Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma India's leading power couple, says study

A study was done by Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Human Brands, promoted by adman Sandeep Goyal.

The husband-wife pair of cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma has been ranked as the leading pair, according to a study by Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Human Brands, promoted by adman Sandeep Goyal.

The survey looked at popular 'power couples' in the country.

Virat and Anushka Sharma were followed by actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna.

These couples were ranked using a set of 24 brand attributes, Goyal said.

These attributes included what these couples represent to consumers and how they are perceived by young people.

Some of the other power couples, who were part of the study included actors Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan.

Actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan were second on the stylist list of couples, followed by Akshay-Twinkle, said Goyal.

The most traditional couple were Deepika and Ranveer, followed by Abishek-Aishwarya and Akshay-Twinkle.

Business Standard

Irdai asks insurers to give details on exposure to DHFL, IL&FS, ADAG

All the four entities, for which data was sought by Irdai on October 9, have been downgraded by credit rating agencies recently.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has sought data from companies on their exposure to Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL), Indiabulls, and Anil Dhirbubhai Ambani group companies, sources aware of the development said.

“The regulator perhaps wants to see the strength of the insurance companies," said the chief executive officer of a life insurance company. All the four entities, for which data was sought by Irdai on October 9, have been downgraded by credit rating agencies recently.

“Usually, it is left to the insurers on how they deal with downgraded entities. But this may have been done to find if there is any over exposure the insurers have against their asset base," said a former member of Irdai.

When an entity is downgraded, insures' investment in such entities is clubbed under the unapproved investment kitty and the insurers are allowed to have 10 per cent of their investment in the unapproved investment.

“If the 10 per cent is breached, there might be some problem, but so far the 10 per cent threshold has not been breached by any insurer," experts said.

There might be concern on the solvency of insurers having exposure to the four entities, the former member of Irdai quoted above said. If such a situation arises wherein the rating downgrade of an entity threatens the solvency margin of an insurer, the insurer has to infuse fresh capital to maintain a solvency margin of 1.5.

The Irdai had in the past asked insurers with exposure to IL&FS to provide for their exposure. A lot of insurers including the state-owned behemoth Life Insurance Corporation have exposure to IL&FS.

Business Standard

Centre wants WhatsApp to explain Israeli spyware breach by November 4

It is still not clear which government entity bought the software that has reportedly impacted 1,400 devices globally.

The government has given time till November 4 to WhatsApp for explaining how the Israeli surveillance software was used to spy on some people in India and what the firm was doing to stop such occurrences.

It is still not clear which government entity bought the software that has reportedly impacted 1,400 devices globally. WhatsApp has said it was filing a complaint in the US against Israeli technology firm NSO Group for the cyberattack that exploited vulnerability in the app's video calling feature.

“Government of India is concerned at the breach of privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform WhatsApp. We have asked WhatsApp to explain the kind of breach and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens,” Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, tweeted.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the attempts to align the government for a reported breach were “misleading”. “It is clarified that the government operates strictly as per provisions of the law. There are adequate safeguards to ensure that no innocent citizen is harassed or his privacy breached,” it said. However, it did not address the question of whether the central or state governments or any of their agencies have ever bought NSO Group’s spyware technology or its well-known product Pegasus.

In the vulnerability, a WhatsApp user could receive what appears to be a video call and even if the call is unanswered, the attacker could transmit malicious code to infect the victim’s phone with spyware. Another NSO Group software, Pegasus, was used to install spying software on devices between August 2016 and August 2018 by Toronto-based Citizen Lab.

The NSO Group claims to sell surveillance technology to governments globally only for the purposes of fighting terrorism and crime but has been accused of selling to governments that have a track record of spying on its citizens.

Business Standard

Apple India logs record sales, re-enters list of top 10 smartphone brands

The maker of popular smart technology products like the iPhone and MacBook has faced stiff competition here, the world's second-largest smartphone market.

After two years of downbeat news, Apple, the premium consumer electronics giant, managed to turn around its business in India. The management of the US-based entity informed its investors on Thursday that it registered record sales in this country during the July-September quarter.

Luca Maestri, senior vice-president and chief financial officer at Apple Inc, said in a post-results conference call that they had “established new Q4 (July-September) records in many major developed and emerging markets”. Including India, America, Canada, Germany, France, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. As a result, its gross margin expanded 40 basis points, to 38 per cent.

