MIUI 9 Global ROM for India announced, Xiaomi says it's as fast as stock Android

"People have this perception that stock Android is a lot faster - with better performance - kithan MIUI. That was true three years ago. But, now it's not. We measure it in our lab tests. Now MIUI performance is about the same -- as stock Android -- if not better," a Xiaomi spokesperson said while speaking exclusively with India Today Tech, a day ahead of announcing the MIUI 9 Global ROM for India. "With MIUI 9, we've finally reached at par with stock Android. But we still want to do better," the spokesperson added.

Update: Even as the company announced the new phones, it has also launched two new Redmi phones under Y series. The launch of the new phones was also made at the same event where Xiaomi unveiled the MIUI 9. The two phones are called the Y1 Lite and the Y1 and they will be going on sale from November 8 in the Indian market. The Y1 Lite and the Y1 are targeted towards youngsters who look for a big screen and better selfie experience, says Xiaomi. The Y1 Lite will cost Rs 6,999 in India. The Y1 -- which is a more powerful version of the Y1 Lite -- will sell for Rs 8,999 (for the 3GB RAM and 32GB storage variant). The Y1 with 4GB RAM 64GB storage will sell for Rs 10,999. In a way, the Redmi Y1 and the Redmi Y1 Lite look like rebranded versions of the Redmi Note 5A Prime and the Redmi Note 5A that were launched in China recently.


Xiaomi has always been more than vocal about the fact that "we don't update a phone just to change an Android version number. But, actually it has to make the phone better." Take the newly announced MIUI 9 update for instance. Rolled out in beta globally on August 11, with a stable version launching this Friday (November 3) for the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2, the MIUI 9 update is said to offer explosively fast app launch times on the back of "optimised haptic feedback, intelligent CPU acceleration and optimised thread scheduling."

MIUI 9 is as fast as stock Android: Xiaomi
"I've seen some reviews where people say that this device has worse hardware than a better equipped Redmi device, but because it has stock Android, it's faster: that's objectively not true," the spokesperson reiterated.

Xiaomi measures this in two ways. The first is by comparing app launch times. "We compared it with Samsung, and found we're faster than TouchWiz. We also did a comparison of Redmi Note 4 with the Mi A1 because basically they're the same hardware: one on MIUI 9 and another on stock Android. In terms of app launch times, we found it's about the same."
Rolled out in beta globally on August 11, with a stable version launching this Friday (November 3) for the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2, the MIUI 9 update is said to offer explosively fast app launch times
Xiaomi's second 'objective' test involves measuring lags - on a phone -- over a long period of time - for users to notice -- with both first party and third party apps. "We're faster than TouchWiz and when you compare stock Android with MIUI 9, over the course of 6 hours, the Mi A1 had about 86.5 seconds of accumulated lag, for the Redmi Note 4 it was about 90 seconds," the spokesperson said adding that three years of performance improvements later, MIUI is now at par with stock Android, if not better.

Xiaomi's custom ROM, aka MIUI, although it offers a seamless experience across the board, is known for some heavy skinning on top of Android, something that hard-core geeks don't really appreciate. Also, because there's third-party skinning involved -- and because Xiaomi likes to update each and every device in its portfolio more or less on similar lines -- the fact that users have to wait longer for updates, doesn't go down well with many. That besides the fact that the company is known to kill some key Android features just so it can maintain uniformity across its devices is a subject of much debate. The MIUI 9 update is a little different.

Feature-wise MIUI 9 is at par with stock Android: Xiaomi
Xiaomi is touting three key features -- in addition to fast app launch times -- that set the MIUI 9 apart from its predecessor, the MIUI 8:

-- Universal search: a powerful search engine on a Xiaomi phone that can differentiate your image like you do by typing in keywords.

-- Dynamic resource allocation: to allocate priority to in-use apps to let you enjoy a fluent experience, on basis of critical thinking algorithm.

-- Smart assistant: the easiest way to find anything and almost everything at your will.

