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Thousands of Amazon employees send open letter to CEO; question layoffs

Over a thousand Amazon employees have penned an open letter, warning that the company’s rapid AI development is jeopardizing its climate commitments and human workforce. They argue the pursuit of AI dominance is leading to increased emissions, water scarcity, and job displacement, urging leadership to prioritize ethical AI and environmental responsibility.

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Perez Hilton reacts as Meghan Markle accused of keeping $1,700 gown from shoot

A resurfaced rumor about Meghan Markle taking a designer gown without permission, dubbed “Green Gown-gate,” has sparked debate. Podcaster Perez Hilton defended Meghan, calling the claims “nonsense.” Meanwhile, Meghan and Prince Harry actively participated in a Thanksgiving meal packing event through their Archewell Foundation, offering a positive counterpoint to the dress controversy.

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Delhi govt to recruit 15,000 more home guard personnel: LG

New Delhi: The Delhi government will recruit 15,000 home guards, taking their total number to 25,000, an official statement said on Wednesday. Delhi LG VK Saxena on Tuesday distributed letters of enrolment to 1669 home guards out of 10,000, for which the recruitment process was started in January, said the statement from the Raj Niwas. Addressing the newly recruited home guards at an event, the LG said that in the near future additional 15,000 home guards will be added, taking their total strength to over 25,000 it said. The newly recruited home guards included 226 former civil defence volunteers (CDVs) who were working as bus marshals when they were removed in November last year. The new recruits also included 181 women, the statement said. The LG in January this year cleared enrolment of 10,285 home guards and directed that the CDVs be given preference in the form of extra credit points in the selection process. However, some candidates approached the court, and as a result, the appointment on 7,939 posts of home guards was kept pending as the matter became sub-judice. The LG, had however, directed appointment of 2,346 home guards who qualified physical measurement and efficiency, and written tests. Out of 2,346 posts, 1669 cleared the medical test and were handed over their appointment letters. In response to the advertisement for 10,285 vacancies, total 1.09 lakh applications were received but only 32,511 reported for the physical test. Meanwhile, the some applicants moved the high court over various issues and a status quo was ordered by the court. The LG has also directed the director general (home guards) to ensure that the remaining 7,939 vacancies are also filled up at the earliest after taking cognizance of the court matters, added the statement.

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Adani Green to seek board nod to raise up to $1 billion

Adani Green Energy is set to seek board approval to raise Rs 6,150 crore ($750 million) to Rs 8,200 crore ($1 billion) through the qualified institutional placement (QIP) route, said people aware of the matter.Two group companies had got approval of their boards for fundraising on May 13 —Adani Enterprises (Rs 12,500 crore) and Adani Transmission (Rs 8,500 crore).The exercise is part of a group plan outlined internally last year to build a “three-year equity cushion” to support expansion plans.Adani Green has secured such capital-raising permission every year from its board except in 2021, as per a Bloomberg analysis.The capital raised by Adani Green Energy will be used to repay an outstanding $750 million, three-year bond issued in 2021 that’s due next year. The money is likely to be kept in a dedicated redemption reserve account and paid on the due date, said the people cited above.Renegotiating Terms With TotalThe original plan had been to prepay the bond after special Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approval but the company decided against this move.“We do not comment on routine business matters. All public disclosures on business matters are disclosed when appropriate,” an Adani Group spokesperson told ET.Adani Green is also renegotiating the terms of its agreement with French utilities giant TotalEnergies for a proposed $4 billion investment in a green hydrogen venture, having signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022. In February, Total said it was pausing the plan in the wake of the Hindenburg Research report on the Adani Group alleging stock manipulation and fraud. The Adani Group has rejected the report’s findings.Total had said it won’t immediately proceed with the plan that involved taking a 25% stake in Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL), a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises.In June last year, ANIL and TotalEnergies had outlined a capex plan of $50 billion to set up a 2.5 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) of green hydrogen manufacturing capacity over the next 10 years, with the first phase of 1 mmtpa expected to be commissioned before 2030. Total had also made a total $10 billion capital commitment to the hydrogen venture, standing guarantor to 50% of the project’s debt, translating to $6 billion, ET had reported February 13.ANIL plans to manufacture green hydrogen and downstream products such as ammonia, urea, methanol and ethanol at its Khavda and Mundra SEZ facilities. The Khavda site has a land bank of 71,000 acres, which has a large-scale renewable deployment potential of 20 GW due to its high wind and solar resource potential.After the initial MoU, a more detailed ‘heads of agreement’ — pre-contractual negotiations for a commercial framework — was originally planned to be signed between May and September this year. But this is unlikely at this juncture.The Adani Group has, however, continued with the project work in Mundra on its own, aiming to complete a substantial part of the first phase of the integrated manufacturing ecosystem for ANIL by December.This involves 4.5 GW of solar module manufacturing capacity and 1.5 GW of wind turbine manufacturing capacity along with electrolysers, glass, aluminium frames etc. Analysts say over 5% of the total capex has already been incurred by Adani though the bulk of the work is scheduled for 2026-2028. Any binding agreement with Total is now expected only in 2024 or 2025 and the valuation and the overall commercial terms is likely to get altered as the French company is not incurring any of the greenfield project risks, they said.“We have 40 GW of land equivalent. We’ve been doing solar modules for the past five years. We know we will produce modules at 15 cents to 17 cents,” Robbie Singh, chief financial officer of Adani Enterprises, had told ET on January 22.Other than the green hydrogen project, Total has just over $3 billion of investments with Adani, including in gas distribution and solar projects, which it has played down as a small 2.4% slice of its total capital commitments.

