9 facts you should have to know

9 facts you should have to know

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Top 5 Mysteries of the world

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Gladwin resident turns flooding into fun

As flood warnings remain in some areas, residents are doing what they can to keep the water outside.

“50 years plus living in town here with my folks and I’ve never seen the flooding as high as it is,” said Vince Schwager, Gladwin resident.

Daniel Kish said his front yard is now “Lake Dan,” thanks to the nearby Cedar River.

“About two nights ago, we started seeing water come in. And I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn’t know it was going to be this bad,” Kish said.

There are also issues on the other side of the river, like the parking lot of the Riverwalk Place.

So, what do you do when mother nature drops buckets of water on you in the middle of February? Kish has a pretty good idea.

“Well, my buddy and my dad stopped by and I had a kayak and I said, ‘let’s see how it works.’ And he’s getting along pretty good out there,” Kish said. “Never been able to go out in my yard with a kayak. This is the year to do it I guess.”

While the temperatures will drop, Kish is staying optimistic.

“If it does freeze over, I guess it’s time to bust out the ice skates. We’ll make the most of it if we can,” he said.

Rot in PSBs Part 2: PNB, Nirav Modi, Vikram Kothari aren’t the first; India’s PSBs have long been beaten by frauds

The Rs 11,400-crore bank fraud in Punjab National Bank, that was perpetrated by billionaire Nirav Modi in collusion with a few bank employees, has once again brought governance practices in Public Sector Banks (PSBs) back to public debate. There are questions raised on the way these entries function. A political blame game is on. But the problems in this sector are far beyond one instance of fraud. After five decades of bank nationalisation, India's public sector banks face deeper structural problems ranging from poor management practices, ineffective risk-management  systems, vulnerability to a political-corporate nexus, large chunk of bad loans and lack of sufficient autonomy. Firstpost will publish a multi-part series that examines the serious structural problems that have engulfed India's state-run banks and the likely course of this industry, which constitutes 70 percent of India's banking sector assets. 

Warning bells ring

On 24 November, 2010, at around noon, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) called a press conference in Mumbai to make an important announcement. As the media waited eagerly for the finer details, the central agency announced the arrest of eight bank officials including the then chief executive officer (CEO) of LIC Housing Finance Ltd in Mumbai, a top officer of LIC and officials of Bank of India (BoI), Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB). During the course of the presser, the CBI claimed to have broken the back of a corporate loan racket, wherein bank officials allegedly took bribe from middlemen on behalf of companies to arrange loans to them that wouldn’t be given under normal course of credit operations.

As the details of the 'corporate loan scam' or 'bribe-for-loan scam' (as media the called it) unveiled, the then Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee warned banks then to take action against the bankers involved in the scam and put proper checks and balances to avoid the recurrence of such frauds. It is another thing entirely that the CBI could never follow up with a strong case in the court of law. But the big takeaway is that bankers never learned their lesson.

It's all about middlemen

The instances of fraudulent transactions and loan scams involving bank officials continued. This included both and big and small frauds — Citibank fraud, Bank of Baroda forex scam, Syndicate Bank fraud and several other lesser-known scams. In most instances, the victims were public sector banks and culprits their own officials. Most cash-for-loan scams happened through middlemen. "There are many advisory firms that arrange loans for companies from banks, offering bank officials kickbacks. Big firms don’t need them but mid-sized and small companies go after these middlemen to approach bankers," said a senior banker with experience of over 30 years, who didn’t wish to be named.

"The bribe for the banker may not be in the form of cash but other favours that aren't easy to detect in the event of an investigation," he continued. There were instances of bankers getting caught accepting even not-so-expensive watches or gold ornaments. "Some do it for money, some for relations and some for even flattery. If you think about it, it is so strange that sometimes the reasons for people falling for illegal activities are trivial," he added. Some bankers cite the relatively low wages offered by state-run banks to their officers in comparison with private and foreign counterparts as a motivating factor to commit fraud and take bribes.

Checks in place, but no one cares

Looking at PNB-like frauds, if someone thinks that there are no checks in place in the system, they are wrong. "There are checks but no one really cares," said another banker who too requested anonymity. He takes the example of the LoU (Letters of Undertakings) fraud in PNB. If a branch-level official does a transaction of this manner for a period of seven years, it can get caught at different levels if any of the checks in place triggered this illegal activity.

