Greenland saw a staggering melt of its ice sheet in July amid an unrelenting heat wave, producing enough water to cover all of Florida by several inches, researchers said Friday. 

The semi-autonomous Danish territory, which has 82% of its surface covered in ice, lost 197 billion metric tons of ice in July, Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), tweeted Friday. 

That’s about four times the 60-70 billion metric tons the DMI would normally expect to lose in July, Mottram added. 

The melt comes as the record-setting heat wave in Europe moved over the Arctic island, forming a dome of warmth over the world’s second-largest ice sheet.

Martin Stendel, another DMI researcher, noted that the melt from just the last two days of July amounts to the equivalent of nearly 5 inches of water covering the entire state of Florida. 

Mark Serreze, the director of the Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, told The Associated Press that this year marks the island’s second-biggest melt area since 1981, when researchers started keeping such records. 2012 still has the record with nearly 90% of the island’s ice affected, but there’s still a month left in Greenland’s 2019 melt season. 

Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization issued a firm statement about this melt’s significance.

“This is not science fiction,” he said. “It is the reality of climate change. It is happening now and it will worsen in the future without urgent climate action.”

In some instances, the melt has resulted in powerful rushes of water, offering a tangible look at the forces behind sea-level rise. Laurie Garrett, a journalist and author covering global health threats, shared shocking footage of one of those water flows on Twitter.

The reports out of Greenland coincide with news from Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service that July was either the globe’s hottest month on record or tied with July 2016 for that title. The group expects to have a formal report on the month’s temperature available Monday.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said at a press briefing Thursday that he expects 2015 to 2019 will be the five hottest years on record.

“If we do not take action on climate change now, these extreme weather events are just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “And that iceberg is also rapidly melting.”

LAUDERHILL — Captain Virat Kohli on Saturday described fast bowler Navdeep Saini as a raw talent who has a bright future after he made an impressive India debut in the four wicket win over West Indies in the first T20 International.

The 26-year-old Saini claimed three wickets for 17 runs to help India restrict the West Indies to 95 for 9 after being put to bat. India then chased down the target with 2.4 overs to spare for a 4-wicket win.

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“Yeah, Navdeep is from Delhi and he has come a long way. He plays the IPL as well and had a great season,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

“He is a raw talent, has raw pace. He is one of them who can bowl 150 clicks and there are hardly any who bowl at that pace and he is fit. He is someone who can build a name for himself and he is hungry as well. Hopefully he builds on from here,” he added.

Kohli conceded that his side would have loved to chase down the target in a better way but said that the wicket made it difficult.

“Our bowling and fielding were right up there but the pitch wasn’t great. With the rain around, you could not do much. They did well to start the game on time.

“The bowlers were on top throughout, variations were superb. We would have liked to chase it four down, but we wanted to take risks and take the scoreboard moving. As the ball got older, strike rotation became key,” the Indian captain said.

Asked about the second T20I to be played on Sunday at the same venue, Kohli said, “It’s just about putting in solid performance and ensure the guys who play contribute in some way or the other.”

West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite said his side did not assess the conditions well. He praised Keiron Pollard who top-scored with a 49 to take West Indies near the 100-run mark.

“Kudos to Kieron coming back into the team. He showed his experience. Had we made 130, it would have been a different game. We batted ourselves out of the game,” he added.

“We have to play positively. The message will continue to be to keep intent, but we need to have better shot selection and awareness. Sunil Narine’s four overs very important. He showed his experience and brought us back into the game. It was a great bowling effort.”

When you will have made him a body without organs, 

then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions 

and restored him to his true freedom.

-Antonin Artaud, To Have Done with the Judgment of God (1947)

Recently, I read a news report about Jayalakshmi from Villupuram, whose husband Kumar had gone missing in 2016. Last month, they found him on TikTok. In the video, a woman in a blue nightie sits behind him on a bike, singing the popular Tamizh song Otha Roobayun Tharen from the film Nattupura Pattu. Her hair is flying in the wind as she joyfully lip syncs the lyrics, “un sotthu sugam venda yen buddhi ketta maama… un manja thaali pothum” (‘I don’t need your property or wealth, my crazy man. Just being your wife will do’). As she sings the lines “yen buddhi ketta maama”, she pulls him posessively by the hair to face the camera and proudly shows off her yellow thaali at the end.

The report identified her as his trans woman lover and ended with the assurance that the police have “counselled” Kumar and sent him back to his wife. The trans woman was unnamed, their love reduced to a throwaway line. In this world, love that is illegitimate must sacrifice itself for a marriage that is legally bound. But imagine a world that allowed Jayalakshmi to move on and explore her desires unburdened by a loveless social contract (with Kumar paying for the education and expenses of their two kids) and where the trans woman lover is free to devour Kumar like a spicy curry kolambu. Like Sai Pallavi and Dhanush in the super-hit Tamizh song Rowdy Baby, they would dance recklessly, moonwalking away in slow motion from all the bullshit of this world.

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When I was 12, there was a Tamizh girl who worked in the house opposite ours in Thrissur. She remains unnamed. I remember speeding past that house on my way back from school, hoping she wouldn’t see me in my school uniform. I needed her to see me as a boy she could desire. Not as a boy forced to wear a skirt that he willed into being a lungi. 

Every weekend, I would watch Tamizh films on Sun TV just so I could speak to her. Nobody at home could understand why I suddenly started furiously banging on our old, stubborn Videocon TV to move past all the Malayalam channels. After all, in the 90s, which Malayali in their right mind would change the channel just as Mohanlal was hitching up his lungi, getting ready to beat up the bad guys?

Then, one day, the Tamizh girl disappeared from the house without a trace, before I managed to say a single word to her. What is it about the words we never say that hurt us so badly? Maybe she is on TikTok, dancing with her lover somewhere. 

Throughout my school days, like Kiran who was asked to write love letters to Delilah for Rajan in Sancharam, I ghost-wrote and delivered letters to the beautiful Syrian Christian girls in school. But unlike Kiran and Delilah, my love remained unrequited and I learnt to brace for rejection even before desire could be expressed. What is it about the words that were never said to us that hurt us so badly?

When I was a teenager, Yahoo chat rooms opened up a door to being whoever I wanted to be, to express desire anonymously. I don’t remember the details of those early explorations, just that they seemed momentarily liberating. When I read this beautiful piece on discovering desire through internet porn by my friend Nadika (who has since found the Linda of her dreams), I felt I was reading about myself, although the only porn I watched when I was young was a CD mistakenly given to me by a boy in school who used to share music with me.

I was 18 years old when I was rejected by a co-ed college and accepted into an all girl’s college. I cried till my eyes were puffy. I had been hoping that I would find a boy and have a crush on him but now I knew, surrounded by girls, that there was no way I could run. That was the beginning of my serial monogamy days. I would move into the cramped hostel rooms of my lovers every year, hungry to be desired. Finally I had a word to express who I was. Lesbian. It didn’t feel right but it would do. At least it was simple. 

It was when I moved from a small town in Kerala to the polluted, big city of Delhi, that I found air I could breathe. A few months later, I was outed to my whole family by my brother, who sent an email to them about my live-in relationship with a girl. I sobbed on the phone as I told amma, “I like girls”. She calmly replied, “Why are you crying? Ah well, I always thought your brother was the gay one”.

I was consoling a senior from college about a fight she had on the phone with her boyfriend. She was sobbing and I was holding her close, stroking her hair. Maybe she felt safe, maybe she felt desire. That was my first kiss. I still believe the desire was for me and not, in some displaced sense, for her long-distance boyfriend. After all, ourrelationship lasted over a year. It doesn’t matter, because the thrill of the first time another tongue snaked its way into my thirsty mouth can be only matched by the erotic shock of having the barber at Kut and Kalor stick his finger into my ear during a minty, Navratna oil massage. 