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At Rs 10,000 crore, Anil Ambani’s Reliance Capital recovery may be only 43%

Lenders to Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Capital are likely to recover just about ₹10,000 crore after the winning bidder, Hinduja Group, declined to significantly improve its offer in the last round of bilateral negotiations that ended on Monday evening, people aware of the development told ET. The recovery, totalling about ₹10,090 crore on factoring in the target company’s cash balances and the Hinduja offer, falls short of the ₹12,500-13,000 crore estimated liquidation value. A Hinduja Group entity, IndusInd International Holdings, offered ₹9,650 crore in the extended auction held on April 26. Hinduja improved the offer by only ₹10 crore during the bilateral negotiations, the people cited above said. In addition, the distressed financial services company has around Rs 430 crore as cash balances, which would be distributed among the lenders. This would add up to Rs 10,090 crore, equating to a 43% recovery for verified lenders.Administrator Nageswara Rao Y has admitted Rs 23,666 crore in claims from verified creditors.”Hinduja Group will submit a detailed resolution plan by next week while lenders are in the process of finalising distribution of the proceeds,” one of the persons cited above said. After this, the administrator will invite lenders to vote on the eligible plans.However, resolution of Reliance Capital will be subject to approval from the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear in August the auction-related dispute between Torrent Investments, a bidder also in the fray in the earlier rounds. 100459497Crucial LIC, EPFO RolesThe stand by LIC, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and JC Flowers Asset Reconstruction Co on approving the plan will be critical since they are majority debtholders. Yes Bank, an original Reliance Capital lender, sold its debt to JC Flowers ARC. A resolution plan can be approved only if 66% of creditors vote in its favour.Separately, Credit Suisse-led bondholders have decided not to contest a decision by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which directed them to return the custody of Reliance General Insurance shares to the administrator, said the people cited above.This has come as a major relief to the lenders that were worried the resolution might be delayed if Credit Suisse-led bondholders appealed against the tribunal’s order.In 2018, Credit Suisse-led investors invested in bonds issued by Reliance Home Finance, a Reliance Capital unit. The home finance company failed to honour the payment on the due date.

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Apple faces Indian engineer’s bias lawsuit

Apple Inc. lost an early round in a discrimination lawsuit brought in the U.S. by a female engineer from India who says her two managers — one from her country, the other from Pakistan — treated her as they would in their own countries: as a subservient.The woman’s case in California state court is the latest to allege workplace bias in Silicon Valley that focuses on cultural prejudices of some tech workers from South Asia. Cisco Systems Inc. is fighting a suit brought by California’s civil rights agency alleging bias against a member of India’s so-called lower castes, known as Dalits.Anita Nariani Schulze is part of the Sindhi minority — she is Hindu, with ancestry in the Sindh region of what is now Pakistan. Her complaint alleges that her senior and direct managers, both male, consistently excluded her from meetings while inviting her male counterparts, criticized her, micromanaged her work, and deprived her of bonuses, despite positive performance evaluations and significant team contributions.Schulze claims the managers’ animus reflects sexism, racism, religious bias and discrimination on the basis of national origin. The Sindhi Hindu nationality is “known for its technical acumen” and its gender equality, she says, which “exacerbated the managers’ discriminatory treatment.”In a tentative ruling on Wednesday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Sunil R. Kulkarni rejected Apple’s request to toss out the suit. While not ruling on the merits of the case, Kulkarni said Schulze had adequately supported her legal claims. Apple had argued her claims weren’t specific enough and were based on stereotypes.But the judge rejected Schulze’s request to represent a class of female Apple employees who suffered job discrimination over the last four years. He agreed with Apple that she didn’t show a pattern of discrimination that could be applied to a broader group.It wasn’t clear from the court’s docket whether the judge will hold a hearing Thursday before issuing a final ruling.Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.In the Cisco case, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleged that two Indian employees at the San Jose-based company discriminated against a Dalit co-worker on the basis of caste.Cisco has denied the claims, insisting it has “zero tolerance for discrimination.” It also said the lawsuit should be tossed out because caste isn’t a protected category under U.S. civil rights law.

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Ravi Shankar Prasad questions Arnab Goswami’s arrest

NEW DELHI: Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday described the arrest of Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami as “seriously reprehensible, unwarranted and worrisome.”He also questioned the silence of the Congress leadership when its government in Maharashtra was “blatantly suppressing freedom of press.”Police on Wednesday arrested Goswami in Mumbai for allegedly abetting suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer, a police official said.”The arrest of senior journalist Arnab Goswami is seriously reprehensible, unwarranted and worrisome. We had fought for freedoms of Press as well while opposing the draconian Emergency of 1975,” Prasad said in a series of tweets.The arrest of senior journalist #ArnabGoswami is seriously reprehensible, unwarranted and worrisome. We had fought… https://t.co/d5fY66b1w5— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) 1604465175000He said while Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have attacked the Modi government “through motivated charges of attack on institutions” yet they are completely silent when their own government in Maharashtra is “blatantly suppressing freedom of Press.”He claimed it to be a “textbook case of hypocrisy.”Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have openly attacked @narendramodi Govt through motivated charges of attack on instit… https://t.co/TZHS3W6pFJ— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) 1604464512000″One can differ, one can debate and one can ask questions too. However arresting a journalist of the stature of Arnab Goswami by abuse of police power, because he was asking questions, is something which we all need to condemn,” the Union minister said.One can differ, one can debate and one can ask questions too. However arresting a journalist of the stature of… https://t.co/uc4hEu3uA4— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) 1604463867000The ruling alliance in Maharashtra comprises the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

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