Maestri added the company’s laptop and desktop business had record sales in India. “Despite the tough compare, we generate an all-time revenue record for Mac in the US and in India.” The maker of popular smart technology products like the iPhone and MacBook has faced stiff competition here, the world’s second-largest smartphone market. After shipping in 3.2 million units in 2017, the India unit of Apple sold only 1.7 million units of iPhones in 2018.

More, in October-December 2018, it failed to capture top spot in the premium smartphone market, after years. It fell behind OnePlus (36 per cent market share), with 30 per cent share. In April-June 2019, its share in the above Rs 30,000 price segment fell further — to 21 per cent — and slipped to third spot, behind OnePlus and Samsung.

The firm, however, left no stone unturned to regain top spot this festive season. From new and competitively-priced iPhones to slashing prices of its older models, it had a multi-pronged strategy. The entry-level new iPhone model — iPhone 11 — was priced Rs 64,900, or 15.6 per cent less than the XR variant of 2018. The model is priced even lower than the iPhone X, launched at Rs 70,990 only two years ago.

Also, to capture the country’s shopping mood ahead of the festive season, the new iPhones were made available from September 27 in India, three days ahead of its global launch. According to Navkendar Singh, research director at IDC, the launch date could have been advanced to align it with the upcoming Big Billion Days sale by Flipkart (starting September 29) and similar shopping events that were expected to kick off by the last week of that month.

Business Standard

PhonePe annual loss more than doubles to Rs 1,905 crore in 2018-19

According to previous RoC filings, the net loss in 2017-18 was Rs 791 crore, way higher than the Rs 129 crore in FY17.

PhonePe, the Walmart-owned digital payment platform, more than doubled its losses in 2018-19 to Rs 1,905 crore compared to a year before, according to a registrar of companies (RoC) filing.

The firm, facing stiff competition from financial technology giant Paytm, as well as Google Play, has been working hard on gaining market share. Revenue in FY19 rose fivefold, to Rs 245.8 crore. According to previous RoC filings, the net loss in 2017-18 was Rs 791 crore, way higher than the Rs 129 crore in FY17.

Employee benefit expense in FY19 had risen 308 per cent to Rs 531 crore from a year before.

Google Pay posted a net profit of Rs 5.1 crore in FY19, with revenue of Rs 1,119 crore, an increase of 2.5 times as compared to the Rs 438.3 crore in FY18. PhonePe has been on an expansion drive. It has been trying to increase its footprint offline to take on Paytm and Google Pay, which has made major inroads into tier-III/tier-IV cities and smaller towns.

The company last month announced that its app drove 380 million transactions in August, with 90 million offline transactions. It claims to be accepted as a payment option across 6.5 million offline stores in 210 cities. According to several reports, the company is independently trying to raise close to a billion dollars for a next stage of expansion. It claims to have at least 150 million users.

While PhonePe operates its payments system through semi-closed prepaid instrument services and Unified Payment Interface (UPI), it says it is ‘also actively exploring other business avenues in the payments and e-commerce space’. PhonePe banks on its offline merchants to make payments through not only UPI but also credit cards, debit cards and external wallets.

Payment apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm are in an increasingly competitive market. While some incumbents took time to switch to the government-endorsed UPI, PhonePe, and Google Pay built their systems around the platform. Recently, UPI claimed to have completed a billion transactions since its launch three years ago.

Business Standard

India's economic slowdown will reverse in coming quarters: Mukesh Ambani

What I see happening in the past 2-3 years is transformation, said Ambani

Business Standard : Two top leaders of India Inc — Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and auto major Mahindra & Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra (M&M) — have said the Indian economy is showing signs of a pick-up and recent sales indicators show the worst is now behind the nation.

Both business leaders were speaking at the Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh. “India’s slight economic slowdown will reverse in the coming quarters. What I see happening in the past 2-3 years is transformation,” said Ambani.

“As a businessman and as an investor, I am all in, in terms of investing in this country,” Ambani said.

“If you look at what happened, yes, there has been a slight slowdown but in my view it’s temporary,” said he. “All the reform measures that have been taken in the last few months will show the outcome. I am quite sure that in the coming quarters this will reverse,” he said.

Ambani, who is in talks with Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco to sell one-fifth of his oil-to-chemicals business in India for $15 billion, said the two countries have almost factors to drive growth — technology, young demography, and leadership.

