is

UCM, AMUCO, CAU, BGVS, actress Tonthoi and others distribute relief items

UCM, AMUCO, CAU, BGVS, actress Tonthoi and others distribute relief items




is

COVID-19 mortality rate low, says Minister

TIRUVARUR The mortality due to COVID-19 virus infection in Tamil Nadu is 0.67%, according to Food Minister R. Kamaraj.Disclosing this at a special med




is

ICICI Bank Q4 net up 26%, provisions rise

‘Net NPA at lowest in 19 quarters’




is

Credai alleges cartelisation, flags cement and steel prices

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (Credai) has written to Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Puri and Commerce




is

COVID-19 pandemic is likely to reduce investment in construction related projects : KPMG

COVID-19 pandemic is likely to reduce investment in construction related projects in the range of 13 to 30% which will have significant impact on Gros




is

Minister promises all help to gas leak victims

Medical camps will be conducted in the five villages around the plant, says Muttamsetti




is

5 more COVID hospitals in the pipeline: Minister

Minister for Medical and Health Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas on Saturday said that five more private hospitals were designated as COVID-19 hospitals in




is

Seed distribution in villages from May 18: Kannababu

Minister for Agriculture Kurasala Kannababu on Saturday said that distribution of seeds would be done in villages from this year and farmers need not




is

Officials in Nellore on alert as Koyambedu cases rise

The district has regular transactions with traders in Tamil Nadu




is

Coronavirus | Maharashtra tops 20,000-mark; toll rises to 779

State registers 48 deaths, the highest in a day




is

What is the great urgency for environment notification, asks Congress

Draft has alarming clauses including the concept of post facto clearance, it says.




is

Coronavirus | Key ICMR panel on vaccines dissolved

5 groups set up in National Task Force




is

Ban on sale, use of tobacco products in Udupi district

The district administration has banned sale and use of tobacco products in Udupi district to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In a press release issued




is

Despite permission to reopen, industries raise logistical issues

The State government may have permitted industrial units to reopen, but an interaction with MSME bodies brought to light the acute logistical problem




is

Technical glitches, delay in issue of passes leave many stranded at border

Migrants complain officials are delaying their entry citing silly reasons and technical formalities




is

289 workers quarantined in Shivamogga district

As many as 289 migrant workers from Shivamogga district working outside the State who have returned to their native areas in the past one week have be




is

Man who returned from Padarayanapura tests positive in Tumakuru district

A 45-year-old man (P-764), who worked at a hotel in Padarayanapura in Bengaluru and returned to his hometown in Sira of Tumakuru district on May 4, te




is

Wimbledon visit made me take up the game: Zeeshan

Ashutosh says he gained from following his father’s disciplined methods




is

You innovate and exercise: Neeraj Chopra

The javelin thrower isconfident of regaining fitness in two weeks once training restarts




is

Shops offer discounts, virtual tours to win back customers

Some stores are giving up to 50% rebate




is

Is It Time to Forget Big Data and Focus on Real People?

September 21, 2015

Big data is all the rage. It’s discussed at heavily conventions all over the world and written about on blogs across industries. Big data is starting to look like an inevitable mechanism for doing business in the always-on, ever-connected, Internet-of-Things era that is upon us. Big data is here to guide our corporate decisions, save our business’ money, and direct our experience design initiatives in every way.

When it comes to UX, before we jump on the big data bandwagon, we need to challenge its predominance. UX professionals cannot create an experience for figures in a database or tracking systems, and designers must keep focusing on real people rather than on numbers. Online experiences must remain geared toward real users and their interests, goals, and desires.

What About the Numbers?

Many companies and their marketing departments have...read more
By Maya Nix

             




is

Using “Dumb Data” To Make Smart Design Decisions

September 23, 2015

As an industry, we’ve worked to established many new practices and tools for nimble design teams, from A/B testing to measuring bounce rates and CTR performance. But a lot of these methods require engineers or some amount of technical know-how to execute, and they take place only after something has been launched.

The judicious application of “dumb data” can streamline your workflow and improve your designs

What many people don’t know is that there are some unexpected applications of data to consider earlier in the design process, which you, the designer, can do yourself. They’re not fancy, and you don’t need to know how to write SQL queries. The judicious application of just-enough “dumb data” can streamline your workflow and improve your designs in surprisingly useful ways.

