Commuters use their mobile phones as they wait at a bus stop with an advertisement of Reliance Industries' Jio telecoms unit, in Mumbai, India. Shailesh Andrade/Reuters
Commuters use their mobile phones as they wait at a bus stop with an advertisement of Reliance Industries' Jio telecoms unit, in Mumbai, India. Shailesh Andrade/Reuters

Court acquits Indian former minister over huge telecoms scandal



A lower court in New Delhi acquitted the former Indian telecommunications minister Andimuthu Raja on charges of corruption and cheating in the sale of 122 airwaves licences in 2008 that derailed the then Manmohan Singh-led government.

Justice OP Saini said investigators could not prove that Mr Raja along with some officials from companies that won the licences for telecom services had conspired to receive kickbacks from the sale of phone permits, causing a loss to the government. Reliance ADA Group officials - Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara - and two promoters of DB Realty, Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka were also let off by the court. The charges against Essar Group promoters, Anshuman and Ravi Ruia, were also scrapped.

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With eight states going to polls in the coming year, the verdict is seen as a blow to the prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has won a series of elections since 2014, capitalising on corruption charges against the previous Congress-led government. Federal investigators alleged the sale had caused a loss of US$4.8 billion while the auditor had pegged the figure at about $31bn.

The telecom scandal had led to India’s top court cancelling 122 licences sold to companies, including the local joint ventures of Norway’s Telenor and Russia’s AFK Sistema. The 2008 sale was flawed and influenced by those with money power, the court had said in 2012.

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

Company%20profile
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Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

Mountain%20Boy
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How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
  • The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
  • The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
  • The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
  • The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
  • The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Emergency

Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry 

Rating: 2/5

UAE squad

Humaira Tasneem (c), Chamani Senevirathne (vc), Subha Srinivasan, NIsha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Esha Oza, Ishani Senevirathne, Heena Hotchandani, Keveesha Kumari, Judith Cleetus, Chavi Bhatt, Namita D’Souza.

The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

A MINECRAFT MOVIE

Director: Jared Hess

Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa

Rating: 3/5

Buy farm-fresh food

The UAE is stepping up its game when it comes to platforms for local farms to show off and sell their produce.

In Dubai, visit Emirati Farmers Souq at The Pointe every Saturday from 8am to 2pm, which has produce from Al Ammar Farm, Omar Al Katri Farm, Hikarivege Vegetables, Rashed Farms and Al Khaleej Honey Trading, among others. 

In Sharjah, the Aljada residential community will launch a new outdoor farmers’ market every Friday starting this weekend. Manbat will be held from 3pm to 8pm, and will host 30 farmers, local home-grown entrepreneurs and food stalls from the teams behind Badia Farms; Emirates Hydroponics Farms; Modern Organic Farm; Revolution Real; Astraea Farms; and Al Khaleej Food. 

In Abu Dhabi, order farm produce from Food Crowd, an online grocery platform that supplies fresh and organic ingredients directly from farms such as Emirates Bio Farm, TFC, Armela Farms and mother company Al Dahra. 

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
Key findings
  • Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
  • Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase. 
  • People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”. 
  • Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better. 
  • But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
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