US astronaut Christina Koch is set to return to Earth Thursday having shattered the spaceflight record for female astronauts by spending almost a year aboard the International Space Stationhttps://t.co/5fFjEQGLYEpic.twitter.com/dZl8BnPgnc
Kirk Douglas, the legendary star of films such as "Champion," "Spartacus" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," has died. He was 103. Here's a look back at his life and career. https://t.co/MAiY5zrTcppic.twitter.com/coNOd9NzvV
A medical worker in protective suit adjusts a drip bag for a patient at a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, February 3. China Daily via REUTERS
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Ten more people on a quarantined cruise liner in a Japanese port have tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Thursday, as the virus death toll in mainland China hit 563, with almost 3,000 new cases reported.
About 3,700 people on Carnival's Diamond Princess are facing at least two weeks quarantine on the ship, which has 20 virus cases and testing is continuing. Japan now has 40 virus cases.
"We are hopeful that the U.S. government will be sending transport for the Americans on board," Gay Courter, a 75-year-old American novelist aboard the ship, told Reuters.
"It's better for us to travel while healthy and also if we get sick to be treated in American hospitals."
* Mike Pence accused Nancy Pelosi of planning all along to rip up the president's State of the Union speech * 'It felt like it,' the Vice President said, but Pelosi spokesperson told DailyMail.com it was not pre-planned * But a canny observer caught the speaker practicing the move under the table and posted a clip showing the move * 'The Vice President's complicity in last night's reality show is disgusting,' Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill said * Pelosi got a rock star welcome from her Democratic Party when she met with them in the Capitol Wednesday morning * They gave her a standing ovation when she talked about tearing up speech * 'He shredded the truth so I shredded his speech,' she said
Mike Pence accused Nancy Pelosi of planning to rip up the president's State of the Union speech all along, an accusation the speaker's office denied.
But a canny observer caught what appears to be the Speaker actually practicing the moves under the table before the speech was over.
Camera from behind the Speaker also shows the pages 'pre-ripped' as Pelosi made her final move when the President's speech was over.
The vice president said on 'Fox & Friends' Wednesday morning that, 'It felt like it,' when asked if the speaker had planned her move ahead of time.
WNU Editor: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office is denying reports that she planned to tear up Trump's State of the Union all along. The problem is that the above pictures and videos do not lie.
* Donald Trump was acquitted on the two articles of impeachment against him * That outcome was expected in the Republican-controlled Senate * Still the vote brings the four-month long impeachment process to an end * Trump responded to impeachment vote by tweeting a 'Trump 4Eva' video * He also said he would make a statement on Thursday at noon at White House * There were some surprises leading up to final vote * Mitt Romney voted to convict Trump on abuse of power charge * He voted to acquit on obstruction of Congress charge * He was the only Republican to break ranks * All Democrats held the line * Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Doug Jones of Alabama were being watched to see how they voted * All three announced Wednesday they would vote to convict
Donald Trump was acquitted on the two articles of impeachment against him on Wednesday, bringing a four-month fractious trial and inquiry to a close.
The final outcome was an almost certainty in the Republican-controlled Senate where it would have taken a two-thirds majority to remove him from office.
The president took to Twitter to respond, re-upping a video from June of last year that showed Trump winning election after election, ending up as president forever. The final slide in it reads: ''Trump4Eva.'
He also said he'd make a statement from the White House on Thursday.
WNU Editor: The result was never in doubt. But if the polls are to believed (see Gallup) this is a huge win for President Trump and the Republican Party, and a political disaster for the Democrats.
More News On The U.S. Senate Acquitting President Trump On The Two Articles Of Impeachment Against Him
* Hollywood acting legend Kirk Douglas died on Wednesday aged 103 * The Spartacus star is survived by his wife of 65 years Anne Buydens and his three sons Michael, Joel, and Peter. A fourth child, Eric, died of a drug overdose in his 40s, in 2004 * His son Michael Douglas, an acting icon in his own right, revealed the news of his father's death in an emotional statement * Douglas suffered a stroke back in 1996 that left him with slurred speech and damaged facial nerves * Douglas was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood's biggest-ever stars * The famed actor, who was one of the last of Hollywood's Golden Age, made more than 90 movies in a career that stretched across seven decades * Films such as Spartacus and The Vikings made him one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1950s and 60s * He was nominated three times for the best actor Oscar in 1949 for Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful in 1953 and Lust for Life in 1957 * Douglas never received an Academy Award for an individual film but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar in 1996 for his role as a creative and moral force in the industry
Hollywood acting legend Kirk Douglas has died aged 103.
The Spartacus star died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He is survived by his wife of 65 years Anne Buydens and his three sons Michael, Joel, and Peter.
His son Michael Douglas, an acting icon in his own right, revealed the news of his father's death in an emotional statement to People magazine.
'It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,' he said.
'To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to.
WNU Editor: When my parents immigrated to Canada and were exposed to Hollywood movies, Spartacus was their favourite movie. And when my mother learned that he passed away today, she cried. But Kirk Douglas played an even more important role in my life. He had a stroke two years before my father had his, and both of them experienced the same type of paralysis and inability to talk to make themselves understood. Fortunately for Kirk Douglas, his stroke was not as severe as my fathers, and he was able to go home. But instead of just doing nothing, Kirk Douglas wrote a book about what he had to go through when he had his stroke, and his long road to recovery .... My Stroke of Luck Paperback – Jan 7 2003 by Kirk Douglas. I immediately bought the book, and in the last two years of my father's life I used his book as my reference guide when I was with my father. Thank you Mr. Douglas for helping me during that time. RIP.
More News On The Passing Of Hollywood Acting Legend Kirk Douglas
The trial ended Wednesday with acquittal, but investigations and court fights continue
The acquittal of President Donald Trump ended his impeachment trial Wednesday the way it always appeared it would, but the battle's lasting fallout is just beginning for congressional power, the nation's political landscape and ongoing legal fights between Trump and House Democrats.
The Senate voted 48-52 to reject the House's abuse of power charge and 47-53 to reject the obstruction of Congress charge.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump was acquitted on Wednesday in his U.S. Senate impeachment trial, saved by fellow Republicans who rallied to protect him nine months before he asks voters in a deeply divided America to give him a second White House term.
The businessman-turned-politician, 73, survived only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history - just like the two other impeached presidents - in his turbulent presidency's darkest chapter. Trump now plunges into an election season that promises to further polarize the country.
Air Force Global Strike Command conducts an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, February 5. The Minuteman III comprises the land-based leg of the U.S. military's nuclear triad. Jan Jones/30th Space Wing Public Affairs/U.S. Space Force
The United States has test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) exactly one year ahead of the day a major nuclear treaty with Russia was set to expire.
The U.S. military's Air Force Global Strike Command launched an unarmed, nuclear-capable Minuteman III ICBM early Wednesday from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The test was supported by the 30th Space Wing and was the first to take place since the base became part of the new U.S. Space Force.
Ambassador Iraj Masjedi said Qassem Soleimani, killed at Baghdad airport by a US air strike last month, was carrying a message setting out Iran's position on possible rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi state news agency reported [File: Haidar Mohammed Ali/AFP]
Iran wants to resolve differences with its Gulf foes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "as quickly as possible", Tehran's ambassador to Iraq said in remarks published on Tuesday.
Ambassador Iraj Masjedi said top commander Qassem Soleimani, killed at Baghdad airport by a US drone strike last month, was carrying a message setting out Iran's position on possible rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi state news agency reported.
"Tehran welcomes Iraq's role in trying to solve differences between Iran and Saudi," Masjedi was quoted as saying, referring to recent Iraq efforts to mediate between the regional rivals, expressing Iran's "wish to resolve differences and challenges with Saudi and the UAE as quickly as possible."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres laid out a sobering view of the current state of the world Tuesday, saying that "a wind of madness is sweeping the globe" as instability erupts into unpredictable and violent conflicts. The problems are made even worse, he said, by faltering economic situations and countries that disrespect U.N. Security Council resolutions "before the ink is dry."
"Escalation is back," Guterres said, referring to violence that has flared in Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. And in the midst of problems between rival groups, the U.N. chief said, the world is also facing the effects of a worsening climate crisis, citing the historic wildfires that brought disaster to Australia and record high temperatures in the world's oceans.
WNU Editor: I guess U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is not buying my narrative that we are actually living in the best of times. That wars and conflicts have declined to historical lows, and billions have crawled out of poverty in the past 3 decades.
The top U.S. commander for the Middle East paid a visit to Iraq Tuesday with little fanfare, as the U.S. tries to quell an Iraqi push for U.S. troop removal in light of the attack which took out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on their soil.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie was the most senior U.S. military official to visit Iraq since the drone attack in Baghdad which took out not only Iran's most powerful general but an Iraqi general traveling with him as well. Iraqi Gen. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
McKenzie met with leaders in Baghdad and visited American troops at al-Assad airbase, which was bombed by Iran last month in retaliation. "I think we're going to be able to find a way forward," McKenzie told reporters upon leaving the country, saying that he was "heartened" by the meetings.
What we are witnessing in east Africa and across much of the Middle East right now is hard to believe. 360 billion locusts are eating everything in sight, and UN officials are warning that this plague of "Biblical proportions" could get many times worse over the next several months. Desert locusts can travel up to 93 miles a day, and each adult can consume the equivalent of its own weight in food every 24 hours. These voracious little creatures are traveling in absolutely colossal swarms that are up to 40 miles wide, and they continue to push into new areas. If urgent action is not taken on a massive scale, millions upon millions of people could soon have next to nothing to eat.
I have previously written about the horrors that this plague is causing in east Africa, but many people don't realize that this plague is devastating crops throughout the Middle East as well.
In fact, the government of Pakistan just declared a national emergency because of these locusts…
Sen. Mitt Romney will vote Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump of abuse of power, arguing the president violated the trust of the American people and the authority of his office for his own personal and political benefit.
The Utah senator is expected to be the only Republican to vote guilty on the first article of impeachment, and Romney says he knows the "enormous" repercussions he'll face from the president, members of his own party and Trump supporters.
WNU Editor: He will be the only Republican voting with the Democrats to impeach President Trump. He says he expects to receive the wrath of President Trump for his decision. That is probably true. But if I was advising him I would be telling him that he should more worried on the wrath that he will be receiving from his constituents who supported him last year when he won his Senate race. Here is an easy prediction. His re-election is five years from now, and it is going to be a very lonely five years.
World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom (L) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on January 28, 2020. Photo by Naohiko Hatta/AFP
Since he first intervened in the Wuhan coronavirus crisis in late January, ordering "all-out efforts" to contain its spread, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been personally directing the country's response.
At least, that's what state media has been repeatedly emphasizing -- Xi himself has not been seen for several days, missing from his usual place of prominence on the front page of the state-owned People's Daily newspaper and in the nightly newscast on state broadcaster CCTV.
This is weird, not only because a country's leader is normally front and center during a crisis, but because Xi typically dominates media coverage at the best of times, regardless of how seemingly routine his activities are. Since he came to power in 2012, the People's Daily especially has become known for running multiple headlines about Xi and plastering not only the front page but several after it with nearly identical pictures of him shaking hands with various officials.
Xi's vanishing act has not gone unnoticed in China, where many are asking questions on social media -- most of which are swiftly deleted by censors. Outside of the country, particularly among dissident communities, rampant speculation is growing, as those desperate to see the back of Xi spread wild, wholly unfounded claims.
Ten days ago, shortly after China first started reporting the cases and deaths associated with the coronavirus epidemic, a UK researcher predicted that over 250,000 Chinese would be infected with the virus by February 4. And while according to official Chinese data, the number of infections has indeed soared in the past two weeks, at just under 25,000 (and roughly 500 deaths), it is a far cry from this dismal prediction, about ten times below that predicted by the epidemiologists.
Is this discrepancy possible? Is the epidemic truly far less serious than conventional epidemiological models predicted? Or is China merely hiding the full extent of the problem?
WNU Editor: The internet platform that is revealing these huge numbers is owned by China's TenCent, a huge Chinese multinational company with extensive internet and media properties. I do not know if they may have accidentally revealed the true extent of the coronavirus epidemic, but everyone I know in China (and it is a lot of people) are terrified with what is happening. Rumours are flying everywhere, and no one is trusting what Beijing is saying.
Hong Kong (CNN)More than 5,300 people are being quarantined on two cruise ships off Hong Kong and Japan amid concerns passengers and crew were inadvertently exposed to the Wuhan coronavirus by infected passengers.
People aboard both ships are being given health screenings, and those with suspicious symptoms are being tested for the virus that has quickly spread throughout mainland China and beyond.
Concerns about potential infection among thousands of passengers at sea exposes the vulnerability of cruise ships to viral illnesses, like the coronavirus. The threat also raises questions about the durability of Asia's booming leisure cruise industry, which counts the elderly as among its most loyal customers.
WNU Editor: According to reports that I am reading. On the Japanese cruise ship there are ten confirmed sick. Over 100 have the symptoms of the disease. Another hundred are suspected. Here is an easy prediction. In the next day or two all cruises in Asia will be cancelled until further notice. This may be followed up in the weeks to come with a global cancellation of all cruises.
More News On Two Cruise Ships In Asia Under Quarantine Due to the Wuhan Coronavirus
Increased Russian sub activity means that the Navy no longer views sailing off the East Coast or across the Atlantic to be "uncontested" movements.
A senior U.S. Navy officer says that his service no longer considers the East Coast of the United States as an "uncontested" area or an automatic "safe haven" for its ships and submarines. This is a product of steadily increased Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic Ocean, including the deployment of more advanced and quieter types that can better evade detection.
U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Andrew "Woody" Lewis made these comments at a gathering the U.S. Naval Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank jointly hosted on Feb. 4, 2020. Lewis is the commander of the Navy's 2nd Fleet, which the service reactivated in 2018 specifically to address the surge in Russia's submarine operations in the Atlantic. This fleet, headquartered at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Virginia, reached full operational capability in December 2019.
An A-10 Thunderbolt II refuels from a KC-10 over the US Central Command area of responsibility, January 17, 2020. US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Daniel Snider
* An A-10 Warthog over the Central Command area of responsibility showed off the wear and tear that comes with aerial refueling. * Needless to say, such dents don't affect the aircraft's ability to safely fly and fight.
The photograph in this post shows an US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II of the 23rd Fighter Group, deployed from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, as it refuels from a US Air Force KC-10 Extender assigned to the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, deployed to Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, above the US Central Command area of responsibility.
The photo, taken on January 17, 2020, is particularly interesting because it shows the extent of the damage caused to the nose section of the aircraft, around the receptacle where the "boomer" inserts the "flying boom" of the tanker (either a KC-10 or a KC-135).
EUROPEAN countries have demanded Brussels prioritises making industries more competitive and urged competition chief Margrethe Vestager to speed up with her review in a letter.
ITALY train crash: Footage from the accident captured the devastating aftermath of the derailment of a Frecciarossa train near Lodi, northern Italy, that left at least two people dead.
TERROR has erupted after a coronavirus tracker on one of China's top tech giants Tencent briefly listed the death toll as almost 25,000 on Saturday. The figure comes in at almost one hundred times the official tally that day of just 300.
ANGELA MERKEL has been thrown headlong into a political quagmire, after a far-right German party helped to oust a state premier, replacing him with another candidate.
MICHELLE OBAMA undoubtedly has friends in high places, and now one is coming forward to announce she is "so proud" to be affiliated with the former First Lady.
DBRAU Result 2020 Declared: Dear Students !!! Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University has reported the DBRAU Agra University Result 2020 for Medical, Semester and Main Examination on 05th February 2020. The University has discharged the DBRAU Results for Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Regular/Supplementary Students. Everybody can check the DBRAU Results 2020 from the official site i.e, dbrau.org.in. Here on this page, we have given an immediate connection to check the outcomes from beneath the table. At present, the University has discharged the outcomes for MBBS, BSc(Nursing), M.ED. II sem, M.M.C. IV CBCS, and different Exams. We encourage the students to peruse the whole article to get more data about the Ambedkar University Results 2020.
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University has announced the Agra University Result 2020 for different Courses. The DBRAU University has led the Semester Examination effectively and reported the DBRAU Results 2020. Here Students can check the Agra University Results for every Graduate Student including UnderGraduate, Postgraduate and Regular/Supplementary Courses. We used to refresh all the data with respect to the DBRAU Result, Time Table, Score Card, and others. We have given an immediate connect to check and download the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University Results 2020. We encourage the understudies to stay in contact with our recruitment.guru page to get more insights concerning the DBRAU Results 2020.
