Junior Digest

New Delhi, Feb 2 :  A special court here today discharged former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others in the Aircel-Maxis deal cases lodged by CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

However, today’s order would not have any effect on the two accused Malaysian nationals — Ralph Marshall and T Ananda Krishnan — as the court has already segregated the trial against them from that of Maran brothers and others.

The order was passed by Special Judge O P Saini who is exclusively dealing with the 2G spectrum allocation scam cases and those cases arising out of the investigation into it.

CBI had filed a charge sheet against the Maran brothers, Ralph Marshall, T Ananda Krishnan, M/s Sun Direct TV (P) Ltd, M/s Astro All Asia Networks Plc, UK, M/s Maxis Communications Berhad, Malaysia, M/s South Asia Entertainment Holdings Ltd, Malaysia and then Additional Secretary (Telecom) J S Sarma who died during the course of the probe.

They were chargesheeted for alleged offences punishable under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In the money laundering case, ED has chargesheeted the Maran brothers, Kalanithi’s wife Kavery, Managing Director of South Asia FM Ltd (SAFL) K Shanmugam, SAFL and Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd (SDTPL) under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Besides Maran brothers, the court discharged two companies – M/s Sun Direct TV (P) Ltd (SDTPL) and M/s South Asia Entertainment Holdings Ltd.

During arguments on framing of charges, Special Public Prosecutor Anand Grover had claimed that Dayanidhi had “pressurised” Chennai-based telecom promoter C Sivasankaran to sell his stakes in Aircel and two subsidiary firms to Malaysian firm Maxis Group in 2006.

The charge was strongly refuted by Dayanidhi. All the accused had denied the allegations against them made by the investigating agencies and had moved bail pleas.

London, Feb 2 :  Britain may lose the magic of the Northern Lights by the middle of the century due to major shifts in solar activity, scientists have discovered.

Space scientists at University of Reading in the UK conclude that plummeting solar activity will shrink the overall size of the Sun’s ‘atmosphere’ by a third and weaken its protective influence on the Earth.

This could make the Earth more vulnerable to technology-destroying solar blasts and cancer-causing cosmic radiation, as well as making the aurora less common away from the north and south polar regions for 50 years or more.

“The magnetic activity of the sun ebbs and flows in predictable cycles, but there is also evidence that it is due to plummet, possibly by the largest amount for 300 years,” said Mathew Owens, from Reading’s Meteorology department, who led the research.

“If so, the Northern Lights phenomenon would become a natural show exclusive to the polar regions, due to a lack of solar wind forces that often make it visible at lower latitudes,” said Owens.

“As the Sun becomes less active, sunspots and coronal ejections will become less frequent. However, if a mass ejection did hit the Earth, it could be even more damaging to the electronic devices on which society is now so dependent,” he said.

The study shows how sunspot records can be used to reconstruct what happened the last time the Earth experienced such a dramatic dip in solar activity more than three centuries ago.

Combined with updated models and contemporary reports, the researchers were able to predict what could happen during a similar event, likely to occur in the next few decades.

The scientists believe the coming ‘grand minimum’ could be similar to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century, when sun spot activity almost stopped another symptom of a less active Sun.

Solar wind, made up of electrically charged particles from the Sun, travels at around a million miles per hour.

A reduction in solar wind would see the heliosphere the ‘bubble’ around the solar system maintained by particles emitted by the Sun – shrink significantly.

This protective bubble helps shield the Earth from harmful radiation from outer space, but has weakened since the 1950s.

The scientists predict a rapid reduction in the bubble’s size by around the middle of the 21st century. The Earth’s own magnetic field deflects some of this radiation, but areas close to the north and south poles are more vulnerable where the Earth’s magnetic field is weakest.

“If the decline in sunspots continues at this rate, and data from the past suggests that it will, we could see these changes occurring as early as the next few decades,” said Professor Mike Lockwood from University of Reading.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

There is as much evidence for the holographic universe as there is for traditional explanations, researchers said.

The universe might just be one “vast and complex hologram”. And our vision of life as being in 3D may just be an illusion.

That’s according to astrophysicists who have studied the cosmic microwave background, or the afterglow that is left over from the Big Bang. After doing so, they have found substantial evidence that our universe is holographic, they said.

