domains of the society, including politics, so if your gauge is only politics, you will falter in understanding the Sangh,"" he says at his modest house. “It’s the soul."" Vaidya, who started as a volunteer early on in his life, has seen both, Nagpur and the RSS expand over time. At 96, he has limited mobility, but is still sharp with his memory.


Notwithstanding a stern opposition to their ideology in the early part of the Sangh journey, it was the ideologues and volunteers like Vaidya, who steadfastly worked for its propagation. Today’s BJP and the RSS is the creation of that unflinching foundational work, he suggests.


“Some people started working on students’ issues, others entered politics, some others started working in the field of religion to form the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), late Dattopant Thengadi formed a trade union and a farmers’ organization; Ekal Vidyalaya got started in remote parts, there is one organization that works among the lawyers, other on culture,"" he says. “Today there are about 36 such entities that work in different spheres but because politics gains prominence the BJP gets the limelight.""


The RSS’ phenomenal expansion and its volunteers’ steadfast loyalty helps the BJP and its leaders, he says. Nagpur too, isn’t an exception. The country-wide rise of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar and the waning of the Congress and its moral compass has altered even Nagpur’s political landscape.


If the RSS was formed here, Nagpur was also where Dr B.R. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with thousands of his Scheduled Caste supporters at Deekshabhoomi in what remains the only democratic example of a bloodless conversion, a revolution against caste discrimination that continues to hold promise of an equal society for all those who experienced untouchability. It was a thought that revolted against the RSS’ idea of Hindutva. Much of Maharashtra’s Scheduled Caste intellectual movement got traction from here. It still remains the epicentre of the Ambedkarite movement on the one hand and RSS on the other. Historically and ontologically, the two thoughts remain antithetical to each other.


“Nagpur always had staunch left, right and centrist movements, but never had animosities between them,"" remembers N.D. Khare, author and proprietor of one of the region’s oldest construction firms. “There was always a bonhomie between various thinkers, something that we have lost today."" Nagpur took pride in towering and erudite academicians, painters and musicians, and of course poets and writers. Suresh Bhat, Manik Godghate alias Grace, Mahesh Elkunchwar… the list is long.


Politically, despite being the RSS headquarter and epicentre of Ambedkar’s Republican movement, Nagpur always remained centrist and deeply secular—a character that is perceptibly changing. In this context, 2019 has much at stake for Nagpur.


Will Nitin Jairam Gadkari defy history to win a second term from Nagpur as a Lok Sabha member? Nagpur goes to polls in the first phase. Over 2.1 million voters will cast their vote on 11 April. He has huge personal stakes in the coming general elections. Some of his ideas are untested. Some of his pet-projects are half way through. And there’s a protégé who’s quietly turned a challenger."
"”She added, “Kalank is stuffed with stars, big and small: Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit come together after years"
"What good is a thriller if it doesn’t guarantee you an edge-of-the-seat cinematic experience? That’s the problem with Vellaipookal


""Also read: Vellaipookal movie review: Vivekh pulls off a convincing role in the unconvincing thrillerJr NTR called Jersey an 'outstanding film'Jr NTR, in two separate tweets, shared his reaction on Nani's Jersey


 Hats off to Gautam Tinnanuri for choosing such a subject and executing it with conviction and brilliance


Bro @NameisNani , you have hit the ball out of the park with a stellar performance! Brilliant, Brilliant, BRILLIANT ! I will cherish your performance for a long time to come and I am super proud of you #Jersey""Our verdict on Mehandi Circus: Shweta Tripathi shines in this heart-crushing love storyIndianexpress


 She wrote, ""It’s not easy to sustain an audience’s interest until the very end when you make love stories because most of our filmmakers have forgotten the art of narrating them effectively


""Also read: Mehandi Circus movie review: An affecting drama about love lost and foundKaushik LM said Kanchana 3 is a must watchKaushik LM, in a series of tweets, gav his review on Kanchana 3


 He wrote, ""#Kanchana3 1st half: @offl_Lawrence loyally sticks to his trademark Hit #Kanchana formula - horror, comedy in the family, glamour, songs


 Paarpom!#Kanchana3 2nd half - @offl_Lawrence gets to be #Kaali - a messiah kinda character which mirrors his real life image as a savior of the poor & needy


Obviously there's a revenge angle in the story, with the pei completing the revenge!#Kanchana3 - Irrespective of reviews by critics, this is the kind of film which namma mass audience will go and watch, kudumbam kudumbamai, due to the proven franchise, & the Sun Tv factor too


 On the downside, none of the songs are good!#Kanchana3 - Among the glam heroines, @Vedhika4u scores the best


 The crowd largely enjoyed the trademark #Kanchana style comedy; They are tuned in to @offl_Lawrence's fun formula


""'Jersey is an outstanding sports film'Vamsi-Shekar tweeted, ""#JERSEY is an outstanding sports film with inspirational message


 @gowtam19 delivers a stellar film backed with @anirudhofficial music and bgm Goosebumps Guaranteed climax and must watch @SitharaEnts""The official Twitter handle of Ram Muthuram Cinemas tweeted, ""First show of #Kanchana3 in RGB Laser goes Houseful with Full Of Family Audience


 Huge rush for upcoming shows as well, book your tickets in advance to enjoy the Film in RGB Laser with Powerful Dolby Atmos 😎 @sunpictures""'Vellaipookal is a worthy crime investigative thriller'Entertainment journalist and trade analyst Kaushik LM tweeted a detailed review of Vellaipookal"
"The trailer for director Ava DuVernay’s series When They See Us is out and it looks every bit compelling as one had hoped it would be


 Based on the true case of Central Park Five where five teenagers of colour were charged with a rape they didn’t commit, the show will attempt to throw light on the unfortunate incident and the series of trials leading up to their exoneration"
"Meanwhile, PeeCee also shared the digital cover of the magazine Billboard that features the Jonas Brothers, Nick, Joe and Kevin"
"NEW DELHI: Gold prices today fell amid slackened demand from local jewellers, extending their decline to the fourth straight day. Gold rates today slipped by ₹50 to ₹34,000 per 10 grams at the bullion market, Press Trust of India reported. The precious metal had lost ₹230 in the previous three days. Tracking gold, silver prices fell ₹150 to ₹40,650 per kg owing to reduced offtake by industrial units and coin makers.


In Delhi, gold of 99.9% and 99.5% purities edged lower by ₹50 each to ₹34,000 and ₹33,850 per 10 grams, respectively. Sovereign gold also weakened by ₹100 to ₹26,000 per piece of eight grams. Tracking gold, silver ready declined by ₹150 to ₹40,650 per kg, while weekly-based delivery fell by ₹134 to ₹39,490 per kg. On the other hand, silver coins continued to be traded at ₹80,000 for buying and ₹81,000 for selling of 100 pieces."
"""Europe is more likely to come up with something. GDPR is a step in the right direction,"" Cook said, adding ""We are advocating strongly for regulation - I do not see another path at this point.""


However, for improving data privacy, he said he does not promote going overboard with depending on the government or leveraging the government with favours and cited Apple as an example.


""We cannot look for the government to solve all of our problems. Apple doesn't have a Political Action Committee (PAC) and I refuse to have one because it shouldn't exist. The company donates zero to political candidates,"" Cook noted."
"She’s hoping the films that she chose for “The Essentials” might have that same effect on someone else


“To think that you could, hopefully, attract new audiences to TCM to watch some of this and to think that it could change people in the way it changed me was really exciting,” she said


DuVernay is looking forward to audiences discovering 1982’s “Losing Ground” and Kathleen Collins in particular, who she considers on par with any of the white male contemporaries of the time, like, “a Woody Allen, per se


” The film was never released beyond screenings at film festivals and Collins died in 1988 at the young age of 46


“It was just a slice of life from her perspective and yet because she was a woman and because she was black it went nowhere,” DuVernay said


”She continued, “That’s one that especially as a black woman filmmaker, I feel so connected to wanting to make sure people know her, know that she existed, know what she said and what she put out in the world and to really appreciate that she just was"
"The crackdown comes as Instagram parent Facebook strives to assure people that the leading social network and its services can be trusted.


“Recently, we’ve seen accounts use third-party apps to artificially grow their audience,"" Instagram said in a blog post.


“Starting today, we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity."""
"""When opened up to WhatsApp users across India, Payments will accelerate financial inclusion and remove barriers for people who want to actively participate in the new digital economy,"" Bose noted.


A recent WhatsApp research has revealed that 70 per cent of small businesses have built their business on the platform and 77 per cent said they have been able to hire more employees due to growth since joining WhatsApp.


""I'm excited about what the future holds for India and humbled by the potential WhatsApp has to help hundreds of millions of people and businesses across the country connect and prosper,"" said Bose."
"The total amount of illegal cash, assets, etc. seized in this election so far is worth ₹3,274.18 crore.


The total electorate eligible to vote on Monday was over 128 million, with 961 candidates in the fray. In the nine states, more than 140,000 polling booths were set up. The largest number of candidates were from Maharashtra —323 for just 17 seats.


With the addition of electors continuing till the last date of nomination, India’s total electorate now stands at 910,136,588."
"The company told the FCC that without the higher power levels that field testing showed blind spots could occur close to the sensor location.


Facebook told the FCC in September that it expected a “variety of use cases to develop with respect to new radar devices, including Soli.""


The Soli devices can be operated aboard aircraft but must still comply with Federal Aviation Administration rules governing portable electronic devices."
"In the movie, Pfeiffer will play a 60-year-old penniless Manhattan socialite whose husband has been dead for 20 years"
"India is one of the largest gold importers in the world, and the imports mainly take care of demand from the jewellery industry (iStock)


 Gold imports dipped to $26.93 billion during April-January 2018-19 as against $28.23 billion in 2017-18


New Delhi: The country's gold imports dipped about 5% in value terms to $26.93 billion during April-January 2018-19, which is expected to keep a lid on the current account deficit."
"With your love and good wishes,I will be back soon!”After his this tweet, rumours of him suffering from cancer made the rounds


 However, in her New Year post, Neetu Kapoor, who had accompanied husband Rishi Kapoor to the US, wrote, “Hope in future cancer is only a zodiac sign"
"As far as the sound is concerned, these days every romantic song sounds similar, primarily due to the overuse of same instruments"
"While Apna Dal (Sonelal) MP Anupriya Patel will contest from Mirzapur and field candidate in one more seat, the faction led by her mother, Krishna Patel, will field candidates on Pilibhit and Gondia Lok Sabha seats. (AP)"
"“Critical underwater infrastructure are not being inspected on time because of the harsh and dangerous environment in which the divers have to go and do inspections,"" says Rohith Surendran, marketing manager, IROV Technologies.


Lack of data analytics is another challenge. Most of the current inspection companies go underwater, inspect the sites and generate long reports that people don’t understand, points out Surendran. IROV’s data analytics and visualization tools provide a user-friendly report. They also offer predictive analysis for certain clients who want to know what will be the state of deterioration in one month or a year. Founded by IIT Madras alumni—Johns T Mathai and Kanappa Palaniappan P—the firm has the DRDO and Bharat Petroleum as clients.


Bengaluru-based software startup ToneTag has developed a payment solution which uses sound waves to carry out contactless proximity payments. The solution is hardware-agnostic and can be integrated with any third-party mobile app, EDC (electronic data capture), POS (point of sale) and ATM devices with a software update.


Once a merchant transmits a bill amount and transaction details, customers can initiate contactless payment through their smartphone.


“Sound wave is like a radio wave. Our software can understand the sounds around you, and can write data on top of it, allowing communication between two devices. So, instead of going to a machine to swipe a card or scanning a QR code, you just have to be at the restaurant and enjoy your meal and the payment will be made,"" says Kumar Abhishek, founder and CEO of ToneTag."
"The 68-year-old musician is best known for lending his voice to Disney’s most popular soundtracks, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin"
"In the Rs 29,000 plus (USD 500) price segment, OnePlus clocked its highest ever shipments in the second quarter of 2018-19, according to IDC. (In the Rs 29,000 plus (USD 500) price segment, OnePlus clocked its highest ever shipments in the second quarter of 2018-19, according to IDC.)


OnePlus has become India’s No.1 smartphone seller in the premium segment riding on the success of OnePlus 6. On the other hand, Apple’s newly launched iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max were unable to create much demand in the opening quarter due to its high pricing in the Indian market, according to IDC.


Gadgets Management Mint India Wire Alexa News oneplus 6t smartphoneoneplusoneplus smartphonexiaomi smartphonesiphonesamsung smartphonestop smartphones in indiasmartphone market


New Delhi: Riding on the success of the OnePlus 6 model, OnePlus has beaten Samsung and Apple to become the No. 1 smartphone maker in the premium segment, according to a market report released today. The IDC report said in the ₹ 29,000 plus (USD 500) price segment, OnePlus clocked its highest ever shipments in the second quarter of 2018-19."
"The growing market for digitally-enabled solutions, which help improve efficiency and productivity for customers, has helped ABB India’s performance. “The management indicated that ABB’s expertise in the core sector is the key differentiator for its digital solutions, compared to its competitors,"" SBICAP Securities Ltd said in a note on 1 March .


Of course, it remains to be seen if the performance will be sustainable. Also note, that while the robotics motion division fared well, operating profit dropped at the other two divisions— electrification products and industrial automation."
"Analysts say most of the swing came in from constituencies where there were high voltage battles like in Mandya that recorded an increase of 8.76% voter turnout over 2014


BENGALURU: At 68.62%, Karnataka recorded its highest ever polling in a parliamentary election in the state’s history, that was fuelled by fierce contests in constituencies like Mandya, Uttara Kannada, Shivamogga (Shimoga) and Tumakuru (Tumkur) among other places, challenging theories that 2019 was a ‘waveless election’ in the state.


Even the 2014 Lok Sabha polls that witnessed a massive ‘Modi wave’ across the country, and saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi storm to power at the centre, recorded only 67.60% voter turnout, data shows."
"The only way to continue using WhatsApp now is to switch to another phone which is supported by the service.


whatsappwhatsapp downloadwhatsapp iphonewhatsapp androidwhatsapp mobile phone downloadwhatsapp nokianokianokia ashanokia mobile phones"
"HMD Global-owned Nokia launched the X7 in China last month. With prices starting at 1,699 Yuan (about ₹ 18,000) for the base 4GB/64GB variant, the phone sports a 6.18-inch display and a unique Snapdragon 710 processor. As expected, the Nokia X7 will make its way to India by the last week of November and will be named the Nokia 8.1 instead of Nokia 7.1 Plus.


The Nokia 7.1 Plus sports a 6.18-inch Full HD+ LCD display at the front. From the first look at the official images released by Nokia, it is hard to not appreciate how far off to the edges Nokia has stretched the screen. Powering the device is a rather unique Snapdragon 710 processor clocked at 2.2GHz with eight Kryo 360 cores. It comes in three variants of 4GB RAM/64GB internal storage, 6GB RAM/64GB internal storage and 6GB RAM/128GB internal storage."
"But an analysis of the companies shows startups working on truly innovative problems constitute less than a tenth of these companies.


Most of the funds (and noise) is soaked up by startups engaged in one of two things. The first, on-demand and e-commerce platforms, find new ways to order things without leaving your couch. The other class of startups, social media and entertainment firms, are focused on designing content that keeps you in that couch for as long as possible.


Take on-demand firms. Uber has improved the taxi-hailing experience; WeWork has made renting office space easy; and with Swiggy, it’s nice not to have to walk to the restaurant for food. But we are still riding in the same taxi, working in the same office, and eating from the same restaurant as before. The order-to-fulfilment process has been streamlined and the supply more closely matches demand. But this isn’t innovation that has fundamentally altered how we live, work, or play. It’s just made it incrementally better.


The desire to disrupt any activity with on-demand or online substitutes can sometimes veer into the absurd. Early last year, SoftBank’s Vision Fund invested $300 million into Wag, a startup that lets you book a dog walker. (The Vision Fund’s stated goal is to “invest in businesses and foundational platforms that will enable the next age of innovation"".)


With social media companies, the innovation argument is even weaker. Facebook and Google evangelised the cult of connectivity. But after the initial productivity gains from improved communication, watching YouTube videos, sharing Google photos or browsing Facebook are not growth-accelerating. On the contrary, the fatigue induced by aimless scrolling on Twitter or WhatsApp are a drain on productivity.


For an industry that fetishizes disruption and innovation, this lack of creativity is disappointing. One reason for this state of affairs could be financial. The computer scientist Jaron Lanier has argued that the monetization model driving the internet has created perverse incentives for tech companies.


From the early days of the internet, we assumed that most of the content and services should be free. But the desire to democratize access to information came at a cost —the advertising-supported business model. The largest tech companies today—Facebook and Google—rely on advertising for a majority of their revenue. Even Amazon has now got into the game, by selling pixels on its site to eager sellers.


In the push to generate more advertising revenue, these companies need to continually find ways to keep users addicted (or engaged) to their platform. And as users have become smarter, the algorithms have become even more intricate.


Today, some of the largest employers of A.I. and machine-learning talent are social media platforms. ByteDance, the creator of Tik Tok and the most valuable startup on the planet, employs legions of AI and machine-learning engineers. Tik Tok does a great job of curating and customizing content, based on what’s most likely to appeal to a user. But peel away the glamour and the product is still a social network for amateur music videos."
"Sonic the Hedgehog director Jeff Fowler has announced that the film will undergo “changes” after an online uproar over the titular character’s design and appearance


Actor Ben Schwartz voices the beloved video game character from Sega in Fowler’s film which also features James Marsden and Jim Carrey"
"Nag, who dealt with loneliness in a more definitive way in his 2010 film Memories in March (a mother comes to know of the sexual identity of her son after his death, and is left alone to grieve for him and come to terms with who he really was), is more nuanced this time around


 In his latest film, he does not view loneliness as a condition contingent on something, rather as a continuous, pervasive state of being, and succeeds in presenting an intimate portrayal of loneliness and the lonely


 It is most evident in the way he presents Mithi when alone, especially when she is writing letters or eating


 It is just she who occupies the frame, as Nag resists the urge to show an empty chair next or opposite to her, implying how intrinsic loneliness is and how difficult and reductive to illustrate


One might argue that this robs loneliness of its romanticism, making it seem mundane almost: Mithi does not suffer from the tragedy Banalata did, her heart does not shatter like the latter’s"
"”He urged more representation in front of the camera and behind on television and in film, where he joked, “Everyone named Chris has all the power


”Nanjiani also noted how diversity is good for business, but that empowerment will really be achieved when “a movie made by a non-white person can flop


”THR publisher Lynne Segall dedicated the luncheon to director John Singleton, who passed away on Monday at the age of 51, who she said embodied everything the event was trying to do"
"""The Screenwise Meter iOS app should not have operated under Apple’s developer enterprise programme — this was a mistake, and we apologise,"" Google said in a statement."
"With the new feature, users can basically add a filter to find messages including multimedia content.  (Reuters)


The Advanced Search feature has an added ‘Media’ window, which would allow users to search for photos, videos, GIFs and documents


A preview of the search would also be available, hence eliminating the need to open individual search results to view search results"
"Its immense popularity has forced streaming services to create their own Game of Thrones, a flagship, epic TV show with global appeal


 Netflix’s The Witcher and Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming The Lord of the Rings series are attempts in that direction


The second episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth and final season airs on Sunday in the US and on Monday morning in India"
"With Lok Sabha elections round the corner, the Congress is trying to click with young voters over lack of job creation and rural voters with tall promises on farm loan waivers.


The Congress is trying to drive home the point that the Modi government waived off ₹3.5 lakh crore of corporate loans but was unwilling to extend the same to the suffering farmer of the country.


Gandhi’s rally in Kalaburagi coming days after Modi carried out a rally in the same district that is the home of Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge. The BJP is likely to field Congress defector, Umesh Jadhav against Kharge to bag the seat that has been a stronghold of the grand old party.


“We've decided that after elections, the Congress government will give money directly to the people through a guaranteed minimum wage,"" Gandhi said. He added that no other country had introduced such a scheme for the poor. He accused the BJP of trying to create “two India’s""--one for the rich and other for the poor, adding to the growing divide in the country."
"Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of electronics and information technology. File photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint


The Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, inaugurated Thursday, to work closely with govt departments to promote innovation in application of AI


New Delhi: Artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning can prove to be very helpful in detecting duplication under various e-governance services which will help the government save a lot of money, minister of electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday while inaugurating the Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC)."
"Modi said the world has recognized a new India that will target terrorists in their own home. “India will ensure there is peace in this region. I will retaliate if there is a terrorist attack in India. Is our vision correct? Is our direction correct? Should India be scared of threats? The world is standing with us because of our strength,"" Modi said about the surgical strikes and air strikes carried out by the armed forces.


The Prime Minister also targeted the Congress, saying the party could go to any extent to come to power. The Congress can divide people on the basis of caste, religion and region, he said."
"64% of the products advertised on the dark web were handguns, 17% were semi-automatic long guns and fully automatic long guns were 4%. (Pixabay)


Most firearms on the dark web weren't rifles of military-grade weapons, exotic or rare firearms, but ""the kinds of weapons someone in the US could buy from stores or vendors with a license""


The dark web does not produce new weapons; it merely acts as an enabler of trafficking, with weapons and ammunition having to be shipped and delivered in the ‘real world’"
"The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Lady Jane Fellowes, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Earl Spencer have been informed and are delighted with the news


The Duchess’s mother, Doria Ragland, who is overjoyed by the arrival of her first grandchild, is with Their Royal Highnesses at Frogmore Cottage"
"Talking about the festive season, Sharma said Asus expects to clock strong growth in line with the industry’s double-digit growth growth. Asus, earlier this year, had signed a long-term partnership with Flipkart to sell its devices on the e-commerce major’s platform.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"Customers will be able to see trending products across different categories, various deals, and compare prices using the new offering


New Delhi: Tech giant Google Thursday unveiled ‘Google Shopping’ in India that will allow users to easily filter through offers, review prices from multiple retailers and find products that they are looking for. The personalised experience will be available across various Google products -- a Shopping home page, Shopping tab on Google Search and through Google Lens. Customers will be able to see trending products across different categories, various deals, and compare prices using the new offering.


For retailers, the company will offer its ‘Merchant Center’ in Hindi, which will allow the sellers to list their products for Google Shopping, without paying for ad campaigns."
"EC finds no model code violation in the statements where Modi had slammed Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for contesting from Wayanad in Kerala


The poll watchdog is also looking at a few other complaints of violations against Modi, Shah and Rahul Gandhi


NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a speech made in Wardha, Maharashtra, that had created a controversy around a month ago."
"Singh said he held talks with senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and PC Chacko, and proposed an alliance of 6:3:1 in Haryana on Tuesday.


In Haryana, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had proposed to fight from one seat, while offering the Congress and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) six and three seats, respectively.