MIUI 9 has a ton of features on top of Android, according to Xiaomi. "I think if you were to complain about feature differences between MIUI and stock Android, the biggest thing that people complain about is notifications. So in MIUI 9, the notifications are basically the same as stock Android. We support multiple styles of notifications including bundled notifications from an app, quick reply, and one-finger swipe to expand."

"It may be designed MIUI-like, but feature wise it's on par with stock Android," the spokesperson asserted.
The biggest respite for users of something as gigantic as the Mi Mix 2 perhaps will be the addition of split-screen multitasking. A split screen multitasking feature will indeed make a lot of sense on a 6.44-inch phablet. Question is why the feature wasn't available in the Mi Max 2 out-of-the-box in the first place because one of the headlining features of Android Nougat is split-screen multi-tasking. Still, the Xiaomi phone running Android Nougat-based software didn't ship with the feature out-of-the-box. Xiaomi, on its part, said the feature wasn't ready for prime-time back then. It is now.

"We've added split-screen to every device with MIUI 9 on Android N and above. It's the same split screen API from stock Android. We made one slight improvement where if you want to switch the app that's on the bottom to the top, you'll just have to double tap the bar in the middle: which makes it a little easier to use."

Xiaomi has also added a few other interesting nuggets in MIUI 9, some backed by artificial intelligence. "We've added a smart photo editor using on-device AI that lets you hide people in the background of a photo that you've clicked. It gives you the power of Photoshop on your phone. Obviously, if you were to spend hours in Photoshop, it would be of higher quality but on a phone screen really you won't be able to tell the difference. It's like giving people hundreds of dollars worth of photo-editing software for free."

We update our phones more than anybody else: Xiaomi
All said and done, MIUI 9 is still based on Android Nougat and not Android Oreo. When Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 4 in India in January, the phone shipped with Android Marshmallow (based MIUI 8). In early August, the phone started receiving the Android 7.0 Nougat update (MIUI 8.5) alongside the July Android security patch. Interestingly, the Redmi Note 4 -- as per a Xiaomi listing -- isn't scheduled to get Android 7.1 although it will be updated to MIUI 9. If Xiaomi's listing is to be gone by, chances are the Redmi Note 4 may be stuck with Android 7.0 for the rest of its life. To expect an Android Oreo upgrade from it would be wishful thinking.

MIUI 9 has a ton of features on top of Android, according to Xiaomi

Just so you know, Xiaomi's phones are in no way inadequate -- or inferior -- in software standards to counterparts. It's just that Xiaomi operates in a slightly different manner. Xiaomi doesn't toil with Android AOSP APIs. Rather, the company adds its own features on top of the AOSP. A lot of this happens at the ground level which is why -- for most users -- there would generally be very little visible difference between a Marshmallow-based MIUI and a Nougat-based MIUI.

A lot of this also happens without changing an Android version. It is the MIUI version that one would see changing at all times, and going by Xiaomi's history, the company is in the habit of changing that way too frequently. This also helps Xiaomi to keep updating all its phones no matter the release window.

"Some people complain about updates with MIUI. But actually we update our phones more than anybody else. MIUI 9 is coming to the Mi 2 which was launched in 2012. In terms of security, you might have heard of the WPA 2 Wi-Fi issue: it's a minor issue but we are going to put the fix to it on almost all our devices with MIUI 9 including the Mi 2. The same isn't true for all Google devices," the spokesperson said.

Having said that, there's still an audience, and a sizable one at that that would still take Android Nougat over Marshmallow and it would want it as quickly as possible. Even Xiaomi is aware of the fact, which is why it launched the Mi A1 in India recently. Not only will the Mi A1 pack in the latest and greatest in Android at all times, it will also be the closest thing next to what a certain Google Pixel has to offer at the end of the day: unadulterated software.

The Mi A1, for your reference, runs stock Android 7.1.2 Nougat out-of-the-box and will be updated to the recently announced Android Oreo by the end of this year, Xiaomi has confirmed. Xiaomi (and Google), in fact, have gone so far as to say that the Mi A1 will also be getting Android P -- or whatever Google decides to call the Android O successor -- when it launches later next year.

As for folks who fancy MIUI, the MIU 9 stable version will be rolled out on Friday (November 3) to the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2. MIUI 9 stable version for the rest of the eligible Xiaomi phones will be rolled out by the end of this month.

In all, MIUI 9 will be rolling out to the following Xiaomi smartphones:

Mi MIX 2, Mi Note 3, Mi 6, Mi Max 2, Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 4X, Redmi Note 5A, Redmi 4, Redmi 4X, Redmi Y1, Redmi Y1 Lite, Mi MIX, Mi Note 2, Mi 5, Mi 5s, Mi 5s Plus, Mi Max, Mi Max Prime, Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3, Redmi 3S, Redmi 3S Prime, Redmi 4, Redmi 4A, Mi Note, Mi 4i, Redmi 2, Redmi 2 Prime, Redmi Note 4G Prime, Redmi Note 2, Mi 4, Redmi Note 4G, Mi 3, Mi 2.

Divi’s Labs shares up 21% as USFDA set to lift import alert on Visakhapatnam unit

Mumbai

“Divi’s Laboratories has been informed by the US FDA that it will be lifting the import alert 66-40 and moving to close out the warning letter issued to the company’s unit-II at Visakhapatnam,” the Hyderabad-based company said in a stock exchange filing.

Shares of the company jumped 21.3% on the news. At 9:20am, the stock was up 19.3% at Rs1,097.60 on the BSE, while benchmark Sensex index was up 0.1% at 33,631.61 points.

“This is positive for the company as it eliminates the downside risks on earnings,” brokerage firm Edelweiss Securities said in a note.

: Divi’s Laboratories Ltd on Thursday said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will lift the import alert issued in March on unit-II of its Visakhapatnam plant, paving way for the company to fully resume exports to the US market.


In March, the US drug regulator had issued an import alert under clauses 99-32 and 66-40 to the company’s unit following an inspection between 29 November and 6 December 2016.



Import alert under clause 99-32 was lifted by the USFDA in July.

According to details on the USFDA’s website, import alert 99-32 is issued when a firm refuses an FDA inspection of its facility, while import alert 66-40 is issued to companies that do not comply with good manufacturing practices.

When the import alert was issued in March, the US drug regulator had exempted 10 drugs from the ban to avoid any shortages in the market.

North America accounts for 30-33% of the revenue of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and intermediates manufacturing company and the import ban had negatively impacted its earnings.

In the six months ended September, Divi’s Labs revenue fell to Rs1,711.40 crore from Rs2,022.62 crore a year ago, while net profit declined to Rs383.32 from Rs525.66 crore.

From repealing 'Diversity Visa' to calling for death penalty, everything Donald Trump said since Manhattan attacks

Donald Trump isn't very good at crisis management. Unfortunately for him, his short presidency has already seen several of these including the North Korea nuclear missile threat, the Las Vegas shooting, Hurricane Harvey, etc. His response to them have usually been of the knee-jerk variety, causing many to raise fresh doubts about his capabilities as president.

On Wednesday, after a man in a rented pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists in Manhattan, killing eight and injuring 11, Trump announced a slew of measures addressing the issue. They are as following:

Repeal of 'Diversity Visa' programme

Trump urged the swift repeal of an immigration programme that brought many, including the New York attack suspect Sayfullo Saipov, to the US. Saipov had migrated to the US from Uzbekistan in 2010 after winning a lottery enabling him to do so.

The programme, established by Congress and coordinated by the state department, has its roots in efforts to bring more Irish and Italian immigrants into the US. Citizens of countries that send relatively few immigrants to the US can enter a lottery that grants winners permanent US residency. Applicants must have at least a high school education or its equivalent, or relevant work experience.