“Above all, there is a leadership accelerator. Both the countries are blessed with leadership that is unique in the whole world, at least in today’s time,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz.

Saudi Arabia, he said, has seen tremendous transformation in the past 2-3 years. “For me, this is 1980 vintage China or India of the 1990s where India took on the world map.”

Ambani had in August announced that Saudi Aramco has agreed to take a 20 per cent stake in Reliance Industries’ refining and petrochemicals business, as the world’s largest crude oil exporter deepens its ties with India, the fastest-growing energy consumer.

On the other hand, Mahindra said Diwali sales have been very good for the Mahindra Group and it has reported double-digit growth in sales over last year. Diwali, he told a TV channel, is like Christmas in India and it has shown a significant jump in consumption for the company. M&M has cut excess inventories and most car companies have sanitised their pipelines and are looking ahead to the festive season with hope, he said.

Delhi chokes as pollution levels remain 'severe' for second straight day

On Wednesday morning, the Delhi air quality index was 422 -- a little worse than Tuesday's AQI of 414 at 8 pm, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.

Delhi air pollution: There is no respite from severe air pollution in Delhi as air quality remained in the "severe" category on Wednesday morning. The air quality was similar to what it was on Tuesday, the day it slipped into the "severe" category in the city and the adjoining areas.

At 6 am, the city's overall air quality index (AQI) was 422 -- a little worse than Tuesday's AQI of 414 at 8 pm, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor, and 401-500 severe. Above 500 is severe-plus emergency category.

Delhi's air quality took a hit after Diwali night due to a combination of firecracker emissions, stubble burning and unfavourable meteorological conditions.

Since then, pollution levels have been oscillating between the lower end and the higher end of the very poor category.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on on Tuesday appealed "with folded hands" to Punjab and Haryana to take concrete steps against stubble burning to prevent the national capital from becoming a "gas chamber".

His statement came after latest NASA images showed a drastic spurt in crop residue burning in the neighbouring states. The stubble plume from north-west regions has become one of the significant factors adversely affecting Delhi's air quality.

Business Standard

Air India pilot bodies seek meeting with aviation minister on privatization

Earlier this month, as many as 13 Air India unions including its pilots unions, Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) and Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), had discussions with the airline top brass.

Flag carrier Air India's pilot bodies--IPG and ICPA -- on Tuesday sought appointment with civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri for a clarity on the proposed disinvestment amid the government preparing to exit from the airline business.

The government for long has been trying to sell debt- ridden airline but could not attract bidders. It has now again decided to call bids for sale next month.

The pilot bodies, in a communication to Puri, said that the airline management appraised it of the status of disinvestment during a recent meeting but it did not provide any clarity on pending issues or provide any roadmap with regards to the future of employees as a result of this disinvestment process.

Earlier this month, as many as 13 Air India unions including its pilots unions, Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) and Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), had discussions with the airline top management on the issue of privatisation.

"We, the Air India employees have a big stake in the success and prosperity of our airline. We request you to kindly grant us an urgent appointment for a meeting at your convenience so that we can have clarity on the mechanics of the disinvestment process and communicate employees issues/concerns as well as the ground reality to you directly," the pilot bodies said in a joint letter to the aviation minister.

"We would like to bring to your kind attention that in 2007 when the merger of AI and IA was being processed, we had raised various issues regarding employee status and service conditions in the merged entity," it said.

At the meeting,it was "categorically" emphasised that the interest of the employees of both erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India was of paramount importance and as such while drafting the Scheme due care has been taken to protect the same, the letter said.

Despite the merger of the two carriers about 12 years failing to achieve the projected synergy, the employees have been working tirelessly to make the merger a success and to improve the condition of the airline which has deteriorated due to "mismanagement" and "legacy issues", the letter said.

"We were made tall promises at the time of merger which have all fallen flat and have grave apprehensions regarding the future of our airline as well as our own livelihood post disinvestment," it added.

Business Standard

OnePlus dials into Bharat, says getting huge response from cities and towns

The firm is looking at going beyond the metro cities by scaling up its offline stores to over 5,000 and setting up more than 100 'experience centres' in the top 50 cities by next year.

Business Standard : OnePlus, the Shenzhen, China-based premium phone maker, is fast expanding to tier-II and tier-III cities and towns in the country — it says there is huge response from these regions.