I learnt to seduce, to pursue, to stalk, just about enough to not be creepy and liberally used my letter-writing skills perfected from my time as a ghost writer in school. Most of the women I was with were heterosexual. I was the crooked anomaly in their straightness. Maybe I was part of it and they saw something that I hadn’t recognised in myself yet. Post my transition, I learnt to wait to be pursued. I was wary of emulating the stubborn pursuit of uninterested women by macho heroes in cinema. I was too cool to chase. And too feminist to push. I must admit that I have been lucky in love and feel affirmed in ways that I am grateful for.

But I have still not learnt to take rejection well. Does anybody ever do it with grace?

Four years ago, I was in Brazil for a two-month political education course. Every Saturday night, there would be a party and comrades from all over the world—married, in relationships back home, single, literally everyone in the course—would go back with someone they found on the dance floor. By then, I had freed my body enough to dance recklessly and do a mean kuthu to the beat of Latin American music. Most of the comrades there could not speak Portugese, but they would brag about how love has no language. Every time I would get hit on by a man or a woman, I would fumble for a language to explain the cryptic, invisible, glorious mess of my body. I would gesture in drunk conversations, “Mulher” before “O Homem” now. Maybe I should have been as confident as the Kut and Kalor barber and just surprised them.

I watched as the Mexican girl I had a crush on rejected me and went out with a gorgeous Latin American boy. She had told me, “I am sorry, I like you as a friend but I am married”. It had been a few years since my last rejection. I sulked in the corner, wanting to blame it on her transphobia or normativity. His skin was not as dark as mine, and his face was framed by the halo of a tightly curled Afro. His hips were slender and he made music (the techno kind that millennials love). And as if all that wasn’t seductive enough, he rrrolled his Rs sexily in a way that sounded so exotic. I could understand why she chose him. But was still annoyed that her marital vows were strong enough to reject me but too fickle in the face of his beauty.

Often, when I feel rejected, I fantasise about women and gay twinks objectifying my body, like Rani Mukerji lusts after Prithviraj in Aiyyaa, except instead of his chiselled six-pack, they pine for my scarred chest and latest Thor-like beer belly.

Does full consent mean you disclose details of your body beforehand? Will casual sex encounters without this conversation become violent?  Do people who are not trans worry about this? In many states in North America, the “gay or trans panic” defence has been used in acquittal of crimes including murder, the claim being that the revelation of the gay or trans status of the victim caused a diminished capacity to think, or provoked the perpetrator. The Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2018 is still pending in the Senate and the House of Representatives. In India, most crimes against trans people, if at all they are registered, are not investigated or tried in courts. No defenses required.

Desire is not devoid of power just as power is not devoid of desire. We experience power and powerlessness even when consent is present. Of caste, race, gender, class, disability, age and sexuality. What or who we find desirable is mediated by how we accept, reject or confuse the codes of desirability handed down to us by “cool” clubs in school, movies, our families, friends etc. The normative is a myth, as our desires are more risky if we allowed ourselves the freedom to explore.

I cringe every time I read the half-man, half-woman descriptions of trans people in books, legal policies and judgements. We are more like cyborgs. Not just trans people but all of us. Donna Haraway in her Cyborg Manifesto (1985) describes a cyborg as a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” who is “resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity”.

My own desires changed when my relationship to my body and how I am perceived by the world changed. From lesbian to heterosexual trans man to queer trans man, I searched for labels until I didn’t anymore. I caught myself checking out the collar bones and ear lobes of men on buses. At first, I thought it was because I desired it on myself as I transitioned. Then I embraced my desire for what it is—desire that is too free to be fixed by sexual identities. Maybe I should’ve pursued the Latin American boy with the curls instead.

When I read Kafka’s Metamorphosis or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in college, I identified with the protagonists. I wish I had stumbled upon Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995) at that time. In the original story, a female companion was made for Frankenstein’s monster but destroyed by their creator, Victor Frankenstein, before completion. In Patchwork Girl, the female monster is completed by Mary Shelley herself and the author and her creation become lovers. The body of the female monster whose organs are derived from the graves of other women is illustrated through disjointed images. The patchwork girl becomes a queer cyborg in a sexual and romantic relationship with her creator. 

In this brilliant essay, Jack Halberstam says, “While the trans* body represents one particular challenge to ideas of physical coherence, all bodies pass through some version of building and unbuilding”. In other words, we are all patchworked into being. The coherence of all bodies is a sloppily constructed myth. 

In Testo Junkie, which I stumbled upon a few years after I began to take testosterone injections, Paul Preciado says, “My ambition is to convince you that you are like me. Tempted by the same chemical abuse. You have it in you: you think that you’re cis-females, but you take the Pill; or you think you’re cis-males, but you take Viagra; you’re normal, and you take Prozac or Paxil in the hope that something will free you from your problems of decreased vitality, and you’ve shot cortisone and cocaine, taken alcohol and Ritalin and codeine... You, you as well, you are the monster that testosterone is awakening in me.”

But unlike Preciado, my ambition is not to convince you that you are like me. 

I am writing for the gentle Ravanans demonised by others’ stories, the frogs who were kissed but remained frogs, the beasts who fall in love with beauties, the Rapunzels who shaved their heads.

I realise now how foolish it was of me to try and explain my body on Saturday night dance floors in Brazil. I like to think of bodies as ice cream melting on a hot Kerala summer afternoon, like the formless paintings of Francis Bacon. We must make no attempt to explain the illegibility and glorious hybridity of deviant, othered bodies. Even as we fumble our way through newly spun webs of desire. In the fumbling is the erotic. In the free falling of the incoherent assemblage of the body, the thrill. 

Now, on Saturday nights, I take off my penis, wash it and place it among my boxers, tighten the lungi around my waist with my intestines, throw my uterus against the wall to make a serpentine Pollockian painting and dance the night away. And it is perhaps because of this, that when my ex-endocrinologist (this was why we broke up) told me, “Be careful, after all we are messing with the body that God gave you,” that I threw my head back and laughed irreverently at her irrelevant creator.

Names changed.

The writer is an activist and artist based in Bangalore.

Ouch. 

“Patriot Act” host Hasan Minhaj appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and traded stories about embarrassing parents with the host. As it turns out, Minhaj’s dad is kinda savage in the best way. 

During the show, Minhaj recounted the time he stole the homework solution manual of his high school teacher and made copies of it to sell to other students. Unfortunately, someone ratted him out 

“What you have done: You have violated my trust, you have insulted the ethical standards of this school, and I should expel you right now. But I’m going to call your father instead,” he recounted his teacher as saying. Minhaj joked that he’d preferred to get expelled. 

When his father arrived, he defended his son by, well, shaming him. 
“‘My son did not do this,‘” Minhaj recalled his father saying. “Hasan is a coward. He doesn’t have the guts to pull this off.’”

The shaming seemed to have paid off because “I did graduate and here I am,” he said.  

NEW DELHI — Gautam Gambhir has yet again made a scathing attack on former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi and Chetan Chauhan for trying to block Navdeep Saini’s entry in the Delhi Ranji team after the fast bowler made an impressive debut for the country in the first T20 International against the West Indies. 

The 26-year-old Saini claimed three wickets for 17 runs to star in India’s four-wicket win against the Windies at Lauderhill in USA on Saturday. Former India opener Gambhir took the opportunity to take a dig at the two ex India players.

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“Kudos Navdeep Saini on ur India debut. U already have 2 wkts even before u have bowled-@BishanBedi & @ChetanChauhanCr. Their middle stumps are gone seeing debut of a player whose cricketing obituary they wrote even before he stepped on the field, shame!!!,” Gambhir tweeted.

Bedi and Chauhan were part of a faction of the Delhi and District Cricket Association members who did not approve of Gambhir’s move to bring in Haryana-born Saini in the Delhi Ranji Trophy team. They had questioned how an ‘outsider’ could get into the Delhi team.

This was not the first time Gambhir had taken a potshot at Bedi and Chauhan. He had done the same when Saini made it to India’s Test squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan last year. Saini, however, did not play in that Test.

Saini had said earlier that he owed his success to Gambhir and a few other senior Delhi players.

