British man indicted for capturing and killing UK's rarest butterfly

Twitter has hinted that it is planning a paid subscription platform that can be reused by other teams in the future.

The news that the micro-blogging platform is building a subscription platform with a team codenamed "Gryphon" resulted in Twitter stock rising over 8% on Wednesday.

Twitter revealed its plan via a job listing that seeks a full-stack senior software engineer in New York to join "Gryphon".

Interestingly, Twitter "edited" the job listing once the news broke, removing the part about "Gryphon" and any mention of their internal team or their subscription feature. The listing said the company is looking for an Android engineer to "work on a bevy of backend engineering teams to build components that allow for experimentation to deliver the best experience possible to all of our users".

Later, Twitter users noticed that the company restored the earlier job listing that mentioned the upcoming subscription platform and "Gryphon".

A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN on Wednesday that it's only a job posting, not a product announcement.

This is not the first time Twitter has thought of a paid product. 

In 2017, it sent out a survey to users and a preview of what a premium offering of its TweetDeck app might look like, including breaking news alerts and more analytics, according to The Verge.

"We're conducting this survey to assess the interest in a new, more enhanced version of Tweetdeck. We regularly conduct user research to gather feedback about people's Twitter experience and to better inform our product investment decisions, and we're exploring several ways to make TweetDeck even more valuable for professionals," a Twitter spokesperson had said at that time.

New Delhi, Jun 18: Vodafone Idea on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has incurred Rs 1 lakh crore losses as it insisted it is not in a position to furnish bank guarantees.

A bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, S. Abdul Nazeer, and M.R. Shah, taking up the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) matter through video conferencing, directed the telecom companies to submit their financial documents and books for the last 10 years.

Asking Vodafone if it was a foreign company, the bench said that how can the company say it would not furnish any bank guarantee.

"What if you fly away overnight in future without paying anything?" it asked.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Vodafone Idea, denied his client is a completely foreign firm and cited before the bench its tie-ups and investments.

Vodafone owes over Rs 58,000 crore as AGR dues and so far, has paid close to Rs 7,000 crore.

Rohatgi contended before the court that the telecom company is in a tough situation, and cannot furnish any fresh bank guarantee, as profits have eluded the company in past many quarters. He submitted before the bench that Rs 15,000 crore bank guarantees are lying with the government, and his client's losses are over Rs 1 lakh crore.

"I cannot offer any more surety," he informed the bench.

Justice Mishra noted that this is public money and these dues should be recovered. "Do not tell us that you will pay if you were to make profits... the money must come," he noted.

Justice Shah observed that the telecom industry is the only industry which earned during the Covid-19 pandemic. "After all, this money will be used for public welfare", he said.

Rohatgi argued that his client would have to fold up if orders were issued to clear dues tomorrow. "11,000 employees will have to go without notice, as we cannot pay them," he added.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Bharti Airtel, contended before the court that out of Rs 21,000 crore AGR dues, the company has already deposited a sum of Rs 18,000 crore.

He argued that his client has given a bank guarantee, in excess of demand, to DoT, and supported the proposal for phased repayment of remaining AGR dues. He insisted that the company needs to sit down with the government and calculate the dues. Airtel owes Rs 25,976 crore after paying Rs 18,000 crore, as per the government.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar, representing Tata Telecom, informed the bench that his client has paid Rs 6,504 crore in AGR dues so far, and furnishing a bank guarantee may adversely impact investments in the sector.

The total AGR dues are close to Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

The top court will now take up the matter in the third week of July.

Kolkata, May 15: Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy, who was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Teesta Parer Brittanto', died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, his family members said.

Roy was 84 and he is survived by his son. His wife had died earlier.

He was admitted to the hospital near his residence at Baguihati, in the eastern fringes of the city, on Wednesday after having symptoms like sodium potasium imbalance, sugar problem and breathing problem, his family members said.

He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at 10.50 PM.

A regular contributor to a number of Bengali dailies, he was a staunch critic of the attacks on liberals by in the country in recent times and attended protest meetings despite his failing health.

He was born in Pabna in present-day Bangladesh on December 17, 1936. He had five decades of career as a writer.

Besides Teesta Parer Britanta', he will be remembered for books like Borisaler Jogen Mondal , Manush Khun Kore Keno and Samay Asamayer Brittanto . His first book was Jajati.

His last rites will be performed tomorrow.