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University, in the past Agra University, is a state college situated in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Institute of Engineering and Technology Khandari, Agra(I.E.T. Khandari, Agra), arranged at the Khandari grounds in the city of Agra, was set up in 1998 and is the designing organization of the university. Initially, there were just four resources in the University viz. Expressions, Sciences, Commerce and Law. Resources of Medicine, Agriculture, Home Science, Basic Sciences, Fine Arts and Management were included thusly. Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University is relentlessly flooding ahead as a middle for higher logical professional and occupation arranged training and inventive research.
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University Supply/Revaluation Results
Understudies have shown up for the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University Examination can check their outcomes, on the off chance that they got low evaluations, still, Students can apply for the Revaluation. The more elevated level Examiner will check the DBRAU Result and declare the Agra University Revaluation Results. All things considered, if any understudies will get low checks again they can compose the test. For that, they ought to apply for the Supplementary Examination. For every single semester, Students can apply for the revaluation after the declaration of the principle assessment results. Understudies can stay in contact with the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University Official Website to know more data about the DBRAU Revaluation Result 2020.
Indian Post Office Result 2020: On this page, applicants can get all results depends on the Indian Post Office Result 2020 Punjab, Kerala, Assam, Bihar, Rajasthan, AP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Delhi. We have dedicated this page to update all the latest results regarding the Indian Post Office. The result will be declared online and the result is all set to release soon. Aspirants can download their result from this page directly by visiting this page. Because here we will update the latest Indian Post Office Result 2020 links. It will work once the India Post Office GDS Result has been announced officially. The India Post GDS Result 2020 will declare on the basis of marks obtained by the aspirants in the Examination.
Punjab GDS Result 2020@ appost.in | Check Punjab Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) Result, Merit List Here: the Board of Punjab Postal Circle has announced the result for the post of 851 Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) on 19th December 2019. Candidates those who have applied for the post can check and download your Punjab Postal Circle GDS Result 2020 from the below link. Here on this page, we have provided a direct link to download the latest Punjab GDS Result 2020.
Karnataka GDS Result 2019Released@ appost.in: Get Direct link for Karanataka GDS Result 2019, Merit list here: Karnataka Postal Circle has announced the result for the post of 2637 Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS). Candidates those who have applied for the post can check and download your result from the below link. Here we have given a quick link to access your Karnataka Postal GDS Result 2019 easily. Candidates can get the complete details from the official website i.e, www.appost.in. On this page, anyone can check the Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) Result 2019 by using the direct link.
Karnataka Postal Circle GDS Result 2019
Description
Details
Organization Name
India Post, Ministry of Communication, Govt. of India
Kerala GDS Result 2020 Released @ appost.in: The Result for Kerala Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) 2020 has announced on 04th February 2020. The officials of Kerala Postal Circle has released a notification for recruiting 2086 Gramin Dak Sevak posts. Most of the aspirants have applied for this post and now they are waiting for the results. To help out the aspirants, we have given a direct link to download the Kerala Postal GDS Result 2020. Keep in touch with our page to know more latest updates.
Kerala GDS Result 2020
Description
Details
Organization Name
India Post, Ministry of Communication, Govt. of India
Assam GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Assam GDS Result Merit list 2019 here: Assam Postal Circle is going to announce the result for the post of 919 Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS). Candidates who have applied for the Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) post can check and download your Assam Postal GDS Result 2020 from the below link. Here on this page, we will be updating the latest result link and it will activate at the time of result announcement. Assam Circle GDS Result will be published in the form of a merit list of the candidates who submitted their applications successfully.
Bihar GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Bihar GDS Result Merit list 2019 Here: The Bihar Postal Circle has announced the result for the post of 1063 Gramin Dak Sevak on 29th January 2020. Candidates who have applied for the GDS post can check the Bihar GDS Result 2020 from here. Also, download your Bihar GDS Result PDF from the below link. Here, we have provided a quick link to check and download the Bihar GDS Result 2020. The Bihar Postal GDS 1063 Result has published in the form of a merit list of the candidates who submitted their applications successfully.
Gujarat GDS Result 2019 @ appost.in |Check India Post GDS Gujarat Result 2020 Here: The Gujarat Postal Circle has announced the result for the post of 2510 GDS. Candidates who have applied for the GDS post are eagerly waiting to when Gujarat GDS Result now declared. Here, we have updated the Gujarat GDS Result Pdf link and the link has activated. Gujarat Post GDS Result published in the form of a merit list of the candidates who submitted their applications successfully.
AP Postal Circle GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Andhra Pradesh Gramin Dak Sevak Merit List Here: The Andhra Pradesh Postal Circle has released the result for the post of 2707 Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS). Candidates who have applied for the GDS post are eagerly waiting for the AP GDS Result 2020. Here on this page, we have updated the latest AP Postal GDS Results PDF link and the link is activated now !!!AP Postal Circle GDS Result has published on 24th January 2020 in the form of a merit list of the candidates who submitted their applications successfully.
Chhattisgarh GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Chhattisgarh Postal GDS Merit List Here: Candidates who have applied for the GDS post are eagerly waiting for the Chhattisgarh Post Office GDS Result2020. The Chhattisgarh Postal Circle has announced the result for the post of 1799 Gramin Dak Sevak on 24th January 2020. Here, we have given a direct link to download the latest Chhattisgarh Postal GDS Result 202o. Now, Candidates can check the Chattisgarh Postal GDS Result 2020 on this page. And also check the Chattisgarh GDS Cut Off Marks and Merit List 2020 from here.
Telangana GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Telangana Gramin Dak Sevak Merit list: The officials of Telangana Postal Circle has released the result for the post of 970 Gramin Dak Sevak on 27th January 2020. Candidates who have applied for the GDS post are eagerly waiting for the Telangana Postal Circle GDS Result 2020. Here on this page, we have updated a quick link to download the latest TS Postal Gramin Dak Sevak Result 2020 and it has activated now.
Telangana Gramin Dak Sevak Result 2020 – Click Here
Maharashtra GDS Result 2020 @ appost.in |Check Maharashtra Gramin Dak Sevak Merit list: The Maharashtra Postal Circle is going to announce the result for the post of 3650 Gramin Dak Sevak. Candidates who have applied for the GDS post are eagerly waiting to when Maharashtra Postal Circle GDS Result will be declared. Here, we will be updating the latest Maharashtra Gramin Dak Sevak Merit list Pdf link and it will activate at the time of result announcement.
Maharashtra Gramin Dak Sevak Result 2020 – Click Here
India Postal GDS Cut Off Marks 2020
As the officials are not conducting any written examination then the India Postal GDS Cut Off Marks 2020 will be decided based on the marks in 10th Standard. Further, the higher authority of India Post GDS Online Engagement Portal release the India Postal GDS Cut Off Marks 2020 for all the categories of aspirants. Candidates can go through the India Postal GDS Cut Off Marks 2020 and have a clear idea about the marks that are taken into consideration for the selection of aspirants.
India Postal GDS Merit List 2020
All the candidates can check the India Postal GDS Merit List 2020 on this page. As the officials announce the India Postal GDS Merit List 2020 based on the marks gained by the candidates in 10th Standard.
How to Download India Post Office GDS Result 2020?
Go through the official site of India Post Office @ appost.in.
Indian post ministry of Communication home page will appear on the screen.
On the home page, Live Notifications will be scrolling.
At the bottom of the page, the Results Released section will appear.
Now, Check for the India Post Office GDS Result 2020.
Click on the India Post Office GDS Result.
Download the India GDS Result and check according to the application details.
Candidates can acquire their CGPSC Admit Card 2020 here. A huge number of applicants had applied for various posts released by the officials of the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission. Those contenders who had applied for the post are now eagerly waiting to download their CGPSC Exam Hall Ticket 2020. The admit card will be here to download when released by the officials at www.psc.cg.gov.in. Applicants are hereby informed to carry their CGPSC Hall Ticket 2020 while entering the examination hall. However, make use of the link given below to acquire your Exam Hall Ticket.
Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission has issued the hall ticket for the post of Assistant Professor on 05th January 2020. Thus, the board will conduct the exam on 13th February & 14th February 2020. So, candidates who are going to take down the Assistant Professor Examination can download the CGPSC Admit Card 2020.
CGPSC Assistant Professor Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
CGPSC Assistant Professor DV Notice 2020 – Check Here
CGPSC State Services Prelims Exam 2020
The Commission has planned to conduct the exam on 09th February 2020. So, the admit card will be available from the Last Week of January 2020. Make sure to get the CGPSC Admit Card from the below table. The quick link to download the admit card will be active till 08th February 2020.
CGPSC State Services Prelims Hall Ticket 2020
Board Name
Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission
Post Name
State Civil Services, State Police Service, Chhattisgarh State Finance Service, Food Officer/ Asst Director, District Women and Child Development Officer, Child Development Project Officer, Chhattisgarh Subordinate Service, Asst Superintend, Nayab Tehsildar, Exercise Sub Inspector, Deputy Register, Commercial Tax Inspector, Cooperative Inspector/ Cooperative Extension Officer, Asst Jail Officer
Chhattisgarh PSC has released the admit card for the post of 117 Sports Officer and Librarians. Hence, Candidates can download the admit card from the below section from today onwards. Make sure with the eligibility and download the hall ticket. The CGPSC exam will be held on 26th November 2019.
Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission has published the admit card for State Service Examination 2019. The Board has released the admit card in the month of June 2019. Thus, the Mains exam is going to be held from 23rd July to 26th July 2019. All the eligible candidates can download the CGPSC Hall Ticket from the below-provided table.
Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission board released the admit card for scientific officer exam 2019. Aspirants who applied for the CGPSC Scientific Officer vacancies can find the interview call letter link here. Click on the direct link given below and download the CGPSC Scientific Officer Exam Admit Card 2019.
CGPSC Scientific Officer Interview Call Letter 2019
Name of the Organization : North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited Last Date : 17/01/2016 Application Mode : Online Job Location : Shillong, Meghalaya Total Vacancies : 55 Posts Name of the Post: Various posts
Looking for CRPF Syllabus for Constable (General Deputy and Tradesman) and Other Posts 2020. Then, here we have updated the CRPF Syllabus and Exam Pattern details. We provide here the complete syllabus details of every topic related to the posts. The Selection Process will be based on the Written Examination. However, the aspirants know who is the competitors for Constable GD and Tradesman Recruitment 2020. Hence, to face the competition the applicant needs to clear with all the topics and subjects in the written Examination. So, have a look at the updated CRPF Syllabus and Exam Pattern 2020 for General Deputy and Tradesman Vacancies.
CRPF Syllabus 2020
The Central Reserve Police Force every year releases various vacancies. Aspirants who desire to apply for the Police Jobs can get here the complete syllabus details topic wise and prepare for the examination according to the desired qualification. Go through the full notification to get the Exam Pattern and CRPF Constable Syllabus in Detail.
The Syllabus for CRPF Constable 2020 is updated here. The candidates who applied for CRPF Constable Posts can check the CRPF Constable Syllabus Pdf 2020 along with the Exam pattern here. So the applicants download the CRPF Constable Syllabus Pdf for the posts of Tradesmen & Technical for better exam preparation.
CRPF Constable Syllabus & Exam Pattern 2020
The applicants who are preparing for Police Jobs of CRPF Constable examination can check the CRPF Constable Tradesmen syllabus. Because for CRPF exam preparation, the Constable Syllabus is mandatory. If you have CRPF Constable Technical Syllabus with you, then it is easy to know the topics that are going to come in the written test. Also for the candidate convenience, we are providing the complete details of CRPF Constable Exam Pattern. From the Central Reserve Police Force Exam Pattern, you will be having knowledge on the number of questions, total marks, and the exam duration. So, download the complete CRPF Syllabus along with the Exam Pattern. And start preparing for CRPF written test with reference to the CRPF technical, tradesmen Syllabus to score better marks in the exam.
Central Reserve Police Force Constable Syllabus 2020 – Details
Organization Name
Central Reserve Police Force
Total Vacancies
Various
Name of the Posts
Assistant Sub Inspector, Sub Inspector/ Overseer (Civil), Constable CT Posts
Job Location
India
Category
Syllabus
Official Website
www.crpf.nic.in or www.crpfindia.com
Download CRPF Syllabus 2020 for CT Exam
If you are one of the candidates who is searching for CRPF Constable tradesmen Syllabus, then don’t worry! You are in the right place. Because you can find the details of CRPF Exam such as Selection process, CRPF Syllabus, and Exam Pattern in the below section. Also, we are providing the CRPF Constable previous papers for the desirable candidates. So you can download and prepare for the written test with the Constable exam previous papers to crack the exam.
Central Reserve Police Force issued a notification for the posts of constable Technical & Tradesmen jobs. The total number of vacancies in CRPF constable recruitment is various. So the candidates who are dreaming of constable jobs in India can apply online for CRPF jobs on or before the last date.Furthermore, details about the CRPF Recruitment 2020 Notification, vacancies and exam dates updated in the below link.
CRPF Selection Process
The Candidates who applied for CRPF Constable jobs in 2020, will go through the following tests to achieve success.
Physical Standard Test (PST) / Physical Efficiency Test (PET) and Documentation.
Written Test.
Trade Test.
Medical Examination.
CRPF Constable Exam Pattern 2020 – CT Test Pattern
S.No
Parts
Topics
No. of Questions
Maximum Marks
1.
Part – I
General Knowledge
40
40
Elementary Mathematics
Analytical Aptitude
Basic English/ Hindi
Ability to Observe & Distinguish Patterns
2.
Part – II
Respective Trade
60
60
Total
100
100
CRPF Constable CT Exam 2020
The CRPF Constable Written Test consists of objective type questions.
The provided Central Reserve Police Force Syllabus is only for reference purpose. The given CRPF Constable Technical Exam Syllabus and Exam pattern will help the applicants who are preparing for Constable Exam. So check CRPF syllabus and prepare a schedule to score good marks in written test. – www.crpf.nic.in or www.crpfindia.com.
JIPMER Syllabus 2020 is available here for the post of Senior Resident, Nursing Officer, Lower Division Clerk, MBBS & Other. Candidates who are applying for the given posts can get here the complete syllabus details along with exam pattern. So, go through the below sections and start preparing for the examination.
JIPMER Exam Pattern and Syllabus Details are uploaded here. This section will be helpful for the candidates who are searching for the JIPMER Group B & C Exam Syllabus. Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research Recruitment Board is going to conduct the written examination on 08th March 2020. So the aspirants who are not yet started with the exam preparation use this page to begin your work to get ready for the JIPMER Exam 2020
Overview of JIPMER Group B Exam Syllabus
Name of the Organization
Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research
Post Category
Group B & C
Post Name
Group B – Junior Dietician, Speech Therapist, Supervisor Laundry, Bio-Medical Engineer, Data Processing Assistant Grade-B
Group C – Boiler Attendant, Orthodontic Technician, Pharmacist, Uro Technician)
Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research Exam Syllabus 2020 for the post of Senior Resident is given here. Aspirants can get here the detailed information regarding the JIPMER Senior Resident Syllabus & Exam Pattern. Make your preparation easier, download the Syllabus Pdf from the below links.
JIPMER has released 51 vacancies for the posts of Senior Resident. Candidates who are interested can apply for the posts and start their exam preparation accordingly. For further details, aspirants can go through the JIPMER Recruitment 2020 that is given in the below section.
JIPMER Senior Resident Syllabus 2020 – Details
Description
Details
Name of the Organization
Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER)
Applicants applying for the Senior Resident posts need to appear for the written examination that will be based on the subject concerned. It will consist of Objective type questions.
Written Examination
80%
Interview
20%
Schedule of Written Test/ Interview for the Various Senior Resident Posts
JIPMER Syllabus 2020 Pdf is updated here for the candidate’s reference. Applicants of JIPMER Nursing Officer Jobs can check the complete syllabus here. Candidates can download the JIPMER Exam Syllabus and Test Pattern from the link provided. Also, interested aspirants can visit the official website of Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduation Medical Education & Research for the latest updates regarding JIPMER LDC Syllabus & Exam Pattern 2020.
JIPMER LDC Exam Syllabus 2020 – Details
Name of the Organization
Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduation Medical Education & Research
JIPMER Nursing Officer & Lower Division Clerk Syllabus consists of the following topics. The applicants looking for the JIPMER Nursing Officer Syllabus can download them from this page. We have updated the JIPMER LDC Syllabus in the Pdf format. Download the syllabus pdf and prepare for the exam.
