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Business Line Published By: Anonymous 60.7 per cent were victims of fake charities, with scammers impersonating genuine trusts to ask for donations, the study says With online Christmas shopping on the rise, about 56.1 per cent Indians have fallen victim to discount scams, by clicking on links that took them to a sketchy website, according to a study by McAfee. In its survey, ‘A Christmas Carol: Scam Edition’, which highlights how the year end festivities present a variety of threats, McAfee said that Indians are falling victim to scams resulting from deceiving apps. While cybercriminal activity continues to grow in sophistication, popular scams like email phishing (25.3 per cent) and text phishing (21.1 per cent) still result in close to a quarter of Indians being duped throughout the season, it said in a statement. As the number of tech savvy generation of online shoppers continue to surge, 35.4 per cent of Indians confess to have been conned by discount scams, w...

The Hindustan Times Published By: Deeptiman Tiwary It has argued that most state governments do not spare their IPS officers for central deputation and more than 60 per cent posts remain vacant. In what could face opposition from the police ranks in the country, the Union government has written to all states proposing to decrease the quota of central deputation of IPS officers by 50 per cent. It has argued that most of the state governments do not spare their IPS officers for central deputation and more than 60 per cent posts remain vacant. The move if implemented could have far reaching consequences for the Indian Police Service (IPS) leading to serious stagnation in the ranks. It could, however, benefit officers from other uniformed services as such posts would go to them. In a letter sent to chief secretaries of all States on November 26, the police division of the Home Ministry has said, “Since large number of Central Deputation Reserve posts remain unutilised, the...

The Indian Express Published By: Udit Misra On Tuesday, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha raised by DMK’s Tiruchi Siva about what the Reserve Bank’s “indirect” approval to the issuance of  electoral bonds  meant, Finance Minister  Nirmala Sitharaman  said: “RBI, being a stakeholder, was involved in the consultation process and during the consultation process, they had certain questions to ask about the particular platform of issuance as to who is going to issue it and also the proforma with which it is going to be issued. These consultations were recorded, but, at the end of it, as long as the bonds were going to be issued by the State Bank of India, they did not have an objection. So, when said ‘indirectly’, it meant, subject to that”. However, documents accessed through RTI by transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, show that — far from being just “involved in the consultation process” — the government had for the longest time assured the RBI that t...

Dawn Published By: Anonymous KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday received $1.3 billion just a day after signing an agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Islamabad. The $1.3bn inflow from the ADB pushed up central bank’s reserves to eight-month high at $10.41bn. Moreover, the country’s total reserves including central bank and commercial bank holdings also jumped to eight-month high reaching $17.293bn. The government, as part of the agreement with the ADB, plans to utilise $1.3bn for economic stabilisation programme. The ADB earlier said the aim of the loan is to reduce the social impact of macroeconomic stability measures. The purpose of the investment is to bring stability in the exchange rate while strengthening the public financial management. The bank also said that of the total $1.3bn, around $300 million has been set aside for reforms in the energy sector to address the energy shortfall and shortcomings in the energy policy. Sin...

Hindustan Times Published By:  Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Goyal cited growing trade deficit with ASEAN countries during 2010-11 until 2018-19 to state that the earlier trade pacts had been asymmetrical. The government on Tuesday informed the Rajya Sabha that India would review lopsided trade agreements with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and secure better deals and that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) failed to address India’s concerns on trade deficit, which forced the country to not join the pact. Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Goyal cited growing trade deficit with ASEAN countries during 2010-11 until 2018-19 to state that the earlier trade pacts had been asymmetrical. “A major reason has been that India gave much larger market access to some of these countries but received less in return. For example, in the ASEAN-India FTA (AIFTA) we enabled greater market access by eliminating tariffs on 74.4% ...

Hindustan Times Published By: Sanchita Sharma  Half of the 166 million unregistered children live in just five countries: India (14%), Nigeria (11%), Ethiopia (10%), Pakistan (9%) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (7%), said the Unicef report, which released on its 70th anniversary in India. Birth registration in India has increased from 41% in 2005-2006 to 80% in 2015-2016, according to a new Unicef report that said one in four of the world’s children remains invisible despite significant global progress driven by India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Twenty-two states have attained birth registration levels of more than 75% in the first year of birth in 2015-16, as compared to eight states in 2005-06. Globally, children under five years, whose births were officially recorded, went up from 63% to 75% over the past decade, but 166 million children are unregistered, shows an analysis of data from 174 countries published in the report called Birth Registration for...

Hindustan Times Published By: Anonymous Anwar, who was an encounter specialist served as the Senior Superintendent of Police in Malir district of Pakistan’s Sindh province, and is accused of extrajudicial killings. The US has blacklisted Rao Anwar Ahmed Khan, a retired Pakistani police officer, for his involvement in serious human rights violations, the US Department of Treasury has said. Anwar, who was an encounter specialist served as the Senior Superintendent of Police in Malir district of Pakistan’s Sindh province, and is accused of extrajudicial killings. “During his tenure as the SSP in Malir, Anwar was reportedly responsible for staging numerous fake police encounters in which police killed individuals,” the department said on Tuesday. Anwar during his service was also responsible for extortion, land-grabbing, narcotics and murder. “Anwar staged over 190 police encounters in the Malir District that led to the deaths of over 400 people, many of which wer...

Hindustan Times Published By: Agence France-Presse Suu Kyi, whose silence about the plight of the Rohingya has tarnished her reputation as a rights icon, sat through graphic accounts of murder and rape in the wood-panelled courtroom in The Hague. Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi faced calls for Myanmar to “stop the genocide” of Rohingya Muslims as she personally led her country’s defence at the UN’s top court on Tuesday. Suu Kyi, whose silence about the plight of the Rohingya has tarnished her reputation as a rights icon, sat through graphic accounts of murder and rape in the wood-panelled courtroom in The Hague. Rights groups have criticised her decision to represent Myanmar at the International Court of Justice against accusations by the west African state of The Gambia that it has breached the 1948 Genocide Convention. Around 740,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after a bloody crackdown by the Myanmar military in 2017 that UN investigat...