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‘Parrikar may have revealed names in Louis Berger case’
Panaji: BJP legislator Subhash Phaldesai has claimed that Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar might have revealed to investigators the names of two ministers allegedly involved in the $976,630 Louis Berger international bribery scam.
Phaldesai also said that the former Goa chief minister might have also revealed the bungalow in south Goa where the deal was struck.
In a television debate telecast on Friday, the Sanguem legislator said that Anand Wachasundar, a former Public Works Department (PWD) official who has been in-charge of the $300 Louis Berger-linked million worth water and sewerage management project, should have been sacked by the BJP-led coalition government in 2012.
“He (Wachasundar) should have been replaced. He was in charge of the project for six years. Had he been replaced, this (irregularities) would have been revealed earlier,” Phaldessai said.
Asked whether Parrikar had revealed the names of the Louis Berger accused and the location of the house in which the pay-offs to Congress ministers were allegedly made in 2012, as claimed by the defence minister, Phaldessai said: “He must have done it.. And the investigation team will investigate that”.
Last week, Parrikar said that not one but two former ministers may have accepted bribes from the international consultancy firm, adding that he knew the bungalow in south Goa where the deal was struck.
Top officials of Louis Berger have already pleaded guilty to offering bribes of $3.9 million to secure contracts in Asian countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait.
While the settlement announced by the US Justice Department did not identify the politicians and officials who were offered bribes, the documents revealed that $976,630 was paid in bribes during 2009-2010 to a Goa minister and other officials.
Former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat and former public works department minister Churchill Alemao of the Congress could also come under the investigators’ scanner, sources said. Both Kamat and Alemao have, however, denied the allegations.
Louis Berger was part of a consortium that eventually won a contract to execute a multi-billion dollar water and sewerage project in Goa funded by the Japan International Co-Operation Agency (JICA), which paid Rs.6.3 crore by the Congress-led coalition government in 2011-12.
The Crime Branch of the Goa Police has already started investigations into the bribery allegations and the Inspector General of Police has not ruled out the involvement of more than one minister in the case.
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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