""Congress leaders Azad and (Bhupinder Singh) Hooda have refused to form an alliance in Haryana. We were ready to give three seats to the Congress in Delhi if they had agreed to form an alliance in Haryana too,"" Singh said."
"Ever since Gandhi’s candidacy was announced, money, attention and flow of volunteers has increased from the Left, according to the local CPM insiders Mint spoke to, on condition of anonymity. Being a cadre party, the CPM’s ground machinery is known to have toppled elections in the past.


The front is planning big rallies, hype-to-the-limit its popularity amongst the minority Muslims and Christians (who can decide the balance of power in the constituency) and field its biggest vote-catchers, such as chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and national leaders such as Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat in as many rallies as possible.


To perfect the script, it has also requested the presence of V.S. Achuthanandan, the 96-year old former chief minister who arguably is most influential Communist alive in Kerala. It is an open secret that Achuthanandan’s oratory skills, despite his ageing body and punishing summer heat, massively shifted the public sentiments in favour of the party in 2016 assembly elections, handing it over a landslide victory of 91 seats out of total 140.


The CPM in Kerala, or a section of it at least, has never really been an enemy of Gandhi. Far from it, they were even willing to support their Bengal colleagues to have a no mutual contest understanding with the Congress, even though they are in a pitched fight with Congress back in Kerala."
"Claiming to be the cheapest TV in India, the D1 LCD TV features a 19-inch display with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels


Detel on Tuesday launched the world’s most economical TV at a price of just ₹ 3,999. The actual MRP of the TV is ₹ 4,999. The 19-inch D1 TV is the first LCD TV launched by the brand in the market. The new TV is available for purchase on Detel’s Mobile App and for distributors/partners on B2BAdda.com."
"Mirroring the present election atmosphere across the country, Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hotstar series City Of Dreams is a gripping watch


Marathi actor Priya Bagpat aka Poornima is the elder daughter of sitting Member of Parliament Ameya Gaikwad (Atul Kulkarni)


 She is ‘just a housewife’ (as she refers to herself) who lives with her son and husband in a high rise Mumbai building


Her younger brother Ashish (Siddharth Chandekar) is fully immersed in the family business and thinks of himself as the rightful heir to his father’s political legacy (of course, he is the son after all)"
"Following the global success of Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island, comes the next chapter Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters, an epic action adventure which will be releasing in India by Warner Bros Pictures on May 31


A presentation of Warner Bros Pictures and Legendary Pictures, in association with Toho Co Ltd, the film will be released in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu"
"This move has come from Apple mainly to woo customers in emerging markets like India and China, where people prefer having dual-SIMs for various reasons. Experts have often cited the lack of dual-SIM connectivity as one of the reasons why Apple’s phones don’t do as well in such markets.


AppleiPhonedual SIM iPhoneiPhone XSiPHone XRiPhone XS MaxiPhone XS dual SIM priceiPhone XS Max dual SIM PriceiPhone XR dual SIM Price"
"According to Sachdeva, ShareChat has had 100 million downloads, 1 billion WhatsApp shares monthly, 9 billion video plays and 43 million comments per month.


Users spend 25 minutes per day on the application, which has had more than 100MB usage per day. ShareChat’s audience is mainly from tier 2 and tier 3 towns where internet penetration has been low."
"The following models of Nokia Asha series, running on S40 operating system, will no longer have WhatsApp support: Nokia Asha 201, Nokia Asha 205 Chat Edition, Nokia Asha 210, Nokia Asha 230 Single SIM, Nokia Asha 230 Dual SIM, Nokia Asha 300, Nokia Asha 302, Nokia Asha 303, Nokia Asha 305, Nokia Asha 306, Nokia Asha 308, Nokia Asha 309, Nokia Asha 310, Nokia Asha 311, Nokia Asha 500, Nokia Asha 501, Nokia Asha 502, Nokia Asha 503.


Other models include Nokia 206, Nokia 208, Nokia 301, Nokia 515, Nokia C3-00, Nokia C3-01, Nokia X2-00, Nokia X2-01, Nokia X3-02 and Nokia X3-02.5.


“This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp,"" the instant messaging service said."
"Puducherry has a cosmopolitan culture heavily influenced by the French and this is evident in the architecture, cuisine and lifestyle of the people. The place is famous for its leather and the people are known for handicrafts, including leatherwork, woodcraft, pottery and metal craft. It has some very good medical and engineering colleges such as the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research and the Pondicherry Engineering College. The Aurobindo Ashram is worth a visit because of its serenity and verdant surroundings. Some of the finest beaches in India are also to be found in Puducherry.


The relationship between Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and chief minister V. Narayanasamy has not been smooth. The two often spar over jurisdiction in administrative issues."
"Xiaomi’s bestseller, the Redmi Note 5 Pro, recently received a major price cut. The price of the 4GB RAM variant has been slashed by ₹ 3,000, making its effective price ₹ 12,999 while the price of 6GB RAM variant has been cut by ₹ 4,000, bringing its MRP down to ₹ 13,999.


The Redmi Note 5 series was launched on Valentines’ Day last year and it immediately became one of the most bought smartphones ever by the Chinese smartphone maker. Xiaomi recently revealed that the smartphone sold roughly a crore units since its launch.


Mi fans! Here's the special announcement: #RedmiNote5Pro gets a whopping up to ₹4000 off, an offer you surely can't refuse! "
"The fourth phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections saw an increased turnout on Monday when compared to the previous elections, as main contenders Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress vie for 72 seats across nine states.


The tentative turnout was 64%, more than the 63.05% recorded five years ago, and is likely to go up as more data comes in.


The fourth phase marks the beginning of a direct contest between the ruling BJP and Congress. The National Democratic Alliance had swept 56 of these 72 seats in 2014.


“BJP may not be able to get the same response that it got in 2014. A direct contest seemed beneficial for the BJP, but that pattern seems to have changed since the election has progressed,"" said Rajiv Gupta, a Rajasthan-based political analyst."
Apple said Facebook had improperly used the Facebook Research app to track the web-browsing habits of teenagers
"Belsky cited the example of vacation rental company, AirBnB, that was successful in beating the competition because they had better photography


He pointed to social media company Pinterest which, in its early days, used some design tricks to make the website feel faster


NEW DELHI: Are creativity and technology two ends of the spectrum? Good design shapes how we use technology today and great products don’t win because of technology but due to a user’s experience of technology that boils down to design, creativity and new interfaces, argues Scott Belsky, chief product officer and executive vice-president, Adobe Creative Cloud."
"Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail says the fourth and final season of the drama thriller will be a “one very long Christmas special”


The writer said like other British shows wrap with a holiday special, the last season of the series will go on about week over Christmas set in 2015"
"Khan and Kocharekar say the convenience of being able to carry the device anywhere with them, combined with the Apple Pencil’s ability to allow low latency when drawing on a screen, helps them work on the go.


Varun Khullar (a.k.a. DJ Aamish) does all his music production work on a Microsoft Surface Book 2. According to him, the laptop’s ability to transform into a tablet while retaining all its processing power gives him the freedom to create music on the go.


In fact, composer Qaran made the song Tareefan from the movie Veere Di Wedding on an iPad, while on a flight from Mumbai to Delhi.


Not just that, Khullar also uses a Google Pixel 3 to record music he hears. He says while the phone doesn’t necessarily let him use that music, it’s still helpful since he can go back to his Surface Book 2 and use the recording as a reference."
"The campaigning for the phase witnessed a new low with SP leader Azam Khan making an ""indecent"" remark, targeting his opponent Jaya Prada in Rampur by allegedly speculating on the colour of her underwear and attracting the saffron party wrath, besides that of the National Commission for Women.


Khan who also faced a 72-hour ban by the Election Commission of India on his campaigning after making the underwear jibe was among the three other leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BSP supremo Mayawati, who faced the poll panel's wrath for making ""provocative"" speeches.


The other political heavyweights, whose fates are in balance in the third phase of elections here, include Union minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar, who is fighting from Bareilly and BJP's Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit.


Also hangs in the electoral balance, the fate of four family members of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Siingh Yadav clan with his rebel younger brother and Pragateesheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) chief Shivpal Singh Yadav fighting it out with his nephew, Ram Gopal Yadav son Akshay Yadav for the Firozabad seat.


While Mulayam Singh Yadav himself is contesting from his home turf Mainpuri, his another nephew Dharmendra Yadav, son of SP patriarch's little known brother Abhay Ram Yadav, from Badaun. A three-term MP, Dharmendra Yadav is seeking a fourth term from Badaun."
"“His girlfriend is somebody he went to school with, which is what the film is about,” Curtis told Empire magazine


The writer, famous for rom-coms such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually, believes giving Sheeran a cameo in the movie was “best casting” because his own life has been similar to that of the central character"
"Sources previously told Reuters that the company is targeting April for the launch of a streaming television service that will likely include subscription TV service. Apple often launches products and services in the weeks following an event.


In its invitation, Apple did not specify the focus of the event and gave a single-line description: ""It's show time.""


Apple has long hinted at a planned video service, spending $2 billion in Hollywood to produce its own content and signing major stars such as Oprah Winfrey. Sources familiar with the matter earlier told Reuters that the service may resell subscriptions from CBS Corp, Viacom Inc and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp's Starz among others, as well as Apple's own original content"
"According to the report, India has seen data centres grow across key cities However, it is Mumbai that has led the way with 35 data centres


India is poised for massive growth in the data centre industry, with Mumbai topping the list, according to a report by real estate consulting firm CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd. According to the report, India has seen data centres grow across key cities including Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. However, it is Mumbai that has led the way with 35 data centres, as it is one of the global cable landing locations in the country."
"This move also comes a day after Sebi published a discussion paper which proposed price bands for future and options (F&O) stocks. Sebi in the discussion paper said it has observed high levels of volatility in F&O stocks in the past six months. Forty scrips witnessed intraday movement of over 20%. Of these, 29 saw intra-day movements of 20-30%. Five stocks moved between 30% and 40% and six moved more than 40%.


One solution proposed by Sebi is introducing a 20% price band for all stocks including ones on which derivatives are available. However, this could pose difficulties as F&O stocks have enhanced eligibility criteria.


Another way is to use a mix of dynamic and fixed price bands. “The current framework for dynamic price band may be allowed to continue with the initial threshold set by the stock exchanges,"" said the paper. However, this framework would be available up to a threshold of 30% of intraday movement, after which a fixed price band on the stock may be imposed or a call auction held for a fixed duration, Sebi said."
"Human-animal conflicts are regular. It has peaked after the recent Bandipur forest fire, locals said, and as recent as last week an elephant entered one of its towns and killed a person. Prosperity for the region is also dependent on lock placed by the geography. It is one of the only two Kerala districts not connected by a railway line. It takes only a single vehicle to breakdown to create a long chain of traffic block, taking hours to unblock, on the main mountain pass with several hairpin bends that connects Wayanad to the outside world. To be sure, even with these characteristics, Wayanad is still miles ahead of Amethi, the other constituency held by Gandhi family for years.


Yet, Gandhi's contest has created a powerful vitality. Coffee shops, roads, buses are all filled with energetic discussions on the young man, seen as the next probable prime minister, as a saviour. “Who knows what he can or cannot do,"" says Sandeep after the pause to the local communist worker. Wayanad, clearly, has not lost hope."
"In a circular, the regulator said all money market and debt securities which are rated below investment grade shall be valued at the price provided by valuation agencies.


Till the agencies compute the valuations, such securities would be valued on the basis of indicative haircuts provided by the agencies.


""AMCs (asset management companies) may deviate from the indicative haircuts and/ or the valuation price for money market and debt securities rated below investment grade provided by the valuation agencies"" subject to certain conditions, the circular said.


The detailed rationale for deviation from the price post haircuts or the price provided by the valuation agencies should be recorded by the AMC."
"Referring to one of the scenes from the season three in which his character sleeps with prostitutes, only to have payment refused, the actor added, “I’ve been grabbed by so many like the amount of like older, older women who are very…”The final episode of Game of Thrones will air on May 19"
"Tapping the checkout button will allow shoppers to select options such as size or color and then pay for items without leaving the Instagram app


San Francisco: Facebook-owned Instagram on Tuesday made a move into potentially lucrative e-commerce by adding an option to buy products shown off in posts by selected brands.


A new ""checkout"" button for instant purchasing launched in a beta version of the app in the US with a limited number of businesses, according to the popular image-centric messaging service."
"Fox announced earlier on Tuesday that the drama about a hip-hop record label and the fiery family behind it had been renewed for a sixth season


A Smollett representative released a statement to several media outlets suggesting a hope that he may eventually return"
"Usually used to spy on partners or ex-partners, there is nothing to stop people using such programmes to target specific individuals for malicious purposes.


This is often done without the victim's knowledge, leading to these types of programmes being commonly referred to as stalkerware.


While functionality varies, it often allows the person who installed it to access their victim's device information, SMS messages, photographs, social media conversations, geolocation data and, in certain cases, to transfer audio and camera recordings in real time."
"NEW DELHI: Digital is the way forward. Siddharth Pai, founder of Siana Capital, says it is no longer a question of whether or not you will do something in the digital world. It’s just a question of when you will do it, and how you will do it.


Pai is a venture capitalist looking for firms in the field of deep tech or deep science for investment purpose. Artificial intelligence is a lot easier to deploy today as the computing power required to run them is a lot cheaper. Also, the data fed into these AI solutions is a lot more accurate."
"The lab will develop science-backed hiring apps and tools that can measure diverse traits and abilities.


The ""Future Minds Lab"", launched at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney will study the fundamental brain science and psychology behind innovation


Focussing on the science behind what makes some start-ups thrive and others fail, Australian researchers have unveiled a new lab that will use cutting edge neuroscience to advise how businesses can thrive in a world of constant technological change."
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"The rest of the specifications haven’t been made available by Realme, but so far it is safe to assume that this phone will be aimed directly at the upcoming Redmi Note 6 Pro.


Realme U1RealmeRealme U1 india launchRealme U1 specificationsXiaomi Redmi Note 6 ProMediatek helio P70mediatek p70Realme P70 benchmark"
"The song was shared with a description which read, “The new romantic ballad of the season, Fakira is all about Rohan & Shreya discovering each other and learning to see each other in a different light"
"The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed up 0.7% at ¥48,490 ($7,172.23) a tonne


Three-month copper on the LME was up 0.6% at $6,164 a tonne, as of 0727 GMT, extending a 0.3% gain from the previous session


Donald Trump is considering a 60-day extension of the 1 March deadline for higher tariffs on Chinese imports


Beijing: London copper prices moved higher for a second session on Thursday after better-than-expected trade data from top copper consumer China, while investors awaited the outcome of high-level Sino-US trade talks in Beijing."
"The S&P 500 Index decreased 0.6% as of 12:01 pm New York time. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined 0.8%. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index fell 0.2%. The DAX Index sank 1.4%, its biggest tumble in almost six weeks. The MSCI Emerging Market Index fell 0.3%.


The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained less than 0.05%. The euro advanced less than 0.05% to $1.1353, the strongest in almost three weeks. The British pound sank 0.6% to $1.3187. The Japanese yen fell less than 0.05% to 111.43 per dollar."
"""Smartwatches, meanwhile, grew 54.3 per cent and accounted for 29.8 per cent of all wearable device shipments in 2018,"" said Ramon T. Llamas, Research Director for IDC's Wearables.


At third position, Huawei grew 43 per cent during the quarter in an otherwise declining market and this translated to a staggering 248.5 per cent growth in the wearables market since many of the Huawei and Honor phones were bundled with wearables."
"Besides, it directed the NSE to pass the order in six week after giving an opportunity to OPG Securities for hearing.


On Tuesday, Sebi had barred OPG Securities, its three directors for five years from accessing securities market and asked them to disgorge illegal gains of more than ₹15 crore in the NSE co-location facility case."
"Despite a running time of 181 minutes, theater owners had to release more shows of the Marvel flick as the crowd thronging to cinema halls kept trickling in


 What also seems to have pushed Endgame’s case in a positive direction is the fact that it has largely received good reviews"
"Mobile gaming is also prevalent in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, with similar amounts of time spent by the users, the report added.


According to Hemant Mehta, Managing Director, Kantar IMRB and Chief Strategy Officer, Kantar South Asia, the ""consumers have taken to mobile gaming in a big way, yet it still remains a relatively untapped advertising channel in India"".


Since single-player mobile games were rendered monotonous at some point, players did not get aggressively hooked on to them as compared to the adrenaline-pumping, multi-player online games.


The New-Age games are regularly updated with newer features, allowing the gamers to experiment with creating their own avatars, styling their own looks, choosing their own weapons, reading maps, making strategies and more."
"Whatever federal privacy law eventually emerges is expected to be less stringent than the California measure and to supersede it. As a result, the tech industry is trying to help shape any national restrictions.


""This is the first time ever that the industry wants legislation,"" said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group. ""The industry is terrified.""


On Tuesday, a House committee will press Google and Facebook executives about another urgent concern involving Big Tech: Whether they're doing enough to curb the spread of hate crimes and white nationalism through online platforms. The Judiciary Committee hearing follows a series of violent incidents fueled in part by online communication.


Facebook, used by 2-billion-plus people including over 200 million in the US, has been a particular lightning rod for industry critics. Having had its reputation tarnished over data privacy lapses, a tide of hate speech and a spread of disinformation that allowed Russian agents to target propaganda campaigns, Facebook appears ready to embrace a national privacy law.


Facebook's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, published a column last month in the Washington Post calling for tighter regulations to protect consumer data, control harmful content and ensure election integrity and data portability.


Amazon says it has built its business on protecting people's information, ""and we have been working with policymakers on how best to do that.""


""There is real momentum to develop baseline rules of the road for data protection,"" Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, has said in a policy paper. ""Google welcomes this and supports comprehensive, baseline privacy regulation.""


A sweeping ""privacy shield"" law in the European Union, covering how tech companies handle personal data in the 28-country bloc, should be a model, Zuckerberg wrote. EU regulators recently fined Google $1.7 billion for freezing out rivals in the online ad business — their third penalty against the search giant in two years. The EU watchdogs have also ordered Apple and Amazon to pay back taxes and fined Facebook for providing misleading information in its acquisition of WhatsApp."
"Battery replacement at a discounted rate is available in all Apple retail stores and Apple authorized service providers. You can also send it for replacement at an Apple Repair Center. The company will take up to five business days to replace your degraded battery.


AppleApple iPhoneApple iPhone XApple iPhone X batteryApple iPhone XS. Apple iPhone XS batteryApple iPhone XS price in IndiaApple iPhone XS priceApple battery"
"Kaspersky Labs has also been on the trail of a cyber espionage operation run by an Arabic speaking cyber crime organisation, Gaza Cybergang. Known as SneakyPastes, the operation used malicious emails and domains to carry out phishing attacks against 240 high-profile individuals in embassies, media houses, political parties, government agencies and banks in 39 countries. However, most of them were located in Palestine, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon.


The researchers identified three different groups within the organisation with each showing a slightly different MO. SneakyPastes was the handiwork of one such sub-group called Mole Rats.


To avoid detection and hide the location of the command and control server, the hackers would download an additional malware on the targeted devices via free sites, including Pastebin and Github. In the final stage, a Remote Access Trojan was installed on the device, which opened a backdoor with their command and control server to steal, encrypt and upload information from the targeted device."
"“I am blown away,"" said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy, adding that the phone could help Samsung rejuvenate its mobile business, whose lead is under attack from China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.


“I believe you can innovate your way out of a mature market,"" he said, noting that when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, most industry watchers believed that the market had matured for $100 “candy bar"" phones without touchscreens.


Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research said that the work Samsung had done with Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. to adapt applications to the new screen was important.


He said that though Samsung had teased the folding phone before, “to see it in action, to see the software—I was like, wow. It’s hugely important that the software experience be good"".


The Galaxy Fold, which can operate three apps simultaneously and boasts six cameras, also challenges the notion of what a phone can cost, debuting at nearly twice the price of current top-of-the-line models from Apple and Samsung itself.


“Due to price, it’s likely to be sold mainly to early adopters. Prices are key to expanding sales,"" said former Samsung mobile executive Kim Yong-serk, who is now a professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Korea. “It will help Samsung burnish an image as an innovative company, but it is unlikely to be profitable. I expect Apple to wait say for one year and come up with foldable phones with more features, as they did with the smartwatch."""
"Buyers in India are warming up to the idea of spending more on smartphones in mid and premium category. According to market research firm techArc’s India Smartphone Segment Sales Forecast 2019, 149 million smartphones are expected to be sold over the year and 80% of the sales will be of smartphones above ₹10,000, while the share of budget smartphones will decline. Mid-segment which includes phones in the range of ₹10,001 to ₹25,000 such as Redmi Note 6 and Nokia 7.1, will account for 51% of sales, compared to 46% in 2018. The premium segment which includes phones in the range of ₹25,001 to ₹50,000 such as OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy A9 and Huawei V20, will make up for 20% of the market, compared to 18% in 2018.


The Luxe segment which comprises of more premium smartphones such as Apple iPhone Xs, Google Pixel 3 and Samsung Galaxy S9 will grow from last year’s 8% to 9% in 2019."
"Recalling his early days in Chennai, the filmmaker says he learned multimedia, sound design and scriptwriting, so that somewhere down the lane, he gets a chance in movies


 My family is into travel and tours business and a trip that I took to Los Angeles in 2010 inspired me to start a production house,” he tells us


 “I was so bored with my production routine that I thought why not try something different and I thoroughly enjoyed the process


 I used to discuss scripts with my fellow director friends, and they persuaded me to try my hand at direction"
"While the Congress has influence in some parts, lack of jobs is likely to influence the electoral outcome in Gujarat this time around"
WhatsApp private replying feature allows you to reply to an individual’s message on a group in a private chat.
"Recognizing that the bureaucracy is the biggest roadblock to delivering through government services, a mix of technology and direct push from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was used to target, communicate with, and benefit citizens.


India is preparing for the first phase of polling for Lok Sabha elections 2019. Visuals from Ghaziabad show polling officers preparing for the first phase of polling to be held tomorrow.


Cooking gas connections, electrification, bank accounts, mudra loans, toilets, the ₹5 lakh medical cover and more have been pushed through, bypassing the leaky pipelines of India. It is not as if the success rate was 100%, but the quantum leap in coverage has shifted the growth trajectory. What would have taken 20 years to achieve at the old rate of progress got done in four years. A whole swathe of the population has benefitted."
"At up to 1,000 megabytes per second (MB/s), the new chip features approximately twice the sequential read speed of a typical 2.5-inch SATA solid state drive (SSD).