There is at least as much evidence for the strange theory as there is for the traditional idea of the structure of our universe, according to the astrophysicists from the University of Southampton, who worked with colleagues in Canada and Italy.

What we see of the universe might be compared with what it’s like to watch a 3D film at a cinema, even though those are not made with holograms. Just like those films, we experience the depth of the image – even though we know that it really all comes from a flat screen.

Our universe may just be a more convincing version of the same thing – meaning that we can touch the objects and they look and behave as if they are real.

The idea that our universe is a hologram was first proposed in the 90s. It suggests that all of the information – what we think is our 3D reality, and time – is actually just contained on a flat surface on its boundaries.

“Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field,” said Kostas Skenderis,  a professor of mathematical sciences at the University of Southampton. “The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card.

“However, this time, the entire universe is encoded.”

The research could unify two of the most central parts of our understanding of physics – general relativity, which explains it at the biggest scale, and quantum theory, which explains it at its very smallest.

“Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe,” said Professor Skenderis. “Einstein’s theory of general relativity explains almost everything large scale in the universe very well, but starts to unravel when examining its origins and mechanisms at quantum level.

“Scientists have been working for decades to combine Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum theory. Some believe the concept of a holographic universe has the potential to reconcile the two. I hope our research takes us another step towards this.”

Independent report.

A dental student from Paris, Iris Mittenaere beat 85 other hopefuls in the finale in the Philippines in the 65th edition of the three-hour show that focused on diversity and empowering women to overcome the struggles of life. “I was very surprised I won, I feel blessed,” said the 24-year-old, whose competition profile had described her goal as advocating for dental and oral hygiene if she won.

Having clinched the crown, Mittenaere said she wanted to go beyond that and promote education for children and young women.
“Miss Universe was a dream, every girl wants to be Miss Universe … the stage is amazing, everything is amazing,” she said, beaming throughout her victory news conference.
“I want to help people, I want to understand people, I want to meet people, that’s why this is a dream for me.”

Haiti’s Raquel Pelissier was the first runner-up, while Andrea Tovar of Colombia placed second runner-up.

New Delhi, Jan 31 :  Sounding a note of caution on government’s digital push, the Economic Survey today said that digitalisation is “not a panacea” and cash is not all bad and stressed the need to forge a balance between both forms of payments.

The Survey, tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament, said transition to digitalisation should be gradual after taking full account of the digitally deprived.

“In the medium term, the impetus provided to digitalisation must continue…Digitalisation is not a panacea, nor is cash all bad. Public policy must balance benefits and costs of both forms of payments.

“…the transition to digitalisation must be gradual, take full account of the digitally deprived, respect rather than dictate choice and be inclusive rather than controlled,” it said.

The Survey also emphasised that success of digitalisation would depend considerably on inter-operability of the payments system, and advised banks to facilitate and “not thwart” inter-operability.

“The success of digitalisation will depend considerably on the inter-operability of the payments system. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) created by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the technology platform that will be the basis for ensuring interoperability,” it said.

The Survey further said: “But to ensure this, individual banks should facilitate not thwart inter-operability.”

In a bid to curb corruption, the government has been pushing for greater adoption of digital payment mechanisms like debit/credit cards and mobile wallets in the country.

Estimates suggest that cash accounts for about 78 per cent of all consumer payments.

“By facilitating inter-operability (between payment systems), it will unleash the power of mobile phones in achieving digitalisation of payments and financial inclusion, and making the ‘M’ an integral part of the government’s flagship ‘Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile’ (JAM) initiative,” it said.

Based on data provided by NPCI, the Survey noted that the ‘decline rates of transactions’ for Aadhaar-enabled payments as of mid-January 2016 were nearly 56 per cent in case of transactions involving different banks. This is almost double that for transactions that involve the same issuing and remitting bank, it added.

It said a plausible reason for this differential could be that larger banks are declining transactions involving smaller remitting banks, while ensuring that transactions involving themselves are honoured.

“There could be valid reasons for this. But such problems will need to be addressed, since payments banks, telecommunications companies, and small banks are in the vanguard of financial inclusion. So their access to the UPI platform will be critical for advancing digitalisation, especially for the poor,” it said.

