Apple’s tech-oriented credit card is at the heart of a new investigation into alleged gender discrimination.
New York state regulators have announced an investigation into Goldman Sachs, the bank that issues the Apple Card, after a series of viral tweets from a consumer who shared the vastly different credit limits that were issued to him and his wife when they both applied for the card.
“The department will be conducting an investigation to determine whether New York law was violated and ensure all consumers are treated equally regardless of sex,” said a spokesman for the New York Department of Financial Services in a statement provided to Bloomberg. Read more...
For a while, Rick and Morty seemed like the kind of show that was almost too enamored of its horrible protagonist. Rick's narcissistic assholery was the show's calling card, and the idea of a self-destructive genius whose ultimate assessment of the universe is that nothing matters and everything sucks propelled him to destroy everyone who even attempted to get close to him.
As the show progressed over three seasons, however, the show's view of Rick's nihilistic genius dimmed in favor of recognizing the toxic brokenness his character exudes. Instead of equating cosmic genius with the realization that nothing matters, its plot and characters curved towards a different idea: that people have the agency to choose what matters, even if life is ultimately meaningless. Read more...
In the early 2000s, Pat Giles worked on MTV's Daria. Then he redesigned Count Chocula.
These days, the 52-year-old animation vet works at a New York City start-up that creates animated emoji stickers.
On a Friday afternoon, Giles gathered seven millennial animators in a conference room tucked behind a ping-pong table. He presented sketches of small mice playing with food — something he had drawn up earlier in the day for one of his latest projects as head of studio at Holler, which creates animated emoji for iMessage, Android, Viber, LinkedIn, and other apps.
Pat Giles (right) discusses sticker sketches with his millennial coworkers during a writers' room session.
Perhaps it is for the best that not even meme experts know who first posted the generational burn of the year, "OK Boomer." We are told that it is originally a Generation Z joint, and that it started on the current social network of choice for under 25s, TikTok. We know that millennials picked up the torch fairly quickly, carrying the phrase to the highest echelons of Twitter; it was a millennial legislator from New Zealand's Green Party who used "OK Boomer" both to put down a heckler and to go viral on YouTube.
But also I'm here as a card-carrying member of Generation X, the oft-ignored predecessors to millennials, to say that we too feel incredibly seen by this meme. Rolling our eyes at our loud and self-centered predecessors was pretty much the only thing this culturally disparate, hipster-filled generation had in common in the 1990s, other than our love of flannel. A dismissive, sarcasm-drenched "OK Boomer" sounds like it could be a line from Reality Bites, or from an Alanis Morrisette song. Read more...
If you're reading this, you may agree with me that wifi, in general, kind of sucks. Either that or the homes many of us live in suck. No matter where you choose to aim your ire, the point remains that reliable wireless internet isn't always attainable in the places we'd like it to be, which is where Google Nest Wifi comes in.
A rebrand and refresh of the older Google Wifi mesh system, Nest Wifi is a Google-branded router with the option of expanding its signal range through smaller Nest wifi nodes. The router and nodes work in tandem to, ideally, create a powerful and seamless wifi network through a space that couldn't accommodate that otherwise. Read more...
TL;DR: Your dentist is ripping you off on whitening treatments. Get your teeth in shape for the holiday season with this kit that's on sale for just $25 ahead of Black Friday.
We'd all love to have brighter smiles, but let's get real. We're probably not going to stop drinking coffee or wine. And we're not going to magically be able to afford monthly whitening treatments at the dentist's office. Even Crest Whitestrips eat into our holiday budget more than we'd like.
That's why an at-home teeth whitening kit, like this one from Bianco Smile, is worth every penny — especially when it's on sale. Read more...
TL;DR: CXL Institute is one of the best online training hubs in the game (just read its reviews) and you can take 94% off three of its top digital marketing courses with this special offer.
It's no secret that digital marketing is a solid skill set in today's environment. We're not even totally convinced that non-digital marketing exists anymore.
With increasingly inventive and occasionally invasive (looking at you, targeted Instagram ads) ways to advertise to consumers, the demand for skilled digital marketers is strong. Luckily, this is one career path that doesn't always require an MBA or traditional marketing background. In fact, you can get started learning the key tools and skills with an online training like this complete digital advertising course bundle by CXL Institute. Read more...
TL;DR: Shop action cams, electric toothbrushes, gimbals, and more legitimately cool stuff on sale in the Mashable Shop and spend your Black Friday eating pie instead.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be here before you know it.
If you're the type of person who does intensive sale research beforehand, congrats. If you're the type of person who would rather have us do the research for you, then you've come to the right place.
Here are 10 products that are likely on your list already, that you can already get at Black Friday prices today.
Winner of the iF Design Award, the Red Dot Design Award, and the European Product Design Award, the Oclu Action Camera better be well designed or those are a lot of odd awards. It's packed with user-friendly features and innovations like electronic image stabilization, IPX7 water-resistance, two-mic wind reduction, and a LiveCut feature — basically everything you need to record epic adventures without looking like TheBlair Witch Project. You can even record 4k video, snap photos, and edit the footage on the go to save time and memory. Read more...
Toys are made for your children to have fun and be entertained, but if we're being totally honest, some toys are just downright eyesores. As soon as your kid is done playing with them, they go straight into the toy box.
We've noticed a trend in recent years, and we are totally here for it: Beautiful wooden toys that are pretty enough to display on a bookshelf or tabletop. They add a level of rustic chic to your child's playtime lineup, and almost make it okay when they fail to put them away.
Check out our picks for some of the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing wooden toys out there: Read more...
TL;DR: The reliable ieGeek security camera is on sale for £33.24 on Amazon, saving you 83% on list price.
There are many ways you could be spending you're weekend, but don't for a second think that we're going to tell you to go outside or do anything remotely out of your comfort zone. No, you're in the right place.
The tried and tested way of making the most out of your weekend is by sitting inside and shopping for a deal. This is a well known strategy, and one which we recommend you try. Go on, give it a go.
Why settle for just one Roku remote control, when you could have two?
That is the bold question posed by the latest addition to the Apple Watch ecosystem: the brand new Roku app. The app, which Roku writes became available for Apple's wrist computer on Nov. 8, does all kinds of neat things — like, as we already mentioned, acting as a remote control.
"Control your Roku device directly from Apple Watch," explains the above-linked Roku blog post. "It’s the same easy to use remote from the mobile app – just sized for your wrist!"
How fun!
To get the app on your Apple Watch, all you need to do is download the Roku app on your iPhone (or, if you already have it, update to version 6.1.3) and you should be good to go. Read more...
NASA's latest car-sized, six-wheeled Mars rover, currently dubbed the 2020 Rover, is in the final stages of testing before launching to the red desert planet.
On Thursday, NASA released footage showing researchers transferring the rover into a vacuum testing chamber at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. There, NASA subjected the rover to a simulation of Mars' frigid atmospheric conditions to ensure the rover's antennas, ground-penetrating radar, cameras, and equipment work under such extreme, extraterrestrial environs.
Our #Mars2020 rover was moved into a vaccuum chamber at @NASAJPL for testing in Mars-like environmental conditions. It's set to launch in July 2020 and land in the Red Planet's Jezero Crater in Feb. 2021. Is your name on board? 🎟️ Watch: https://t.co/lxUk5kZRFzpic.twitter.com/A5EMkTHsHt
Technological obsolescence isn't any less annoying when it's unplanned.
Scores of smart TVs owner are about to find that out the hard way come Dec. 2, when Netflix will stop supporting their devicesAccording to Samsung, the streaming service will no longer work on "select" 2010 and 2011 smart TVs sold by the manufacturer in the U.S. and Canada.
The stated reason, notes Samsung, is "due to technical limitations." However, the company is quick to point out that "there are many other devices that can be connected to a Smart TV to continue enjoying the streaming service."
Westworld's third season is slated to premiere sometime in 2020, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until the new year to be fully creeped out.
HBO dropped its latest teaser for the new season on Nov. 8 in the form of a video advertising a fictitious company, Incite, that presumably plays a large role in show. There's even an accompanying website that promises "to make 'impossible' a thing of the past."
"Here at Incite," the website reads, "your data doesn’t work for us — we work for you."
Which, having watched the first two seasons of Westworld, we're going to reserve judgment on the veracity of that claim. Read more...
In a cavernous Los Angeles County cleanroom, Northrop Grumman and NASA engineers have pieced together the space agency's prized next-generation telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope.
It's big.
How big? NASA tweeted a picture of a human standing on a crane beside the behemoth cosmic-sleuthing satellite, for reference.
(Human for scale.)
This photo showcases just how big #NASAWebb is! We'll be sharing more behind-the-scenes images captured during the integration of the spacecraft and telescope halves of the observatory in this thread.
What's more disconcerting than watching MIT's dog-like Mini Cheetah robot cavort around? Nine of them doing it in unison.
We've had concerns about MIT's robots for some time now, but a new video from the school's biomimetic robotics lab opens into new levels of terror. After a playful bit of robot soccer, the nine Mini Cheetahs gather together like a military unit and start playing a dystopian version of "Simon Says."
The synchronized stretches and backflips are creepy enough, but the leaf piles will really mess up your day. This is what the eventual, clearly inevitable robot uprising will look like right in the moment it happens. Read more...
Baghdad (CNN)At least 301 people have been killed and nearly 15,000 have been injured in Iraq since the start of anti-government protests in October, the Independent High Commission for Human Rights of Iraq (IHCHR) said in a statement Saturday.
The higher death toll includes two people who were killed Friday in the southern city of Basra during violent protests, the IHCR said. Basra is an oil-rich city located some 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Iraq's capital Baghdad.
Another 100 people were wounded in Basra as Iraqi security forces used teargas and live bullets
A bitterly divided Spain goes to the polls on Sunday for its second parliamentary election in just over six months, likely to deliver an even more fragmented parliament with no clear winner and a sizeable showing by the far-right.
Spain has been struggling to put stable governments together since 2015, when new parties emerged from the financial crisis following decades during which power oscillated between the Socialists and the conservative People's Party (PP).
Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called this election - the fourth in four years - after his Socialist Party won a ballot in April but failed to form a government, betting that a new vote would strengthen his hand.
LA PAZ (Reuters) - President Evo Morales faced rising pressure to resolve a weeks-long standoff over Bolivia's disputed election on Saturday after police forces were seen joining anti-government protests and the military said it would not "confront the people" over the issue.
Morales' government decried a "coup" against him by what it called "violent groups," prompting a number of fellow leftist leaders in the region to rally around him and call for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Morales, Latin America's longest-standing leader, won an election on Oct. 20, but a delay of nearly a day in the vote count sparked allegations of fraud and led to protests, strikes and road blocks.
With thousands of hours flying naval H-60 variants, we get the bottom line on some of the unique aspects of flying the hugely popular helicopter.
The vast majority of helicopters currently operated by the U.S. Navy are either MH-60R or MH-60S variants of the Seahawk airframe, which is a marinized derivative of the UH-60 Blackhawk. These two variants of the Seahawk replaced three previous H-60 airframes in naval service, the SH-60B, SH-60F, and HH-60H. With thousands of hours at the controls of Seahawk helicopters, here are ten interesting facts and impressions based on my experience about flying these iconic aircraft, some of which you may have never heard before.
.... In any case, running out of gas in a helicopter over land is not nearly as exciting as running out of gas in a helicopter over the ocean, so normal practice at sea was to get gas at every ship we landed on, regardless of our final destination.
* The Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Airborne (SOAR-A) is the elite aviation unit that flies special operators like Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force into the most dangerous and secretive missions the US conducts. * The 160th, nicknamed the Night Stalkers, operates religiously my their creed, which says they'll be there within plus or minus 30 seconds of any operation time, and they'd "rather die than quit."
The Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Airborne, (SOAR-A), has earned the nickname "The Night Stalkers."
Operating under the cover of night or the shadows of dawn, these elite pilots are responsible for getting special operators into and out of some of their most secret and dangerous operations.
Night Stalker pilots go through rigorous training to become mission-ready to fly in the most challenging conditions, including bad weather and enemy fire, all while relying on infrared and night-vision equipment to navigate through the darkness.
While many of the 160th SOAR's operations are secret, it's widely understood that they were involved in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The Cold War, a global power struggle between dictatorship and democracy, ended in Berlin on November 9, 1989. The course of history, however, was set in motion by decisive events outside the country long before that.
It was the global symbol of the division between East and West, for the battle between communism and capitalism: the Berlin Wall, erected by the dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), better known as East Germany, in 1961.
Surrounded by a 155-kilometer-long (96.3-mile-long) guarded border of concrete and barbed wire, citizens in the Berlin's West sector lived in an island of freedom in the middle of the communist GDR. And over the decades, many East Germans looked to the unreachable West in desperate longing, hoping they might one day escape.
WNU Editor: I just started working for the UN at their ICAO division in Montreal in the fall of 1989. I will never forget that time. My Soviet colleagues were all doom and gloom, and they would not talk among themselves on what was happening. At the end of the day I would always rush to the lounge area where the day's newspapers were always hanging around. I found the New York Times coverage of the events mesmerizing and a must read. I personally was very worried on what was happening. I knew that the leadership in Moscow wanted to do something. They were of the same generation as my father .... veterans of the Second World War .... and they did not want reunification to happen. The Chinese crackdown at Tienanmen Square had happened only a few months before, and the same type of response was being debated in Moscow. Fortunately Gorbachev made sure that a Soviet military response did not happen, but I always sense it was a touch and go situation. I also personally wished that I was in Berlin at the time. I knew history was being made, and I wanted to be a part of it. But it was not to be. A few years later I did visit Berlin, standing in a place where people were shot just a few years ago. To say that it was all surreal to me is an understatement. It still is.
The Navy runs on youth and it is downright amazing how hard young sailors work to make the Navy's mission possible every single day around the globe.
At any given time, thousands of U.S. Navy sailors are plowing the seas all around the world, and sometimes in some very rough neighborhoods in which relative peace and turn into outright hostility in a matter of seconds. We hear quite a bit from the officers aboard everything from supercarriers to nuclear submarines, but not enough from those who actually make the Navy's goals even remotely achievable, the enlisted crew, some of who aren't even old enough to legally consume alcohol. This stark reality is precisely why I really enjoyed this mini-documentary that gives sailors' perspectives of life aboard the Navy's most numerous surface combatant, the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, in this case, USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60).
An armed pro-Russian militant stands guard at a barricade outside the village of Shchastya near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk on May 14, 2014. Photo by AFP
A majority of people living in the occupied Donbas think Russia has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, a new poll suggests.
According to its results, 76% of people living in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts believe that Ukraine is experiencing a civil war, not fighting against Russian-backed militants.
The sociological survey was conducted by New Image Marketing Group in partnership with the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya newspaper and published on Nov. 9. However, the firm's website was hacked, so the results are currently only available on Dzerkalo Tyzhnya's site.
