Entertainment
Dia Mirza does her bit to ‘Save Our Tigers’
New Delhi: Former beauty queen and actress Dia Mirza, who has voiced her concern about the environment on several occasions, has involved herself closely with the ‘Save Our Tigers’ campaign, backed by NDTV and Aircel.
On World Tiger Day, which was on Monday, Dia was here to celebrate the increase in the tiger population in the country. She says she was persistent in asking Bittu Sahgal, founding editor of environmental news magazine Sanctuary Asia, to give her a bigger role in saving tigers.
“It was a few years ago when Aircel launched the campaign ‘Save our Tigers’ on NDTV that I became familiar with the work of people like Bittu Sahgal. What was a childhood passion, kind of resurfaced and I plagued Bittu Sahgal to give me a bigger role and make me more involved with the work that needs to be done,” Dia told IANS while talking about her involvement with the campaign.
“Now I do school visits and forest visits with ‘Kids For Tigers’…there is a lot of work happening now in creating communication tools to spread this message further — to take it not just to school children, but also to industries, corporates, media and help people understand that it’s not just about saving the tiger, but tiger is a metaphor for saving all life,” she added.
The event here saw a panel discussion hosted by Vikram Chandra, Group CEO of NDTV channel, and Swati Thiyagarajan, environment editor, NDTV.
Apart from Dia, the panelists included Bittu Sahgal, Anish Andheria, president, Wildlife Conservation Trust, Vivek Menon, CEO, Wildlife Trust of India, Bishan Singh Bonal, member secretary, National Tiger Conservation Authority and Y.V. Jhala and Qamar Qureshi from the Wildlife Institute of India.
“India is home to 70 percent of the world’s tigers today. We have had a 30 percent increase in the number of tigers in the last five years. The dismal numbers 1,411 in the first updated census became the rallying cry of the first NDTV-Aircel ‘Save Our Tigers’ campaign in 2010. Now it is 2226 in our fourth campaign,” said Chandra.
The event also saw the felicitation of eight people to acknowledge their contribution in saving tigers from poaching in wildlife reserves of Arunachal Pradesh, Kashmir and Orissa.
Adding a musical touch to the event was singer Kailash Kher, who crooned tracks like “Teri deewani”, “Tauba tauba” and a track from his latest album “Rangeele” along with his band Kailasa.
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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