Gadgets And Technology Daily News | 22 Jul 2023
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Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi Found Evading Tax Worth Rs. 9,000 Crore; Rs. 1,630 Crore Recovered So Far: MoS IT
Chinese smartphone makers, including Oppo Mobile, Vivo India and Xiaomi Technology, have been found evading taxes worth Rs. 9,000 crore in India, Parliament was informed on Friday.
Data shared by the Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Rajya Sabha showed tax evasion of around Rs. 9,000 crore, comprising customs duty and GST, has been detected between 2018-19 and 2022-23.
The government has recovered Rs. 1,629.87 crore from the companies during the period.
According to the data, Oppo Mobile India has been found evading Rs. 5,086 crore in taxes which includes Rs. 4,403 crore in customs duty and Rs. 683 crore in the form of GST.
Vivo has evaded taxes worth Rs. 2,923.25 crore comprising Rs. 2,875 crore in customs duty and Rs. 48.25 crore in GST, according to the written reply by Chandrasekhar.
Tax evasion of Rs. 851.14 crore has been detected in the case of Xiaomi Technology India comprising Rs. 682.51 crore in customs duty and Rs. 168.63 crore in GST.
Chandrasekhar shared that customs duty evasion of Rs. 4,389 crore was detected in 2019-20 in the case of Oppo Mobile India, out of which Rs. 450 crore has been recovered.
Vivo India Mobile was found to be evading customs duty of Rs. 2,217 crore out of which Rs. 72 crore has been recovered in 2020-21.
In 2019-20, Xiaomi Technology India was found to be evading custom duty of Rs. 653.02 crore out of which Rs. 46 lakh has been recovered.
In 2022-23, Vivo Mobile India was found evading Rs. 658 crore.
According to the official data, Lenovo has evaded Rs. 42.36 crore GST.
Government has been able to recover Rs. 1,214.83 crore from Oppo, Rs. 168.25 crore from Vivo and Rs. 92.8 crore from Xiaomi, as per the official data.
The minister was replying to a question on the number of Chinese handset companies which have evaded taxes and made illegal remittances in India.
Chandrasekhar said that cumulative turnover of Chinese mobile handset companies in 2021-22 was estimated to be Rs. 1.5 lakh crore in India.
"The total direct employment generated by them in their manufacturing operations is more than 75,000. They also have sales and operational workforce of around 80,000 workers," the minister said.
Twitter to Get LinkedIn Twist, May Soon Let Verified Firms Publish Hiring Posts
Twitter is expanding its suit of features, probably to onboard more people onto the platform. The social networking platform is seemingly testing a new feature that would let verified companies post all job openings on their profiles. While Twitter has not made an official announcement about working on this feature or planning to release it yet, some tipsters seem to have caught a glimpse of its tests being run with select organisations. The tentative name of this unannounced feature is ‘Twitter Hiring'.
Tech tipster and app researcher Nima Owji has shared a screenshot of this upcoming Twitter feature on July 20. The shared tweet also elaborated that Twitter is planning to let companies post up to five job openings at one time. The platform said that it was looking to allow companies attract top talents for positions that are currently available.
#Twitter will let verified organizations import all of their jobs to Twitter by connecting a supported ATS or XML feed! :rocket:"Connect a supported Applicant Tracking System or XML feed to add your jobs to Twitter in minutes." pic.twitter.com/TSVRdAoj3h
Once interested applicants click on the hiring post, they would be redirected to the website of the company that has published the post.
“Twitter has over 528 million users. From software engineers to retail sales to forklift operators, your next hire is here,” the explanation noted.
The idea of giving Twitter this LinkedIn twist first struck its owner Elon Musk when a user suggested that Twitter should add dating features on the app.
At the time, Musk had responded to him saying it was a good idea and that job openings could be posted on Twitter too.
Interesting idea, maybe jobs too
It looks like Musk is trying to get more users and organisations to subscribe to its paid Twitter Blue features and bring an inflow of revenue into the company he bought for around $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,60,711 crore) last year.