WNU Editor: This poll is actually an indication to me on how much the politics of Ukraine has changed since the election of Zelensky. Under the former regime of Poroshenko, they would never have permitted this poll to be published on a Ukrainian news website like the Kyiv Post. As to the poll itself, I agree with it 100%. It confirms my opinion on what do the people in Donbas really feel. Mind you, they would disagree with the title of this Kyiv post .... they do not feel that they are occupied. One more thing that I would add is that if this poll was taken in the regions on the Ukrainian side of the conflict zone where the population is majority Russian-Ukrainian, it would produce the same results as this poll.
Servicemen of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic walk to board a truck near the settlement of Petrovskoye (Petrivske), which is located in a disengagement area near the contact line with the Ukrainian armed forces in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 9, 2019. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
PETRIVSKE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed rebels began withdrawing from a village in the disputed Donbass region on Saturday, one of a series of measures that could pave the way for a summit between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.
Fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed fighters in the eastern region has killed more than 13,000 since 2014, with both sides accusing each other of violating a ceasefire that was agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk in 2015.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, which prompted Western sanctions.
WNU Editor: They had a delay for a few days, but it looks like it has been resolved. This withdrawal is critical to get to the next stage in resolving this war, which is a meeting between Presidents Zelensky and Putin.
More than three thousand banned Chinese cameras and other tech are on U.S. government networks, including possibly Pentagon networks.
* Surveillance and communications technology made by five Chinese companies is banned from U.S. military use. * Despite the ban thousands of Chinese devices are still on government networks, including possibly by the Pentagon. * The technology could be used by the Chinese government to watch U.S. troops and government facilities.
Three months after a federal law banned certain Chinese tech devices from U.S. government use, the federal government still operate thousands of the prohibited devices. According to C4ISRNet, security researchers found 3,500 sooned-to-be banned devices still on government networks. Senator Marco Rubio, concerned that devices on U.S. military networks could become compromised and act as surveillance devices for Chinese intelligence, recently wrote to the Pentagon asking for quick action.
WNU Editor: These "back door" issues with Chinese technology is a big issue. China badly miscalculated on how this would play out in some countries. On a personal note. I have used Hikvision cameras. In terms of price and quality they are one of the best.
An AC-130J Ghostrider gunship assigned to the 73rd Special Operations Squadron takes off from Hurlburt Field in Florida, September 26, 2019. US Air Force/Airman 1st Class Joseph P. Leveille
* The Air Force's new AC-130J has been operating over Afghanistan for a little more than four months. * In that time, the Ghostrider has been busy, and US forces on the ground can't get enough of it.
It's been just over four months since the Air Force's AC-130J Ghostrider kicked off combat missions in the skies above Afghanistan, and the aircraft that the service once described as "the ultimate battle plane" and "a bomb truck with guns on it" is already bringing the pain on a daily basis.
Speaking to Stars & Stripes, Combined Joint Special Operations Air Component–Afghanistan commander Col. Terence Taylor revealed that the Ghostrider has flown a total of 218 sorties amounting to 1,380 hours over roughly 130 days, which shakes out to an average of five sorties every three days since the aircraft first arrived downrange in late June.
صوره اخرى لقناصة قاذفة القنابل LG5 صممتها #الصين لتدمير الأهداف المدرعة الخفيفة و القناصين بدقة لمسافة 1000 م وأهداف المنطقة على مسافة تصل إلى 2000 م .......قناصة جباره 👍🇸🇦#اليمنpic.twitter.com/BbsF5vebLj
Saudi Arabia appears to be the first foreign customer for the Chinese-made weapon and its troops in Yemen seem to be the first to use it in combat.
Pictures and a video have emerged online reportedly showing a Saudi Arabian soldier engaged in the conflict against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen using a Chinese-made Norinco LG5 man-portable 40mm grenade launcher. This appears to be the first evidence of the weapon, which looks like a prop gun from a Hollywood blockbuster, being in service outside China, as well as its first use in combat anywhere.
Twitter user SulaimanAldoosari, who also goes by SAUDI_POWER0 on Instagram, posted the images of the LG5 in use with Saudi forces in Yemen on social media on Nov. 3, 2019. It is unclear how long the Saudis have been using the weapon, but Defence Blog reported in February 2018, citing unnamed sources, that Chinese state-run arms company Norinco had secured an order for the grenade launchers from an unspecified "Middle East customer."
Marine corps pilots took photos and read books while flying, according to a US military investigation
Japan's defence ministry is to call on US forces based in the country to ensure the safety of their aircraft after pilots from a marine corps unit involved in a deadly crash last year were shown taking selfies and reading books while flying.
A US military report on the investigation into the December 2018 crash revealed widespread misconduct among the unit's pilots, including some who had posted selfies from their cockpits on social media.
One was shown combing his moustache mid-flight and another reading The Great Santini, a 1976 novel about a marine corps fighter pilot, with his hands off the controls.
WNU Editor: When you are based in a foreign country you have to be doubly respectful and thoughtful of their rules. Disregarding safety protocols and acting unprofessionally will not endear you with the locals.
AS BUSHFIRES continue to ravage parts of Australia, residents have been warned by local authorities in affected areas that they "may not get help" on Tuesday.
THE incoming European Commission President has slapped down French President Emmanuel Macron in a show of force amid a heated tussle for power in Brussels.
GERMANY is marking 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in what became the pivotal moment in the events that brought down Communism in eastern Europe.
SPAIN is in a state of political chaos. For the fourth time in four years Spanish voters are heading to the polls to decide their political fate, but what time do the polls close?
A TOXIC foam caused by high levels of pollution in India has infested the sacred Yamuna river in New Delhi, four days after officials declared a health emergency as a result of the air quality in the capital.
(NEW DELHI) — India’s Supreme Court on Saturday ruled in favor of a Hindu temple on a disputed religious ground in the country’s north and ordered that alternative land be given to Muslims to build a mosque – a verdict in a highly contentious case that was immediately deplored by a key Muslim body.
The dispute over land ownership has been one of India’s most heated issues, with Hindu nationalists demanding a temple on the site in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state for more than a century. The 16th century Babri Masjid mosque was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992, sparking massive Hindu-Muslim violence that left some 2,000 people dead.
Saturday’s verdict paves the way for building the temple in place of the demolished mosque.
It is expected to give a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party which has been promising the majority Hindus a temple of their most revered god Ram in Ayodhya town as part of its election strategy for decades. The minority Muslims fear that the court verdict will embolden Hindu hardliners in the country.
As the news broke, groups of jubilant Hindus poured into Ayodhya’s streets and distributed sweets to celebrate the verdict, but police soon persuaded them to return to their homes. As night fell, a large number of Hindus in the town lit candles, lamps and firecrackers to celebrate, and police faced a tougher time in curbing their enthusiasm.
The five Supreme Court justices who heard the case said in a unanimous judgment that 5 acres (2 hectares) of land will be allotted to the Muslim community to build a mosque, though it did not specify where. The court said the 5 acres is “restitution for the unlawful destruction of the mosque.”
The disputed land, meanwhile, will be given to a board of trustees for the construction of a temple to the Hindu god Ram.
Hindu hard-liners have said they want to build a new temple to Ram on the site, which they revere as his birthplace. They say the mosque was built after a temple dedicated to the Hindu god was destroyed by Muslim invaders.
Zafaryab Jilani, a representative of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, a key Muslim body in the state and a party to the dispute, opposed the ruling.
“We are not satisfied with the verdict and it’s not up to our expectation,” he said. “These 5 acres of land don’t mean anything to us. We are examining the verdict and whatever legal course is open for us.”
Jilani hinted at filing a review petition in the Supreme Court challenging the verdict. At the same time, he appealed to members of all communities to maintain peace.
The judges said that the demolition of the mosque in 1992 was “in violation of the status quo orders of this court.” But they didn’t order any punitive action against those who demolished the mosque in the presence of several top leaders of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Modi hailed the decision and said it had settled a long-standing matter.
“Every point of view was given adequate time and opportunity to express differing points of view. This verdict will further increase people’s faith in judicial processes,” Modi tweeted.
He also in a broadcast over television channels and radio urged “all citizens to come together to build a new India and work for everyone’s development.”
Hindu supporters and activists celebrated the ruling on the court lawns, blowing bugles and chanting “Jai shree Ram,” or “Hail god Ram.”
The five judges said Hindus’ belief that Ram was born at the site “is undisputed,” and that Muslims have not provided evidence that they were in exclusive possession of the disputed site.
The judges also said the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board had failed to establish its case. On the contrary, Hindus established their case that they were in possession of the outer courtyard of the disputed complex, they said.
Vishnu Shankar Jain, an attorney who represented the Hindu community in the case, said the journey over several years had been a struggle.
“It was a huge legal battle and we are happy that we convinced the Supreme Court. It’s a historic moment for Hindus,” he said.
The main opposition Congress party also welcomed the court verdict and appealed all parties to maintain peace and harmony.
In Islamabad, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, criticized the verdict, saying it was indicative of the “hate based mindset” of Modi’s government.
After the demolition of the mosque, Hindus and Muslims took the issue to a lower court, which in 2010 ruled that the disputed land should be divided into three parts – two for Hindus and one for Muslims.
That was challenged in the Supreme Court by both communities.
The five judges started daily proceedings in August after mediation failed to find a compromise.
Modi had promised to build the temple during 2014 elections that brought him to power. But he later decided to wait for the court verdict despite pressure from millions of Hindu hard-liners who asked his government to bring legislation to build the temple.
Authorities on Saturday increased security in Ayodhya, which is located 550 kilometers (350 miles) east of New Delhi, and deployed more than 5,000 paramilitary forces to prevent attacks by Hindu activists on Muslims, who comprise 6% of the town’s more than 55,500 people.
Overall, Hindus comprise more than 80% and Muslims around 14% of India’s 1.3 billion people.
The town looked deserted on Saturday, with authorities turning back thousands of Hindu pilgrims who were congregating for a religious event scheduled for Tuesday.
Police have arrested about 500 people for posting provocative messages on social media in Uttar Pradesh. Police also have detained around 5,000 people with criminal backgrounds across the state to prevent them from creating trouble after the court verdict, according to Uttar Pradesh government spokesman Awanish Awasthi.
Authorities have stopped the entry of people into the state through the land border from Nepal, and ordered all of the state’s schools and colleges to remain closed until Monday.
___
Associated Press writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
(BAGHDAD) — Iraqi security forces killed six anti-government protesters and wounded more than 100 others on Saturday, pushing them back from three flashpoint bridges in central Baghdad, medical and security officials said.
Five of the protesters were killed by live ammunition, while the sixth died after being shot in the head with a tear gas canister. The Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The current cycle of anti-government protests and the heavy-handed security crackdown has left more than 250 people dead. Mass protests erupted in Baghdad and across southern Iraq last month, calling for the overhaul of the political system established after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The deaths occurred Saturday as the protests intensified in the afternoon, when demonstrators tried to reach the three bridges spanning the Tigris River to the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of government. Protesters have tried to force their way across on an almost daily basis.
The protesters were pushed from the Sinak bridge to the nearby Khilani square, where 35 people were wounded, according to medical officials. Security forces also regained control of the nearby Ahrar and Shuhada bridges.
The day before, authorities found a bomb under the Sinak bridge and carried out a controlled explosion of it, according to state television.
In the southern city of Basra, three more protesters were killed overnight, raising the death toll there to eight since Thursday. Clashes with security forces also wounded 10 people in other parts of southern Iraq, including the city of Nasiriyah, according to security officials.
The demonstrators complain of widespread corruption, lack of job opportunities and poor basic services, including regular power cuts, despite Iraq’s vast oil reserves. They have rejected government proposals for limited economic reforms, and instead called on the country’s political leadership to resign, including Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
“We consider the peaceful protests of our people as among the most important events since 2003,” Abdul-Mahdi said in a statement Saturday that vowed to meet the protesters’ demands for wide-ranging reforms. He added that electoral reforms would be put forward soon along with “an important government reshuffle” in response to the protests against the sectarian system imposed in 2003, though the statement didn’t provide further details.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, released a statement saying his office was not part of a deal reportedly reached to keep the prime minister in his post and put an end to the protests. Al-Sistani’s office said the government should respond to protesters’ demands, adding that the cleric’s name was being used for “political exploitation.”
In al-Sistani’s Friday sermon, which was delivered by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, the top cleric said it is the responsibility of the security forces to ensure protests are peaceful and to avoid using excessive force against the demonstrators.
The prime minister also acknowledged Saturday that the government has been blocking access to the internet.
Shortly after the statement’s release, internet on cellphones resumed for half an hour before being cut again.
Netblocks, a group that monitors worldwide internet access, reported a major shutdown by Iraqi authorities as of Monday, with usage in Baghdad and southern Iraq dropping to 19% of normal levels. It said the internet was partially restored early Tuesday, but that “some networks are still offline and social media and messaging apps remain blocked or degraded.”
Authorities shut down internet access and blocked social media sites several times during the protests in October, but Netblocks said the latest shutdown was the most severe yet.
____
Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump says he’s weighing an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow.
Trump tells reporters he appreciates the invitation from Putin, but the parade falls “right in the middle of political season,” so he’s not sure he can make it.
He adds: “I would love to go if I could.”
The event commemorates the May 1945 allied victory over Nazi Germany. Russia uses the annual parade to show off its military might.
Trump says the event, which next year marks the 75th anniversary of the allied victory, is “a very big deal.”
(CANBERRA, Australia) — Wildfires razing Australia’s drought-stricken east coast have left three people dead, several missing and dozens injured, with over 150 homes destroyed, officials said Saturday.
Around 1,500 firefighters were battling more than 70 fires across Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, with the most intense in the northeast, where flames were fanned by strong winds, Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.
A woman who was found unconscious and with serious burns Friday near Glen Innes died in a hospital, he said.
Vivian Chaplain, a 69-year-old mother of two and grandmother of six, was alone in her house in the small community of Wytaliba when it was engulfed in flames, her daughter-in-law Chrystal Harwood said.
“I was the last one to speak to her. She was in an absolute panic. She said: ‘We’re on fire. There’s fire everywhere. I need the boys here now,'” Harwood said of their final phone call.
“Before I even got to tell her to just get out, she’d hung up on me. I couldn’t get back through to her. I tried so many times,” Harwood added. “She was amazing. She was such a strong, loving woman.”
On Friday, Harwood made a desperate plea on social media for someone to come to Chaplain’s rescue.
“Viv is alone can someone help, anyone please … boys are on the way down if they can get through,” Harwood posted. “‘The RFS can’t get to her they are trying … the road down is a tunnel of fire.”
Firefighters found another body on Saturday morning in a burned car near Glen Innes, a victim of the same fire, officials said. The local man’s name has not been released.
A third body was found Saturday afternoon in a burned house at the village of Johns River, north of Taree, police said, adding that an autopsy will determine whether the victim is the 63-year-old woman who owns the house.
