India's heaviest satellite GSAT-11 successfully launched from French Guiana

Chennai, Jun 22: Commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment for five convicts, the Madras High Court on Monday set free Chinnasamy, the main convict, who had also been sentenced to death in the Udumalpet Shankar honour killing case.

A Division Bench comprising Justice M. Sathyanarayanan and Justice M. Nirmal Kumar also dismissed the appeal by the state police against the acquittal of three persons by a lower court.

The Bench ordered the five convicts sentenced for life to undergo a jail term of not less than 25 years.

In 2016, V. Shankar, who had married C. Kausalya, was killed by a gang in Udumalpet in Tamil Nadu. The gang also injured Kausalya in the attack.

It was alleged the parents of Kausalya -- Chinnasamy, Annalakshmi -- were against the marriage.

P. Pandidurai, the uncle of Kausalya at the behest of Chinnasamy and Annalakshmi had hired a gang to kill Shankar.

The gang killed Shankar in broad daylight in a public place and Kausalya too got injured in the attack as she tried to save her husband.

The Principal District and Sessions Court in Tiruppur had convicted and sentenced to death six accused persons -- Chinnasamy, P. Jagadeesan, P. Selvakumar, M. Manikandan, M. Mathan alias Michael and P. Kalaithamilvaanan.

The court also sentenced two other accused, K. Dhanraj for life and Manikandan to a five year jail term, while acquitting Annalakshmi, Pandidurai and Prasanna.

The convicts had filed an appeal against their sentence in the Madras High Court while the police filed an appeal against the acquittal of three persons.

Google has indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups (including several porn-sharing groups) with a simple search.

According to a report in Motherboard, invitations to WhatsApp group chats were being indexed by Google.

The team found private groups using specific Google searches and even joined a group intended for NGOs accredited by the UN and had access to all the participants and their phone numbers.

Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp's "Invite to Group Link" feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp's secure private messaging service.

"Your WhatsApp groups may not be as secure as you think they are," Wildon tweeted on Friday, adding that using particular Google searches, people can discover links to the chats.

According to app reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of "chat.whatsapp.com", part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.

WhatsApp spokesperson Alison Bonny said: "Like all content that is shared in searchable public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users."

"The links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website," Bonny told The Verge.

Danny Sullivan, Google's public search liaison, tweeted: "Search engines like Google & others list pages from the open web. That's what's happening here. It's no different than any case where a site allows URLs to be publicly listed. We do offer tools allowing sites to block content being listed in our results."

New Delhi, Jul 19: Indian equities will be driven by a host of factors like corporate earnings, coronavirus cases trend and geo-political developments this week, according to analysts.

Market participants will also keenly watch the progress of monsoon, with experts saying that the farm sector revival will play a key role in lifting the coronavirus-hit economy.

"With no major event, the ongoing earnings season and global cues will continue to dictate the market trend. Besides, the progress of monsoon will also be closely watched," Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking, said.

Globally, the rising coronavirus infections and geo-political tensions have created uncertainty on the economic recovery front.

With India's COVID-19 cases fast approaching the 11 lakh mark, the third-highest behind the US and Brazil, and the death toll nearing 27,000, participants are expected to tread cautiously going forward.

At global level, confirmed COVID-19 cases have crossed 1.4 crore and deaths totalled about 6 lakh.

Markets globally will closely follow developments on the trade and political level between the US and China, according to analysts.

"We would continue witnessing stock-specific action as the earnings season unfold. Though the near-term momentum looks positive, we would advise traders to be cautious, given flaring US-China trade relations, persistent rise in virus cases and implementation of fresh lockdowns in parts of the country," said Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

HDFC Bank will remain in focus on Monday after having announced its June quarter earnings on Saturday.

The lender reported 19.6 per cent rise in its standalone net profit at Rs 6,658.62 crore for April-June 2020; while its income rose to Rs 34,453.28 crore during the quarter.

Other major companies to announce their quarterly results this week are Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Bajaj Auto and ITC.

"Going ahead market participants will closely track the development related to covid vaccine, the rising infection of coronavirus, development on economic activities, corporate earnings and US-China relationship," said Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director, Choice Broking.

On weekly basis, the Sensex gathered 425.81 points or 1.16 per cent, and the Nifty gained 133.65 points or 1.24 per cent.