World's richest woman, L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt dead at 94

Agencies
September 22, 2017

New Delhi, Sept 22: Liliane Bettencourt, the world's richest woman and heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune passed away at the age of 94.

Confirming the news, her daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers in a statement, said that she died in the early hours of Thursday at her home in Paris.

"She would have been 95 on 21 October," she added. "My mother left peacefully," the Independent UK quoted her saying.

Bettencourt was ranked the richest woman in the world in 2016 by Forbes, with a fortune of $39.5bn (£29bn), which also gave her the status of the 14th richest person in the world.

As per the report in the Independent UK, L'Oréal chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon expressed his condolences to the family and said: “We all had a deep admiration for Liliane Betterncourt who has always watched over L'Oréal, the company and its employees, and who was very attached to its success and development.

After leaving the board of the French company in 2012, her public appearances reduced to a large extent, but grabbed headlines after members of her team were charged with exploiting her as her mental health deteriorated.

She had been under the guardianship of family members since the court fight, known as the "Bettencourt affair", ended with a ruling in 2011 that she was incapable of looking after her fortune because she suffered from dementia and had been exploited.

The case - brought by her daughter Françoise and which soured relations between the two - centred on Francois-Marie Banier, a celebrity photographer who befriended Bettencourt in the 1980s and received lavish gifts from her, including life insurance policies worth $400 million.

According to a report, the French celebrity photographer was sentenced to two and a half years.

Another strand of the sprawling affair later led to allegations of illegal payments by Bettencourt to members of the French government associated with former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010. Sarkozy was eventually cleared in the case.

L'Oréal was founded by Bettencourt's parents Louise Madelaine Berthe and Eugene Schueller. She was their only child and was born in Paris.

She lost her mother when she was just five-years-old and she joined the family business at the age of 15, before inheriting the L'Oréal empire when her father died in 1957.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

US dictionary Merriam-Webster will update the meaning of the word "racism" after being contacted by a Missouri black woman, who claimed the current definition fell short of including the systematic oppression of people of colour, according to media reports.

"A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations," according to a statement of the 189-year-old dictionary shared by Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Drake University in Iowa, on her Facebook.

Mitchum, 22, emailed the dictionary last month, following the death of African American George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers, Xinhua news agency reported.

"I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world," Mitchum told CNN. "The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, it's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans."

Merriam-Webster's first definition of racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

"It's not just disliking someone because of their race," Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. "This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism."

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Agencies
July 10,2020

In a first, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed the service of summons and notices, a necessity in almost all legal proceedings, through instant messenger like WhatsApp as well as by e-mail and fax.

A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde observed that it has been brought to the notice of the court that it is not feasible to visit post offices for service of notices, summons, and pleadings. The bench also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and R Subhash Reddy observed that notice and summons should be sent through e-mail on the same day along with instant message through WhatsApp and other phone messenger services.

The bench clarified that all methods should be deployed for a valid service on the party. "Two blue ticks would convey that the receiver has seen the notice," noted the bench.

The bench declined the request of the Attorney General for specifically naming WhatsApp as a mode of effectuating service. The top court noted that it would not be practical to specify only WhatsApp. The apex court also permitted RBI to extend the validity of cheques in the backdrop of lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Senior advocate V Giri representing RBI informed the bench that he had circulated the note regarding validity of a cheque as directions issued on the previous hearing.

The bench noted that it will be in discretion of the RBI to issue orders which are suitable to alter the validity of the period of a cheque.

During an earlier hearing on the matter on July 7, the Attorney General contended before the top court that the Centre had some reservations in connection with the utilization of mobile applications like WhatsApp and other apps for service of summons. The Centre's top law officer informed the apex court that these apps claimed to be encrypted, and they were not trustworthy.

The RBI counsel had contended before the top court that it was considering clarifying the validity of a cheque which has been reduced to 3 months from 6 months.

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Agencies
March 3,2020

Facebook on Monday launched a new consumer marketing campaign in India titled 'More Together'. India is the first country in the Asia Pacific region where such a campaign is being rolled out.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

"India is at the heart of Facebook and one of our focus areas this year is to tell the exciting story of a service that is deeply embedded in the fabric of India," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

The campaign would have multiple campaigns over the next few weeks in eight languages and the one will be set in the context of Holi.

Facebook in 2019 introduced a new company logo to further distinguish the company from the Facebook app.

The company recently announced the appointment of Avinash Pant as the Marketing Director for India operations, to drive the consumer marketing efforts across the family of apps.

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