RBI Sees Green Shoots Of Recovery; India, B’desh Mull Effective Border Management Plan; OTT Goes Big on Xmas Season; China interferes in Nepal’s political crisis – all in India Daily Digital – please click here to read
Author: Newsdesk
Sending an alert to WhatsApp, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov on Wednesday said that the instant messaging app will start generating revenue starting next year as the platform is close to hitting the 500 million user mark.
Making the announcement in his Telegram channel, Durov said that all the features that are currently free will stay free.
“We will add some new features for business teams or power users. Some of these features will require more resources and will be paid for by these premium users. Regular users will be able to keep enjoying Telegram — for free, forever,” he said.
Moreover, the platform plans to introduce an ad platform for public one-to-many channels, while all parts of Telegram devoted to messaging will remain ad-free.
“We think that displaying ads in private 1-to-1 chats or group chats is a bad idea,” Durov noted.
The Telegram Founder pointed out that in addition to its messaging component, Telegram has a social networking dimension.
The public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds, he said.
“In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms. The ads they post look like regular messages, and are often intrusive,” Durov said.
“We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels — one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic,” he added.
Durov said that he is “not going to sell the company like the founders of Whatsapp.”
Owned by Facebook, WhatsApp has over two billion monthly users globally.
“The world needs Telegram to stay independent as a place where users are respected and high-quality service is ensured,” said Durov who is one of the biggest critics of WhatsApp.
“If Telegram starts earning money, the community should also benefit. For example, If we monetize large public one-to-many channels via the Ad Platform, the owners of these channels will receive free traffic in proportion to their size,” the Telegram Founder said.
“Or, if Telegram introduces premium stickers with additional expressive features, the artists who make stickers of this new type will also get a part of the profit. We want millions of Telegram-based creators and small businesses to thrive, enriching the experience of all our users.”
Telegram’s move to monetise the platform comes after it decided to abandon a blockchain token project due to regulatory hurdles.
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“The State Administration of Market Supervision, based on reports, filed investigations into Alibaba Group Holdings Co., Ltd. for suspected monopolistic conduct such as ‘choose one out of two,'” the Chinese market watchdog said in a statement…reports Asian Lite
In a significant development, China’s top market watchdog on Thursday started investigation into alleged anti-competition practices by ecommerce giant Alibaba, as Beijing tightened control of an expanding Internet.
In a brief note, the State Administration for Market Regulation said that it is investigating Alibaba over its “choosing one from two” policy.
As part of this policy, merchants are forced to sell exclusively on Alibaba e-commerce platforms and skip rivals like JD.com.
“The State Administration of Market Supervision, based on reports, filed investigations into Alibaba Group Holdings Co., Ltd. for suspected monopolistic conduct such as ‘choose one out of two,'” the statement read.
Alibaba Group said in a statement that they have received notification from the State Administration for Market Regulation.
“Alibaba will actively cooperate with the regulators on the investigation,” the company said, adding that its “business operations remain normal.”
Xinhua news agency said on Thursday that The People’s Bank of China, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, and State Administration of Foreign Exchange will “interview Ant Group in the near future”.
The move is “to supervise and guide Ant Group to implement financial supervision and fair competition in accordance with the principles of marketisation and rule of law, and to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and regulate the operation and development of financial services”.
The Chinese regulators have recently removed several apps, including banning thousands gaming apps on Apple App Store, in a wide-ranging “clean-up” of online content related to illegal activity, including obscenity, pornography, prostitution, violence, fraud or gambling.
With China cracking down on apps especially related to video games, Apple has warned Chinese app developers that thousands of more video games will be removed from App Store.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal citing a memo, thousands of video games face removal as Beijing tightens control of Internet.
Apple said in the memo that developers of premium games and those featuring in-app purchases “would have until the end of the year to provide proof of government license or the app would be removed”.
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The very asset monetisation and disinvestment have been in the government’s plans for long but the plans have been severely delayed, and the pandemic has worsened the situation…reports Asian Lite News
The pandemic has created severe pressure on the government’s coffers, thereby making asset monetisation and disinvestment the Centre’s priorities to raise revenue.