For instance, the SWIFT messaging platform that was used by the perpetrators in the PNB case is subjected to a daily check by the branch manager, which is compulsory in any bank. Even if one imagines that this part failed, the branch manager has to do a daily tally of income and expenditure in the branch while one of the officers (not involved in the transactions) combs through the books to look for suspicious transactions, the official said. "Besides these daily checks, the bank does concurrent audit which happens concurrently throughout the year. Such fraud should have reflected there," the official said. This apart, there are RBI and government representatives on the boards of large banks who are supposed to keep an eye on all transactions and ensure that nothing goes amiss.

"But, it appears that all of them were sleeping when a fraud was developing," said the second banker. That apart, given the tremendous pressure on bankers to generate business, top-level officers often turn a blind eye to illegal business activities.

The art of acting too late

It's not just about fraud, but also about wrong credit decisions and the art of acting too late. Banks continued to support Kingfisher despite fully knowing that things were not looking good financially. Lenders offered to restructure Vijay Mallya's loan after realising that they had already thrown good money after bad. In March 2012, Kingfisher halted its international operations to Europe and Asian countries and cut down local flights to 110 to 125 a day with a fleet of 20 planes (down from from 340 flights earlier) to save money. By October 2012, the bird flapped its wings for the last time. Since then, it hasn’t seen the skies.

Kingfisher, once the second-largest airline in India, had little chances of resuming its operations since the necessary regulatory approvals were not in sight and its balance sheet was bleeding. The company's losses had expanded to Rs 2,142 crore for its fiscal fourth quarter ending in March 2013, compared with a net loss of Rs 1,150 crore a year earlier. The accumulated losses as of March 2013 stood at a whopping Rs 16,023 crore.

IND vs SA LIVE CRICKET

MOUNTAIN SINABUNG (SUMATRA ISLAND"WEST INDONESIA) EROUPTION UPDATE

PVMBG reported, volcanic activity of Mount Sinabung is still very high. Caution Status. On Monday (19/2) from 06.00 - 12.00 WIB, there has been 1 earthquake of eruption with 607 seconds, 1 hot clouds of eruption, with 607 seconds duration, 10 feet of hot clouds with 195-792 seconds, 14 earthquakes , 5 earthquake gusts, 1 low frequency earthquake, and 5 times deep volcanic earthquake.

States where Americans pay the least (and most) in taxes.

In the U.S. federalist system, each state government decides how to generate revenue — that is, which taxes to collect, and how. No state tax code is identical and, largely as a result, what the average American pays annually in taxes varies from state to state.

24/7 Wall Street reviewed the tax burden of residents in each state — the portion of income that goes to state and local governments’ taxes — from the report, “Facts & Figures 2017: How Does Your State Compare?” provided by tax policy research organization Tax Foundation. These tax burdens do not include the federal taxes paid by all Americans, regardless of state.

Accordin to the report, tax burdens in the 2012 tax season were as low as 6.5% in Alaska and as high as 12.7% in New York.

In addition to federal, state, and local taxes, Americans pay taxes to other states. Out-of-state visitors pay sales taxes as tourists, investors pay capital gains taxes on investments in other states, and drivers filling up at gas stations in other states pay those states’ excise taxes. For this reason, the tax burden is not always a perfect reflection of taxes collected.

Essential Phone Halo Gray Variant Launched, Comes With Amazon Alexa Assistant Built-In

HIGHLIGHTS

• The new variant is now available for pre-order via Amazon.com
• It will go on sale on February 21
• It ships with Amazon Alexa built-in

Essential Products, the makers of the 

Essential Phone, on Friday announced the

 launch of new variant of smartphone - 

Halo Gray. Earlier this week, Essential Phone

 got three new colour variants - Copper Black,

 Ocean Depths, and Stellar Gray. While the Halo

 Gray variant looks very similar to Stellar, there

 is one big difference between the phones. 

The newest Halo Gray variant comes with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant built-in, 

and costs less.

"In case three new Essential Phone colours weren't enough, today we're unveiling Halo Gray, 

the first Essential Phone to come with Alexa built-in. Halo Gray is available for 

pre-order exclusively from Amazon starting today," the company announced on Twitter.

As detailed by Essential, the new Halo Gray variant is now available for pre-orders via 

Amazon.com, and will go on sale from February 21. While the new colour variants - 

Copper Black, Ocean Depths, and Stellar Gray - all cost $599 (roughly Rs. 38,500), 

and the new Halo Gray version with Amazon Alexa built-in is being sold at j

ust $449.99 (roughly Rs. 28,900). The older colour variants, Black Moon and Pure 

White, both cost $499 (roughly Rs. 32,100) on the Essential Products site, but Amazon 

has listed them at $449.99.

