Social media rumours of banks shutting down false: RBI

Agencies
September 26, 2019

New Delhi, Sept 26: The government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) denied reports on Wednesday that the regulator is closing down at least nine commercial banks soon.

"There are mischievous rumours on social media about RBI closing some banks," said Finance Secretary Rajeev Kumar.

He said, "There is no question of closing any public sector bank, which are articles of faith. Rather the government is strengthening public sector banks with reforms and infusion of capital to better serve its customers."

The RBI too said reports appearing in some sections of social media about closing down certain commercial banks are false.

Several Twitter posts said nine banks will be closed permanently by the RBI -- Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, UCO Bank, Andhra Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Central Bank of India, Dena Bank and United Bank of India.

The development came a day after the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC Bank) was barred from routine business transactions for the next six months and its withdrawal limit was capped at Rs 1,000.

The RBI, however, had made it clear that the directions to PMC Bank should not be construed as cancellation of banking licence. PMC Bank can continue to undertake banking business with restrictions till further notice/instructions, it said.
But the move sparked outrage among customers who staged protests at some of PMC's branches across the country.

PMC Bank is a multi-state scheduled urban cooperative bank with operations in Maharashtra, New Delhi, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. With a network of 137 branches, it ranks among the top 10 cooperative banks in the country.

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Agencies
June 9,2020

New Zealand's research institute in Antarctica is scaling back the number of projects planned for the upcoming season, in an effort to keep the continent free of coronavirus, it was reported on Tuesday.

The government agency, Antarctica New Zealand, told the BBC on Tuesday that it was dropping 23 of the 36 research projects.

Only long-term science monitoring, essential operational activity and planned maintenance will go ahead.

The upcoming research season runs from October to March.

"As COVID-19 sweeps the planet, only one continent remains untouched and (we) are focused on keeping it that way," Antarctica New Zealand told the BBC.

The organisation's chief executive Sarah Williamson said the travel limits and a strict managed isolation plan were the key factors for keeping Scott Base - New Zealand's research facility - virus free.

"Antarctica New Zealand is committed to maintaining and enhancing the quality of New Zealand's Antarctic scientific research. However, current circumstances dictate that our ability to support science is extremely limited this season" she said.

Earlier in April, Australia announced that it would scale back its activity in the 2020-21 summer season.

This included decreasing operational capacity and delaying work on some major projects.

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Agencies
February 23,2020

Google has indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups (including several porn-sharing groups) with a simple search.

According to a report in Motherboard, invitations to WhatsApp group chats were being indexed by Google.

The team found private groups using specific Google searches and even joined a group intended for NGOs accredited by the UN and had access to all the participants and their phone numbers.

Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp's "Invite to Group Link" feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp's secure private messaging service.

"Your WhatsApp groups may not be as secure as you think they are," Wildon tweeted on Friday, adding that using particular Google searches, people can discover links to the chats.

According to app reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of "chat.whatsapp.com", part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.

WhatsApp spokesperson Alison Bonny said: "Like all content that is shared in searchable public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users."

"The links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website," Bonny told The Verge.

Danny Sullivan, Google's public search liaison, tweeted: "Search engines like Google & others list pages from the open web. That's what's happening here. It's no different than any case where a site allows URLs to be publicly listed. We do offer tools allowing sites to block content being listed in our results."

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Agencies
January 19,2020

New Delhi, Jan 19: Messaging service WhatsApp which on Sunday faced issues in transmitting multimedia content including pictures and images, prompting social media users to share hilarious memes and messages, resumed regular services after over two hours.

#WhatsAppDown was the trending hashtag on Twitter for most part of Sunday afternoon in India along with several other countries such as Brazil, Europe and also parts of Middle-East including UAE, reported downdetector.in, a realtime problem and outage monitoring website.

Users of the popular messaging app were unable to send media files, stickers and GIFs.

Most users immediately went to Twitter to find out about the problem and check if others were facing the same issue.

Numerous tweets and memes took over the internet as soon as the news broke about the WhatsApp tech issue. After around two hours of technical glitch, the app resumed full service.

Even after full recovery of media transfer, people globally still continued checking the status of the messaging app.

WhatsApp has been one of the prime messaging apps since May 2009 and has recently collaborated with Facebook.

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