General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM).
English Language.
Numerical Aptitude.
General Intelligence & Reasoning.
General Awareness & Current Affairs.
JIPMER Syllabus – General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM)
JIPMER Syllabus pdf is available on our site. Applicants of JIPMER Recruitment 2020 can check the complete JIPMER Syllabus. Download the JIPMER MBBS syllabus pdf along with the exam pattern from the below link.
Download JIPMER Syllabus 2020
JIPMER MBBS Syllabus is provided here. Candidates who are interested in MBBS jobs already applied for Jipmer recruitment 2020. If you are one among them and are looking for a Jipmer MBBS syllabus? To help the candidates like you, we are giving the complete JIPMER exam syllabus. Refer to this section and prepare according to the provided syllabus to score more marks. Jipmer exam Syllabus & table of Jipmer Exam Pattern is here. Prepare all the topics present in the Jipmer 2020 syllabus to score good marks.
JIPMER MBBS Syllabus 2020 – Overview
Organization Name
Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research
Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research Syllabus 2020
JIPMER Recruitment consists of a written test and an interview. For the written test 80% of the marks are allocated and for the Interview remaining 20% marks are allotted. Weightage for the written test is more. Candidates need to do more practice to crack the written test. For easy preparation, get the complete Jipmer syllabus and Jipmer Previous papers. To score more marks practice the questions present in the old question papers. Also, for the sake of exam preparation, we are providing the current affairs quiz. Click the above link and practice the questions in the quiz to gain general knowledge.
JIPMER MBBS Exam Pattern 2020
Name of the Subjects
No. of Questions
Physics
60
Chemistry
60
Biology
60
Logic and Quantitative Reasoning
10
English and Comprehension
10
Total
200
Selection Process
Based on the performance in the following tests, the candidates will be selected as an MBBS in Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research.
Punjab Haryana High Court Result 2020 Released: Dear Folks !!!Applicants who are looking for the Punjab Haryana High Court Clerk Result can get a direct link to check the result from this page. Punjab and Haryana High Court have declared the Clerk Result on 05th February 2020 tentatively. Here, we have provided a direct link to download the Punjab and Haryana High Court Clerk Result 2020. Along with results, candidates can get the Cut off Marks and Merit List in the below section.
Punjab Haryana High Court Result 2020 @ sssc.gov.in
The Society for Centralized Recruitment of Staff in Subordinate Courts officials has conducted the Written Examination on 10th November 2019 for recruiting 352Clerk Posts. The registered candidates can check your results from this page. The Punjab Haryana HC has released the clerk Result on 05th February 2020. Candidates can get the direct link to download the Punjab and Haryana High Court Result Clerk 2020 from this page. After checking the result, applicants can get ready to attend the further rounds of the Interview. Also, check Punjab Haryana HC Cut off Marks and Merit List 2020 here.
Punjab Haryana High Court Clerk Result 2020 – Overview
Description
Details
Organization Name
Society for Centralized Recruitment of Staff in Subordinate Courts
Applicants who have to wait to know the result can open the Punjab Haryana HC Main Page, then select the Results section and view your results. On this page, we have included some easy steps to download your Clerk Result. Candidates who have appeared the Examination may think about the Punjab Haryana HC Clerk Cut Off Marks, Merit List 2020. Here applicants can get a direct link to check Cut Off Marks.
Punjab Haryana High Court Clerk Merit List 2020
The Merit list will contain the Registered candidate’s name, Roll number and the Marks obtain the Examination. For every year Punjab and Haryana High Court officials will decide some Cut Off Marks for all the categories. So based on those Cutoff marks, if the candidates secured maximum marks, they will get select for the Merit list. The Selected candidates for the Merit List will attend the next round of interviews. If they cleared the Interview, then the candidates can get an appointment for the Clerk Posts.
Punjab & Haryana High Court Cut off Marks 2020
Candidates who have written the examination for the Clerk Posts should check the Cut off marks and Merit list to attend the further rounds of interview. All the applicants can get your Cut Off Marks from the Punjab Haryana High Court website @ sssc.gov.in.The Cut off marks will be decided by the Punjab Haryana High Court Officials. They will consider some categories to set up the Cut off Marks.
How to Download Punjab Haryana High Court Result Clerk 2020?
Initially, Applicants should visit the Punjab Haryana High Court Official website sssc.gov.in.
On the Punjab Haryana High Court Main Page, Applicants can see the Results section.
Search for the link related to Punjab and Haryana High Court Clerk Result 2020.
A new page will open on the with Punjab Haryana High Court Clerk Result pdf.
Check and download the Punjab Haryana High Court Result.
Direct Links to Download Punjab Haryana High Court Result 2020
APPSC DAO Hall Ticket 2020 – The Commission has decided to conduct the Divisional Accounts Officer Exam on 19th & 20th March 2020. Therefore, the admit card will be available on the 02nd Week of March 2020. Though, Contenders are suggested to download the APPSC Hall Ticket from the below table. Check with the details in the admit card before downloading it.
APPSC Polytechnic Lecturer Hall Ticket 2020 – The Andra Pradesh Public Service Commission will release the APPSC Hall ticket details for 405 Polytechnic Lecturer Vacancies on 2nd week of March 2020 (tentatively). Hence the board is confirmed the exam date for APPSC Polytechnic Lecturer Hall ticket 2020 from 12th March to 15th March 2020. So applied aspirants need to download the APPSC Hall Ticket 2020 before the last date ends. Below the direct link has been given to download APPSC Admit Card 2020 and the link will get activated when the APPSC Hall Ticket released on the official website.
APPSC Junior Lecturer Admit Card 2020 – Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission has issued the admit card for the post of Junior Lecturer on its official website. Moreover, the APPSC Mains examination has been scheduled on 19th, 20th, 22nd & 23rd January 2020. Therefore, the APPSC Mains Hall Ticket is released on 06th February 2020.
APPSC Junior Lecturer Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
APPSC Group 1 Hall Ticket 2020 – The Commission will release the hall ticket in soon. However, the exam will be held from 04th February to 16th February 2020. Hence, the board is going to issue the APPSC Hall Ticket on its official portal. Thus, the admit card will be available at the bottom of the table to download. Thus, the revised exam date will be declared on 27th January 2020.
Description
Details
Name of the Board
Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission
Name of the Post
Group 1 (Assistant Commissioner of State Tax in A.P. State Tax Services, Deputy Supdt. of Police (Civil) Cat-2 in A.P. Police Service, Deputy Supdt. of Jails (MEN) in A.P. Jail Service, Assistant Prohibition & Excise Superintendent in A.P. Excise Service, Mandal Parishad Development Officer in A.P. Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Service, and Other Vacancies)
APPSC Degree Lecturer Admit Card 2019 will be available on the 02nd Week of November 2019. The Admit Card will be released for the post of 308 Degree College Lecturer Mains Admit Card. Thus, the APPSC Degree Lecturer exam will be held from 28th November to 30th November 2019. Candidates who have applied for the posts can download the hall ticket from here.
APPSC Degree Lecturer Mains Admit Card 2019 – Check Here
Required things to Check-in AP Public Service Commission Hall Ticket
As explained in the above section contenders need to check the important details in the admit card. Enter all the mandatory instruction which indicates your identity. AP Public Service Commission Hall Ticket Download is made by just entering the Unique Application ID and Password. Aspirants must check to the printed details in the admit card before downloading it. Follow the general instructions in the APPSC admit card at the examination hall.
Name of the Applicant.
Exam Date, Time & Centre.
Post Applied for.
Application or Registration Number
Date of Birth
Important Instructions.
Vital Information to Download APPSC Hall Ticket
Candidates can download the various admit card from the end of the section. Aspirants have to carry any of the documents to the examination. Hence, download the admit card in prior to avoid the last time traffic. Moreover, Applicants have to intimate the Higher Officials if they find any mistakes in the AP Public Service Commission Admit Card. Apply and get a corrected hall ticket from the APPSC to carry for the examination.
Aadhar Card
College ID
Ration Card
Driving License
PAN Card
Voter ID
Any Valid ID Proof Issued By Gazetted Officer
Bank Passbook
Passport
How to Download APPSC Admit Card 2020?
Click on the Official Website of Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission i.e. psc.ap.gov.in
Choose the needed hall ticket to be downloaded.
Enter all the required credentials in the admit card.
Clarify all the details and tap on to the Submit button.
An admit card page will open.
Download AP Public Service Commission Hall Tickets.
Take a print out of APPSC Hall Ticket.
Carry the AP Public Service Commission Admit Card to the exam.
FCI Manager Phase II Admit Card 2020 – Aspirants who have cleared the Manager Phase I Exam can now download the FCI Hall Ticket for the Phase-II Examination. Thus, the board has issued the admit card on 05th February 2020. Therefore, the board decides to conduct the exam on 23rd February 2020.
FCI Manager Phase II Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
FCI Assistant DV Admit Card 2020 – Food Corporation of India will announce the Document Verification date on its official site. Hence, the DV Admit Card will be released on 24th January 2020 its official website. Therefore, the Food Corporation of India Admit Card has to be downloaded by every individual via Online Mode. Eligible and Interested aspirants can download the hall ticket to participate in the examination.
FCI DV Admit Card 2020 Released – The corporation has recently issued the admit card for the JE & Assistant Document Verification. The authorities have issued the admit card on 24th January 2020. Thus, document verification will be held from 10th February to 14th February 2020. Get your hall ticket from the upcoming table.
FCI DV Admit Card 2020 – Download Here (Except North Zone)
FCI Manager Admit Card 2019 – Food Corporation of India has decided to conduct the examination on 28th November 2019. Hence, the admit card has been issued on 13th November 2019. Therefore, Aspirants who are interested to take down the examination can download the FCI Admit Card from the below section. Stay tuned with the official portal to know the latest updations from the Food Corporation of India about the FCI Admit Card and the exam details.
Click on the below link, which will direct you to the Official Website to download the FCI Admit Card.
Then Log in with your Credentials ie. Registration Number/ Roll Number & Password/ DOB.
Then Select the respected post you wanted to download for.
Then Download the respected FCI Admit Card 2020.
Take a printout of FCI Admit Card 2020 for future reference.
Details on FCI Admit Card 2020
The Food Corporation of India Board had planned to generate Hall ticket just before the written examination starts. So, the candidates are curious to download the FCI North Zone Admit Card 2020 as soon as possible. To acquire it fast, be ready with your registration number and other exam details. After that, just click the official link provided here and enter the required details to download FCI Call Letter 2020, East Zone. Once you have downloaded the hall ticket, you can find the below-listed details.
Name of the Candidate
Father Name
Date of Birth
Exam Date
Examination Center
Photo Copy of yours
Instructions on Admit Card
FCI Entrance Exam Information 2020
Food Corporation of India has announced the job offers for various vacancies such as JE, Assistant Grade, Steno Grade, and Typist Post. Those who have registered for the FCI Jobs 2020 then its time to download the FCI Hall Ticket 2020 for all the vacancies. Only with the Admit card, you will not be allowed to take down the examination. To enter into the examination hall, the candidate should have the proper Identity. Those identities should match with the FCI Admit Card Downloaded. In case of mismatch or the supervisor finds any confusion then He/ She will not be allowed to write the exam. So aspirants please do be careful with the FCI Hall Ticket and your identity proof.
Finally, Aspirant is advised to visit our main site i.e., www.recruitment.guru for more related job notifications. Candidate can get details like Recruitment Notification, Admit Card, Exam Date, Result, Previous Papers, Syllabus of particular Board or Exam on our site. Keep visiting our Website.
You'll need an ACR I-Card and other documents to open a bank account in the Philippines. Be sure to read the fine print about how much money is insured.
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NEW DELHI: The new direct tax dispute settlement scheme will not cover cases related to undisclosed overseas assets initiated on the basis of information from another country. Neither will it apply to prosecutions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act and the income tax Act.Those applying for the scheme can't appeal against the decision of the tax authorities and liability computations will be final.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Direct Tax Vivad Se Vishwas Bill, 2020, in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, which she had announced during her February 1 budget speech.The legislation is aimed at resolving disputed tax cases involving Rs 9.32 lakh crore that has been stuck for more than a year through 483,000 cases pending in various courts."This Bill emphasises on trust building," the finance minister said, adding that the scheme will reduce needless litigation expenditure for the government and taxpayers. 73973013 Govt's Tax Claim to Remain IntactSitharaman said the government's tax claim will remain intact and "this structured and formula-based approach will help the taxpayer get relief without any discretion and the government to get the money".Aside from the legislation cited above, the framework won't cover prosecutions under the Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has asked its offices to provide data on pending appeals in high courts. Revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey held a meeting with senior officials from CBDT and department of revenue for preparatory work on the scheme.Income tax officers will be asked to convince taxpayers to opt for resolution under the scheme and will be rated on the success in this, said a person aware of the matter.Taxpayers have up to March 31 to opt for the scheme. The tax authorities have to declare the amount that the entity or person has to pay within 15 days. They have to pay the amount within 15 days of being told how much they owe. Those who opt for the scheme after the date will have to pay an additional 10%. Sitharaman said the scheme will not be open ended. Those opting for the scheme will have to withdraw international arbitration, conciliation or mediation cases and provide proof to the department. Cases in the Supreme Court, high courts or Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) will also have to be withdrawn. They will also have to waive their right to revive cases.Vodafone, Cairn casesTax experts said this should help settle cases and bring down litigation. "This can be a very beneficial scheme for settlement for cases such as additions of unexplained cash deposited during demonetisation period, additions for penny stocks… where factually the taxpayers have high exposures," said Rakesh Nangia, chairman, Nangia Andersen Consulting.Vodafone and Cairn may be able to settle their tax disputes using this scheme as both are eligible, said Ved Jain, former president of the Indian Chartered Accountants of India. "Clause 2(j)(II) read with Section 4(4) provides withdrawal of arbitration proceedings in India or in any other country," Jain said.The government may have to elaborate on some aspects."Though the scheme is a welcome step, some aspects require clarification. For instance, whether the interest already paid by a taxpayer will be refunded he it opts for this scheme," said Sanjay Sanghvi, tax partner, Khaitan & Co. "Given that the scheme has a limited window, taxpayers will have to quickly evaluate whether to opt for this scheme depending on merits of their pending tax disputes."If the order is not acceptable, the taxpayer doesn't appear to have any recourse to reinitiate the withdrawn appeals, said Amit Maheshwari, partner, Ashok Maheshwary & Associates LLP. "This would require careful evaluation on the part of taxpayers on whether to opt for this scheme or not," he said.CBDT writes to field officesCBDT, which frames the policy for the income tax department, wrote to all principal chief commissioners on Tuesday, asking them to collate and send the data by next week. "In order to implement the scheme, the CBDT needs database on such litigations pending at high court level," the communication read. "It is therefore, requested that the data on pending appeals at high court level as on January 31, 2020, be obtained with the help of court registry and the same may be supplemented with the records of the field office."The CBDT has asked the regional income tax department chiefs to "personally monitor" the exercise and submit the data by February 14 by email.
MUMBAI | NEW DELHI: Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read said Wednesday the UK telco's Indian JV has sought waiver of interest and penalties on its adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and wants to pay the principal over 10 years with a two-year moratorium. Read reiterated that his company won't infuse any fresh capital into loss-making Vodafone Idea, and once again described the situation in India as critical.The delay in providing relief on AGR dues, combined with the delay in government's nod to the Bharti Infratel and Indus Tower merger was "putting Vodafone idea under incredible strain," Read said while addressing the UK firm's earnings call. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers have been forced to extend the deadline to close their merger twice due to delays in government approval."Our position has not changed at all. We will not be injecting any new additional capital into India… following the AGR ruling by the Supreme Court, the situation in India is critical," said Read. 73973153 Urgent Govt Action SoughtVodafone Idea faces AGR dues of over Rs 53,000 crore. Interest and penalties are estimated to account for over 75% of this amount. Read made a similar comment in November but had to subsequently backtrack under pressure from the government.At Wednesday's earnings call, he said the company was actively seeking various forms of relief from the Indian government to ensure that the rate and level of payments made to the authorities are sustainable and it could meet its other commitments as they fall due.Later, at the earnings call, he expanded on the discussions with New Delhi, saying the Indian government has been urged to take "urgent action" to support the continuation of a three private sector plus one public sector player market, which included the lowering of licence fees and taxes, besides the setting of a floor price to eliminate predatory pricing.The government has so far refused to provide relief on those dues, unless directed by Supreme Court, whose order last October widening the definition of AGR had left 15 telcos facing over Rs 1.47 lakh crore in dues on account of licence fees, spectrum usage charge, interest and penalties. Licence fees and spectrum usage charge are paid on the basis of AGR.Vodafone Idea was the worst hit, followed by Bharti Airtel, which has to pay about Rs 35,500 crore, and Tata Teleservices, which has nearly Rs 14,000 crore dues. All three had filed review petitions, which was rejected mid-January. This prompted the three to file a modification petition, urging the court to allow negotiations with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the modalities and timelines for payment. The court is yet to hear the application."There's been considerable engagement from the government and we await the outcome of the modification application filed with the Supreme Court in the AGR case in the coming weeks," said Read.Cash-strapped Vodafone Idea, currently holds 11.15% in Indus Towers and may raise Rs 4,000-4,500 crore by selling its stake in the merged Indus Towers-Bharti Infratel. But the delays in government approval has pushed back the closure of the merger.