Government’s asset monetisation programme involving development and sale of surplus land parcel and other non-core assets of central public sector enterprises (PSEs) is expected to be a big focus of Budget 2021-22 that is constrained to look at various innovative models to mobilise additional resources amidst a Covid-hit economy.
In tandem with the objective, the Centre may set asset monetisation-related targets for several state-run enterprises including Indian Oil Corp, GAIL, HPCL, NTPC, NHPC, PFC, REC, HAL, RITES and MTNL. The targets would allow execution of the scheme in a structured manner.
The government will benefit from such an exercise as portion of gains from such sale by PSUs will be recouped to it by way of higher dividend pay-out.
The very asset monetisation and disinvestment have been in the government’s plans for long but the plans have been severely delayed, and the pandemic has worsened the situation.
Two of the prime state-run majors put on the block, Air India and BPCL, have witnessed severe delays in their strategic sale processes. Centre has received few Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the energy major Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) including that of Vedanta, while Air India reportedly has attracted a initial interest from the Tatas.
The renewed focus on asset monetisation in the next financial year will witness active participation of both NBCC and international property consultants and other consultants selected through a competitive bidding process.
Recently, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the disinvestment process will take off in the next year.
In its budget recommendations to the government, industry body, CII asked the government to go ahead aggressively with the disinvestment process of of both loss-making and a few profit-making PSUs, especially given the fact that the capital markets are performing well and also explore sale or leasing of government’s surplus land.
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Three new variants of the novel coronavirus were detected in Portugal amidst the ongoing second wave of the pandemic in the country, a top health official has confirmed.
“We now verify, in this study in collaboration with the Gulbenkian Institute of Science (IGC), that the (genetic) variants of this second wave in Portugal have mutations that were not described throughout the first wave,” Xinhua news agency quoted Joao Paulo Gomes from the Bioinformatics Unit at the Department of Infectious Diseases, National Health Institute, as saying on Wednesday.
The three variants detected in all regions of Portugal are in a “process of adaptation of the virus to humans”, Gomes said, suggesting that they were mainly responsible for the second wave.
“It is normal for this to happen, it has been a year since the virus appeared to infect human beings, so it is perfectly normal,” the expert said.
“In clinical terms there is no evidence” that the variants are “more severe in terms of the disease”. but the increase in cases may be due to their greater transmission capacity, he added.
Portugal reported 4,602 new coronavirus cases and 89 more fatalities in the last 24 hours, bringing its national caseload to 383,258 and the death toll to 6,343.
Portugal’s development comes after two new mutant Covid-19 variants were discovered in Britain in the last few days, leading to global suspension of flights to and from the UK.
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Millions to Enter Tier 4 on Boxing Day; France Reopens UK Border For Covid Negative Travellers; Parents Concerned Over Kids’ Emotional Health; Amnesty, Rights Forums Seek Probe into death of Karima Baloch – all in Asian Lite Daily Digital – please click here to read.
Dubai Begins Vaxx Campaign; ‘Libraries will be transformed into creative platforms’; UAE, Canada Reaffirm Support to ‘Circular Economy’; Amnesty, Rights Forums Seek Probe into death of Karima Baloch – all in Asian Lite Daily Digital Dubai – please click here to read.
Samsung Electronics is expected to remain the world’s leading TV vendor for the fifteenth straight year in 2020 on brisk demand caused by Covid-19 pandemic, a report said on Wednesday.
According to market researcher Omdia, the South Korean tech behemoth is forecast to sell 49.02 million TVs this year after shipping 33.92 million units in the first three quarters of the year, reports Yonhap news agency.
The estimate is up 11.2 per cent from the previous year and marks the largest annual sales number since 2014, when Samsung sold 52.94 million units thanks to the Sochi Winter Olympics and the Brazil World Cup.
Omdia forecast global TV sales to reach 223.83 million TVs this year, more than the 222.91 million units sold last year.
The figure is up 3.8 per cent from Omdia’s projection made in September and would mark the highest yearly sales volume since 2015.
The market researcher said global demand for TVs has increased as the pandemic has forced more people to stay home.
But the value of TVs sold is expected to fall slightly to $97.79 billion this year from $154.67 billon a year earlier as TV manufacturers mark down prices by focusing on online vending, it added.
