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Mercedes-Benz on Friday launched its performance-oriented compact car AMG A 45 S 4MATIC+ priced at Rs 79.50 lakh at pan-India showroom
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Rice exports rose an impressive 10.5 per cent between April and October over the record exports in FY21
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With a small army of lawyers having already gouged hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg continues to stand over independent media with defamation threats, writes Michael West.
This post was originally published on Michael West Media.
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Immediately after the launch, the shares of Paytm traded in the red zone and fell over 20 per cent within minutes of trading
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PNG Power Limited — faced with a business on the brink of total collapse due to ageing infrastructure — is losing K25 million (NZ$10 million) a month in revenue, and is on top of a staggering K650 million (NZ$265 million) debt owed to service providers.
The monthly loss in revenue is through power theft, tampering with meters and frequent outages that have forced many companies — large and small– to run their own electricity generation units, adding K20 million (NZ$8.2 million) to the losses incurred by PNG Power Limited.
Information provided to the PNG Post-Courier has painted a grim picture about the state-owned entity, PNG’s main electricity provider.
According to people close to PNG Power, the SOE requires more than K1 billion to bail itself out of the current mess and deliver reliable power to the country.
However, how it raises this money is a contentious issue yet to be addressed by government and the PNG Power management.
Melisha Yafoi reports that PNG Power currently owes service providers and Independent Power Producers debts totalling K650 million.
The debts are now believed to be at an unsustainable level unless monthly losses of around K25 million, grid reliability and revenue collection are all addressed immediately.
In addition, concessional loans have been given to PNG Power by the ADB, World Bank and JICA worth more than K400 million, tipping the debt to more than K1 billion.
A well-placed industry source told the Post-Courier on Monday that the state entity had serious cashflow issues that need to be solved immediately.
Public demand explanation
Student journalists Yesmah Nouairi and Abbra Ntum report that the public have demanded an explanation from PNG Power about why there are frequent blackouts in the nation’s capital and other regions.Customers, responding to PPL’s notices on Facebook advising of power outages last week and recently, have also expressed frustration about the frequent blackouts.
“We have been experiencing low power voltage and power outage since last week Tuesday,” said a customer from Boera village in Central Province.
They also expressed their frustrations about the power company not sticking to its advertised outage schedules.
PPL advised its consumers on its Facebook page that it would carry out power interruptions to allow workmen to do urgent maintenance work.
They said the areas that would be affected were Waigani, Gerehu stages five, six and parts of stage two.
However, residents from Morata Two, Two Mile, Boera and Gerehu Stage One and Stage Three have also been experiencing constant power outages.
“Power has been coming on and going off since 11pm last night, and it just went off now, is this part of the so called maintainance work that the company is doing?” said a resident from Gerehu Stage Four.
Line clearance damage
Others complained about the line clearance and the damages it may cause to electrical appliances in their houses that can cause fire or injury.“Gerehu Stage One, Udia Street power pole 9657 seriously needs line clearance,” commented a frustrated consumer of PNG Power Facebook page.
“The powerline from the pole to the house is fluctuating and there is not enough power current in the house and this has caused damage to so much of the electrical appliances.”
Many people said it was expensive to replace or buy new electrical appliances every time there was a power outage in the city as most households use electric stoves and pans for cooking.
PNG Post-Courier articles are republished with permission.
PNG Power Limited’s head office … massive debts reported. Image: PNG Report This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday the new scheme ‘allows the smallest investor to participate in the country’s economic progress’
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Human Rights Watch says it only received one reply after writing to 13 companies involved in Beijing Games
Corporate sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have been accused of “squandering the opportunity” to pressure China to address its “appalling human rights record”.
The Games’ top level sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Procter & Gamble, Intel and Visa, were on Friday accused of ignoring China’s alleged “crimes against humanity against Uyghurs” and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as well the repression of free speech in Hong Kong.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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UK government watchdog finds lack of due diligence over human rights in occupied territories
JCB, the British tractor firm, has been found by a UK government watchdog to have failed to carry out due diligence human rights checks over the potential use of its equipment to demolish homes in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).
The watchdog ruled: “It is unfortunate that JCB, which is a leading British manufacturer of world-class products, did not take any steps to conduct human rights due diligence of any kind despite being aware of alleged adverse human rights impacts and that its products are potentially contributing to those impacts.”