But on Wednesday, Trump said he would ask Congress to "immediately" initiate efforts to kill the programme, and the Republican House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, who has long called for an end to Diversity Visas', said in a statement that they pose "a threat to the safety of our citizens".

The White House was forced to walk back some of his comments, stressing that he was not taking executive action but looking to Congress to change decades-old laws. "We're going to continue pushing for and advocating for getting rid of this programme," Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Extreme vetting

Trump also ordered tighter scrutiny checks for immigrants, even tougher than what currently exists as part of "extreme vetting".

But the White House offered no indication of what new steps the president might be planning. "We have to get much tougher, much smarter, and less politically correct," Trump said.

He also said the US justice system for dealing with such cases must be strengthened, declaring, "What we have right now is a joke and it's a laughing stock." Again, there was no elaboration from the White House.

The extreme vetting process, as it stands today, took off from an executive order titled 'Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States'. However, it did not stop with the initial ban (which was blocked by the courts) on travel of citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.

Tourists from the UK and other countries visiting the US could also be forced to reveal mobile phone contacts, social media passwords and financial data under extreme vetting practices considered by the Trump administration, The Wall Street Journal reported. These tourists could also face questions over their ideology.

The measures might include visitors from the 38 countries — the UK, France, Australia and Japan, among them — which participate in a visa waiver programme, which requires adherence to strict American standards in data sharing, passport control and other factors, the report quoted an official as saying.

Amazon's Bezos May Be World's Richest But He's Far From Most Generous

Even with more than $90 billion to his name, Jeff Bezos has yet to make a major philanthropic mark, but with the new mantle of the world's richest, the pressure on Bezos to give will only grow.


Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos may have surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to be the richest person in the world, but there's one title he isn't likely to claim: world's most generous.

Even with more than $90 billion to his name, Bezos has yet to make a major philanthropic mark, but with the new mantle of the world's richest, the pressure on Bezos to give will only grow. Nonprofits and other foundations are desperate to see what he'll do, says giving consultant and researcher Amy Schiller. "Bezos has probably had philanthropy in his mental cart for a while," she says, "and kept clicking 'save for later.'"

As Gates built Microsoft, he also faced increasing pressure from the public -- and even his own parents -- to give more. When his mother prodded him one night, Gates snapped back, "I'm just trying to run my company!" the Wall Street Journal reported in 2009. Gates didn't fully throw himself into philanthropy until he stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in 2000, but since then he's helped build the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation into the largest foundation in the country. A representative said Gates was unavailable to comment.

"Jeff is probably not quite ready to step down yet, but this is a guy who, like Bill, is fixated on changing the world in really important ways," says Ed Lazowska, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, who has solicited donations from Bezos. "It's a full-time job. You have to imagine he will be every bit as philanthropic as Gates. Nobody has any right to make demands, and they have to give the guy time." Amazon declined to comment.

Some tech founders have made large charitable commitments while still running large businesses. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin; and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, have all signed on to the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away the majority of their wealth. The group was started by Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

Making a major commitment takes humility and years of research to go down the right path, so for someone as work-obsessed as Bezos, "you'd really want to have a trusted partner or set of partners around you," says Jeff Raikes, a former Microsoft executive who ran the Gates Foundation for almost six years. He says Melinda Gates and ex-Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer ran the Gates Foundation while Bill was still devoted to Microsoft, and Raikes says his wife, Tricia, took the lead when he was still working full-time and they decided to put $100 million into their own foundation, which they now run together.

Much of the known personal giving associated with Bezos so far has been driven by his parents, Mike and Jackie Bezos. He sits on the board of the childhood-education focused Bezos Family Foundation, which his parents run. As of 2015, his parents had donated more than $68 million of Amazon stock to the foundation, tax filings show. Bezos had given about $6 million in stock to the foundation. Separately, the Bezos family has given $65 million over a decade to Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which does cutting-edge work on cancer cures. "My parents rock," Bezos tweeted when the latest gift was announced.