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The Indian government may mount a challenge against the arbitration awards passed against it over retrospective taxation levy on Cairn Energy and Vodafone Group.
Sources privy to the development said that as both the arbitration cases have gone against the government and the Cairn Energy award also makes the government liable for damages, the order may be challenged at appropriate fora.
The government was waiting for outcome of the arbitration initiated against it for levy of over Rs 10,000 crore retrospective tax on Cairn Energy before finalising its stand on a similar tax dispute case with Vodafone Group where an international arbitration court has ruled against it and in favour of the telecom company.
A Finance Ministry statement on Wednesday (after the Cairn Energy arbitration order) said that it will be studying the award and all its aspects carefully in consultation with its counsel and then consider all options and “take a decision on further course of action, including legal remedies before appropriate fora”.
In the Cairn Energy case, the international arbitration tribunal ruled that India’s tax claim of Rs 10,247 crore in past taxes over internal reorganisation of Cairn’s India business was not a valid demand.
In a statement, Cairn said that the tribunal has awarded damages of $1.2 billion along with interest and costs.
The development came as a major setback for the Indian government after Vodafone Group Plc had won an international arbitration case against the Indian government in September.
Sources said that the government wanted to take a uniform stand challenging arbitration orders in both the cases so it waited for the outcome in Cairn Energy tax dispute case. Now as things stand where it is, sources said, necessary legal challenge would be mounted in both the case after further consultations.
As reported by IANS earlier, thee government was evaluating options on its loss in arbitration case against Vodafone Group over retrospective tax demand of more than Rs 20,000 crore.
The options included bringing a new law to withdraw the 2012 amendment to settle its tax dispute with Vodafone after the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague ruled in favour of the company.
The other options, sources said, was to look at challenging the PCA award in its entirety or confining the challenge to sovereign immunities as claimed by Vodafone Plc under the India-UK Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA) and the Netherlands-India Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).
Sources said that the government was looking at all options, taking view on which move would be the best course that settles the dispute once and for all, along with limiting the loss to the exchequer, if it is to be incurred.
Now with clarity emerging in both the cases, legal challenge looks the suitable outcome but alternate options would also be explored.
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The Overseas Employment and Protector General of Emigrants Division in the Ministry of External Affairs had issued two separate circulars on September 8 and 21. The MEA lowered MRWs to $200 for workers going to Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, and $245 for Kuwait and $324 for Saudi Arabia.
The Telangana government has demanded the immediate rollback of the latest notifications by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), lowering the Minimum Referral Wages (MRW) of Indian labour in the Gulf countries by 30-50 per cent.
During an interaction with members of NRI associations here on Wednesday, Member of Telangana Legislative Council K. Kavitha made a strong demand for rolling back the ‘regressive’ order.
She stated that about 90 lakh migrants from across the country are currently working in the Gulf countries and among these a majority belong to the states of Telangana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala.
Kavitha, who is the daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, said that MEA support is very limited for the immigrants who already work in harsh conditions, even in comparison to smaller countries like the Philippines.
She said that this move will give the respective countries a reason to further reduce the current and existing wages of the migrants.
She also slammed the BJP for the ‘unruly’ notification and said that the country already lags behind in having a strong immigrant policy. The new notification will only add to the troubles of the immigrants.
Kavitha added that the notification also opens the possibility of massive job loss, loss of capital and employment at forced minimum wages.
Earlier, NRI Affairs Minister K.T. Rama Rao urged Union Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar to reconsider the notification and address the fears expressed by migrant workers from Telangana working in the Gulf countries.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Rama Rao said the recent circulars were a cause of huge concern as the wages of lakhs of Telangana migrant workers in the Gulf countries will get adversely impacted.
“Already there is considerable distress among all migrant workers due to wage losses as a result of Covid-19 and lockdowns. I request you to use your good offices to ensure that our migrant workers’ interests are protected. Urge you to take up the matter at the earliest,” he tweeted, tagging Jaishankar.
The new move is likely to impact more than seven lakh Telangana workers in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf countries.
The Overseas Employment and Protector General of Emigrants Division in the Ministry of External Affairs issued two separate circulars on September 8 and 21. The MEA fixed MRW at $200 for workers going to Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, and $245 for Kuwait and $324 for Saudi Arabia.
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