MUMBAI: The government's outreach programme to ensure easier availability of auto finance boosted loan disbursal in the passenger vehicle segment in the October-December festive season of 2019, data shows.Vehicle loan disbursal by banks more than doubled in the October-December quarter of 2019 from a year ago after the government announced an outreach programme at the district level across the country.An analysis of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows that banks offered Rs 10,155 crore in loans in the December quarter compared with Rs 3,833 crore in the same period a year ago, and Rs 1,292 crore in the April-September period of 2019. These loans are typically for buying two-wheelers, cars and small utility vehicles.With easy availability of finance, registration of two-wheelers and cars in October and November had broken into green, before slipping back into the red in December.Shashank Srivastava, ED, sales and marketing, Maruti Suzuki, said there is a significant change in the attitude of banks towards customers. Better finance availability was one of the key factors in helping the company deliver close to half a million vehicles in the October to December period of 2019. Maruti Suzuki had retailed about 600,000 units in the previous six months."Banks and NBFCs reduced the lending rates, even the rejection rates had gone down. Even the finance penetration saw an increase to 79.1% at the end of December 2019," Srivastava said.PB Balaji, chief financial officer at Tata Motors, said banking channel liquidity has improved significantly and that bank disbursement has picked up in the last six months, as the comfort for lenders improved after the company cleared apprehensions. "The disbursement of loans for the BS-VI vehicle may not be a hurdle for the lenders. However, financing of the BS-IV could be a challenge", he said.Bank credit for vehicle loans touched Rs 2.13 lakh crore at the end of December 2019 and constituted 8.78% of the total retail loans and 2.42% of the gross bank loans, according to RBI data.India's leading tractor maker Escorts had said after its December earning conference call that financing has improved after the festive season, led by higher participation from banks and LTV has now come back to a normal level.Vehicle loan growth rose in the December quarter as automakers collaborated with banks and NBFCs to enhance the loan-to-value ratio — ratio of loan disbursed compared with ex-showroom price of vehicle — to ease the burden on the consumer by reducing initial cash outflows.Several automakers were able to convince some bankers about the need for relaxation in their loan-tovalue ratio, with there being a lower probability of slippage, particularly among salaried and corporate customers. This has resulted in the banking channel restoring LTV ratio to the normal level of 85-90% from the 75-80% seen in the risk-averse July-August period.According to CIBIL data, the average balance per account for auto loans stood at Rs 4.9 lakh in September 2019, and the delinquency rate in the same period was of 3.1%. Vehicle loans grew 13.73% annually between FY14 and FY19, while volumes of all vehicles grew 7% in the same period. This suggests that vehicle sales growth is mainly driven by higher financing.Economists say that NBFCs have withdrawn from the market to an extent, so banks have come in to that space. Besides, credit bureau scores help price customers' fines, which adds to the comfort of the bankers. "What makes an outreach programme distinct from normal times is that banks go directly to the customer during an outreach initiative, rather than the other way round in normal times," said Sameer Narang, chief economist, Bank of Baroda. That leads to higher sales through dealers.
WASHINGTON, - President Donald Trump was acquitted on Wednesday in his U.S. Senate impeachment trial, saved by fellow Republicans who rallied to protect him nine months before he asks voters in a deeply divided America to give him a second White House term. The businessman-turned-politician, 73, survived only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history - just like the two other impeached presidents - in his turbulent presidency's darkest chapter. Trump now plunges into an election season that promises to further polarize the country. Trump was acquitted largely along party lines on two articles of impeachment approved by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on Dec. 18. The votes to convict Trump fell far short of the two-thirds majority required in the 100-seat Senate to remove him from office under the U.S. Constitution. The Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump of abuse of power stemming from his request that Ukraine investigate political rival Joe Biden, a contender for the Democratic nomination to face him in the Nov. 3 election. Republican Senator Mitt Romney joined the Democrats in voting to convict. No Democrat voted to acquit. The Senate then voted 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress by blocking witnesses and documents sought by the House. Romney joined the rest of the Republican senators in voting to acquit on the obstruction charge. No Democrat voted to acquit. On each of the two charges, the senators stood at their desks on the Senate floor to vote one by one, with U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts presiding. Trump watched the Senate vote with top aides in a White House dining room that he uses as a private study, a senior administration official said. Trump said he would deliver a public statement at noon (1700 GMT) on Thursday "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!" On Twitter, the president posted a video showing Trump campaign signs for future elections from 2024 onward ending with "Trump 4EVA." The U.S. Constitution limits a president to two elected four-year terms in office. "President Trump has been totally vindicated and it's now time to get back to the business of the American people," Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans engineered a stripped-down trial with no witnesses or new evidence. Democrats called it a sham and a cover-up. Trump called the impeachment an attempted coup and a Democratic attempt to annul his 2016 election win. The acquittal handed Trump his biggest victory yet over his Democratic adversaries in Congress. Democrats vowed to press ahead with investigations - they are fighting in court for access to his financial records - and voiced hope the facts unearthed during the impeachment process about his conduct would help persuade voters to make him a one-term president. "No doubt, the president will boast he received total exoneration. But we know better. We know this wasn't a trial by any stretch of the definition," said Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat. Trump's job approval ratings have remained fairly consistent throughout his presidency and the impeachment process as his core conservative supporters - especially white men, rural Americans, evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics - stick with him. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, showed 42% of American adults approved of his performance, while 54% disapproved. That was nearly the same as when the House launched its impeachment inquiry in September, when his approval stood at 43% and disapproval at 53%. Trump faces no serious challengers for his party's presidential nomination. He is poised to claim the nomination at the party's convention in August and previewed in the State of the Union address on Tuesday his campaign themes such as American renewal, economic vitality and hardline immigration policies. 'APPALLING ABUSE' Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, broke with his party to vote to convict Trump on the abuse-of-power charge. Romney called the president's actions in pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden "grievously wrong" and said Trump was "guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust." "What he did was not 'perfect,'" Romney said on the Senate floor, as Trump has described his call with Ukraine's president that was at the heart of the scandal. "No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep one's self in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine." Romney, a moderate and elder statesman in his party, became the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a member of his own party at an impeachment trial. McConnell, speaking to reporters after the vote, accused Democrats of using impeachment to try to gain an advantage in November's elections for control of the Senate, but called the effort "a colossal political mistake." He said he was "surprised and disappointed" by Romney's vote. Democrats expressed concern an acquittal would encourage a president who already challenges political norms, painting him as a threat to U.S. democracy and a demagogue who has acted lawlessly and exhibited a contempt for the powers of Congress and other institutions. They said the vision of nearly unlimited presidential power offered by Trump's legal team placed any president above the law. The trial formally began on Jan. 16. The Senate voted 51-49 last Friday to defeat the Democrats' bid to call witnesses such as Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton, with only two Republicans joining them. In the previous presidential impeachment trials, Andrew Johnson was acquitted in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War and Bill Clinton was acquitted in 1999 of charges stemming from a sex scandal. Trump, now seeking a second four-year term, has been under the shadow of investigations for most of his presidency. The acquittal marked the second time in 10 months that he withstood an existential threat to his presidency. In March 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found insufficient evidence that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia in its interference on his behalf in the 2016 election. Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice in seeking to impede the investigation but stopped short of concluding the president acted unlawfully. Last July 25, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a phone call to "do us a favor" and open an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden and into a discredited theory beneficial to Russia that Ukraine colluded with Democrats to meddle in the 2016 election to harm Trump. Hunter Biden had joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was U.S. vice president. Trump accused the Bidens of corruption without offering substantiation. The Bidens denied wrongdoing.
NEW DELHI: South Korea's Kia Motors is discussing with the Indian state of Tamil Nadu the possibility of moving a $1.1 billion plant out of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh only months after it fully opened, due to policy changes last year, sources close to the talks told Reuters.Kia inaugurated the Andhra plant, its first in the world's fifth-largest car market, in December after two years of construction. It has an annual capacity of some 300,000 units and created 12,000 direct and indirect jobs.However, Kia is now in talks with the nearby state of Tamil Nadu, home to many major autoparts suppliers, about potentially relocating the plant, a senior state government official and a second source familiar with the discussions said."(Kia) are facing problems (in Andhra Pradesh), they have been in preliminary negotiations with us ... There is a secretary-level meeting next week, we might have more clarity then," the official told Reuters on Wednesday.Kia said in a statement it has a long-term commitment to the Indian market and it aims to utilize the full capacity of its Andhra plant "before considering further expansion"."We do not have any plans to shift the manufacturing facility from the current location," it said, without commenting on any policy concerns or talks with Tamil Nadu, which are at an early stage.Kia is being represented in the talks by executives at its sister company Hyundai Motor Co, which is India's second-largest automaker and has all its car production facilities in Tamil Nadu, the state official added.Hyundai did not respond to a request for comment. The Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh chief minister's offices did not respond to requests for comment.Kia has been troubled by a new Andhra state law on local hiring and by the new state government wanting to review the incentives given out by the previous administration to encourage the company to set up the plant, the second source and a third person with knowledge of the discussions said.Moving the plant to Tamil Nadu could also help Kia in reducing logistics costs as it would bring it closer to some of its parts suppliers, the second source added.It was not immediately clear how swiftly Kia could move production lines from a plant in one state to another, or what sort of disruption that would entail.The sources declined to be named as the talks are private.State policy changesKia started building the new plant in 2017 and formally inaugurated it in December, when it said the 23 million square foot facility would manufacture vehicles like its Seltos SUV for both the Indian and overseas markets.It said the facility would "become a vital part" of its global production network in the long term.But considering relocation within months of the inauguration highlights the challenges foreign investors face while dealing with policy changes at federal or state level in India.Kia was caught off guard in July after the new state government in Andhra mandated companies to reserve 75% of all jobs for locals from the state, making it much harder for the company to find suitable employees, two of the sources said.Kia has also been unnerved by the new state government's bid to review certain financial incentives - such as breaks on electricity tax and deferred land payments - given to the company by the previous administration, one of the sources said.After taking control of Andhra in 2019, a new government has decided to review agreements signed with several companies, including from the renewable energy sector, sparking concerns among foreign investors around sanctity of contracts in India.The Japanese ambassador to India, given Japanese companies interest in the region, told Andhra Pradesh not to renegotiate renewables contracts as it would hit business sentiment in the region, an Aug. 7 letter seen by Reuters showed.Prime Minister Narendra Modi's federal government is separately working on a foreign investor protection law to safeguard against policy changes, Reuters has reported."This is a problem for all companies including Kia ... the cost of moving the plant would be too high and would set the company back by about two years and they have made huge investments," said one of the sources aware of Kia's concerns.
NEW DELHI: MG Motor India will invest Rs 2,500 crore over the next two years to drive in two new vehicles and expand production capacity at its Gujarat facility to attain sales of 100,000 units by 2021."We will launch a high-end sports utility vehicle, Gloster, in the festive season this year. This would be followed by a midsize SUV in 2021," MG Motor India president Rajeev Chaba told ET. "With these four products, we aim to sell 100,000 vehicles annually in 2021."The company aims to double sales volumes to 200,000 units by 2023. MG Motor India's existing facility at Halol can produce 80,000 vehicles every year. A part of the investment of Rs 2,500 crore, earmarked for the next two years, would be used to expand production capacity to 100,000 units. Beyond that fresh capacity would come in the from a second manufacturing unit. Chaba said the company has initiated discussions with several state governments for a suitable location for the new plant. "We are considering several things. We are looking at exporting vehicles out of India to right-hand drive markets across the world," Chaba said, adding that a decision on the capacity and investment required at the new plant will be taken shortly. For now, MG Motor India has around 18,000 pending orders for SUV Hector. The company has another 2400 bookings for the ZS EV.
NEW DLEHI: Nifty50 climbed for the straight third day on Wednesday. In the process, it settled above its 50-day exponential moving average and formed a bullish candle on the daily chart. Analysts said the index needs to decisively break above the 12,120 level for further upside. The 12,050 level will offer strong support to the index, they said.For the day, the index closed at 12,090, up 110.60 points or 0.94 per cent. With this, Nifty erased the entire losses made on the Budget Day."Nifty's close above its 50-DEMA is a positive sign," said Chandan Taparia of Motilal Oswal Securities. "Due to strong positive market breadth in last three sessions, sentiment has turned in favour of the bulls. Supports for the index have shifted higher to 11,950 and 11,835 levels. Till the time Nifty holds above 12,050, the ongoing move may extend," he said.Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities said the index has decisively surpassed the resistance at 11,960 level, which was an uptrend line resistance, connecting previous higher highs, as per the concept of change in polarity."Normally, such a complete negation of a sharp downside breakout of a crucial trend line could be a positive indication for the underlying index. Nifty is expected to challenge the next hurdle at 12,272, a swing high of January 24," he said. That said, the index is approaching the 61.8 per cent retracement mark, which stands at 12,118."This Golden Ratio mark is expected to get the bears back into action. On the other hand, the 12,000-11,950 zone should now become a key support range for the index," said Gaurav Ratnaparkhi of Sharekhan.Mazhar Mohammad of Chartviewindia.in said the index is still staring at the 50-day SMA at 12,117, which coincides with the 62 per cent Fibonacci retracement level of the fall from 12,430 to 11,614 level."Some profit booking can't be ruled out. However, considering the strength, one should make use of such a correction to create fresh long positions," he said.