The company said it plans to expand the production of its fifth-generation 512Gb ""V-NAND"" chip at its Pyeongtaek plant in South Korea throughout the first half of 2019 to fully address the anticipated strong demand."
"com has exclusively learnt that the veteran lady super star Vijayashanti has been roped in to play a major role in Mahesh26 project


 Confirming the same, a source said, “Vijayashanti has been approached by director Anil Ravipudi to play a powerful character in Mahesh26"
"Is she a method actor? Priyanka notes, “I believe in the director’s vision and then add my bit to the role


 CV Kumar sir had shown immense faith in me and I worked extra hard on my character: be it the action scenes or emotional ones


 “Nothing was easy!”Sai Priyanka Ruth feels Gangs of Madras worked because of its strong female character"
"The back of the smartphone sports a 13MP+2MP dual camera setup. At the front of the Honor 10 Lite is a single 24MP selfie shooter. The front and back cameras are AI-enabled and allow automatic scene recognition.


Honor is also holding the View 20 up its sleeves for this month, its first smartphone to feature a circular display cutout. It also has a very interesting glossy back panel texture which reflects light to form a V-shaped halo.


Other highlights of the View 20 include Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset, 48MP dual rear camera, 25MP front facing camera and Android Pie support."
"■ Zinc Stocks: Investors apparently brushed off news that LME zinc inventories have eroded further to a fresh low since January 2008.


""There's clearly is a pipeline of new mine capacity so some investors will ignore the short-term stocks data and instead look at the longer term picture,"" Strachan said.


■ Zinc Technicals: Zinc attracted additional selling due to a weak chart picture, Matt France at broker Marex Spectron in Singapore said in a note. ""Zinc has been hammered relentlessly all morning ... zinc looks most vulnerable technically as it has breached the 200-day moving average at $2,660.""


■ Copper: Three month LME copper, untraded in official rings, was bid down 0.7% at $6,164.50 a tonne after Chilean state miner Codelco said on Saturday it hoped to soon restart operations at its Chuquicamata copper mine."
"The two have been friends for over a decade, going back to when Collins was a teenage Nickelodeon reporter interviewing Efron and the cast of High School Musical on the orange carpet


 “It was really exciting for me to see him taking that risk, and I thought to be a part of that felt really natural and very exciting


“I had heavy reservations about playing a serial killer, especially one so popular as Ted Bundy,” Efron said


 “I didn’t want to glorify or be a part of a project that glorifies any aspect of Ted Bundy or what he did


”But the script, which Michael Werwie adapted from Klopfer’s 1981 memoir, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, was different than he expected"
"The state’s 49.52% voter turnout in 2014 was the lowest among all the states, reflecting the fear people have of terror outfits and their distrust in the political process. BJP won three seats in Jammu and Ladakh last time, but may not top that. Ex-BJP leader Choudhary Lal Singh, who is contesting from the Jammu and Udhampur seats, may eat into the party’s votes. PDP will have a tough time in the valley after its alliance with BJP collapsed. Congress and the NC are fighting the elections in an alliance on some seats."
"Facebook accepted the mistake but said the passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook. Users can check which of their accounts or passwords have been compromised on sites like haveibeenpwned.com, created by Hunt.


Google recently added a password checkup extension for Chrome, which can tell which will tell users which of their usernames and passwords have been compromised and need to be changed.


Two-factor authentication has emerged as the second line of defence to passwords. After punching in their password, users are required to verify the sign in process using one-time password (OTP) sent through SMS, a six-digit code generated through apps like Google Authenticator, or through a small USB device like Google Titan Security Key or Yubico FIDO U2F Security key. This last step requires users to plug in the USB dongle into the PC and then type the specific code only they would know. For smartphones there are Bluetooth based Security keys."
"Maintaining a strong password is not a single step solution. Users need to keep various things in mind to keep passwords strong.


According to McAfee Labs, in addition to using long and complex passwords comprising a random set of symbols, numbers and letters, specific to each account, users also need to keep security software up to date to avoid keylogger attacks, avoid signing into accounts on public computers or on their personal devices using public WiFi. A keylogger is malicious software that can track your keystrokes.


Complex passwords can be hard to remember. This is where password managers like LastPass and Keeper can come in handy. These solutions keep all complex passwords in an encrypted format and users can access them all with one master password. Besides the master password, some of the solutions use multi-factor authentication and sign-in forms.


While users should regularly update their passwords, keeping an eye on the passwords that might have been compromised in a data breach might help too. In March, Faceboook was accused by an independent cybersecurity expert for storing millions of passwords in plain text format on its internal servers. These passwords could be seen by anyone with access to these servers."
"LeRoy, a biopic about a young woman named Savannah Knoop whose sister-in-law Laura Albert created LeRoy as a literary persona


 Knoop pretended to be a man in public appearances as the celebrated author and now identifies as nonbinary"
"The total outstanding value of these GoI-FSBs stood at ₹88,454 crore at the end of FY19, according to Icra.


The purpose of these borrowings has been to meet the expenditure towards various schemes of government by raising extra-budgetary resources (EBR) by various public sector entities (PSEs)."
"However, despite most bad bots coming from the US, India is now the third most-blocked country for bad bots at 15.2%—a significant increase from the prior year when it was the 10th most blocked country (at 2.1%), according to the report.


A third of companies tracked by Distil Networks, blocked Russia the most for the second year running, followed by Ukraine. Amazon, according to the report released on Wednesday, was the source of the most global bad bot traffic at 18.0%, while about 50% of bad bots report their user agent as Google Chrome."
"We wanted to introduce this character who would be taken forward in the franchise, and she is perfect for it"
"The company has learnt lessons from incidents of the mob violence triggered due to fake news and misinformation in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, she added.


“What we have done, coming out of the experience of Myanmar and Sri Lanka, is we have doubled down in terms of building Trusted Flaggers network (in) what we think (are) at-risk countries where these kind of violence-causing activities can happen,"" Das said, while addressing the Raisina Dialogue 2019 here.


The company has restricted the number of WhatsApp forwards to five and stopped the fast-forward feature on any video content to stop the content and the message from becoming viral in India, she said."
"Sterling and Wilson Solar is among the world’s largest solar EPC companies providing pure-play, end-to-end solutions. It commenced operations in 2011 as the solar EPC division of Sterling and Wilson Pvt. Ltd, and was demerged into a separate company in April 2017.


The company provides EPC services primarily for utility-scale solar power projects with a focus on project design and engineering and manages all aspects of project execution from conceptualizing to commissioning. It also provides operations and maintenance services, including for projects constructed by third parties.


The company had 183 commissioned and contracted solar power projects with an aggregate capacity of 6,062.83 megawatt (MW), as of 31 December. Last year, Sterling and Wilson won a contract to build a 1,177MW solar project in Abu Dhabi, the largest such project at a single location."
"The Marvel extravaganza is scheduled to hit screens on April 26, but just days before the release, the film has been leaked on various torrent websites


Avengers Endgame is the most anticipated movie in the world right now and the film getting leaked on websites like Tamilrockers will surely increase the chances of spoilers finding their way to the audience


It was only a few days ago that the makers of the film had requested the audience to not leak any spoilers, but seems like their efforts have not garnered the results they had hoped for"
"The sigil was last seen in season seven, episode four, titled The Spoils of War, where Jon Snow shows Daenerys Targaryen the carvings on the walls of the caves beneath Dragonstone


The Children of the Forest had inscribed the designs there, which represent the period in which they united with the First Men, despite both factions being at war for centuries, to defeat the White Walkers"
"Google isn’t the only company that sees an opportunity in creating a sort of Netflix for video games. Nvidia Corp., a chipmaker not known for its consumer products, was one of the first to sell a streaming-games console based on Google’s Android. Amazon, meanwhile, has been busy hiring gaming veterans like the man responsible for the Command & Conquer franchise.


The game industry’s current juggernauts are looking to fortify their positions from a possible shift to streaming. Sony Corp. has offered a subscription service for years called PlayStation Now. Electronic Arts Inc. acquired a streaming business last year and is building a platform called Project Atlas. Last week, Microsoft Corp. showed off a demo of something called Project xCloud, which will allow gamers to play cutting-edge games like online racer Forza Horizon 4 from just about any device with a screen and an internet connection.


Analysts suggest companies with technical expertise in cloud infrastructure will be better-equipped to compete. One lingering question is around business models. Will Google and its new rivals sell games individually or offer access to a large library via subscription, a la Netflix?"
"The ""twttr"" app is presently only available for iOS users to try and review. It remains unclear by when would the prototype app reach Android and web users.


""Twitter says most participants in the prototype program will be English or Japanese speakers,"" CNET added."
"Despite the regulatory hurdles, TikTok parent company ByteDance continues to invest heavily in India. In an interview with Mint, Helena Lersch, director, global public policy, TikTok said to stop pornographic content the company is investing heavily in content moderation. By the end of 2019, TikTok aims to have 1,000 employees in India and 25% of that is just content moderation. The company also updated its community guidelines back in November, and added a section just for India, which allows even less skin. Lersch said TikTok's artificial intelligence (AI) tools can detect skin and they are showing very little skin in India on the social media platform."
"The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.429, down 0.1% from its previous close of 96.524."
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
"The Redmi 6 Pro features a 5.84-inch FHD+ notched display. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC paired with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. It carries a 12MP+5MP dual rear camera and 5MP front facing camera for clicking photos. It comes with a 4,000mAh battery.


XiaomiRedmi 6Redmi 6ARedmi 6 ProRedmi 6 launchRedmi 6 priceRedmi 6A priceRedmi 6 Pro priceMi indiaMi 6AMi 6Mi 6 ProMi 6XRedmi 6XXiaomi Redmi 6A priceXiaomi Redmi 6 PriceXiaomi Redmi 6 Pro priceRedmi 6 specificationsRedmi 6A specificationsRedmi 6 Pro specifications"
"The studio was like a temple for us, although we were not allowed to visit a set when a shoot was in progress


” On the rare occasion when he did visit a set, Rishi got lucky with his first screen appearance – he was only two – in the song “Pyaar hua iqraar hua hai” from Shree 420, shot at RK Studios


 One story goes that Nargis had to bribe the chubby toddler with a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate!Films – and not blood – run in the Kapoor veins, the family often jokes


 Raj Kapoor himself always wanted to be in films, emulating his great father Prithviraj Kapoor, who acted in India’s first film Alam Ara in 1931 but is better known to modern audiences as the virtuous Mughal king Akbar in the 1960s classic Mughal-E-Azam


 Writing on his portal Junglee, Shammi Kapoor remembers Prithviraj asking Raj Kapoor why he wants to quit school


 The young Raj replied, “Sir, if I graduated what will happen? If you want to become a lawyer you go to a law college


The studio grew with its founder through the golden years of Hindi cinema, taking in the best and the worst in its stride


 In a 1976 piece for The New York Times for which he met Kapoor at his notorious sanctum sanctorum, Khushwant Singh described RK Studios as the “biggest and most glamorous production center


 “I put all the small change I am left with when I return from my foreign tours into this vase,” Singh quotes Kapoor as saying


” Talking to Ranbir Kapoor at an India Today event, Amitabh Bachchan remembered being curious about Raj Kapoor’s “special” cottage


 After taking over the reins from their father, the Kapoor brothers (Rishi, Randhir and Rajiv) also continued with the annual Ganesh Visarjan tradition, contributing to Mumbai’s cultural landscape"
"Developed on the ""Uber for Business (U4B)"" platform, the ""Vouchers"" are now being made available in most countries where Uber operates, the company said in a statement.


""As companies look for new technology and novel ways to engage with consumers, 'Vouchers' provide a perk that businesses know their customers will use,"" said Ronnie Gurion, General Manager and Global Head, Uber for Business."
"Since the group video and audio calling feature was introduced on WhatsApp, the only way to make group calls has been by calling a user first and then tapping on the group calling button on the call screen in the top right corner.


WhatsApp will soon change this behaviour by introducing a standalone button for making group calls, but only in group chats. Simply tap on the button, select the friends you wish to call and then select if it will be voice or video call. This feature also showed up only in the iOS beta version of the app (v2.18.363)."
"“But then something good comes along and you invest all your energy into it, as opposed to waste time on what happened


”In his latest, multistarrer Kalank, which also featured Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Sonakshi Sinha and Aditya Roy Kapur, Kunal was the one to steal the thunder as an antagonist, Abdul"
"Cybercriminals are smart enough to understand that stealing passwords is not enough to access banking and social media accounts with the rapid adoption of two-factor authentication.


Hence, SIM hijacking provides them a platform to surpass this verification process, points out Sanjay Katkar, joint managing director and chief technology officer at Quick Heal Technologies Ltd.


SIM hijacking has recently become particularly popular because mobile numbers are being used by various applications, including popular social media platforms, as an identifier, and to enable account recovery and second factor of authentication via SMS confirmation, notes Dionisio Zumerle, senior director analyst at Gartner.


“Therefore an attacker who successfully swaps the SIM card is able to take over an account that uses that phone number as an identifier and as an SMS recipient for the second factor of authentication,"" he explains."
Inga Advisors Private Limited and Batlivala & Karani Securities India Private Limited are the book running lead managers to the offer.
"Avengers: Endgame’s critical reception is nearly flawless, with a 96 per cent score on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes"
"The absentee/missing mother angle is barely explored — it could have developed into a deep comment on domestic abuse and violence


There are some nice moments with Ratna Pathak Shah as the feisty headmistress who feels free to light up a joint to celebrate, and speaks in fluent Marathi with Tommy Sir’s ailing wife, and the local juice waali (played by Amruta Subhash), who partners up with Tailang to start a health tonic enterprise out of his house


The last few episodes have everything working up to a climactic ending, but instead of resolving the story, everything explodes and combusts, perhaps sowing the seeds for more episodes"
"Some of these civic tech apps are also working on technology to enrol people onto the voter list through their apps


mint-india-wire civic technology appsNeta appNext Election appCivis appGoogle PlayAndroid2019 general elections


New Delhi: As the 2019 elections draw near, civic technology apps in India such as Neta, Next Election and Civis. Vote are gaining traction with users as they give citizens a voice in the country’s decision-making process.


The Neta app currently has more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play, though its founder, Pratham Mittal, claims the actual number of users are more. That’s because Mittal has been promoting the app as Indian states go to polls, getting users to sideload (downloading an app from sources other than Google Play) the app on their phones.


The app, currently available only on Android, allows users to rate politicians on different issues and the work they have done. The app then comes up with an aggregate rating for each politician. There’s also a leaderboard for politicians based on users’ votes for them on the app."
"It’s time more Indians considered the option of diversifying to assets outside the country. (Sarvesh Kumar Sharma/Mint)


You may have heard of reverse brain drain. From the looks of it, it may well be time for a reversal in the nature of capital flows as well. Traditionally, investors in developed markets have chased assets in developing economies such as India for higher returns. And while there have been provisions for Indian investors to invest in assets of developed markets, hardly anyone has taken advantage of those opportunities.


But as it turns out, Indian investors would have been better off investing in US stocks in the past decade. The S&P 500 has beaten India’s Nifty 500 index in the last 10 years after accounting for the depreciation in the rupee."
"Indian markets, rupee and bonds were trading flat ahead of key interim budget, a last ditch attempt to win voters trust by prime minister Narendra Modi with possible populist spending measures before general elections due by May. Interim finance minister Piyush Goyal will start reading budget by 11AM.


At 9.15am, the rupee was trading at 71.13 a dollar, down 0.06% from its previous close of 71.09. The home currency opened at 71.07 a dollar."
"While one poster features Jyotika and Revathi as cops, another poster shows Jyothika standing on top of a jeep wearing jeans, a red tunic and a jacket"
"One can only hope that more actors like Trisha and Nayanthara come together to help change the way women are perceived in the industry


 Trisha is an effective reminder that “old” (she is only 35 but we are talking about the industry’s standards) doesn’t mean you get to dismiss her as an actor"
"Ghost, who is not the dog that was used in earlier seasons to play the role of the direworlf, appears disappointed


Tyrion discusses Jon’s lineage with Varys, who claims Jon would be the better king and he also has the stronger claim to the throne


 It is Euron Greyjoy, Iron Fleet and their huge catapults, and let’s not ask how they know Daenerys will come to Dragonstone and how they hid themselves from two dragons


 Will he end up killing her like Cersei fears?Daenerys Targaryen takes them to King’s Landing with Drogon at a safe distance"
"World's first foldable smartphone FlexiPai's display is based on Royole's flexible display and sensor technologies, which are apparently compatible with all existing apps


mint-india-wire FlexPaiworlds first foldable smartphoneFlexPai PriceFlexPai SpecificationsFoldable smartphoneTechnology


New Delhi: A relatively-unknown US-based display manufacturer, Royole Corporation, founded by Stanford engineering graduates in 2012 beat giants like Samsung to the pole when it announced the world’s first foldable smartphone, called the FlexPai, on Sunday.


The smartphone, which folds outwards from the middle, offers a 7.8-inch screen when open, which can be used as one large screen (aka a tablet) or two separate screens running two different tasks side-by-side. When folded, only one of the screen’s sides remains active, giving you a 4-inch display."
"However, you need good headphones (though it covers impedance as low as 8 ohm), a well-tuned ear and good music files to really take advantage of this. A big miss here is that the M0 doesn’t allow you to control the equaliser, which would have made it easier to adapt to different tastes in music. You will likely feel this if you’re a bass-head and want more powerful, booming bass. That’s where the M0 is slightly weak, in terms of audio quality. Highs and mids sound quite sharp.


To conclude, the Shanling M0 is certainly a product some would consider buying. However, in the larger portable media player market, it is an entry level device. That, at a price of around ₹10,000 may be difficult to justify.


Moreover, the true audiophile market will probably prefer something better (even if they are more expensive), like the Fiio M7 or the more premiumly priced ones by Astell & Kern and Sony."
"Citizens can now access their driving licences and vehicle registration certificates (RCs), if they have been issued the same, on DigiLocker. Even the Railways has begun accepting soft copies of Aadhaar and driving licence from your DigiLocker. The cloud-based platform has also tied up with CBSE to provide digital versions of marksheets of students. Subscribers can also integrate their permanent account number (PAN) with DigiLocker. Banks like Kotak Bank and ICICI Bank, too, have integrated their retail internet banking platforms with the platform.


However, like most Digital India apps, DigiLocker is a work in progress. While it has made it easier for users to carry their educational certificates, birth certificates, insurance documents, driving licences and produce them on demand, the app’s user experience has been wanting in several areas.


Prasanto K. Roy, a technology policy consultant, who has the app installed with his Aadhaar, driving license and a couple of other government documents, feels many government apps are really basic and utilitarian, with little focus on user experience (UX), and inadequate testing and feedback.


“The DigiLocker app’s UX needs more work. For instance, the repeated re-entry of the PIN when you switch from one view or document to the other is pointless—good UX would simply require a timeout for PIN re-entry, or allow me to change the setting,"" he cited as an example."
"""Besides Delhi, we are contesting all seats in Punjab, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. The party has received proposals from a few candidates in other states, for which the decision will be taken soon,"" the leader added.


In the run-up to Delhi assembly elections, the party had held meeting across the 70 constituencies to come out with a 70 point manifesto for the election."
"The standards said the organization is no place for “people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates standards of decency


”The code allowed the academy’s board to suspend or expel those who violate the code of conduct or who “compromise the integrity” of the academy


Before Weinstein, only one person is thought to have been expelled from the academy: Carmine Caridi, a character actor who had his membership revoked in 2004 for lending DVD screeners of films in contention for Oscars"
"Voting for 91 of 543 Lok Sabha seats spread over 20 states and Union territories takes place on 11 April


MUMBAI: Top guns from the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party and challenger Congress travelled the length and breadth of the country on Tuesday, making the most of the last day of campaigning for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls in some states. While Prime Minister led the BJP’s campaign, holding four rallies in three states, Congress president Rahul Gandhi led the charge in Bihar and Assam while his BJP counterpart Amit Shah addressed meetings in Telangana, Odisha and Maharashtra. All India Congress Committee general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held a road show in Saharanpur, UP."
"Tashi and Nungshi will talk about their achievements and what motivated them to create so many records


 To Kapil’s surprise, the siblings will share that whenever they feel lonely or emotional, they always tune into his show"
"Frank Azor (left), VP and General Manager, Alienware, Dell Gaming and XPS; P. Krishnakumar, senior vice-president,consumer services business (Asia Pacific and Japan), Dell.


Dell senior vice-president P. Krishnakumar believes affordability isn't an issue in India when it comes to buying gaming devices


Gaming products have been sold in India for a long time, but companies have often said there’s a sea change in demand now. In an interview, P. Krishnakumar, Dell’s senior vice-president of consumer services business for Asia Pacific and Japan, and Frank Azor, VP and General Manager, Alienware, Dell Gaming and XPS, spoke about trends in India and the world. Edited excerpts:"
"The Redmi Note 7 has been making the headlines for nearly a month now. Xiaomi Global VP Manu Kumar Jain teased the launch of the Note 7 in a tweet in January. There were even false reports claiming the smartphone's launch on February 13. However there has been no tentative launch date from the company. However we know the specifications of the smartphone from its launch in China last month.


The Redmi Note 7 is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to sport a dewdrop notch. It also has a radically different design, especially for Xiaomi smartphones—a 2.5D glass back panel with dual tone gradient."
"The much-awaited Marvel film was welcomed by millions of people and the makers, too, did not disappoint them one bit


 Marvel films have always found their fan base in children, but over the last ten years, the studio has established that one doesn’t need to be a pre-teen boy to enjoy a superhero saga"
"""An unwinding of excessively bullish positioning for a dovish Fed has put a hammer on gold,"" said Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst with OANDA.


The Fed decision lifted US Treasury yields to a one-week high, while the dollar looked set to end the week on a firmer note as markets scaled back bets on a U.S. rate cut.


The greenback has edged higher since Powell played down the recent slowing in inflation and saw no reason to cut interest rates."
"Facebook Inc’s Instagram said on Friday it launched a new feature dubbed “Close Friends"" allowing users to share their stories with a smaller group of people.


The new feature, which will appear on the user’s profile in the side menu enables Instagram’s more than 1 billion users to create a smaller group of friends and share stories exclusively with the group."
"“There’s some footage of Kim Philby meeting the press at a flat and saying ‘Of course I’m not (a spy), you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick,'” Dench told The Associated Press in a phone interview


Directed by stage and film veteran Trevor Nunn, Red Joan is based on the true story of Granny Spy Melita Norwood, a civil servant living in the London suburbs who passed nuclear secrets to Moscow for decades


 When she was exposed in 1999 at the age of 87, she expressed no regrets, saying she would do it all again


 Played as a young woman by Sophie Cookson, she is a bright physics student in wartime Cambridge who becomes involved with the quest for an atomic bomb, and with a charismatic revolutionary (Tom Hughes)"
"The joint statement said Fire TV users will be able to sign in to their existing YouTube account and access their full library of content.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"The Note 6 Pro was previously launched in Indonesia at a price of 2,800,000 Indonesian Rupiah (about ₹ 13,745). In India, the smartphone is priced at ₹ 13,999 while the 6GB RAM/64GB internal storage variant is priced at ₹ 15,999.


