14% rise in sex crime reporting after MeToo movement: Study

Agencies
December 15, 2019

New Delhi, Dec 15: The MeToo movement that took the world by storm has led to a 14 per cent rise in reporting of sexual crimes during its first three months across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

The MeToo movement started on October 15, 2017, after sexual misconduct allegations against former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein became public following a tweet by actress Alyssa Milano who encouraged people who had been sexually harassed or assaulted to write "Me too" on social media.

The MeToo movement was exceptionally effective in rapidly increasing awareness around sexual misconduct in many countries including India.

However, despite the increase in crimes reported, the movement did not increase the number of sexual crimes cleared by the police, said the study published on SSRN, formerly known as the Social Science Research Network.

For the study, Roee Levy and Martin Mattsson from Yale University in the US constructed a new data set of sexual and non-sexual crimes in 24 OECD countries, covering 81 per cent of the OECD population.

"Our results suggest that social movements can rapidly change high stakes personal decisions," the study said.

The researchers estimated that in the first three months of the movement, 11,598 additional sexual crimes were reported in the 13 OECD countries with "strong" MeToo movements.

"This study showed that the MeToo movement had a substantial, persistent effect on the propensity to report sexual crimes. This result is consistent across multiple samples and is robust across multiple estimation techniques," the study concluded.

The MeToo movement focused on female victims, and often on cases that occurred several months or years before they were discussed in the media.

The researchers said that focusing on the US allowed them to understand better who was affected by the movement.

"The effect is strong and statistically significant for both sexual harassment and sexual assault," said the study.

"Furthermore, we do not find evidence that the movement disproportionately affected neighbourhoods with higher incomes or more education. Overall, we can reject the argument that the MeToo movement had an effect mostly among whites or those with high socioeconomic status," it added.

The findings suggest that social movements can have large, long-lasting effects on social norms and, as a result, individuals make meaningful changes in their personal decisions. The action individuals take is costly and the effect occurs almost immediately. This suggests that awareness-raising campaigns can be effective in changing personal behaviour.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

Claiming that e-commerce giants like Amazon import as much as 80 per cent of the items sold on their platforms, small manufacturers' body has said that their business models do not benefit local industry and are creating jobs of delivery boys only.

"Neither manufacturers nor traders are getting any benefit from the business models of Amazon and Flipkart because they largely import their products from China and Korea and sell here. Nearly 80 per cent of their products are imported," said Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME).

Bhardwaj said that the global e-commerce players generally source and sell products through their own preferred suppliers and as a result a large number of local manufacturers and traders get crowded out.

He listed out deep discounting and buying products from preferred companies as unfair practices.

"Even if they buy products from local suppliers the commission charged is very high," Bhardwaj said adding that the issues related to unfair practices have been raised with Commerce Ministry on multiple occasions.

FISME maintains that the technology-driven retail is way forward and one cannot be oblivious of the benefits it brings to consumers but at the same time the local industry can also not be ignored given its role in job creation.

"If both traders and local manufacturers are crowded out then how would the local industry survive and employment be generated?" asked Bhardwaj.

As Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is currently on his three-day visit to India, the local traders are up in arms against the "unfair" trade practices of the tech giant. Delhi-based Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has launched a countrywide protest against the company and has organised protests across 300 cities.

In a setback to Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart, the fair market watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered probe into the business operations of both the companies on multiple counts including deep-discounts and exclusive tie-up with preferred sellers.

"For the first time some concrete step has been taken against Amazon and Flipkart who are continuously violating the FDI policy in indulging in a vicious racket of controlling and monopolising not only the e-commerce but even the retail trade as well," CAIT National Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said after the CCI order.

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Agencies
March 10,2020

New Delhi, Mar 10: Crisis-hit Yes Bank on Tuesday said that it has enabled inward IMPS and NEFT services.

The move allows people to send money from other bank accounts to their Yes Bank account through IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) and NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) mode.

In a tweet, the bank also said that Yes Bank customers can pay their credit card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts.

"Inward IMPS/NEFT services have now been enabled. You can make payments towards YES BANK Credit Card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts. Thank you for your co-operation. @RBIA @FinMinIndia," said tweet.

Last week Yes Bank was placed under moratorium and a withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 was imposed till April 3.

The administrator of Yes Bank, Prashant Kumar and Rajnish Kumar, the Chairman of the State Bank of India are hopeful that moratorium would be lifted within a week.

As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) draft reconstruction scheme for the crisis-hit private lender, the SBI will take up 49 per cent in the bank by investing Rs 2,450 crore.

The new board of directors will stand constituted from the appointed date. It will comprise a CEO and MD, non-executive chairman and non-executive directors. The SBI will have nominee directors appointed on the board of the reconstructed bank.

The RBI may appoint additional directors to the board, who shall continue in office for one year, or until an alternate board is constituted by Yes Bank.

The SBI will not reduce its holding below 26 per cent before completion of three years from the date of infusion of the capital.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Paris, Jul 2: Several interacting exoplanets have already been spotted by satellites. But a new breakthrough has been achieved with, for the first time, the detection directly from the ground of an extrasolar system of this type.

An international collaboration including CNRS researchers has discovered an unusual planetary system, dubbed WASP-148, using the French instrument SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Universite).

The scientists analysed the star's motion and concluded that it hosted two planets, WASP-148b and WASP-148c. The observations showed that the two planets were strongly interacting, which was confirmed from other data.

Whereas the first planet, WASP-148b, orbits its star in nearly nine days, the second one, WASP-148c, takes four times longer. This ratio between the orbital periods implies that the WASP-148 system is close to resonance, meaning that there is enhanced gravitational interaction between the two planets. And it turns out that the astronomers did indeed detect variations in the orbital periods of the planets.

While a single planet, uninfluenced by a second one, would move with a constant period, WASP-148b and WASP-148c undergo acceleration and deceleration that provides evidence of their interaction.

The study will shortly be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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