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Earlier today, PM Modi launched two innovative customer-centric initiatives of the Reserve Bank of India
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The shares of Paytm are expected to list on bourses on November 18
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As per the scheme, investors will be able to directly open and maintain their government securities account free of cost
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On Saturday Musk put up a poll on Twitter where he proposed to sell 10 per cent of Tesla stock
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Paytm has priced its issue at 2,080-2,150 rupees per share
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Rapid vaccination and teeming festivities will push India’s ongoing recovery, as per the report
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The stock debuted at Rs 2,001, reflecting a jump of 77.86 per cent on the BSE
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Australia has signed on to one of the world’s biggest ever trade deals with most of the Asia-Pacific. We negotiated a suite a exemptions to look after our social compact, but guess who was sacrificed? Dr Sarah Russell reports.
This post was originally published on Michael West Media.
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The retail price of petrol and diesel is decided after adding central excise, commission paid to dealers and VAT to basic oil prices
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For all the benefits wrought by the information revolution, social media has become a tool of dictators. Its profit-driven, surveillance-based business model favours those with deep pockets and deadly motives. In the first of two articles, cybersecurity expert and human rights activist Manal al-Sharif suggests way to invent the digital world for the better.
This post was originally published on Michael West Media.
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The announcement was matched by 22 states and Union Territories cutting VAT rates in different proportions
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This comes after five companies successfully concluded their public offerings (IPOs) this week
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The Finance Ministry on Wednesday announced a Rs 5 per litre cut in excise duty on petrol and a Rs 10 per litre cut in excise duty on diesel
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Finance Ministry urged the states ‘to commensurately reduce’ VAT on petrol and diesel to give relief to consumers
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David Birchall, Corporate Power over Human Rights, Encyclopedia of Business Ethics (October 4,2021), Abstract Below. The business and human rights (BHR) movement has developed rapidly since the 1990s, in lockstep with spiralling corporate size, wealth and influence. BHR attempts to…
This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.
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Commercial cylinders of the 19 kg in Delhi will cost Rs 2,000.50 from today onwards which was costing Rs 1,734 earlier
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The withdrawal also came hours after MP Minister Narottam Mishra issued an ultimatum to Sabyasachi Mukherjee to withdraw the advertisement
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Luxury car volumes account for less than 2 per cent of the overall passenger vehicle sales annually
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Prices differ from state to state, depending on the incidence of local taxes and cost of transportation
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The petrol in retail cost stands at Rs 114.81 per litre whereas diesel costs Rs 105.86 per litre today in Mumbai
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By Gorethy Kenneth in Port Moresby
The Papua New Guinea government’s financial hub was hit by computer hackers last week, holding state officials at ransom, reports have revealed.
The ransomware attack on the Department of Finance’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) happened last Thursday, locking out government workers who use the system to run the country’s entire financial system.
The Acting Treasurer, Finance Minister Sir John Pundari, confirmed the hacking but told the PNG Post-Courier that the system had been restored and no ransom was paid.
Sir John said workers were using a temporary accounting system after the IFMS was hit last week but did not reveal the real extent of the damage, saying only that the hackers did not steal anything.
However, they had damaged a system that now puts PNG’s national security at risk.
This is the first time the country’s central financial hub has been hit to such an extent.
Ransomware is a collection of malicious software variants, including viruses, designed by hackers to cause extensive damage or gain unauthorised access to computer networks.
‘Cyber-attack on core server’
“The Government Financial System suffered a cyber-attack in the form of ransomware infiltrating our core server at 1am on Friday, 22 of October 2021,” Sir John said.“As a result of the ransomware infiltration, the Department of Finance’s IT network was compromised. The department immediately took precautionary steps by closing down the network systems.
“The department has now managed to fully restore the system, however, because of the risk we are playing it safe by not allowing full usage of the affected network.
“While we progress cleaning up the server environment, we have put in temporary measures.
“These include all government departments and agencies having access to commit and process cheques using a controlled environment in Vulupindi Haus.
“All provinces and districts will also have access to commit funds, through a controlled temporary arrangement.
‘Full restored’
“The department is conscious of the security and integrity of its data, thus, restoration of services to all government agencies, including at the sub-national level will be done gradually, bearing in mind the security of individual networks, so as not to compromise or allow any further spread of this malware or other viruses.“At this stage I wish to state clearly that the government financial system has been fully restored.
“Department of Finance did not pay any ransom to the hacker or any of its third party agents. We have managed to restore normalcy.
“The government and the people of Papua New Guinea can be assured that the government’s financial services will continue as usual.”
Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Shares of IRCTC on Friday tanked nearly 10 per cent in opening trade to Rs 822.40 apiece
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