When Kolkata-based psychotherapist Mansi Poddar got a divorce in 2008, she sensed a sudden change in how people in her extended social circle interacted with her. For starters, many men, especially married men, assumed she was ‘available’ to have sex with them. And many women assumed she must have been at some kind of fault for her husband to have ‘left’ her. Which means she must be ready to ‘hit on’ their partners. 

“When I went through a divorce, I had both men and women judge me. God, it was terrible,” Poddar told HuffPost India.

Poddar managed to tide over the hurdles, but following her divorce, she realised why so many Indian women choose to suffer bad marriages instead of looking for a way out. Social stigma, Poddar told HuffPost India, is so pervasive even among the educated and affluent that economically independent women too often stay in physically and mentally abusive marriages.

According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), nearly 38% women in India have experienced spousal violence. And that is just the number of cases that women reported, there’s always a vast number of cases which never reach the police. Equally staggering is the number of women who choose to stay in abusive marriages, despite laws that protect them from marital violence.

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HuffPost India spoke to therapists to understand why Indian women, some of them economically independent, choose to stay in abusive marriages. 

Failure to recognise abuse

Narendra Kinger, Clinical Psychologist and Marriage Counsellor from Mumbai, remembers a distraught client whose husband simply refused to interact with her. He would not tell her what was going on at work, he never revealed his financial details and investments to her, they never spoke about important issues at home and work and at times, he simply refused to talk to her. The woman tried her best, she requested him, she complained and tried to start conversations. “But she was always rebuffed. Their sex life was miserable too,” Kinger said. Occasionally, when the woman pushed her husband, he shouted at her and at other times, ignored her. 

Initially their families supported her, but later, his family asked her to leave him alone citing ‘work pressure’. “The woman wanted to know her husband better, have a deeper connect with him, but he was not interested,” he said. 

Often, Kinger explained, it is difficult for women and the people in her ecosystem to identify abuse, especially mental abuse. The fact that a man hasn’t manhandled his wife is cited as reason enough to stick around in a marriage. 

And in cases of physical abuse, a large number of Indian women tend to end up blaming themselves for somehow having done something wrong to have deserved the violence inflicted on themselves. At other times, they normalise it as regular male behaviour that must be put up with. Though relentless abuse leads to anxiety and depression, they hold themselves responsible for feeling this way.

“This happens mostly because we are not trained from an early age to understand what an abusive relationship is. Children in our country are not taught about conditions and situations that qualify as ‘abuse’. As we grow up and marry, women continue to bear it, while men carry on with their abusive behaviour,” says Kinger.

Seeing their mothers suffer

People often tend to follow and copy what as children, they have seen adults do. And more often than not, they tend to replicate their parents’ behaviour. 

“For example, if a son sees his father abusing his mother, there is a chance he sees that as acceptable behaviour and becomes an abuser himself. Similarly, if a daughter grows up seeing her mother mistreated and disrespected, she tends to normalise such behaviour,” says Kinger.

The occurrences of the mother being abused at home slowly become acceptable and normal. Therefore, when the daughter gets married and is subjected to similar toxic behaviour, she accepts the abuse and the abuser. In her world and as per her experiences, ill-treatment of the wife is not a valid reason for separation.

Lack of support from parents

Usually, a woman turns to her parents in times of crisis and it is no different when she realises she is in an abusive marriage. But when Indian parents refuse to support her emotionally or financially, it becomes almost impossible for the woman to come out of the marriage.

“I know of parents who refused to allow their daughters to stay with them despite knowing they are unhappy. ’Tumhari arthi sasuraal se uthegi (only your hearse will leave your husband’s house), they tell their daughters. This lack of empathy or support discourages Indian women to break free of abusive marriages,” says Poddar.

Limited chances of remarriage

Since the yardstick of how ‘successful’ a woman is in India is how ‘well’ she has married and has managed to conduct that relationship, women have to bear an unfair burden of suspicion following a divorce. Poddar remembers how on several occasions she was made to feel like she was ‘damaged goods’ after her divorce. “Remarriage seems like a fairytale. Sadly, even when they are in abusive relationships, Indian women continue to feel ‘something is better than nothing’,” says Poddar, who has remarried.

If a woman is in a second marriage that turns out to be abusive, the odds stacked against her are manifold in India. Kinger explains that at times, women develop a ‘phobic response’ to a second marriage after the first did not work out. “Families and friends insist it is difficult to find a partner after an unsuccessful marriage. This implies the woman has to spend the rest of her life alone,” he says.

Fear of social stigma

“If a marriage fails, we are quick to jump to conclusions and blame the woman for not having ‘adjusted to the situation’. Walking away from a marriage is viewed as a personal failure of the woman in our society,” says Kinger.

In the Indian context, society blames a woman for the failure of a marriage. The burden of making a marriage work also largely rests on her shoulders. The fear of being termed as a failure, or lacking in character or talents, stops women from coming out of abusive marriages. Not just that, the ‘failure’ of a woman to stay in a marriage is often traced to her upbringing and her family is dragged through the coals for a choice she has made. Women are conditioned to try for that to not happen, till it becomes unbearable.

At other times, women who want to be viewed as ‘successful’ avoid walking away from abusive marriages. 

Women themselves consider divorcees inferior 

“It is strange but true that even women with marital problems consider divorcees inferior. They don’t want to be like them! And so these women carry on with their lives and toxic marriages,” says Poddar.

Married women in India have an exalted status in society and are seen as ‘more beautiful, socially acceptable, appropriate, desirable’ while unmarried or separated women are not. The shame attached to divorce is so strong, that even women view divorcees lower in the social rank. The fear of becoming the single woman she once loathed, is often far greater than the fear of living in an abusive marriage. “I have firsthand experience. Women I knew became increasingly distrustful of me and my intentions after my divorce,” says Poddar.

Economic stability and children 

Economic dependence plays an important part for women to stay in an abusive relationship. Even though more and more women are getting educated and working, many are either not employed, or do not have a desire to work and be self sufficient. In some cases, they have had to give up their careers to bring up children making it very difficult for them to find suitable and well-paying jobs. 

“This could be an outcome of social conditioning, where they are brought up in traditional homes in which women are not encouraged or allowed to work, or from certain backgrounds where women are restricted to home. As a result their employability and economic independence is minimal and they have to depend on their male partner to survive,” says Kinger.

Often, Poddar says, women fear being a single parent, as after a divorce the day-to-day responsibilities of a child often rest with the woman. “It is due to several factors, like the lack of a strong support system, fear of criticism and inability to provide for the child. So, they continue to be in physically and emotionally abusive relationships for the sake of the child,” says Poddar.

Often, the burden of independence far outweighs the abuse Indian women suffer in their marriages. In their mind, they may magnify their abuse manifold if and when they leave the marriage, so they opt to stay in these toxic relationships.

The CBI is carrying out searches at multiple locations in connection with the Unnao rape survivor’s accident case, officials said Sunday, according to PTI.

While the details of searches have been withheld as the operation is going on, it is understood that 17 places are being searched, officials were quoted as saying by PTI.

Expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s premises are also being searched, reported NDTV.

The CBI had on Saturday questioned Sengar in Sitapur jail.

The rape survivor, who is on ventilator support, remains critical as she has developed pneumonia, doctors attending to her at a hospital said, reported PTI. Her lawyer has been taken off the ventilator, but he is still not out of danger.

(With PTI inputs)

Gaming and phones have always been comrades in arms. Right from the early days of Snake and basic versions of Minesweeper, if you had a phone, there was a fair chance that it had some sort of game on it.

In the mid 2000s there was even an effort by some brands to make phones dedicated for gaming (remember the Nokia N-Gage?), but that seed not germinate for a variety of reasons, ranging from game availability to prices to format issues.

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Cut to the present day, and thanks to the popularity of games like PUBG, Fortnite and the Asphalt series, gaming phones have returned to the marketplace, with a number of brands coming out with devices that they claim are designed to deliver a very good gaming experience.

So if you are looking to get a gaming edge on your phone, here are six phones that you can try out at different price points:

Asus ROG

Rs 69,999 onwards

Although people are already talking of the second ROG phone, if you are in the market for a gaming phone right now, the original ROG phone remains the frontrunner. ROG, incidentally, stands for Republic of Gamers, a range of gaming devices from Asus.

The term has now been extended to phones, and in best ROG tradition, the first phone to bear that branding looks like something designed for the gaming world, with a logo on the back that changes colours (you can even customise it). 

The design is edgy and a blend of metal and glass, with diamond cut highlights and copper detailing. It is not the smallest phone around and at 200 grammes is on the heavier side, but then it comes with some serious (if very slightly dated) hardware muscle—the display is 6.0 inch full HD+ AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate (which makes animations run more smoothly in supported games) and powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which might seem old now, but is actually the fastest version of that processor at 2.96 GHz, with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage.

And there are some dedicated gaming touches such as special sensors on the sides that give you special triggers while playing games in portrait and landscape mode (what Asus calls Air Triggers). 

There is an X-mode which frees up RAM for gaming, and  even a special cooling unit (which you will have to purchase separately) to keep temperatures low.

Top that up with a massive 4000mAh battery with support for Quick Charging and you will forgive the phone’s slightly ordinary cameras (12 and 8-megapixels at the back, 8-megapixels at the front).

Nubia Red Magic 3

Rs 35,999

A phone that has its own fans to keep it from heating up? The Nubia Red Magic 3 has those, emitting a slight humming sound that will warm the hearts of those who used notebooks a few years ago.

It comes with a large 6.65 inch AMOLED full HD+  displays with a 90 Hz refresh rate, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, and stereo speakers capable of some seriously good sound.

Of course, as this is a gaming phone, there are some gaming smarts in there, apart from those fans we mentioned—you have the option to replace the on-screen buttons of games with capacitive buttons near the top of the phone (what Nubia calls ’shoulder triggers).

It also has special gaming modes, to optimise use of RAM, and what’s more, comes with a large 5000mAh battery to keep it going for well over a day.

And all this is squeezed into a reasonably sleek looking metal frame which has a very distinct back, with the sides rising to meet in the centre in an almost triangular shape. Running right across the back is a luminous RGB strip, which can change colours depending on your needs. Cameras are not exactly the forte of this device either, although the single camera at the back is a 48 megapixel one, while on the front there is a 16 megapixel

Black Shark 2

Rs 39,999

The Black Shark 2 (review) is perhaps the most mainstream of the high-end gaming phone crowd in the market. This phone also uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, with special gaming modes, including a Ludicrous Mode that the company claims gives you the best gaming experience possible, and a special Shark Space gaming interface.

The device also has a pressure sensitive display, mimicking Apple’s 3D Touch to an extent, and very good front facing speakers as well as a special liquid cooling process that it says is similar to the one seen on notebooks.

Round that off with a 4000mAh battery and you have a gaming monster, although some would have preferred a larger display—the Black Shark 2’s 6.39 inch display is one of the smaller ones in this list, although it is an AMOLED full HD+ one.

However, it is its cleaner interface and the presence of two very good rear cameras (48 megapixel and 12 megapixel) that makes the Black Shark 2 the gaming phone that can appeal to even non-gamers.

Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro

Rs 27,999 onwards

Although the Redmi K20 Pro is not marketed as a gaming phone, it has the hardware you need at a price that many will find more acceptable than the “pure” gaming phones in this list.

There is a 6.39 inch AMOLED full HD+ display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and a minimum of 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. What not too many know however is that it comes with eight layer graphite cooling to keep it relatively cool during high stress gaming and that it even gives you the option to change the responsiveness of the display while playing certain games (yes, PUBG is one of them). 

A large 4000mAh battery, very good triple rear cameras (48 megapixel main, 13 megapixel ultrawide and 8 megapixel telephoto) round off the package for a phone that is perhaps the best option for mainstream power users who also want to be able to summon up some gaming muscle when needed.

Vivo Z1 Pro

Rs 14,999 onwards

The most pocket-friendly yet gaming-ready option we would recommend is the Vivo Z1 Pro. It comes with a 6.53-inch full HD+ display and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor, which seems modest when compared to the likes of the Snapdragon 845 and 855 that other gaming devices boast, although it does come with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage in the base model.

However, the fact that it is the official phone of the PUBG Mobile Club should give you an idea of its gaming prowess. It will not run games at the sort of blazing fast rates that the other devices in this list will, but it will run them smoothly enough, which when you consider its price tag, is a massive achievement.

There are no special controls and tweaks, although the phone does have Cooling Turbo and Game Turbo modes, and the presence of a large 5000mAh battery means that you can keep your game going for quite a while. The phone also comes with a triple rear camera arrangement, a punch hole notch and a very impressive 32 megapixel front facing camera.

Bonus

Apple iPhone XR

Rs 53,990

Although Apple has never positioned its phone as gaming devices, iOS has long seen a huge number of developers making premium games as the audience tends to be more willing to pay. And while Apple’s devices might not have the specs of the latest Android phones, they’re able to handle the same games.

The iPhone XR is perhaps the best option with a relatively low price tag and the A12 Bionic Chip, the same one that is there in the top-end iPhone XS and XS Max. Although the display is neither AMOLED nor full-HD, it still looks good, and the performance of the phone is top notch.

Add to that the impressive library of games on iOS and you’ve got a serious contender for a great gaming phone.

We’ve heard about how we should wash our bedding once a week and put our pants on a 60°C cycle (so we’re not left with a “pooey, bacteria-filled mess”). And now, dear reader, it’s time for the lowdown on towels.

Most people stick their bath towels in the wash once a week. But for some, they remain on the rail for much longer, accruing a musty stench. 

Before you panic, Professor Val Curtis, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, tells HuffPost UK there are “very few diseases” that are likely to be caused by reusing your own towel too many times. But what’s a good ballpark figure for how often we should wash them?

[Read More: You’ve (Probably) Been Washing Your Underwear Wrong Your Entire Life]

How Often Should We Wash Our Towels?

Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, previously told Time that a study he conducted revealed nearly 90% of bathroom towels were contaminated with coliform bacteria – organisms that can indicate the presence of disease-causing bacteria in water – and about 14% carried E. coli. Sounds gross, doesn’t it?

Dr Lisa Ackerley, aka The Hygiene Doctor, says the frequency of washing depends on the person using the bath towel. “I’m afraid there isn’t a hard and fast rule,” she says. “If someone is very good at cleaning themselves and leaves the towel looking clean, they could probably get away with several uses. But if they are not very good and the towel looks dirty afterwards, they might want to wash it after every use.”

People should never share bath towels, Dr Ackerley warns, especially if they have a gastrointestinal infection as this can spread the illness. Likewise, people who are sick should wash their towels more frequently – possibly even daily.

To keep your towel free of bacteria and mould growth – and keep it smelling nice – make sure you dry it by airing it after every use, advises Prof Curtis. She recommends washing bath towels “once a week, mostly for aesthetic reasons”.

When it comes to tea towels, Dr Ackerley recommends washing after two or three uses. A 2014 study looking at bacteria in tea towels found 89% were home to coliform bacteria and one quarter had E. coli. The presence of E. coli was related to the frequency of washing. 

If you have a busy household or lots of visitors, Dr Ackerley recommends changing the hand towel in your bathroom daily. If not, you can probably get away with washing less regularly.

And as for your gym hand towel, you should be washing that after every single use, she says: “Think of all the bacteria and dirt it will collect on the gym machines.”

What Temperature Should We Wash Towels On?

The NHS advises washing all towels at 60°C, or 40°C if you’re using a bleach-based laundry product, to prevent germs from spreading.

Dr Ackerley believes the hotter the wash, the better. “Towels should be washed at above 60°C to ensure that bacteria and fungi are killed,” she says. “I actually go for 90°C as some machines are not always accurate about their temperature achievement.” If you wash at 30°C, you won’t kill the bacteria and fungi, she warns.