The firm is looking at going beyond the metro cities by scaling up its offline stores to over 5,000 and setting up more than 100 ‘experience centres’ in the top 50 cities by next year, said Vikas Agarwal, general manager and head of OnePlus India.

Till recently, OnePlus was mainly relying on e-commerce platforms for reaching customers. India has already become its largest and fastest growing market, accounting for over a third of overall revenue.

“India is one region which has performed best as compared to any other market (for us). That is very counter-intuitive because when we entered India, nobody expected OnePlus or the premium segment to do so well,” said Agarwal. “But, today, India is the fastest growing premium smartphone market for us. People do have that money to spend. Though there is talk about economic slowdown, our sales are better than ever.”

OnePlus has partnered with Redington (India), a global mobility distributor, which will boost its offline presence across the northern and northeast regions in particular. The firm has also partnered with offline retailers such as Sangeetha, Poorvika, Vijay Sales and Big C, with access to thousands of offline stores beyond big cities in Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.

OnePlus had, says CounterPoint, widened its lead over Apple and Samsung with the OnePlus 7 launch in the premium smartphone segment during the September quarter.

This month, OnePlus said, it recorded Rs 500 crore of revenue in only the first two days of the festive sale on Amazon.in.

“The momentum for OnePlus has been quite strong. They have to expand offline because they have been missing the biggest chunk of consumers who are ready to buy the product, once they are able to experience the look and feel of the product,” said Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Research. “If you go to tier-II and tier-III cities, you would find a significant chunk of premium users. Their (OnePlus) offline strategy makes a lot of sense.”

Smartphone shipment in the premium segment (Rs 30,000 and above) grew an impressive 33 per cent annually in India, way above the single-digit overall smartphone shipment growth, during the quarter, said Counterpoint.

India is likely to move up in Ease of Doing Business report of World Bank

India was 77th among 190 countries in the previous ranking.

India is likely to see some improvement in the annual Ease of Doing Business report of the World Bank, to be issued on Thursday.

The country was 77th among 190 countries in the previous ranking, an improvement by 23 places compared to its position a year before.

Thursday's improvement is unlikely to be as much and, hence, the country's rank might not reach the Narendra Modi government's target of 50th place.

India had broken into the club of the first 100 such nations in the 2018 report, when it managed to jump 30 places.

The 2019 report had named this as "one of the economies with the most notable improvement" for a third year in a row.

India was adjudged the fifth best performing nation in reforming the business environment that year.

The country had improved its ranks in six of the 10 sub-categories used by the Bank to judge the business climate.

However, its ranking saw a decline in two more, on paying of taxes and resolving of insolvency.

This was despite the fact that India had introduced the goods and services tax in 2017 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code a year before.

Business Standard

DHFL crisis: Banks stare at huge provision burden if fraud is established

KPMG did a forensic audit on DHFL. Its draft report has startling findings and says DHFL could have diverted funds to promoter-led entities.

Banks which have loaned to beleaguered mortgage lender DHFL might have to provide for the exposure within weeks, if the account is treated as a fraudulent one after accountancy entity KPMG’s finding.

KPMG did a forensic audit on DHFL. Its draft report has startling findings and says DHFL could have diverted funds to promoter-led entities.

Banks have combined exposure of Rs 38,342 crore to DHFL, in the form of term loans, non-convertible debentures and commercial paper, according to the draft debt resolution plan.

A senior executive with a South-based public sector bank said: "While activity relating to restructuring of DHFL is still in a work-in-progress state, banks have to take a call on whether to get the Wadhawans (promoter family) to cooperate, and begin recoveries, or declare the account as fraud if diversion is established. Declaration of the account as fraud would create a burden of provisioning as early as the third quarter (October-December) of the current financial year.” A senior banker with a Mumbai-based public sector bank said the draft resolution plan itself envisaged a provision for haircuts (loan writeoffs), of about Rs 16,000 crore. Thus the burden is anticipated. But, if the account is declared as fraud, the provisioning might go up and be spread over four quarters. It will largely depend on how the Reserve Bank of India looks at the resolution plan and fund diversion issue.

The DHFL board of directors met on Wednesday and took cognisance of key observations from the draft report. KPMG's services were commisisoned by Union Bank of India, lead banker of the consortium, on behalf all its members.

