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Former Thai PM sentenced to 5 years in rice scheme (Lead)
Bangkok, Sep 27 (IANS) Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled the country last month, was on Wednesday found guilty of dereliction of duty over a controversial rice subsidy scheme and sentenced to five years in prison in absentia.
The Supreme Court convicted her of mishandling the scheme which allegedly cost Thailand at least $8 billion. Ousted in 2014, weeks before a military coup, and later impeached, Yingluck denied all charges and fled Thailand before the scheduled verdict on August 25, the BBC reported.
According to reports, Yingluck is in Dubai, where her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, also a former Prime Minister, lives in exile to avoid corruption charges. A warrant was issued for her arrest.
The Supreme Court judges said Yingluck had been aware of the falsified rice deals but did nothing to stop it.
“The accused knew that the government-to-government rice contract was unlawful but did not prevent it… which is a manner of seeking unlawful gains. Therefore, the action of the accused is considered negligence of duty,” the court said.
The rice-buying scheme was introduced in 2011 and pledged to pay farmers well above the market rate for their crops.
Critics said the programme wasted large amounts of public funds trying to please rural voters, hurting exports and leaving the government with huge stockpiles of rice it couldn’t sell.
Yingluck said the subsidy scheme was “beneficial for the farmers and the country” and that claims that the country lost billions of dollars due to it were wrong.
During her trial, Yingluck had argued she was not responsible for the day-to-day running of the scheme and insisted she was a victim of political persecution.
Yingluck has maintained a core group of followers since being ousted by the military coup. Some were outside the court on Wednesday, waiting to hear the verdict, though there were far fewer than the crowds seen spilling over the pavement onto the streets in August.
–IANS
soni/mr
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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