The microblogging app has created an account named @TwitterHiring with a verified check mark, but has not posted anything from it as yet. The account has already amassed 5,308 followers within hours of the it being launched.
It appears so that Twitter is focussing on the path ahead after Meta upped the competition with launching a Twitter lookalike app this month, named Threads.
ONDC Launches Academy to Educate Sellers and Network Participants
Government's initiative Open Network for Digital Commerce has collaborated with a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange to launch an academy to provide information to sellers and network participants about simple ways to conduct e-commerce business.
In the current phase, the ONDC Academy will provide learning content in text and video formats to sellers about managing their operations effectively on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Joint Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Sanjiv said.
Citing an example, he said a villager without any knowledge of e-commerce can learn how to make a seller app (without technical know-how) with a technology service provider to aggregate all sellers from a nearby marketplace to make these products available online.
The academy was launched by ONDC in collaboration with NSE Academy Ltd, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange.
Each of the steps in the onboarding process and associated activities have been converted into interactive videos that have communicated the process in a meaningful manner, Sanjiv said.
In e-commerce, the main stakeholders include sellers, buyer apps, and logistics providers.
"The academy is a repository of educational and informative textual and video content. It will provide a curated learning experience providing guidance and best practices for a successful e-commerce journey with fewer setbacks," he added.
As the academy grows, the learning modules will cater to various roles within ONDC, including programmes for sellers as well as buyer network participant, and will be available in multiple Indian languages.
The academy will empower sellers and network participants to make informed decisions, provide best practices to manage the online business efficiently — including content from industry experts — and provide a forum to seek views from experts.
It would also enable certification issued by NSE Academy to individuals completing an assessment developed by the institute, which provides a badge to validate their correct understanding of managing operations across the network.
ONDC Chief Executive Officer T Koshy said the learning modules will cater to various roles within the network.
It will provide interactive videos and learning materials related to digital commerce offering programmes in multiple Indian languages.
ONDC, a Section 8 company, was incorporated on December 31, 2021. It is a DPIIT initiative to create a facilitative model to help small retailers take advantage of digital commerce. It is not an application, platform, intermediary, or software but a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and interoperable open networks.
TRAI Imposed Rs. 35 Crore Fine on Telcos for Failing to Curb Pesky Calls, SMS: Telecom Minister
Telecom regulator TRAI has imposed a penalty of Rs. 34.99 crore on service providers for failing to curb pesky calls and SMS on their network, Parliament was informed on Friday.
Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha said that as per the reports, telecom operators have disconnected 15,382 and 32,032 connections during the calendar year- 2021 and 2022, respectively, for violating Telecom Commercial Communication Customers Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), 2018.
"TRAI has imposed financial disincentives of Rs. 34,99,98,000 on the Access Service Providers for failing to curb unsolicited commercial communications in their networks from Registered Telemarketers," Vaishnaw said.
Last month, TRAI directed service providers to develop a unified digital platform in two months to seek, maintain and revoke customers' consent for promotional calls and messages.
In the first phase, only subscribers will be able to initiate the process to register their consent for receiving promotional calls and SMS, and later, business entities will be able to reach out to customers to seek their consent to receive promotional messages, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said in a statement then.
Access providers, which include telecom players like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, have been further directed to use a common short code starting with 127 for sending consent-seeking messages.
In survey conducted earlier this year, around 76 percent of respondents claimed that they had noticed a rise in pesky calls or SMS based on their conversations with WhatsApp business accounts and their activity on Facebook or Instagram.
Back in November last year, TRAI had said it was working on various technologies to detect pesky calls and messages along with a joint action plan with other regulators to curb financial frauds.