Going by its international launches, the Redmi Note 6 Pro comes with nearly the same design as its predecessor, except the all-new 6.26 Full HD+ LCD display with a notch at the front. Powering the device is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC, paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage (expandable up to 256GB).


The phone runs Android Oreo 8.1 with MIUI 10 running atop, and while Xiaomi hasn’t promised any updates to Pie until now, some online portals have revealed that testing is being conducted."
"“I don’t know how real that intel is, but I hear that the pitch has happened, I think the idea is Taika would come back,” the actor told LA Times"
"Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, however, appears to be the first video game movie to win the love of critics


Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy play supporting roles"
"And because our self-same dhoti-clad, marble-chested Bhaiyyaji (Malhotra) lives in Banaras, we get a lot of local colour: the ghats, the lingo, the ganga-aarti, the eating of ‘paan’ and so on


 We also get his ‘shaagird’ (Talpade) who carries out the operation with smarts, along with his team-mates


All is hunky dory till an honest cop (Shivdasani) shows up, determined to unearth the ‘setters’ (those who copy the question papers and pass them on, in exchange for cash)"
"Year to date, foreign institutional investors have bought Indian equities worth $3.13 billion and sold $1 billion in debt market.


Traders will now watch consumer price inflation data for February to cement a growing possibility of a rate cut in the April monetary policy. CPI probably quickened to 2.4% year on year last month from 2.05% in January, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists."
"The film is based on a graphic novel by Bobby Crosby and revolves around a pop star (Lopez), who, moments before marrying her rockstar fiance at Madison Square Garden, finds out that he cheated on her with her assistant"
"Film trade analyst Girish Johar had earlier predicted that the film might earn Rs 18-20 crore on its first day


com, “Depending upon the feedback of the audience it may go up as well but even it falls down, it won’t go down below Rs 15 crore


”So far, Kalank has gotten mixed reviews from critics so it is yet to be seen how the film fares at the box office"
"The petition was filed by Nisar Sayeed, whose son was among six people killed in the 2008 Malegaon blasts. He alleged that Thakur was making “objectionable speeches"" during her campaign in Bhopal, where she faces former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh of the Congress.


According to a PTI report, special NIA judge V.S. Padalkar said the NIA court does not have the powers to stop Thakur from contesting elections. It said the Election Commission and electoral officers will need to look into the matter. “This court has not granted bail...wrong forum has been chosen,"" the court said, rejecting the petition."
"A template to view Elections 2019 with numbers that can help navigate the eight weeks of election campaign ahead


New Delhi: In the summer of 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staked claim to form a government in Delhi by sweeping India's Hindi heartland. The party won nearly 90% of its seats from just five states in north and central India. Five years down the line, the Congress has swept back to power in assembly elections held in several of those states. The BJP has also witnessed a reversal in vote share in state legislative seats which fall within parliamentary constituencies the party won for the first time ever in 2014.


Under the changed circumstances, will the BJP look beyond the Hindi heartland and build new strongholds in South India and East India? Will an unlikely third-front alliance materialize by 23 May? Will Rahul Gandhi manage to make a dent on Narendra Modi's enduring popularity? The stage is set and the battle lines are drawn. Mint takes a data-driven look at the festival of democracy that is set to unfold.


■ The BJP and its allies swept the Hindi heartland,while Congress’s presence in the Lok Sabha plunged to its lowest ever.


■ The BJP also won all the seats in Gujarat and Rajasthan, 27 of 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh, and 41of 48 seats in Maharashtra with Shiv Sena."
"The watch business saw a decent 19% year-on-year revenue growth. However, its Ebit margin fell by a steep 680 basis points year-on-year to 8.5% in the December quarter. That’s because of higher advertising spends to back the company’s new product launches.


But this is a relatively small segment for Titan and the overall net profit increased 35% to ₹416 crore on the back of a 34% rise in revenues."
"The firm plans to begin South Korean and European sales in May, and Chinese sales from an undisclosed date.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
"It is estimated that today the world sends more than $155 trillion across borders. Yet, the underlying infrastructure is dated and flawed. This is where Ripple with its blockchain technology connects banks, payment providers and digital asset exchanges to provide a seamless experience to send money globally. More than 200 institutions are using the blockchain technology built by Ripple to transact daily, Gupta claims. “In India, banks like Axis and Yes Bank are using our technology to process their customers’ payments anywhere in the world. We live in 40 corridors and 6 continents, besides having offices in 8 countries,"" said Gupta."
"""Recently, after the Mahagathbandhan rally during a meeting at Sharad Pawar's residence, Congress President Rahul Gandhi refused to get into any electoral understanding. Yesterday, Delhi Congress President Sheila Dikshit also declared there was no possibility of an alliance,"" Rai said.


Addressing an Opposition meeting in New Delhi last month, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that opposition parties need to unite to defeat the BJP."
"One WhatsApp Group can have a maximum of 256 users so these 87,000 groups can reach over 2.2 crore people directly


New Delhi: The first phase of voting begins from April 11 and WhatsApp has turned out to be the biggest social media platform for more than 87,000 groups to target millions with political messaging.


According to WhatsApp, over 20 crore Monthly Active Users (MAUs) are using its platform in India, but the fact is that these numbers are dated back to February 2017 and the company has not shared latest India numbers for over two years now.


India today has nearly 43 crore smartphone users, according to Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research."
"Wright recounted, “She said, ‘Isaac, your stare is like you’re staring into my soul’, and I was like, ‘I can’t see you"
"Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a landmark privacy law adopted last year, individuals have the right to get a copy of their data held by internet companies, or ask that it be deleted.


But the legislation is no help in inheritance matters, as it applies only to the living, bequeathing no rights to their heirs, said Rowenna Fielding, a data protection expert at British consultancy Protecture.


This is partly because, unlike the United States, the leading legal view in Europe is that personal data is not a type of property and as such cannot be sold or disposed of, legal experts said.


""The only owner of the personal data is the individual,"" said Gabriel Voisin, a partner specialising in data protection and privacy at international law firm Bird & Bird.


Personal data refers to any information relating to a person's identity, like their name, address or religion.


""Organisations may receive this information because I provided them with it ... but they are not (the) owners of my name. They are instead what we call 'custodians' of the information,"" Voisin said.


Other things, like photos or short compositions, are treated as intellectual property and should pass onto heirs following copyright rules, said Harbinja, a leading expert on post-mortem privacy.


In France, people have the right to tell companies what do to with their data after they die, while in Canada, the deceased's executor can access digital assets by default."
"But the ""Balong 5000"" seems like the kind of chip Apple would need. It supports both sub-6 and mmWave 5G networks, and is backward compatible with 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks.


This would give Apple the ability to build an iPhone that would support 5G networks built off of existing 4G infrastructure, as well as the ""standalone"" 5G networks that will follow, the report added.


As explained by the company earlier, the Balong chipset, which is currently for Huawei's internal use only, is mainly intended to support Huawei's smart products, such as Internet of Things (IoT) products and phones including Huawei's ""Mate 20X"" and foldable ""Mate X"" smartphones."
"Xiaomi is offering discounts up to ₹ 3,000 on the POCO F1, bringing the price of the 6GB/64GB variant to ₹ 18,900, while the top-of-the-line variant with a kevlar coated back is selling for ₹ 27,999. Customers can also go for SBI Bank’s instant 10% discount to bring the effective price even lower.


As we have mentioned in earlier articles, the POCO F1 was the cheapest smartphone to feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, with its lowest variant selling for an effective price of ₹ 19,900 (with the HDFC Bank discount)."
"He is currently in police custody,” said Shailesh Pasalwar, senior inspector, Oshiwara police station"
"If you know what to watch on Netflix then it's completely fine, but those who don't know what to watch after a long day at work, the streaming service is reportedly testing a new random play button."
"Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are officially single, though more work is left before the terms of their divorce are final"
"Bangalore: OnePlus is gearing up to launch its flagship duo, the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. Ahead of the launch, the OnePlus 7 Pro has received an A+ Top Tier Display Rating from DisplayMate, making it one of the very best smartphone displays on the market. This puts it in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus in terms of display performance.


DisplayMate is a leading evaluator of displays and is well known for conducting an advanced series of comprehensive in-depth lab tests and measurements for smartphone displays. Parameters for testing OnePlus 7 Pro's display include colour accuracy, brightness, contrast accuracy, display spectra and pixel density among others.


DisplayMate will publish the in-depth, ""Display Technology Shoot-Out"" on the day of OnePlus 7 Pro's launch."
"— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) May 3, 2019Taran also revealed that Avengers: Endgame has raced past Baahubali 2 (Rs 247 crore) to become the highest grossing film in India in its first week of release


Twitter on Thursday announced that with 50 million tweets, Avengers: Endgame has become the most tweeted movie ever"
"Still, most Googlers aren’t leaving any time soon, with 82% of survey respondents saying they plan to be working at Google one year from now. That was down just 1 percentage point from the previous year. And 86% said they would recommend the company as a place to work.


Pichai’s decisions and strategies help Google do excellent work — 75% positive, down 13 percentage points from the previous year.


My total compensation is competitive compared to compensation for similar jobs at other companies. 54%, down 11 points."
"Bengaluru: Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it has removed more accounts from Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo, citing what it described as ""coordinated inauthentic behavior.""


A total of 2,632 pages, groups, and accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram for operations linked to the above mentioned countries, the social media platform said."
"But when Google Assistant responds to ""plumber"" queries with the same ""Google Guaranteed"" options, the assistant does not offer any disclaimer or further explanation.


Google said in a statement that the results are not labeled as ads ""because Google isn't paid for these results"" when delivered on the Assistant rather than Google.com.


The advertising attorneys said users should be informed that Google Assistant results, even if not paid for, stem from a filtered database in which many businesses landed because they wanted to buy ads.


""Disclosing 'many of the recommended providers may participate in our referral network'...would be relevant and appropriate,"" said Cohen, the Washington, D.C., attorney.


In some cities, Google Assistant includes businesses vetted by partner search services HomeAdvisor and Porch. It does not mention that those services charge some businesses for customer leads.


Disclaimers vary in other types of searches, depending on how they are delivered. Google.com answers ""flight to Los Angeles"" with upcoming flights labeled as ""Sponsored,"" and users who click on the label would learn that Google ""may be compensated"" by some of its data sources.


But Google Assistant's ""Sponsored"" label does not link to additional information. On smart speakers, the assistant reads only the lowest price without naming an airline."
"Mumbai: Larsen and Toubro Ltd’s (L&T’s) shares are down about 5% this year, even as the Nifty 50 index has risen by over 8%. The fall in L&T’s shares come despite the positive news on order flows and improving fundamentals in its core business. Worse, its one-year forward price-to-earnings multiple of 19 times is way below the levels of 24 times a year ago as well as the five-year average of 23 times earnings.


The first dampener for the stock came early this year when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) rejected its share buyback offer, which was meant to return excess cash and boost return ratios. Investors have also perceived the decision to acquire software firm Mindtree Ltd as a negative in the near term because of a worry about using cash in non-core businesses. Some analysts also said it can weigh on near-term return on equity (RoE) of the company.


“Investors are not happy with L&T’s capital allocation to MindTree, especially in context of RoE being sub-5% at the acquired valuation multiple (of about 20 times),"" said Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd."
"As of now, he is unreachable but through his close friends, the team got to know about the demise of his dad


 We have already packed up shoot and some of us might drive to Pune to be with Parth at this unfortunate moment"
"This is explained further by the Ancient One to Banner himself, that removing the Stones from their time would cause the timelines to divide into several timelines


And this is why after undoing the snap, Captain America goes back to put the stones back in their own timelines, so that the timeline would remain intact"
"The order came in the wake of an election rally speech by Naqvi in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur on 3 April where he used the phrase “Modiji ki sena"", or Modi’s army, in a reference to the defence forces."
"Apple delivered stronger-than-expected financial results for the past quarter as gains in services helped offset slumping iPhone sales, sparking a rally in shares of the technology giant. (Reuters)


SAN FRANCISCO: China-based Huawei outsold Apple's iPhones in the first quarter of this year, seizing the California company's second place spot in a tightening smartphone market dominated by Samsung, a tracker said Tuesday.


A total of 310.8 million smartphones were shipped globally during the first three months of this year in a 6.6 percent decline from the same period in 2018, according to preliminary data from the Chinese-owned International Data Corporation.


It was the sixth consecutive quarter of decline for global smartphone shipments, the market tracker added."
"India's effort is to make terrorism a global agenda and tell the world that Pakistan is in the business of exporting terror to India, says PM Narendra Modi.


'Demonetisation might not suit political arithmetic... We did it for national interest, not for political gains,' says PM Narendra Modi


On jobs front, PM Narendra Modi says India could not have notched up its fast pace of GDP growth without employment generation


New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday made a strong defence of his government’s controversial move to demonetise high-value currencies and its record in job creation. Demonetisation, he said in a wide-ranging interview with Hindustan, was launched in “national interest, not for political gain"". On the jobs front, Modi said India could not have notched up its fast pace of GDP growth without employment generation and that 60 million jobs have been created in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) alone in the last four years. Edited excerpts:


It had been a very satisfactory and extremely good five years. My experience in these five years boosted my belief that there is no reason why India should remain in the category of developing countries.


We have all the capabilities to be a developed country. This conviction will continue to be of great help to take the country ahead in the next five years.


When I came here, the situation was much worse than what I have thought it would be. It was a terrible situation. I was new to this place and I also had to understand issues, but as we started taking decisions, several worrying things came up.


My long experience as chief minister helped me to remain confident, and I knew that we would find ways, and we did find ways.


It would be difficult to restrict myself to this. Earlier, the government would beat its own drum throughout the year over one or two achievements. My case is such that if you take any ministry, any state or any development work, you can see a new initiative in it. There would've hardly been a day in these five years when an important decision was not taken or important work was not done.


So, there are so many achievements and initiatives, that to confine it to just three would be an injustice to other departments and my colleagues.


You made some promises when you assumed charge. Now that your first term is coming to an end, do you think you have not been able to complete the work you set out to?


If everything gets completed then I think that the world will come to a halt. One should look for new energy, ambitions and resolutions to move in life. The biggest satisfaction I get from my work is that it fuels my ambitions further to do many more new things.


You launched social schemes, such as 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao', 'Jan Dhan Yojana', 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' and the Mudra Scheme. You have spoken about social development in a committed manner. Are you happy with the results?


The train of India’s development runs on two tracks. One is the social infrastructure. Another, the physical infrastructure.


Keeping in mind the poorest of the poor, we must reach that social infrastructure level where everyone has house, education, health and toilet. Physical infrastructure should be world-class.


Look at the time of the independence struggle. The country was under occupation for many years. Every part of the country made sacrifices, but what did Gandhiji do? He changed the independence struggle into people’s movement: you take the broomsticks for independence, spin cotton for independence, you give adult education for independence, you teach for the purpose of independence. He added people’s participation to the freedom movement and changed the latter’s face.


I believe that development, like freedom struggle, should also be a people’s movement. We had previously considered limited programmes as adequate development, and this, I believe, used to be our strategic shortsightedness. If we had turned it into people’s movement, the results would have been hundred-fold.


I'm sure you know that when there was lesser number of currency notes with highest denomination of ₹100 in India, Indira Gandhi had come up with a proposal (to demonetise). According to a book, Yashwantrao Chavan told her, “Do you want to do politics or not? Do you want to fight elections or not? Don’t fall in this trap.""


So, demonetisation might not have suit political arithmetic but for the national interest it had to be done. We did it for national interest, not for political gains.


Our steps against black money in the last four-and-a-half years have resulted in recovery of ₹130,000 crore, which has been taxed and awarded penalties. Properties worth ₹50,000 crores have been seized. During this period, ₹6,900 crore of benami properties and assets in foreign shores worth ₹1,600 crore have been also seized.


Nearly 338,000 shell companies have been identified and deregistered. Their directors have been disqualified. It’s also due to demonetisation that tax compliance has almost doubled.


They (the opposition parties) did it earlier too. This did a lot of campaign in UP but they lost very badly. They got defeated over all the issues they tried to take to the people. It would have been a different thing if they had shown honesty and did some research.


You tell me, there were three lakh shell companies. Four hundred companies were running in such a small room (stretches his hand to show the size), hawala trade was going on...


Demonetisation had an impact on the hawala trade and terrorism. NIA investigations in Jammu and Kashmir showed that future funding for terror activities were cut off.


One of the criticisms often voiced is that demonetisation impacted employment. What is it that the government is doing on employment generation?


First of all, we have to understand the way employment data is collected in our country. For many years, we have been doing a sample survey and, on its basis, a minimum assumption is made. Let’s look at some facts—this may or may not suit some people."
"""OnePlus has adopted a consistent pricing strategy where it has been increasing the price with every new launch in a regular pattern,"" techARC Chief Analyst Faisal Kawoosa said in a statement.


""This has led the brand achieve growth in revenues as well as profitability with consumers getting better experience at incremental price increase,"" Kawoosa added."
"Spotify Technology SA and other technology giants appealed a ruling that increased the royalties they must pay to songwriters, a move that threatens to further damage the companies’ already-tenuous relationship with the music industry.


Songwriters celebrated last year when the Copyright Royalty Board ruled that they will get at least a 15.1% share of streaming revenues over the next five years, a raise from the previous rate of 10.5%. The bump, which came in January 2018, was the biggest ever, the National Music Publishers Association said at the time.


But music-streaming services, most of which are either lose money or only eke out a small profit, warned the change would make it harder to operate. They also complain that the ruling was made without enough input from them."
Kanchana 3 is the third installment in the Kanchana series and the fourth installment in the Muni series
"“Over the last five-six months, discoms have become active in inviting medium- and long-term PPAs. There is visibility of nearly 7,000-8,000MW of such tenders, which will shrink merchant capacity availability by nearly 50% within the next 12 months,"" Motilal Oswal Securities said in the note. Discoms is short for electricity distribution companies.


This can bring material relief for listed power firms. CESC Ltd, JSW Energy Ltd, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL), and Adani Power Ltd have power plants that do not have sufficient PPAs. In most cases, power plants are losing money due to under-utilization. If these plants achieve break-even levels, it will reduce the burden on the parent companies."
"“One of the main issues is the citizenship amendment bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha. It will again come back,"" said Congress’ Chishi. Political parties from the North-East believe that the bill was at cross purposes with the National Register of Citizens, which seeks to wean out illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. “Further, the BJP government wants to introduce a uniform civil code. It is dangerous. Once it is enshrined in the Constitution, the special protection to Nagas that Article 371 (A) provides will go. During British rule, the Naga hills under Assam were left as an excluded area. They wanted Nagas to remain on their own, without interference. They didn’t want outsiders to dilute the Naga way of life.""


Few in the clergy in the Christian-majority state have backed the Congress, while terming BJP as anti-secular. Warning against the BJP for its support to a uniform civil code, the anti-conversion bill and the citizenship bill, they ask Nagas—in WhatsApp messages and forwards—to be bold “in faith, not in money"".


“I don’t know what kind of speeches they give in the mainland. Here, as per the atmosphere that prevails in each state, the leaders speak on those lines only,"" said NDPP’s Yepthomi.


“This citizenship amendment bill is not an issue at the moment. Since opposition parties don’t have any other point, they are raising this issue,"" he added."
"Both HR leaders and managers are leveraging AI to augment decision-making and interactions with employees


Technology is also used to curate highly personalized learning experiences that are customized to individual needs"
"According to Deadline, the Google-owned video platform is also working on projects with creator Markiplier and stunt team Dude Perfect"
"TikTok has exploded in popularity elsewhere, giving Bytedance more global reach than any other Chinese tech company. (Getty Images)


The move could handicap the app’s owner, China’s Bytedance Ltd., in one of its most promising markets"
"Through this partnership with India's only LBMA accredited gold refinery, Google Pay users will be able to buy 99.99 per cent 24-karat gold, Google said in a statement.


""Gold is core to Indian culture and tradition, making India the world's second largest consumer of gold. Indians buy gold to mark auspicious occasions each year be it Akshaya Tritiya, Dhanteras or Diwali,"" Google Pay India Director Product Management Ambarish Kenghe said.


Google Pay users can purchase gold for any value and that will be stored on behalf of the user, by MMTC-PAMP, in secure vaults."
"Last year “wasn’t great as far as Indian imports were concerned, largely because of depleting rural income and higher prices due to weaker rupee,"" said Harish Galipelli, head of commodity and currencies at Inditrade Derivatives & Commodities Ltd. “But, given the direct cash benefits to farmers and elections round the corner, there could be increased liquidity among the rural population and that may drive demand this year.""


However, a key risk to demand growth prospects remain the higher domestic prices as Indians are highly price sensitive, he said. Benchmark gold futures in Mumbai rose to 33,646 rupees ($472) per 10 grams on Feb. 4, the highest since September 2013 and just below a record of 35,074 rupees touched the same year."
"Moscow-based cyber security provider Kaspersky Lab said the attack took place between June and November last year and was used to deliver a software update with a ""backdoor"" that would give hackers access to infected machines.


""We are not able to calculate the total count of affected users based only on our data; however, we estimate that the real scale of the problem is much bigger and is possibly affecting over a million users worldwide,"" Kaspersky said in a blog post."
"Apple recently slipped to third place in the smartphone market behind Huawei, even though the Chinese firm’s sales in the United States are limited.


Google, which is looking to gain ground in the premium segment with its own branded handsets, has scheduled a media event October 9 expected to unveil its updated Pixel handsets.


SamsungSamsung Galaxy 4x funSamsung 4 camera phoneSamsung foldable phoneSamsung Galaxy FSamsung Galaxy Note 9"
"One SIM slot, in the dual-SIM iPhones, is a regular one, in which you insert a physical SIM card. The other SIM is an eSIM slot, which allows you to swap network carriers without actually physically swapping the SIMs


AppleiPhonedual SIM iPhoneiPhone XSiPHone XRiPhone XS MaxiPhone XS dual SIM priceiPhone XS Max dual SIM PriceiPhone XR dual SIM Price


If you’ve wanted to buy an iPhone but dropped the decision just because it didn’t have a dual-SIM slot, then Apple has answered your prayers. The trio of new iPhones—XS, XS Max and XR—supports two SIM cards."
"The 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu will be the first since independence not to feature a larger-than-life figure. It will also be a litmus test for AIADMK and DMK after the deaths of their biggest leaders—J. Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi. Mint analyses the electoral dynamics of the state.