All six colour variants of the Essential Phone PH-1 come unlocked and have identical

 specifications. Essential has sold less than 90,000 units of its debut handset in the six

 months following launch, IDC reported earlier this month.

The Essential Phone features an edge-to-edge display and a modular system that lets users

 attach accessories such as a 360-degree camera. Coming to the specifications, the Essential

 Phone sports a 5.7-inch edge-to-edge QHD (1312x2560 pixels) display with 19:10 aspect ratio

 and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. It is powered by the 64-bit Snapdragon 835 octa-core

 (2.45GHz Quad + 1.9GHz Quad) processor with Adreno 540 GPU and 4GB RAM. Internal 

storage option is at 128GB.

There's a 13-megapixel dual camera setup at the back with RGB and monochrome 

capabilities in each lens, with hybrid autofocus, phase detect, IR Laser Assist Focus, 

and 4K video support. At the front there is an 8-megapixel selfie sensor with f/2.2 aperture,

 16:9 aspect ratio, and 4K video support here as well. The battery is at 3040mAh with fast 

charging support. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Bluetooth v5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac,

 NFC, GPS, USB Type-C port, Nano-SIM support, and GLONASS. The dimensions of the 

Essential Phone are at 141.5x72.2x7.8mm, and the smartphone weighs less than 185 grams.

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Essential Phone

• KEY SPECS
• NEWS

Display

5.71-inch

Processor

1.9GHz octa-core

Front Camera

8-megapixel

Resolution

1312x2560 pixels

RAM

4GB

OS

Android

Storage

128GB

Rear Camera

13-megapixel

Battery Capacity

3040mAh

Redmi Note 5 Pro first impressions: At Rs 13,999 this is Xiaomi’s new ‘All-Rounder’

Xiaomi Redmi Note series is back with the Redmi Note 5 being unveiled in the Indian market for a starting price of Rs 9,999. However, Redmi Note 5 is not the only device that the company is introducing; a new Redmi Note 5 Pro smartphone and the Mi LED TV 4 in 55-inches size with the company’s own PatchWall OS are also launching in India.

The Redmi Note 5 Pro is the first smartphone launching with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor. The original Redmi Note 5 series continues with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, which we also saw on the Redmi Note 4 from last year. The Pro variant sports a bigger 18:9 display which is 5.99-inches in size, a dual camera at the back, which is aligned horizontally and might remind some of the IPhone X. The front camera is 20MP on the Redmi Note 5 Pro and also has a selfie LED flash. There’s also a 6GB RAM variant as in the Pro series.

It would be fair to call the Redmi Note 5 Pro as the more beefed up variant of the Redmi Note 5 with a higher pricing as well. Redmi Note 5 Pro will cost Rs 13,999 for the 4GB RAM and 64GB variant, while the 6GB RAM and 64GB variant is priced at Rs 16,999. Redmi Note 5 Pro will go on sale on Flipkart from February 22. We’ve had the chance to use the Redmi Note 5 Pro for a few days ahead of the launch and here’s our detailed first impression so far.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro Design, Display

Redmi Note 5 Pro sticks with metal unibody design that has become common on Xiaomi phones, but this time there is a big change. The display is 5.99-inches, but with an 18:9 aspect ratio and the buttons are now in-screen and not on the bottom bezel as was the case with the previous phones. This is not entirely a bezel-less display and you can see them on the sides, though they are very thin. On the top, there’s also the 20MP selfie camera with a flash along with IR blaster.

The fingerprint sensor remains at the back and this one still has a hybrid dual-SIM slot. Xiaomi has not gone for a dedicated dual SIM and microSD slot like we saw in the Redmi Y1 series. The dual rear camera is tucked away on one corner of the phone and it juts out quite prominently. The rear camera specification is 12MP+5MP for the Redmi Note 5 Pro.

This might be the Pro variant, but Xiaomi still sticking with the older micro-USB port. There’s also no fasting charging on this phone, though it has a 4000 mAh battery. The headphone jack and a single speaker are also placed at the bottom of the phone. Overall, the build quality of the Redmi Note 5 Pro feels premium and using this with one hand is not a problem. But, this is a bulky phone and not light given that it sports a 4000 mAh battery on board.

"Love is life on a higher plain of existence, working through man to unite the forces of nature into a perfect whole. It is the merging force binding every element in existence into a perfect whole."

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Life

The definition of life is controversial. The current definition is that organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce.