I am real tea seller, Modi sold blood: Lalu

New Delhi, Jan 1: In the backdrop of huge losses borne by airlines, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said the government is concerned that more airlines will shut down if predatory pricing continues. "Some predatory pricing is taking place" in airfares, the minister told reporters on Tuesday. Mr Puri however ruled out any plan by the government to regulate airfares. The remarks come amid high competition in the country's aviation sector, struggling against high fuel prices and other operating costs.

"The interesting thing that we have observed is that on Delhi-Mumbai route 20 years ago, the average fare was Rs 5,100. Today, the average fare is Rs 4,600. Some predatory pricing is taking place. It means people are selling tickets below their cost," he said.

"One of our concerns is that if there is predatory pricing, then the airlines will stop functioning. This is not Air India's problem only. Jet Airways got shut down. Before that, it was Kingfisher airline," he said.

IndiGo and SpiceJet - two of the country's biggest airlines - reported losses of Rs 1,062 crore and Rs 463 crore respectively in the second quarter of 2019-20. Other airlines have also reported losses in the quarter that ended on September 30, 2019.

Asked if predatory pricing is the reason for the ill health of the airlines, the minister said, "No, there are many reasons... Predatory pricing is one of the factors. But the profitability of an airline is dependent on (a) number of things."

Asked if the trend of predatory pricing has come down after regular discussion with the airlines, he said, "Yes, absolutely."

"It is (a) constant battle. An ideal situation from an airline's point of view is that they grow and they are also able to charge more fares. What fares they charge is their business. Our advice to them is to charge realistic fares," he added. "It should not be too high. And it is not in your business interests if you are imposing predatory fares."

The minister also said that the government is not planning to regulate fares. "No regulation. It has to be done within deregulation system.... If I put a cap on fare, the airline will start charging that cap only... that cap will become the normal fare... So, within a deregulated structure, we have to bring about an equilibrium," the minister said.

"Government, periodically, at my level or at secretary''s level, we sit down with the main aircraft operators and tell them it is in your interest not to allow such practices which undermine the civil aviation sector."

Lucknow, May 27: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has taken a U-turn, two days after he declared that permission would be needed if other states employ workers from UP.

The issue sparked a major controversy and an official spokesman has now said that the government would not include this clause of 'prior permission' in the bye-laws of the Migration Commission.

The government spokesman also said it was working on modalities to set up the commission to provide jobs and social security to migrant workers returning to the state. It has named the migration commission as the "Shramik Kalyan Aayog (Workers welfare commission).

About 26 lakh migrants have already returned to the state and an exercise to map their skills is being carried out to help them get jobs.

Yogi Adityanath has discussed the modalities for setting up the commission and told his officers to complete the skill mapping exercise in 15 days.

A senior official of Team 11, said, "The chief minister discussed the modalities for setting up the commission, as well. There will be no provision requiring other states to seek UP government's prior permission for employing our manpower. The commission is being set up to provide jobs and social security to the workers. We will also link the migrants to the government schemes to provide them houses and loans etc."

Yogi Adityanath said a letter should be sent to all state governments to find out about migrant workers wanting to come back to Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier, the chief minister, while speaking at a webinar on Sunday, had said, "The migration commission will work in the interest of migrant workers. If any other state wants UP's manpower, they cannot take them just like that, but will have to seek permission of the UP government. The way our migrant workers were ill-treated in other states, the UP government will take their insurance, social security in its hands now. The state government will stand by them wherever they work, whether in Uttar Pradesh, other states or other countries."

The statement had sparked a row with some political leaders and parties questioning the move.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi sharply criticized Adityanath's stand, saying the workers were not the chief minister's personal property.

"It is very unfortunate that the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh views India in such a way. These people are not his personal property. They are not the personal property of Uttar Pradesh. These people are Indian citizens and they have the right to decide what they want to do and they have the right to live the life they want to live," he had said.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray had also taken on Adityanath and said that if UP insists on "permission" before other states can employ workers from there, "then any migrant entering Maharashtra would need to take permissions from us, from the Maharashtra state, our police force too."

Meanwhile, the government spokesman said, "The chief minister is deeply moved by the condition of migrants. They have been treated badly by other states. So, when the chief minister spoke about the need for seeking UP government's permission, he did so as a guardian for workers. It's only his concern for the migrants that came out as a political statement."

Bengaluru, May 21: The COVID-19-induced lockdown saw a spurt in crybercrimes in India with Kerala recording the highest number during the period, according to an analysis of IT security solutions provider K7 Computing.

The report analyses various cyberattacks within India during the pandemic and reveals that threat actors targeted the States with COVID-19-themed attacks aimed at exploiting user trust.

The sudden surge in the frequency of attacks witnessed from February 2020 to mid-April 2020 indicates that scamsters across the world were exploiting the widespread panic around coronavirus at both the individual and corporate level, the company said in a statement.

These attacks aimed to compromise computers and mobile devices to gain access to users confidential data, banking details and cryptocurrency accounts.

The key threats seen during this period ranged from phishing attacks to rogue apps disguised as COVID-19 information apps that targeted users sensitive data.

Phishing attacks were noticed more in Tier-II and Tier-III cities while the metros fared better.

Smaller cities saw over 250 attacks being blocked per 10,000 users.

Users from Ghaziabad and Lucknow seem to have faced almost six and four times the number of attacks, respectively, as Bengaluru users.

In Kerala, regions like Kottayam, Kannur, Kollam, and Kochi saw the highest hits with 462, 374, 236, and 147 attacks respectively, while the state as a whole saw around 2,000 attacks during the period, the highest thus far in the country.

This was followed by Punjab with 207 attacks and Tamil Nadu at 184 attacks, the statement said.

A majority of the recorded attacks were phishing attacks with sophisticated campaigns that could easily snare even the most educated users, it said.

These attacks were aimed at heightening users fears and creating a sense of urgency to take action.

The report noted phishing attacks where scamsters posed as representatives of the United States Department of the Treasury, the World Health Organisation, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Users were encouraged to visit links that would automatically download malware on the host computer such as the Agent Tesla keylogger or Lokibot information-stealing malware, infamous banking Trojans such as Trickbot or Zeus Sphinx, and even disastrous ransomware.

Other attacks included infected COVID-19 Android apps like CoronaSafetyMask that scam users with promises of masks for an upfront payment; the spyware app Project Spy; and seemingly genuine apps that are infected with dangerous malware like banking Trojans such as Ginp, Anubis and Cerberus, it was stated.