Here are...read more
By Jocelyn Lin

             




is

Aurangabad train mishap: NHRC notice to Maharashtra govt




is

New BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal takes official charge




is

Maha Home Minister expresses grief over Aurangabad train accident




is

Disturbed architect attacks 3 Mumbai cops with chopper




is

Trump administration tightens visas for Chinese reporters

The Trump administration is tightening visa guidelines for Chinese journalists in response to the treatment of US journalists in China, as tensions flare between the two nations over the coronavirus.




is

Obama calls Trump's handling of pandemic a 'chaotic disaster'

Former president Barack Obama has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, calling it an "absolute chaotic disaster."




is

Kerala will not dilute labour laws, says Labour Minister

Workers’ unions irked by ‘anti-labour’ moves of States such as UP, MP, Gujarat




is

Paradise Papers: The moral dilemmas of tax avoidance

Mohan Guruswamy

The tranche of documents uncovered recently has not only brought several stalwarts of Indian politics, cinema industry, and business tycoons under scanner but has also thrown up pertinent questions over the moral dilemmas of avoiding tax

The paradise in the Paradise Papers refers to tax havens of low or even no taxation. Such havens usually are shadowy and sleazy little countries and principalities such as the Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein and Monaco, and sometimes entities within countries like Jersey, Guernsey, Bermuda in the UK and Delaware and Puerto Rico in the USA. Then there are low taxation countries like Switzerland, Singapore and Dubai that assure secretive rich people of their privacy. 

Essentially a tax haven exists to cheat sovereign states of their lawful incomes. The Tax Justice Network campaign group estimates that corporate tax avoidance costs governments $500bn a year, while personal tax avoidance costs $200bn a year. This in effect means that anywhere between $20-30 trillion of business transactions are sheltered from taxations. Moody’s estimated that in 2016 giant American technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple were hoarding about $1.84 trillion cash in offshore havens. Clearly they are avoiding tax and as bending the rules of the tax system is not illegal unlike tax evasion; they are operating within the letter, but perhaps not the spirit, of the law.

In the early 1980’s, shaken up by the number of scandals in Wall Street, and by the number of its MBA graduates who were found wanting in ethical and moral values, the Harvard Business School made a course on “Leadership and Corporate Accountability” a core requirement. I am sure Jayant Sinha, a Harvard MBA, had to do this course and would have scored a high grade in it. Such courses now are in the core curriculum of the business schools attended by the other two young politicians also named in the Paradise Papers or capers if you will. Sachin Pilot graduated from the famous Wharton School of Business and Karti Chidambaram took his business masters from Texas and a law degree from Cambridge to boot.

Doing the required ethics course is one thing but it is quite something else to be able to resolve moral dilemmas of what John Kenneth Galbraith described as the “HBS’s ethical view of capitalism which derives straight out of the Protestant ethic and its transformational view of money, in which the ability to accumulate wealth is a reflection of one’s character.”

The charge against Jayant Sinha is that while acting as an Omidyar Network representative was on the board of a California company that made a loan to that company’s Cayman subsidiary. Usually such a loan to such a subsidiary suggests a fiddle. Whether Sinha knew this or did not know it is something else? Clearly the evidence does not suggest any malfeasance. But clearly there is room for skepticism. 

Omidyar Network proclaims its belief: “Just as eBay created the opportunity for millions of people to start their own businesses, we believe market forces can be a potent driver for positive social change.” Grand words but that hardly conceals the true goal that is to make bucks, sometimes fast ones too.  Again as Galbraith put it: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Jayant, then fresh out of one of the IIT’s, worked with me way back in the mid 1980’s on a paper that proposed the mass construction of smokeless challahs for rural homes as a profitable employment for hundreds of thousands of rural workers. I remember it as a bit of an elaborate scheme that also computed the savings due to improved health results. It was published in this newspaper and the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi took note of it. I was impressed enough to write a recommendation when he applied for a Masters in Energy Management at Pennsylvania. 

I next met him when I was serving as his fathers Advisor in the Finance Ministry. Jayant and his wife were both working with foreign companies investing in Indian stocks. He was apprehensive about a proposal made by me to disinvest PSU stocks by selling them to the governments banks for onward restructure and disinvestment. The minister had clearly spoken to him. At that time too I wondered if the HBS’s core business ethics course would have seen conflict of interest issues in it? The minister however had plenty of flex in him.

To my mind tax avoidance is just as reprehensible as tax evasion. Sinha was too junior in the Finance Ministry to have expressed views on this. It would have been unlikely though for that is not the HBS way. The previous Finance Minister, himself a Harvard MBA, would not have any left footprints for young Sinha to tread on. Neither would the present lawyer Finance Minister. 