On Saturday, we had the Sensex come down 1,000 points after the Budget, and then we saw it come back 1,000 points. What is going on? Is somebody getting it right and somebody getting it wrong? On Saturday the bulls got it wrong, and on Tuesday the bears got it wrong.At one level, this validates our thinking that the more you think about macro events and news flow, the less money you make in India. Focus on company fundamentals, focus on great franchises with strong cash flows, and you make money. You think about it slightly differently: through all of this, a sort of chaos, our CCP portfolio grew around 2.5 per cent. So if you just stay invested in great franchises with outstanding cash flows, you make money. The more you lose yourself in the market noise and Budget and RBI announcements and inflation and so on, the less money you make in India. For someone who is buying Nestle or any of these so-called consumer staple stocks, if I say these are expensive stocks, I am not sharing some inside secret which is not there. But somebody is in hurry to buy and chase these stocks. So who is that somebody and why is that somebody buying these stocks, which everybody says are expensive? According to your own analysis, if you buy stocks at 60-70 times, you do not make money.So as I have said on your programme before, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, Nestle was on similar PE multiples. The stock has compounded by around 20 per cent since then. So if you compound at 20 per cent you make around 50 times in 20-odd years around 70 times in 25 years. The other way to think about Nestle is, suppose we were having this discussion in 1995, what PE multiple would Nestle have to be in 1995 for it to have given 12-13 per cent returns in the subsequent 25 years? The answer is if Nestle is around 240-250 times, that is when Nestle's compounding gets dragged down to 12-13 per cent. At current PE multiples if you buy Nestle, I can say with a high degree of assurance or high degree of probability, you will end up with somewhere in the high teens.I am saying that because this company's compounding engine with around 20 per cent compounding earnings is very strong. It stood the test of time. It has moated that 20 per cent compounding, and it has very strong moats around it. Whether it is a Nestle or a Titan or an Asian Paints or an HDFC Bank, I keep telling people the same thing. If you look at PE multiples, it does not give you a sense of how powerful the compounding franchise is, and the compounding franchise is as powerful as Nestle. Some 20 years ago if you would have bought at the same PE multiple as it is today, and you would have made 50-60 times during this period. There is a similar point in HDFC Bank. You but it at the current price-to-book multiple, which looks elevated, you will make around high teens compounding on HDFC Bank -- one can say with the relatively high degree of assurance.What is also happening is, as we saw in Budget, the country is changing quite decisively in favour of companies that have very high cash flows, pay high dividends. And I do not think too many fund managers are locking into the fact that we are changing the country, changing the ecosystem in favour of high cash generating, high dividend paying power house franchises. What do you do with insurance because which was seen as a sunrise sector? With the 80C benefit getting out of the way, do you think this dip should be bought into, because conceptually everyone does need insurance? Do you think the prices have not quite digested the impact, because may be a lot of money is going to move out of insurance?Look, I have to concede we do not yet have any life insurance stock in our portfolio. We have ICICI Lombard in some portfolios. I am also an ICICI Lombard policy holder. But generally if I step back and look at insurance in totality, I think there is an enormous growth runway. I would not pay too much heed if I was a holder in life insurance companies. I really would not pay too much heed to the Budget announcement about exemptions and so on. The real growth blastup in life insurance is ahead of us. On insurance, more generally on financial savings, we are where private sectors banks were in the late 1990s, all set for a 20-year blastup.There are high quality life insurance in our country. There are high quality general insurance in our country. It makes sense to buy them, sit on them for long periods and not really worry about events like a Saturday. To take one example, HDFC Life is no worse the company today than it was 72 hours ago. I do not think its growth prospects have been dented one notch by Saturday's announcements. I want to go back to this point on FMCG. This is just my personal thought, it is not a borrowed thought. Commodity prices collapsed between 2010 and 2019, and that led to a strong margin expansion in FMCG companies. GST came in, and for something like HUL where margins were sub-20, they become north of 23-24. My only fear is margins cannot expand beyond a point, because that GST fillip has kicked in. If commodity prices start going higher, it could have an impact on growth. So they will have to compromise either on volume or on profitability. Are markets not pricing in, or markets are not worried about these two real scenarios which frankly could play out in next four-five years?You are absolutely right. There have been tailwinds. On FMCG what markets are saying is, just like these companies were able to capitalise on external circumstances over the last decade, it is equally possible that they will be able to capitalise on the external circumstances over the next 10 years given the quality of the management teams that run these franchises.Look at the external circumstances around India: there are two or three factors playing out for FMCG, more generally around discretionary consumption. This, I think, would be very favourable for entire discretionary consumption/ FMCG plays. So whether I am talking about Titan, Pidilite, Asian Paints, Nestle or say a stock like Britannia -- which is that as you formalise this economy, you are handing over the 30-40 per cent that was in the informal sector over to them, say an Asian Paints. Remember, GST is just one of the key drivers of formalisation, but there are other drivers such as our road network, our airline network, our ecommerce network.If you see Asian Paints' volume growth -- I am just using it as an example -- every quarter has been around 12-17 per cent now. Clearly the Indian economy is not growing at 12-17 per cent. This effectively means Asian Paints is eating up the informal sector. Something very similar is happening in, say, adhesives, in a jewellery stocks like Titan. These companies are massive beneficiaries of this formalisation, which I think is happening very fast.I do not think people realise how quickly the country is formalising. This entire discretionary consumption gamut will have an immensely profitable run over the next 10 years, as they formalise through and further benefit from that 15 per cent tax rate that the FM has offered if you set up a new plant under a new subsidiary. And you potentially throw in land reforms, which can make it easier to buy land, and you would have three very powerful turbo chargers for discretionary consumption over next 10 years. Of late what else have you been looking at? You you also recently made a case that InfoEdge is a company that you see becoming a Nifty50 constituent. Talk to us about the rationale behind that?What we have looked for consistently in India is dominant franchises that have a sort of Himalayan barrier to end around the cash generation machine. In the case of Info Edge, its CVs and jobs -- we spoke to a lot of HR heads about a-year-and-a-half ago -- and whenever we talk to our head of HR, whether it was in Bangalore or in Delhi or in Mumbai, his or her point was that one of the simplest things for an HR to do is pay Naukri.com some money and get access to a mountain of CVs. That point is so well understood in the job seekers' market, young aspirants are almost always uploading their CVs on to Naukri.com. An immensely simple model, but a model that has seen off -- I would argue -- Monster, LinkedIn, the various MNC online job providers. Thus, the ability to generate cash from Naukri is the fulcrum of our business case around InfoEdge.Further I think Sanjeev Bikhchandani and the team there have shown rationale capital allocation in the ecommerce area at a time when their foreign venture capital company -- as one would argue – saw a loss. So you got a rationale capital allocator generating cash from Naukri. They are investing it relatively sensibly. We think there is a long-term story there. After all, this is the world's youngest demographic and we need jobs in this country more than anything else. InfoEdge is a centre of that. So it sits in some of our client portfolios, not all of our portfolios.We have also mentioned in our newsletter that we have bought Divi's Labs in most of our client portfolios. A similar cash machine, 37-38 per cent return on capital, the world's largest makers of something like 70 per cent of the world's painkillers. APIs for 70 per cent of the world's painkillers are made by Divi's, it has complete lock on four of the largest APIs in the world and an immensely powerful reputation with big western pharma, which relies on Divi's to make several critical medicines. Whether it is GSK, Mylan, the world's largest drug maker rely on Divi's. As a result, Divi's has higher return on capital, higher operating margins among Indian companies, which are selling their own medicines in the western world. I would say a CCP-type franchise with strong moat, strong compounding engine and, we reckon, it will potentially stand the test of time. The four, five auto companies are all part of the index. If I talk about sectoral representation, auto pretty much has an 80 per cent representation; 80 per cent of the auto companies are part of the index. That is where disruption is happening; whether it is EV or electric scooters. Which auto company will still remain part of Nifty50? Which will be a relevant auto companies in five, six, seven years from now?The article which you folks were referring to earlier, where we highlighted that a firm like Eicher Motors we think is well placed, Royal Enfield franchise at Rs 1.5 lakh price point is a fortress franchise, we think. It is not clear to us if either foreign motorcycles or other domestic challengers can take on Royal Enfield in that Rs 1.5 lakh segment. We find governance to be of high standards there, both CEO and the promoter have impeccable track records. This is the world's highest margin auto OEM, 25 per cent operating margins for Royal Enfield is the world's highest margin auto OEM, strong balance sheet. Yes, volumes are down 10-15 per cent over last six, seven, eight months and we also confess we do not exactly know when the turnaround in auto numbers will come, but given the sheer quality of the Royal Enfield franchise and given the fact that they have launched new BS-VI compliant bikes, we think this is probably the most insulated company from a disruption perspective.You do not buy a Bullet because you are price conscious or you are worried about gas guzzling, you buy a Bullet as a statement of aspiration, you buy a Bullet for the power of its engine. I think given the way the product is positioned, to our mind this looks like the most appropriately positioned auto company going into a potentially a very disruptive period for Indian auto OEMs. A lot of people complained, yelled, quarreled, argued that Budget has nothing, DDT on the hand of individuals means HNI investors will have to pay more tax, foreigners are being benefitted. Do you think we should not focus too much on the Budget announcements and it is time to move on? All that I am trying to ask you, is the Budget passé now?I would think so. Even when I was in your studio Saturday morning, I was making the point that data for last 20 years suggests the Budget has become less and less relevant for the Indian stock market. Now with the GST, with a proactive government which makes policy announcements every month, with stuff like a corporate tax cut happening six months before Budget, one really has to question why investors lose so much sleep over the Budget. There is a plenty happening in our country: some of it is good, some of it is bad. There is a lot of opportunities to make money. I do not think too many of these opportunities are affected by what happens on the Budget day.
Bengaluru: Microblogging platform Twitter will start labelling, and in some cases, removing doctored or manipulated media that users share on its platform, from next month.Twitter will label the video or photo so that users know it has been doctored.However, in other cases, where the content might "impact public safety or cause serious harm," Twitter said the video or photo would likely be removed.Twitter's definition of "harm" goes beyond physical harm, like threats to a person's or group's physical safety or the risk of mass violence or civil unrest. Also included in the definition of "harm" are threats to the privacy or the ability of a person or group to freely express themselves or participate in civic events.Twitter will use three tests to decide how it will act on manipulated media. It will first confirm whether the media is synthetic or manipulated. It will then assess if the media is being shared in a deceptive manner. Finally, it will evaluate the potential for harm.Twitter made the announcement on Tuesday in a blog post. The initial draft was announced in November. It said it collected user feedback ahead of finalising the new policy, using the hashtag #TwitterPolicyFeedback.The policy includes deep-fake videos that have been edited using artificial intelligence or other advanced software to distort a person's appearance or speech while appearing to be authentic, as well as other kinds of edited photos and videos that have been "substantially edited," it said.
NEW DELHI: As the government prepares for discussion and passage of the Finance Bill after the motion of thanks to the President's address is passed by Parliament, considerable curiosity is building up among political parties and MPs on when and how the plan to sell shares in state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India will be implemented.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech on February 1 that the government proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC through an initial public offer. This would require a bill to amend the LIC Act to be passed in both houses of Parliament. Congress, the main opposition party, has already stuck a sceptical note on the LIC disinvestment and said it would make its stand clear on the floor of the house after internal deliberations. One question is whether the government will initiate steps on the LIC stake sale in this session or later, given that several budgetary calculations are said to be based on funds that can be mopped up from divestment in the insurer. The government has set a target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore from disinvestment in FY21.Many MPs are curious on two counts. First, how prepared is the government to let LIC make disclosures – a mandatory requirement for an IPO – on closely guarded data such as the nature of the insurer's investments and their financial soundness. "The LIC data disclosure assumes crucial importance and can have implications for LIC and others, given that it is not unknown that all governments have been dipping into the corpus of LIC – like that of RBI – for fiscal management and forex management," a senior MP said.The second aspect pertains to the legislative course that the government will take with the bill to amend the LIC Act and whether that attempt will be made during the budget session or put off to the next Parliament session. "As a matter of technical interpretation, a bill to amend the LIC Act can't fall in the category of a money bill (which does not need Rajya Sabha endorsement). So, in the normal course, the government should bring it as an ordinary bill," argued a senior Congress leader. "But, given how the Modi-1 government had controversially certified the Aadhaar bill as a money bill, no one should hazard a guess on what it will do this time."While the Modi government has managed to get politically sensitive bills passed in Parliament, including those on triple talaq and the withdrawal of special status for J&K, amending the LIC Act may prove to be a bigger test, with many parties touchy over the perceived image of LIC as an "ordinary people's money keeper." "Our party is completely opposed to the disinvestment of profit-making PSUs, and, therefore, we will oppose the bill to disinvest LIC," SP floor leader in the Rajya Sabha, Ram Gopal Yadav, told ET."LIC is where the ordinary people have invested their hard-earned money, which will face an uncertain future once LIC has fallen into the hands of private players," said BSP MP Danish Ali. " BSP will vote against the government bill to disinvest LIC." While BJP ally Akali Dal's MP Naresh Gujral said he fully supports the decision to disinvest LIC as "the government has no business to run businesses," Saugata Roy of the TMC said his party is against disinvestment of profit-making PSUs.
BENGALURU: Next time you see an Amazon delivery executive in your locality or walk into a Samsung store for after-sales service, you will probably be dealing with an employee of Quess Corp — a company you most probably haven't heard of.Going by its latest quarterly filing, the Bengaluru-based company, which provides staffing solutions for some of the biggest brands in the country, now has the largest roster of employees and associates — 3.85 lakh — in the private sector in India.Growing at 38% every year since 2016, Quess has shot past Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which remains the largest overall employer with 4.46 lakh on the rolls, but of whom about 90,000 are overseas, pegging its India workforce at about 3.6 lakh, according to people briefed on the matter. TCS does not provide a geographic split of its employee base and a company spokesperson declined to comment for the story. 73950376 The development underlines a growing shift in the economy as companies like Quess have benefited from the demand for outsourced workers in areas ranging from e-commerce delivery to facilities management for commercial buildings.There is, of course, a significant difference in the skill levels of staff at TCS, which mostly employs engineers, and Quess, which depends largely on 'grey-collar' workers.Quess's employees function as outsourced service providers for its over 2,000 clients, including Samsung, Amazon, Reliance, Vodafone India and Bajaj Finance, according to a report from ICRA. The company has about 5,000 workers overseas in markets like Singapore."There are many countries which have a population smaller than the number of employees we have. The scale of our impact on the Indian job market is not well-known, especially the role we play in formalizing the job economy," said Quess Corp's Group CEO Suraj Moraje, a former McKinsey & Co partner who joined the company in November.The development comes at a time when traditional sectors such as automobiles, telecom, FMCG and even IT services have seen layoffs for reasons like slowing growth and consolidation. At the same time, new economy companies continue to grow, fuelled by a record year of capital inflows.Investors tracking the space say the shift is happening not only because of the scarcity of jobs, but also because wages have increased substantially in the segment. "This area is exploding and these grey-collar jobs now have salaries which compare with entry-level compensation in IT/ITes companies," says Anand Lunia, founding partner at venture capital firm India Quotient, adding that wages for delivery boys have risen faster than inflation over the last decade.Lunia was an early investor in Rebel Foods, which owns brands like Faasos and Behrouz Biryani, where salaries of delivery personnel are about Rs 20,000 – compared to Rs 6,000-7,000 in 2010, which inflation-adjusted, would have been about Rs 10,000-12,000 now."Their aspiration is a steady job, which is a big reason why companies outsource these jobs since attrition is high and there is also not always a steady demand for these roles," he said.According to Moraje, the average salaries at Quess range between Rs 12,000-Rs 40,000 for 70% of its workforce, about 75% of whom are in the age group of 21-35. While he declined to give an attrition number, the firm interviews over 1 million people a year. "We need to make sure that employees and associates have a career path so that our recruiting costs and retention rate improve," he says. The company says it provides benefits such as provident fund and insurance to its entire workforce, and for many of them, this is their first formal employment.Quess, which was started by serial entrepreneur Ajit Isaac over a decade ago, has grown at a fast clip through a slew of acquisitions and the backing of Fairfax, owned by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa. The company was listed in 2016. Local rival TeamLease, also based in Bengaluru, had about 2.28 lakh employees and trainees as of December 2019. Other major players in the space include global giants like Adecco and Randstand."Companies are focusing on their core activities, while outsourcing activities that can be done by a specialised company; Quess Corp fits in there. Companies are wary of employing full-time when they can find gigs to fill in the jobs," said Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO at CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy). He added that whether benefits are provided or not will be critical to measure if such employment are sustainable. "If a larger part of the labour force is getting into engagement that does not give social security, in a generation's time, we could have a problem."
Antler is a 'company builder' which emerged a couple of years ago, running startup generator programs and investing from an early-stage, bringing together a heady mix of technologists, product builders, and operators together with its own technology stack.
Now, plenty of 'company builders' have come and gone. It's a bit like Apocalypse Now: everyone goes in thinking they will come up with the major formula to spit out startups at a prodigious rate and they come out screaming "The Horror! The Horror!"
But Antler appears to have been on an interesting run. It's so far made more than 120 investments across a wide range of companies, with several going on to raise later-stage funding from the likes of Sequoia, Golden Gate Ventures, East Ventures, Venturra Capital and the Hustle Fund.
Since its launch in Singapore two years ago, Antler now has a presence across New York, London, Singapore, Sydney, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Nairobi and Oslo.
Today, it’s announcing that it’s attracted investment from British investment management company Schroders, investment house FinTech Collective and Ferd, the vehicle used by Johan H. Andresen, the Norwegian industrialist and investor.
This latest investment takes the capital raised by Antler over the past six months to more than $75 million.
These investors join an existing group that includes Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Canica International and Credit Saison, the third-largest credit card issuer in Japan. The idea here is that these investors get exposure to early-stage companies as they are built.
As with most company builders and accelerators, Antler only takes 1-1.5% of the applicants
Its portfolio includes Sampingan, an on-demand workforce in Indonesia; Xailient, a computer vision technology; Airalo, a global e-sims marketplace and Fusedbone, which enables medical centers to produce bespoke, non-metal implants on-site.
Magnus Grimeland, Antler co-founder and CEO said: "With our support, our founders start refining their ideas and building new and innovative businesses. What is equally important is the deep relationship our founders build with their peers, our advisors and backers. Having accomplished investors like Schroders, Ferd and FinTech Collective on board means we can provide a more valuable network for our startups as they grow their businesses."