“The board has directed the company to review the key observations,” the company said in an exchange filing.

DHFL's debt dues were Rs 83,873 crore as of July 6. Its loan assets were Rs 89,476 crore — the retail book being Rs 35,233 crore, the rest being wholesale loans.

Business Standard

Datsun brand set to go as Nissan rolls back Ghosn's expansionist strategy

Production closures set to hit emerging markets hard.

Nissan Motor is likely to axe its Datsun brand, drop some unprofitable products and close a number of assembly lines worldwide as it seeks to boost profits by getting smaller, two company sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Known internally as ‘performance recovery’ plan, the proposed steps mark a sharp break with Nissan’s strategy under ousted leader Carlos Ghosn, who pursued ambitious vehicle sales targets in the US and other major markets.

The plan is the firm’s latest attempt to pull itself out of crisis after Ghosn was arrested for financial misconduct — charges he denies. The scandal has strained an already dysfunctional alliance with Renault and thrown Nissan into disarray as it finds itself on course to book its lowest operating profit in 11 years. Sources said Nissan will likely kill loss-making variants for the Titan pickup.

A planned shuttering of under-utilised production lines will most probably hit plants in emerging markets building Datsun and other small cars hardest, they added.

The second source said all markets with factories except China were being looked at for possible reductions in production capacity. That source also said that there were no plans to close an entire plant or withdraw completely from any country.

In the US, the plan calls for fresh efforts to weed out the practice of buying market share by selling vehicles to rental car and other fleet operators at heavy discounts. “We’re trying to clean up,” a source said, adding under Ghosn, Nissan sought to meet sales objectives at any cost, including “giving away cars” to fleet customers.

A team led by Jun Seki, a senior vice-president and incoming vice-chief operating officer, is expected to unveil the wide-ranging plan this month, said the sources. Nissan declined to comment. Seki is part of a team that will see Makoto Uchida, Nissan’s head of China, take the helm.

The firm will roll back an aggressive expansionist strategy Ghosn set in motion under a five-year plan called Power 88, which aimed to raise global market share to 8 per cent by FY16 — goals that were never achieved.

Business Standard

SoftBank takes control of WeWork as part of bailout, Neumann to leave board

The deal would value WeWork's parent company at about $8 bn.

SoftBank Group Corp is taking control of beleaguered WeWork, part of a rescue financing plan that will see former CEO Adam Neuman sever most of his remaining ties with the company he co-founded, according to people familiar with the matter.

The eleventh-hour deal throws a lifeline to WeWork parent We Co, which was on the verge of running out of cash after a failed public offering in September. By salvaging one of its biggest investments, SoftBank will give a second chance to WeWork to start over under new ownership. It also tosses a buoy to Neumann, who will give up his board seat and walk away with as much as $1.2 billion as well as a $500 million credit line from SoftBank, after it pushed him out as chief executive officer last month.

Neumann is allowed to sell slightly less than $1 billion of stock to the Japanese conglomerate as part of the deal, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the agreement hasn’t been announced. He’ll remain as a board observer and can assign two board seats, one of the people said. Neumann will also get a roughly $185 million consulting fee. His net worth would still be at least $1 billion, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

WeWork chose the offer from SoftBank, which already owns about one-third of the company, over a competing proposal from JPMorgan Chase & Co. The deal, which values the office-sharing startup at about $8 billion before any new capital from SoftBank, marks a shocking fall from grace for a business emblematic of the latest tech boom that had been valued as recently as January at $47 billion. As part of SoftBank’s plan, one of its executives, Marcelo Claure, will take over as chairman of WeWork’s board, one of the people said. WeWork appointed Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham as co-CEOs last month after investors pushed back against the IPO.

SoftBank and JPMorgan declined to comment. WeWork couldn’t immediately be reached. Dow Jones earlier reported details of the deal.

Business Standard

Crime rate rises in 2017; women remain vulnerable, shows NCRB data

The National Crime Records Bureau has released data on crime in 2017, with a massive lag of more than a year. Crime rose from 3,793 per million in 2016 to 3,886 per million in 2017.

Business Standard : Nearly 100 more crimes took place per million people in 2017 compared to the previous year (2016), though heinous crimes such as murders and rapes came down, shows a recently-released national data on crime.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Monday released data on crime in 2017 with a massive lag of more than a year. Crimes rose from 3,793 per million in 2016 to 3,886 per million in 2017.

