Mukesh, Nita's help saves day for Anil

Agencies
March 19, 2019

New Delhi, Mar 19: Embattled billionaire Anil Ambani on Monday warded off a possible jail term as RCom cleared dues of a Swedish service provider at the eleventh hour with money received from elder brother Mukesh and his wife Nita, whom he thanked for standing by him in trying times and extending "timely support".

Anil's heavily debt-laden Reliance Communications made a Rs 550 crore payment, including interest, to Ericsson just a day before the expiry of the deadline set by the Supreme Court to clear dues or face a three-month jail term.

Soon after making the payment, RCom announced the termination of a Rs 17,000 crore deal to sell telecom assets like spectrum, fibre and tower to Mukesh's Reliance Jio, citing delays in approvals from the government and lenders.

Anil, whose businesses in telecom and power sectors went into heavy debt in the face of regulatory headwinds and intense competition, thanked Mukesh and his wife Nita for bailing him out.

"My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support," a late night statement issued by Anil's firm quoted him as saying.

Anil said he and his family "are grateful" and "deeply touched with this gesture" that they "have moved beyond the past".

In the statement, RCom said Rs 550 crore dues to Ericsson, including interest dues, has been made in compliance with the Supreme Court judgement.

However, the company did not give details about the source of funds but cited "timely support" from Mukesh in the trying times.

The two brothers had fought a bitter public battle after his father Dhirubhai died without leaving a will. They split his businesses between themselves, with Anil getting telecom and power while Mukesh retained oil and petrochemical businesses.

The split did not end the feud and the two bickered over the commitment of Mukesh' Reliance Industries for the supply of gas to Anil's power plants. In 2008, Anil's RCom wanted to merge with South Africa's MTN but the move was thwarted by Mukesh citing his holding right of the first refusal.

Since then, the two brothers scrapped a no-compete agreement and Mukesh re-entered telecom business in 2016 offering free voice call for life and data at dirt cheap prices.

As debt grew, RCom, in December 2017, entered into a deal with Jio to sell spectrum and other assets such as fibre network and telecom towers for an estimated Rs 17,000 crore.

But the deal could not progress amid regulatory hurdles faced as the Department of Telecommunications wanted a written assurance on who would pay for RCom's dues such as spectrum fee.

Jio refused to make a commitment to pay for such fee and lenders to RCom also played hardball, resulting in the deal falling through.

In separate statements, RCom and Jio announced the scrapping of the deal, citing delays in getting approvals from the government and lenders.

"The said transactions have become incapable of being consummated in accordance with the terms thereof, on account of various factors and developments since the execution of the said agreements nearly 15 months ago...," RCom said.

Jio said the master agreement for the acquisition of certain specific assets of RCom and the spectrum trading agreement for change in allotment of the certain specific spectrum stand terminated.

This, it said, also follows the Board of Directors of RCom passing a resolution to seek fast track resolution through bankruptcy court and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on February 4 restricting the sale, transfer or alienation of any movable or immovable property of RCom.

"The termination of the master agreement shall not, in any manner, affect the rights and obligations of the parties, accrued prior to the date of termination," it said.

An Ericsson spokesperson confirmed that it has received balance payment of Rs 458.77 crore (principal amount) from RCom on Monday. Together with Rs 118 crore, it had previously paid, RCom has cleared all dues including interest.

Last month, the Supreme Court held Ambani in contempt for not paying Ericsson's dues despite promising to do so. The court had warned to send Anil as well as Chhaya Virani and Satish Seth - chairmen of two RCom units -- to jail if they fail to pay the dues in four weeks. The deadline expires on Tuesday. The company suffered a blow when National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), last week, refused to free up Rs 260 crore tax refunds withheld by the lenders. Banks had opposed release of the tax refunds.

In 2017, Ericsson moved a bankruptcy court alleging it had not been paid dues around Rs 1,600 crore after signing a deal in 2013 to operate, maintain and manage the telco's nationwide network. It extracted a personal guarantee from Ambani to pay the dues.

RCom scrip closed at Rs 4 a share on the BSE Monday, 9.30 per cent lower than the previous close.

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Agencies
March 15,2020

New Delhi, Mar 15: The new rules for debit and credit cards to increase security and reduce frauds kick in from Monday. In January, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had issued new rules to improve user convenience and increase the security of card transactions. These rules will help in curbing the misuse of debit and credit cards.

RBI has directed banks to allow only domestic card transactions at ATMs and PoS terminals in India at the time of issuance/reissuance of card. For international transactions, online transactions, card-not-present transactions and contactless transactions, customers will have to separately set up services on their card.

These rules will be applicable for new cards from March 16. Those with old cards can decide whether to disable any of these features.

As per the existing rules, these services used to come automatically with the card, but now it will start at the request of the customer.

Debit or credit card customers who have not yet done any online transaction, contactless transaction or international transaction with the card, then these services on the card will automatically stop from March 16.

