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Dimapur
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Friday
7 August 2015
The Morung Express
Bharti Airtel takes its 4G services to 296 towns
GurGaon, auGust 6 (Ians): India’s top telecom service provider Bharti Airtel on Thursday said it has commercially launched its fourth generation (4G) communications services in 296 towns across the country. “With the help of the feedback received from the beta launches, we have now built India’s first commercial 4G network that will make high speed mobile broadband a reality,” Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive officer of the company, said at the launch event here. “The national roll-out today is another small step in our journey to be the most innovative and customer focused brand,” he said, adding that the company’s journey in 4G began with the launch in Kolkata in April
2012, followed by successive beta offerings in 51 cities. “The roll-out will take place in few weeks.” Vittal said the company has a projection of $2.2 billion capital expenditure for 2015-16, but declined to divulge the details on the money spent and intended to be spent in offering 4G services. So far, 4G is available in data format in India only. Asked about the rising competition in the 4G space in the country, Vittal said: “We are the children of competition. It’s a brutal market place in India. But it makes one sharper. We thrive in competitive atmosphere.” He said
the company’s 4G network presence in 14 circles. Vittal has, accordingly, been built conceded that the quality of the on an open partner ecosystem third generation (3g) services was still not up to the mark, and said: “We have been vocal about call drops.” “We have many challenges over spectrum. Towers and sites pose a bigger challenge. With the growth in data sector, we model, bringing together the need more sites. That’s a genubest in the industry. “We are in- ine struggle. The government troducing to the Indian market had been supportive on this.” some never-before experiencAround three weeks ago, es. Together with our network Vittal had written to Airtel cusand device partners, we have tomers across the country to enabled deep proliferation of provide suggestions regarding 4G services in the country.” tower sites and he said at the 4G Bharti has 230 million sub- launch event that the company scribers in the country, with a received 20,000 responses, out
of which 500 provided leads on potential sites. Asked about the device ecosystem for 4G, he mentioned the company has an exclusive tie-up with Samsung, but the team is working towards build a robust device ecosystem. “Out of the 60 million phones that are shipped into India every quarter, 20 million are smartphones. This quarter, we expect some 1 million 4G-compatible phones to be shipped,” Vittal said. He said the company’s focus is also to work with manufacturers to drive down prices. Airtel also announced the launch of a new carrier agnostic mobile app - ‘Wynk Movies’ - which it claimed was first-ofits-kind movie mall that will offer specially curated library of thousands of movies and other popular videos.
EPFO to invest nearly $800 Facebook rolls out Page Messaging sages and respond on average FranCIsCo, auGust that person. mn in stocks in 2015/16 san The features are part of Face- within five minutes. People will, 6 (reuters): Facebook Inc
MuMbaI, auGust 6 (reuters): India’s state pension fund plans to buy nearly $800 million in stocks this fiscal year, its commissioner said on Thursday, below expectations and signalling a cautious stance towards the first equity investments in its 64-year history. The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will allocate 50 billion rupees ($784 million) in the year to March 2016 for exchange traded funds that track the country’s two main share indexes, but could increase that to as much as 70 billion to 80 billion rupees, the fund’s commissioner, K.K. Jalan, told reporters. “Since this is our first investment in equities we have decided to invest through the ETF route since that reduces the risk,” Jalan said. Investors had welcomed the pension fund’s decision this year to begin buying stocks in 2015/16, hoping it would become, like state-run Life Insurance Corp of India, a steady source of funds especially in times of market turbulence. Analysts were disappointed at the initial amount. “The government needs to increase its investment into equities,” said G. Chokkalingam, founder of Equinomics, a research and fund advisory firm. The amount is only a fraction of the 470 billion rupees that Life Insurance Corp invested in stocks in the year to March 2015. EPFO has 8.5 trillion rupees under management, most of it invested in government bonds. It had previously announced it would allocate up to 5 percent of funds from new pension contributions and maturing investments into equities. Jalan said the fund could increase that proportion to 10 percent next fiscal year and consider investing in other ETFs. “We will see how this goes and we hope to increase our equity investments,” Jalan said.Three-quarters of the amount will be put into an exchange traded fund tracking the 50-share Nifty while the remainder will go to an ETF tracking the 30-share BSE Sensex. Both funds will be run by State Bank of India’s asset management unit. Indian shares were Asia’s second-best performers in dollar terms last year but have retreated after hitting record highs in March, as investors grew disappointed with the slow pace of economic reforms from the 15-monthold government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The NSE index is still up 3.7 percent this year, while the BSE is up 2.9 percent.