Tamil Nadu, where politics and cinema have been intertwined for long, will see a four-cornered fight between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA); the DMK-Congress alliance; Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam and T.T.V Dinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, a breakaway faction of AIADMK. NDA includes the BJP, Pattali Makkal Katchi, Vijaya-kanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and three small parties. Left parties, Vaiko’s Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and the Indian Union Muslim League are with the Congress and DMK."
"In 2014, BJP swept Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. It retained Gujarat in the 2017 assembly elections, despite a spirited Congress performance. The Congress focus had shifted to the three other states that then were held by the BJP: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, allowing the BJP to regroup in Gujarat.


A resurgent Congress that won these three states in 2018 remains a challenge for the BJP in Elections 2019. This also holds true for other Hindi-speaking states, where the BJP made big gains in 2014 but anti-incumbency could play a role in 2019.


The Congress, meanwhile, will look to do better than it did in 2014—buoyed by its performance in the 2018 state elections.


As compared to 2014, a few southern states have a greater significance for the BJP and the Congress in Elections 2019. In Tamil Nadu, both the national parties have tied up with the two Dravidian regional powers. Kerala, the epicentre state of the Left vs Sangh battle, will witness another BJP bid, this time powered by the Sabarimala controversy, to not only retain the lone seat it won in 2014 but also make additional gains.


The Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), or JDS, which formed a post-poll alliance in Karnataka in 2018, will look to make Karnataka a test case for the opposition alliance. In 2014, the Congress won 10 Lok Sabha seats, the JDS 2 and the BJP 15.


For the BJP, the 2018 Karnataka elections—when it emerged as the single-largest party—may not really be the sole determinant of its 2019 show."
“The Cannes’ Jury is invited to see films directed by the greatest filmmakers of our time – which is the case again this year
"Only certain Apple Watch models support cellular calls, but those that don’t can still make emergency calls when near a paired iPhone or Wi-Fi service.


Apple says it monitored some 2,500 people — measuring how they fell off ladders, missed a step while walking or got their legs caught in their pants while getting dressed. It used that data to separate real falls from other heavy wrist movements, such as clapping and hammering.


The feature will turn on automatically for users 65 and over; younger people can activate it in the settings. “I can see kids buying one for their parents and grandparents,"" said analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights.


But the Apple Watch still lacks one feature found in rival wrist gadgets: the ability to analyse sleep quality. Battery life in the new watch remains at 18 hours, meaning it needs a daily — or nightly — recharge.


Apple WatchAppleApple Watch EKGApple Watch fall detectorApple Watch priceApple Watch cardiac arrhythmiaApple Watch price India"
"""Bringing our flagship YouTube experience to Amazon Fire TV gives our users even more ways to watch the videos and creators they love."" Andrew Bennett, head of business development for Prime Video, aid the agreement would ""give our customers convenient access to the shows and movies they love... customers will have even more ways to stream what they want, whenever they want, no matter where they are.""


Amazon and Google are in fierce competition over streaming, but their spat had sparked concerns of anti-competitive conduct by locking out an important rival."
"The age groups vary significantly as well. All these things have driven us into creating gaming devices that are more multi-purpose devices. It’s driven us to make smaller, thinner, lighter devices. We have made compromises to deliver on those elements, but we’re still preserving the integrity of something being a gaming device.


Krishnakumar: Three things. One is the global growth of e-sports, which has created interest in India too. Second and most important is that technology has enabled folks to play games at more affordable prices.


And the product design that Frank spoke about has also helped. Third, I think people have finally realized that this isn’t an industry where you just waste your time. People have realized that it can be a viable career."
"The survey added that 97% IT managers admitted that security expertise is one of the greatest issues in India, and while 92% Indian IT managers wish they had a stronger team in place to properly detect, investigate and respond to security incidents, 89% believe cyber security recruitment is a challenge.


Almost three in four banks in Asia Pacific anticipate that fraud in their country will increase in 2019, said a new report by FICO on Tuesday. Of specific concern are transactions completed when neither the card nor the cardholder is physically present (card-not-present or CNP fraud), as well as cards taken out by criminals under false identities (application fraud), the report added.


Cybersecurity continues to be a major issue in India with 76.3% of organizations hit by cyber attacks in the last year, as compared to 68% organizations hit across the globe, a global survey from security firm Sophos corroborated. The report found that on an average, Indian organizations that investigate one or more potential security incidents each month spend 48 days a year (four days a month) investigating them.


On 13 March, security firm Seqrite--the enterprise arm of Quick Heal Technologies--said that in the second half of 2018, it detected close to 50 million threats targeting enterprises. This translates to around 186 detections every minute. These detections included known and unknown threats such as cryptojacking, ransomware, trojans, exploits, worms, infectors, potentially unwanted applications (PUAs), and adware. Further, commercial spyware programs called 'Stalkerware' are background-running apps installed on phones, which can be used to monitor and track device activity."
"When characters start explaining too much, you start losing interest: this is a problem that pops up quite often in Raghavan’s films"
"Beyond the fact that companies have to comply with laws, good data protection practices can also affect a company’s bottom line. “Data privacy now sells. Companies that can demonstrate that they have a good privacy framework and are transparent about how they handle the individual’s data gain a competitive advantage,"" Cook said.


Further, by building data protection measures into business processes, companies can be more agile. It also reduces losses in the event of a data breach.


Since a company will only be holding data that it absolutely requires to run the required processes, the overall losses from a data breach will also be reduced."
"New York Times's 'The Daily' will produce a news briefing on weekdays for the Amazon Echoto be sponsored by Audi and read by host Michael Barbaro


alexa echo speakersnew york timesthe daily podcastnyt daily podcastmichael barbaroalexa newstechnology


New York: The New York Times is expanding further into audio with five new offerings for Amazon.com Inc.’s speakers, including a shorter version of its hit podcast, The Daily. Starting Friday, The Daily will produce a news briefing on weekdays for the Amazon Echo, a voice-enabled speaker with a built-in assistant named Alexa. The free news briefing will be sponsored by the carmaker Audi and be read by host Michael Barbaro.


The 167-year-old paper is trying to rely less on print while seeking new forms of digital distribution. The new programs also let the company capitalize on booming sales of smart speakers—devices that include Google Home and Apple HomePod. Last week, Amazon said it has sold more than 100 million products with Alexa built in."
"In fact, the LG G Flex series was also capable of flexing a little. The display could me pushed down from the middle without any damage. It would return to its curved state when the pressure was released.


Others are expected to follow — Samsung’s bendable smartphone is expected sometime early next year, according to a Bloomberg report. Codenamed Winner, the Samsung smartphone is expected to have one long horizontal display, which would flex sideways.


The OLED panel used by Samsung is also made of an unbreakable plastic substrate. The screen can reportedly endure more than 200,000 bends and has already been certified by Underwriters Laboratories Inc, the testing arm for the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration."
"Choosing the right tool and colours is very easy, but every time you want to get out of the tool or colour selector you have to tap out on your canvas. Once you do that, you are putting a mark on your doodle, and if you don’t want that you’ll end up hitting the undo button everytime you’re done selecting.


The app is also a bit sluggish even on high-end devices when using it in the landscape mode, which is a bummer."
"“Super SUPER excited to be sharing screen space with the ever charming and super talented #STR bro 😁😁😁! Directed by director #Narthan sir ,and produced by @StudioGreen2 Thank you @kegvraja for this opportunity! @iamrammy_ramesh This is one to look forward to guys! 😁👍🏻”, the caption read


The untitled “mega-budget action-thriller film” will be directed by debutant Narthan and produced by Gnanavel Raja under the Studio Green banner"
"The remaining Avengers are dealing with the tragedy and also finding ways to bring their friends back


Joe Russo said during his Mumbai visit, “This movie focuses on the six original Avengers and closes the book and the stories being told about them in the last decade"
"As far as Assam is concerned, the important ally, the AGP, did a flip-flop of walking out of the BJP on the CAB issue and then walking right back into the arms of the BJP. The AGP’s image as a regional party which nurtured aspirations of the Assamese people after the anti-Bengali, anti-illegal immigrant movements of the late 1970s-80s has taken a huge beating. It is seen as an opportunistic party. It is unlikely that the AGP will win any of the 14 seats this time.


Understandably, the BJP has put up candidates in 13 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats. The party in its no-nonsense approach has axed five sitting MPs. Guwahati MP Bijoya Chakraborty’s name has been set aside on account of her age (she is now 79 years), while sitting MPs Kamakhya Prasad Tasa and Ramen Deka have been dropped due to poor performance. Tezpur MP Ram Prasad Sarmah was axed after his name cropped up in the cash-for-jobs scam in which one of his daughters was involved. Sarmah had allegedly bribed the chairman of the Assam Public Service Commission along with many others to get his daughter selected in the Assam Police Service. Certainly, the BJP would not even touch Sarmah with a barge pole. The party seems serious about keeping its slate clean. Hence, Rajen Gohain, minister of state for railways who is allegedly involved in a case of rape and molestation has also been axed. Gohain tried to push his wife’s name but to no avail. It appears that the BJP will also not entertain dynastic politics in the region.


In the lone seat from Nagaland, the ruling People’s Democratic Alliance consensus candidate and NDPP party nominee, Tokheho Yepthomi, and Congress candidate K.L. Chishi, a former chief minister, are the two serious contenders. Political analysts are of the view that the sitting MP Yepthomi will return considering he has the support of Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio and the BJP. Also, NDPP’s bitter rival, the NPF, has not put up any candidate. Neither has the BJP which knows that it has to ride on its alliance partner, the NDPP.


As far as Manipur is concerned, the two Lok Sabha seats of Outer and Inner Manipur will see a fight between the BJP candidates and the main rival, the Congress. Earlier, both seats were held by the Congress. This time, the Congress has fielded two new faces—O. Nabakishore Singh, former chief secretary of the state, and K. James, an entrepreneur. The party has dropped both sitting MPs. The BJP is fielding the party’s state unit spokesperson R.K. Ranjan and party’s state unit vice- president H. Shokhopao alias Benjamin Mate as candidates.


Interestingly, the NPP and the NPF, which are allies of the BJP in Manipur are both fielding candidates. This weakens the case of the BJP candidates since votes can get fragmented even while the Congress vote bank remains intact."
"Much to the surprise of all, Tarun too will start crying refusing to go away from Prince Narula’s team


 Tarun will also reveal that he had promised Prince three years back that he will come to Roadies and win under his guidance"
"Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10, along with a 5G variant during its Unpacked events held simultaneously in San Francisco and London last month."
"During the first nine months of FY19, the company derived 62.8% of their revenue from five cities. Over FY16-18, its total revenue witnessed a CAGR of 16.3% to ₹644 crore. EBITDA grew at a pace of 16.8% with stable margins at 26.8% in FY18. For nine months of FY19, the revenue, EBITDA and net profit stood at ₹559 crore, ₹143 crore and ₹89 crore, respectively. The company does not invest in equipment but leases it out, thus following an asset light model which does not attract any major capital expenditure other than the regular maintenance expenditure."
"The movie features Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein in the lead, and Wilde roped in professional skaters Victoria Ruesga and Nico Haraga to play the role of their friends


“In order for casts to become more diverse and representative, the same goes for the crew behind the camera, you have to look beyond the resume"
"Priced at ₹8,999, the Sony WH-XB700 are a marked improvement on earlier headphones in this series, in terms of audio quality


The XB series of headphones from Sony have always been quite popular in India. With their emphasis on bass, the headphones fit the profile of the Indian listener, at least the majority anyway. The WH-XB700 is the newest in that range.


Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the XB series. They’ve focuses on bass, of course, but even that is at times too loose, or too overwhelming. Compared to older XB series headphones, the WH-XB700 strikes a better balance between bass, mids and highs."
"The second shift is in programme content, which previously catered to an older audience who liked watching soap operas, to millennials who want different kinds of programmes.


Third, India was a single TV household for long, and watching television with parents at home was normal. Today, people watch TV on iPads and mobile phones. In fact, every device can be something on which you can watch a video. Today, India has about 20% penetration in online video. The last count was close to about 300 million online video users per month. Against that, we have got 190 million TV homes. “This business is so interesting because all your data networks, whether it’s ISPs or telcos or all data networks combined, video contributes to close to about two-thirds of the overall usage on any data pipe,"" said Hussein."
"Galaxy Apps Store is available in English, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Marathi.


Galaxy Apps Store provides a personalized recommendation engine, delivering users the option to download the apps that Samsung believes would best serve their needs. Galaxy Apps also has special sections for highlighting all Indian innovations to Samsung smartphone users. Samsung says this is in line with the Government of India’s ‘Startup India’ initiative."
"Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra, Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner, Kevin Jonas and Danielle Jonas attended the gala night held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas


Nick kicked off his performance with his hit song “Jealous” and was then joined by brothers Joe and Kevin"
"Samsung teased the new smartphone on Weibo, giving us a look at the display hole in the top left corner in its full glory. The Infinity-O concept was officially announced at Samsung’s developer conference in San Francisco—the same event also gave us a sneak-peek into Samsung’s foldable smartphone.


While Samsung hasn’t officially unveiled other specifications of the smartphone, rumours and leaks suggest that the smartphone might be powered by the same Snapdragon 710 SoC that runs the Nokia 8.1 and will a have a triple camera setup similar to the Galaxy A7. We can expect the Galaxy A8s to run Android Oreo 8.1 with the “Samsung Experience"" UI running atop. The most talked about feature of the smartphone is not the display with a hole, but the omission of the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is a first for Samsung. This also confirms the presence of the USB Type-C port on the smartphone."
"Apart from this project, Vijay Deverakonda will be seen in the yet-to-be-titled film, directed by Kranthi Madhav"
"The South Korean company's operating income fell to 10.8 trillion won ($9.6 billion) in the quarter that ended in December,falling short of the 13.8 trillion-won average of analysts' estimates


SamsungAppleSamsung operating incomeSamsung lossSamsung sales slowdownSamsung CESSamsung semiconductorsSamsung mobiles


Samsung Electronics Co.’s quarterly profit and revenue missed estimates on sputtering demand for memory chips during the last three months of 2018, the same period when Apple Inc. saw anaemic sales in China.


The South Korean company’s operating income fell to 10.8 trillion won ($9.6 billion) in the quarter that ended in December, according to preliminary results released Tuesday, falling short of the 13.8 trillion-won average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg."
"In contrast to gold imports, which collapsed last year, inflows of silver rose 36 percent in 2018 to 6,958 tons, just shy of the all-time high of 7,579 tons seen in 2015, according to India’s trade ministry. Sheth pegged this year’s imports at between 6,000 tons and 7,000 tons."
"Disney had been supplying new movies such as ""Black Panther"" and ""Beauty and the Beast"" to Netflix after their runs in theaters but ended that arrangement this year to feed its own streaming ambitions. The company estimated it is foregoing $150 million in licensing revenue this fiscal year by saving programming for its own platforms.


The Disney programming will draw in part from Disney's deep library of classic family films. It also will include exclusive original content such as a live-action ""Star Wars"" series called ""The Mandalorian,"" a show focused on Marvel movie villain Loki, and animated ""Monsters at Work,"" inspired by hit Pixar movie ""Monsters Inc.""


Some new Disney movies, such as a ""Lady and the Tramp"" remake, will go directly to the Disney app. Other new releases will appear on Disney after their run in theaters, executives have said."
"Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have overhauled policies to boost transparency ahead of the general election and rein in misinformation.   (AFP)


The parliamentary committee on information technology said it would hear the views of officials from Facebook on March 6


The subject of the discussion would be on safeguarding citizens' rights on social or online news media platforms


MUMBAI: An Indian parliamentary panel has summoned representatives of Facebook Inc, its messaging services WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram to appear before it early next month and discuss how to safeguard citizens' rights on social media."
"Lau is eyeing a connected future with this move, as he brings 20 years of experience in the smartphone and Blu-ray industries.


“I dream about a time when technology is truly seamless, an effortless part of your life without being the focus. As other consumer electronics have evolved and improved our lives, televisions have remained conventional and cumbersome,"" said Lau.


He has hinted at developing an AI-assistant for the smart TV, which will be armed with high quality hardware, a seamless user experience and a minimalistic design."
"The global consensus among experts is that 5G will truly become mainstream in 2020. But if that is to actually happen, 2019 will perhaps be the most crucial year for the next generation of wireless broadband technology. Companies like Ericsson have already started bringing their 5G products to India.


Moreover, while network equipment makers have been ready for a while, device makers are now pushing through. This month, Qualcomm unveiled its new mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 855, which will support 5G connectivity on mobile phones.


Edge Computing relates to both 5G and IoT. While 5G lowers the latency in networks, meaning data can travel faster between the servers and devices, edge computing takes care of the processing needs. This technology allows data to be processed closer to the source device, thereby making it easier for IoT devices to work on the fly.


Experts expect 2019 to have realistic implementations of smart cities, driverless cars and more—all of which requires edge computing. As 5G improves the network, edge computing is expected to augment the value that 5G brings.


Companies like IBM and D-Wave have broken ground in this field. IBM now has a a 50-qubit quantum computer. D-Wave’s machine—with its 2000 qubits—does not qualify to be a ‘true’ quantum computer, mostly because its qubits are not built like those in traditional quantum computers, argue critics. Meanwhile, even Google, Microsoft and Intel have been working for quantum supremacy. This is a technology that will gain more maturity in 2019.


mint-india-wire groundbreaking technologiesartificial IntelligenceBlockchain technologyInternet of ThingsVirtual Reality3D PrintingRoboticsRobotic Process Automation5GEdge ComputingQuantum Computingtechnologies"
"The Congress has not won a Lok Sabha seat in Bengaluru since C.K.Jaffar Sharieff won from the north constituency in 1999


Even caste that otherwise is not considered a very big factor in urban areas could be put to the test this time around, political leader and analysts say


Bengaluru: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faces anti-incumbency in the three parliamentary seats of Bengaluru while problems for the Congress stems from within as the two national parties make an aggressive bid to take control over Karnataka’s ‘seat of power’ in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to be held in April.


The Congress has not won a Lok Sabha seat in Bengaluru since C.K.Jaffar Sharieff won from the north constituency in 1999. And if statements by its own partymen are anything to go by, the Congress could draw another blank this year.


“Our problems come mostly from within our own party,"" said a senior Congress leader, requesting not to be named."
"Mayhew, whose face was never seen in the Star Wars films – his entire body was always clothed in his Wookiee costume – died at his north Texas home on Tuesday, according to the family’s statement on Twitter, but no cause of death was given"
"PM attacks SP, BSP for pursuing caste-based politics, slams Congress for doubting Army’s capabilities


Speaking at a public meeting in Aligarh, Modi said that development in Uttar Pradesh had slowed because of caste-based politics


NEW DELHI: Reiterating the message of development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the development programmes of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has never differentiated between people on the basis of caste, religion and region.


Speaking at a public meeting in Aligarh, Modi said that development in Uttar Pradesh had slowed because of caste-based politics, but now the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was working to ensure that caste politics, terrorism, corruption and use of black money ends in India."
"Vandana Pathak as MeenakshiThe eldest sister Meenakshi was a feminist and always striving to make the world a better place for women


 Through the course of the show, Meenakshi organised and participated in many ‘mahila morcha’ against men and even got her sisters involved


 An acclaimed name in Gujarati film and theatre, Vandana was recently seen in shows like Saath Nibhana Saathiya, Yeh Teri Galiyaan and Manmohini


Ameeta Nangia and Vidya Balan as RadhikaThe second sister among the five, Radhika was intelligent, slightly geeky but quite clumsy


Rakhi Vijan as SweetyThe perfect example of beauty without brains, Sweety’s only purpose in life was to become the next Miss World and get married to Shah Rukh Khan


 There were many in the real world who copied Sweety’s action, and indulged in a little song-dance routine every time the bell rang at their homes"
"Oprah Winfrey may have been the main honoree at The Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural Empowerment in Entertainment luncheon, but it was a group of underprivileged high school students who stole the show and even brought Winfrey to tears


At the event on Tuesday in Los Angeles, 20 local high school juniors who had been selected to the new Young Executive Fellowship Program, learned from Selena Gomez that two would be receiving full scholarships to Howard University and Emerson College, and all would get a laptop


 The program was started to try to address the lack of diversity and inclusion in the executive ranks in Hollywood"
"Samsung Mobiles India on Wednesday launched the Galaxy S10, S10 Plus and S10e smartphones in India at an event in New Delhi. The Galaxy S10 series, along with other accessories including Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Watch would go on sale starting 8 March via Flipkart, Amazon and Samsung Store. The pre-bookings would be live till 7 March.


The Galaxy S10 is priced at ₹84,900 for the 512 GB variant and ₹66,900 for the 128 GB variant. Galaxy S10+ is available in 1 TB, 512GB and 128 GB storage variants and will be priced at ₹1,17,900, ₹91,900 and ₹73,900 The Galaxy S10e is available in only 128 GB storage variant and is priced at ₹55,900.


Samsung CEO DJ Koh was also present at the launch event. Commenting on the launch of the new flagship Galaxy devices he said, ""We are proud to say that billions of people have used Galaxy phones all around the world. We created new mobile categories and delivered. Like the Galaxy Note. We were the first to bring large mobile screen to mainstream. We made smartphones truly water-resistant. We have put smartphones at the centre of our connected lives. We are excited by opportunities in India as more consumers embrace the digital age.""


The Galaxy S10 family comes with a completely refreshed design—a near bezel-less Infinity-O display at the front with a laser cut hole to accommodate the front-facing camera(s) and horizontally placed rear camera system.


The changes obviously aren't just cosmetic—the innards have received an upgrade as well. Samsung's Exynos 9820 or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 SoC is standard on all devices. Memory and storage options range from 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage on the base Galaxy S10e all the way up to a whopping 12GB of RAM and a terabyte of internal storage on the Galaxy S10 Plus. All Galaxy S10 variants run Samsung's new One UI based on Android Pie 9.


Other specifications like front and rear cameras, fingerprint sensors and battery capacities differ from model to model. Here's how they look:"
"In the Mahesh Babu starrer, I play a girl who is very simple and is happy about small things in life


 Sometimes in some of the scenes, I have done over the top acting because that is what the comedy scenes demanded


 Having said that, have I arrived? Well, I am glad that people think so but honestly, there is a long way to go"
"As a global economic organization warns of emerging markets’ growing addiction to short-term debt, data show that Indian firms have rapidly loaded up on such borrowings.


Indian non-financial companies relied on bonds maturing within three years for 44 percent of their overall issuance in 2018, double the proportion in 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The shift comes at a time when Indian banks, saddled with about $190 billion of soured loans, have grown more cautious on lending."
"Madhur tweeted, “Happy Birthday master blaster @sachin_rt Wishing the team of #GodOfCricketTheFilm all the best for their upcoming project"
"“I was busy with Welcome Back and Comedy Circus (show) and so we could never really sit down and discuss the script


Starting his career in 2006, Shaandilya has written around 600 scripts for comics Kapil Sharma, Krushna Abhishek and Sudesh Lehri combined as the lead writer and content director for Comedy Circus"
"Three women—NP Saleena, KP Summayya and Padmini— cast bogus votes in Kerala's Kasargod constituency, he told reporters. The women will be booked for impersonation and violation of electoral rules, he said. ""We have decided to ask the returning officer to book a police case against them under section 171 C, 171 D and 171 F of IPC,"" he said.