That victim died in a fire hundreds of kilometers (miles) from Glen Innes.
Another five people remained missing in the vicinity of the Glen Innes fire and authorities held grave fears for their safety, Fitzsimmons said.
More than 30 people including firefighters received medical treatment for burns and smoke inhalation. One patient suffered cardiac arrest, officials said.
At least 150 homes had been destroyed since Friday, and damage assessment teams had yet to reach some devastated areas, officials said.
Hundreds of people evacuated their homes along a 500-kilometer (310-mile) swath of the eastern seaboard from the Queensland state border south to Forster.
Forster is a town 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Sydney, Australia’s largest city. Many spent the night in evacuation centers, while some slept in cars.
In Queensland, around 50 wildfires were raging on Saturday. At least one house was lost, a firefighter suffered a broken leg and 6,000 residents were evacuated from three communities in the state’s southeast, police said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Australia to expect more bad news from the fire zones. His warning came before the third victim was confirmed.
“The devastating and horrific fires that we have seen, particularly in New South Wales but also in Queensland, have been absolutely chilling,” Morrison said.
The Insurance Council of Australia declared the wildfire crisis a “catastrophe,” meaning insurance claims will be given priority.
In Taree, more than 300 people evacuated overnight to a social club, including Club Taree’s chief executive, Morgan Stewart.
“It was pretty scary,” Stewart said. “We’re hearing lots of stories of lost houses, lost property, goods and effects, animals, land. It’s going to be horrific, I think.”
Peter Lean spent the night on the roof of his house in the town of Wallabi Point, using a garden hose to extinguish burning embers carried by strong winds.
“I’ve never seen the sky so red since 2000,” Lean said. “We’ve got winds blowing, they’re circling, it’s like a cyclone.”
The fire danger reached unprecedented levels in New South Wales on Friday, when 17 fires were burning at the most extreme danger rating known as the Emergency Warning Level.
“To have 17 of those fires burning all at the same time across a fairly broad geographic area like the north coast of New South Wales, we simply have not seen that before, that level of intensity,” Fitzsimmons said.
Between two and five fires were burning at the highest danger rating Saturday.
The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, has started early after an unusually warm and dry winter.
(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — Iran is acknowledging for the first time it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court over the 2007 disappearance of a former FBI agent on an unauthorized CIA mission to the country, renewing questions over what happened to him.
In a filing to the United Nations, Iran said the case over Robert Levinson was “on going,” without elaborating.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the case had been open, nor the circumstances by which it started. However, it comes amid a renewed push to find him with an offer of $20 million for information from the Trump administration amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. That’s in addition to $5 million earlier offered by the FBI.
The Associated Press on Saturday obtained the text of Iran’s filing to the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
“According to the last statement of Tehran’s Justice Department, Mr. Robert Alan Levinson has an on going case in the Public Prosecution and Revolutionary Court of Tehran,” the filing said.
It did not elaborate. Iran’s Revolutionary Court typically handles espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts to overthrow its Islamic government. Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.
Iran’s mission to the U.N. did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and its state media has not acknowledged the case. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment about Iran’s acknowledgement.
The Washington Post first reported on the ongoing case.
Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.
In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.
Since his disappearance, the only photos and video of Levinson emerged in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
The video, with a Pashtun wedding song popular in Afghanistan playing in the background, showed Levinson complaining of poor health.
Rumors about him have circulated for years, with one account claiming he was locked up in a Tehran prison run by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and U.S. officials suggesting he may not be in Iran at all. Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive living in Iran who is wanted for the assassination of a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980, is the last known person to have seen Levinson before his disappearance. Iran has offered a series of contradictory statements about Levinson in the time since. It asked the U.N. group to close its investigation into Levinson in February, saying “no proof has been presented by the claimant in this case to prove the presence of the aforesaid in Iran’s detention centres.”
(HONG KONG) — Seven Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers were either detained or faced arrest Saturday, a move that could escalate public fury a day after the death of a university student linked to months of anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
Protesters vented their anger over Chow Tsz-Lok’s death and vowed not to give up their resistance at a police-approved prayer rally Saturday night, with frequent chants of “Hong Kong people, revenge” and “Free Hong Kong.”
The 22-year-old died Friday, succumbing to injuries four days after falling from a parking garage when police fired tear gas during clashes with protesters. Although the circumstance of his death is unclear, many blame police who have been accused of heavy-handed tactics including widespread use of tear gas and pepper spray since the unrest began in June.
Police said three lawmakers were detained Saturday and charged with obstructing the local assembly during a raucous May 11 meeting over a now-shelved China extradition bill that sparked five months of protests calling for democratic reforms.
The others received summons to turn up at police stations Saturday to face arrest. All seven are to appear in court Monday.
Pro-democracy lawmakers slammed the government clampdown as a calculated move after Chow’s death to provoke more violence as an excuse to postpone or cancel Nov. 24 district elections — polls viewed as a barometer of public sentiment amid the unrest.
“We’ll say no to their plans,” lawmaker Tanya Chan told a news conference. “It is a de facto referendum for all Hong Kong voters to cast their vote and say no to police brutality and say no to our unjust system.”
She said the district elections will also send a crucial message to Beijing, accused by protesters of interfering in the city’s freedoms and rights promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997.
Hong Kong’s constitutional and mainland affairs secretary, Patrick Nip, said police made the arrests based on their investigation and that they had nothing to do with the upcoming elections.
Violence erupted late Friday when protesters took to the streets following memorial events in multiple locations to mark Chow’s death.
On Saturday night, thousands gathered at a Christian memorial service for Chow, singing hymns and laying white flowers and paper cranes at a makeshift stage in a downtown park.
It wasn’t clear what Chow was doing at the garage early Monday as mobs clashed with police in the streets below. Police have repeatedly denied that officers pushed him down and had delayed emergency services that delayed treatment.
A friend of Chow told a citizens’ press conference earlier Saturday that he had joined every protest since June.
“We, friends, were doing what we could on the streets. We were frustrated with the tyranny of this government,” said the masked friend, who didn’t identify himself.
At the evening prayer rally, various speakers, including hard-line protesters, took to the stage to call for justice for Chow and vowed never to surrender.
“Hong Kong people can be struck down but never defeated,” said a masked black-clad protester. Another protester urged citizens to show their anger by going out early to vote in the district council elections.
Prominent activist Joshua Wong, who has been barred from running in this month’s polls, said the city can emerge from the chaos if protesters unite and fight on despite the tough road ahead.
There have been only a few fatalities during the unrest, including some reported deaths by suicide and a man who fell to his death while hanging pro-democracy banners on a building.
More than 3,300 people have been arrested in the movement, which has expanded to include calls for direct elections for the city’s leaders and other demands.
The Roman Catholic Church says it would reject any recommendation from a U.K. inquiry that would require priests to break confession to report child sexual abuse.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, told the Independent Inquiry into Sexual Abuse in the U.K. on Thursday that he views confession as “a nexus between my sinful humanity and the mercy of God.”
“The history of the Catholic Church has a number of people who have been put to death in [defense] of the seal of the confession. It might come to that,” he said.
The public inquiry was set up following serious concerns that institutions in the country—including churches—had failed to protect children from sexual abuse, and continue to do so. The inquiry, which covers England and Wales, is expected to make recommendations in 2020.
Over the past 30 years, the Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of sex abuse scandals worldwide. News reports, lawsuits and other inquiries have revealed that allegations about priests molesting children were often covered up by Church officials, and priests were moved to other areas.
When asked by Brian Altman, the lead lawyer on the inquiry, how the Catholic Church would respond to a recommendation of breaking the seal of confession in cases where abusers have admitted child abuse, Nichols said: “It would not be well received. It would be rejected,” he said.
This comes after the Australian Catholic Church opposed the Australian Royal Commission’s recommendation of breaking the seal of confession in 2018.
Nichols admitted that there is a tension between the child’s best interest and the confidentiality of a disclosure made in confession.
He added: “It would also, of course, put every priest in this country in a position of great liability, because a priest would not be able to defend himself is somebody went forward and said, ‘I told Father X that I’m an abuser.’ Anybody could do that and no priest could defend himself. Therefore, I hope you consider very carefully this matter.”
Addressing the panel, Nichols said: “I repeat… my sorrow and dismay and apology, unreserved apology, to those who have suffered the horror of child abuse within the context of the Catholic Church and those who have subsequently been treated badly by us.”
In June 2019, the Catholic Church in Birmingham, U.K. was embroiled in scandal after the sex abuse inquiry found that the Archdiocese of Birmingham had protected priests accused of abuse by “repeatedly” failing to alert police to allegations. The inquiry examined 134 allegations of child sexual abuse made against 78 individuals—many of whom are no longer—since the mid 1930s. Thirteen individuals were convicted.
The Roman Catholic Church in Australia sparked controversy in August this year as Cardinal George Pell was allowed to retain his title in the Church. This is despite him being found guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choir boys in the 1990s.
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The two countries will rollback additional tariffs in stages as they work toward a "phase one" deal, according to China's Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng.
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Kerala Postal Circle Result 2019: Examination Aspirants can check the Kerala Post Office Result 2019 at www.keralapost.gov.in. The Kerala Postal Circle has released the Postman, Mail Guard Exam recently. Applicants who had taken the written examination can check the Kerala Postal Circle Exam Result 2019 now. Also, The result for Kerala Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) 2019 is will be announced soon. Kerala post circle GDS Result will be hosted on the official GDS engagement portal on the scheduled dates. The updates about the Kerala GDS result dates will be updated on this article. And Candidates can fetch the Exam Analysis, Rank Card, Kerala Postal Circle Cut off Marks from this page.
Kerala GDS Result 2019: The result for Kerala Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) 2019 will be announced soon. Kerala post circle GDS Result will be hosted on the official GDS engagement portal on the scheduled dates. The updates about the Kerala GDS result dates and links will be updated on the below table. The Kerala GDS result will be made available as the merit list of the shortlisted candidates. Kerala GDS result for cycle II 2019 will be announced shortly. Those who are waiting for the release of the Kerala Postal GDS Result 2019 are advised to regularly visit this page GDS portal so that they can get all the latest updates.
Kerala Postal Circle GDS Merit List 2019 – Click Here
Kerala Postal Circle Result 2019 – The Kerala Postal Circle has recently declared the Kerala Post Office Postman Result 2019. Earlier, the Department has conducted the examination for the applicants of the 594 postmen and Mail Guard posts. From the time of the completion of the exam, most of the individuals are browsing the official website keralapost.gov.in. Now, it’s time to keep all your tension aside and look at the Kerala Postal Circle Result 2019. And finally, the Kerala Post Office Exam Result 2019 link is available to the individuals. Now, you require the roll number and name to view your Exam score. Scroll down to check the Kerala Post Office Postman Mail Guard Exam Result 2019 quickly.
Kerala Postal Circle Result 2019
Score for Kerala Post Office Postman Mailguard Exam 2019
Kerala Post Office Postman & Mail Guard Exam Score 2019 – Click Here
About Kerala Postal Circle
The Kerala Postal Circle was formulated on 1st July 2019. It is the Kerala state government-operated postal system in India. This Dept is having approximately 154,939 post offices in India. Recently, the Kerala Postal Dept had dispatched the Notification for the Postman and Mail Guard vacancies. A massive no of aspirants had applied and attended the Kerala Poso Office Exam 2019 on 9th April 2019. And now, finally, the department has released the Kerala Post Office Result Cutoff Marks Rank Card 2019 at www.keralapost.gov.in. Hence, try to clink on the below links and analyze your performance in the exam with the cut off marks and the scorecard. Get Kerala Postal Circle Result 2019, Kerala Post Office Postman & Mail Guard Exam Score – www.keralapost.gov.in
Kerala Postal Circle Cutoff Marks – Exam Analysis
Category Name
Percentage of Cut off Marks
General
40% Aggregate and Min 10 Marks in all Subjects
SC/ ST
33% Aggregate and Min 8 Marks in all Subjects
OBC
37% Aggregate and Min 9 Marks in all Subjects
Kerala Postal Circle Result, Rank Card, Merit List pdf download
Individuals can check the Kerala Post Officer Result from the official website i..e, keralapost.gov.in results. Hence, candidates who have taken the Kerala Postal Circle Postman Exam can check the Result 2019. Now, they need the Registred id, Password, registration number, name, dob, etc. Hence, follow the following steps to check the Kerala Post Office Exam Result 2019.
Steps to download the Kerala Post Office Exam Result 2019
At first, visit the official website www.keralapost.gov.in results.
Now, Search the Kerala Post Office Result 2019 link
Later, enter the required date in the fields.
Now, click on the submit button to view the Kerala Postal Circle Result pdf.
Later download the Kerala Postal Circle Rank Card 2019.
Finally, the result will appear on your screen.
Take or download a copy of the Kerala Postal Circle Result for future reference.
RGU Result 2019 | Dear Students!! It’s time to check your results from here. Yes, Rajiv Gandhi University has declared the results for various Courses, anyone can check the results on the official website. Students can check the RGU Result on this page. Here we have provided a direct link to download and verify the RGU Result from the below table. The University has published the results of Under Graduate, Post Graduate, Regular, Supplementary Students. Students can check the results from this site at any time. Check the complete detail of Rajiv Gandhi University Results on the official website i.e, rgu.ac.in. Furthermore, students can find the RGU Result links for Odd and Even semester of B.A, B.Ed, B.Sc, LL.B, M.Phil, and other exam results all at one point.
Latest Results Update: Get All UG/PG Exam Results Available Here
RGU Result 2019
The University has declared the results of some courses. And the results of the remaining courses will be declared very soon by the University and will be uploaded on the website. Students Can Check University Website Regularly for know about Result. Currently, RGU announces the results for the Re-Checking result of UG Courses BA V Sem, BA III Sem, B.Sc I III V Sem, LLB BALLB, M.Phil III Sem Economics. Students can check their results from the official website of Rajiv Gandhi University. By using the enrollment number, Students can view their results online. All affiliated colleges students can check results from the Rajiv Gandhi University official web portal. Students can check the below table for the Rajiv Gandhi University Result.
Latest RGU Exam Results 2019
Name of the Exam
Download Link
UG Examination Results
Result of Re-Checking BHMS III Year Examination held in May’ 2019
MCA VI-BCA VI M.Tech (CSE) IV Psychology IV Social Work IV Economics IV-II Commerce IV-II MBA IV-II M.Phil (AITS) II Diploma in Computerized Accounting II PGDBI II PGD in Tourism Management II PGD Geo-Informatics II Sem
MA Sociology II_IV-Mass Com II_IV-M.ED II_IV –MA Geography II_IV M.Phil (Geography) II –MA Psychology II MA Anthropology II_IV MCA II_IV_VI BCA II_IV MA Political Science II_IV PGDMC II-M.Tech (CSE)_II MA History II Sem
MCA V sem, Physical Education III, Geography III, Mass Comm III, MBA III, Sociology III, Psychology III, Anthropology III, PGD Banking & Insurance I and BCA V semester
Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU) is Central University, earlier known as Arunachal University, established in 1984, is the oldest university in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Rajiv Gandhi University has been a Central University under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India since 9 April 2007. Rajiv Gandhi University, formerly known as Arunachal University, was established by the state government of Arunachal Pradesh, in 1984. In 2005 the same has been renamed as Rajiv Gandhi University.