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an estimated worth of $79.6 billion, trailed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison at $50 billion. The surprising number three was Bezos, who saw a gain of some $13 billion in his fortune this year with the rise of Amazon shares, and is now worth $47.8 billion, Forbes said. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg snared the number four position with a net worth of $41.2 billion, followed by Google founders Larry Page ($33.4 billion) and Sergey Brin ($32.8 billion). Alibaba founder Jack Ma was No. 7 with a worth of $23.2 billion, the wealthiest of 10 Chinese billionaires on the list. Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer came in eighth at $22.7 billion, while Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was No. 9 at $21.4 billion, and computer company founder Michael Dell was tenth with a worth of $19.4 billion. Jobs was the richest of the seven women on the list. The average age is 53, or a decade younger than the average of all billionaires, Forbes said. The youngest is Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, who at age 25 is worth an estimated $2.1 billion. The oldest is Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, 86, whose estimated worth is $6 billion.
neW DelHI, auGust 6 (Ians/InDIasPenD): The achievements claimed by the Department of Posts during the one year of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s term in office centre around the implementation of plans announced and programmes started by the previous government, such as automation and core banking solutions. We emailed our findings to the ministry last week, requesting comment. There was no response. 1. Post offices networked: Approved in 2012, most networking during UPA term Claim: 27,215 post offices networked into one national unit. Check revealed: The central government approved a Rs 4,909-crore “IT Modernisation Project” in November 2012. The objectives included: Computerisation of all post offices, mail offices, administrative and other offices IT infrastructure and development of software applications The IT project aims to provide postal customers with callcentre services, internet, ATM, mobile banking and net banking for Post Office Savings Bank customers; and provides an electronic and secure mode of money transfer, including doorstep delivery, even in rural areas. A major portion of the networking of post offices was done during the term of the previous government, and 26,597 post offices were connected over a wide-area network by December 31, 2014. 2. Proposal for handheld micro-ATMs to post offices: Proposed in 2012 Claim: As many as 130,000 handheld biometric devices to be provided to rural post offices. Check revealed: Equipping rural post offices with “hand-held devices with biometric identification, micro-ATM enablement, network-provided printer to provide receipts to customer and a solar-powered battery to charge and operate the microATM” was an objective originally mentioned in the IT Modernisation Project, 2012. It isn’t yet clear when these will be delivered. 3. Core banking-enabled post offices grow: As they have in the past, as per plan Claim: Post offices offering banking services increased from 236 in 2013-14 to 2,590 in 2014-15.
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WasHInGton, auGust 6 (aFP): Microsoft’s Bill Gates was the unsurprising leader of the first Forbes list of the richest global tech billionaires, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw his personal fortune surge. The Forbes survey released on August 5 found US-based tech magnates made up 51 of the 100 richest people in technology, with 33 from Asia and eight from Europe. The net worth of the 100 people amounted to $842.9 billion, according to the magazine. The minimum net worth to make the top 100 was $2 billion. Gates, who has long been at or near the top of the world’s richest individuals, led the group with
Simple Rules - There is just one simple rule: “Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.”
SUDOKU
however, still be able to block private messages from businesses. The features will be especially valuable in southeast Asia, Facebook wrote in a blog post. About twice as many Thai and Singaporean users use Facebook messages to communicate with businesses each month and most Southeast Asia users follow some company pages. Facebook hosts more than 40 million active small and medium business pages, it said, with more than 1 billion page visits each month.