Peter Harrison, Group CEO of Schroders, who will also be joining Antler's advisory board, said: "We are in a period of unprecedented change. The visibility on venture capital activity and innovation that Antler provides is therefore leading-edge."
Antler says more than 40% of its portfolio companies have a female co-founder and 78% of these have a female CEO.
That puts the division on a nice little run rate of $10.44 billion. It feels like a lot until you consider that Microsoft had a combined software and infrastructure cloud revenue run rate of $12.5 billion in its most recent report, while AWS reported almost $10 billion for the quarter. While Google is not even close to these rivals, it’s picking up some much-needed steam.
As Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, points out, crossing the $10 billion run rate mark is a rite of passage. “Ten billion dollars is the new mark for IaaS players, effectively the unicorn rating for them. And revenue/size matter, as the cloud business is an economies of scale business,” Mueller told TechCrunch.
When Thomas Kurian came on board last year after more than two decades at Oracle to replace Diane Greene as head of Google Cloud, prevailing wisdom suggested that he was hired to help shift the division’s focus firmly to the enterprise. The move appears to be working.
Funko Pops. You’ve probably noticed them at your local GameStop, Hot Topic or spread out all over your co-worker’s desk. These lil’ vinyl figurines and their big ol’ heads have taken over retail shelves in the last few years. You can now find a Funko Pop! (or thirty) for just about every fandom; there are more than 8,000 different Pops, and that number never seems to stop growing.
Like most collectible things, some Pops are worth more than others — whether they’re obscure characters that didn’t get a big run, limited-edition color variations or were only sold for a day or two at a convention, the rarest Pops can sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars. And, like anything where people are dropping piles of cash, there are folks trying to sell fakes.
Whatnot, a company out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 class, wants to tackle the issue of fakes in collectibles by adapting a model proven by services like GOAT and StockX: authenticated resale.
As with the aforementioned, Whatnot works as the obsessively-informed middle man between buyer and seller. Buyer makes an offer, seller sends their figurine to Whatnot, Whatnot uses its growing knowledge of what’s real (and how to flag what’s not) to make sure it’s legit. If everything looks good, Whatnot forwards the Funko Pop to the buyer and takes their cut (about 9%, plus a few bucks for shipping).
“We started out buying and reselling sneakers, actually,” Whatnot co-founder Grant LaFontaine tells me. “Then we started getting into buying/reselling Funko Pops. As we started to do this, we noticed it was much more difficult, and much more unsafe, to buy and sell Funko Pops than it was to buy and sell sneakers.”
Services like GOAT and StockX had “drastically simplified” the process for sneaker fans, LaFontaine says, helping to weed out counterfeits for buyers while limiting potential scams that could hurt sellers.
Today all sales on Whatnot are verified by a human expert. That makes sense for the rarer, more expensive figurines. The “Grails,” as Funko Pop collectors call them — like this Comic Con Sith Trooper that has been selling for around $600-700, or this 2012 “Holographic” Darth Maul that can go for thousands. For the less rare stuff, though, it’s a bit overkill.
With that in mind, Whatnot is building out its database of the red flags to look for with each transaction — things like boxes that are just slightly mis-sized, or a logo that doesn’t look quite right. In time, this could allow for more of their verification to be automated, with the human expert (and the associated higher fees) reserved for bigger transactions.
Whatnot isn’t alone in noticing this market’s potential. StockX, the authenticated resale marketplace that first focused on sneakers, expanded into collectibles late last year. Whatnot is looking to find its fan base by focusing solely on collectibles, giving collectors the exact user experience, filters and info they’d be looking for within a given category.
That’s not to say they’re focusing solely on Funko Pops, though — not in the long run, at least. The team intends to expand into other types of collectibles down the road, with Pokémon cards being the likely next candidate.
Whatnot tells me it has raised a $550,000 pre-seed round from Wonder Ventures, YC, and a handful of angel investors.
In part two of a survey that asks top VCs about exciting opportunities in open source and dev tools, we dig into responses from 10 leading open-source-focused investors at firms that span early to growth stage across software-specific firms, corporate venture arms and prominent generalist firms.
The once-polarizing world of open-source software has recently become one of the hotter destinations for VCs.
As the popularity of open source increases among organizations and developers, startups in the space have reached new heights and monstrous valuations.
Over the past several years, we’ve seen surging open-source companies like Databricks reach unicorn status, as well as VCs who cashed out behind a serious number of exits involving open-source and dev tool companies, deals like IBM’s Red Hat acquisition or Elastic’s late-2018 IPO. Last year, the exit spree continued with transactions like F5 Networks’ acquisition of NGINX and a number of high-profile acquisitions from mainstays like Microsoft and GitHub.
Similarly, venture investment in new startups in the space has continued to swell. More investors are taking shots at finding the next big payout, with annual invested capital in open-source and dev tool startups increasing at a roughly 10% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over the last five years, according to data from Crunchbase. Furthermore, attractive returns in the space seem to be adding more fuel to the fire, as open-source and dev tool startups saw more than $2 billion invested in the space in 2019 alone, per Crunchbase data.
As we close out another strong year for innovation and venture investing in the sector, we asked 18 of the top open-source-focused VCs who work at firms spanning early to growth stages to share what's exciting them most and where they see opportunities. For purposes of length and clarity, responses have been edited and split (in no particular order) into part oneand part two of this survey. In part one of our survey, we hear from:
The name Porsche has been synonymous with gas-powered high-performance sports cars and racing for nearly three quarters of a century. Now, the sports car manufacturer that is owned by Volkswagen Group is trying to build a new legacy, starting with its first all-electric vehicle, the Porsche Taycan.
Porsche has said that the Taycan, which was first unveiled in September, is just the beginning. It has committed to invest more than $6 billion into electric mobility through 2025 — a goal that is already well underway. Porsche spent more than $1 billion developing the Taycan, a cost that included expanding its factory. The company is investing in tech too, including an increased stake in Croatian electric vehicle components and hypercar company Rimac Automobili. Its venture arm took a minority stake in TriEye, an Israeli startup that's working on a sensor technology to help vehicle driver-assistance and self-driving systems see better in poor weather conditions like dust, fog and rain.
Where is Porsche headed next? TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 will hopefully provide some answers. We’re excited to announce that Klaus Zellmer, the president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, will join us onstage for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on May 14, 2020 in San Jose, Calif.
As president and CEO of PCNA, Zellmer leads the brand’s operations in the United States and Canada. He is also CEO of Porsche Digital, the sports car manufacturer’s digital subsidiary. Zellmer previously served as head of Overseas and Emerging Markets, with responsibility for Australia, Japan and Korea, and as CEO of Porsche Germany.
Zellmer has been with Porsche more than 20 years, an era of huge change at the sports car manufacturer, notably its electric vehicle program. Zellmer will talk about Porsche’s push into electrification, digital services and even flying cars while onstage at TC Sessions: Mobility.
TechCrunch created TC Sessions: Mobility to explore new ideas and startups, dig into the tech and highlight the people driving change in this ever-changing industry. This one-day event is centered around the future of mobility and transportation. We’ve already announced a few of the engineers, investors, founders and technologists who will join us onstage, including Waymo’s Boris Sofman, Ike Robotics co-founder and chief engineer Nancy Sun, Trucks VC general partner Reilly Brennan and Shin-pei Tsay, director of policy, cities and transportation at Uber.
Stay tuned to see who we'll announce next.
And … $250 Early-Bird tickets are now on sale — save $100 on tickets before prices go up on April 9; book today. Students, you can grab your tickets for just $50 here.
Trellis Research, the Los Angeles based startup building out a search and analytics tool for state court data, has raised $4.4 million in a new round of funding, and added Alon Shwartz as a technical co-founder.
Shwartz will take over product design as the company’s chief product officer, joining Nicole Clark, who founded the company a little over two years ago.
Perhaps best-known for co-founding Docstoc — an original TechCrunch40 company — Shwartz went on to found the parental control company unGlue, and other startups in the Los Angeles ecosystem.
"I've gotten to know this team as an advisor since Trellis' early days and there is no team with whom I'd rather be working!" Shwartz said in a statement.
The addition of Shwartz along with $4.4 million in financing led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Okapi, Revel, and other investors positions Trellis for expansion later this year.
Nicole Clark, the co-founder and chief executive of Trellis
The company already operates in California with the largest database of California Superior court records and judicial analytics. Over the next year, Trellis will expand into New York, Texas, Florida, and Delaware, according to a statement from the company.
Trellis has a freemium service where state trial decisions and filings can be accessed through organic search and power users pay for full access to filing documents and the ability to download, print, or analyze them.
“I was customer one,” says Clark of the product.
A former litigator in Los Angeles, the entrepreneur developed Trellis to serve her own research needs. “I used this data for two years and during those years I won every motion that I had,” says Clark. “It made it so obvious what a competitive advantage this was. It’s a way to analyze how a judge thinks about issues and a lawyer can draft their motions with a particular judge in mind.”
Clark claims that attorneys can double their win rate using her software.
Trellis costs $100 for individual users and enterprise contracts are negotiable.
Founded in 2018, Clark first began collecting the data for the service in 2016, which explains the extensive collection of California documents that the company has already amassed.
A graduate of the Techstars accelerator program, Trellis raised $2 million in an initial financing from Craft Ventures and Okapi.
Superhuman founder and CEO Rahul Vohra and Eventjoy founder Todd Goldberg confirmed Wednesday that they had closed their first fund, which they are very accurately titling, “The Todd & Rahul Angel Fund.”
TechCrunch reported back in October that Vohra and Goldberg were shopping a pitch deck around to potential LPs.
The $7 million fund is the pair’s first. They will be making investments in startups between $75,000 and $200,000 Vohra told TechCrunch. The competition for early-stage deals has been heating up as mega firms have fought for earlier deal allocation. The pair are hoping that their founder experience and network of LPs can represent an alluring pitch for founders to make room in their rounds.
“I think one of the things that makes the fund extra interesting to founders is the LP base itself,” Vohra said in a direct message. “Instead of funds of funds and traditional LPs, the fund is backed by active founders and operators — the kind of investor that savvy founders want on their cap tables.”
The pair say they are looking specifically at “viral” SaaS, the productivity space, health and wellness, creator tools and business infrastructure. Vohra and Goldberg have already made eight investments, including the apertif brand Haus, account exec toolmaker Scratchpad and outdoor ad startup AdQuick.
Apple surprised its app developer community today with the official announcement that they’ll soon be able to sell their cross-platform apps as one universal purchase, including, for the time, apps that run on macOS. For consumers, a universal purchase option allows them to just pay once for an app that works across devices, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and/or Mac. Developers, meanwhile, will be able to entice customers to buy their Mac and iOS app together, or other combinations of apps. They’ll also be able to more easily sync customers’ in-app purchases and subscriptions across platforms.
Apple says support for universal purchase will roll out in March 2020.
In preparation for the changes, the App Store categories will be unified across the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, to make apps more “discoverable,” Apple says.
Apple’s App Store categories are rarely updated, so this too is a notable change that will impact all developers — including those without a universal app bundle to sell. By listing their app in a new category, developers may have a better shot at ranking higher on the list of Top apps, compared with competing in an existing category alongside far more apps.
On iOS, developers will be able to list their app in two new categories: “Developer Tools” and “Graphics & Design.”
The Mac App Store is gaining several other categories coming from iOS, including “Books,” “Food & Drink,” “Magazines & Newspapers,” “Navigation” and “Shopping.”
In addition, the “Photography” and “Video” categories on the Mac App Store will be combined into “Photo & Video,” to better sync up with iOS. And “Kids” will no longer be a subcategory within “Games” on the Mac App Store.
Apple says developers can choose to either create a new app for these platforms using a single app record in App Store Connect, or they can add platforms to an existing app record to take advantage of the new universal purchase option. The feature will be enabled by default for Mac Catalyst apps and made available to non-Catalyst apps, too.
Developers can download the Xcode 11.4 beta update released today to get started, but the option doesn’t go live for the public until the March launch date.
This isn’t the first time that developers have been able to distribute their apps together as one purchase, to be clear. If you’ve ever bought an iPhone app and gained the iPad or Apple Watch app alongside it, for example, you are already familiar with this universal purchase option. What’s new is that Apple is now bringing this same functionality to Mac apps for the first time.
Of course, a universal purchase doesn’t make sense for all apps, so developers will need to weigh the pros and cons for themselves, based on how they want to do business. But the option does represent a significant step in unifying the separate app ecosystems Apple offers, which could spur more Mac app development in years to come.
The Xcode beta was released today alongside other macOS and iOS betas, which together are bringing new features like screen time communication limits on Mac, head pointer tech for Mac, new Memoji stickers, CarPlay updates and iCloud folder sharing.
Last week, Microsoft announced the latest news in its ongoing “AI for Good” program: a $40M effort to apply data science and AI to difficult and comparatively under-studied conditions like tuberculosis, SIDS and leprosy. How does one responsibly parachute into such complex ecosystems as a tech provider, and what is the process for vetting recipients of the company’s funds and services?
Tasked with administrating this philanthropic endeavor is John Kahan, chief data analytics officer and AI lead in the AI for Good program. I spoke with him shortly after the announcement to better understand his and Microsoft’s approach to entering areas where they have never tread as a company and where the opportunity lies for both them and their new partners.
Kahan, a Microsoft veteran of many years, is helping to define the program as it develops, he explained at the start of our interview.
John Kahan: About a year ago, they announced my role in conjunction with expanding AI for Good from being really a grants-oriented program, where we gave money away, to a program where we use data science to help literally infuse AI and data to drive change around the world. It is 100% philanthropic — we don’t do anything that’s commercial-related.
TechCrunch: This kind of research is still a very broad field, though. How do you decide what constitutes a worthwhile investment of resources?
Rae Witte is a New York-based freelance journalist covering music, style, sneakers, art and dating, and how they intersect with tech. You can find her writing on i-D, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire and Forbes, among others.
All it takes to win a gold medal at the Olympics is the best performance on the day of the event. Champions may be made in countless training hours, but championships, finals and even world title-representing gold medals are won in final seconds and millimeters through speed or accuracy and endurance in that final race, round or game.
To that end, Nike introduced innovation-led products with proven performance-enhancing results for Tokyo 2020.
By driving down into the minutiae of every Olympic event to find the best opportunities to improve design, the brand is ensuring its footwear directly caters to those crucial moments as much as athletes' preparation for them.
“We are innovating into the infinitesimal and little things that really matter,” John Hoke, Nike's chief design officer, told me. Although he's held his position for the last decade, Hoke has actually been with Nike for about 30 years, and through seven Olympic games. “We get to stop and slow down the game and sort of study and obsess over that. We are obsessing over those moment-of-truth moments.”
This obsession resulted in a new line of shoes designed to enhance the moments of truth: the Nike Zoom Viperfly; Air Zoom BB for basketball; the Air Zoom Mercurial for soccer; and the long-awaited Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% for elite runners. The models contain innovations developed over months of research conducted in a lab in the Pacific Northwest.
The data behind the design
In conjunction with a design team as elite as the athletes it caters to, the Nike Research Lab is an integral part of these advancements. Founded 40 years ago in Exeter, N.H., the lab is now located on Nike’s Portland campus and focuses on biomechanics, physiology, perception and human behavior, and data science.
Athletes contribute performance insights to the lab through testing and verbal feedback that the researchers quantify into performance, movement and even fatigue data to improve the product. Researchers have been able to pinpoint the moments during competition when athletes are operating from a place of need or fatigue, thus providing a direction for designers to functionally improve apparel and footwear.
This resulted in a major focus on innovations for energy preservation and responsive technology.
Additionally, with such significant advancements following the release of 2017's Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite, elite runners have been returning to Nike sneakers en masse.
In 2018, the addition of ZoomX foam and modern technology using carbon fiber plates allowed Nike ZoomX Vaporfly NEXT% to increase running efficiency by 4%, making wearers actually see significantly faster times.
However, this has raised questions about whether the shoes are offering an unfair advantage or are simply the most energy-efficient.
The shoe's cushy foam midsole embedded with a single carbon fiber plate is advertised as giving athletes "the sensation of being propelled forward." By lowering the energy expenditure, runners reduce fatigue, resulting in faster times. An independent study conducted by The New York Times found the technology actually improved runners' efficiency 4% to 5%, which is more than what the brand claims.