RGU Supply/Revaluation Results
Students have a chance to apply for the revaluation, if the students may get low marks in the examination, they can apply for the Revaluation results. So again the head of the Examiner will review the answer paper. After revaluation, students may get high marks. Still, if anyone got low marks, they can apply for the Supplementary Examinations. For Revaluation/Supplementary, students should pay the fee. Students can get all the results from this page Regular, Revaluation and Supplementary Results. Students of the Rajiv Gandhi University can also get all Results Also. Just we are advising the Students to frequently visit this page to get the latest updates of all RGU Results 2019.
JP University Result 2019 – Check out the Jai Prakash Vishwavidyalaya, Chapra University recent updates regarding the results. The JP University has recently released the TDC-Part II Examination Results on Today. Candidates who are eagerly looking for the JP University Semester Result just check out the below section. We expected this year’s authority will be announced the JP University Part I II III Result 2019 on its official web site. Candidates want any more details about JPU Chapra BA BSC BCom Result 2019 you may visit the official web site i.e, jpv.bih.nic.in.
JP University Exam Result 2019 @jpv.bih.nic.in
Here is great news for the Students of Jai Prakash University. The JP University has released the JPU Result for all the UG, PG and Diploma Courses Semester Exams. Those who have written the semester examination, its time to check out your JP University Result 2019. Get JP University Result 2019 for BA, B.Com, B.Sc, B.Tech, B.Ed, MA, M.Com, M.Sc, MBBS, MBA, MCA & Other Courses. The JP University will release the exam Results according to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th semester. Students who do not have the qualified marks in the JPU Results should apply for the re-evaluation process. Later the JPU Results announcement, the officials give some time period to apply for the re-evaluation process. In this process the authorities to re-correct your paper.
Jai Prakash University is one of the state premier universities in Chapra, Bihar, India. Initially serving the needs of higher and quality education of the people of Saran commissionary, it has completed its 27 years and has entered its 28rd year, 11 affiliated colleges With 21 constituent colleges, and 23 proposed colleges including 10 professional colleges, it is offering courses at the undergraduate level and postgraduate level in most subjects. It was established by the Government of Bihar in response to the needs of the people of Saran commissionary. The university is recognized by the UGC as a state university and is a member of the Association of Indian Universities, having jurisdiction over the Saran Division, comprising the three districts of Saran, Siwan, and Gopalganj.
JP University Regular/ Supplementary Results
Students, those who have not cleared/ got low marks the University examinations can apply for the Revaluation. This is is a chance for the students to increase their marks in subjects in which they have scored low marks. If students have written the main exam well and still got a low score. They can have a correction of their exam paper once again to increase their scoring. Currently, the University has released the revaluation results for UG, PG with all-region Students. So Students can check the Revaluation results from the official website as well as on this.
JNVU Results 2019 – Dear Folks!! It’s time to check your B.E, MBA & Course Exam Results from here. Yes, here we have a piece of good news for you. Jai Narain Vyas University has declared the results for various Courses. Recently the University has published the results for M.A I Sem Economics, Home Science, M.A III Sem Economics, MA I Sem Psychology, M.A I Sem Journalism and Mass Communication, B.E III Sem, B.A LL.B VII Sem, BBA LL.B VIII Sem and other Courses results are available here. Here we have provided a direct link to download and verify the JNVU Results from the below table. Students who have been appeared for those examinations can check the results from the official website of the University i.e, jnvu.co.in. We advise the Student that regularly check the official website of the University to get the latest updates regarding the Examination results.
Jai Narain Vyas University Results 2019 || JNVU Results 2019
The JNV University uploads all its University and Affiliated colleges JNVU Online In Result on its official result portal. Students can prefer this page to obtain the Regular, Supply and JNVU Revaluation Result 2018. In fact, we comprise the various JNVU MA Result. Students can check this page for the latest Result Jai Narain Vyas University. Also, students can find the page links of the JNVU M.A, LL.B Result and JNVU MBA Result in the below sections. Here, we update the JNVU Revaluation Result of the various Semesters. Verify the article and download the JNVU Old Result of Regular/ Private examination at the Jai Narain Vyas University Results. Hence more, the JNVU Results in 2019 of Odd and Even Semester enlisted in the below sections. We advise the Students to regularly check the official website of the University to get the latest updates regarding the Exam Results.
Latest JNVU Exam Results 2019
Name of the Exam
Announcement Date
Download Link
B.E. (SEM) IIIrd Sem ( Mining Engineering ) Examination Result
Jai Narain Vyas University (JNVU, formerly known as University of Jodhpur) is an educational institution in Jodhpur city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Established in 1962, the university took over the four colleges of Jodhpur run by the state government. The university provides education and research facilities to the residents of the region and to the wards of defense and paramilitary forces along the border of Pakistan. Courses are offered in humanities, sciences, social sciences, law, engineering, commerce and business management, information technology, and languages. There are more than 30 undergraduate programs, 40 postgraduate programs, and 5 diploma and certificate courses.
JNVU Supply/Revaluation Results
Students have a chance to apply for the revaluation, if the students may get low marks in the examination, they can apply for the Revaluation results. So again the head of the Examiner will review the answer paper. After revaluation, students may get high marks. Still, if anyone got low marks, they can apply for the Supplementary Examinations. For Revaluation/Supplementary, students should pay the fee. Students can get all the results from this page Regular, Revaluation and Supplementary Results. Students of the Jai Narain Vyas University can also get all Results Also. Just we are advising the Students to frequently visit this page to get the latest updates of all JNVU Results 2019.
Punjabi University Result 2019 – Check out Punjabi University Result New here for B.Tech, B.C.A, M.A & M.Sc, and Other Courses. Students can get Punjabi University Results 2019 with a direct link. And now, PBI UNI has declared the Punjabi University Result 2019 for various Courses under Punjabi University Left.
Recently the University has published the results of Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Add On Courses II Sem and other Courses results are available here. Students who have been appeared for that examination can check their results from the official website of the University i.e, punjabiuniversity.ac.in. Also, we have provided a direct link to the Students to download/ verify the Punjabi Uni Results from the below table. It will help the students to get the results without any confusion. We advise the Students to regularly check the Official website of the University to get the latest updates regarding the Examination results.
Punjabi UNI Result 2019 | Punjabi University Result 2019
The Punjabi University released the much-awaited Www Punjabi University Results Ac In online. So, check out the पंजाबी यूनिवर्सिटी रिजल्ट्स २०१९ for Under Graduate and Post Graduate Regular, Supplementary and Revaluation results. Furthermore, Students can get the Punjabi University Semester Wise Exam Result from this page. So, verify the entire article to download the Punjabi University Result in B.A. M.A and so on results. Here, we have provided direct links to find your results through individual links on this page. Furthermore, download the results for Arts, Science, Engineering, Medical, Management Courses simply by following the steps provided below. In fact, you can get the results for the other Universities on our official site.
Punjabi University is a state university located in Patiala, Punjab, India. Punjabi University teaches and researches in science, engineering, and technology, humanities, social sciences, performing arts and sports. It was established on 30 April 1962 and is only the second university in the world to be named after a language. The institution has more than 70 teaching and research departments, covering disciplines in Humanities, Science, Fine Arts, Computer Science, and Business Management. To obtain a doctorate degree from the university one should pass the Punjabi language exam (Punjabi Pravesika) conducted by the university twice a year. Students who study Punjabi as a subject until the 10th standard need not pass the test to qualify.
Students are waiting for the PBI Uni Left Result if they scored well they will lead to next year. But if they will not get more marks they can apply for the Revaluation Results. Once they applied for the Examination, the higher level Examiner will check the paper again. They can get the revaluation results within the time. Also if they still get fail marks, they can apply for the supplementary examination. For each and every semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the announcement of the main examination results. However, the PBI UNI will take a week or more to process the exam papers to announce the Punjabi University Revaluation Result. In the same way, stay updated with the University to know about the Punjabi University Revaluation Result.
TN TRB Result 2019 | Check TN TRB Computer Instructor Result, Selection list – The Tamil Nadu Teacher Recruitment Board (TN TRB) has almost ready to announce the TN TRB Exam Result. All the candidates those who have Participated in the TN TRB Computer Instructor Grade 1 Examination can check your result from the direct link provided below in the table. The TN TRB officials will soon announce Computer Instructor Results, Selection List tentatively in the month of November 2019. Along with the Direct link of TN TRB 2019 result we have given some steps to download your result from the official website at trb.tn.nic.in.
Latest Update:TN TRB Computer Instructor Result 2019 will be released in the Month of November 2019.
TN TRB Result 2019 @ trb.tn.nic.in
Tamil Nadu Teacher Recruitment Board (TN TRB) will release the result for the Direct Recruitment of the Post of Computer Instructors Grade 1 (PG Cadre) for the year 2019-20. On the basis of the Merit, list candidates will be appointed in the respective areas. All the applicants can get the TN TRB Computer Instructor Result 2019 from this page. The TN TRB has conducted the Computer Instructors Grade 1 Examination on 23rd June 2019. Here on this page, we used to update all the latest updated information regarding the TN TRB Computer Instructor Results. Also, we will be updating the result link and it will activate after the official announcement of TN TRB Computer Instructor Results.
All the candidates who have appeared for the Examination can get overview details from the above table. We advise the candidates to keep track of this page to get your TN TRB Result 2019 on time. The TN TRB Recruitment 2019 has announced a few months back and interested candidates have appeared for this Examination. The Tamil Nadu Teacher Recruitment Board will announce the recruitment every year. This year applicants have appeared for the Examination by 23rd June 2019. All those applicants are eagerly now waiting for the results, we are here to help you out with the TN TRB Computer Instructor 2019.
Along with the Results, the applicants will receive the TN TRB Cut off Marks. After announcing the TN TRB Results, applicants will get the Cut off Marks. The marks will decide by the TRB officials based on the TN TRB Examination marks, Number of questions, difficulty level, and others. The officials will be called for the Interview process based on the TN TRB Computer Instructor Grade 1 cutoff marks and TN TRB Merit List.
TN TRB Computer Instructor Merit List/Selected Candidates List 2019
Applicants who have completed the exam well and getting the High Cut off marks can get the Merit List. The Merit List will be based on the score which the applicants have got from the Examination. Although the Merit list will help the applicants at the time of the interview process. The candidates will call for the Interview based on the TN TRB Merit List. After attending the Interview, if the applicants will get select in all the rounds of interview process they will get an appointment for Tamil Nadu Teacher Recruitment Department.
How to Download TN TRB Computer Instructor Grade I Results 2019?
Applicants can visit the official website of Tamil Nadu Teacher Recruitment Board (TN TRB) i.e, trb.tn.nic.in
On the home page, candidates can view the TN TRB Result 2019
Click on the TN TRB Computer Instructor Result 2019 Pdf Link
The result page will open, applicants can enter the required details
TN TRB Exam Result pdf will display on your screen
Download or take a print out of the result for further reference.,
UBTER Group D Result 2019 will be out soon @ ubter.in | Check Class 4 Cut Off Marks. Welcome to our UBTER Group D Result Page. Here we will help you find all the UBTER Group D Exam Result. The Uttarakhand Board of Technical Education is planning to release UBTER Group D Result 2019 in the month of November 2019. The UBTER Officials have conducted the UBTER Group D Exam on 20th October 2019. So all those participants can check and download your result from this page.
UBTER Group D Result 2019 – Download Here
The Uttarakhand Board of Technical Education officials will soon announce the UBTER Group D Exam Result 2019 on official website ubter.in. A huge number of applicants have written the UBTER Group D Exam for 401 Class IV Posts on 20th October 2019. All the exam participants are waiting for the UBTER Group D Exam Result 2019. Here we will be updating the latest result link, and the result link will activate at the time of the official announcement. Along with the result, applicants can check UBTER Group D Class 4 Result 2019 from the below sections.
UBTER Group D Result 2019 – Overview
UBTER Group D 2019 Result | Check Class 4 Cut Off Marks, Merit List
Candidates have to score 50% for the General/EwS category and 45% for SC/ST/OBC in the written examination to be listed in the UBTER Group D merit list. Check the schedule regarding the UBTER Group D Class 4 Result 2019 link from below. Here we have provided some easy steps to download your UBTER Group D Exam Result 2019. Applicants can download the Group D Recruitment in State Judiciary Uttarkhand (Civil & Family Courts) Exam Answer Key from the below link. Applicants can get more details about Uttarakhand High Court Group D Result 2019 from this page.
UBTER Group D Merit List 2019
All the applicants who have appeared for UBTER Written Examination for Group D Posts can check the Uttarakhand UBTER Group D Qualified List 2019 from the official website. The UBTER Merit List 2019 will be provided on the basis of qualified candidates. The Merit List will contain the Roll number & date of birth. Hence, Any of the aspirants whose scores are capable enough to meet the specified qualifying marks are eligible.
UBTER Group D Class 4 Cut Off Marks 2019
The UBTER Cut Off Marks 2019 means the Uttarakhand Board of Technical Education authority will fix the minimum marks that need to be scored by the candidates to get qualified in the exam. Those qualified aspirants can move to the next level rounds. Officials will release the UBTER Group D Class 4 Cut Off Marks 2019 on the official website. The UBTER Cut Off Marks 2019 will be decided based on the
Number of the candidates appear for the exam,
Number of Vacancies available,
Previous year cut off marks and
Candidates category.
How to check the UBTER Group D Exam Result 2019?
Initially, applicants can visit the official website of Uttarakhand Board of Technical Education, ubter.in
On the home page, click on the UBTER Group D Exam Result 2019 link
Click on the Result and check your result
Then finally the UBTER Results 2019 will display on your screen.
Integral University Result 2019 – Integral University has announced M.Sc, Faculty Pharmacy Carryover examResults for Odd and Even Semester Exam Results. Students may find the results for all Post Graduate, Under Graduate, Regular, Supplementary, Distance Education and other Courses results available here. Students who have appeared for these examinations can check their Integral University Result from the official website of the University. Get the semester wise result details @ iul.ac.in. So, go through the below section and download your result according to your relevant examination. We are trying to give the updated information for the examinations for the sake of an applicant's career.