Acer Nitro 16 Gaming Laptop With up to Nvidia 4060 Graphics Card Launched in India: Price, Specifications
Acer Nitro 16 was launched in India on Friday, quipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS octa-core processor in two GPU variants — GeForce RTX 4060 and GeForce RTX 4050. The models have 16-inch LED-backlit TFT LCD screens and customisable 4-Zone RGB backlight keyboards. Notably, the company released the Acer Swift Edge 16, the Acer Predator Triton 16 the Acer Aspire 5 model earlier this year in May and over the past couple of months. The 2023 Acer Aspire 5 with the 13th Gen Intel Core i5 1335U processor is priced in India at Rs. 70,990.
Acer Nitro 16 with AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 6GB graphics card is priced in India at Rs. 1,14,990, while the GeForce RTX 4050 8GB graphics variant of the model is listed at Rs. 1,43,550. It is offered in an Obsidian Black colour option. The laptop is available for purchase through all Acer exclusive stores across the country, Acer E-store, Amazon, and Flipkart.
The laptop sports a 16-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels) LED-backlit TFT IPS LCD display with a rapid refresh rate of up to 165Hz and a peak brightness of 400 nits. It also comes with a fast Grey to Grey response time of 3ms by Overdrive. It is powered by an octa-core AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 512GB PCIe Gen4 NVMe storage.
The model is offered in two GPU variants — either with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics and 6 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM or with GeForce RTX 4060 and 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM. The laptop comes pre-installed with 64-bit Windows 11.
The cooling system is powered by a dual-fan system. The laptop also comes with dual 2W speakers with stereo output, a multi-gesture touchpad, and a customisable 4-Zone RGB backlight keyboard with NitroSense keys.
The device is equipped with one USB 3.2 Gen 2 port with power-off charging, USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port with DC-in, USB 2.0 port, and USB 4 port each. It has a 90Wh battery with a 330W AC adapter which claims to offer up to 10 hours of battery life. Weighing 2.7 kilograms, it measures 36.01cm x 2.8cm x 27.99cm in size.
FTX Sues Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Seeks to Recoup Over $1 Billion
FTX Trading on Thursday sued founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives of the cryptocurrency exchange, seeking to recoup more than $1 billion (nearly Rs. 8,200 crore) they allegedly misappropriated before FTX went bankrupt.
The complaint filed in Delaware bankruptcy court also names as defendants Caroline Ellison, who led Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research hedge fund; former FTX technology chief Zixiao "Gary" Wang; and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh.
FTX said the defendants continually misappropriated funds to finance luxury condominiums, political contributions, speculative investments, and other "pet projects," while committing "one of the largest financial frauds in history."
The alleged fraudulent transfers occurred between February 2020 and November 2022 when FTX filed for Chapter 11 protection, and can be undone--or "avoided"--under the US bankruptcy code or Delaware law, FTX said.
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
FTX is now led by John Ray, who helped manage Enron after the energy trader's 2001 bankruptcy.
US prosecutors have called Bankman-Fried the mastermind of a fraud that led to FTX's collapse, and included the misappropriation of billions of dollars of customer funds.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to several criminal charges. Ellison, Wang, and Singh have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
According to Thursday's complaint, the fraudulent transfers included more than $725 million (roughly Rs. 5,990 crore) of equity that FTX and West Realm Shires, an entity that Bankman-Fried controlled, awarded "without receiving any value in exchange."
FTX said Bankman-Fried and Wang also misappropriated $546 million (about Rs. 4,500 crore) to buy shares of Robinhood Markets, while Ellison used $28.8 million (about Rs. 236 crore) to pay herself bonuses.
It also said some of Bankman-Fried's criminal defense is being funded from a $10 million (nearly Rs. 81, 950 crore) "gift" he gave his father.
"The transfers were made when (FTX-related entities) were insolvent, and defendants knew it," FTX said.
Federal law lets bankruptcy trustees avoid transfers of property made in the two years before Chapter 11 filings if the transfers are made for less than their value and with an intent to defraud a bankruptcy estate.
The case is FTX Trading Ltd et al v Bankman-Fried et al, US Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 23-ap-50448. The main bankruptcy case is In re FTX Trading Ltd et al in the same court, No. 22-bk-11068.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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