But here’s a curveball we’ve mentioned before: if the environment is your top priority, Julian Kirby, plastics campaigner at Friends of the Earth, urges you to keep washing at a low temperature – it’ll reduce plastic pollution, save energy consumption and lower your bills. Guess this one’s up to you. 

One last point, from an aesthetic point of view (because we all want fluffy towels, not crisp bath sheets you can snap in half), The White Company recommends washing towels with your usual detergent, but not adding fabric conditioner, “as this can clog the loops and cause your towel to lose its softness over time”. Tumble-drying on a low setting is the best way to keep it super soft. 

NEW DELHI — Space agency ISRO on Sunday released the first set of pictures of the earth captured by Chandrayaan 2, the country’s second Moon mission launched a fortnight ago.

The pictures were captured by L 14 camera on board Chandrayaan II. The pictures show the earth in different hues.

“Earth as viewed by #Chandrayaan2 LI4 Camera on August 3, 2019 17:34 UT,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted along with the pictures.

Police in Dayton, Ohio, said on Sunday that they were investigating “an active shooter incident” in the city’s Oregon District. Members of the public were urged to stay away from the neighborhood.

Multiple people were shot in the Oregon District, a historic area with a vibrant bar and restaurant scene, earlier in the night, according to local media. Eyewitness videos appear to show people running through the streets as a rapid popping noise ― apparently gunfire ― disturbs the air.

Terrea Little, a spokeswoman at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton told HuffPost that the hospital was treating 16 victims from the shooting, though she provided no details on their conditions.

A spokeswoman at Kettering Health Network, which operates several Dayton area hospitals including Kettering Medical Center and Grandview Medical Center, said earlier that they were expecting and receiving victims from the shooting ― though she gave no indication of how many victims there were nor their conditions.

The Dayton Police Department is currently investigating the attack and seeking witnesses:

Two neighboring bars in the Oregon District ― Ned Peppers and Hole In The Wall ― penned matching notes on Facebook on Sunday. 

“All of our staff is safe and our hearts go out to everyone involved as we gather information,” the notes read. 

The attack in Dayton came hours after at least 20 people were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and less than a week after a gunman opened fire at a garlic festival in California, killing three people including two children. 

According to USA Today, the El Paso massacre marked the 250th mass shooting in the United States in 2019.

On Saturday evening, WDTN, the NBC affiliate in Dayton, posted an article about local law enforcement offering a class on “lifesaving techniques for mass shootings.”

″[You should] at least prepare yourself because if you’ve never thought about [a shooting] before it happens, once it happens it’s too late. You’re going to panic. You’re going to lose the precious seconds of timing that you need to escape,” John Davis, Centerville police’s community relations officer, told the station.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Step aside summer and winter reading lists, the monsoons are here. The rainy season is the best time to indulge in books, be it gearing up an audiobook to distract yourself in a traffic jam, a chunky read to cuddle up with, or poems to sip over lazy, moody, tea breaks. We asked some stalwarts of the Indian publishing industry for their monsoon recommendations, and came away with a list that has something to suit light drizzles, heavy showers and the will-it-rain-won’t-it days. 

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Shikha Malaviya, Publisher, The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective 

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, translated by Pritham Chakravarthy and edited by Rakesh Khanna, goes, oh so well with filter coffee, hot vadas and the sound of pouring rain. There’s murder, mischief, romance, horror and science fiction, and some badass women vying for the title of ultimate feminist. Despite these stories being over the top, there’s this outrageous authenticity replete with polyester veshtis and gold chains.

Arun Kolatkar’sCollected Poems in English, edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is my go-to book in any weather, but during the rains, I especially suggest reading the poem, Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda, which has the feel of a choir singing. Kolatkar captures life on an intersection in Mumbai with such acuity and verve, you feel you are there. His poems are smart, gritty, and undeniably Indian, buzzing with life!  

Bijal Vachharajani, Senior Editor, Pratham Books

Author Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris’s The Lost Words is a gorgeous book of spells and is the perfect size to hold, hug and read aloud. It’s a paean to nature words that are lost, slipping away from use by children and adults — whether it’s kingfisher, conker, otter or heron. There’s breathtaking spell-poetry accompanied by stunning artwork — words leap across the page, as birds flit in and out, and weave magic. 

The rains make me think of Mumbai, and Shabnam Minwalla’s Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street is a Bombay book that I constantly return to. It is about a bunch of children who use magic and their kid-power to protect the precious bimbli trees in their building, Cosy Castle. There’s a bit of activism, a dash of spell making, and generous doses of friendship and humour.  

Chiki Sarkar, Publisher, Juggernaut Books

I’ve been lying in bed reading the most gripping books this season with a single theme—spies. Daniel Silva’s The New Girlis about the geopolitics of Saudi Arabia, a character heavily inspired by MBS and a kidnapping that sends his life into a tailspin, as seen from the perspective of the brilliant Mossad chief, Gabriel Allon. I think of Silva as Hollywood-meets-John le Carre. 

The Spy and the Traitorby Ben Macintyre is better than most thriller films. I couldn’t sleep after I had finished it. It is a superbly told, stunningly researched account of one of 20th century’s longest running moles—a senior KGB officer who spied for decades for the MI6. You want to know how spies really work, and discover an unknown hero who shaped the Cold War, then this is the book for you. I was so blown away that I want to read all of Macintyre’s books now.

Karthika V. K, Publisher, Westland

I started reading City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert on a drizzly day on a flight out of Bangalore. It’s set in New York in the 1940s, a time when war is around the corner, yet for a young and beautiful woman, the world is still full of possibilities. The book offers a romp through the theatres and the nightlife of a city that was fast becoming the centre of the new world, and is perfect for a long weekend. It’s exuberant, fun and clever—just like the women whose stories fill its pages.

Then there’s Where the Rain Is Born: Writings About Kerala, edited by Anita Nair. It’s got some fabulous short fiction by Basheer, MT Vasudevan Nair, Paul Zacharia, Kamala Das and other greats translated from the Malayalam as well as fiction, essays and poems originally written in English. MT’s short story Karkitakam is one of my all-time favourites. You can go in and out of the collection  or read cover to cover, depending on how long the rain keeps you indoors. 

Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, Publisher, Blaft

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer is the novel equivalent of coming across quite by accident a beautifully hand-crafted switchblade knife — sleek, light, sharp and shiny. It was very Nigerian, dropping pidgin and Yoruba here and there, not bending over to explain anything, but still effortless to read for someone who’s never been to the country.

The Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older, set in New York City during the American Civil War, follows the lives of a bunch of black and brown orphans. And there are dinosaurs everywhere! It teaches history through fantasy. I read the book to my kid and we are looking forward to the sequel and hopefully a movie adaptation.

Trisha De Niyogi, Chief Operating Officer, Niyogi Books

I love the Yaksha & Yakshini in Kalidas’s Meghadutam, which is the finest example of sandeshkavya in Sanskrit literature. We are talking about the clouds over the ancient cities of Ujjain and Vidisha and a travelling husband who pines for his separated wife and composes verses, fantasizing that the clouds would carry them to her. The prism of romanticism in olden times still resonates with me today.

Manu S. Pillai’s The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin, with anecdotes about Maharajas, begums, courtesans, saints and soldiers, is best read in short bursts. With an undercurrent of subaltern studies, Pillai retells several characters who might not have been considered ‘historical enough’ and shows that the past can help with understanding the present, if the perspective remains modern. 

Urvashi Butalia, Founder, Zubaan

I’m reading Krishna Sobti’s last book,A Gujarat here, A Gujarat There simultaneously in Hindi and English, a rare pleasure. The play with memory, recall, language — at times almost elusive, so you kind of almost catch a thought slipping away from Sobti, and sometimes breathtaking in its pithiness. As I read it, I see and hear her, speaking, laughing, remembering; as a reading experience, it’s hard to match.

I recently made my first visit to Ladakh. In preparation, I picked up a book I’d long held on to, Beyond Lines of Control by Ravina Aggarwal. This sharp study takes into its ambit issues of cultural production, a manufactured nationalism, development, identity and gender. Elegantly written and very accessible, it’s the kind of book you can read on a rainy day as I did, sitting in the balcony of my hotel room in Leh.

Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO, Harper Collins India

Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain combines my love for dogs and motorsport. It is sensitive, funny and heart-wrenching, narrated by Enzo, a Labrador mix, about his love for his human-family. I’m a pet parent, and dread books that talk about loss , but this isn’t a sad read. Rather, it made me discover how to view the world and the people we spend our life with, and also, how to love. You’ll love this even if you aren’t a pet parent.

Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide has been a favourite since its publication 15 years ago. It is set in Sunderbans, a geography that is as mysterious as it is beautiful and Ghosh’s narrative tide sucks you in. It’s not just the right season to re-read this novel but the right time too. Climate change causing delayed monsoons and destructive floods is an ever-present danger today and needs more attention. 

Sayoni Basu, Primary Platypus, Duckbill

Rainy day books need to be fat and satisfying for extended sessions when one is stuck indoors, and wide-ranging enough in their canvas that one’s mind can wander far. One of my favourites is Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, because no book can be more fat and more satisfying than that. (I would recommend it for all seasons, but there is no denying it is particularly good in the monsoons!).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, because it is magnificent in its scope, and also because it rains and floods for “four years, eleven months, and two days” in the novel. 

Priya Kuriyan, Illustrator 

I was introduced to Arundhathi Subramaniam’s poetry during a particularly devastating Mumbai monsoon in my early twenties when I stumbled on her 5:46, Andheri Local in a newspaper. Having just moved to the city and experienced the endearing chaos of the ladies compartment in the local trains myself, the poem overwhelmed me. I pick up her collection When God is a Traveller quite often because there’s always one poem in it that resonates with my mood or reminds me of someone I’ve met in passing or makes me nostalgic. Her poems thrill with their ambiguity — in her own words, “poems matter because they have holes”. 

One of my all-time favourite graphic novels is The Arrivalby Shaun Tan. The lack of words and vivid, powerful images, filled with details, expose the gamut of feelings that the protagonist goes through; his initial bewilderment at moving to a new country with an alien culture, his isolation and ultimately the joy of being accepted. You’ll be tempted to stare at Tan’s art, for a long time —perfect accompaniment to coffee on a slow, rainy day.

V. Geetha, Editorial Director, Tara Books

A friend sent across this rather rare book, Endings by Abd al-Rahman Munif, translated from the Arabic by Roger Allen, recently. Set in an unnamed oasis, which faces an unprecedented drought, it features old and young who stave off fear and hunger by telling stories, intrepid hunters who fan out for prey to feed themselves and the poor, and sharp-tongued women who are quick to spot a lie. Reading the novel in waterless Chennai, I cherished evermore the elusive moisture-laden wind that sometimes came to stay.  

Drive your plow over the bones by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, with an unusual female protagonist, left me pensive, as novels revolving around time and seasons do. An elderly woman, mysterious and eccentric, is determined to resist the greed of those who would slaughter animals and maim the woods. Her sense of justice, quaint and startling, in a world that seems shabby and cynical moved me no end.

While it’s hard to imagine Meghan Markle as a mere mortal ― after all, she was an actress before joining the royal family ― it’s comforting to know she sometimes watches Bravo like the rest of us. 

The Duchess of Sussex does (or at least, did) have some guilty pleasures ― like watching reality TV, according to a recently resurfaced, rapid-fire video of the “Suits” actress answering questions with UKTV’s “Dave” show in 2016. 

The “Suits” star named the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” as her favorite guilty pleasure and said that the one person ― living or dead ― she’d most like to get a drink with was Anthony Bourdain. 

Meghan named “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein as the one book she couldn’t “wait to share” with her future kids and added that if her life were a children’s book, it would be called “The Glorious Adventures of Freckle-Faced Meg.” 

Freckles were an important part of Meghan’s latest venture, guest-editing the iconic September issue for British Vogue. Famed photographer Peter Lindbergh shot the cover and said that the duchess told him “I want to see freckles!” 

“Well, that was like running through open doors for me. I love freckles,” he said in a letter about putting together the 15-person cover, called “Forces for Change.” 

As you can see on the cover, British model and Gurlstalk co-founder Adwoa Aboah’s freckles are prominently featured prominently: 

Meghan has spoken about her desire to keep her freckles front and center in photo shoots and make sure that her makeup (or airbrushing) doesn’t cover them up. 

“To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot,” she said in a 2017 article in Allure. “For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger: ‘A face without freckles is a night without stars.’”

Naomi Watts’ upcoming role in the Game Of Thrones prequel is a dream role for millions around the world, who have followed the award-winning series since it began airing in 2011.

However, Naomi has admitted that she’s not among those who count themselves among its most loyal fans, revealing she only began watching the show when she heard about the role in the prequel.

“I didn’t start watching until I was approached about this job,” she confessed during an interview with Net-A-Porter’s online magazine PorterEdit.

“But my brother, who is heavily into it, told me, ‘Under no circumstances are you going to turn this down.’”

Game Of Thrones has gone on to make huge stars of its original cast members like Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke and Sophie Turner, with two-time Academy Award nominee Naomi admitting that the boost to her public profile thanks to being a part of the prequel is something she’s a little nervous about.

She said: “I still have fears about that. I don’t really know what to prepare for.”

Little is known about Naomi’s part in the currently-untitled Game Of Thrones prequel, other than she’s playing a female lead who is “hiding a dark secret”.

Joining her in the cast will beJohn Simm, Miranda Richardson and Jamie Campbell Bower, while Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin will serve as an executive producer.

Filming has already begun on the series, though an air date is yet to be revealed.

The eighth and final series of Game Of Thrones concluded in May, and while many fans were critical of the show’s last episodes, it did pick up a record-breaking 32 nominations at this year’s Emmys.

MUMBAI — The Maharashtra government on Sunday sought six more teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to tackle the situation arising out of heavy rains in Mumbai and its adjoining districts.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and its disaster management cell were fully prepared and monitoring the situation in the city and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said in a statement.

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“The state government is in touch with the NDRF, Army, Navy and other agencies also,” the CMO said.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is currently in Gondia as part of his ongoing ‘Maha Janadesh Yatra’, spoke to Public Works Department Minister Eknath Shinde and asked Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehtato oversee the relief measures, it said.

“The government has requested for six more NDRF teams for Mumbai, Thane and Palghar in view of the heavy rains. A request has been made to the Indian Air Force to airlift around 35 villagers stranded at Ju-Nandkhuri village in Thane,” the statement said. 

Meanwhile, when Fadnavis was asked during a press conference in Gondia about the rains in Mumbai, he said the problem of water-logging in the metropolis would be eased after all the eight water pumping stations are activated.

“Five (pumping stations) are ready and work is on for setting up three more. The state government is providing all assistance to the BMC,” he said.

BENGALURU, Karnataka—On July 29, Truecaller users updating to the latest version of the app got a rude shock when they found it was starting the process of  linking their bank accounts to Truecaller UPI without their consent or even properly informing them.

By Tuesday, enough people had noticed and raised a hue and cry online, after which the company said that the incident had been caused by a bug and immediately issued a fix. Affected accounts were fixed the same day, Truecaller noted.

The shocking incident also showed how few people actually know what Truecaller does. Many people we spoke to outside the tech industry still see Truecaller as a called ID and call blocking company.

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But Truecaller also runs ads on the popups it shows — for which it tracks your activities to show “relevant” advertising, and is rapidly morphing into a financial technology company tracks how your spend your money to eventually create and rank detailed financial profiles of users.

Earlier this year, Truecaller acquired MessAI, an offline credit scoring engine, which can be used for building a credit report and offering loans, while in June last year, the company acquired Chillr , an Indian payments start up that allowed users to transfer money, pay bills, or book flights.

Truecaller’s evolution from a free phone directory for the cellphone age into a payments and credit-scoring app — that evaluates your credit-worthiness by reading your SMSes — is emblematic of a broader shift in how the tech industry handles your data. 