Integral University Result 2019
IUL Result of UG & PG Odd and Even Semester Exam has been released online at its official website. With the help of below-provided links, the Students can check Integral University Results easily according to course. Applicants can also download the Integral University Exam Result from the official website through the online process by taking some below provided steps. Integral University Result Download Link has been provided on the below page. Apart from the results, we used to update the latest information about Exam Time Table, Syllabus, Previous Paper, and others. Students who are pursuing the degree as that like distance education can check here to know about the Examination results. In spite of that students please do have a look into the College website @ iul.ac.in for any queries. Hence, Scroll down the entire page and get the Integral University Result 2019 here.
Latest Integral University Exam Result 2019 @iul.ac.in
Integral University is a state private university in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India, which originated as the Institute of Integral Technology, Lucknow. The Institute of Integral Technology, Lucknow was established in 1998. Integral University, the first enacted Minority University in the country. An engineering college was simultaneously established by the Islamic Council for Productive Education (ICPE) in 1997, which started functioning in 1998 with two courses; Computer Science Engineering, and Electronics Engineering. Later other courses like Architecture, Information Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Master of Computer Application were added.
Integral University Supply/Revaluation Results
Students are waiting for the IUL Results if they scored well they will lead to next year. But if they will not get more marks they can apply for the Revaluation Results. Once they applied for the Examination, the higher level Examiner will check the paper again. They can get the revaluation results within the time. Also if still get fail marks, they can apply for the supplementary examination. For each and every semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the announcement of the main examination results. The Integral University will take a week or more to process the exam papers to announce the Integral University Revaluation Results. Do stay updated with the University to know about the Revaluation Exam Results.
Vikram University Results 2019 – Candidates studying under Vikram University, Ujjain it time for you people to check down the examination result details. The University has released the examination results for the previously conducted semester examination. Students can get the complete set of Under Graduate, Post Graduate, and Dual Degree Courses Exam Results from this webpage. Below provided are the direct links to access the Vikram University Examination Results 2019-20 page.
Vikram University Results 2019-20 @vikramuniv.ac.in
Checking out for the Vikram University Semester Exam Results 2019-20 from the official site. The University has conducted the examination in January 2019 month. And here is the results for those exams. We people from Recruitment.Guru has updated this page with the recent Vikram Uni Result. We have also the Revaluation Exam Results updation on our webpage. Applicants can get a clear view of the University updates regarding results. We advise the candidates to stay updated on our webpage to get all the recent updates about the Vikram University.
Latest Vikram University Exam Results 2019-20
Examination Name
Results Link
Download Vikram University Result for all UG PG Programmes – Link 1 || Link 2
Re-Revised Notification [Supplementary examination of Annual Examination 2018-19]
Vikram University was established in the year 1957 by the then Home Minister of India "Govind Vallabh Pant". the university opted for a rigorous evaluation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of the University Grants Commission. The Apes Council of NAAC awarded the grade of A to the university. The interesting part is, The Vikram University school & administrative blocks are connected to the satellite. His excellency inaugurated the Ethernet connectivity network to make the University Global. The Governor of Madhya Pradesh acts as Chancellor of the university & S.S.Pandey is the Vice-Chancellor of the Vikram University.
Regular / Supplementary Results for Vikram University
Those students who have attended the regular examination under Vikram University and still failed. Here comes one more opportunity to clear the examination. To increase your scoring along with that students to fail in the previous examination will get a chance to clear through Revaluation Exams Vikram University Results. For each and every semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the announcement of the main examination results. Vikram University will take a week or more to process the exam papers to announce the Revaluation results. Do stay updated with the University to know about the Revaluation Exam Results.
BTSC Result 2019 to be released for Junior Engineer @ btsc.bih.nic.in. Check BTSE JE Result Update, Cutoff Marks, Merit List here. Bihar Technical Service Commission (BTSC) has conducted the Junior Engineer exam. The Bihar Board of BTSC is going to release the BTSC Junior Engineer Result in the month of November 2019 (Tentatively). So, all the Candidates who appeared for the examination can check and download the results, cut off Marks, Merit List from this page.
BTSC Result 2019 – Available Here
The Board of Bihar Technical Service Commission (BTSC) is planning to release the result in the month of November 2019 tentatively. A huge number of Candidates applied for the Kaniya Abhiyanta (Junior Engineer (Civil, Electrical, Mechanical)) posts. After completing the Bihar BTSC written exam, candidates are waiting for the BTSC Junior Engineer Result 2019. Here everyone can get the BTSE JE Result Update, and the result link will be activated at the time of the official announcement.
Applicants can have enough information about the BTSC Bihar Official website link, Cutoff Marks, Merit List here. BTSC Bihar board will be releasing the cut off marks based on some criteria. Applicants can get the direct link to check your BTSC JE 2019 Result.
BTSC JE Merit List 2019 – Civil, Electrical, Mechanical
Candidates in the shortlisted Merit List will be eligible for the interview process. Here you can check and download your merit list from this page. We will update the latest information on our web page. By using your name and roll number you can access the BTSC Merit List 2019. Candidates can check the BTSC Junior Engineer Merit list from the BTSC Bihar Official website btsc.bih.nic.in.
BTSC Junior Engineer Cut off Marks 2019
The Board of BTSC will release the Cut off after the announcement of the results. The BTSC officials have not yet released the Cut off Marks. Hence, the Candidates should Know about the importance of the BTSC Bihar JE Cut off marks. The Board has some criteria for fixing the Cut off Marks. They are as follows. And also, from the upcoming section have the stepwise procedure to download the BTSC JE Result 2019.
The number of vacancies available
Category of the candidate (General, OBC, SC, ST)
Number of aspirants attended the test
Analysis based on the previous year cut off marks
How to check the BTSC Junior Engineer Result 2019?
Initially, Applicants should visit the official website Bihar Technical Service Commission (BTSC) @ btsc.bih.nic.in
Then the home page of the BTSC will open on the screen.
Search for the Recruitments tab and click on the Results link.
A new page will open on the screen with various results.
Search for the Bihar BTSC JE Result pdf
Finally, Check and download the Result of BTSC JE.
I have never witnessed a Chief Justice of India speaking his mind in quite the way that Ranjan Gogoi did last week. The occasion was the book launch of my friend and fellow journalist Mrinal Talukdar. A CJI launching a book is itself a rarity, but Justice Gogoi's candour at the event was rarer.He minced no words in defending the Supreme Court ordered National Register of Citizens (NRC) process, lambasting "arm-chair commentators" and social media, and then went on to hold forth on values such as the acceptance of diverse cultures and inclusiveness. Is there a clue hidden here to the upcoming Ayodhya verdict, I wondered.On Saturday morning, when the much-anticipated verdict came, Gogoi wrote himself into the pages of history, bringing closure to a 134-year-old title dispute that has played a tumultuous role in Indian politics. He retires on November 17, when he will turn 65."Ranjan has his own mind. No one can influence him," says Surendra Nath Sarma, a senior advocate of the Gauhati High Court, who started his legal career at the bar along with Gogoi in the late 1970s. "He has taken the decision purely on merit. Also remember, it is a unanimous judgment of all five judges (of the bench that heard the case). We all know how independent-minded judges like (Sharad Arvind) Bobde and (DY) Chandrachud are."Gogoi used to come to the high court on a cycle-rickshaw, and Sharma, who had a Yezdi motorcycle then, used to occasionally give him a lift. Later, Gogoi bought a Vespa scooter and then a Maruti 800, Sharma recalls.In 2001, Gogoi became a permanent judge of the Gauhati High Court. He was elevated as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2011. The following year, he became a judge in the Supreme Court.An alumnus of Don Bosco School in Dibrugarh, Assam, and St Stephen's College, Delhi, Gogoi received his law degree from the University of Delhi before returning to his home state to practice law. When he was still a junior advocate, his father, Congress leader Kesab Chandra Gogoi, became the chief minister of Assam for a brief period in 1982.In the late 1980s, young Gogoi suffered from severe pancreatitis and was shifted to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences for treatment.One oft-told anecdote about Gogoi, according to two former colleagues of his, goes as follows: Abdul Muhib Mazumdar, who would become Assam's law minister, once asked the senior Gogoi when his son would join politics. The father retorted: "My son will never join politics. Maybe, one day, he will become the Chief Justice of India."Benudhar Das, a senior advocate of the Gauhati High Court and Gogoi's contemporary, says: "This is not a random anecdote. It has been documented in a recent publication."The remark proved prophetic. Gogoi was appointed CJI on October 18, 2018. As the Supreme Court judge and then its chief justice, he was involved with a number of important cases the most prominent being the National Register of Citizens process in Assam, meant to identify illegal immigrants.The most challenging moment in Gogoi's career came when a former Supreme Court staffer levelled sexual harassment allegations against him. She claimed the judge harassed her while she served as a member of his staff. An internal three-judge committee dismissed the allegations, finding they had 'no substance". He also courted controversy when he joined a group of three other judges last year to hold an unprecedented press conference protesting the court's functioning and allocation of cases under the then CJI Dipak Misra.Advocate Das, who says he had interacted with Gogoi closely during his early years in Guwahati, says the CJI is not only hardworking but highly meticulous. "He does not keep things pending," he adds.Sarma calls him a doer, a trait that has seen him take to the domain of the executive. His recent order transferring NRC coordinator and Indian Administrative Service officer Prateek Hajela from Assam to Madhya Pradesh is one such instance. This was perhaps done to protect Hajela from the machinations of local politicians opposed to the NRC list produced under his supervision.Such transfers are usually done by the Department of Personnel and Training, under the central government.The CJI's holding of a law-and-order review meeting with Uttar Pradesh chief secretary and police chief on Friday was also another unusual measure."If he decides to do something, he will do it," Sharma says, adding that Gogoi has an uncanny ability to call a spade a spade. "If he says 'yes' to something, it will be 'yes' for you, me and everybody. In politics, he would have been a misfit," Sarma adds.Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Chief Justice of IndiaDate of birth: November 18, 1954Educational qualification: BA in history from St Stephen's, Delhi; LLB from Delhi University.LEGAL CAREER1978: Joined bar in Gauhati High Court2001: Appointed as permanent judge in Gauhati High Court2010: Becomes judge in Punjab and Haryana High Court2011: Appointed Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court2012: Elevated as judge of Supreme Court of India2018: Appointed Chief Justice of India (CJI)
Is Delhi truly the epicentre of India's air quality crisis? Is the air in other cities in the central-north region just as bad? Are there southern cities with equally bad air quality? As smog descends on Indian cities, we try to see what the data really says.Indian cities among most pollutedWHO found that 13 of the 20 cities with the worst air quality in 2018 were in India (after averaging annual PM 2.5 absolute concentration across cities) 71986176 Bad air report from Delhi stationsBetween November 5, 2018, and November 5, 2019, 9 of 10 pollution watch stations that recorded the worst air quality were in Delhi. The first station outside the central-north belt to show up on the list was in Kolkata, at 48th spot, and the first southern station was in Chennai, at 73rd place. 71986186 It's all seasonal in DelhiThe seasonality of Delhi's bad air is significant. Wazirpur, which had the worst annualised air quality over November 2018-2019, had a clean air window from July to September. 71986229 South breathes easy Does the air quality index in other cities ever reach Delhi-like levels? In winter, Kolkata comes close. Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad are largely in the safe zone throughout the year. 71986240 Most cities face bad airMost cities score poorly on the air quality index (AQI). The only difference is that the number of hazardous days are lower when Wazirpur, Delhi compared with Delhi.PM2.5 (monthly average) No. of days between November 2018 & 2019 with poor AQI (station reading) 71986243
NEW DELHI: That the farmer has historically had one of the most unrewarding and thankless jobs in India is fairly common knowledge. Data sets after data sets show how Indian farmers have remained hopelessly caught between ineffective policy and equally ineffective implementation — through the Five-Year-Plans era, through successive governments, and through myriad policy recasts since Independence.The plight of the farmer has changed little even under GST, the new indirect tax regime that aims to revolutionise all kinds of businesses. Here is one piece of statistics that underlines how GST has so far dealt a raw deal to agriculture, the sector that accounts for half the country's total employment.Like in the pre-GST era, agriculture continues to be at the receiving end of hazy policies even now: In the new regime, farmers are the only businessmen who can't claim input tax credit — the mechanism that allows a manufacturer/producer to adjust tax liabilities on output (sales) against GST paid on inputs.A bitter harvestHere is an example that makes clear how input credit bypasses the farmer.As the sowing season approaches, a farmer goes to a shop to buy pesticides, fertilizers and other farm inputs. He comes back, uses all these inputs to produce the output. If things go well, he harvests his crop and sells it to make money.When the farmer is buying pesticides and fertilizers, he is buying everything in retail and paying a good amount of GST on his purchases. On pesticides, he is paying a GST rate as high as 18%.Similarly, the input manufacturer — the businessman the farmer is buying his inputs from — is also paying GST on the raw material he uses to produce his goods.But this is where the similarities end. The input manufacturer would go on to reduce his liabilities by way of input credit — s/he can set off the tax liability on sale proceeds against the GST paid on raw material. In stark contrast, the farmer has that door closed on him.Why can't the farmer claim input credit for the GST he paid while buying his inputs? The reason is simple: The farmer's produce — like all farm produces — attracts nil GST, which means GST won't come into the picture when he is selling his goods.It's as simple as this: When the GST rate is nil, the input credit that can be claimed would also be nil.It means the manufacturer of fertilizers and all other farm inputs can claim ITC, but the farmer cannot. That makes farmers the businessmen in India for whom the biggest bonus of the GST mechanism is out of bounds.Some analysts view this as something that amounts to travesty of policy. According to Bhagirath Choudhary, founder-director of South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC), "The inability of farmers to claim input credit tax paid on farm inputs violates the spirit and foundational principles of the GST system in India."Soldiers of the wastelandSmallholder farmers engaged in the production of cereals, pulses, edible oilseeds, fruits & vegetables, and other commodities pay about Rs 14,500 crore of GST annually on farm inputs, SABC has found.These farm commodities feed 135 crore Indians and also contribute significantly to the export of agriculture and processed food products. 71983459 "The smallholder farmers should, therefore, be provided a fair treatment in virtue of GST principles as they purchase farm inputs for raising crops, and do not consume them as final goods. Therefore, there must be a mechanism for availing input tax credit," says Choudhary."It is a profound tragedy that the hardworking farmers are unable to reap benefits from the claim of input credit tax on paid GST due to the nature of their business, exclusion of farm commodities from GST, and non-enrolment of farmers on GST," says Dr CD Mayee, former Chairman ASRB, Govt of India and President of South Asia Biotechnology Centre, New Delhi.The complexity of GST is also one reason, says Mayee. This complex nature means farmers organizations including farm bodies of different political parties are unable to get a grip on the system's nuances; they have not been able to help the farming community who is losing Rs 14,500 crore every year due to inability to claim input tax credit, he adds.Some put part of the blame on the general lack of knowledge of the Indian farmer. According to P Chengal Reddy, Chief Advisor, Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA), "99% of farmers are ignorant of governmental policies including GST or export bans or import policies."CIFA, the organisation he advises, has many leaders aware of crop-related issues but not many with comprehensive knowledge, Reddy says.Reddy reckons that sensitising farmers may be difficult but not impossible. Efforts are already being made towards that end, but one is not sure how long it might take, he adds.How not to bite the hand that feedsMany experts agree that the main issue is not the complexity of GST or the lack of awareness of the Indian farmer, rather it's GST rulebook itself that puts all agricultural products in the nil-tax slab. It means that when the farmer is making a sale, s/he has no option to claim credit, which, in case of any other businessman, would have offset the GST paid while purchasing the input materials.Is there a way out? SABC's Choudhary cites a specific exemption rule to suggest one: "This is in line with the GST principle that goods and/or products consumed as intermediaries are eligible for input tax credit. Hence, GST exemption on the farm inputs should be exempted in line with the exemption granted on seeds, animal & poultry feed - other two critical farm inputs."
