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Portuguese PM to skip beaches, packed schedule in Goa

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Portuguese PM to skip beaches, packed schedule in GoaPanaji: When Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa arrives in the land of his origin on Tuesday night, a stroll on Goa’s popular beaches certainly does not appear to be at the top of his agenda. Costa or “Babush”, as he is known by his family in Konkani, during his two-day visit to Goa, a former Portuguese colony whose shores his poet as well as writer father Orlando quit decades back, has a packed schedule in the coastal state.

Costa will host official banquets, Bollywood producers, visit temples, churches, stroll down the popular Latin Quarter in Fontainhas in Panaji and take some time off to visit his ancestral home in Margao town, about 35 km from here. Sources at the Portuguese consulate here and the state protocol department, which have been tasked with facilitating Costa’s visit, said the Goa-end of the Prime Minister’s itinerary during his seven-day visit to India was being worked out and fine-tuned for over three months.

“Costa’s visit is chock-a-block with engagements. He is coming back home, we have spared no efforts to make his visit a success,” sources in the state government, which is engaged in arranging the logistics for the visit, said on Monday. Costa’s high-level delegation team has already worked out various pacts dealing with defence, security, IT, renewable energy sectors with the central government, and the Prime Minister himself has gifted a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

After a night’s interlude following his arrival in Goa, Costa will on Wednesday first meet Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Governor Mridula Sinha, before attending a lunch hosted by the state government. The Portuguese Prime Minister will also visit the Old Goa Church complex, a Unesco-endorsed world heritage site built during the colonial era, and the Mangueshi temple.

He will also meet top officials of the National Institute of Oceanography near here, and then attend a civic reception in his honour. Costa is also scheduled to address the audience and attend a presentation of the English translation of his father’s book ‘Sem Flores Nem Coares’. Poet Orlando was born in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique in 1929, but his family migrated to Goa, whose tropical shores he later left at the age of 18 for Lisbon.

Goa was ruled by Portugal for 451 years before she was liberated by the Indian Army in 1961. Costa will on Thursday visit the Birla Optical Fibre factory in Verna in South Goa, before undertaking a walking visit to the Latin Quarter in Fontainhas. There he will visit the Portuguese cultural organisation Fundacao Oriente and inaugurate Centro de Lingua Portuguesa.

On the same afternoon, Costa will also conduct another walking tour through the city, and then visit a local college of law. Costa on Thursday night will host Bollywood producers at a five-star resort, where he is expected to make a pitch for Portugal as a film-shooting destination, as well as host a reception for Portuguese, Indo-Portuguese communities and local authorities.

He is also expected to visit his ancestral home in Margao and share a meal with close relatives and friends, his first cousin Anna Kaarina Jussilainen said. “It’s going to be a simple meal, he would like to share with friends and family,” she said.

Costa’s arrival has already stirred political interest in the poll-bound Goa with regional parties like the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the Goa Suraksha Manch demanding an apology for atrocities committed by Portuguese colonists. The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have however unequivocally welcomed Costa, saying an apology from friendly countries was out of question.

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Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones

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CasinoDays India

International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.

Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.

The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.

Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile

The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.

CasinoDays India

The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.

“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.

Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings

Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.

 

CasinoDays India

Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).

Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.

The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.

Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.

Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities

The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.

On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.

Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.

“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.

The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.

 

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