If Bezos makes a major personal philanthropic push, it's unclear what causes would capture his interest. "His giving so far is not meaningful in terms of a direction," says R. Joe Ottinger, CEO of iInnovate Leadership Network in Seattle, who has written about giving from tech executives. Bezos' personal donations have included $1 million to Code.org, which aims to have all schools teach computer science; support of Worldreader, a nonprofit founded by a former Amazon executive to use e-readers to promote literacy in the developing word; and $10 million to Seattle's Museum of History & Industry. Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, donated $15 million to their alma mater, Princeton University, for neuroscience research, and they also gave $2.5 million to a political action committee in support of legalizing gay marriage in Washington in 2012.

As for Amazon, after years of being largely MIA as a corporate donor in Seattle, the company has stepped up its giving, mostly around the growing inequality in the city, which some activists and politicians have partly blamed on Amazon. Last year the retailer let the nonprofit Mary's Place use an old Travelodge hotel the company owned as a temporary homeless shelter before Amazon would tear down the building for office space, and Bezos personally gave $1 million to the organization. In May, Amazon announced plans to build a permanent homeless shelter for Mary's Place in a new office building under construction. In June, Amazon also said it would give new food-prep and service space in future Amazon buildings and up to $1 million to FareStart, a nonprofit that runs restaurants and catering to train disadvantaged workers for jobs in the food-service industry.

In late 2013, the company started AmazonSmile to donate a portion of sales to nonprofits that customers choose. The AmazonSmile Foundation gave away about $13 million in 2015, the last year tax records are available. And it's supported the computer science department at the University of Washington with two endowed million-dollar faculty chairs for professors and $10 million for the university's new Computer Science & Engineering building.

"If you look at what they have done for the University of Washington and the recent homelessness investment when Seattle has had a serious problem with homelessness, Jeff was involved all the way," says UW's Lazowska. When Lazowska's department was recruiting machine-learning experts Carlos Guestrin and Emily Fox, he emailed Bezos for help to endow professorships to lure them. Lazowska says within 30 minutes of his email, Bezos responded and began the process to hook up Amazon funding, and Bezos also personally met with the two computer scientists to help win them over.

Aside from running Amazon, Bezos is devoting attention and money to BlueOrigin, his for-profit space-exploration company. In April, Bezos said he sells about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund the venture. "I believe it's incredibly important that we humans go out into space and the primary reason, if you think long-term about this, is we need to do that to preserve the earth," he told Charlie Rose last year. The goal is long-term, to put it mildly. "What I want to do with Blue Origin is build heavy-lifting infrastructure that lowers the cost of access to space so that the next generation of entrepreneurs can have a dynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space," he said. "That is how we will move all heavy industry into space and then ultimately Earth can be effectively zoned residential and light industrial." Bezos also owns The Washington Post.

Bezos appears to be searching for direction to give more personally. In June, he tweeted out what he called "a request for ideas," asking for suggestions on how he should approach philanthropy. He said because he spends so much time thinking about the long term, he's interested in funding projects to help people in the "here and now... at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact." He cited Amazon's giving to Mary's Place as an inspiration for this approach. In late August, he followed up with a tweet thanking those who responded, saying they had already changed his thinking about his approach. "More to come," Bezos wrote. Raikes, who says he considers Bezos a friend, wrote to Bezos offering to talk through how to think about philanthropy. "If you're too short-term-oriented, you can make the problem worse" by not addressing systemic causes, Raikes says. "If it's near-term investments that help transform the system, then I think that's good."

There's one other adjustment Bezos may need to make. Amazon has a reputation for an aggressive work environment, which can be at odds with the mission-driven motivation that lures people to philanthropy. Raikes says, "Some of the ways in which you manage and lead people in this sector have to be different."