New Delhi: Operations at the Kolkata airport, the busiest in eastern India, will be suspended for 12 hours beginning 6 PM on Saturday due to severe cyclone 'Bulbul', Home Ministry officials said.The severe cyclone is expected to make a landfall on the West Bengal coast this evening."Due to very severe cyclone 'Bulbul', operations at Kolkata airport is being suspend from 1800 hours on November 9 up to 0600 hours on November 10," a home ministry official said.Severe cyclone 'Bulbul' at 1430 hours Saturday lay about 90 km south-southeast of Digha, 85 km south of Sagar Islands and 185 km Southeast of Kolkata.Heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, accompanied by winds reaching up to 120 kmph and tidal waves up to one to two metre, is expected while the cyclone is expected to make a landfall on the West Bengal coast at around 2000 to 2200 hours on Saturday.The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), the country's apex body to handle any emergency, on Saturday reviewed the preparedness to deal with the very severe cyclone 'Bulbul' over the Bay of Bengal which is likely to affect coastal districts of West Bengal and Odisha.The meeting of the NCMC, headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, was informed by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) that the cyclone has now intensified and is likely to cross the West Bengal coast by Saturday evening.
By: Mary Williams Walsh and Emily Flitter McKinsey & Co., the elite consulting firm that advises many of the world's largest and most powerful institutions, is facing a federal criminal investigation of its conduct advising bankrupt companies, according to five people familiar with the matter.Prosecutors and other Justice Department officials in New York and Washington are trying to determine if McKinsey used its influence over insolvent companies in violation of the rules of Chapter 11 bankruptcy — where billions of dollars can change hands — by quietly steering valuable assets to itself or favoring its own clients over other creditors.Gary Pinkus, McKinsey's North America chairman, said the firm received an inquiry from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan last year and addressed it. "Since then, we have received no additional requests from the USAO," he said.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.In the past two weeks, investigators have conducted interviews about McKinsey's actions in the bankruptcies of at least two companies, Alpha Natural Resources, a coal producer, and SunEdison, an alternative energy company, said one of the people, who was questioned by FBI agents.The judges overseeing both those cases have already suggested that questions over McKinsey's conduct could best be resolved by the Justice Department — with either civil actions or criminal charges.In addition to the previously unreported criminal investigation, an investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, a division of the Justice Department that polices the conduct of companies in the bankruptcy system, is underway.The office, which can seek civil penalties and make referrals to prosecutors, has told judges in at least three other bankruptcy cases that it was examining McKinsey's practices. The firm said it had responded to questions from the U.S. trustee.Neither investigation will necessarily result in legal action against the firm or its executives. But a criminal case would represent a blow to McKinsey's reputation."Would it kill McKinsey? No, because McKinsey has far more lines of business than bankruptcy," said Bruce Markell, a professor of bankruptcy law at the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University.Markell said an investigation could hinder the firm's bankruptcy advisory practice — whose clients include PG&E, the California utility facing enormous liabilities over wildfire damages — but would most likely not affect other parts of the firm."I think McKinsey's still standing at the end of this," he said. "It may not be as tall. It may be a bit bowed, but I think they're still on the playing field."The criminal investigation represents a potent threat to a venerable company that has been dogged by mounting criticism that it has prioritized its own profits over clients, ethics and the law. McKinsey refunded millions of dollars in fees after South African authorities accused it of helping associates of the country's former president, Jacob Zuma, loot public coffers. The firm's name surfaced in a case federal prosecutors brought against a Ukrainian oligarch because it gave a presentation that cited the need to bribe officials in India. And court records recently revealed its role in helping opioid makers sell more drugs, although the firm was not a defendant in that case.But the activities of McKinsey's bankruptcy advising business have invited especially intense scrutiny. Such advisers have significant influence over the handling of bankrupt companies' assets and help determine which creditors receive the best returns on defaulted debt.Much of the criticism has come from Jay Alix, the founder of a competing firm who has attacked McKinsey in courts across the country. He formed an investment company, Mar-Bow Value Partners, to buy debt of bankrupt companies in order to bring complaints against the firm's restructuring division, McKinsey RTS.Alix has told judges he believes that McKinsey does not properly disclose its connections to other parties involved in the cases, breaking rules meant to ensure fair dealing. He has met with mixed results: Judges have voiced concerns about the issues he has raised, but some have dismissed his complaints because, they said, he lacked standing in the cases.McKinsey has denied wrongdoing."Over the past few years, Jay Alix has waged a relentless campaign based on false allegations to drive McKinsey out of the bankruptcy advisory space in order to advantage his firm AlixPartners," Pinkus said. He said courts have dismissed Alix's claims in four separate bankruptcy cases, including those of Alpha Natural Resources and SunEdison, as well as a complaint Alix brought last year under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.Pinkus said the inquiry McKinsey received from federal prosecutors in New York came shortly after Alix filed that complaint in May 2018. (That complaint was dismissed in August after the judge found Alix could not show he had been directly harmed.)While the prosecutors' specific interests in Alpha Natural Resources and SunEdison remain unclear, there are hints in the extensive public record of Alix's complaints.In the Alpha Natural Resources bankruptcy, McKinsey did not disclose that it owned some of the company's debt, an arrangement that ultimately gave McKinsey a stake in the restructured company, called Contura. Bankruptcy advisers are prohibited from holding direct or indirect stakes in the insolvent company.McKinsey owned the debt through MIO Partners, a $25 billion investment fund for current and former employees that is listed on its site as a subsidiary of the firm. Its board is populated largely by current and former McKinsey partners. McKinsey has argued it had no control over the investment decisions of MIO Partners and said the stake in Alpha Natural Resources was held through a third-party fund.Alix complained about the arrangement, and Judge Kevin Huennekens, of the bankruptcy court in Richmond, Virginia, ordered the case reopened after the Office of the U.S. Trustee determined that MIO Partners was not a "blind trust," as McKinsey had argued.Alix also accused McKinsey of steering some of the best assets from Alpha Natural Resources to its consulting clients, saying those business relationships were not clear at the time the reorganization plan was approved by the court.McKinsey has said its disclosures complied with the law and called Alix's claims "meritless" when he raised them. His challenge was dismissed in May after Huennekens said Alix lacked standing, and the judge said the matter would be best handled by the Justice Department.In the SunEdison bankruptcy, Alix accused McKinsey of manipulating invoices for prior work to improperly receive payment and avoid disclosing that it was a creditor — a status that could have disqualified McKinsey from working as the energy company's bankruptcy adviser. After Alix raised those issues, McKinsey called the allegations reckless and defamatory.Alix cited an audit by an outside firm hired by SunEdison's board. The audit indicated that McKinsey had called back millions of dollars in unpaid invoices after the energy company filed for bankruptcy in 2016. McKinsey revised and resubmitted the invoices, billing four of SunEdison's renewable energy units, which were profitable and not part of the bankruptcy."Acknowledge that this is not ideal," a McKinsey partner wrote in an email to a SunEdison executive, according to documents reviewed by the auditor, FTI Consulting. The partner added it would be necessary to "push through" opposition from the projects' managers. McKinsey was ultimately paid.After Alix complained about the payments, McKinsey agreed in December to pay some SunEdison creditors $17.5 million — more than the fees it had earned in the bankruptcy. The settlement document does not specify the creditors' complaints, but in court McKinsey lawyers said the agreement resolved the issues Alix had raised.Alix's challenge was dismissed in June by Judge Stuart Bernstein of the bankruptcy court in Manhattan, who also suggested the Justice Department was in the best position to examine the matter.McKinsey's bankruptcy disclosures were the subject of a separate settlement this year. In February, McKinsey reached a $15 million agreement with the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which the office said was one of the biggest it had reached over disclosure rules. The Justice Department reserved the right to "seek even more stringent remedies" if it received new information that McKinsey had committed fraud.McKinsey did not acknowledge wrongdoing under the agreement."We continue to respond, as we always have, to questions from the U.S. trustee, which indicated in court this week that it 'has been engaged in discussions with both Mar-Bow and McKinsey RTS,'" said DJ Carella, a McKinsey spokesman.The February settlement centered on Alpha Natural Resources, SunEdison and a third bankruptcy, Westmoreland Coal, that is also a subject of Alix's complaints.On Oct. 29, a bankruptcy judge in Houston overseeing Westmoreland Coal's restructuring granted Alix the right to demand documents from McKinsey and question its executives under oath.A lawyer for McKinsey, Faith Gay, told the court that the firm was eager to put forward witnesses who would testify that it was fully compliant with the law. She said Alix was trying to put McKinsey out of business and had "disparaged" the firm for competitive reasons.The bankruptcy judge, David Jones, scheduled a trial for February."This is about the integrity of the process," Jones said. The questions raised about McKinsey's conduct, he said, went "to the very heart of the bankruptcy process."
New Delhi: India Yamaha Motor (IYM) on Friday launched BS-VI compliant variants of FZ-FI and FZS-FI bikes, priced between Rs 99,200 and Rs 1.02 lakh (ex-showroom).The company will further announce the launch of other BS-VI compliant line-ups in coming time, IYM said in a statement.The new FZ-FI and FZS-FI BS VI versions come with various features like single channel ABS in the front wheel, front and rear disc brakes along with a single piece two level seat."As Yamaha reveals from its new product line-up, the BS-VI compliant FZ motorcycles will be available across Yamaha showrooms from November, 2019," Yamaha Motor India Chairman Motofumi Shitara said.
By DK AggarwalThere are numerous factors that influence price movement of stocks, such as global cues, market sentiments, political developments and so on. But the most critical factor that really influences market sentiment is quarterly earnings. Earnings reports are released four times a year and are followed very closely by market participants. Growing earnings are a good indication that a company is on the right path to providing solid returns to investors and vice versa. Also, companies tend to pass on part of their profit to shareholders in the form of a dividend during earnings announcements.The numbers in a company's financial statement reflect the health of the business and its products, services and macro-fundamental events.Thus, a balance sheet is a snapshot at a single point in time of the company, such as assets, liabilities and shareholders' equity. The earnings season is typically a time of increased volatility in stock prices, which can mean additional risk and also opportunity for investors.Earnings drive stock prices. The release of the earnings guidance is closely watched by investors, as companies use it as a key mechanism to communicate forward-looking information to investors. Actually, when company's quarterly financial statements are released, they offer an insight into how the company performs and what its prospects may look like over the near term.So, investors should maintain a close watch on a company's quarterly report to help estimate future earnings. Quarterly earnings report can serve as a bellwether for similar companies that still have not reported their numbers. Most importantly, management decisions regarding investments, R&D, brand development and such expenditure, which can generate revenue in future also tells about clear prospect of the company to investors.Other than net profit, there are a few more terms such as gross sales, net sales, debt structure, expenditure, operating income and earnings per share (EPS) that can help investors get a better understanding of where the company stands and to play the earnings theme. In addition, investors can have a close look at the company's short-term and long-term goals.The earnings season is a binary event for the market and, therefore, a stock can move either way based on the outcome of the earnings report. One cannot conclude much by looking at the numbers in quarterly financial statements alone. It is essential to compare the numbers with prior periods to gauge the direction in which the company is moving. Investors should always compare the numbers from the same quarter a year before or a quarter before to make any decision regarding holding or liquidating their stock positions.A long-term investor need not have to bother much about the short-term volatility and should abstain from getting lured into making a quick profit on earnings. They should check other factors such as policies of the company and other fundamentals before investing. 71980810 Chairman and MD, SMC Investments and Advisors
The dominance of private sector banks or the large public sector banks is definitely a very strong competitive advantage which is not going to be displaced any time soon given the issues NBFCs are facing, says Kashyap Pujara, Head of Research at Axis Capital in an interaction with ET NOW. Edited excerpts:ET Now: What is the way forward for equities this year given the slowdown in the economy, global weakness and the overall sentiment not looking that great?Kashyap Pujara: Markets are close to 17-18 times one year forward earnings which is slightly above mean, as far as valuations are concerned. The current demand slowdown is still well entrenched and in the interim, economy is going to take a U-shape form of recovery; we are not going to quickly recover in the next quarter or so. The U-shape recovery will be on the back that the fiscal firepower by the government has been spent in the form of a corporate tax rate cut which will not give us an immediate demand boost. But with corporates actually saving on those tax rates, the investments will scale up and potentially over a one to two-year horizon the GDP growth will be higher. Progressively, GDP print will be better quarter by quarter and in Q4 GDP will be far higher than where we are now and likewise for the year ahead.I think markets, which are to an extent buoyant at the current point, are sensing that there is going to be a recovery up ahead and people are taking cognisance of that and making investments based on viewpoint of one to three years.ET Now: Private versus public banks -- what trends are you observing? What do you expect in terms of market share changes over the next year?Kashyap Pujara: In the banking space, the key trend that would play out is dominance. The dominance of private sector banks or the large public sector banks is definitely a very strong competitive advantage which is not going to be displaced any time soon given the issues NBFCs are facing.A large amount of public sector banks would require capital, they will be getting into provisioning mode or to that extent integration mode, and thus, there will be a natural market share shift from the public to the private banks.The large banks in the private space and the largest PSU bank in the country will only get bigger over time and size advantage will just get magnified.One other key trend that we are seeing apart from dominance of these large names is also convergence. Historically, we have seen banks having retail-oriented side separate from the corporate lending oriented side, but what we are now seeing increasingly is that the large corporate lenders' business models are becoming very similar to the large retail-led lenders' and this convergence will only magnify.In fact, if one were to look at the incremental lending by banks, most of them have a converged business model already. It is just a question of time before the valuations converge. You might have large retail oriented lending banks having a much higher valuation premium and that valuation premium will likely shrink over time and some of the large corporate lenders will converge.ET Now: What are some of the factors that make midcap look more attractive in the current market scenario?Kashyap Pujara: What we are seeing as a trend is that not only have midcap valuations have become extremely supportive but also we have seen participation of institutions on midcaps go down by 600 bps. It is going to be a U-shaped recovery for the midcaps. They tend to do well when GDP growth surprises and we will see GDP recovery going forward. As the recovery gets a bit broad-based, we will definitely see midcaps outperforming the largecaps over the next two to three years.As far as the segments of the market are concerned, sectorally we prefer banks especially the prominent names given the dominance that is playing out there. In other segments, it is interesting to see companies in the pharma space at the current point in time because you are seeing a situation where many good companies, good businesses are basically are going through a bad patch and over a three to four-year period there is an opportunity to be made there.As the economy recovers we will see opportunities in engineering, cap goods, infrastructure also playing out because the entire market is polarised towards B2C consumer driven names with free cash flowbut the valuation premiums in that space are at a point where I cannot make a case of a high IRR if one invests into some of those names. It would make sense to look at cap goods, engineering, select utilities, pharma spaces.ET Now: What are your thoughts on the corporate tax cut led rally?Kashyap Pujara: If you look at the current quarterly results, the way they have panned out is very much in front of us and in many cases we have seen top line to be lower than expectations but margin tailwinds have still played out and obviously the corporate tax rate benefit has come in as a welcome surprise. And that is permanent in nature. It is driving operating cash flows and free cash flows and the missing element of the last cycle which is price-led growth. High inflation in my view can get compensated with this tax cut which can actually be a replacement to the price-led growth.This is definitely a very strong tailwind because markets are actually slave to earnings and return on equity. This corporate tax rate cut to a large extent has boosted both, the outlook on corporate profitability and the outlook on return on equity. The market rally that we saw in the recent past post the corporate tax rate cut is not unfounded and is a well called for rally.
