Entertainment
Poonam Sinha to contest against Rajnath in Lucknow
Poonam Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, will be contesting against Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh from the Lucknow parliamentary constituency.
According to reliable sources, Poonam Sinha will contest on the Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket with the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) support.
The Congress, sources said, has decided not to field a candidate from Lucknow and support the candidature of Sinha from the Uttar Pradesh capital.
This would pave the way for a one-to-one face off between Rajnath Singh and Poonam Sinha.
Sources said that modalities in this regard were being worked out and it was this that have led to the postponement of Shatrughan Sinha’s joining the Congress in Delhi on March 28.
“Jitin Prasada was keen to contest from Lucknow and he had to be persuaded to opt for his constituency Dhaurhara. Decks have now been cleared and Lucknow will be one of the seven seats that the Congress has said that it would leave for the SP-BSP alliance,” said a Congress functionary.
Shatrughan Sinha will now join the Congress in Delhi on April 6 and will be the party candidate from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
The decision to field Poonam Sinha as the joint opposition candidate against Rajnath Singh is an attempt by the opposition parties to keep the Union Home Minister confined to his constituency.
The Samajwadi Party, sources said, has already completed its homework.
“There are four lakh Kayastha voters and 1.3 lakh Sindhi voters in Lucknow, apart from 3.5 lakh Muslims. (Poonam Sinha is a Sindhi while her husband Shatrughan Sinha is a Kayastha). This will give a major push to her candidature,” said a SP leader.
BJP General Secretary Vijay Pathak, however, dismissed the issue and said, “Lucknow has always been a BJP bastion and continues to be one. Rajnath Singh has ensured a lot of development of the state capital and has a rapport with the people. An imported candidate will not cut much ice with the voters.”
Rajnath Singh had won the Lucknow seat in 2014 garnering 55.7 per cent of the total 10,06,483 votes polled. He had won in all the five assembly segments of the constituency.
Rita Bahuguna Joshi, then a Congress MLA and former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chairperson, had remained runner-up in these elections by securing 2,88,357 of the total votes.
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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