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday appointed former CAG Vinod Rai to head the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) along with Ramachandra Guha and Vikram Limaye. SC also decided that Diana Edulji will be a member of the BCCI administrative board. The Apex Court declined the Centre’s request to appoint secretary of sports ministry as member of the committee.

Earlier, the Amicus Curiae’s – Gopal Subramanian and Anil Diwan – had submitted nine names to the Apex court for the appointment of administrators in the cricketing body.

The Apex Court in its order had asked the BCCI to implement the Justice Lodha panel recommendations into the game. It had recommended a slew of majors in the gentleman’s game.

The Supreme Court last week sought response from the Centre on a petition seeking to form a Lodha Panel-like committee, in order to look into the irregularities in other sports across the country.

The petition, which was heard by a three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar, sought the intervention of the Supreme Court for a direction to the Centre to constitute a Lodha Panel-like committee.

The new committee will look and probe if there is any kind of corruption and irregularities by anyone in any sport in the country.

Following allegations of corruption, match fixing and betting scandals in cricket in the country, the Supreme Court appointed a three-member panel led by Justice R.M Lodha in January 2015 to look into the functioning of the BCCI and suggest reforms.

Toyota has relinquished the title of the world’s biggest automaker, reporting that it sold 10.175 million vehicles worldwide in 2016, fewer than Volkswagen’s 10.31 million.

General Motors reports its tally next week. If GM’s number falls short, it will be the first time the German automaker has become No. 1.

It’s a milestone achievement despite the taint to VW’s reputation from a huge scandal over cheating on emissions tests. Booming China sales helped offset that damage.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. has held the global auto crown for the past four years, although it fell behind General Motors in 2011, when production was hit by a quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.

Detroit-based GM was the top-selling automaker for more than seven decades until Toyota, which makes the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models, surpassed it in 2008.

Toyota’s global sales last year were slightly better than in 2015, up 0.2 per cent, but not good enough to beat Volkswagen, which has the Audi, Porsche and Skoda brands, and boosted its global sales 3.8 per cent from the year before. GM makes the Cadillac and Opel cars.

In 2015, Toyota sold 10.15 million vehicles while Volkswagen was second with 9.93 million and GM third with 9.8 million.

Toyota officials have repeatedly said they are not concerned with being No. 1 and just want to make good cars.

Volkswagen was keen to dethrone Toyota but disavowed that goal after CEO Martin Winterkorn lost his job over the emissions scandal.

(This article has not been edited by DNA’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

New Delhi, Jan 31 : Lauding the demonetisation decision and the surgical strikes across Line of Control (LoC) as “bold” decisions in the interest of the country, President Pranab Mukherjee today favoured a constructive debate on simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and Assemblies and funding of polls to eradicate money power.

The Government, he said, is committed to combating the “grave challenge” of terrorism and to ensure that perpetrators of such acts are brought to justice.

In his address to the joint session of both the Houses of Parliament, marking the opening of the Budget session, Mukherjee spoke about a host of government schemes and initiatives covering aspects like housing, LPG connections, electrification, healthcare, education, farmers’ welfare, welfare of the specially-abled, rural development and urban development.

When he referred to the demonetisation decision to fight blackmoney and corruption as also the surgical strikes across the LoC as “bold” decisions, there was thumping of desks by the members of the ruling alliance.

“My government has taken decisive steps to give a fitting reply to the repeated incursions on our territorial sovereignty,” Mukherjee said.

“On 29th September 2016, our defence forces successfully conducted surgical strikes at several launch pads along the Line of Control to prevent infiltration by terrorists,” he added.

The strikes were conducted in the wake of terror attack on army camp in Uri in Kashmir in which 17 soldiers were killed.

The mention about the surgical strikes in the President’s address assumes significance as some quarters had questioned whether the action had actually taken place. There were also demands for showing proof in this regard.

“We are proud of the exemplary courage and valour displayed by our defence personnel and owe a debt of the gratitude to them,” the President said.

He also talked about the issue of holding of joint elections to the Lok Sabha and Assemblies, favouring a debate on it.

“Frequent elections put on hold development programmes, disrupt normal public life and impact essential services and burden human resource with prolonged period of election duty.

“My government welcomes a constructive debate on simultaneous conduct of elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies. Funding of elections to eradicate misuse of money power also needs to be debated,” he said.

