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Psychology Today December 06,2018 Mike Wood Social media has reshaped how we consume news. A study by the  Pew Research Center last y ear   found that two-thirds of Americans reported getting their news from social media. As most of us probably know, this is a double-edged sword. Obviously, it’s good to have diverse sources of news, and information can spread much faster on social media than it can through traditional top-down media like television or newspapers — this is part of the reason for the popularity of new media! The problem is that information on social media doesn’t have to be vetted, investigated, or confirmed in order to spread, and this leads to misinformation and unsubstantiated rumor spreading like wildfire online. In the past few years, an online misinformation ecosystem   has developed: a large, decentralized web of “news” sources that plagiarise, jump to unwarranted conclusions, fail to vet sources adequately, or...

Business Standard December 07,2018 Not all castes among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), entitled to reservations are reaping the same benefits. The Indian Express reported today that 97 per cent of all jobs and admissions, reserved under the OBC category have been claimed by just under 25 per cent of sub-castes. 983 communities --37 per cent of the total -- did not get a single job or admission, the report said. Interestingly, just 10 communities in the OBC category have availed of as much as 24.95 per cent of jobs and admissions. As many as 994 OBC sub-castes have a total representation of only 2.68 per cent in recruitment and admissions. The job data covers recruitment in several government departments in last five years including Railways, Department of Posts, several Central Police Forces, many Central public sector enterprises, public sector banks, insurance organisations and many Central services and All India Services ...

Business Standard December 07,2018 Aashish Aryan The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear liquor baron Vijay Mallya's plea against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) tagging him a "fugitive economic offender". The top court issued notice to ED seeking its reply on the same, but refused to stay proceedings against Mallya in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai. ED had in June moved an application in the PMLA court seeking to declare Mallya a fugitive economic offender. The probe agency also sought to confiscate his properties estimated to be worth Rs 125 billion. Billionaire businessman Mallya, who had left India in 2016, faces charges of defrauding Indian banks to the tune of up to Rs 90 billion. Reference:-  https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/sc-agrees-to-hear-vijay-mallya-plea-against-fugitive-economic-offender-tag-118120700348_1.html

The Economics Times December 06, 2018 The US trade deficit hit a 10-year high in October as Americans used a stronger dollar NSE -3.91 % to snap up record imports, the government reported Thursday. The result showed the trade gap has continued to swell despite the punitive tariffs imposed this year on allies and adversaries alike by US President Donald Trump, who has focused intently on the subject with the goal of reducing the deficit. Amid Trump's high-stakes trade war with Beijing, the total trade gap rose 1.7 percent to  $55.5 billion, driven by all-time high imports, according to the Commerce Department. The gap in goods trade with China likewise continued to expand, rising two percent to $38 billion, seasonally adjusted, as key exports like soybeans fell. The October figure handily overshot analyst expectations, and could confirm weaker economic growth in the final quarter of 2018. Americans bought more medications and imported autos while also taking more vacat...

The Wire December 06, 2018 Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K. Jha The night was almost over. Ayodhya was still numb with sleep. Piercing through the quiet, a young sadhu, drenched in sweat, came scampering from Hanumangarhi, a fortress-like Hindu religious establishment housing over five hundred sadhus in Ayodhya. He had been sent to summon Satyendra Das to his guru, Abhiram Das, who seemed to be breathing his last. Those were the early hours of 3 December 1981, and a curtain was coming down over a few forgotten pages of history. Dharam Das, the other disciple who stayed with Abhiram Das in his one-room tenement, the asan in Hanumangarhi, had asked for him so that they could be with their guru in his last moments. The news did not come as a shock. Satyendra Das had been almost awaiting the moment, since he had known for long that his guru was nearing the end of his journey.  He had been at his bedside the whole day and the signs were not encouraging. Even when he had left A...

The Express Tribune December 07,2018 Shahbaz Rana ISLAMABAD:  Pakistan and International Monetary Fund on Thursday established the first high-level contact after their failure to reach a staff-level agreement with chances of winning a bailout programme by mid of next month remaining very low. Finance Minister Asad Umar and IMF’s Washington-based mission chief Harald Finger made a visual contact – for the first time since November 20, according to officials of the Ministry of Finance. Both the sides discussed the developments that took place during three weeks. However, sources said Pakistan’s desire to get the loan approved by January 15 might not be fulfilled, as the Fund wanted Islamabad to adopt steeper measures before its case was sent for approval to the Executive Board of the IMF. Talks between Pakistan and the IMF remained inconclusive last month after both sides could not bridge the gulf on issues of increase in electricity prices, hike in interest rate, rupee d...

The Express Tribune December 06, 2018 Shahbaz Rana ISLAMABAD:  A meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is just weeks away but Pakistan is still grappling to cope with a critical deficiency in its legal regime that could leave a question mark over the country’s demonstrable capacity to seize properties of terrorist organisations. The problem has arisen because of conflicting positions that Pakistan took before the FATF in earlier meetings about its legal regimes with regard to the freezing real estate assets of proscribed organisations, said sources in the Ministry of Finance. The conflicting position suggests incompetence of the team that negotiated with the FATF. The government is trying to address the issue before the upcoming ‘face-to-face’ meeting of the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the FATF, scheduled for the first week of January. Finance Minister Asad Umar has held numerous meetings on the implementation status of the 27-point acti...

Economics Times December 06,2018 NEW DELHI: India could gain major health  benefits worth USD 3.28–8.4 trillion if it  manages to contain global warming and limit  the temperature rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius  by the end of this century, a WHO report said.  China could be next to India with gains  ranging between USD 0.27-2.31 trillion.  According to the report by the World Health  Organisation (WHO) released at the UN  Climate Conference in Poland, meeting the  goals of the Paris Agreement could save  about "a million lives a year worldwide by  2050" through reductions in air pollution alone. The latest estimates from leading experts also indicate that the value of health gains from climate action would be approximately "double the cost of mitigation policies at global level", and the benefit-to-cost ratio is even higher in countries such as China and India. "The largest gains would be expected in China and Indi...