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Elections 2019: Congress fields Urmila Matondkar from Mumbai North seat
Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar was named on Friday as the Congress candidate for the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency.
She will contest against the main rival, sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Gopal Shetty.
The decision of the Congress’ Central Election Committee was announced by its General Secretary Mukul Wasnik.
Matondkar, 45, who shot to fame as a child star in “Masoom” (1983), was welcomed to the party fold on Wednesday by Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other top leaders.
Upon joining the party, she dismissed all apprehensions on her political role, saying : “I am here to stay – even after the elections.”
Talking to the media, she said there were questions pertaining to freedom of people under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I have entered politics to articulate those questions.”
She also praised Gandhi saying a leader should be judged by people for their qualities and not their background.
Married to a Kashmiri, M.A. Mir, Matondkar poses a formidable challenge to Shetty in the constituency, which was once regarded a BJP bastion.\
Mumbai North is one of two constituencies out of 48 in the state which has a glamorous personality in the fray in the 2019 elections.
Well-known South Indian actress Navneet Kaur-Rana is the Yuva Swabhiman Party candidate for Amravati in eastern Maharashtra, supported by the 56-party Congress-led Grand Alliance.
The 33-year old actress, married to Badnera independent legislator Ravi Rana – the nephew of yoga guru Ramdev Baba – will lock horns with five-time Shiv Sena MP, Anandrao V. Adsul, 71.
Mumbai North, after Mumbai North-West (now Mumbai North-Central) represented by actor-turned-politician Sunil Dutt five times since 1984, is the second Lok Sabha constituency in the country’s glamour capital which has elected a well-known film personality.
Bollywood actor Govinda had earned the title of ‘giant-killer’ in 2004 when – in a major upset – he trounced former Union Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, who is now the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, in the seat.
In 2009, Naik had faced his second consecutive defeat, this time at the hands of the Congress’s Sanjay Nirupam. But, in 2014, Nirupam was defeated by Shetty during the BJP-wave which catapulted Modi as the Prime Minister.
Mumbai’s six Lok Sabha constituencies are going to the polls on April 29, along with 17 others in the state’s fourth phase of elections.
Starting her successful acting at the age of seven as a child actor, over the years Matondkar has worked in some of the biggest blockbusters with the top actors in Bollywood, Marathi and South Indian films.
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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