In the speech, the President said Government would welcome any decision taken by Election Commission in this regard after consultations.

On combatting the “grave challenge” of terrorism which India has been facing for the last four decades, he said the scourge poses a “serious danger to the global community”.

India, he said, will “actively collaborate with other nations in decisively defeating these forces”.

The President asserted that the government is committed to combatting terrorism and to ensure that the perpetrators of such acts are brought to justice.

New Delhi, Feb 1 :  In a pre-poll Budget aimed at softening the demonetisation blow, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today halved the basic income tax rate to 5 per cent and lowered rate for small companies while boosting spending on rural employment, agriculture and infrastructure.

Creating history, the Minister presented a merged railway and general Budget after advancing the dates by a month that provides a record outlay of Rs 3,96,135 crore for infrastructure schemes besides a capital expenditure of Rs 1.3 lakh crore on railways and Rs 64,000 crore on highways.

The Budget seeks to provide a record Rs 10 lakh crore in loans to farmers, boost funds for rural employment guarantee programme, bring one crore households out of poverty and promised to build one crore houses by 2019 for the homeless ahead of the crucial elections in five states including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

In view of the fact that the proposed GST is expected to be rolled out soon, he left indirect taxes largely untouched except for some changes in duties on tobacco products, solar panels and circuit for mobile phones.

While excise duty on pan masala has been hiked to 9 per cent from 6 per cent currently and that on unmanufactured tobacco to 8.3 per cent from 4.2 per cent, the same on filter and non-filter cigarettes of all length was also hiked.

Mobile phones will be costlier with the Budget proposing a 2 per cent special auxiliary duty on import of populated printed circuit boards (PCBs).

While the income tax rate for income between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh has been lowered to 5 per cent, a 10 per cent surcharge has been slapped on income between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore. The 15 per cent surcharge on income above Rs 1 crore will continue.

While the surcharge alone would net Rs 2,700 crore a year, his give away on direct tax proposals will result in a loss of Rs 15,500 crore.

The change in the personal income tax rate for individual assessees would reduce the tax liability of all persons below Rs 5 lakh to either to zero (with rebate) or 50 per cent of their existing liability.

In order not to have duplication of benefit, the existing benefit of rebate available to them is being reduced to Rs 2,500 available only to assessees up to income of Rs 3.5 lakh.

While the taxation liability of people with income up to Rs 5 lakh is being reduced to half, all other categories of tax payers in the subsequent slabs will also get a uniform benefit of Rs 12,500 per person.

In the case of senior citizens above 60 years, there will be no tax up to Rs 3 lakh, while the exemption will be up to Rs 5 lakh in case of citizens above 80 years. Both the categories will attract income tax of 20 per cent on income between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh and 30 per cent for income above Rs 10 lakh.

Against the backdrop of demonetisation intended to eliminate black money and introduce clean transactions, the Budget barred any transaction in cash above Rs 3 lakh. As a measure of transparency in political funding, he lowered to one-tenth the donation that political parties can accept in cash to Rs 2,000 per donor.

Also bearer Electoral Bonds will be introduced which a donor can buy from a scheduled bank through cheque or e-mode, for making donations.

The Finance Minister expressed confidence that the pace of remonetisation has picked up and would soon reach comfortable levels with effects not expected to spillover into the next fiscal.

Dubai :  Virat Kohli maintained his top spot in the latest ICC rankings of T20 batsmen while India have gained a spot by virtue of their series win against England to climb to the second spot in the team rankings.

Kohli leads number-two ranked Aaron Finch of Australia by 28 points, while Glenn Maxwell of Australia is third.

Kohli is ranked second in Tests and third in ODIs which makes him the only Indian batsman in top five across all formats.

Jasprit Bumrah also maintained his second position in the bowlers’ table with a four-point difference between him and Imran Tahir. Ravichandran Ashwin is 8th in the list while Ashish Nehra is 24th.

England’s Joe Root and India wrist-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal have made impressive gains after rankings released today following the three-match series, which concluded yesterday.

Root finished as the leading run-scorer in the series with 126 runs for which he has been rewarded with a two-place jump putting him in fifth position.

Among Indian batsmen, next best is KL Rahul, who gained 15 places to be at 15th.

