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Punjab Minister B.S. Majithia appears before ED
Jalandhar (Punjab): Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials Friday questioned Punjab Minister Bikram Singh Majithia with regard to a multi-million rupee international synthetic drugs racket busted last year.
Majithia, who is the younger brother of Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal, faces allegations of having links with certain non-resident Indians (NRIs) who have been accused of international money laundering related to the drugs racket.
Majithia arrived at the regional office of the ED in Jalandhar city, 150 km from Chandigarh.
The ED, a wing under the union finance ministry, had sent summons to Majithia, who is the revenue minister in the Parkash Singh Badal-led government in Punjab, to appear Dec 26.
The Punjab police had busted the Rs.6,000-crore international synthetic drugs racket in the state in 2013. The ED conducted separate investigations in the drug racket case after serious allegations of money laundering emerged.
ED sources said that Majithia is likely to be asked over 50 questions by the officials regarding his links to three NRIs and the money laundering racket associated with the drugs case.
Majithia is also the brother-in-law of Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal (Harsimrat’s husband).
He is considered very powerful in Punjab’s ruling circles due to his proximity to Sukhbir Badal.
There have been demands from various quarters for Majithia’s resignation on moral grounds after he was recently summoned by the ED.
Chief Minister Badal, however, ruled out Majithia’s resignation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been running an alliance government with the Akali Dal in Punjab since 2007, has also left the Badal government and the Akali Dal embarrassed after it sought Majithia’s resignation this week.
The ED summons to Majithia was an embarrassment for the Badal government as the central government is BJP-led and Harsimrat Badal is the Akali Dal representative in it.
Though Majithia’s name had started figuring in racket last year itself, when the Congress-led UPA government was in power at the Centre, the summons were finally sent by the ED only now.
The Badal’s are considered close to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who had unsuccessfully contested the Amritsar Lok Sabha poll in April-May this year from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat at the behest of the Badal-Majithia combine.
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.
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.
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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