Ayodhya verdict and what went in favour of Hindus – Explained "The faith of the Hindus that Lord Ram was born at the demolished structure is undisputed," it said, holding that the Allahabad High Court in 2010 was "wrong in dividing the disputed site into three parts".
We talk a lot about startup ecosystems around these parts, and for good reason. Strong ecosystems have great reservoirs of talent congregated close together, a culture built around helping one another on ambitious projects, and sufficient risk capital to ensure that interesting projects have the resources to get underway.
Strip off the ecosystem layer though, and you are left with the actual, physical manifestation of a city or region — its housing, its transportation and mobility options, and its infrastructure. And if Charles Marohn's Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity is any indication, a whole heck of a swath of America has little hope of ever tapping into the modern knowledge economy or creating the kind of sustainable growth that builds "Strong Towns."
Across the country, Marohn sees evidence of what he dubs a "Municipal Ponzi scheme." Cities — armed with economic development dollars and consultants galore — focus their energies and budgets on new housing subdivisions as well as far-flung, auto-dependent office parks and strip malls, all the while ignoring the long-term debt, maintenance costs, and municipal burdens they are transferring to future generations of residents. "The growth creates an illusion of wealth, a broad, cultural misperception that the growing community is become [sic] stronger and more prosperous. Instead, with each new development, they become increasingly more insolvent," the author writes.
He provides a multitude of examples, but few are as striking as that of Lafayette, Louisiana:
As one example, the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, had 5 feet of pipe per person in 1949. By 2015, that had grown to 50 feet, an increase of 1,000%. They had 2.4 fire hydrants per 1,000 people in 1949, but by 2015, they had 51.3. This is a 2,140% increase. Over the same period, median household income in Lafayette grew just 160% from an inflation-adjusted $27,700 to $45,000. And if national trends hold locally in Lafayette, which they almost certainly do, household savings decreased while personal debt skyrocketed. Lafayette grew its liabilities thousands of times over in service of a theory of national growth, yet its families are poorer.
The author contextualizes just how weird the modern American suburb and community is in the grand sweep of human history, where co-location, walkability, and human-scale density weren't just norms, but necessities. The lack of thoughtful, dynamic planning that allows cities to adapt and evolve over time eventually comes to tear at the vitality of the town itself. "Only the richest country in the world could build so much and make such poor use of it."
Marohn has spent decades in urban planning and also runs Strong Towns, a non-profit advocacy organization that tries to create more sustainable cities by attempting to guide the urban planning conversation toward better models of adaptable growth. He brings an authority to the topic that is heartening, and the book is absolutely on the right vector on how to start to think about urban planning going forward.
In addition to his discussions around municipal finance, he makes the critical connections between urban planning and some of the most pressing challenges facing America today. He notes how the disintegration of tight-knit communities has exacerbated issues like drug abuse and mental health, and how the focus on big-box retail development has undermined smaller-scale entrepreneurship.
Even more heartening in some ways is that the solutions are seemingly so easy. For example, one is to simply account for the true, long-term costs of infrastructure and economic development dollars, properly accounting for "value per acre."
Yet, the flaws in the book are manifold, and I couldn't help but shake my head on numerous occasions at the extent to which movements to improve urban planning always seem to shudder on the weight of reality.
Nowhere are those flaws more glaring than over the actual preferences of the residents of these cities themselves. As anyone who lives in San Francisco or Palo Alto understands, there is a serious contingent of NIMBYs who consistently vote against housing and density regardless of its effects on inequality or urban quality. Kim-Mai Cutler wrote one of the definitive pieces on this topic five years ago right here at TechCrunch, and yet, all these years later, the same dynamics still animates local politics in California and across the world.
The prescriptions offered in Strong Towns are not only correct, they are almost incontestable. "Instead of prioritizing maintenance based on condition or age, cities must prioritize based on financial productivity," Marohn writes. Public dollars should be spent on the highest-impact maintenance projects. Who is really against that?
But, people are, as evidenced by city council meetings all across the United States and the simple ground truth that cities don't spend their dollars wisely. Whether your issue is housing, or climate change, or economic development, or inequality, the reality is that residents vote, and their voices are heard. That leads to Marohn writing:
As a voter, as a property owner within a municipal corporation, as a person living cooperatively with my neighbors in a community, I can respect that some people prefer development styles that are financially ruinous to my city. My local government should not feel any obligation to provide those options, particularly at the price points people expect.
Yet, what should one do if 70-80% of a city's voters literally want to jump off the proverbial cliff?
Ultimately, should cities be responsive to their own voters? If San Francisco refuses to build more transit-oriented development and in the process exacerbates the climate change literally setting the Bay Area on fire, shouldn't the damn voters burn straight to the ground?
Peak California liberalism is painting a mural honoring a 16 year-old climate activist within a year of her rise to prominence while spending the last 20 years refusing to build the dense multifamily housing we need to actually reduce our impact on the environment. https://t.co/9w56sbtNRy
Marohn, who talks over several pages of his political evolution from Republican to complex libertarian communalist, never faithfully addresses this core problem with the Strong Towns thesis, or indeed, the entire activism around urban politics today. "American culture spends a lot of time debating what should be done, but hardly any time discussing who should make the decision," he writes. But we do — we did — discuss who makes the decisions, and our political systems actively respond to those decision-makers: local voters.
American towns are in a perilous state – and that is precisely what people demanded and received. Marohn criticizes the planning profession for its lack of municipal sustainability, but seemingly is willing to substitute one group of far-flung experts with another to override the locals, presumably just with a different (better?) set of values.
In the final analysis, Strong Towns the book gets the fundamentals right. But will it change minds? I'm doubtful. It certainly doesn't offer a clear guidebook on how local leaders can start to educate their neighbors and build the kinds of voter blocs required to get local, democratic change on these issues. Ultimately, the book feels like a smaller footnote to the worthy work of Strong Towns the organization, which ultimately will drive the activity needed to build change on these issues.
Hey everyone. Thank you for welcoming me into you inbox yet again.
I got some awesome responses to the #DeleteLinkedIn newsletter last week, a few dozen emails (some of them angry) and plenty of tweets. Looking forward to chatting with some of you soon. On that note, I'm currently in China for a TechCrunch event that we're having in Shenzhen and will be taking some time offline to travel a bit so I won't be arriving in your inboxes the next two weeks. Week in Review will be back in your inboxes the weekend after Thanksgiving so you'll have to savor this newsletter until then.
If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox here, and follow my tweets here.
The big story
If there’s been a collective theme to some of the tech backlash of the past couple years, it’s been an evolving vision towards platform responsibility.
Social media platforms have earned the lion’s share of this discussion to date. This has largely been due to the political landscape and gripes with both liberals and conservatives for how the site handles content policing. The prevailing libertarian view that tech platforms weren’t responsible for what was enabled by their platforms has fallen out of vogue.
What continues to surprise me is how little accountability or expectations there still seems to be for marketplace platforms. Speech is a crucial part of the internet, but so is buying and selling and it shocks me how big some startups have been able to get without delivering some basic buyer protections.
Through some great investigations from the Wall Street Journal, we’ve seen how fast and loose Amazon has been playing with third-party sellers getting free reign on the site. There have been countless stories of scammers infiltrating sites like Airbnb and eBay and operating in grey areas that allow them to rip off buyers. Last week, a reporter at Vice delivered a scathing deep dive into a scam she fell victim to on Airbnb’s platform.
This week, Airbnb announced that by next year they are pledging to verify all of their listings, something that seems more than a little overdue. Standing behind the properties being booked on their platform was seemingly the last box to check before driving to the IPO hoop.
Airbnb properties will soon be verified for accuracy of photos, addresses, listing details, cleanliness, safety and basic home amenities, according to a company-wide email sent by Airbnb co-founder and chief executive officer Brian Chesky on Wednesday.
Airbnb is just another highly valued startup that has been trying to take the past of least resistance to outsized future value. Verifying properties is a difficult issue to brace. Sellers are certainly not the only scammers on Airbnb, and buyers abusing this new system is a guarantee. But keeping both sides in some sort of satisfaction equilibrium is Airbnb’s messy, god-given task.
Airbnb has garnered more grumblings than most due to bad customer experiences, but it’s just a harbinger of what comes next. 2020 being a presidential election year in the U.S. means that the public might still be too busy with lambasting Zuckerberg to give marketplaces their due watchful eye in the near term, but the bell is tolling for these marketplaces and it’d be wise for them to pay attention to the writing on the wall.
Send me feedback on Twitter @lucasmtny or email lucas@techcrunch.com
On to the rest of the week's news.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Trends of the week
Here are a few big news items from big companies, with green links to all the sweet, sweet added context:
Twitter’s Saudi Arabian infiltration One of the wilder stories this week was how Saudi Arabia reportedly lifted sensitive contact info from Twitter via employees at the company that they paid off. There’s a lot in this saga and while Twitter seems to have done most things right, it is a pretty nightmarish scenario.
T-Mobile and Sprint get hitched The telecom marriage of two of the United States top four carriers cleared its last major hurdle as the FCC gave the deal its blessing. There’s still some residual legal hurdles for the two to wrap up in good faith, but this deal is done.
Adobe makes good on a promise The promises of tablet computing have always been a little ambitious in terms of timing, but Photoshop is finally arriving on the iPad and with that, one decade-long wish list item has been realized.
GAFA Gaffes
How did the top tech companies screw up this week? This clearly needs its own section, in order of badness:
It’s hard to believe it’s already that time of the year again, but we just announced the agenda for Disrupt Berlin and we’ve got some all-stars making their way to the stage. I’ll be there this year, get some tickets and come say hey!
Two security researchers have been crowned the top hackers in this year’s Pwn2Own hacking contest after developing and testing several high profile exploits, including an attack against an Amazon Echo.
Amat Cama and Richard Zhu, who make up Team Fluoroacetate, scored $60,000 in bug bounties for their integer overflow exploit against the latest Amazon Echo Show 5, an Alexa-powered smart display.
The researchers found that the device uses an older version of Chromium, Google’s open-source browser projects, which had been forked some time during its development. The bug allowed them to take “full control” of the device if connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot, said Brian Gorenc, director of Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, which put on the Pwn2Own contest.
The researchers tested their exploits in a radio-frequency shielding enclosure to prevent any outside interference.
“This patch gap was a common factor in many of the IoT devices compromised during the contest,” Gorenc told TechCrunch.
Amat Cama (left) and Richard Zhu (right), who make up Team Fluoroacetate. (Image: ZDI)
An integer overflow bug happens when a mathematical operation tries to create a number but has no space for it in its memory, causing the number to overflow outside of its allotted memory. That can have security implications for the device.
When reached, Amazon said it was “investigating this research and will be taking appropriate steps to protect our devices based on our investigation,” but did not say what measures it would take to fix the vulnerabilities — or when.
The Echo wasn’t the only internet-connected device at the show. Earlier this year the contest said hackers would have an opportunity to hack into a Facebook Portal, the social media giant’s video calling-enabled smart display. The hackers, however, could not exploit the Portal.
We weren't sure what to expect from the launch of Apple's new subscription streaming service. There were reports that the company was committed to staying family friendly, rather than exploring the adult content and creative liberties that both premium cable and streaming can offer. Plus, most of the trailers were pretty underwhelming.
For our 100th (!) episode, your regular Original Content podcast hosts are joined by TechCrunch writer Sarah Perez to discuss all the Apple TV+ shows we've sampled so far — "For All Mankind," "See," "Dickinson" and even "Snoopy in Space." And we were pleasantly surprised by what we found.
Just a few episodes in, "For All Mankind" (an alternate history in which the Soviet Union won the race to the moon) and "See" (set in a world where everyone has lost the sense of sight) have turned some of us into fans. And even "Dickinson" — which has the seemingly impossible task of telling Emily Dickinson’s story using modern slang— turns out to be a strange and watchable experiment.
We save our most extensive discussion for the most high-profile title of the bunch: "The Morning Show," which stars Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy, longtime host of an AM news show also called "The Morning Show,” and Reese Witherspoon as local news anchor Bradley Jackson, whose confrontation at a coal mine protest ends up going viral right as Alex's show implodes, thanks to sexual misconduct allegations against her longtime co-host Matt Kessler (played Steve Carell).
Obviously, the show has star power, and the leads are supported by talented and familiar faces like Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
The performances are all strong, with Aniston and Witherspoon carrying the show: Aniston convincingly portrays a woman who's both devastated by the revelations of her on-screen partner's behavior and desperate to seize the opportunity that these revelations create. Witherspoon, meanwhile, adds complex shading to perhaps her trademark role as a spunky, ambitious upstart.
The writing, on the other hand, is a bit uneven. There's an unfortunate tendency towards speechifying about big themes like The Role of Journalism in America — at times, it feels almost Sorkin-esque, but without the eloquence or snappiness of Aaron Sorkin's best dialogue.
So far, though, the speeches have been balanced out by strong characterization and some satisfyingly dramatic twists.
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
And if you want to skip ahead, here's how the episode breaks down: 0:00 Intro 0:30 Apple TV+ roundup 27:02 "The Morning Show" review (spoiler-free)
MIT’s Biomimetics Robotics department took a whole herd of its new ‘mini cheetah’ robots out for a group demonstration on campus recently – and the result is an adorable, impressive display of the current state of robotic technology in action.
The school’s students are seen coordinating the actions of 9 of the dog-sized robots running through a range of activities, including coordinated movements, doing flips, springing in slow motion from under piles of fall leaves, and even playing soccer.