Where companies like Google, Facebook and Truecaller once served advertisements in return for free services, these companies are looking to actively “monetise” their users by providing them with financial services.

The catch, of course, is that users are often unaware that their data is being gathered and could subsequently be used against them — in the form of either lower credit-ratings and higher interest rates on loans.

It also points to how individual cell-phone numbers are being increasingly “unique identifiers” linking everything from banking, to government service delivery, to social media and email accounts.

“The battle for privacy is pretty much over at this point. You can try, but ad-tech is so mature that you can’t hide anything anymore,” said a developer, who works for a company whose tracking SDK is bundled into the Truecaller app. “People get excited about microphone access, but it’s nothing compared to the kind of information you can extract from metadata.”

Phone book to phone snoop

Truecaller has long been seen as a company that doesn’t take the privacy of people seriously. Although Europe is supposed to be one of the regions with the greatest regard for user privacy, this Swedish firm is hoovering up all kinds of data when you install it on your phone. The iOS version of the app is significantly less useful than the Android version, so its usage is particularly high in countries like India (its largest market) where Android dominates.

Most people still believe that the way Truecaller creates its shared phonebook of contacts is to scrape the information from each users’ list of contacts, thus giving up your information even if you don’t use the app, as long as someone you know does. However, Truecaller stated that this is not the case. In a blog post, the company said that it uses phone directories, social networks, and also adds names when the “community suggests names through our website and apps.”

It also noted, “Truecaller does not upload phonebooks to make them searchable or public from Google Play or Apple App Store downloads. We follow Google Play and Apple App Store guidelines strictly, which prohibits any app from doing so.” However, before Google and Apple changed their guidelines, Truecaller did in fact upload your contacts.

“When we were allowed to upload phonebooks, this was never done without an explicit consent of the user and was an optional permission,” Manan Shah, Director Marketing — India, Truecaller, wrote to HuffPost India. “The app’s core features remained fully functional even if the user chose not to share their phonebook. We always have and will continue to abide by all regulations/policies and hence when the Play Store and App Store changed these policies, we complied with them.”

Privacy experts still advise caution around apps like this, as you could find your name and number listed on the app even if you’ve never used it.

“Truecaller is not new to controversy and privacy violations. The very structure of the base service rests on granting itself the permission to collect and share personal information about you that is not publicly available, even if you never signed up for the service and never agreed to their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy,” a statement from the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) noted.

“The app collects information from multiple users, and then shares that information with third parties, without consent from or even notice to users to whom that information pertains. Consent is taken from users that provide their address book to Truecaller, and not from users to whom that information pertains.”

Permissions include microphone, your device information, camera, location, photos, media, and files, sending and receiving text messages, all your contacts, Wi-Fi connections, and much more. 

“There are reasons for all these permissions, and many apps that are harmless are also using many similar permissions,” pointed out Saravanan K, a mobile security consultant in Bengaluru — which points to the larger worrying state of affairs.

Third-party trackers in Truecaller

Things get murkier as you consider Truecaller’s evolution from being an app that sits in everyone’s phone, gathering a huge swathe of data, into an ad platform and a financial services providers. When the Truecaller UPI linking incident took place, an Indian security researcher who goes by Nemo decided to analyze the app and found that it was filled with third-party tracking Software Development Kits (SDKs), essentially pieces of code from other companies that sit inside the Truecaller application and can be used to track users.

These include SDKs developed by MessAI which Truecaller acquired in April; and Walnut, an expense tracking app. Meanwhile Walnut was acquired by digital lending company Capital Float last year. The SDKs might be used to gather user data and build profiles without users knowing what’s going on.

With Walnut, he noted: “If you’ve ever received any SMS with any of these words, Walnut read it: salary, sal, credit, deposit, reimb, debit.” He also posted the complete list of trigger words for Walnut online here. 

Does this mean Walnut is reading any SMS in your inbox with the trigger words?

“I can’t say for sure. Without running a test with a running app, it is hard to be certain,” he said. “But there are still attack-vectors: I could register on an SMS Gateway and send SMSs to you that result in your score dropping.”

Walnut replied with the following statement from ‘Team Walnut’:

“The Walnut SDK is used independently by the Truecaller app as per their own privacy policies and controls. Walnut does not get access to any data unless a Truecaller customer consents to the data being shared. We have discontinued the SDK model and Truecaller will confirm on removal of the SDK as well as respond to any further queries on this topic.”

The company added that the SDK was “only a proof of concept,” which was discontinued on July 18. A vulnerability report on June 2 identified the Walnut SDK (com.daamitt.prime.sdk) as a potential vulnerability in the Truecaller app that could be used to tamper with the data.

Ad platforms like Inmobi and Facebook also had SDKs inside the Truecaller app. “Almost every app has ad-tech SDKs now,” Nemo said. Another researcher recently discovered that several music applications, including a Sai Baba bhajans app and an Ilaiyaraaja songs app, carried the SDK of CreditVidya, a credit ratings agency.

Although people were downloading apps to listen to songs and bhajans, each install of the apps meant that the company could start to build a detailed profile of users, with their phone number acting as a common identifier.

This was done without informing the users, and detailed profiles of millions of users were created to decide about people’s eligibility for loans.

Standard industry behaviour

Truecaller’s response made Nemo want to check what changes had been made, and in doing so, he came across the details of the various SDKs in the app. The specific details of how the SDKs would impact users however are unclear.

“I did a completely static analysis, which means I never actually ran the app,” Nemo explained. “Running it might lead to some additional insights regarding who is contacted and with what data.”

Although Truecaller is available on both Android and iOS, users on the former platform who are more likely to be affected, owing to how apps can access data on the two systems. HuffPost India has asked Truecaller for more details on information collected on iOS, but for Walnut at least, Nemo noted the SDK only works on Android.

He said, “SDK literally has this line in its code: ‘Cannot perform scoring without read SMS permission.’”

Truecaller responded by pointing out that this behavior is standard in the industry.

“Today, we operate in a broad ecosystem of consumer technology platforms. Much like our peers, we rely on credible solution providers to deliver secure and reliable services to our customers. All user data is governed by our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. None of these partners have access to our user’s personal data and neither do we share or transfer any user’s personal data to any third party without the explicit consent of users,” the company replied in an emailed statement.

“In order to offer new features to enhance user experience and improve the services, third-party solutions may be utilized from time to time. As already stated, we do not share any user’s personal data with a third party without the explicit consent of the user. MessAI is now an in-house technology to Truecaller after we acquired this Bangalore based start-up in April 2019, which included its talented team and their technology to provide enhanced features like Smart Notifications and seamless communication experience to our app users.”

Companies have learned to extract as much data from users as possible, both openly and without telling us, regardless of how much of an impact this can actually have on their business. The model, one developer told HuffPost India on the condition of anonymity, is “grab everything you can, and figure out if it’s useful later.”

“Given how untransparent the industry is,” Fredrike Kaltheuner, from the Data Exploitation Programme of Privacy International, a privacy-focused global non-profit organisation that investigates and advocates for user privacy, told HuffPost India in an earlier interview. “It’s hard to say if this information is actually helping anyone get a loan. There are a lot of companies in this space now, but their algorithms are a black box, and the data they use is usually not clear either.”

This behaviour is often hard to understand for users. For example, this blog post that showed how companies even look at details like how many fields users fill on contact details, and how this information is used to extrapolate how likely they are to purchase insurance, as an example of metadata leading to conclusions that are completely non-obvious to users.

A report by Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas for the Centre for Internet and Society that researched the privacy commitments taken by Indian fin-tech companies also goes over some of this ground. 

“The unprecedented growth of this sector with a number of players that have an amorphous nature (not banking entities) has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns,” Rathi and Mohandas say in their report. “For instance, a survey of 1,300 senior executives in the global financial services, and fintech industries revealed that 54% of respondents identified privacy and data protection as barriers to fintech innovation.” 

Can Truecaller do this?