In the past year, Eliud Kipchoge ran the first sub-two-hour marathon time in last fall’s INEOS 1:59 Challenge. Sifan Hassan became the first woman to win a gold medal in both the 1,500-meter and 10,000-meter events at a single World Championships or Olympic Games. Earlier last year, Britain's middle-distance runner Laura Muir broke the British indoor mile record in a similar pair of Vaporfly prototype spikes, and Brigid Kosgei set a new women's marathon world record. And the five fastest-ever marathons times have been recorded by runners in iterations of Nikes with the new technology.
Leveraging learnings from the elite runners' groundbreaking successes since the release of Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite in 2017, the Nike design team approached spike design with a fresh set of eyes. The research lab found that most runners' final 20 meters of a 100 meter race were the slowest, and that they were actually decelerating as they crossed the finish line. The goal is to shorten the deceleration time.
“I constantly hear athletes talk about getting to a state of flow, which is this wonderful state where everything slows down and you can’t wait to occupy that space, that time, that second so that you can do exactly what you’ve been trained to do,” Hoke says.
His team is determined to provide athletes with products that allow their bodies to perform in that space.
Innovation-led and high-performance
The Nike Air Zoom Viperfly track spikes are crafted specifically for the 100-meter race. As most sprinters’ heels barely touch the ground throughout the race, the ultra-light footwear features denser knit through the body of the shoe for support and lighter knit through the heel.
More cushioning in the form of protective foam within the heel of the shoe compensates for the lighter knit, providing added protection without the weight specifically for times of deceleration.
Nike Air Zoom Viperfly track spikes
Similar to those final 20 meters of the 100-meter dash, examining basketball led researchers to determine that players experience the most fatigue in the fourth quarter, as one would expect, and that they run an average of three to four miles during gameplay. Sprinting in short, court-length bursts for three to four miles results in the most fatigue toward the end of a 40-minute Olympic basketball game.
Striving to provide a product for the most fundamentally proficient fourth quarter led the design team to the new Nike Air Zoom BB.
“The goal is to get them to the final 15 seconds without a dropped step, that they haven’t lost any ability to get to the basket or get to the ball and to keep efficient shooting form so they’re in perfect shape at the very end,” Hoke shares.
Nike React foam, which first launched in basketball sneakers in June 2017, is known for offering runners cushioning and energy return while being lightweight and maintaining durability. Typically, designs have to sacrifice comfort for energy return or weight for durability and vice versa.
The new Nike Air Zoom BB leverages Nike React foam under the heel, allowing athletes to carry less weight and receive more energy return, turning the force from their body into momentum in each step.
Two Air Zoom units are positioned under the ball of the athletes' feet — pressure points consistent with basketball performance — to absorb and return energy, which results in reduced fatigue.
Nike Air Zoom BB
And for the Nike soccer teams, the focus comes down to ball control and the shoes' effect on catching and passing. This brings a few firsts for Nike soccer footwear.
"If we marry these surfaces (the ball and the boot) in more of a symbiotic way, their touch radically goes up," Hoke says of the inspiration for the innovation. "So that goes all the way up the leg into the brain, and they feel like they’re better connected to the ball."
The Air Zoom Mercurial features a 3D-printed Flyknit-like upper, known as Flyprint, for the first time. "We’ve used skinned Flyknit or Flyknit material with a skin on top of it. We have used multiple types of synthetic and natural leathers. We’ve looked at covered canvases," Hoke says recalling other options that were considered. Flyprint is Nike's first 3D-printed textile upper in performance footwear and debuted on the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite Flyprint, worn by Kipchoge in 2017.
By thinking of the surface of the new Mercurial's upper as a series of contoured terrains, 3D printing allows for the most precision.
“And each surface can be done specifically for a striker, a midfielder or defender,” he adds. “3D printing offers a completely new way of designing that surface.”
The cleat also features Air Zoom technology, with a 4.5 millimeter bag focusing on responsiveness more than cushioning for fatigue reduction like the larger Air Zoom systems for other sports. “When they plant their foot into the grass, and we have these cleats perfectly designed, they feel like they can push off in any direction.”
Air Zoom Mercurial
With significantly larger cushioning specifically for comfort and energy return — rather than sharp running patterns demanded of the Mercurial — the long-awaited Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% has finally been released.
Two exposed Air Zoom bags sit side by side for extra cushioning. These are designed for impact protection and performance and include the freedom to expand in order to minimize energy loss and maximize responsiveness.
A modified carbon fiber plate (different from the three exhibited in the patent docs) allows Nike to maintain the cataclysmic sensation of propelling the runner forward.
Two exposed Air Zoom bags
The plate, which is embedded in the ZoomX foam of the Alphafly NEXT%, provides stability and increased stiffness in the forefoot. And its position within the entire system also reduces stress on the ankle joint.
But there were some questions in the lead-up to the shoe's release.
World Athletics, the governing body of track and field competitors worldwide, announced that there would be an “indefinite moratorium” on shoes with a sole exceeding 40 millimeters and containing more than one ridged embedded plate of any material.
“I believe these new rules strike the right balance by offering certainty to athletes and manufacturers as they prepare for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, while addressing the concerns that have been raised about shoe technology," said Sebastian Coe in a statement. "If further evidence becomes available that indicates we need to tighten up these rules, we reserve the right to do that to protect our sport.”
It was speculated that the combination height of the foam stack and the angle of the carbon plates could result in an unfair advantage. The stack height for the new Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% is set to increase to 39.5 millimeters, which is an increase from the 37 millimeters in the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly NEXT% that was released in 2017.
This means that the shoe won’t be affected by Friday’s World Athletics announcement.
Unseen since Kipchoge wore them in the INEOS Challenge, they'll be available to Nike Members this month, with broader distribution later in the spring.
In what is predicted to be the hottest Olympics in history, Nike footwear innovations are dedicated to causing the lowest level of energy expenditure as possible through diving deeply into the physics of sport.
"We know that fatigue and the loss of control on space becomes where injury happens and where errors happen. We’re just trying to give athletes just a little bit more of an advantage, a little bit more confidence through our designs," Hoke says.
After a ground-breaking year in elite running efficiency and subsequent better performance in athletes in Nikes, we're ready to let this summer's games begin.
Snapchat’s developer platform is blowing up as a gateway to teen social app users. Hoop is the latest Snap Kit blockbuster, rocketing to No. 2 on the overall App Store charts this month with its Tinder -esque swiping interface for discovering people and asking to message with them over Snapchat. Within a week of going viral, unfunded French startup Dazz saw Hoop score 2.5 million downloads.
The fact that such a dumbfoundingly simple and already ubiquitous style of app was able to climb the charts so fast demonstrates the potential of Snap Kit to drive user lock-in for Snapchat. Because the developer platform lets other apps piggyback on its login system and Bitmoji avatars, it creates new reasons for users to set up a Snapchat account and keep using it. It’s the same strategy that made Facebook an entrenched part of the internet, but this time it’s for a younger crowd.
In the first-ever interview about Hoop, Dazz’s 26-year-old co-founders Lucas Gervais and Alexi Pourret reveal that the idea came from watching user patterns in their previous experiment on the Snap Kit platform. They built an app called Dazz in 2018 that let users create polls and get anonymous answers from friends, but they noticed their 250,000 users “always ended up adding each other on Snap. So we decided to create Hoop, the app to make new Snap friends,” Gervais tells me.
Gervais and Pourret have been friends since age two, growing up in small town in France. They met their two developers in high school, and are now marketing students at university. With Hoop, they say the goal was to “meet everyone's needs, from connecting people from different cultures to helping lonely people to feel better to simply growing your Snapchat community.”
The Dazz / Hoop team (from left): Developers Julien Maire & Teddy Vallar, co-founders Alexi Pourret & Lucas Gervais
At first, Hoop for iOS or Android looks just like Tinder. You create an account with some photos and bio information, and start swiping through profiles. If you like someone, you tap a Snapchat button to request their Snap username so you can message them.
But then Hoop reveals its savvy virality and monetization strategy. Rather than being able to endlessly “swipe right” and approach people, Hoop limits your asks by making you spend its in-app “diamonds” currency to reach out. After about 10 requests to chat, you’ll have to earn more diamonds. You do that by sharing and getting friends to open your invite link to the app, adding people on Snapchat that you meet on Hoop, logging in each day, taking a survey, watching a video ad and completing offers by signing up for streaming services or car insurance providers. It also trades diamonds for rating Hoop in the App Store, though that might run afoul of Apple’s rules.
Those tactics helped Hoop climb as high as No. 2 on the overall iOS chart and No. #1 on the Social Apps chart on January 24th. It’s now at No. 83 overall and No. 7 in social, putting it above apps like Discord, LinkedIn, Skype and new Vine successor Byte. Hoop had more than 3 million installs as of a week ago.
There are certainly some concerns, though. Gervais claims that “We are not a meeting or dating app. We simply offer an easy way to make new Snap friends.” But because Tinder isn’t available for people under 18, they might be looking to Hoop instead. Thankfully, adults can’t see profiles of users under 18, and vice versa, and users only see potential matches in their age group. However, users can edit their age at any time.
Snap Kit keeps startups lean
Tools like Amazon’s AWS have made building a startup with a lean team and little money increasingly easy. Snap Kit’s ability to let developers skip the account creation and management process is another step in that direction. But the power to imbue overnight virality is something even Facebook never accomplished, though it helped build empires for developers like Zynga.
Another Snap Kit app called Yolo for receiving anonymous responses to questions shot up to No. 1 in May. Seven months later, it’s still at No. 51. That shows Snap Kit can offer longevity, not just flash-in-the-pan download spikes. Gervais calls the platform “a very powerful tool for developers.”
Three years ago I wrote that Snapchat’s anti-developer attitude was a liability. It needed to become a platform with a cadre of allies that could strengthen its role as an identity platform for teens, and insulate it against copycats like Facebook. That’s exactly what it did. By letting other apps launch themselves using its accounts, Stories and Bitmoji, they wouldn’t need to copy its social graph, sharing format or avatars, and instead would drive attention to the originals.
If Snap can keep building useful developer tools, perhaps by adding to its platform real-world object scanning, augmented reality filters and video calling, a Snapchat account could become a must-have for anyone who wants to use the next generation of apps. Then could come the crown jewel of a platform: discovery and virality. By building a section for promoting Snap Kit apps into Snapchat Discover, developers looking for shortcuts in both engineering and growth might join Evan Spiegel’s army.
SpaceX has launched a new web-based booking tool for its rideshare Falcon 9 launches, a service it announced last year to expand its addressable market to include small satellite customers who don’t have the budget or need to book a full rocket, which can cost upwards of $60 million. Prices for the rideshare services that SpaceX is offering through the website start at $1 million for payloads ranging up to 200 kg (440 lbs), with additional weight adding $5 per kg to the cost.
The selection tool asks you to specify the desired orbit (Sun synchronous, low Earth or polar) and your minimum readiness date (the earliest your payload can possibly fly), with dates starting this June as of this writing. You then input the total mass of what you want to fly and get an estimated cost. Proceeding brings you to a series of screens where you select whether you’ll need either a 15-inch or 24-inch port on the launch vehicle (which is largely a function of volume and mass), as well as the specific rocket you’re looking to book a ride on (from upcoming scheduled missions).
Other options include add-ons like port adapters to meet the standard sizes that SpaceX uses, as well as a SpaceX-provided separation system in case you don’t have your own, along with options for on-site fueling if your spacecraft has its own propulsion system, and insurance for up to $2 million in value. It’s a little bit like configuring a car through Tesla’s configurator — but for launching something into space.
This isn’t just a lead-generation form, either; once you’ve selected all your options, and confirmed that you’re not subject to any actions or International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, you can put in a credit card number to instantly pay $5,000 as a deposit, with three installments due thereafter to make up whatever your total is, including the largest one due within five days of SpaceX confirming acceptance of your request.
[gallery ids="1942413,1942414,1942415,1942416"]
SpaceX has also published an accompanying Rideshare User’s Guide that goes into a lot more detail about the program, including technical requirements, details about things like environmental testing, legal considerations and much more. But it’s still amazing that I could, in theory, have just put up a down payment to send something to space as easily as I could reserve a Tesla Model Y.
Of course, I would forfeit that deposit because I don’t have the slightest clue about getting anything to space from a regulatory perspective, or the minimum $995,000 required to pay the balance for even the smallest payload without any additional frills. But if you do know what you’re doing, there’s now no easier way to book an orbital flight.
Drone startup Wingcopter, working with partners Merck and the Frankfurt University of Applied Science, has completed a first flight of a new drone delivery trial designed to show the benefits of using drones instead of trucks or other road-faring vehicles for moving small cargo between two physically separate office facilities. This first flight covered around 25 km (roughly 15.5 miles), taking a sample of pigments from one Merck lab in Gernsheim to its headquarters in Darmstadt in Germany.
This trial is significant in more ways than one: The area it covered spanned a fairly dense metropolitan area, flying over power lines, trains, roadways and more. It also did all of this without continuous line-of-sight, something that’s been required of most drone delivery trials in a commercial setting to date. The partners involved are hoping this means it can stand as a blueprint to other similar pilot projects and trials being run all over the world.
Next up, the project will continue to fly additional deliveries and then summarize their findings in a report to be delivered in March. Already, using drones instead of trucks seems to provide advantages in terms of time (saving between an hour and even a full day in some cases) and emissions, and it can cut down on the amount of empty return trips made by large, heavy gas-guzzling vehicles, as well.
Wingcopter CEO Tom Plümmer points out in a press release detailing the news that his company has “repeatedly demonstrated” the advantages of drone delivery across a number of use cases, including for use in getting life-saving medical supplies to remote areas. Trials in the U.S. include Alphabet’s Wing, which partnered with FedEx, and UPS, which is working with Matternet, but this commercial trial shows a potentially more fruitful avenue for deploying services in the near-term that don’t require buy-in from the average consumer.
With just about one month until go-time, TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 (March 3 in Berkeley, Calif.) is going to be a true powerhouse event. Prepare to spend the day engaging with the leading innovators, makers and investors bent on shaping the future of these two game-changing technologies.
Don't have a ticket yet? Beat the price hike at the door and book your ticket now.
Last year 1,500 attendees packed the house, and we're on track to surpass that number come March. Talk about an opportunity for focused networking. Here's more great news. CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s free business match-making tool, will be available to all attendees.
What can CrunchMatch do for you? Excellent question. It's a curated, automated networking platform that helps you connect with people based on your criteria, goals and interests. No more time spent chatting up the wrong people. No matter who you're hoping to meet with — founders, investors, technologists, researchers or engineering students — CrunchMatch makes networking a crowd as efficient and painless as possible.
Here's how it works. When CrunchMatch opens, you'll get an email to sign-up. Fill out your profile listing your role (technologist, founder, investor, etc.) and the type of connections you want to make at the event. The CrunchMatch algorithm will get to work and suggest people to meet and even set appointments, which you can approve or decline.
You never know who you'll meet at a TechCrunch event or where that connection might lead. Wet your networking whistle with a look at some of the companies attending TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020:
ABB Technology Ventures
Amazon
Ceres Robotics Inc
Deloitte
Facebook
Google X
Hyundai CRADLE
John Deere
LG Electronics
Misty Robotics
Silicon Valley Bank
Stanford
Toyota AI Ventures
UC Berkeley
Waymo
While you're at it, check out our program agenda for more than 17 presentations, including live robot demos, panel discussions, interviews and Q&As — where the audience gets to ask speakers their most burning questions.
Oh, and one more game-changer. We've added Pitch Night — a mini pitch-off competition that takes place the night before the conference starts.
TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3, and with CrunchMatch at your side, you'll network better than ever before. Don't miss this opportunity to spend a full day connecting and engaging with your community of movers, makers and influencers. Buy your ticket today!
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
There are billions of gamers on the planet, and even as gaming consoles and devices grow more powerful, there’s a good deal of investor attention being paid to so-called “hyper-casual” games that likely could have shipped on decades-old hardware.
Simplicity has never been something to take for granted in game design, but as design tools have gotten easier to use, a larger group of game creators has entered the fray. Many popular games have introduced “creator modes” to whet user appetites, but this has emerged alongside the introduction of dedicated tool that enable amateur developers to become miniature studios.
This past week, I chatted with David Lau-Kee, general partner at London Venture Partners, about opportunities in the game development industry for less-experienced game creators to build titles that find an audience. His firm closed an $80 million fund last September to invest in early-stage gaming startups.