The Reserve Bank has asked all banks to provide mobile banking, net banking option to enable limit and enable and disable service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If the customer makes any change in the status of the card, the bank will alert the customer through SMS/email and send the information.

Issuers shall provide to all cardholders facility to switch on/off and set/modify transaction limits (within the overall card limit, if any, set by the issuer) for all types of transactions -- domestic and international, at PoS/ATMs/online transactions/contactless transactions, etc.,

The provisions, however, are not mandatory for prepaid gift cards and those used at mass transit systems.

The latest instructions come in the wake of rising instances of cyber frauds and the huge increase in the use of cards.

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News Network
July 1,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 1: A day after the Government banned several Chinese apps, popular short-form video app Mitron reported that its daily traffic jumped up by more than 11 times.

Just 5 days after crossing the 10 million (1 crore) downloads milestone, Mitron has now announced that the app has been downloaded by 17 million (1.7 crore) users in India. Mitron app has been one of the most downloaded apps in India during the last two months.

"It is incredibly exciting to see the rapid adoption of Mitron by Indian users. 11-fold jump in traffic, immediately after the ban of Chinese apps, was beyond our expectations," said Shivank Agarwal, Founder, and CEO, Mitron.

Anish Khandelwal, Founder and CTO said, " We have built a solid backend infrastructure and our platform is now completely scalable and autonomous and that is helping us to cater to the sharp rise in traffic on Mitron App."

Mitron has been rapidly enhancing the product with several improvements for the users including an updated video upload process that is much easier, enhanced audio library with a wide choice of Indian content, and a feature that enables users to flag any inappropriate content easily.

Users uploaded millions of videos in 10 different languages and the number of videos viewed on the platform increased sharply to cross 30 million video views per hour.

Shivank added "We are a young company and we are hiring some of the best product & engineering talent to scale up Mitron rapidly. We are confident that we can build Mitron into one of the best apps in the short-form video space. Our focus is on building features and content that uniquely resonates with Indian users, while being sensitive to community standards and local laws in India and we believe that will help us build Mitron into a very large business."

Founded by two Computer Science engineers, Shivank Agarwal (alumnus of IIT Roorkee) and Anish Khandelwal (alumnus of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology), Mitron app is a short-form video app that allows users to create, upload and view entertaining short videos.

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News Network
January 3,2020

Mumbai, Jan 3: The Shiv Sena on Friday targeted the Centre by questioning the "efficacy" of the 2016 surgical strike and said the perception that it would demoralise Pakistani terrorists remained an "illusion" as Indian soldiers continue to get killed in terror attacks in Kashmir.

Accusing the Modi government of boasting about how Pakistan was straightened out after the surgical strike, the Sena sought to know whether it has really happened.

It also observed that troubled borders were not good for the country's well-being.

The Sena's remarks come in the wake of the death of an Army soldier from Maharashtra, Naik Sandip Raghunath Sawant, who was killed during a counter-insurgency operation in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

"The New Year did not begin on a positive note in Kashmir. Our jawan from Satara, Sandip Sawant, attained martyrdom in Kashmir along with two other soldiers. In the last one month, seven to eight jawans from Maharashtra were killed in the line of duty. The Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra is not responsible for this," the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

The party also questioned whether the situation in Kashmir has improved after the surgical strike and abrogation of Article 370 provisions.

The party, however, maintained that scrapping Article 370 was a good move.

India had conducted the surgical strike on September 29, 2016, across the Line of Control (LoC) as a response to a terrorist attack on an Indian Army base in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir earlier that month.

Without naming the Centre, the Sena alleged, "Circulating news that only the Pakistanis were getting killed in Kashmir will not change the reality as tricolour-draped bodies of Indian soldiers, like Sawant, are reaching their respective villages."

"There is a bloodshed along the Kashmir border and mounting anger among the families of martyred jawans. The perception that surgical strike will demoralise Pakistani terrorists has turned out to be an illusion. In fact, the (terror) attacks have increased," it added.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party accused the ruling BJP of boasting about straightening out Pakistan after the surgical strike.

"But has Pakistan been really straightened out? Rather Pakistan has been indulging in ceasefire violations along the LoC every day," it added.

The Shiv Sena also questioned the government's claim that the situation in Kashmir was under control after the nullification of Article 370.

"It is good that Article 370 was scrapped. Before that, surgical strike was carried out in Pakistan. But has the situation in Kashmir improved? The terror attacks continue. It's only that there is a control in reporting (these incidents)," it said.

The Sena also alleged that there was no clarity as to what was transpiring in Kashmir after the scrapping of Article 370 and only the media reports of soldiers sacrificing their lives have been coming out from that state

In a veiled attack on the BJP, its erstwhile ally, the Sena, also accused it of exploiting the surgical strike for political gains.

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