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Italian defence giant head arrested for India bribes: Reports

[email protected] (Reuters)
February 12, 2013

Finmeccanica

New Delhi, Feb 12: Italy has not shared details of a corruption probe into the sale of helicopters to the Indian government, the Indian foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after the arrest of Finmeccanica's head Giuseppe Orsi in Italy.

"We had asked the government of Italy through our mission in Rome for details of the investigation but were told that it is a judicial process and the government of Italy is unable to share any information," foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said. "That remains the position even today."

India's defence ministry said it could not immediately comment.

The 560 million euros ($735 million) deal was to sell 12 high-security AgustaWestland choppers for use by India's political leaders. The first helicopters were due to be delivered by December 2012.

Italian police on Tuesday arrested the chief executive of aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica for corruption and embezzlement in relation to alleged bribes given to the Indian government, Italian media reported.

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News Network
March 9,2020

New Delhi, Mar 9: The Centre and the Delhi government are working in close coordination to deal with coronavirus, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said here on Monday.

Talking to reporters after a review meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on the preparedness for COVID-19, the chief minister said people arriving from foreign countries are being screened at airports.

A campaign will be run to make people aware of the preventive measures to contain the spread of the disease, Kejriwal said.

Health Ministry sending directives to states: Vardhan

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government is prepared to deal with novel coronavirus and his ministry is sending directives, including guidelines, to states in all the languages on ways to contain it.

"We are sending detailed guidelines to all states on ways to contain coronavirus. Have asked states to strengthen laboratories and manpower to effectively deal with coronavirus and form early rapid action teams," Vardhan told reporters adding, that the government is prepared to deal with the infection.

Vardhan stressed on a coordinated action between all concerned departments and agencies for activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, hospital management, identification of isolation wards, ensuring adequate personal protection equipment and masks and risk communication for mass awareness.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

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News Network
May 22,2020

Bengaluru, May 22: Amazon.com Inc’s India unit said it would hire 50,000 temporary workers to meet a surge in online shopping in the country, where customers have been stuck indoors for two months in a lockdown to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

E-commerce firms faced massive disruption in the initial days of the lockdown in India, but a slow easing of the stringent regulations has allowed them to resume large parts of their operations.

"We want to continue helping customers all over India get everything they need so they can continue to practice social distancing," Amazon senior executive Akhil Saxena said in a statement on the company's blog. (bit.ly/2A1Wv7O)

“(The move) will also keep as many people as possible working during this pandemic while providing a safe work environment for them,” said Saxena, Amazon’s VP for customer fulfillment operations in APAC, MENA & Latam.

The temporary hires will work in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and as part of its delivery network, the company said, making the announcement at a time when various other companies in the country have been forced to cut jobs as they try to tide over the health crisis.

Amazon itself has pushed its annual global Prime Day event, traditionally a summer affair, to September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In India, where the Jeff Bezos-led company faces stiff competition from Walmart Inc’s Flipkart, Amazon earlier said it plans to create 1 million jobs by 2025.

The company also said on Thursday it plans to enter the food delivery business in India, pitting itself against well-established startups such as Swiggy and Zomato.

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