Ask anyone what they use Truecaller for and you’re likely to hear about blocking spam calls. Building credit profiles isn’t something people would associate with the app. But in its terms of service and privacy policy, there are actually terms that explain how your data could be used by other companies.

In its terms and conditions, Truecaller states, “Where other third party services are made available as part of our Services, then the respective third party terms of service and privacy policy shall apply to any such use by You.”

It also notes, “Truecaller reserves the right, at its own discretion, to freely assign and transfer the rights and obligations under these Terms to any third party.”

There is a little more detail in the company’s privacy policy, where it writes, “You may use such third party services to create Your user profile or log in to our Services, share information with such third party services, or to connect Your user profile with the respective third party services. Such third party services may automatically provide us with access to certain personal information retained by them about You (e.g., your payment handle, unique identification information, content viewed by You, content liked by You and information about the advertisements You have been shown or may have clicked on) and You agree that we may collect, use and retain the information provided by these third party services in accordance with this Privacy Policy.”

Also in its terms, Walnut notes that it may share user data with third parties without seeking consent under certain circumstances: if a court or government agency asks for the information, or if personally identifiable information has been removed. 

As SFLC, India noted, “While Truecaller said yesterday that all affected users would be deregistered, it is still unclear how many people were affected and what information was shared. Information regarding their existing bank accounts was revealed in the process, and their phone numbers and other information may have been shared with ICICI Bank. Exact details are scant at the moment.“

It noted that Truecaller’s privacy policy “does not grant permission for Truecaller to share your information with payment service providers automatically, as has happened in the present case. This is a clear violation of their own privacy policy, which could allow affected users a route to pursue legal action against the company.”

“With the current laws in the country, a user hardly gets any protection from such misuse of data. Vague promises to correct one’s actions and to do better in future are insufficient and come with minimal accountability. This issue further highlights the need for a dedicated data protection law in the country.“

Unfortunately, in the absence of data privacy laws in India, we are reliant on the ethics of companies, and the actions of regulatory bodies, and there seems to be a lack of action taking place on that front. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which regulates the UPI issued much more relaxed statement, “This is enrolling mistake by the app without customer consent. With this, customer can’t do any UPI txn. For onboarding to UPI the customer still has to enter 2FA (issuer OTP and debit card) and set UPI pin. The workflow mistake is limited to enrolling and will not have any impact on any customer whatsoever.”

Replying on Twitter, the official BHIM NPCI handle also said, “Truecaller is working on a solution. In the meantime they have asked the customers to manually de-register in case of any unauthorised UPI registration.” 

Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah and Sajad Lone were among the several politicians in Jammu and Kashmir placed under house arrest on Sunday as authorities stepped up security at vital installations and in sensitive areas, suspended mobile internet services in parts of the state.

While there was no official confirmation of their arrest, Mufti and Abdullah tweeted about the development late Sunday night.

Jammu and Kashmir is currently under President’s rule. The state government said on Sunday it had imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC in Srinagar district with effect from Monday midnight as a precautionary measure until further notice. Officials also said restrictions on the movement of people would come into force in Kashmir Valley at the crack of dawn on Monday. 

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What we know so far

— Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah, Sajad Lone have been placed under house arrest. Congress leader Usman Majid and CPI(M) MLA MY Tarigami also say they have been arrested.

— Mobile internet has been suspended in Kashmir Valley.

— Section 144 came into effect in Srinagar from the midnight of August 5 and will remain in force till further orders.

— Union home minister Amit Shah held a meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba and other senior officials on Sunday. NDTV reports a Cabinet meeting is scheduled for Monday morning at Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi residence.

— Troop deployment in the state has steadily increased over the last week but the home ministry refused to publicly comment on this. However, home ministry sources told various media publications on Friday that the deployment of paramilitary forces was based on the security situation there and requirements of rotation.

— Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik on Saturday conveyed to a National Conference delegation that the state has no knowledge of any changes in the Constitutional provisions and assured that the deployment of additional paramilitary forces was purely for security reasons.

— On Friday, students at Srinagar’s National Institute of Technology told PTI that the management had said their classes were suspended till further notice. 

— On the same day, a J&K government advisory asked Amarnath Yatra pilgrims and tourists to “curtail their stay” and “return as soon as possible”.

(With PTI inputs)

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were placed under house arrest on Sunday.

There was no official confirmation of their arrests but the two leaders tweeted about it late Sunday night.

Officials told PTI Abdullah and Mufti would not be allowed to move out of their respective house in view of the restrictions imposed in Srinagar. Meanwhile, Congress leader Usman Majid and CPI(M) MLA MY Tarigami told the news agency they had been arrested around midnight.

Abdullah reacted to the development on Twitter saying: 

“The world watches as people and their voices are being muzzled in Jammu and Kashmir,” Mufti tweeted.

“Hope those who accused us of rumour mongering realise that our fears weren’t misplaced. Leaders under house arrest, broadband services suspended & section 144 enforced isn’t normal by any standard,” she said.

The Jammu and Kashmir government said on Sunday it had imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC in Srinagar district. Restrictions on the movement of people came into force in Kashmir Valley on Monday. 

Amid reports of panic in the state over increased troop deployment, Abdullah called for calm.  

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor responded saying, “Every Indian democrat will stand with the decent mainstream leaders in Kashmir as you face up to whatever the government has in store for our country.” 

The arrests came hours after regional parties in the state unanimously resolved to fight any attempt to abrogate the constitutional provisions that guarantee it special status or any move to trifurcate the state.

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, reading out a resolution adopted at an all-party meeting on Sunday, said the parties have decided to send delegations to meet President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leaders of political parties to apprise them about the consequences of any attempt to abrogate Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution, or carry out delimitation of constituencies or trifurcating the state. 

The meeting was attended by Mufti (PDP), Abdullah (NC), Taj Mohiuddin (Congress), Muzaffar Beig (PDP), Sajad Lone and Imran Ansari (Peoples Conference), Shah Faesal (J&K Peoples Movement) and MY Tarigami (CPI-M). 

Restrictions and night curfews were imposed in several districts of Jammu and Kashmir as the Valley remained on edge with authorities stepping up security deployment.

Section 144 in Srinagar, Jammu

The government imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC in Srinagar district with effect from midnight as a precautionary measure, officials said on Sunday.

“There shall be no movement of public and all educational institutions (in Srinagar district) shall remain closed,” according to an order.

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It stated that there was a complete bar on holding any kind of public meeting or rally.“Identity cards of essential services officials will be treated as movement passes wherever required,” the order said.

The authorities in Jammu have also imposed restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC in the district and banned all types of congregation, the officials said.

Additional paramilitary forces, which arrived in Kashmir in the past few days, have been deployed across the city and in other vulnerable areas of the valley, the officials said.

The strength of the security personnel has been increased around vital installations such as the civil secretariat, police headquarters, airport and various central government establishments in the city, they said.

Barricades have been erected on many arterial roads, including the entry and exit points to Srinagar, the summer capital of the state.

Riot control vehicles have also been kept on standby in some areas where apprehension of law and order disturbances is more, the officials added.

(With inputs from PTI)

Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday proposed the revocation of Article 370 while addressing the Rajya Sabha. The Opposition created an uproar after the resolution was moved. 

The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has been opposing both Article 370 and Article 35A in Jammu and Kashmir. In its manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party had said it is committed to annulling Article 35A and abrogation of Article 370. 

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What is Article 370?

Article 370 of the Constitution gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Under Part XXI of the Constitution, which deals with “Temporary, Transitional and Special provisions”, the state of Jammu and Kashmir had been accorded special status.

The provision was drafted by Sheikh Abdullah in 1947, according to The Economic Times, and he wanted “iron clad autonomy” for the state. The Centre, however, did not agree. 

Following negotiations, Article 370 was passed in the Constituent Assembly on 27 May, 1949. It was finally included in the Constitution on 17 October, 1949, according to The Indian Express.

It allows the state Assembly to make its own Constitution. It also says that except for defence, foreign affairs, finance and communications, the Parliament needs state government’s approval for all other laws, The Economic Times said.