Over the weekend, the Congress had accused the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM of widespread bogus voting in Kannur and Kasargod constituencies, on the basis of visuals webcast from security cameras and installed in certain problematic polling booths. Later, more visuals that could be linked to bogus voting were unearthed by local news channels and aired, creating a heated debate in Kerala. On Monday morning, Meena had issued a press statement saying that the allegations are of ""serious nature"" and that he has asked for a probe report from the respective district collectors."
"Beyonce didn’t want the concert experience of Coachella limited to those who were there and ones who streamed it live


 So she decided to turn it into Homecoming, a Netflix documentary, that’s part biographical and part a concert film


 Released alongside a live album and close to 2019 Coachella, it combines glimpses from her rehearsals with that of the live stage sessions from the extraordinary concerts


 “I respect things that are built from the ground up… I am super specific about every detail,” she says in the voiceover that tells us about every patch sewed, every move danced over and over, Beyonce’s exacting yet loving demands from her “family” — everyone who’s a part of the concert — and a year-long preparation coming at the back of delivering twins post a complicated pregnancy"
"Professionals with access to sensitive company data on their email accounts can secure their accounts with Google’s new Titan Security Key. Based on FIDO Alliance’s U2F protocol, Titan is a USB device with built-in encrypted keys. Users have to configure the Security key with Google accounts they want to protect and the next time they login to those accounts they will be prompted to plug in the security key into the Windows or Mac PC. It’s compatible with Chrome and other web browsers and has a free variant with Bluetooth for Android devices."
"In my view and as per a lot of UK businesses we have been talking to, there is quite a bit of misconception around data localization. A lot of countries practice data localization and localize data very strictly. When you start moving away from critical personal data to strategic data, how local does that have to be? We have to see whether we can mirror that data and transport it to another jurisdiction, or whether we can create metadata and transport data, or transport non-critical data. It is important to get definitions of the terms used to understand where the lines are drawn, and to understand the difference between personal data and business data.


There’s also an issue of data ownership. Was that a concern with the Indian firms and the companies you spoke to?


I’m aware of a phrase coming to the fore—data colonization. I think embedded within the Supreme Court judgement about data privacy is a recognition that privacy lies with the individual and that is paramount. In certain countries, the rights of the individuals are not enshrined. A lot of work needs to be done in terms of clarifying consent. About how things will evolve in the future, is when people realize that their individual data has value. Right now nobody is intruding on individual space. But some companies are beginning to pay other firms to have access to their data."
"Baarish, like any other Balaji Telefilms offering, could have been a decent TV show with some 800 episodes running over the course of five years


 The son who is timid and obedient is ‘good’ and the one who is ambitious, assertive and questioning is ‘bad’


 To top it all, every time Anuj and Gauravi’s paths cross, it is raining! (hint: the title of the show)Baarish is shallow, unoriginal and there is no character for which you will want to go back"
"The Congress is also drawing up a hectic campaigning schedule for its star campaigner, Rahul Gandhi. His campaign activity in the region is likely to increase as his own seat of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh also goes to the polls in the fifth phase.


“The focus of the remaining phases is on states where Congress and BJP are in direct contest and a key chunk of the Hindi heartland. Gandhi will have a key focus on party-ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, which go to polls in the remaining phases,"" one of the senior leaders cited earlier said, requesting anonymity.


While BJP will be taking on the grand alliance of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, it will be interesting to see how the campaign rallies of Modi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, pan out."
"Saudi Arabia is the de-facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which together with some non-OPEC producers, including Russia, announced supply cuts late last year aimed at tightening the market and propping up prices.


Despite these efforts, oil remains in ample supply, not least because of soaring US crude oil production , which jumped by more than 2 million bpd last year to a record 11.9 million bpd."
"”“Hemsworth has time and again proved that he is the actor with the best comic touch here (forgive us thou Chris Pratt fans), and it is to him that the best line of the film is devoted — when Thor, top undressed and trousers hanging below his bulging stomach, demands to know what is wrong with how he looks, Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) says, “You look like melted ice-cream,” she added"
"According to the PMI survey, South-East Asian companies saw the first improvement in new exports for the first time since July 2018 (see chart).


Commenting on the Asean Manufacturing PMI survey data, David Owen, economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey, said: “New export orders rose for the first time since last July, albeit at a fractional pace. This supported the quickest increase in total new orders for seven months, lending some optimism to manufacturers that have been noticeably affected by the ongoing trade war.""


Asean is an acronym for the Association of South-East Asian Nations. It includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, among others."
"Euro zone: Euro zone economic growth was stronger than expected in the first quarter, data showed on Tuesday.


Zinc spread: The premium for cash zinc over the three month contract on the LME has leapt to $129, the highest since 1997, suggesting a shortage of immediately available metal.


Zinc stocks: However, zinc stocks in LME-registered warehouses at 81,325 tonnes are up from record lows around 50,000 tonnes earlier this month.


Stockpiles in Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) warehouses at 72,090 tonnes are down from around 124,000 tonnes in March but up sharply from the start of the year."
"Mayawati has been annoyed with the Congress party ever since senior Congress leaders decided not to form an alliance with the BSP in last year’s assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Mayawati was keen to join hands with the Congress in all three states and had cautioned the party leadership that there should be a national level tie-up between the BSP and Congress which was not limited to Uttar Pradesh.


“We have already said and our top leaders have reiterated that we are contesting Lok Sabha elections alone. Everyone has a right to contest elections on their own or in alliances of their choice. However, the real issue is having a common agenda on talking about the policy failures of the Union government,"" said Anshu Awasthi, Congress leader and spokesperson of its Uttar Pradesh state unit."
"Sonakshi Sinha shared a photo and wrote, “#happyinternationaldanceday from some of us who love and live to D A N C E!”Madhuri Dixit also wished her fans on International Dance Day


Apart from these stars, Sanya Malhotra, Gurmeet Choudhary and Rithvik Dhanjani too wished fans on International Dance Day"
"The film starring Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan begins shoot this August,” a statement from the makers read"
"In the same interaction, Nawazuddin said that people should not look up to actors or make them idols because an actor’s primary job is just to entertain


“You can take inspiration from my struggles but do not make me an idol because as an actor, I will do all sort of roles"
"The open sale of the new device begins on 15 December 2018.The device will be available for purchase online on Amazon.in and oneplus.in. For offline purchase, buyers can head to OnePlus exclusive offline stores in key cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.


Customers will also be able to avail several offers between 15 to 24 December on the newly announced OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition as well as other OnePlus 6T variants.


These include a ₹ 2,000 cashback on all EMI transactions on Axis Bank cards or ₹ 1,500 cashback on all transactions made using Axis Bank credit or debit cards across all offline and online platforms."
"China imported 391,000 tonnes of unwrought copper last month, up 25.7% from the previous month and 26.5% higher than a year earlier, data released on Friday showed.


China's March copper concentrate imports were also higher than the year-ago levels, at 1.77 million tonnes, but down from an unusually strong February. ""This squashed any concerns over soft demand post the Chinese New Year holiday. Sentiment was further boosted by strong credit and monetary data,"" ANZ said in a note.


Las Bambas: Chinese miner MMG Ltd said that Las Bambas mine in Peru has progressively restored critical supplies and increased staffing levels over last week after indigenous communities ended a more than two-month blockade of a key highway."
"Snapping its eight-day winning streak, the BSE Sensex tumbled over 222 points Friday as investors scrambled to book profits after the recent rally while ratings agency Fitch slashed India's growth forecast.


Fitch Ratings Friday cut India's GDP growth forecast for the next fiscal to 6.8 per cent from 7 per cent estimated earlier on weaker than expected economic momentum."
"According to GizmoChina, the Himo T1 is powered by a 350W brushless permanent magnet motor. While the front has hydraulic disc brake, the rear wheel adopts safe and durable drum brake system. It rides on a front suspension fork and dual coilover rear suspension. It is backed by a lithium-ion battery with a total capacity of 14,000mAh (14Ah) with a nominal voltage of 48V.


The bike's headlight offers up to 18,000cd brightness and is inspired from an element of Himo's logo."
"Samsung was pushing to be the first to roll out flexible phones to the masses with pre-orders for the Fold — which sports a 7.3-inch screen when laid flat like a tablet — starting in mid-April. That would put it comfortably ahead of rivals, with Huawei planning a bendable-screen release as early as June while Xiaomi only unveiled its foldable prototypes earlier this year.


The Fold had began as a mere display panel project at Samsung. Considered a second-tier TV manufacturer until the 1990s, it rapidly evolved and began to challenge Apple in high-end smartphones around 2010. Yet it continued to battle perceptions of being a “fast adopter"" rather than a true innovator: Apple sued Samsung in 2011 for “slavishly"" copying the iPhone’s design, triggering a years-long legal battle.


It was around then that Samsung decided to draw on its decades-long prowess in screen technology to build an indisputably original product, and set itself apart. A phone that also unfolds into a tablet could open up a brand new market.


Initial prototypes would crack like a dried sheet of paper if folded about 10,000 times, people familiar with the matter said. Still, Samsung recognized its potential. It started to recruit mechanical engineers who could devote themselves to building a hinge the size of a finger, after the company realized the key to preventing cracks was to evenly distribute pressure. Engineers were encouraged to file as many patents as possible to prevent competition from creeping into a market that didn’t exist at the time, the people said, asking not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.


All seemed on track till last week, when reports of damage to review models started to surface, from a malfunctioning screen after a thin film was peeled off to a display that flickered wildly. Samsung retrieved the units but initially maintained the product would launch as planned on April 26. On Monday, executives convened at their headquarters and debated for hours before finally pulling the plug, the people said."
"Sony has already rolled out its own streaming service PlayStation Now, which was released in 2014.  (Reuters)


 Stadia lets developers put games on a streaming platform that will allow players to access the action through the web


Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. shares slid after Alphabet Inc.’s Google outlined a major push into video games with a streaming service called Stadia.


Nintendo dropped as much as 4.6 percent and Sony declined 4.5 percent Wednesday, the biggest intraday drop for both stocks in six weeks. Stadia lets developers put games on a streaming platform that will allow players to access the action through the web, skipping expensive consoles or personal computers, Google announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco."
"It was a pleasant surprise because I’ve had a lot of fun on those shoots,” Skarsgard told Metro magazine"
"Increase in the number of checks will satisfy political parties and boost voter confidence, says apex court


Just days before the first phase of voting for the Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Election Commission of India (EC) to increase the use of voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips from one electronic voting machine (EVM) to five randomly selected EVMs in every assembly constituency/segment.


The move comes amid a long-standing demand from opposition parties to increase the VVPAT count. It is also likely to make the counting process more transparent and boost voter confidence.


The increase in the number of checks will not only bring greater satisfaction to political parties, but also create a great degree of satisfaction in the minds of the Indian electorate, said the bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjeev Khanna."
"Apple's ongoing legal battles with Qualcomm also gives Huawei the edge to sell its technologies to the iPhone-maker. (Reuters)


Launched in January, Huawei's modem ""5G Balong 5000"" was introduced as the world's most powerful 5G modem


This would give Apple the ability to build an iPhone that would support 5G networks built off of existing 4G infrastructure


San Francisco: Chinese smartphone-maker Huawei could be considering selling its high powered 5G-enabled modems and chipsets to Apple, according to media reports."
"The board has decided to ""claw back"" all bonuses paid to Kochhar between April 2009 until March 2018.


Shares of ICICI Bank Ltd gained nearly 3% on Thursday, a day after the private sector lender posted an improvement in asset quality and an investigation found former chief executive Chanda Kochhar had violated internal bank policies.


The board has decided to ""claw back"" all bonuses paid to Kochhar between April 2009 until March 2018, following the conclusion of investigation led by former Supreme Court judge B. N. Srikrishna."
"According to the Hollywood Reporter, Azazel Jacobs is directing the film from a script penned by Patrick deWitt"
"The party, through the CWC resolution, urged all democratic and progressive forces to unite and pool their energies to relentlessly fight and expose the anti-people policies of the BJP-led Union government.


The day also saw Hardik Patel, who led an agitation for quotas for the community and is the convener of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, join the Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. Patel, 25, said he was joining the Congress because Rahul Gandhi was an ‘honest’ leader and resolved to take on the BJP in Gujarat.


Patel had tacitly supported the Congress in previous state assembly election in 2017. His formal entry into the party ahead of the general elections comes with an eye on the crucial Patel support base. The community, which accounts for nearly 12% of the state’s population, was instrumental in the BJP’s rise in Gujarat in the early nineties, after the Congress alienated them."
"Observers also said that those associated with the movie industry in Tamil Nadu came out of political movements like the pro-Dravidian and anti-Brahminical movement, unlike in Karnataka, which is caste dominated.


Ambareesh, a Vokkaliga, was perhaps one of the most successful politicians and cinema stars. Though many may not have agreed with the ways of the late actor, known as a ‘rebel star’, his stardom and fan following seems to be intact even after his death, and is likely to benefit his wife, who has become a refuge for disgruntled workers of the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S). The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also decided to back her candidature. This is likely to make Nikhil’s electoral debut that much harder.


National award-winning Kannada film actress and BJP leader, Anuradha, known by her stage name ‘Thara’, believes that there are no differences within the industry. “Out of politics all artists are friends,"" she said. But the show is now moving from cinema halls onto the political stage, where the action is expected to be far more intense."
"”Disney CEO and Chairman Bob Iger and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy also posted their tributes on the microblogging site


In a statement, posted on the official Twitter handle of Star Wars, Kennedy said she is “deeply saddened” by Mayhew’s passing


“Since 1976, Peter’s iconic portrayal of the loyal, lovable Chewbacca has been absolutely integral to the character’s success, and to the Star Wars saga itself,” she added


Others who condoled Mayhew’s death included actors Joonas Suotamo, Alan Tudyk, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau


Suotamo, who took over the role of Chewbacca in The Last Jedi, shared an image of him and Mayhew from the sets of the film and said he is feeling devastated


 Studying the character he helped create was always a daunting task, but one that was made easier by his tutelage and kindness as we sought to bring Chewbacca to life for a new generation"
"The deal will also trigger an open offer under which Baring Private Equity Asia will make an offer to the public shareholders of NIIT Technologies for purchasing up to 26% additional shareholding - taking the total deal value to up to ₹4,890 crore.


This transaction is conditional upon customary conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals, including anti-trust and competition clearances from the Competition Commission of India."
"Instead, the researchers saw that participants found meaning in a diverse set of experiences, particularly when apps let them connect to the real world.


When it comes to designing the next wave of smartphones, Hiniker recommends that designers shift away from system-wide lockout mechanisms.


Instead, apps should let users be in control of their own engagement and people should decide whether an app is worth their time.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed."
Gautham is seen playing an angry Madurai boy who doesn’t mind resorting to violence to get things done
"The basic ₹125 plan is similar to the ₹65 plan, except that it lets subscribers use the service on a laptop and TV as well.


The standard plan priced at ₹165 offers HD content and allows viewing content on two screens at a time."
"The bug led to a small test being distributed widely, the company said. As part of the test, some users had to tap and swipe their feed horizontally to view new posts, similar to its Stories feature.


The momentary change sparked a widespread outrage among users on Twitter, with several comparing it to Snapchat’s unpopular redesign."
"Customers will also receive up to ₹ 3,000 off on Amazon Devices including Amazon Echo, FireTV Stick and Kindle eReaders.


Amazon will offer 10% instant discount on purchase with HDFC Bank Debit and Credit cards. There are also no-cost EMI options on Debit and Credit cards. Bajaj Finserv EMI card owners will receive special exchange benefits on purchase of smartphones, TVs, ACs and other categories."
"The smartphone will be lit by a 6.2-inch AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and have Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection, according to MyDrivers, a Chinese tech website. It also suggests that it might be backed by a 3,600mAh battery. "
"E-commerce platforms like Paytm.com, Flipkart.com , Reliance Jio Digital Services and payment platform PhonePe.com figured among the top 10 most-visited Indian sites.


The list also mentions the reach of the online properties. Google Sites had a reach of 96.4%, Facebook’s reach was 91.9% and Amazon Sites’ reach was 76.7%. According to Comscore, reach of a website means the number of people who have visited that website during a given time period.


However, the combined total of unique visitors of India companies was lower than that of the US companies operating in India. For instance, Sweden-based caller ID and spam blocking solution Truecaller.com which recently added the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment and call recording in its mobile app, is popular in India with 139,545 unique visitors."
"From Kareena Kapoor Khan’s video message for Diljit Dosanjh to the clip of Vidya Balan’s team taking the #DhunBadloChallenge, here are videos shared by stars on their social media accounts


Diljit Dosanjh received a pleasant surprise from Kareena Kapoor Khan who sent him a video message appreciating his new song titled “Kylie + Kareena”"
"The brothers of Night’s Watch along with Tormund and Beric Dondarrion arrive and warn Jon Snow that the Army of the Dead is coming and will be at Winterfell before sunrise


Tormund still has the hots for Brienne of Tarth, by the way, and is shocked when told she is not a knight


Jaime Lannister tries to apologise to Bran Stark in Godswood before the Three-Eyed-Raven says he is not Bran


 He also suggests that it was necessary for Jaime to push him from the window otherwise the Kingslayer would not have become a better person and Bran would not be the Three-Eyed-Raven


 Arya also asks him about the white walkers and their wights since he fought them in the Beyond the Wall episode"
"Apple's iPhones earlier used to sport only Qualcomm's modem chips, which help a device connect to wireless data networks. With the launch of iPhone 7 in 2016, Apple started using Intel modem chips in some models instead.


Qualcomm told investors in July it believed its modem chips were completely removed from the newest generation of iPhones released in September, leaving Intel as the sole supplier.


Shares of Intel, Qualcomm's main competitor for supplying modem chips to Apple, trimmed gains to be up marginally at $56.42."
"Also read | Lok Sabha Elections 2019 Phase 4 Voting Live NewsCelebrities like Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan-Kiran Rao, Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit, Ajay Devgn, Lara Dutta, filmmaker Kunal Kohli, Priyanka Chopra’s mother Madhu Chopra, director Prakash Jha, Sonali Bendre, Pooja Bhatt, Pankaj Tripathi, Mahesh Bhatt, Nakuul Mehta, Anupam Kher, Manish Malhotra, Emraan Hashmi, lyricist Gulzar among others were snapped by the shutterbugs after casting their respective votes as well


”Later in the day, actors like Dia Mirza, Konkana Sen Sharma, Shilpa Shetty, Vidya Balan, Arjun Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal, Divya Dutta and filmmaker-choreographer Farah Khan took to their social media handles to share their photos after casting their ballot in the city"
"The stark difference between the two rating agencies could be partly because of the fact that debt of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) group was rated by Icra Ltd and CARE Ratings. Crisil has no ratings on IL&FS. Since June last year, IL&FS began defaulting on its debt payments and, hence, the ratings of a clutch of group companies, including the parent, were downgraded sharply by Icra.


This is not the first time both rating agencies have differed. Crisil and Icra gave a contrasting picture of credit risk even for the first six months of FY19 before IL&FS began defaulting."
"The company's live-streaming app BIGO LIVE currently has a registered user base of 200 million globally.


Another short video app from the company called ""LIKE"" has hit 20 million daily active users around the globe."
"Headwinds emanating from a slowdown in the US, trade wars and uncertainty concerning Brexit other key issues


Among the once high-flying stocks that sold off in the downturn this past six months are mid-cap IT stocks. The perception that second-rung IT companies could deliver higher growth rates than big IT is no longer taken as a given.


A look at the accompanying chart shows that shares of mid-tier IT companies have underperformed the Nifty IT index by about 19% in the past six months. Barring Larsen and Toubro Infotech Ltd, which has displayed rare consistency for a mid-tier firm, and NIIT Technologies Ltd, an acquisition candidate, most other mid-tier IT stocks have fallen between 20% and 37% from their highs in mid-2018."
"1. Xiaomi: The Chinese smartphone company increased its market share to 27.3% with its top selling models Redmi 5A and Note 5 Pro. Together, the two models sold more than 5 million units in two consecutive quarters and helped Xiaomi retain its No.1 position.


2. Samsung: Having retained the second position, Samsung is facing increasing threats from other Chinese smartphone sellers like Xiaomi, vivo and OPPO. Samsung’s infinity series model Galaxy J6, Galaxy J2, J8, J4 and the recently launched Android Go Model Galaxy J2 core got average response in the market.


3. Vivo: It has strengthened its No.3 position in the market with a share of 10.5% on the back of the newly launched Y81 and Y83 Pro models besides the Y71 and the recent flagships V11 and V11 Pro."
"You must be aware of remote screen access for your computer or laptops. It usually happens in office when your IT department wants to work on your computer screen from a remote location. Similarly, in apps too you have this feature which can be used to access your mobile screen. It also allows transactions. “Once access is granted by the victim, the fraudster cannot only initiate financial transactions but can also place online shopping orders using the apps available on the victim’s phone or even steal information stored on it. While number of such fraud cases are few, we urge consumers to be careful,"" noted NPCI."
"“When you’ve been waiting for Gendry and Arya to get together for 4 seasons and it finally happens, but then they start getting naked…” a user tweeted


“Ok, I didn’t like the Arya sex scene in the newest episode of Game of Throne,and not only because it was awkward to see the person that was once a child for so long naked, but anyway the rest of the episode was a pretty solid 8


“Arya has *never* shown even the slightest inkling of being interested in sex; yes, she was into Gendry, but in a schoolgirl crush/friend kind of way


One wrote, “TBH it’s because we never saw her hit puberty and deal with that shit on the show… she’s not OKAY, about her body or control or intimacy, but the episode appeared to gloss the not-okayness of the sex


”Some also said the trolling reeked of hypocrisy and sexism as no one raised an eyebrow when in season five Tommen, who also grew up on the shown in bed with his wife, Margaery, when she was 21 and he was just a teenager"
"According to a recent report by Kaspersky Labs, an individual’s personal data can be sold on the dark web (the part of the internet which cannot be seen by most users since it is not indexed by search engines) for as low as ₹ 3,500.


“For an individual, unsafe disposal can lead to compromise of private information like pictures, contacts, messages, chats, passwords, identity documents and financial details. This can cause damages like online identity theft or misuse of digital identity, hacks, financial loss and embarrassments,"" cautions Sunil Chandna, CEO of Stellar, a leading data recovery company.