Gates tops Forbes richest tech billionaires’ list
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book’s efforts to convince more small and medium-sized businesses - especially those in emerging markets, such as India, Brazil and Indonesia - to advertise on its platform. By giving them direct access to customers, the world’s largest social network hopes to show that advertising on Facebook directly leads to increased sales. To encourage quick responses, Facebook will award “very responsive to messages” badges on business pages that respond to 90% of mes-
rolled out features Wednesday that enable businesses to privately communicate with customers through messages as part of the social networking company’s push to make its Messenger app a stand-alone platform. Businesses can now include a “send message” button in ads that appear in Newsfeed that allow Facebook users to click a button and send messages, which are private. If users post a comment on a business’ Facebook page, then the business can privately message
Department Of Posts: Old plans on track
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4. Cash-on-delivery growth figures technically correct, but disingenuous Claim: Cash-on-delivery revenue was Rs.100 crore in 2013-14 and Rs.500 crore in 2014-15 Check Revealed: Department of Posts introduced cash on delivery (COD) as value addition to the parcel service with effect from December 2, 2013 which is available to the contractual customers of express parcel, business parcel and speed post. So, the Rs.100 crore figure regarding COD during 2013-14 pertains to only a three-month period in 2013-14. 5. Report used to show Speed Post superior in 2014-15 covers different year Claim: CAG report laid in Parliament on May 8, 2015 highlights that Speed Post is far better than private couriers. Check Revealed: The CAG report 20 of 2015 - Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Communications and IT tabled in Parliament on May 8, 2015 - is a performance and compliance audit report for the year ending March 2013. 6. Speed post revenues grew 7.4 percent in 2014-15, but growth rates higher in previous years Claim: Speed post revenues grew to Rs.1,470 crore in 201415, up 7.4 percent over last year Check Revealed: Parliamentary data reveals that Speed Post revenues have grown from Rs. 515 crore in 2008-09 to Rs.1,372 crore in 2013-14 at a compounded annual growth rate of 17.7 percent over the duration of six years.
STD CODE: 03862 232224; Emergency229529, 229474
Metro Hospital: Faith Hospital:
227930, 231081 228846
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228254
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231864, 224117, 227337
Police Control Room
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KOHIMA
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TUENSANG: 8414853766 (O) 8414853519 MON: 03869 251222/ 101 (O) 9436208480 (OC)
CHILD WELFARE COMMITTEE
ACROSS
1. Spanish for “Friend” 6. F F F F 10. Ringlet 14. Of lesser importance 15. Protective ditch 16. Double-reed woodwind 17. Not outer 18. Clown 19. Person, place or thing 20. Dispersed 22. Widespread 23. Indian dress 24. A poor city district 26. Gashes 30. A large vase 31. Cheer 32. Two-toed sloth 33. Droops 35. Claw 39. Natural hollows in the cheek 41. Adolescent 43. Overly sentimental 44. Self-satisfied 46. Algonquian Indian 47. Mineral rock 49. Arrive (abbrev.) 50. Barely managed 51. Large heavy rope
54. Notion 56. Dull pain 57. Destroy completely 63. Outbuilding 64. British title 65. Rope fiber 66. Express in words 67. Historical periods 68. Codeine source 69. Catch a glimpse of 70. Dispatched 71. Anagram of “Paste”
DOWN
1. Among 2. Short skirt 3. Hotels 4. “Comes and ____” 5. German iris 6. Abash 7. Basis 8. Discomfit 9. Out of fashion 10. Impartation 11. Submarine 12. Get out of bed 13. Slowly, in music 21. Interrupt temporarily 25. Despise 26. Wads 27. Pearly-shelled mussel
28. Pack down 29. Purportedly 34. Stoutest 36. Frolic 37. Curved molding 38. Require 40. Stringed instrument 42. Everglades bird 45. Letter carrier 48. Wears away 51. Urgency 52. Pains 53. Pup 55. Fable writer 58. Exposed 59. Fully developed 60. Largest continent 61. Tight 62. Shade trees Ans to CrossWord 3320
FIRE STATIONS
Chumukedima Fire 282777 Brigade Nikos Hospital and 232032, 231031 Research Centre
Police Control Room: North Police Station: South Police Station: Fire Brigade: Naga Hospital: Oking Hospital: Bethel Nursing Home: Northeast Shuttles
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DIMAPUR Civil Hospital:
Check revealed: Core banking services are part of the IT Modernisation Project, 2012. The project proposed ATM, Internet and mobile banking for post-office savings-schemes users. Around 1,000 ATMs are proposed across India. The rollout of core banking services and ATM installation began in September 2012 and the completion target date is March 2016. By March 2013, 360 post offices and eight ATMs were commissioned. 1,436 post offices offered core banking services by December 2014. Comparing implementation during 2013-14 and 204-15 does not make sense because the project is running through its implementation-as planned.
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2226241
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2226214
Civil Hospital: Woodland Nursing Home:
2226216 2226263
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TAHAMZAM (formerly Senapati) STD CODE: 03871 Police Station: Fire Brigade
CURRENCY NOTES
222246 222491
BUY(Rs)
SELL(Rs)
US Dollars Sterling Pound Hong Kong Dollar Australian Dollar Singapore Dollar Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen
62.31 97.23 7.78 45.61 44.94 47.24 49.7
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Euro
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Thai Baht Korean Won New Zealand Dollar Chinese Yuan
1.71
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0.0516
0.0575
40.67
42.70
9.7
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