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  New Delhi, Dec 24 (IASN) Short video app Chingari, one the few TikTok rivals, on Friday announced that it has crossed 107 million downloads on Google Playstore. Chingari had recently tied up with multiple platforms for unique entertainment and engagement collaborations, which includes association with celeb-based apps, digital content providers and video-sharing platforms in Indian languages. 'We launched Chingari with a concept of being unique in terms of a short-video sharing platform. It has constantly pushed us to go beyond the best. Chingari as a brand has now truly arrived with this present success on the charts. For us, this is just the beginning of bigger achievements,' Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder & CEO of Chingari App, said in a statement. Read More

  A rare bonhomie among three private telecom companies in raising tariffs coming on the back of a bailout package by the government may have helped the telecom sector avert a crisis but the challenges haven't ceased to exist as the industry faces a cash-guzzling task of rolling out 5G networks in the coming months. The sector that provides direct and indirect employment to millions is projected to see Rs 1.3 lakh crore to Rs 2.3 lakh crore of investments in the coming years in creating robust infrastructure and building telecom and network products that have been incentivised by the government through PLI and other initiatives. After years of cut-throat competition and the apex court ruling on payment of past statutory dues left some players in the lurch, billionaire Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel and struggling Vodafone Idea almost in tandem raised tariffs, taking the plunge they had long been talking about. Read Full Article Here

  Thailand halted its quarantine-free entry program after less than two months, citing concerns about the potential spread of the omicron variant by arriving tourists. The Covid-19 panel chaired by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha suspended approval of visitors for quarantine-free entry from Tuesday to Jan. 4 amid rising imported cases of the strain. The Covid panel will reassess the policy on Jan. 4, said Deputy Prime Minister Supattanapong Punmeechaow. Tourism-dependent Thailand waived the requirement for more than 60 jurisdictions last month provided travelers were fully vaccinated and had negative tests for the virus both before and immediately after arrival in the country. Click Here

  Filmmaker Kabir Khan 's much-awaited cricket drama "83", headlined by actor Ranveer Singh , has been declared tax free in Delhi, the makers announced on Tuesday. The film chronicles India's win under Kapil Dev's captainship, when the team defeated West Indies in the final to clinch their first-ever World Cup trophy in 1983. Presented by Reliance Entertainment and Phantom Films, "83" will arrive in cinema halls on December 24 in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Shibasish Sarkar, Group CEO, Reliance Entertainment, took to Twitter and thanked Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for the decision. Read More

  Amazon India on Wednesday said that over 10 lakh sellers are now selling on its e-commerce platform from across India. The company had started in India in 2013 with 100 sellers and has today grown to be the preferred online destination for sellers across India. Notably, more than 90 per cent of the sellers on Amazon are small and medium local businesses (SMBs) and over half of these sellers on the marketplace come from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Since January 2020, more than 4.5 lakh new sellers have joined Amazon and over one lakh of these new sellers are local offline retailers & neighbourhood stores that have onboarded the Amazon marketplace through the 'Local Shops on Amazon' program. Click Here

  Meta-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is reportedly now allowing a few users to post longer videos up to 60 seconds on Stories. "As noted by an Instagram Stories user in Turkey, the social networks app is now notifying a few users about the change," 9To5Mac reported on Wednesday. Currently, if a user records or uploads a video longer than 15 seconds, it automatically gets split into multiple different Stories, the report said. However, with this new change, users will be able to post videos to Stories that are up to 60 seconds long without having to split them, it added. As per the report, the photo-sharing platform is also testing a revamped interface for posting Stories that will make it easier to mention other accounts or add a location to a post. Read More

  India Test captain Virat Kohli on Wednesday asserted that he will play in the upcoming ODI series in South Africa , putting to rest speculations about his availability and his equation with newly-appointed white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma. "I was and I am available for selection all the time. I never communicated with BCCI asking for rest. I am available for the ODI series in South Africa, and was always available," Kohli said during the pre-departure press conference before the tour of South Africa. Over the last two days, speculation has been rife that not all is well between Kohli and Rohit, who will not play the Tests due to an hamstring injury. Click Here

  To offer a personalised choice for consumers, Taiwanese tech giant ASUS Laptops on Tuesday launched new laptops under ProArt series in India starting at Rs 74,990. Along with the flagship ProArt StudioBook 16 OLED, ASUS has unveiled a series of VivoBook across AMD/ Intel and 14inch/ 16inch variant -- VivoBook Pro 14 and VivoBook Pro 15 OLED, VivoBook Pro 14X OLED, and VivoBook Pro 16X OLED. "The recent times have proven to be a catalyst in driving new trends in the industry and has motivated the creators' fraternity to opt for specialized machines that cater to their specialized requirement," Arnold Su, Business Head, Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group, ASUS India "At ASUS, we strive to be the pioneer whenever there is an opportunity for introducing new technology, and the launch of our ProArt series is a step towards bringing something special for the creators' community," Su added. Read Full Article Here

  Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has joined pre-owned car retailing platform Spinny as a strategic investor and lead brand endorser, the company said in a release on Tuesday. Spinny, however, did not disclose the amount of investment by Tendulkar in the company. Spinny recently became a Unicorn with the closing of a USD 283 million Series-E round of funding, which took the total capital raised by the platform to more than 530 million and giving it a valuation of USD 1.8 billion. Spinny has partnered with Indian sporting legend Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin is a strategic investor in the company, as well as lead brand endorser, the company said in a release. Read More

  Did you miss the presence of Bollywood celebrities at Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif's intimate wedding? Don't worry. The newlyweds are all set to hold a grand reception in Mumbai next week, and you can expect your favourite stars to grace the event. Katrina Kaif Vicky Kaushal Wedding As per a source, Vicky and Katrina will throw the party for the film fraternity in the upcoming days and will resume work after concluding all wedding festivities.   The two, who tied the knot at Six Senses Fort Barwara in Sawai Madhopur yesterday, were spotted boarding a helicopter to Jaipur airport on Friday morning. Read Full Article Here

  Encrypted messaging app Telegram has started rolling out its latest monthly update for Android and iOS devices, adding numerous new features for users. Some significant features include protected content in groups and channels, deleting messages by date, log in via calls, and many others. "The new Protected Content feature will help creators protect the content they publish on Telegram and ensure that it is available only for their intended audience. In order to provide complete control to users over their digital footprint, the Delete by Date feature will enable them to easily find and delete date specific chats from the history," the company said in a statement. Click Here

  Cupertino based tech giant Apple is reportedly planning to launch three new Apple Watch models next year. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the 2022 Apple Watch lineup will include the Apple Watch Series 8, the second-generation Apple Watch SE, and a new "extreme sports" version, reports MacRumors. The Apple Watch SE 2 will be in line with the original SE model that was launched in the year 2020. The original Apple Watch SE 2 features designs similar to the regular Apple Watch models , but lacks some of the advanced features, such as always-on display, blood oxygen sensor, and ECG functionality. Read More

  South Africa is preparing its hospitals for more admissions, as the Omicron coronavirus variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of COVID-19 cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday. Omicron was first detected in southern Africa last month and has triggered global alarm as governments fear another surge in infections. South Africa's daily infections surged last week to more than 16,000 on Friday from roughly 2,300 on Monday. Ramaphosa said in a weekly newsletter that Omicron appeared to be dominating new cases in most of the country's nine provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Read More

  In 2015, services contributed a shade over 10 per cent to Apple’s total global revenue. Today it accounts for a fifth of the company’s total revenue. While cloud services are a significant component of this growth, Apple has also delivered a better user experience by expanding its foray into apple music and TV. Apple has been able to capitalise on its loyal customer base to expand its service potential and is now finding users outside its ecosystem too. This is also the reason that most Apple events are now as much about services as products. Earlier this year, the company launched additional features to its existing apps like Music and Apple TV . Two years ago, the company had launched a single subscription option for families, bundling all subscriptions and making it easier and cheaper to access Music, Cloud, Arcade and Apple TV+ subscriptions. Click Here

  Bounce, the Bengaluru-based smart mobility solution company, reinforced its commitment to support India’s EV (electric vehicle) potential by unveiling its first consumer electric scooter , the Bounce Infinity E1. The Bounce Infinity E1 will be offered with a unique ‘Battery as a service’ option – the first of its kind in the Indian market. The scooter with battery and charger is Rs 68,999 (Delhi Ex-showroom) and the price for Scooters with Battery-as-a-Service is priced at Rs 45,099 (Delhi Ex-Showroom) plus subscription to Battery-as-a-Service. Customers can pre-book this smart scooter by paying a minimal amount of Rs 499 which is totally refundable. Bounce Infinity E1 scooters are FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle ) II eligible. “I strongly believe in the potential of electric vehicles in India – it is with this vision that we launched our in-house EV mobility solutions in June 2019,” said Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO and co-founder of Bounce. 

  Parag Agarwal , the new Indian-origin CEO of Twitter replacing Jack Dorsey, was trolled on Tuesday on his own platform for an 11-year-old tweet that carried racist remarks. In 2010, when he was not even an employee of Twitter , Agrawal quoted a comedian mocking racism and Islamophobia in America. "If they are not gonna make a distinction between Muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists," Agrawal said in the tweet posted on October 26, 2010. Questioning this, Republican Ken Buck, who represents Colorado's Fourth Congressional District, asked how users could trust Twitter's new CEO to treat everyone equally. Click Here

  Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will run the ' Rampath Yatra ' train on December 25 which will start from Gujarat connecting Madhya Pradesh to reach Ayodhya, informed Krishna Kumar Singh, Regional Manager of IRCTC on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference in Indore on Tuesday, Singh said, "The 640-seater train will start from Sabarmati station in Gujarat and reach Ayodhya the next day via Ratlam, Ujjain." Describing the journey to Ayodhya, the IRCTC Regional Manager said that devotees will be taken by road to Nandigram, Varanasi, Prayagraj and Chitrakoot from December 27. "The journey will take seven nights and eight days in which 320 seats will be in 3AC and 320 seats in sleeper coaches. IRCTC will make all the arrangements for food, accommodation of devotees etc for which Rs 12,600 will be charged for 3AC and Rs 7,560 will be charged for sleeper coaches via online booking," he said. Read More