To assess the risk of data theft on second-hand devices, researchers at Stellar purchased multiple hard disk drives from an online store that bought and sold second hand devices in India and found that majority of drives were formatted but not wiped clean.


Using a free DIY (do it yourself) data recovery software, the researchers were able to recover huge amounts of data contained in files."
"India currently spends a little over 1% of its total GDP (gross domestic product) on healthcare, among the lowest healthcare spends in the world according to National Health Profile 2018 data. This isn’t exclusive to India. Healthcare budgets around the world tend to be grossly inadequate.“Quality healthcare is all about making the right decision at the right time,"" says Gupta. Even in the US, which has among the highest proportions of highly qualified medical specialists, human error is the third leading cause of death, according to a 2016 John Hopkins study. This is where technology will play another major role: in making healthcare safer. With big data and innovations in machine learning, many within the medical community are optimistic that technology will make healthcare safer.


Cancer remains one of the biggest killers in the world with the number of new cases each year projected to reach 23.6 million by 2030, according to International Agency for Research on Cancer. There is light at the end of the tunnel, says Geetha Manjunath, founder of Niramai, a healthtech startup leveraging an AI-driven solution that detects cancer and abnormalities.


“Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women. Today, only one in two women with breast cancer has a chance of survival. This is paradoxical given that breast cancer is completely curable,"" says Dr. Manjunath. Late detection and delayed check-ups are the biggest impediment in the battle against cancer. Early detection can be achieved by employing data-based decision-making. Data-based operations are far more scalable and efficient. “That is what we are working towards,"" says Dr. Manjunath.


“We are confident that with more specialty hospitals turning to data-driven solutions, the cost of cancer testing and treatment will reduce to about 1/6th of the present cost. Early diagnosis will become reality,"" she says.


Organizations like Niramai are making rapid strides in accuracy in medical decision-making. The early symptoms of most diseases tend to be similar, which means physicians dispense generic medication to most patients. Generic medication has its merits—it’s cheap and works well against common infections. But India’s dependency on mass-produced, easily available antibiotics is dangerous for public immunity. Prescribing generic medicine for severe ailments is unsafe and ineffective, which is why we need precision medicine that is ideal for a particular patient, based on individual anatomy."
"The trailer of Suriya’s highly-anticipated film NGK is finally out, and it promises a gritty political thriller"
"Now it can be action, so we get plenty of it, but if the first-timer cannot hack it alone, he needs to be backed up"
"New data and technology tools can revolutionise processes and operational efficiency with business transparency. However, without the necessary layer of value-chain connectivity, businesses can’t exploit i4.0’s full potential to drive exciting new levels for performance and value. This potential hinges on interconnected technologies. Without losing time, businesses must choose a long-term view that transcends short-term, siloed, technology-led gains.


The World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in India, which aims to bring together government and businesses to pilot emerging technology policies in agriculture, could prove effective for the ailing sector, upon which 80% of the rural population is dependent.


India is currently pursuing the Smart City agenda in 100 cities that will impact 100 million urban population. At 34% urbanisation, Smart Cities’ potential to transform the way of life for residents is huge.


Smart Cities require fundamental policy and regulatory changes to create an enabling environment for automated devices to operate without compromising human values; to keep, within control frameworks, the technological and data security, and to align stakeholder-equipment behaviour, and preserve individual privacy and societal values and cultural heritage, and to foster innovation and encourage entrepreneurs and application development."
"The viewing experience is better on the OnePlus 6 and Galaxy A9 as AMOLED screens have better contrast ratios, viewing angles and colour saturation.


All smartphones, except the Galaxy A9, feature the same octa-core Snapdragon 845 processor paired with Adreno 630 GPUs. The Galaxy A9 comes with a lower spec Snapdragon 660. The POCO F1, however, comes with LiquidCooling technology, which helps keep CPU temperatures low while performing heavy tasks.


All the smartphones come in two RAM options of 6GB and 8GB and internal storage options of 256GB, 128GB and 64GB in different permutations and combinations. The OnePlus 6 lacks the MicroSD card slot.


All phones, except the Galaxy A9, come with dual cameras at the back and a lonesome selfie camera at the front.


The POCO F1 features 12MP+5MP rear camera setup with dual pixel technology and pixel size of 1.4 microns."
"With games becoming graphically elaborate and heavier, a dedicated GPU is required to render the 3D models and textures of the game. Image: iStock


Building a PC is not easy yet worth a try, as it not only allows flexibility but is cost-effective too


mint-india-wire Gaming PCsGamesAssembling gaming PCGamersRAMHard disksStorageGaming chipsCorsair CarbideAMD


New Delhi: Ayush Bhardwaj, an avid gamer, prefers to assemble his own gaming system as it is more flexible and cost-effective. “Buying every component separately and assembling them manually is not easy, but it is worth the effort as it gives me control over every component that would go into my PC,"" he says."
"The new Alienware Area 51m sets a new bar for gaming notebooks by offering the power of a desktop machine in a portable form-factor


Gaming notebooks are undergoing a major makeover. They are a lot more powerful and some even offer desktop-grade components, without adding serious amount of girth. The new Alienware Area 51m belongs to this new breed of gaming notebooks.


Design: Even with a 17-inch screen, it takes up less space, can fit in backpacks and weighs slightly less than its predecessors. The trademark bulge on the back, around the heat vents, is still there, but with a swanky honeycomb mesh design. The plain black finish on the back has given way to the more appealing lunar light and dark grey colour options, with Area51 embossed in large clear font on top."
"In the war room, they all discuss facing Cersei Lannister and her newly acquired group of mercenaries called the Golden Company


 Lord Varys removes the pieces from the map to show the loss to Daenerys Targaryen’s forces in the Battle of Winterfell


 Daenerys says Cersei will make sure most people of the Seven Kingdoms do not believe they saved the realm from the Night King and his army of the dead


It is decided that Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister and their fleet will sail to Dragonstone, while Jon Snow, Davos Seaworth and the bulk of their forces will march to King’s Landing via land"
"Microsoft recently announced an all-digital version of the Xbox, and with Google Stadia and Apple Arcade making the news, some expect the company to talk about its own cloud gaming platform. Will it? We shall find out.


Microsoft Build 2019 begins at around 9pm IST today, and you can catch the livestream on this website."
"Ousmane Bah, 18, said he was arrested at his home in New York in November and charged with stealing from an Apple store. The arrest warrant included a photo that didn’t resemble Bah, he said in a lawsuit filed Monday. One of the thefts he was charged with, in Boston, took place on the day in June he was attending his senior prom in Manhattan, he said.


Bah said he had previously lost a non-photo learner’s permit, which may have been found or stolen by the real thief and used as identification in Apple stores. As a result, Bah claimed, his name may have been mistakenly connected to the thief’s face in Apple’s facial-recognition system, which he said the company uses in its stores to track people suspected of theft."
"Sensex surpassed the 39,000 mark with an intraday rise of 1.14% on Monday although it partly retraced the gains to close 0.51% higher at 38,871.87 points. (Bloomberg)


An easing of concerns surrounding global slowdown and likelihood of an RBI rate cut this week boost Sensex, Nifty


Sensex and Nifty, however, are expected to see some turbulence in the early part of 2019 due to the general elections


Mumbai: Indian markets touched a record high on the first day of the new fiscal, with the benchmark Sensex crossing the 39,000 mark for the first time.


Investors are upbeat on the prospect of a stable government with some early opinion polls indicating the ruling coalition may get close to the required majority in Lok Sabha Elections 2019 that start on 11 April. Concerns about a global economic slowdown also eased after a surprise expansion in Chinese manufacturing activity in March."
"Ousmane Bah, 18, said he was arrested at his home in New York and charged with stealing from an Apple store


His name may have been mistakenly connected to thief’s face in Apple’s facial-recognition system, Bah claimed


A New York student sued Apple Inc. for $1 billion, claiming the company’s facial-recognition software falsely linked him to a series of thefts from Apple stores."
"“He was fighting for nirmal Ganga and aviral Ganga (pure Ganga and flowing Ganga). Now, the Modi government has done a lot for Nirmal Ganga, like setting up new sewage treatment plants (STP) with newer technologies. But little has been done to ensure that the river draws its own source of fresh water. That has always been the difficult part and little progress has been made. The water that you see in Gangaji in Varanasi is a mix of Yamuna water and sewage,"" Sharma says. He cites the flow of river in Mirzapur, some 62km from Varanasi. “See the flow getting severely hindered by large hillocks of sand. They are created because there is no verve in the flow and because the water is polluted. This is not aviral Ganga.""


Devendra Tiwari, the Mahasabha general secretary in Prayagraj and an intervener in a 2006 Ganga pollution versus Uttar Pradesh government public interest litigation, says the STPs are not working to capacity.


At the temporary geosynthetic technology STP set up at Naini on the outskirts of Prayagraj, he says: “As compared to the expensive and inefficient STPs, this is a better technology because it costs much less and is more effective in treating sewage and ensuring that treated water flows into the river."" But a government official at the STP, who requested anonymity, said these technologies were used specifically for the Kumbh Mela and that the government is not yet sure whether it wants to make them permanent."
"Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao starrer Mental Hai Kya will now release on July 26, as per a statement by the makers


 The film happens to clash with Hrithik Roshan starrer Super 30 which is also scheduled to release on the same date


Due to the growing speculation about the two films releasing on the same date, producer Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures has put out a statement stating that the reason for the change in release date is purely trade based"
"Xiaomi has set a target of opening 10,000 retail stores in the India and aims to have 50% of its smartphone sales from offline channels by the end of 2019


The company's scope of growth in India's online market share became limited after it captured over 50% share in that market


New Delhi: Xiaomi and Samsung are the arch rivals in the India smartphone market but it doesn't mean they do not have anything to learn from each other. Ask Xiaomi's India Managing Director Manu Kumar Jain and you have the answer.


In his first-ever humble admission, Jain says the company is learning from other brands, including the offline giant Samsung, in its push for retail sales in the country.


Xiaomi, largely known as an online brand, started its offline journey in India just two years ago and claims that it has already captured 20% share of the offline smartphone business in the country."
"Nissan is also expected to showcase it’s new electric race cars and a new Intelligent Mobility System with advanced driver assistance.


LG is likely to unveil the next iteration of its wearable CLOi SuitBot, which enhances a user’s muscle power to reduce the risk of injury and fatigue while lifting heavy objects. The updated version will have a more advanced autonomous navigation system and enhanced connectivity, allowing it communicate with elevators and automatic doors. Japanese company Groove X is planning to unveil a companion robot Lovot, which includes built-in retractable wheels and can interact with users with voice and hand movements."
"FILE PHOTO: Brazilian Real and U.S. dollar notes are pictured at a currency exchange office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in this September 10, 2015 photo illustration. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes/File Photo/File Photo


It could prove to be a bad omen for emerging markets, though, as assets named ""most crowded"" usually sink soon afterwards


LONDON: Investors made a U-turn on emerging markets, naming them the most crowded trade, in Bank of America Merrill Lynch's survey for the first time in its history.


This marked a big reversal from last month, when fund managers said ""short EM"" was the third most-crowded trade - showing how fast the mood can shift in an uncertain market.


It could prove to be a bad omen for emerging markets, though, as assets named ""most crowded"" usually sink soon afterwards.


Previous ""most crowded"" trades have included Bitcoin, and the US FAANG tech stocks, which led the selloff in December.


Emerging-market stocks are up 7.8 percent so far this year, and flow data on Friday showed investors pumped record amounts of money into emerging stocks and bonds."
"After laying the foundation stone of the rifle-manufacturing unit, he said these modern rifles will be made in Amethi under a Russia-India joint venture


""Those who voted for us and those who did not, all are ours...This is the mantra of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas',"" Modi said


AMETHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed his first rally in Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, since coming to power in 2014 and laid the foundation stone of a manufacturing unit for AK-203 rifles.


Modi, who landed in the city after addressing a rally in Bihar's Patna, said Amethi, which has traditionally been loyal to the Gandhi family, was the best example of his government's 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' (together with all, development for all) motto."
"ADR recently filed an application in the apex court seeking stay on the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018, which was notified by the Centre in January last year. It said that amendments carried out in relevant Acts have ""opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate donations to political parties and anonymous financing by Indian as well as foreign companies which can have serious repercussions on the Indian democracy"".


The EC, which has filed affidavit in the apex court, said that on 26 May 2017, it had written to the Ministry of Law and Justice about its views that the changes made in the Income Tax Act, the Representation of People Act and the Finance Act would be against the endeavour to have transparency in funding to political parties."
"Netflix said on Monday it intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, which may include content acquisitions, production and development, potential acquisitions and strategic transactions.


(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)"
"According to ByteDance Director (International Public Policy) Helena Lersch, the company has a a two-step approach for content moderation. (Bloomberg)


TikTok would also be increasing the number of employees in India to 1,000 people by the end of this year


ByteDance Director (International Public Policy) Helena Lersch said the company has been strengthening its content moderation policies over the last many months


New Delhi: Unfazed by the ban on TikTok in India, the popular Chinese short video app's parent ByteDance remains ""very optimistic"" and plans to invest $1 billion in the country over the next three years.


ByteDance — touted to be among the world's most valuable startups with investors like SoftBank, General Atlantic, KKR and Sequoia on board — also offers platforms like Helo and Vigo Video in India."
"Daenerys was furious but before she could breathe dragonfire, she was interrupted by Theon Greyjoy’s arrival


Bran Stark’s revelationBran Stark, who now mostly stares stoically, had lots to say in a meeting before the battle when everybody important was assembled in a chamber


 He also said if they take out the Night King, his army would fall apart, and that they should use him as bait to lure the white walker leader and somehow end him


 After every insult she has suffered for being a female fighter in the male-centred, medieval England-inspired society of Westeros, she remained this kind and gentle human being who would protest and fight against every injustice, earning her admiration of people like Jaime Lannister"
"The OnePlus 6T McLaren will be exclusively sold in a special sale on 13 December 2018 at the OnePlus Experience Store in Connaught Place, New Delhi and will retail at ₹50,999


OnePlus 6T McLaren EditionOnePlus 6T McLaren Edition sale DelhiOnePlus 6T McLaren Edition priceOnePlus 6T McLaren Edition featuresOnePlus 6TOnePlus 6T McLaren Edition WARP ChargingOnePlusOnePlus 6T McLaren Edition saleOnePlus 6T vs OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition


To celebrate its 5th anniversary, OnePlus unveiled the new OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition on December 12. The new OnePlus 6T with McLaren’s trademark Papaya Orange accents will retail at ₹ 50,999. The OnePlus 6T McLaren will be exclusively sold in a special sale on 13 December 2018 at the OnePlus Experience Store in Connaught Place, New Delhi."
"“We are absolutely over the moon to announce that we will soon be welcoming a little one into this crazy and wonderful world,” Galecki posted on Instagram"
"These stores contain some of the older apps, unique categories and rewards systems that are not even offered on Google’s Play Store


Google’s Play Store remains the primary source of apps for Android users. However, it isn’t the only app store in the market. While there are several browser-based third-party app stores, some smartphone OEMS (original equipment manufacturer) such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are also offering pre-loaded app stores on their devices.


These stores contain some of the older apps, unique categories and rewards systems that are not even offered on Google’s Play Store. For instance, Xiaomi’s app store has a category for Lite apps, which shows all Lite and compressed apps on a single page."
"Fashion designer Manish Malhotra, known for organising some of the best parties in tinsel town, hosted a dinner party at his residence on Thursday


 In attendance were some of his dear friends from the Hindi film industry including Sonakshi Sinha, Kriti Sanon, Kiara Advani, Aditi Rao Hydari, Huma Qureshi, Iulia Vantur and others"
"Speaking ahead of the mobile industry's biggest global event, which kicks of on Monday in Barcelona, Yu said the Huawei Mate X will have two back-to-back screens which unfold to become an eight-inch tablet display.


Yu said the Mate X would be able to download a 1 gigabyte movie in three seconds but also be priced at €2,299 ($2,607) when it goes on sale later this year, setting a new upper limit for consumer smartphones."
"The second public meeting of the day is scheduled to take place in Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. BJP had won all the five Lok Sabha seats in 2014 general elections and the party would want continue its political stronghold on the state. BJP had won the assembly elections held in 2017 in the state.


Modi's last public meeting of the day is in Jammu which has emerged as a stronghold of BJP in the last five years. Apart from Lok Sabha seats, the Jammu region was instrumental in BJP's performance during assembly elections of Jammu and Kashmir as it emerged as the second most important political party in the state.      "
"He will say that he is a great admirer of the Khan family as he got a chance to work in various films that belonged to their production houses


Ranjeet being thankful to Sunil DuttRanjeet will share that he has played a villain in close to 400 films but in real life, he doesn’t drink, smoke or even eat meat


 Ranjeet will even go on to reveal that it was Sunil Dutt, who changed his name to Ranjeet from Gopal, as he felt it was a common name


 He wrote, “Warning!!! These superstar villains are going to take you for a ride, be there tonight at 9:30, you know where!” ⁦The entertaining episode will air on Saturday on Sony TV"
"Modi said that the manifesto was the first crowd sourcing document prepared by the party after getting feedbacks from at least 6 crore people


BJP has announced to create a separate water ministry, zero percent loans for farmers, expand its existing PM Kisan scheme


New Delhi: Making empowerment of poor, increasing farm income and national security as the main theme of the manifesto, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that last mile delivery was the one mission and one direction of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)."
"Most cheaters try to manipulate games using DLL injection. A Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file contains code and data that can be simultaneously used by multiple programs. (iStockphoto)


Cheating in multiplayer online games can affect traffic, popularity of the game and eventually the revenue of the game publishers


Gamemakers are working on improving teaming detection and have started using third-party solutions to protect the game process area


Multiplayer online games like Dota, CS Go, PUBG and Fortnite have changed the way video gaming industry looks at cheating in games.


Unlike single player games, where cheating allowed players to get around computer opponents by handing down unlimited resources, cheating in multiplayer online games can affect traffic, popularity of the game and eventually the revenue of the game publishers."
"Cloud is the weakest link: Cloud computing is an integral part of any enterprise’s operations. It allows stakeholders in the company to access their data from any location or device. To make this process less complicated, often the level of verification and security are not very stringent. This makes services running on the cloud more vulnerable to cyberattacks compared to on-premise services.


To break into cloud networks, hackers only need access to one of the employees’ email or computer account, which they acquire by sending a phoney mail (that might appear genuine) with a malicious link hoping the target will click on it. According to a 2018 report by Dome9., 18% of organizations were involved in cloud related security breaches in 2017.


Mobile and IoT are the Achilles heel: For ease of operations, most organizations have relaxed their bring your own device rules, allowing employees to routinely access work-related data through their personal smartphones. This proliferation of personal devices at workplaces has increased the risks for companies. According to Checkpoint, cybercriminals can spy on users and capture their login credentials while they log in to corporate systems containing sensitive data via their smartphones. Internet of Things (IoT) is another area that is growing very fast with little regard to security. Checkpoint rues that the problem with IoT device security is that the solutions are often poorly coded."
"The rise in Info Edge's valuations perhaps reflects more-than-higher expectations built in as a result of Zomato’s recent funding round. (Naveen Kumar Saini/Mint)


Zomato is now estimated at ₹451 per share value in Info Edge’s sum-of-the-parts valuation, according to HSBC Securities


While Info Edge's flagship business Naukri.com is seeing better revenues, competition from Linkedin is a concern"
"Though it isn’t yet widely available, the infrastructure is already on its way for mobile communications and the Internet of things. The spending to roll out DSRC tools might ultimately prove redundant. And it’s easy to overstate how quickly the latter can be introduced – it takes some time for laws to take effect, and the technology isn’t widespread in cars now. By the time both happen, 5G could already be the prevalent technology.


Allowing multiple standards to develop in tandem would be a relief for Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, who are justifiably fearful that insisting on DSRC would delay the widespread rollout of 5G.


It’s worth remembering that we are a long way from a time when autonomous cars roam the roads freely. So backing a particular standard would be foolish when the full requirements aren’t yet known. An agnostic approach to regulation is therefore absolutely sensible.


The advantage of rejecting the regulation is that it still leaves all options on the table. Could it make life harder for the likes of VW? Yes. a standard mandating DSRC would make it easier to stave off the competitive threat from the telecoms industry."
Jennifer Davisson Killoran and Kevin Misher of DiCaprio’s Appian Way banner will also produce the project
"The Suicide Squad is right up James Gunn’s alley with the franchise’s colourful, weirdo characters and absurdist humour


 Gunn was hired by Warner Bros soon after he was fired by Disney from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise"
"This is the third major announcement among the series of five from the Chinese smartphone maker. The other two were price cuts of up to ₹4,500 on the Mi A2 and ₹4,000 on the Redmi Note 5 Pro


Xiaomi’s selfie centric smartphone, the Redmi Y2, received a price cut of up to ₹ 3,000 today. Xiaomi’s Global VP Manu Kumar Jain made the announcement via a tweet, adding that the 4GB/64GB variant is now available at ₹ 10,999. The smartphone is available on Amazon, Mi.com and offline retail stores including Mi Home Stores."
"In teaser posted on Twitter, OnePlus confirmed the presence of a triple camera setup present on the back of the OnePlus 7. OnePlus has teased this in the form of a sketch of the smartphone.


To recall, the OnePlus 6 and 6T come with dual cameras. The two smartphones were criticised for having a lacklustre camera and OnePlus even tried improving the camera quality by rolling out OTA software updates after it launched the OnePlus 6T. The new update came with a Nightscape mode that uses software trickery to click better pictures in low-light scenarios."
"A currency accord will likely require China to avoid devaluing to gain a competitive advantage, US trade representative Robert Lighthizer said last week, though he also said that there isn’t yet a final agreement. That was a shift from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s previous remarks that the US and China had concluded “one of the strongest agreements ever on currency"".


Currency provisions have become an increasingly common feature of US trade deals in recent years. The Barack Obama administration insisted on including a commitment to not engage in competitive devaluations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership it negotiates with Japan and 10 other economies. The Donald Trump administration insisted on the inclusion of something similar in a renegotiated Nafta.


But by and large the provisions have been seen as symbolic and toothless. The Trump administration has also proven reluctant to act on the president’s rhetoric before. During his 2016 campaign Trump promised to officially label China a currency manipulator and take tough action. Two years into his presidency, however, the US treasury has declined to follow through on that threat."
"“Majority of IoT devices currently rely on local network security, which means that everyone on the same network can gain access to them. If a security camera, for example, gets hacked and the attacker is able to get into the network, he/she can control most of the other IoT devices connected to the same network as the camera,"" warned Iliushin.


According to a report by Barracuda Labs, improvements have been made but new types of vulnerabilities have emerged like IoT credential compromise wherein, attackers exploit vulnerabilities in mobile and web applications to acquire credentials to access data saved on cloud. “From an end user standpoint, unsecured IoT devices pose the highest risk to the privacy of a consumer. A vulnerable IoT device can give away your location, passwords, and data,"" cautions Sajan Paul, director systems engineering at Juniper Networks, India and SAARC. To avoid such attacks, consumers need to regularly update their devices, check default privacy and security settings, and change them as per their needs. Mikhail Kuzin, security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, believes that even if vendors begin to provide devices with better security now, it will be a while before old vulnerable devices are phased out of homes. Krishnapur recommends that users need to invest in more secure routers with in-built protection. He adds that they can also consider setting up a second network for IoT devices that doesn’t share access to other devices and data."
"Apple Inc on Thursday responded to Spotify Technology SA's complaint with EU antitrust regulators, saying the audio streaming service ""wants all the benefits of a free app without being free"".


Spotify, launched a year after Apple unveiled its first iPhone in 2007, said on Wednesday the company unfairly limits rivals to its own music streaming service.


Apple's control of its App Store deprived consumers of choice and rival providers of audio streaming services to the benefit of Apple Music, which began in 2015, Spotify added."
"The iPhone 7 Plus with 32GB storage has also received a discount. It is priced at ₹49,999 during the sale. iPhone 7 with 32GB storage is available at ₹37,999.


The oldest iPhones in the Apple lineup, the 6s and 6 can be bought at ₹26,999 and ₹22,999 respectively for their 32GB variants."
"The individuals behind these activities used fake accounts primarily to operate Groups and Pages posting spam content.


""A small number of these posted content related to Ukrainian news and politics, including the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine; local and regional politics; Ukrainian patriotism; refugee issues; Ukrainian military; the situation in Crimea; and corruption,"" Facebook elaborated."
"The biggest digital coin on Monday rose as much as 1.6% to $4,135.60, the top intraday level since 24 December, according to weekday trading data compiled by Bloomberg. So-called alternative coins rallied more, with Dash jumping as much as 31% and Monero increasing as much as 10%.


Bitcoin is close to breaking above an intraday level set on Christmas Eve. That day marked the end of a US stocks selloff, after which the S&P 500 Index started a rally that continued through March and reversed most of the fourth-quarter rout."
"Facebook-owned WhatsApp was under fire last year over abuse of its platform for circulation of fake news that had incited mob fury.


“So, in all these (at-risk) countries, we work closely with the civil society community and other experts to make sure we are getting ahead in these issues, and making sure that our enforcement teams are aware of the developments as they happen so that these kind of contents are tackled on the platform,"" Das said.


She also said the company would continue to improve its tools to prevent circulation of misinformation by discussing it with peers in industry and civil society community."
"Step up your cloud game: Cloud computing is a necessary underpinning to boundary-less systems. However, you shouldn’t view cloud as an end point: Deploying the cloud is an ongoing journey and source of continuous innovation. Thanks to the countless new possibilities that a blend of cloud services and edge computing opens up, embracing cloud is a crucial first step in capturing the value of boundary-less systems.


Embrace disruption through flexibility: With continual disruption a fact of modern business, static technology investments are limited in their ability to deliver value. What’s cutting edge one day will be old hat the next, so you need to ensure your business is able to adapt rapidly time and again.


By applying a uniform approach to data, security, and governance, you can build interoperable systems that are flexible by design. Standards and uniformity of design will help you ride the waves of disruption and insulate against future change."
"The 10-year bond yield stood at 7.341%, as compared to its Monday’s close of 7.355%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.


The government will later today issue Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for December and January respectively. According to Bloomberg analyst estimates, IIP will be at 1.5% against 0.5% a month ago and CPI will be 2.54% against 2.19% a month ago. The government will also release Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation data on 14 February."
"While Sony and Microsoft bundle wireless game controllers with their respective consoles, PC gamers have to get them separately


mint-india-wire gaming accessoriesgamesgaming mouseMonitorsGame controllersKeyboardsHeadphonespubgxbox


Monitors: Though monitors with full HD resolution are adequate for the most part, if you can spend a little more, with games being made for 2K and 4K monitors now, it’s about time you bought a monitor that supports such resolutions. The experience does change."
"Under the Shopping tab in Google Search, users can search for products and see prices from across multiple retailers.


The ‘Style Search’ option in Google Lens allows users to find products such as clothes, furniture, and home decor, by simply pointing the Lens app from their smartphones.


Google Lens allows users to find products such as clothes, furniture, and home decor, by simply pointing the Lens app from their smartphones"
"After pulling off the action sequences, Ajith sir made sure he had good things to say about how I performed them


 In fact, once he told me I was blessed to have a great physique! (Smiles)Kabir Duhan SinghI never thought I would bag a powerful role in a film like Vedalam at the beginning of my career


 It is hard to find an actor of his stature being cordial with everyone on the sets—be it a makeup man or someone who serves tea"
"The party renominated its sitting MP Ranjet Ranjan from Supaul in Bihar, as it released a list of another 12 candidates for the general elections. It also changed its candidate in Uttar Pradesh's Maharajganj by now fielding Supriya Shrinate in place of Tanushree Tripathi.


""The Congress central election committee has approved the candidature of Urmila Matondkar as party candidate to contest the ensuing general elections from Mumbai North parliamentary constituency in Maharashtra,"" a party statement said."
"Was there a moment you were bullied?I was very intimidated because there are people who have been in films forever


 Whether its Kriti or Akshay or Riteish, they have been in the industry for so long that I feel like a baby"
"In Delhi, gold of 99.9% and 99.5% purities fell by ₹270 each to ₹34,180 and ₹34,030 per 10 gram, respectively


New Delhi: Weak global prices and muted demand from domestic jewellers sent gold prices sharply lower today. Gold prices declined by ₹270 to ₹34,180 per 10 gram at the bullion market, Press Trust of India reported, citing All India Sarafa Association. Silver rates, however, gained ₹120 today to ₹41,500 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers. Gold prices have been volatile this week with prices on Monday rising ₹340 and then giving up some gains before falling sharply falling today."
"Snapchat's controversial and criticised redesign had wiped out Snap Streaks, which some users had spent years working on and that did not go well with the teenagers."
"Of the eight states that faced single-phase polling on Thursday, Telangana saw a turnout of 60%, Andhra Pradesh 66% and Uttarakhand 57.85%. In 2014, undivided Andhra Pradesh had a turnout of 74.64%, while Uttarakhand had a turnout of 61.67%.


All north-eastern states that went to polls on Thursday saw a turnout of over 60%, Tripura being the highest at 81.8%. West Bengal, where two parliamentary seats went to polls, saw a high turnout of 81%.


The day was, however, marked by controversy—some voters complained on social media that the ink had begun fading within hours of voting.


EC said it stood by the “high standards"" of the ink, but sought a report from its district electoral officer. “It does not happen that it can disappear after three hours. The ink has its own standing in our election process,"" said Chandra Bhushan Kumar, deputy election commissioner."
"Facebook pulled 513 Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour as part of multiple networks tied to Iran. (AFP)


Facebook has removed 2,632 Pages, Groups and accounts that were engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour


The individuals behind these activities used fake accounts primarily to operate Groups and Pages posting spam content"
"One of the most popular female actors in the 1970s, Mumtaz featured in films such as Mela, Apradh, Nagin, Bramachari, Ram Aur Shyam, Do Raste Aap Ki Kasam and Khilona"
Two Telugu TV actresses died in a road accident that took place during the early hours of Wednesday in Telangana’s Vikarabad district
"Google CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Duplex earlier this week in the company's annual developer's conference Google I/O and demonstrated how the AI system could book an appointment at a salon and a table at a restaurant.


In the demo, the Google Assistant sounded like a real person that led to an outcry over the ethical dilemmas raised by tech critics."
"”Priyanka was replaced by Katrina Kaif, who worked in Ali’s directorial debut Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and collaborated with him again in Tiger Zinda Hai"
"The Chinese smartphone manufacturer today introduced the Redmi Note 6 Pro in the Indian market, pricing it at ₹13,999 for the base variant. But where is the supposed Note 6?


mint-india-wire Redmi Note 6 ProRedmi Note 5Redmi Note 6Redmi 6 proXiaomiRedmi Note 6 Pro vs Redmi Note 5redmi Note 6 Pro vs Redmi 6 Pro


This year’s Valentines’ Day saw two major events—the Indian cricket team sealed the top spot in the ICC ODI team rankings and Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro in India. While the fate of the former is well known, India is now in the second spot, the latter has seen a plot twist."
"Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, said it provides a pre-installed Facebook app on selected models with options to disable it, and once it’s disabled, the app is no longer running. Facebook declined to provide a list of the partners with which it has deals for permanent apps, saying that those agreements vary by region and type. There is no complete list available online, and consumers may not know if Facebook is pre-loaded unless they specifically ask a customer service representative when they purchase a phone.


Consumer-advocacy groups have been sceptical of such arrangements for years, according to Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.


“It’s only recently that people have become to understand that these apps really power the spy in your pocket,"" he said. “Companies should be filing public documents on these deals, and Facebook should turn over public documents that show there is no data collection when the app is disabled.""


Facebook isn’t the only company whose apps show up on smartphones by default. A T-Mobile US Inc. list of apps built into its version of the Samsung Galaxy S9, for example, includes the social network as well as Amazon.com Inc. The phone also comes loaded with many Google apps such as YouTube, Google Play Music and Gmail; Google is the creator of the Android software that powers the phone. Other phone makers and service providers, including LG Electronics Inc., Sony Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., have made similar deals with app makers. When Twitter’s app is loaded on a new phone by default, it wouldn’t collect any data unless a user had an account or created a new one, and opened the app and logged in, the company said.


But Facebook, which has spent the past year apologizing for security breaches and data privacy scandals, is the one drawing ire about its irrevocable presence on Samsung’s phones. “Very slimy,"" Twitter user Gopinath Pandalai in Bangalore, who goes by @gopibella, wrote on the site in October. “Been a Samsung customer for 10 years. Time to move on."""
"Reliance Securities has revised TCS target price higher to ₹2,300, from ₹2,190 earlier, while maintaining “Buy"".


""Though Q4FY19 operating margin dipped 50 bps QoQ, FY19 margin improved 80 bps year-on-year. We attribute the latter to higher growth and excellent execution. Moreover, TCS’ investments in digital capabilities and sales initiatives are now reaping dividends. We believe, margin will sustain at the current level on account of robust revenue growth and tight leash on attrition,"" Edelweiss Research said in a note."
"Music streaming may not be novel, but it’s still new. I think it’s making the world much smaller and making the creation of music much easier. It’s giving the consumer the opportunity to engage with much more music in a very easy, effective, and efficient way. I think it’s bringing music to people’s pockets.


Would you call music streaming companies an evolution of distribution companies? If yes, how will it affect the industry in the long term?


I would say, yes. I believe in ubiquity for the artists. I think artists should be on all platforms, and platforms should not win based on exclusivity. That’s bad for the consumer. The platform should win based on their product and their relationship with the customer. The artist should not have to choose what service they should be on. We’re not looking for exclusivity. We don’t think it’s a good customer experience.


I think it’s in a nascent stage and needs evolution. I think you’re experiencing the 2.0 version of streaming. One of my concerns is to make sure it’s not simply an echo chamber for somebody’s tastes and they still have the ability to experience artists and songs that they didn’t know they wanted. I believe one of the most important things that we could continue to evolve is creating tools for artists, labels, songwriters, and publishers to be able to focus on building and acquiring fans."
"Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd had moved the Supreme Court seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against RCom and its chairman Anil Ambani


Reliance Capital lost 10.26% intra-day, Reliance Infrastructure 8.76%, Reliance Naval & Engineering 8.57% and Reliance Power lost 5.53%


Shares of Reliance Communications Ltd lost as much as 9.47% after the Supreme Court ordered the company to pay ₹550 crore to telecom equipment company Ericsson in four weeks."
"On the other hand, the hotel and airline loyalty programmes, which were a big driver of stickiness, are no longer a key criterion for customers. If they are getting a good deal on a platform, their loyalties shift. Old tour operators and travel agents are becoming irrelevant.


The future of the travel and hospitality sector will also be an era of alliances, where today’s disruptors get disrupted, making way for a new and sustainable ecosystem.


The current complex travel ecosystem will consolidate and equalize power of demand and supply. Technology will redefine the role of ecosystem players in the value chain and visionary companies will try to gain direct access to either customers or inventory. There is potential for the direct foray of technology giants and social media players into the travel ecosystem as they have access to customers which may disrupt the online travel aggregators. Alliances are expected to eventually pave way for a viable ecosystem. The boundaries are blurring and partnerships are emerging.


For example, Marriott has partnered with Alibaba’s OTA Fliggy to access Chinese tourists, while Amazon has partnered with Kayak for voice-based bookings through Alexa. Collaborations such as Airbnb’s latest investment in Oyo Rooms will also change the way the industry grows.


Technology players like Google are making the local intermediary roles relevant again with its Google Trips, a personalized tour guide app connecting local tour operators to travellers. Travellers are bound to gain the maximum value for the money spent and will be spoilt for choice as they will be at the heart of innovation. Today, smartphones are acting as personal digital assistants and in the future, they will emerge as personal digital ‘advisors’. On the provider side, a minimum viable ecosystem of travel and hospitality players is likely to emerge, with direct access to either inventory or customer."
"The Narendra Modi government simply finished the job of electrification started by previous governments, but quality of access still remains an issue. (Pradeep Gaur/Mint)


In the five years of Narendra Modi government, India witnessed near-universal electrification, but the quality of power access remains an issue, a Mint analysis shows


Mumbai/New Delhi: In its 2014 election campaign, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promised to bring development, and specifically electricity, to all of India’s villages and homes. However, by then, almost all of India’s villages (97%) already had an electricity connection, according to data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). This left the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance-II (NDA-II) to simply finish the job.


It did this, amid much fanfare, in April 2018 when Leisang in Manipur became India’s last village to be electrified. The NDA-II has electrified 20,910 villages, some in India’s most remote locations, but the bulk of the work had been done by previous regimes—the United Progressive Alliance-II (UPA-II) electrified 80,189 villages and UPA-I 52,611 villages.


Village electrification, however, is only the first step in delivering power across India. A village is declared electrified if just 10% of the households has electricity connections, which masks poor access at household-level. The bigger challenge facing the Narendra Modi government was to provide households with higher quality and regular supply of electricity. And even here, data suggests that the NDA-II were simply building on groundwork done by previous governments."
"The yield on 10-year Treasuries climbed two basis points to 2.65%. Germany’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 0.095%. Britain’s 10-year yield was steady at 1.168%.


The Bloomberg Commodity Index rose 0.4%. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 1.5% to $56.95 a barrel, the first retreat in more than a week. LME copper gained 0.3% to $6,335.50 per metric ton, reaching the highest in more than 21 weeks on its sixth consecutive advance. Gold increased 0.1% to $1,346.60 an ounce, hitting the highest in 10 months."
"Section 126 of the Representation of People Act prohibits advertising and campaigning on TV and other electronic media during the silent period, which is 48 hours before the end of polling.


Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora referred to the model code of conduct and urged social media representatives to come up with a code similar to it. He said the code would be used for the ongoing election process in the ""immediate context"" and would be a lasting document in the long run.


The issues of appointment of dedicated grievance channel for expeditious action by the organisations, pre-certification and transparency in expenditure of political advertisements were also taken up, the statement said."
"With these techniques, machines are also learning to read and write. For years, experts questioned whether neural networks could crack the code of natural language. But the tide has shifted in recent months.


Organizations such as Google and OpenAI, an independent lab in San Francisco, have built systems that learn the vagaries of language at the broadest scales — analysing everything from Wikipedia articles to self-published romance novels — before applying the knowledge to specific tasks. The systems can read a paragraph and answer questions about it. They can judge whether a movie review is positive or negative.


This technology could improve phishing bots such as SNAP_R. Today, most Twitter bots seem like bots, especially when you start replying to them. In the future, they will respond in kind.


The technology also could lead to the creation of voice bots that can carry on a decent conversation — and, no doubt one day, will call and persuade you to divulge your credit-card information.


These new language systems are driven by a new wave of computing power. Google engineers have designed computer chips specifically for training neural networks. Other companies are building similar chips, and as these arrive, they will accelerate AI research even further.


Jack Clark, head of policy at OpenAI, can see a not-too-distant future in which governments create machine-learning systems that attempt to radicalize populations in other countries, or force views onto their own people.


“This is a new kind of societal control or propaganda,"" he said. “Governments can start to create campaigns that target individuals, but at the same time operate across many people in parallel, with a larger objective.""


Ideally, artificial intelligence could also provide ways of identifying and stopping this kind of mass manipulation. Mark Zuckerberg likes to talk about the possibilities. But for the foreseeable future, we face a machine-learning arms race."
"The traffic challan payment is also restricted to Mumbai, Vijaywada and Telangana and more cities would be added soon.


You can check out the aforementioned services by going to the Pay Bills and Services tab in the Travel section of the Jio Money app."
"“We are not like Western countries, where people are exposed to the other gender since a very young age. We do not have the concept of dating from a young age and that is why it becomes difficult to have a fling or a short-term relationship,"" said Siddharth Mangharam, chief executive of Floh, a platform that connects singles through events.


TrulyMadly (Trulymadly Matchmakers Pvt. Ltd), founded by former MakeMyTrip executive Sachin Bhatia, along with Rahul Kumar and Hitesh Dhingra, reported a 50% drop in revenue in FY18, according to its latest filings with the Registrar of Companies. The firm’s revenue halved to ₹3.60 crore in FY18 from ₹7.20 crore in the year earlier, documents sourced from intelligence platform Paper.VC showed.


""This is for TrulyMadly India. Our main company Truly Madly Pte. Ltd. Is based in Singapore, and all revenues are booked at the Singapore company, these are just India, Truly Madly India. Our revenue from subscription has almost doubled from ₹1.14 crore to ₹1.94 crore. We have cut down our team from about 50 people to 15 members. We have removed the advertisement model because that was falling flat for us. The company has realigned and now we are only focusing on the subscription model. We have launched a few new features like Spark, TM forever and so on,"" said Snehil Khanor, chief operating officer of TrulyMadly.


Frivil, another dating app, was acquired by shaadi.com for an undisclosed amount in 2016. ICrushiFlush, which got a seed round from IDG Ventures (now Chiratae Ventures) in 2015, has not been able to raise more funds. Even TrulyMadly, which managed to raise $5.7 million in a Series A round in 2015, has been struggling to bring in funds."
"Further, SBICAP Securities says delivery of the fuel-efficient Boeing 737 Max aircraft, which is expected to improve overall operating economics of the aircraft by 8-9%, has commenced, although it is still early days to gauge the benefits of this. In that backdrop, performance in the current quarter and the next one will be critical to watch out for.


Despite these tailwinds, the fact that SpiceJet shares continue to trail far behind those of IndiGo shows that investors, shaken by last year’s crisis, are still preferring to play safe and bet on the market leader."
"Two, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has turned from a fawning Modi fan to a vocal critic. Thackeray has been holding well-attended rallies with the stated purpose to “defeat Modi and Amit Shah"", though the MNS is not directly contesting the elections. He is indirectly helping the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominees. Ironically, the MNS had not fielded candidates in 2014 to help ensure a BJP victory. In fact, in the last two weeks, Raj Thackeray has emerged as the biggest star campaigner for Congress-NCP.


Three, the campaign coordination between Congress and the NCP has been better this time, though the opposition combine has run short of state-wide star campaigners. NCP chief Sharad Pawar has been the only leader who has been able to match chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ hectic campaign schedule across the state."
"Senior leaders of the BJP are using the suggestion boxes to understand what the people expect from Prime Miunister Narendra Modi and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). BJP leaders believe that the suggestion boxes are not just an attempt to allow people to takle part inthe preparation of manifesto but also a way to understand the shortcomings of the government is the eye of people.


""BJP has decided to place 1500 boxes in different constituencies so that people can give their suggestion and take part in the preparation of the manifesto. But we are also encouraging people to express their criticism of the government to understand what were shortcomings of the government in their views,"" said a senior BJP leader who is part of the manifesto team."
"According to researchers, fraud in the mobile channel has grown significantly over the last several years, with 70% of artifice originating in the mobile channel in 2018. (Pixabay)


Trade in stolen identities would gain greater momentum with more stores likely opening on legitimate platforms to sell this type of data


San Francisco: In a sign that platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are emerging as new public square for criminal deception, a study has found that social media fraud increased 43% in 2018."
"The iPhone XS and XS Max share the Apple A12 chipset along with 12MP+12MP dual rear camera setup. The camera has advanced depth segmentation, using the Neural Engine, Smart HDR creating photos with high dynamic range and dynamic depth of field that is user adjustable in the Photos app.


The iPhone XR on the other hand also has the A12 chipset but a single 12MP camera with larger and deeper pixels and the same user adjustable dynamic depth of field that the iPhone XS and XS Max feature. It is shod with a Liquid Retina display instead of the OLED.


The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will come in three finishes: gold, silver and space grey. The iPhone XR will come in white, black, blue, red, coral and yellow."
"On the photography front, the Note 5 Pro features a 12MP + 15MP dual rear camera setup, sporting an aperture of f/2.2, while on the front it has a 20MP selfie camera.


Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 ProRedmi Note 5 Pro price cutRedmi Note 5 Pro price indiaRedmi Note 5 Pro specificationsRedmi Note 5 Pro saleRedmi Note 5 Pro units soldRedmi Note 5 Pro review"
"UDAY mandated that discoms bring the gap between average revenue and average costs to zero. Here, too, there has been progress with the gap reducing (from ₹0.60/kWh in 2015-16 to ₹0.17/kWh in 2017-18), but 21 of 26 states are still unlikely to meet the target.


According to a National Institute of Public Finance and Policy study, this data suggests that the UDAY scheme is failing to turn around the power sector. The authors also find that discoms remain plagued by operational inefficiencies such as lack of effective billing procedures, poor measurement of power consumption, and ineffective monitoring of power theft.


Taken together, data shows that the NDA has built on the previous government’s work to get more households electrified—but quality of access still remains an issue.


While the government has tried to address this by improving the financial health of discoms, much more needs to be done. The inability of successive governments to revive discom fortunes could have important ramifications for India’s development.


The World Bank estimates India’s electricity demand to treble by 2040. Addressing this rising demand will be critical for the development agenda of whichever party is elected to form the next government."
"Ripple also helps bank customers send money to people in many emerging markets including Mexico, India, and Thailand to increase their share of “this large and growing market"". What’s next? “Ripple is moving beyond blockchain, and connecting networks so that we can move money across networks. Again this is open-source and lightweight so it becomes easy to transfer money across networks. So we are building the ecosystem for networks to connect with each other and in our view globalization will be completed when data, goods and money flow seamlessly. That’s the way we think of it as an internet of value when the whole world gets connected through payment systems,"" Gupta said."