The mini cheetah weights just 20 lbs, and its design was revealed for the first time earlier this year by a team of robot developers working at MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The mini cheetah is a shrunk-down version of the Cheetah 3, a much larger and more expensive to produce robot that is far less light on its feet, and not quite so customizable.
The mini cheetah was designed for Lego-like assembly using off-the-shelf part, as well as durability and relative low cost. It can walk both right-side up, and upside down, and its most impressive ability just might be the way it can manage a full backflip from a stand-still. It can also run at a speed of up to 5 miles per hour.
Researchers working on the robot set out to build a team of them after demonstrating that first version back in May, and are now working with other teams at MIT to loan them out for additional research.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support, and the money that flows through it all. What are the developers talking about? What Do app publishers and marketers need to know? How is international politics playing out in the App Store? What apps is everyone using?
As November kicks off, we’re looking at a number of big apps launches from Microsoft and Adobe — as well as what went wrong. We’re also looking at the iOS bug-squashing release, a bunch of data about app install trends around the world, Google Play’s new loyalty program and what it means for developers, the continued scrutiny of Chinese apps by the U.S. government, and more.
Fast Facts
eMarketer remindS us that it recently put out a big report on app installs with a ton of insights. It’s actually been live for a few months, but ICYMI, here are some of the key data points and highlights:
The average iPhone user in the U.S. downloaded 47 apps in 2018, up from 44 in 2017.
The average number of apps installed is rising — up 15% from 2016. In the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Australia, users had more than 100 apps downloaded in 2018.
Smartphone users spend the most time using their top 5 apps. In 2017, the top 5 accounted for 87% of usage. Now (Apr. 2019) it’s 83%. The No. 1 app had a 49% share of the time spent, now it’s 44%.
The number of smartphone users in the U.S. will grow just 3% in 2019, compared with 13.2% in India and 12.1% in Indonesia.
Related, app downloads grew 165% in India from 2016 to 2018. In China, 70%. In Indonesia, 55%. And in Brazil, 25%. The U.S. app downloads grew just 5%.
In June 2019, the App Store had 1.8 million apps compared with Google Play’s 3.1 million.
43% of iOS app install referrals came from Facebook properties, and only 6.6% came from Google properties.
Apple Search Ads drove 12% of non-organic installs in May 2019.
In-app video ads outperform display ads. Install-to-register rates for video were 35.1% in Q1 2019 on the Liftoff network, compared with 28.5% for display ads.
App engagement drop-off rates after day one are the biggest in shopping apps. (25% engagement after the first day, but 8% at 30 days). Travel also sees a big drop-off. (20% after the first day and 6% after 30 days).
Google admits it can’t secure the Play Store on its own:Google this week announced partnerships with security firms ESET, Lookout, and Zimperium to form what it has branded the “App Defense Alliance.” The goal, the company says, is to unite the security industry to fight malicious apps across Android’s ecosystem of 2.5 billion devices. Basically, Google will integrate its own detection systems with each partner’s scanning engine to help it uncover potential risks and threats. However, the fact that Google is now essentially outsourcing security to a partner ecosystem is an admission of failure, to some extent, about its abilities to keep the Play Store free from bad actors on its own. (Butofcourse, weallknewthatalready, right?)
Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week's noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today's topic, let's catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about Uber’s new “money” team. Before that, I told you about how SoftBank is screwing up.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don't subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here.
Brian Chesky, chief executive officer and co-founder of Airbnb Inc. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Airbnb’s growing up
Following the death of five people at a Halloween party hosted at a California Airbnb rental, and a scathing Vice report outlining Airbnb's failure to prevent nation-wide scams, the company says it will begin verifying all seven million of its listings.
Airbnb properties will soon be verified for accuracy of photos, addresses, listing details, cleanliness, safety and basic home amenities, according to a company-wide email sent by Airbnb co-founder and chief executive officer Brian Chesky on Wednesday. All rentals that meet the company's new standards will be "clearly labeled" by December 15, 2020, he notes. Beginning next month, Airbnb will rebook or refund guests who check into rentals that do not meet the new accuracy standards.
These changes, outlined fully here, come as Airbnb preps for an IPO or a direct listing slated for 2020. The company was in need of some serious additions to its barely-there security measures and it also needed to make a grand gesture (or two) to Wall Street following multiple PR disasters over the last two weeks. Airbnb’s response to the recently-highlighted problems will help determine how it fares on the public market and given its quick and seemingly comprehensive response, money managers may be pleased.
TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2017 in Berlin on 5 December 2017. ImageXDante for TechCrunch
Meet me in Berlin
The TechCrunch team is heading to Berlin again this year for our annual event, TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, which brings together entrepreneurs and investors from across the globe. We announced the agenda this week, with leading founders including Away’s Jen Rubio and UiPath’s Daniel Dines. Take a look at the full agenda.
More women in India die from cervical cancer than in any other country. This preventable disease kills around 67,000 women in India every year, more than 25% of the 260,000 deaths worldwide.
Effective screening and early detection can help reduce its incidence, but part of the challenge — and there are several parts — today is that the testing process to detect the onset of the disease is unbearably time-consuming.
This is because the existing methodology that cytopathologists use is time consuming to begin with, but also because there are very few of them in the nation. Could AI speed this up?
At SRL Diagnostics, the largest chain to offer diagnostic services in pathology and radiology in India, we are getting an early look of this. Last year, Microsoft partnered with SRL Diagnostics to co-create an AI Network for Pathology to ease the burden of cytopathologists and histopathologists.
SRL Diagnostics receives more than 100,000 Pap smear samples every year. About 98% of these samples are typically normal and only the remaining 2% samples require intervention. "We were looking for ways to ensure our cytopathologists were able to find those 2% abnormal samples faster," explained Dr. Arnab Roy, Technical Lead for New Initiatives & Knowledge Management at SRL Diagnostics.
Cytopathologists at SRL Diagnostics studied digitally scanned versions of Whole Slide Imaging (WSI) slides, each comprising about 300-400 cells, manually and marked their observations, which were used as training data for Cervical Cancer Image Detection API.
A digitally scanned version of a Whole Slide Imaging (WSI) slide, which is used to train the AI model
Then there was the challenge of subjectivity. "Different cytopathologists examine different elements in a smear slide in a unique manner even if the overall diagnosis is the same. This is the subjectivity element in the whole process, which many a time is linked to the experience of the expert," reveals Dr. Roy.
Manish Gupta, Principal Applied Researcher at Microsoft Azure Global Engineering, who worked closely with the team at SRL Diagnostics, said the idea was to create an AI algorithm that could identify areas that everybody was looking at and "create a consensus on the areas assessed."
Cytopathologists across multiple labs and locations annotated thousands of tile images of cervical smear. They created discordant and concordant notes on each sample image.
"The images for which annotations were found to be discordant — that is if they were viewed differently by three team members — were sent to senior cytopathologists for final analysis," Microsoft wrote in a blog post.
This week, the two revealed that their collaboration has started to show results. SRL Diagnostics has started an internal preview to use Cervical Cancer Image Detection API. The Cervical Cancer Image Detection API, which runs on Microsoft's Azure, can quickly screen liquid-based cytology slide images for detection of cervical cancer in the early stages and return insights to pathologists in labs, the two said.
The AI model can now differentiate between normal and abnormal smear slides with accuracy and is currently under validation in labs for a period of three to six months. It can also classify smear slides based on the seven-subtypes of cervical cytopathological scale, the two wrote in a blog post.
During the internal preview period, the exercise will use more than half-a-million anonymized digital tile images. Following internal validation, the API will be previewed in external cervical cancer diagnostic workflows, including hospitals and other diagnostic centers.
"Cytopathologists now have to review fewer areas, 20 as of now, on a whole slide liquid-based cytology image and validate the positive cases thus bringing in greater efficiency and speeding up the initial screening process," Microsoft wrote.
"The API has the potential of increasing the productivity of a cytopathology section by about four times. In a future scenario of automated slide preparation with assistance from AI, cytopathologists can do a job in two hours what would earlier take about eight hours!" Dr. Roy said.
SRL Diagnostics-Microsoft consortium said they are hopeful their APIs could find application in other fields of pathology such as diagnosis of kidney pathologies and in oral, pancreatic and liver cancers. The consortium also aims to expand its reach with tie-ups with private players and governments and expand the reach of the model even in remote geographies where the availability of histopathologists is a challenge.
The announcement this week is the latest example of Microsoft's ongoing research work in India. The world's second most populous nation has become a test bed for many American technology companies to build new products and services that solve local challenges as they look for their next billion users worldwide.
Also last year, the company also worked with cricket legend Anil Kumble to develop a tracking device that helps youngsters analyze their batting performance. Microsoft has also tied up with insurance firm ICICI Lombard to help it process customers' repair claims and renew lapsed policies using an AI system.
The Roku remote is coming to your wrist. The company announced today the launch of an Apple Watch app that lets you control your Roku device, including Roku media players and select Roku TVs, with a tap — just like the Roku mobile app, but sized for your wrist.
Considered the limited screen real estate, the app is fairly robust in terms of its feature set.
In addition to the expected media controls — like the ability to play and pause what you’re watching –, the app also offers a home button, the select button (“OK”), a back button and directional arrows. And it includes a way to launch your favorite channels, which are organized in order of the most recently launched to make them easier to access. That way, if you always watch Netflix, you don’t have to scroll down to find it.
In addition, the tiny remote app includes voice search functionality. To activate, you just tap the voice icon, then say things like “Launch Hulu” or “search for comedies,” or even change sources, like “switch to HDMI 1” for your Roku TV, the company explains. This will work on Apple Watch versions 1 through 5.
And if you have a Roku Ultra or a Roku TV with the Remote Finder functionality which uses an audible chime to locate a lost remote control in the couch cushions, you can also use the Roku Apple Watch app to signal your Roku remote to start making a noise.
All these features will be familiar to anyone who has already used the Roku remote for smartphones, as the Apple Watch app is just a miniaturized version. The only thing it’s missing is the ability to stream The Roku Channels’ free movies, but obviously that’s not a feature you’ll want on your wristwatch. (I mean…right?)
To get the Roku Apple Watch app, you’ll need to download or update your Roku iOS app to the latest version (6.1.3), and the app will appear on your Watch as long as you haven’t disabled “Automatic App Install” in the Watch’s Settings.
36Kr, a Chinese news and data website that tracks startups, fell 10% in its Nasdaq debut on Friday.
The disappointing debut followed 36Kr’s decision to slash the size of its offering from 3.6 million shares to 1.4 million and pricing its shares at $14.5, the bottom of marketed range. This meant that the firm, which had initially aimed to raise as much as $100 million, settled for $20 million. A company top executive said that even as the offering is smaller, it has great confidence in its stock’s future performance.
The nine-year-old Chinese company’s decision to list in the U.S., instead of doing so in Hong Kong especially during the ongoing trade war between the two nations also surprised many.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance on Friday, 36Kr founder and co-chairman Cheng-Cheng Liu said the company decided to go public on Nasdaq because “our team thinks the U.S. stock market is one of the most matured markets in the world. Also, we have business outside of China.” In China itself, however, the company has yet to secure license to operate as an internet news service.
In its prospectus, the company wrote, “lack of Internet news information license may expose us to administrative sanctions, which would materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.”
36Kr provides financials on companies, market updates, and commentaries. It maintains an English website as well and makes money through ads and multiple subscription offerings. The company could look to expand its business in North America in the future, said Liu. He also said that the company is betting that “the U.S. and China will be friends again.”
Liu said the recent instances such disappointing debut of Uber and tremendous fall of We, which postponed its public debut, should not affect 36Kr’s performance because unlike other companies 36Kr is “not cash burning” and has been profitable. In the first half of 2019, 36Kr generated a revenue of $29.4 million, a 179% year-over-year increase.
The company, often called “Crunchbase* of China,” counts Ant Financial, Matrix Partners China, e.ventures, and Infinity Ventures among its investors and has raised over $100 million in venture fund. Crunchbase, which late last month raised $30 million, started as part of TechCrunch and has since spun out. Also worth noting, 36Kr began as “TC Chinese” (link in Chinese) even though it had no affiliation with TechCrunch and plagiarized a number of TechCrunch articles (link in Chinese).
“We will make decisions that hurt the business if they help people’s well-being and health” says Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri. To that end, next week Instagram will expand its test of hiding Like counts from everyone but a post’s creator to some users in the United States. But there are major questions about whether the change will hurt influencers.
Mosseri revealed the plan at the Wired25 conference today, saying Instagram “We have to see how it affects how people feel about the platform, how it affects how they use the platform, how it affects the creator ecosystem.”
Instagram’s CEO explained that “The idea is to try to depressurize Instagram, make it less of a competition, and give people more space to focus on connect ing with the people they love and things that inspire them.” The intention is to “reduce anxiety” and “reduce social comparison”.
Elsewhere during the talk that also featured actor and CEO Tracie Ellis Ross, Mosseri discussed Instagram’s growing interest in shopping, and how it can provide new revenue streams to influencers. He also described Instagram’s three-pronged approach to well-being where it identifies and addresses acute problems such as hate speech, finds positions where it can lead as with fighting bullying, and rethinks fundamentals of how the platform works as with Like count hiding.
Instagram began testing this in April in Canada and expanded it to Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand in July. Facebook started a similar experiment in Australia in September.
While it seems likely that making Instagram less of a popularity contest might aid the average user, Instagram has to be mindful that it doesn’t significantly decrease creators’ or influencers’ engagement and business success. These content makers are vital to Instagram’s success, since they keep their fan bases coming back day after day, even If users’ friends are growing stale.
A new study by HypeAuditor reported by Social Media Today found that influencers across tiers of follower counts almost unanimously saw their Like counts fall in countries where the hidden Like count test was active. Likes fell 3% to 15% in all the countries for influencers with 5,000 to 20,000 followers.
Only in Japan, and only for influencers with 1,000 to 5,000 or 100,000 to 1 million followers did the change lead to a boost in Likes — of about 6% in both groups. Meanwhile, influencers saw the biggest loss of Likes in the Brazilian market. Those trends could relate to how users in certain countries might feel more comfortable Liking something if they don’t know who else is too, while in other nations users might rely on more herd mentality to know what to Like.
If Instagram finds the impact of the test to be too negative on influencers, it may not roll out the change. While Mosseri stated the company wasn’t afraid to hurt its own bottom line, impairing the careers of influencers may not be acceptable unless the positive impacts on well-being are significant enough.
WATCH: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announces that the platform will start hiding likes for US audiences starting next week. It's the latest step in Instagram's quest to become the safest place on the internet. Learn more: https://wired.trib.al/nbNQ7nb
Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) 
iOS Bug Squashing: 
Google admits it can’t secure the Play Store on its own: 
Photoshop for iPad is tanking: Adobe released its most important mobile app ever with this week’s