“[Hyper-casual] is a very elegant trend in the demographics of getting games into the hands of people who weren’t traditional gamers who want very low on-boarding so they can get straight into the game,” Lau-Kee says. “The challenge with that for us is that, you know, as a developer in hyper-casual games, you can have a great business, but it might not be a VC-investable opportunity.”
YouTube in September announced a $100 million fund to invest in new children’s video content, following its $170 million settlement with the FTC over children’s privacy law violations. The fund was meant to help soften the blow for children’s content creators on YouTube, who are being financially impacted by the changes the FTC required of their channels. Now we have the first bit of insight into what sort of content YouTube plans to back with the fund’s resources.
According to a report by Bloomberg, YouTube is looking to fund videos that “drive outcomes associated with the following character strengths”: courage, compassion, communication, gratitude, curiosity, humility, teamwork, integrity, perseverance, self-control, empathy and creativity.
The details were shared in a note to partners, the report said.
“All our programming will seek to support kids in uncovering their unique strengths and passions,” the note read. “Specifically, we want to develop content that inspires children to develop life skills and pursue their passions; establish healthy habits and care for themselves; increase their understanding of culture and diversity; and/or engage with and care for their community.”
YouTube confirmed the report’s accuracy to TechCrunch. It said the company is now in discussions with partners, but further details on the kids’ content fund wouldn’t be shared until later this year.
The planned $100 million investment, which will be distributed over the next three years, is meant to help set the tone for the sort of children’s video content YouTube wants to see more of on its video-sharing platform. Today, a number of creators in the kids’ space are gaining views for things like toy unboxings, pranks and family vlogs. For example, Ryan Kaji of “Ryan’s World” and “Ryan ToysReview” was YouTube’s highest-paid star of 2019, pulling in a massive $26 million.
Parents, on the other hand, don’t often care for their kids’ addiction to this sort of lightweight, consumer-driven content. And thanks to updated screen time controls across iPhone and Android, they can now choose to limit the time their kids spend on YouTube. And with a growing number of streaming services on the market, including the kid-friendly Disney+, kids and families have other options.
The move to fund an elevated set of kids’ content could also help YouTube attract more advertising dollars, as companies are looking to pair their marketing messages with “brand-safe” content, which can be hit-or-miss on YouTube at times.
YouTube has no immediate concerns on the ad revenue front, having pulled in $15 billion in 2019. But the company knows there’s still so much more room to grow, given the TV ad market still massively dwarfs YouTube, with $70 billion in ad spending last year.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
Spotify is doubling down on its podcast strategy with a big acquisition to grow its sports coverage: It announced that it’s buying The Ringer, the popular network of podcasts created and run by broadcaster Bill Simmons, with around 30 podcasts in its mix and approximately 100 million downloads per month.
"The trend that we are investing in here is that radio is moving online," CEO Daniel Ek said in the earnings call today. "We have bought the next ESPN."
So far, the firm has only had one exit from its life science portfolio: the $65 million acquisition of Jungla by the genetics testing firm Invitae back in 2019.
On yesterday’s earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the streaming service — which launched in November — has grown to 28.6 million paying subscribers as of February 3. The company also says it plans to launch Hulu internationally next year.
The Zebra joins competing startups, including Insurify ($23 million), Gabi ($27 million) and Policygenius ($100 million) in raising new capital this year. Alex Wilhelm looks at why venture capitalists are putting so much money into this market.
Apple’s long-running policy of not preloading third-party software onto its devices is coming up against a new piece of Russian legislation requiring every smart device to be sold with certain applications already installed. Inside the country, the policy has even been called the zakon protiv Apple, or the "law against Apple.” (Extra Crunch membership required.)
Deliverr doesn't own a warehouse or a delivery truck, but the startup is helping e-commerce companies not named Amazon achieve Amazon-like two-day shipping. Based on its understanding of markets, the company moves goods to different parts of the country, stores them in available warehouse space and uses the warehouse's own picking systems to grab the goods.
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
Casper, the well-known D2C mattress company, has lowered its IPO price range in a new S-1/A filing made public this morning. The repricing leads to a lower expected valuation for the former startup and a lower IPO raise.
Let’s calculate Casper’s new valuation range and expected fundraise, figure out its implied revenue multiples, and see if the resulting figures make sense when compared to Purple, its public competitor. For tech-enabled companies heartened by One Medical’s public offering, this is the other side of the coin.
Earlier this week, Google released revenue figures for YouTube for the first time in the product's history, revealing that the video service pulled in $15.1 billion in advertising revenues in 2019. Growth was 31% year-over-year during the quarter — strong growth for such a late-stage property, but of course, everyone always wants more. The company also claimed that it had an audience of more than 2 billion users — making it among the most popular products in the world.
Part of that global success comes from countries like South Korea, where YouTube has long been a serious laggard to local video players, but which has managed to penetrate the market much more heavily in recent years.
According to the latest data from Wiseapp, an app usage and retail revenue data service for the Korean market which is sort of a fusion of App Annie and Second Measure, YouTube has seen dizzying growth over the past few years, particularly among older, non-millennial users.
Based on data from Android users, YouTube has seen consistent increases in unique users in the market, almost to a point of saturation. At the end of 2019, Wiseapp estimated that YouTube had nearly 34 million Android users, up 6% from 2018 and 38% from 2016.
Data from Wiseapp, exclusively depicting Android users
For context, South Korea has a population of about 51.5 million, and local polling from Gallup puts Android penetration at roughly 80% overall. One serious caveat here is that there is a huge age discrepancy between Android and iPhone users — iPhone penetration among twenty-somethings is nearly half, while its penetration among users older than 50 is in the low single digits.
While YouTube has had users aplenty for years, what's been striking has been seeing the increase in the average view time on the platform. Again, for Android users measured by Wiseapp, YouTube increased its total minutes viewed on its platform by 38% last year, and has seen 187% growth since 2016. The platform isn't just getting more users, but deepening engagement with those users over time.
A Google PR representative would not confirm third-party data about the platform's performance, but did say in a statement to TechCrunch that the hours of content uploaded to Korean YouTube channels grew by 50% between 2018 and 2019. The company also said that as of February 2019 (the most recent data available), "there are over 12,000 channels with over 10K subs, over 2000 channels with 100K subs and more than 200 channels with 1M+ subs in Korea."
What's changed in the local market? A handful of trends are lining up in YouTube's favor, helping it break through local competitors for the lucrative online video market.
First and perhaps most importantly, according to local sources, more and more creators have moved their businesses to YouTube from other competitors due to better creator economics on the platform.
As Cynthia Kim at Reuters discussed in a profile article last year about the changing job market in South Korea, "YouTube creator" is a new career path for some young people interested in focusing on their interests and expressing their thoughts online for income. From the article:
Among elementary school students, YouTube creator is now the fifth-ranked dream job, behind being a sports star, school teacher, doctor or a chef, a 2018 government poll showed.
As those creators have migrated to YouTube, so have users, or so the thinking goes. And so you see the number of popular channels increase, and the total number of video hours uploaded growing quickly to capture that increased usage.
Another dynamic at play is globalization. While many Koreans grew up watching “Friends” or “Home Alone” in their drive to learn English and compete effectively on the country's harrowing college entrance exam, YouTube offers a much wider vista into all kinds of places beyond those depicted by Hollywood.
As one former senior Korean technology executive, who once managed a competing product to YouTube, explained to me, the challenge for local players is that they just don't have the kind of global content library that is attractive for users. Local players have local content, and while engagement remains high, they lack the extended global content that platforms like YouTube can provide.
What's interesting is that Korean globalization has also worked the other direction. Korean dramas and Korean pop bands like BTS have expanded dramatically in global popularity over the past decade. Google said in its statement that the top 25 Korean bands on YouTube now receive 90% of their views from outside the country.
In short, YouTube has broken into an app ecosystem that is almost entirely local, and has even done so in a tough demographic like older users, which have been particularly impervious to non-Korean apps. Messaging app KakaoTalk remains the country's most popular app, and the only other top-ranked foreign app is Instagram, at number eight, with an estimated 10 million Android users from Wiseapp's calculation.
While some analysts were surprised at YouTube's smaller than expected revenue numbers, it is clear that the platform is making headway in a variety of other international markets. As other emerging digital economies like India, Africa and Southeast Asia come online, expect even more competition in this category between this big global video product and local competitors.
Digital surpasses print to become 2nd largest advertising medium after TV The ad industry is estimated to grow at 10.7% during the year. Digital media is estimated to grow at a rate of 26%, outpacing traditional media such as TV, radio and outdoor advertising which are growing at 7-8% annually.
D-Mart enters top 20 most valuable companies club; Check entire list Avenue Supermarts is now among the 20 most valuable companies by market capitalisation.
ప్రభాస్, మహేష్ సరసన చేరిపోయింది కాజల్. నిజానికి వీళ్ల ముగ్గురి మధ్య పోలిక తీసుకురావడానికి ఏం లేదు. కానీ ఒకే ఒక్క విషయంలో ప్రభాస్, మహేష్ కు సరితూగింది ఈ అమ్మాయి. అవును.. కాజల్ మైనపు బొమ్మను ప్రతిష్టించారు. టాలీవుడ్ నుంచి ప్రభాస్, మహేష్ తర్వాత ఆ అరుదైన ఘనత కాజల్ కే దక్కింది. అంతేకాదు.. సౌతిండియా నుంచి మేడమ్ టుస్సాడ్స్ లో కొలువుదీరిన ఏకైక హీరోయిన్ మైనపు ప్రతిమ కూడా కాజల్ దే. సింగపూర్ లో […]
అవును.. తన కెరీర్ లోనే క్లిష్టమైన క్యారెక్టర్ పోషించింది పాయల్ రాజ్ పుత్. యుద్ధ విమానం పైలెట్ గా ఆమె నటించింది. త్వరలోనే పాయల్ లుక్ ను విడుదల చేయబోతున్నారు. దర్శకుడు జయంత్ సి.పరాన్జీ ఓ సినిమా చేస్తున్నాడు. సినిమా పేరు నరేంద్ర. ఈ సినిమాలో హీరో ఓ అమాయకుడైన బాక్సర్. అనుకోకుండా పాక్ లో చిక్కుకుంటారు. అక్కడి జైళ్లో ఉండిపోతాడు. అతడ్ని బయటకు తీసుకొచ్చే యుద్ధ విమానం పైలెట్ గా కనిపించబోతోంది పాయల్. ఈ పాత్ర […]
అందరూ ఎదురుచూస్తున్న అరుదైన పోస్టర్ రానే వచ్చింది. అల వైకుంఠపురములో యూనిట్ ఆ పోస్టర్ ను విడుదల చేసింది. ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్, తెలంగాణలోని అన్ని ఏరియాల్లో తమ సినిమా నాన్-బాహుబలి-2 రికార్డు సృష్టించినట్టు యూనిట్ అధికారికంగా ప్రకటించుకుంది. అల్లు అర్జున్, త్రివిక్రమ్ కాంబినేషన్ లో వచ్చిన అల వైకుంఠపురములో సినిమా ఆల్ టైమ్ హిట్ గా నిలిచినట్టు అందరూ చెప్పుకుంటున్నారు. పనిలోపనిగా ఇది తెలుగు రాష్ట్రాల్లో అన్ని రికార్డుల్ని తుడిచిపెట్టిందని, బాహుబలి-1ను కూడా క్లాస్ చేసి, బాహుబలి-2 తర్వాత […]
ప్రకాష్ రాజ్.. విలక్షణ నటుడే కాదు.. రాజకీయాలమీద ఎంతో లోతైన అవగాహన ఉన్న వ్యక్తి. విపరీతంగా చదువుతాడు… రాస్తాడు కూడా. తనకు నచ్చనిది ఏదైనా కుండబద్దలు కొట్టినట్లు చెప్పే ప్రకాష్ రాజ్ కు బీజేపీ అంటే అస్సలు పడదు. ఆయన బీజేపీ హిందుత్వ రాజకీయాలపై మొన్నటి ఎన్నికల ముందర పెద్ద ఫైటే చేశారు. బీజేపీ కి వ్యతిరేకంగా బెంగళూరులో ఎంపీగానూ పోటీచేశారు. అయితే జనాలు మాత్రం అదే బీజేపీని గెలిపించి ప్రకాష్ రాజ్ ను ఓడించారు. అయినా […]
ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ రాష్ట్రానికి ప్రత్యేక హోదా సాధనపై… ముఖ్యమంత్రి జగన్.. తన ప్రయత్నాలను కొనసాగిస్తూనే ఉన్నారు. కేంద్రాన్ని వీలైనప్పుడల్లా.. హోదా గురించి ప్రశ్నిస్తూనే ఉంటామని.. ఈ విషయాన్ని వదలబోమని గతంలో చెప్పినట్టే.. మరోసారి ప్రధాని మోడీకి సీఎం జగన్.. హోదా గురించి లేఖ రాశారు. పదిహేనో ఆర్థిక సంఘం నివేదిక రూపంలో రాష్ట్రానికి ప్రత్యేక హోదా కల్పించే అంశాన్ని పరిగణలోకి తీసుకోవాలని కోరారు. రాష్ట్రాలకు ప్రత్యేక హోదా ఇచ్చే అంశాన్ని కేంద్రం.. గతంలో ఆర్థిక సంఘం సూచనలకు ముడిపెట్టిన […]
బెంగళూరు మాగడిరోడ్డు పరిధిలో ఉండే కుమారేష్.. కొన్నేళ్ల క్రితం ప్రేమ వివాహం చేసుకున్నాడు. ఓ బాబును కన్నాడు. అసలు విషయం ఏంటంటే.. వీడో రౌడీ షీటర్. ఆ విషయం అమ్మాయి తరఫు వారికి పెళ్లైన తర్వాత తెలిసింది. నాటి నుంచి ఇద్దరి మధ్య గొడవలు సాధారణమయ్యాయి. బాబు పెరిగి పెద్దవాడవుతున్న తరుణంలో ఈ గొడవలు మరింత ముదురి పాకాన పడ్డాయి. భార్యపై కోపంతో కొడుకును బయటికి తీసుకువెళ్లడం అలవాటు చేసుకున్న కుమారేష్.. తాను స్నేహితులతో కలిసి మద్యం […]
1996 నుంచి 2020 వరకూ నిత్యనూతనం దేశవాళీ రంజీట్రోఫీ క్రికెట్లో రికార్డుల మొనగాడు, ముంబై కమ్ విదర్భ ఓపెనర్ వాసిం జాఫర్ తనఖాతాలో మరో అరుదైన రికార్డు జమచేసుకొన్నాడు. రంజీట్రోఫీ చరిత్రలోనే 12వేల పరుగుల మైలురాయిని చేరిన తొలి ఆటగాడిగా చరిత్ర సృష్టించాడు. నాగపూర్ విదర్భ క్రికెట్ స్టేడియం వేదికగా కేరళతో జరిగిన మ్యాచ్ లో జాఫర్ ఈ అరుదైన రికార్డు సాధించాడు. 2019-20 క్రికెట్ సీజన్ ను 11వేల 775 పరుగుల స్కోరుతో ప్రారంభించిన జాఫర్… ఇప్పటి […]
అమరావతిపై కేంద్రం తేల్చేసింది. రాజధాని నిర్ణయం.. ఆయా రాష్ట్రాల పరిధిలోనే ఉంటుందని స్పష్టం చేసింది. పార్లమెంటు సాక్షిగా ఈ విషయాన్ని కేంద్రం తెలియజేసింది. అమరావతిని రాజధానిగా నోటిఫై చేశామని చెబుతూనే.. రాష్ట్రాలకే తమ రాజధానిని నిర్ణయించుకునే హక్కు ఉంటుందని తెలియజేసింది. ఈ నిర్ణయాన్ని ఎవరికి వారు తమకు అనుకూలంగా మలుచుకుంటున్నారు. కానీ.. 3 రాజధానుల నిర్ణయాన్ని నేరుగా తప్పుబట్టకపోవడమే.. ఇక్కడ ప్రధాన అంశంగా పరిగణించాల్సి వస్తోంది. ఈ విషయంలో రాష్ట్ర బీజేపీ నేతల తీరు ఎలా ఉండబోతోంది? […]
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MBBS-II Held on OCT-2019![DBRAU Results 2020 [Released] | Ambedkar University BSc Nursing, M.ED, M.M.C. & Other Results @dbrau.org.in](https://www.recruitment.guru/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/hand-image.gif "sarkariresult"){kind=small}