India’s Yuzvendra Chahal, who took six for 25 in the series decider the third-best figures in the shortest format of the game to date – has rocketed 92 places to claim 86th position.

Indian software companies need to stop sending people on H1-B visas and focus on local hiring in the US, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said on Thursday amid rising concerns over Donald Trump administration’s proposals to restrict inflow of foreign workers.

Stating that by and large the Indian mindset is always to take the “soft option”, Murthy — one of the pioneers of India’s IT outsourcing industry — said becoming multi- cultural is not easy and is a “very, very hard option”.

“They (Indian software companies) must recruit American residents in the US, Canadians in Canada, British people in Britain etc. That’s the only way, we can become a true multi-national company and in order to do that, we should stop using H1-B visas and sending a large number of Indians to those countries to deliver services,” Murthy told NDTV.

He added that recruitment from colleges should be done and local people be trained to add value to Indian companies.

The proposed overhaul of popular H-1B visa regime by US President Donald Trump has raised concerns among the Indian IT firms.

Also, the recent introduction of a US bill (Lofgren Bill) that proposes doubling of the minimum wages of H-1B visa holders to $130,000 from $60,000 has made the industry worried.

Any changes in the visa regime may result in higher operational costs and shortage of skilled workers for the $110 billion Indian outsourcing industry.

“I think even if the executive order comes, we should look at it more as opportunity for Indian companies to become more multi-cultural than we have been, rather than looking at it as a lacuna,” Murthy said.

The US contributes nearly 62% of the exports.

Analysts are of the opinion that Indian tech companies could easily witness around 60-70% rise in salaries of H-1B visa dependent workforce, leading to a 5-10% hit on the margins, depending on the total base of employees currently on H1-B visas.

Asked why Indian companies were in panic over the protectionist stance of the new US administration, Murthy said Indian companies will have to learn to work with non-Indian professionals and become more multi-cultural.

“I think by and large, the Indian mindset is always to take the soft option. Becoming multi-cultural is a very, very hard option, it’s not easy. Our managers will have to learn with non-Indian professionals, how to get the best out of them, how to work in teams that are multi-cultural, how to make sure that we understand the rules of crossing cultures,” he said.

Murthy added that this was the “only way” to remove the risk of government mandating things like the executive order.

Tehran, Feb 1 :  Iran confirmed today that it had tested a ballistic missile, but denied that was a breach of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The comments from Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan came after the UN Security Council met yesterday to discuss the weekend test, which Washington described as “absolutely unacceptable”.

“The action was in line with boosting Iran’s defence power and is not in contradiction with the JCPOA (the nuclear deal) or Resolution 2231,” Dehghan said.

He was referring to a UN Security Council resolution that bans Iran from developing missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.

“This test was in line with our ongoing programmes,” Iranian media quoted him as saying.

“We have previously announced that we will execute the programmes we have planned in production of defence equipment meant for our national interests and objectives. Nobody can influence our decision.

“We will not allow foreigners to interfere in our defence affairs.”

Iran’s ballistic missile programme has been a bone of contention with the West since the nuclear deal took effect in January last year, triggering the lifting of international sanctions.

Iran says its missiles do not breach United Nations resolutions because they are for defence purposes only and are not designed to carry nuclear warheads.

It has missiles with a range of up to 2,000 kilometres, sufficient to reach Israel as well as US bases in the region.

US ambassador Nikki Haley told yesterday’s Security Council meeting that Washington would not stand idly by while Tehran pursued its missile programme.

“The United States is not naive. We are not going to stand by. You will see us call them out,” she said.

Tehran warned Washington against using the issue to fuel tensions.

“We hope that Iran’s defence programme is not used by the new US administration… as a pretext to create new tensions,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said ahead of the meeting.

The row comes against a backdrop of already strained relations between Washington and Tehran over US President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries.

Some 220 Iranian lawmakers signed a motion today endorsing the boosting of Iran’s defence capabilities, the Fars news agency reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s only way to deter the enemy’s aggression is its missile power,” the motion said, calling the programme “an unavoidable necessity” for protecting national security.

The European Union, which helped broker the nuclear deal, had appealed to Tehran to refrain from activities such as the missile tests, “which deepen mistrust.