WhatsApp Feature to Delete Sent Messages Now Available for All: How to Get It

HIGHLIGHTS
WhatsApp Delete for Everyone rolled out globally
The feature available across Android, iOS, and Windows Phones
Both the sender and recipient should run latest WhatsApp version
WhatsApp 'Delete for Everyone' feature that allows users to delete sent messages is now rolling out to all users, a week after it trickled out to select users of the app. The feature lets people call back messages sent on individual chats as well as WhatsApp groups, and is available across different platforms, such as Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. One of the biggest use cases of the Delete for Everyone feature can be when you send a message to the wrong chat or if the message sent contains a mistake. It is the latest feature added to WhatsApp in a long list of features introduced this year, and is biggest change to the chat app since blue ticks.

The Facebook-owned service confirms messages that have been successfully deleted for everyone will be replaced with "This message was deleted" in your recipients' chats. Similarly, if you see "This message was deleted" in a chat, it means that the sender deleted their message for everyone.

How to get WhatsApp 'Delete for Everyone' feature, and how it works

Make sure you the latest version of WhatsApp is downloaded on your phone. The recipient must also have the latest version installed for the Delete for Everyone feature to work.
Select the message(s) you want to delete
Tap the delete/ trash icon on the screen
Now the dialogue box will show the new option Delete for Everyone
Once you hit the Delete for Everyone dialogue box, the sent message will be replaced with "You deleted this message". Also, remember that the feature will not work if the other person is not on the latest version of WhatsApp; in this case, recipients may see the message before it's deleted or if deletion was not successful.

WhatsApp says that the feature will be applicable only if the user is quick enough. The company explains that users can only delete messages for everyone for up to seven minutes after sending. This means that once seven minutes have passed, there is no way to delete messages for everyone.

Apart from 'Delete for Everyone', WhatsApp has renamed the regular delete option, calling it Delete for Me. This, as before, allows users to delete the message they've sent or received from the device. However, this will have no effect on the recipients' chats. This feature will not change anything on the recipients end and they can continue seeing the messages in their chat screen.

To delete messages for yourself, users can head to the chat containing the message they wish to delete and tap and hold the message to delete multiple messages at once. In this case, users will have to use tap Delete (the trash icon) at the top of the screen, and then select Delete for Me.

New York Attack Suspect, 29, Reportedly Drove For Uber

Story Highlights
8 dead after man races pickup truck down a New York bike path
Suspect moved to US seven years ago from Uzbekistan
He was shot by a cop while attempting to flee minutes after attack
New York: The man accused of killing eight people by racing a pickup truck down a New York City bike path on Tuesday may have worked as a driver and lived in New Jersey after emigrating from Uzbekistan seven years ago, according to authorities and media reports.

Few other details about the 29-year-old suspect have emerged since the Tuesday afternoon vehicle rampage in lower Manhattan, blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the landmark World Trade Center Twin Towers.

 ,Police have declined to identify the man but a source familiar with the investigation identified him as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov and said he was not a US citizen. His immigration status was not immediately clear.

Saipov was shot by a police officer while attempting to flee minutes after the attack and was whisked away to a local hospital, where he was recovering from an abdominal wound.

With authorities saying they believe the attack was a "terrorist event," the lack of disclosure may reflect the nature of the investigation, which is still in its earliest stage.

According to CNN and other media outlets, the suspect shouted "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for "God is greatest", after leaping from his truck, which had crashed into a school bus as he sped away from the carnage.

He also left behind a note claiming he carried out the deadly assault in the name of the ISIS militant group, according to reports that Reuters could not immediately confirm.

Federal officials had become aware of Saipov while conducting an unrelated investigation, the New York Times reported, citing three unidentified officials. The Times offered no further details about the nature of the investigation, when it was conducted, or its outcome.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declined to comment on that report when asked by reporters at a news conference. "It is too early to give you a definitive answer," he said.

"HE LIKED THE US"

Saipov, born in February 1988, moved to the United States seven years ago from Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country that was once part of the Soviet Union. He appears to have lived in Ohio, Florida and New Jersey since then.

An Uzbek immigrant who met Saipov in Florida several years ago told the Times that Saipov worked as a truck driver there but began driving for Uber when he moved to New Jersey.

