How US anti-monopoly actions against digital giants can impact India

Agencies
June 4, 2019

New Delhi, Jun 4: The anti-monopoly actions against digital giants by the US government and Congress have the potential to affect India in significant ways because of their penetration in the country but New Delhi will have limited ability to exert similarly overarching control on them.

In the latest move, the Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives Judiciary Committee announced on Monday that it was opening wide-ranging investigation of anti-trust actions by Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook opening the way for legislation impacting their operations worldwide.

At the other political end, the Justice Department was reported to be preparing to conduct anti-trust probes into Google, and the Federal Trade Commission into Amazon.

The digital giants that enjoy a monopoly of search and social media have made enemies on both sides of the political aisle: the Democrats because of their perception that social media was responsible for the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and the conservatives due their belief that Google and some segments of the social media are biased against them. In addition, The Washington Post that is owned by Amazon head Jeff Bezos is a strident critic of President Donald Trump.

The Judiciary Committee's ant-trust subcommittee head Representative David Cicilline told reporters in Washington that the panel will investigate why the digital "the market is failing, why the internet is broken and why it's not functioning well". It will then look at legislative action to remedy the situation, he added.

The digital giants have not reacted to the proposed anti-monopoly probes. But in the context of a European Union fine of $5.1 billion on Google for including its search and other apps in its Android operating system, Sundar Pichai, the embattled Indian American head of Google, had denied his company was a monopoly.

He had tweeted: "Rapid innovation, wide choice, and falling prices are classic hallmarks of robust competition. Android has enabled this and created more choice for everyone, not less."

Any action by the US on the tech behemoths will potentially have a bigger impact on India than on the US in some cases because of the bigger customer bases they have in India, which unlike China does not have home-grown alternatives to match them.

India has at least 300 million Facebook users while there are only 210 million in the US, according to Statista. According to some estimates, India has as many WhatsApp users as Facebook users, while in the US they number only in tens of millions.

In India, Google overwhelms search and 98 percent of smartphones use its Android operating system. 

Its YouTube has 245 million users in India and Google Pay, 22 million users, according to PC Magazine.

And Amazon has an Indian subsidiary that had $8.8 billion in sales.

But any legislative or administrative action taken in the US will impact India in significant ways because of large customer base they have there - and, in the case of Google, and Facebook and WhatsApp, the political influence they wield.

Splitting the companies or placing other restrictions by the US will affect their operations in India - and despite India having a larger user base in the case of digital networks and huge market share in the case of Amazon, New Delhi will not be having a similar say in the matters.

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Agencies
June 19,2020

Denser places, assumed by many to be more conducive to the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, are not linked to higher infection rates, say researchers.

The study, led by Johns Hopkins University, published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, also found that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.

"These findings suggest that urban planners should continue to practice and advocate for compact places rather than sprawling ones, due to the myriad well-established benefits of the former, including health benefits," says study lead author Shima Hamidi from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.

For their analysis, the researchers examined SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and COVID-19 death rates in 913 metropolitan counties in the US.

When other factors such as race and education were taken into account, the authors found that county density was not significantly associated with county infection rate.

The findings also showed that denser counties, as compared to more sprawling ones, tended to have lower death rates--possibly because they enjoyed a higher level of development including better health care systems.

On the other hand, the research found that higher coronavirus infection and COVID-19 mortality rates in counties are more related to the larger context of metropolitan size in which counties are located.

Large metropolitan areas with a higher number of counties tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships are the most vulnerable to the pandemic outbreaks.

According to the researchers, recent polls suggest that many US citizens now consider an exodus from big cities likely, possibly due to the belief that more density equals more infection risk.

Some government officials have posited that urban density is linked to the transmissibility of the virus.

"The fact that density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed COVID-19 death rates is important, unexpected, and profound," said Hamidi.

"It counters a narrative that, absent data and analysis, would challenge the foundation of modern cities and could lead to a population shift from urban centres to suburban and exurban areas," Hamidi added.

The analysis found that after controlling for factors such as metropolitan size, education, race, and age, doubling the activity density was associated with an 11.3 per cent lower death rate.

The authors said that this is possibly due to faster and more widespread adoption of social distancing practices and better quality of health care in areas of denser population.

The researchers concluded that a higher county population, a higher proportion of people age 60 and up, a lower proportion of college-educated people, and a higher proportion of African Americans were all associated with a greater infection rate and mortality rate.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 12: A recent study has claimed that people end up wasting almost an entire day when they take a vacation.

This can happen while standing in a queue or searching for places to visit, people do not keep a count of the time they have actually utilised during the trip. As a result, they end up doing much lesser activities than they originally had planned.

According to a recent report in Fox News, the study has also shared the fact that people try to justify time waste with planning and scheduling activities whereas the truth is that these things can be done well ahead to save time during the trip.

The average time waste according to the study commissioned by Sykes Holiday Cottages also said the people taking a seven days' trip waste a minimum of 17-and-a-half hours to figure out various factors.

But there are other causes involved as well. When one visits any crowded location, the real-time spent to enjoy the location is lesser than the time spent on reaching and trying to get involved. For instance, if one visits an amusement park, the activities take lesser time than the preparatory and other phases.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has blocked Bharti Airtel's Platinum and Vodafone Idea's RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to customers as both the plans were violating net neutrality norms.

The telecom watchdog has asked Bharti Airtel to explain within seven days how such a similar plan being launched does not violate the rules of net neutrality.

Vodafone Idea's RedX plan has been in the market since November 2019. They made some modifications in May 2020 and the Bharti Airtel was soon going to launch a similar plan.

According to TRAI, the higher speed for premium customers discriminate against others and violates net neutrality.

Responding to TRAI's move, Airtel spokesperson said: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults and have been consistently recognised by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience."

"At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end," the spokesperson said.

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