Crime rate under state laws that pertain mostly to prohibition, narcotics, excise, electricity-related ones and gambling rose faster than crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

IPC crime incidence also rose, with crimes such as kidnapping, attempt to murder on the rise, per million population.

The incidence of rapes per million population has reduced, but women are becoming more unsafe over time, with the overall crime rate rising every year.

Crime rate rises in 2017; women remain vulnerable, shows NCRB data

Among states, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal showed a reduction in crime rates, while most others witnessed a rise. Theft are rising the fastest.

The crime rate in Delhi rose by 8 per cent in a year – the fastest among states – to 11,500 crimes reported per million Delhiites.

Nearly three million IPC crimes and two million crimes under state laws were recorded in 2017. But this is an understatement, the report itself notes.

“The actual count of each crime per head may be underreported. This is because among many offences registered in a single FIR, only the most heinous crime (maximum punishment) will be considered as a counting unit,” the report notes.

In a first, crimes pertaining to communal violence were not compiled by the bureau this time.

Incidence of rioting reduced from 53 crimes per million people in 2014 to 46 per million people in 2017.

Incidence of kidnapping and abduction, on the other hand, rose from 62 per million to 74 per million.

Facebook antitrust probe grows as dozens of states join New York

A total of 45 states - plus Guam and the District of Columbia - are now partnering in the bipartisan investigation, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who's leading the probe, said.

Business Standard : Facebook’s antitrust woes widened on Tuesday as dozens more states joined New York’s wide-ranging investigation into whether the company’s business practices have stifled competition or put users at risk.

A total of 45 states — plus Guam and the District of Columbia — are now partnering in the bipartisan investigation, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who’s leading the probe, said in a statement.

James, a Democrat, has said the probe aims to find out whether Facebook’s actions endangered user data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices or increased the price of advertising, its main source of revenue.

“Big Tech must account for its actions,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, whose state joined the probe, said in the statement. “I am proud to join my Republican and Democrat colleagues in efforts to ensure Tech Giants can no longer hide behind complexity and complicity.”

Facebook didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. The company’s shares dropped 2.1 per cent as of 11:28 am in New York trading.

The expansion of the probe is the latest sign that states are continuing to take aim at Big Tech, with a similar investigation led by Texas under way against Alphabet’s Google. The state probes target a wide range of practices that generate billions of dollars in revenue for the world’s biggest social-media company and the largest seller of search-based advertising.

On Monday, James hosted a meeting of policy experts to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various antitrust legal theories involving Facebook, according to a person familiar with the gathering.

They also reviewed Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as privacy issues and the company’s power in the digital-advertising market, the person said. The Wall Street Journal first reported the meeting.

Car ownership is a trap that can be prevented: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

He says the younger generation doesn't dream of owning a car, but instead wants the freedom of having any service on demand.

Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi says the younger generation doesn’t dream of owning a car, but instead wants the freedom of having any service on demand. He also feels that established protocols and industries are the enemies of innovation.

“Car ownership is a trap that can sometimes be prevented. India does not need to be trapped by these establishments. India can actually be the innovator for the developing countries of the world,” Khosrowshahi said here on Tuesday. He was responding to a question seeking comment on Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s assessment that the slowdown in the domestic auto industry was due to a shift in the millennials’ preference for ride-hailing apps.

On concerns that the company is losing a lot of money in India, Khosrowshahi said, “The profitability characteristics of our business here (in India) are improving. India is a fundamental part of Uber’s growth; it’s among the top 10 markets for us. We continue to lean on and invest in India.”

“We are going to invest the profits from some of our more mature products into your products, such as Auto, Moto, and Transit,” he added.

The Uber CEO was in New Delhi to announce a partnership with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) under which the Uber app will get integrated with the details of metro trains to provide commuters a seamless experience while travelling from one point to another.

Delhi is the second Asia-Pacific city where Uber will provide riders with the ability of planning their transit journey with real-time information and end-to-end directions via its app.

Initially, Uber will only provide an overview of routes on which public transport is available. In the long term, however, there is a plan to integrate payments for different modes of transport within the Uber app.

Khosrowshahi agreed that India was a competitive market, with consumers wanting a great service at low prices. “India has also become the innovation gateway for Uber which it can export to other parts of the world,” he said.

Business Standard