 

Lead Image: 




is

Smog disrupts Northern Railways

Hardnews Bureau

The smog that has engulfed large swathes of Northern India has effectively brought the Northern Indian Railways to a standstill

Witnessing delays and cancellations due to the heavy smog that has descended over large parts of North India, several long-distance trains reaching stations such as New Delhi, Chandigarh and Lucknow and others have been held up by more than twelve hours. This disruption has caused several problems, many people have been stranded, unable to get to their workplaces on time, while others have been seen lying on the platform.

Trains that have been delayed:

Kamyakhya Express Kamkhaya Junction, Maligaon Guwahati Anand Vihar, New Delhi + 20h 
Chhattisgarh Express Bilaspur, Chhatisgarh Amritsar, Punjab +11h
Heerakund Express Amritsar Jn, Punjab Vishakhapatanam, Andhra Pradesh +5h
Lucknow-Chandigarh Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Chandigarh, Punjab +5h
Unchahar Express Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh Chandigarh, Punjab +5h50m

According to the Northern Railways, over 25 trains were delayed in the Ambala division on Thursday. The morning Shatabdi, operating between Chandigarh and Delhi, was delayed by three hours and failed to reach at the scheduled time. “The trains are running late due to smog in Delhi and other parts of the northern states. On Thursday as well several trains were delayed. We don’t see any change in the coming days. The situation will improve only if the smoggy weather ends,” said an official to news agencies.

Several trains have been cancelled as well, which include: The Ajmer-Jammu Tavi Express, New Delhi-Amritsar Express, Allahabad-Saharanpur Express, Amritsar-Jai Nagar express, Malda-Delhi Farakka Express, Poorvottar Express from Amritsar to Silchar and Pooja Express from Jammu to Ajmer.

Smog disrupts Northern Railways

Lead Image: 




is

Kozhikode Corpn. rolls back decision to hand over Muthalakkulam project to private firm

The Kozhikode Corporation Council has gone back on its decision to hand over the project for renovation of Muthalakkulam grounds to Salim Group and As




is

Motorist hurt after metro worker’s tool falls on him

A two-wheeler rider was injured on Saturday evening after a hand grinder, that slipped from the hands of a worker engaged in cladding work over Kochi




is

Rumour on issuance of token for train tickets creates furore

Workers rush to Tiruppur Railway Station, only to be disappointed




is

Public advised to exercise caution while handling biomedical waste

The district administration has advised public to exercise caution while handling biomedical waste of persons in home quarantine or from quarantine fa




is

Minister visits site for relocation of Uddandapur reservoir oustees

‘Proper opportunities would be created for their livelihood’




is

A COVID-19 social exercise that seems to have got it right on three counts

It is a case of trying to understand the society around us through experiential knowledge transfer




is

Eatala kicks off Ayush kit distribution programme

About 20,000 kits to be distributed to policemen, healthcare workers in red zone areas, in first phase




is

Publicise helpline number for differently-abled persons: HC

Asks govt. to examine possibility of earmarking exclusive funds for them




is

Clarify stand on AP’s plan to divert Krishna water: CPI

Chada Venkat Reddy wants Telangana government to announce its water policy




is

Buyer orders one Pixel 4 online, Google delivers 10 units by mistake

Buyer orders one Pixel 4 online, Google delivers 10 units by mistake




is

Visakhapatnam gas leak: LG Polymers apologises, offers ‘every support’ to affected

Visakhapatnam gas leak: LG Polymers apologises, offers ‘every support’ to affected




is

Rishi Kapoor wanted son Ranbir Kapoor to marry THIS person and not Alia Bhatt?

Rishi Kapoor wanted son Ranbir Kapoor to marry THIS person and not Alia Bhatt?




is

Fortified foods vs. supplements: What is better?

Fortified foods vs. supplements: What is better?




is

SS Karthikeya walks out of his next venture

SS Karthikeya walks out of his next venture




is

Shriya Saran urges fans to help small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis

Shriya Saran urges fans to help small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis




is

Mother’s Day 2020: ‘One Day isn’t enough to thank our mothers’, says Divya Khosla Kumar who feels we should express our gratitude towards them whenever we feel it

Mother’s Day 2020: ‘One Day isn’t enough to thank our mothers’, says Divya Khosla Kumar who feels we should express our gratitude towards them whenever we feel it




is

Gymnastics: Italian Lodadio cultivates his garden to stay fit

Gymnastics: Italian Lodadio cultivates his garden to stay fit




is

Lewis Hamilton grateful for Grand Prix 'sabbatical'

Lewis Hamilton grateful for Grand Prix 'sabbatical'




is

US PGA's Memorial to track fans to maintain COVID-19 social distancing

US PGA's Memorial to track fans to maintain COVID-19 social distancing