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Akbar, a famous editor, who fell from the pedestal
New Delhi, Oct 17 (IANS) From his days of being an iconic editor to the alleged sexual predator — the fall of M.J. Akbar has been sudden and steep.
Caught as he was in the web of #MeToo allegations, Akbar stepped down as Minister of State for External Affairs on Wednesday.
In his chequered career, Akbar was spokesperson for both the Congress and BJP. Highly regarded for his journalistic abilities, Akbar was founder-editor of weekly magazine Sunday and The Telegraph and The Asian Age newspapers.
He commanded respect of generations of aspiring and budding journalists for his erudition, his command and crispness of language, his play of words as also his articulation. Akbar became Editor of Sunday, which turned into a successful news magazine in 1976, and of The Telegraph 1982.
All that changed as allegations started pouring in against him in the wake of #MeToo campaign alleging sexual harassment and molestation by women who had worked with him.
He joined the Congress and was a member of of the ninth Lok Sabha from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he was Advisor to the Human Resource Development Ministry.
He returned to journalism with an aim of creating a newspaper with an international focus. He launched The Asian Age in 1994 with editions in Delhi, Mumbai and London, the first Indian newspaper to have an international edition.
In his long journalistic career, he was also associated with The Sunday Guardian and India Today magazine.
Akbar joined the BJP ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections expressing his faith in the leadership of Narendra Modi. He was first elected to Rajya Sabha in July 2015 and was re-elected in July 2016.
Akbar has authored 10 books including India: The Siege Within; Riot after Riot: Reports on Caste and Communal Violence in India; Nehru: The Making of India,1989 and Kashmir: Behind the Vale.
Akbar’s columns were widely followed and he continued writing till he became a minister in the BJP-led government in 2016.
He was given the portfolio of Minister of State for External Affairs in an apparent bid to increase Narendra Modi government’s outreach, especially to the Muslim countries.
Women, who had worked with him came up with their accounts of travails one after another in the social media.
Akbar, who was abroad when the allegations first surfaced about 10 days back, termed them as “wild, baseless and false” on his return. He also filed a defamation case against the journalist who had first levelled the charges, but the accounts against him continued to pour in.
Journalists, individually and also through their representative organisations, expressed their dismay over his decision not to quit.
The government also gave signal that Akbar has to fight his battles individually as the complaints pertained to the period when he was editor.
–IANS
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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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