'Paid news' claim lands Udayavani in a fix, Congress complains to EC

March 15, 2012
Udupi, March 15: The Congress has submitted a complaint with the election officer here against Udayavani for carrying out 'paid news' in favour of BJP in the run up to the March 18 byelection to the Udupi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha constituency.

Vijay Hegde, an advocate and the election agent of the Congress candidate K. Jayaprakash Hegde on Wednesday met the deputy commissioner Dr. R Reju, who is also the election officer, and handed over the written complaint.

The Coastal Karnataka's popular Kannada daily has been publishing a series of pro-BJP reports for the last couple of weeks. These pro-BJP advertisements have been camouflaged into news stories and lakhs of rupees have been paid to the paper's owners, the complaint said.

It was said that Mr. Hegde was not keen on taking on one of the mightiest newspapers of the coastal Karnataka, but since the one-sided publicity continued unabated, the Congress candidate had to petition the election officer.

Mr. Hegde was initially apprehensive that if he went against the paper, his pictures and news would be blacked out. But the Congress leaders, including Pramod Madhwaraj, had made public their resentment about the 'paid news' without naming any newspaper.

In the March 14 edition, the Udayavani had carried a 'news story' titled 'State Government's bumper offer for fishermen', which hailed the contribution of the State Government to the fishermen without going into any analysis.

The 'report' also quoted presidents of government-appointed bodies of fishermen, who are also active in BJP. For the last few days, Udayavani has been publishing such pro-BJP special stories on page 12 evoking criticism from its readers and non-BJP party workers.

Speaking to presspersons in Udupi on Wednesday, Mr. Madhwaraj hit out at BJP for misleading people throw 'paid news' and taking the credit for the welfare schemes implemented by the Central Government for fishermen. "The Union Government has implemented several schemes for the fishermen, but the BJP is indulging in cheap politics by taking the credit," he said.

"Doctor Acharya Abhivruddi Kodugegale BJPige Srirakshe," "Sri Kshetra Kachchurina Abhivriddi: Rajya Sarakaradinda eradu Koti Rupaigu mikki anudana," are some of the headlines given to the alleged 'paid news' items. Interestingly, most of these items do not have a dateline, which is a clear deviation from the Udayavani's stylesheet.


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News Network
March 26,2020

Hubballi, Mar 25: The people living in rural areas of North-Karnataka region have become more aware about deadly Corona virus as they are leaving no stone unturned to prevent people of Bengaluru and other metropolitan cities from entering into their villages. People have put thorny plants on all roads at the outskirts connecting their villages and deployed youths to conduct patrolling round the clock till next 21 days.

Their motto is to prevent their own villagers getting infected from the outsiders especially from cities like Bengaluru and other two-tier cities where positive virus cases are on the rise. They have also take precautionary measures in the wake of Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa's call to the people to return to their native places.

Several people have also dug up the roads leading to their villages to block the entry of outside vehicles. They have put a condition to the outsiders to enter into their villages only after proper health check-up to confirm that they are not infected with Corona positive.

"We don't have access to the proper medical care if Corona virus is entered into our village. The Primary Health Centres are not functioning properly and these centers are facing lack of adequate staff and medical equipments unlike in big cities.Therefore, those who have deserted our village to employ in various jobs in Bengaluru and other cities should confirm that they are tested negative for the virus", said Mallikarjun Patil of Kudal village in Hangal taluk of Haveri district. The village has totally banned the outsiders into their village and warned their fellow villagers to return immediately if they have visited to their relatives' homes in neighboring villages to observe 21-day lockdown.

Hundreds of youths in Itanal village of Chikkodi taluk of Belagavi have also resorted to similar tactics and patrolling in all roads at the outskirts by holding sticks to prevent outsiders from entering into their village until April 14.

People of Hunagunti village in Ron taluk and Kotamuchagi village in Gadag taluk have also adopted similar plan by parking tractors at th outskirts to prohibit the entry of outsiders. They have also created awareness in their villages by beating drums urging the people not to venture outside village for next three weeks.

The police officials have resorted to lati-charge at various places in urban areas when people gathered in large numbers to buy essential commodities.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 16: Amping up the online payment experience for consumers, Razorpay, the leading full-stack financial services company, today launched a new product, Instant Refunds for businesses.

This new feature activates refunds and credits the customer's source account across payment methods such as credit card, net banking, and UPI within a minute of initiation.

India is one of the fastest-growing online retail markets today. About 71 per cent of internet users in the country purchase products online. Today, the refund process has two major pain points for both the end customer and the business.

First, a delay of five-seven business days for the customer in receiving the money because of multiple intermediaries like the acquiring bank, issuing bank and the networks (VISA/MasterCard/Rupay).

Second, the lack of transparency during the entire refund process for both the customer and the business. This long cycle of processing refunds is a significant problem with every popular payment method in the industry.

By issuing refunds instantly, Razorpay will help businesses retain their customers, build trust through an improved hassle-free payment experience and provide complete transparency on refunds to both the business and the end-user.

This new feature will also reduce the dependence on manpower as every refund issue on an average leads to ten service emails or calls from customer support teams.

"Instant Refunds are the new normal and central to great customer experience. A lot of consumers fail to use online payment methods as they feel getting refunds through an online platform is a very time-consuming task; hence they prefer CoD as the best alternative. Given the technological advancements being made in the fin-tech ecosystem, its fair for customers to expect refunds as fast as possible. A solution like Instant Refunds will not only help build consumer confidence in digital payments but also reduce losses for e-commerce companies where CoD has become an expensive option with more than 50 per cent online transactions made through cash", said Shashank Kumar, CTO & Co-founder of Razorpay.

"Our Instant Refunds feature ensures that the refund is processed at a 3600x faster pace than the normal expected time of five-seven business days. The team is focused on creating new technologies designed to make the entire payment lifecycle hassle-free. We believe this new feature will make customers experience a notch higher, help brands create a competitive advantage, and even make them more profitable", he added.

Razorpay's growth has been uphill, particularly in the last two years. With a 500 per cent growth in 2019, the company has been witnessing a healthy growth rate of 35 per cent month-on-month.

The company also recently launched its corporate credit cards for its partner businesses, RazorpayX current accounts, support for freelancers and homepreneurs, and acquired Opfin, a payroll and HR management software company.

Currently powering payments for over 800,000 businesses including the likes of Indigo, BSE, Thomas Cook, Reliance, SpiceJet, Aditya Birla, Sony, and Oyo, the team plans to increase this count to 1,400,000 by this year. The full-stack financial solutions company expects a 4x growth in its revenue by the end of the next fiscal year.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

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News Network
February 14,2020

Mangaluru, Feb 14: Police have submitted over 50 videos in a pen drive to Udupi Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha as evidence to violent protests that led to police firing on December 19 in which Jaleel and Nausheen died.

ACP and police nodal officer Belliyappa submitted a pen drive consisting over 50 video clips including CCTV footage. 

The police earlier had submitted 20 digital video recorder (DVR) before the court and an acknowledgement of the same was produced before the Magistrate.

Hearing on video evidence will be held at High Court on February 24.

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