"He was a very good person when I knew him," Kobiljon Matkarov told the newspaper. "He liked the US He seemed very lucky and all the time he was happy and talking like everything is O.K. He did not seem like a terrorist, but I did not know him from the inside."

The Times, citing sources, reported that Saipov had been living in Paterson, New Jersey, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of the scene of the attack. He rented the truck used in the attack from a Home Depot in nearby Passaic, just south of Paterson, it said.

Police cordoned off an area of Paterson, a one-time industrial hub known for its large immigrant population, early Wednesday morning. About 25,000 to 30,000 Muslims live in the city, giving it one of the highest concentrations of Muslim people in the New York City area.

Saipov has a history of traffic violations, according to  media reports and court records.

In one incident, he was pulled over in central Pennsylvania for pulling a truck trailer that was longer than permitted by law and "operating unsafe equipment", as well as driving with the wrong operators license, state judicial records show.

Saipov listed both Paterson and Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, as his addresses. He paid his fine by mail and did not have to appear in court.

Hit A Button On Your Phone, And A Chinese Youth Gets A Job: Rahul Gandhi

.,tory Highlights
India jumps 30 places, is No 100 on Ease of Doing Business List
Index prepared by World Bank which praises reforms by PM Modi
Only handful on industrialists find business easy: Rahul Gandhi


 The morning after India was recognised for vast self-improvement making it an easier place to do business, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that "it is just a handful of businessmen who have found the going easier" as he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of encouraging crony capitalism and failing to create jobs.

Mr Gandhi's criticism was made at a public meeting in Gujarat, where he is leading his party's campaign for December's election in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state. He reiterated his criticism of the new national sales tax or GST, reminding his audience in Jambusar, "I have called it the Gabbar Singh Tax". Gabbar Singh is one of India's best-known fictional villains from the blockbuster movie "Sholay".


 Yesterday, the World Bank said that India has improved its ranking by 30 places and is 100th out of 190 countries for doing business. Mr Gandhi said that the PM and his administration are congratulating themselves over an assessment by "foreigners and not by our poor."

"Ask small traders about ease of doing business," he said, alleging that GST and demonetisation - described by him in an earlier speech as "twin torpedos" - have sunk entrepreneurs into losses.

India was ranked 142 for ease of doing business during PM Modi's first year in office in 2014. He has declared a target to place India among top 50 and in the last two years has attracted record foreign direct investment. The new ranking of 100 "indicates India's endeavour to further strengthen its position as a preferred place to do business globally," Annette Dixon, World Bank vice-president for South Asia, said at a media conference in New Delhi.

India's economic growth slid to a three-year low of 5.7% in the last quarter, the result in part of PM Modi's sudden ban of high-denomination notes a year ago and this July's hurried rollout of the GST.

The World Bank rankings didn't take into account impact of demonetisation and the goods and services tax, reported Bloomberg.

The BJP has governed Gujarat for 22 years and its campaign is being fronted by PM Modi, who in his speeches emphasizes that GST and the notes ban are key structural reforms that will increase transparency, reduce prices through increased competition, and further economic growth while checking black money and corruption.

The "transitory" disruptive effects of both reforms are over and India's economic growth will see a " sizable turnaround" when September quarter numbers are out next month, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg said in an interview recently to Bloomberg.

65% of Gujarat's' population is younger than 35, so concerns over unemployment run high and this election has been overtaken by a tug-of-war between different castes demanding affirmative action policies that would entitle them to government jobs and seats in state-run colleges.

Mr Gandhi said that in comparison to China, where "50,000 jobs are provided by the government for the youth every day, in India, only 450 people get jobs every 24 hours". This, he alleged, exhibits the failure of the PM's "Make In India" initiative to promote manufacturing.

"Just take you phones and see the back... does it say 'Made in India'? No. It says 'Made in China'. Every time you click a button on your phone, a youth in China is getting a job," he said.

Gujarat votes on December 9 and 14; results will be counted on December 18