England cricket team on Wednesday announced the playing eleven for the second match of the three-match Test series against South Africa at Emirates Old Trafford.
Ollie Robinson returned to the playing XI replacing Matthew Potts in the only change from the first Test at Lord’s.
The second Test will take place from August 25.
England’s bouncebackability will be tested at Emirates Old Trafford as they look to draw level in the three-match Test series against the Proteas. Ben Stokes’ side suffered an innings defeat inside three days at Lord’s in the series opener.
We have named our XI for the 2nd Test at @EmiratesOT ?
The third and final Test of the series will take place from September 8. Both sides previously contested in a high-voltage white-ball leg of South Africa’s tour to England, which consisted of three ODIs and three T20Is.
South Africa won the T20I series 2-1.
South Africa’s batting was extremely consistent throughout the series whereas it was the exact opposite for England.
Before this, the ODI series between both sides ended in a 1-1 draw.
The last match of the series could not produce a result as it was abandoned due to rain. England Men’s XI: Zak Crawley, Alex Lees, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Ben Foakes, Stuart Broad, Jack Leach, Ollie Robinson and James Anderson.
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Meta Reaches $37.5 Million Settlement of Facebook Location Tracking Lawsuit 4
Meta Platforms Inc reached a $37.5 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing the parent of Facebook of violating users’ privacy by tracking their movements through their smartphones without permission.
A preliminary settlement of the proposed class action was filed on Monday in San Francisco federal court, and requires a judge’s approval.
Omkar Builders promoters Babulal Varma and Kamal kishor get discharged in the money laundering case filled by the ED on Wednesday by special court in Mumbai.
They were arrested in the month of January and earlier this month the accuse moved discharge plea to before special PMLA court through their advocate Vijay Aggarwal and Rahul Agarwal. In July 27 Supreme Court ruling which said that “when there is no scheduled predicate offence, the PMLA case cannot continue.”
Richest Indian Gautam Adani’s ports-to-power-to-cement conglomerate is “deeply overleveraged” with the group predominantly using debt to invest aggressively across existing as well as new businesses, CreditSights, a Fitch Group unit, said on Tuesday.
In a report titled ‘Adani Group: Deeply Overleveraged’, CreditSights said, “In the worst-case scenario, overly ambitious debt-funded growth plans could eventually spiral into a massive debt trap, and possibly culminate into a distressed situation or default of one or more group companies.” Starting out as a commodities trader in the late 1980s, the Adani group has diversified from mines, ports and power plants into airports, data centers and defence.
Recently, it forayed into the cement sector with a USD 10.5 billion acquisition of Holcim’s India units as well as into alumina manufacturing.
Most of this expansion has been funded by debt. “Over the past few years, the Adani Group has pursued an aggressive expansion plan that has pressurized its credit metrics and cash flows,” CreditSights said.
“The Adani Group is increasingly venturing into new and/or unrelated businesses, which are highly capital intensive and raises concerns regarding spreading execution oversight too thin,” it added.
While there is evidence of promoter equity capital injection into group companies, the Adani Group is exposed to moderate levels of governance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks.
“The Adani Group has a strong track record of churning out strong and stable companies through its Adani Enterprises arm, and boasts a portfolio of stable infrastructure assets tied to the healthy functioning of the Indian economy,” the report said.
The Adani Group has six listed entities on the Indian stock exchanges, and a few of its group entities have US dollar bonds outstanding.
The six listed Adani group firms had a gross debt of ₹ 2,309 billion as of FY22-end.
Net debt after accounting for cash in hand was ₹ 1,729 billion. “In general, the Group has been investing aggressively across both existing and new businesses, predominantly funded with debt, resulting in elevated leverage and solvency ratios,” it said.
This has caused concerns about the Group as a whole, CreditSights said, adding that it remains cautiously watchful of the Group’s growing expansion appetite, which is largely debt-funded.
The Adani Group is the third largest conglomerate in India, after Reliance Industries and the Tata Group. It has a total market capitalization of over USD 200 billion.
In recent years, the Adani Group has become increasingly aggressive in expanding its existing businesses, as well as establishing new ones in different industries.
The rapid expansion has largely been fuelled by debt funding, which has caused the leverage (gross or net debt / EBITDA) of several group companies and hence of the overall consolidated group to soar in the past few years.
“We, as well as many clients and other investors, are becoming increasingly concerned about the group’s rapid pace of growth and its high leverage levels”.
“Excessive debt and overleveraging by the group could have a cascading negative effect on the credit quality of the bond issuing entities within the group and heightens contagion risk in case any entity falls into distress,” the report said.
Citing expansion into areas where it has no prior experience or expertise such as copper refining, petrochemicals, telecom and aluminum production, it said the businesses typically dont have the ability to repay the debt immediately considering that they do not make profits in the initial few years.
And so, they will rely on “rolling-over/refinancing the obligations in the initial few years, which is, in turn, dependent on maintaining solid banking relationships and on strong capital market conditions,” it said.
Being the primary incubator for Adani Group’s new and developing businesses, Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) invariably incurs the highest capex amongst its sister entities.
Over the past five years, AEL has invested heavily in new growth sectors that include airports, cement, copper refining, data centers, green hydrogen, petrochemical refining, roads and solar cell manufacturing.
Looking ahead, it plans to foray into the enterprise data in telecom (for internal use at present) and has massive plans to grow its green hydrogen and airports businesses.
Earlier this month, the Group also announced plans to set up a 4.1 million tonnes per annum integrated alumina refinery and a 30 million tonnes iron ore beneficiation plant in Odisha that could cost over ₹ 58,000 crore.
On governance, it said the promoter family sits on the boards of all the Adani entities.
Gautam Adani, 60, is the Chairman of all 6 listed Adani entities, and his family members are present on the Boards too, including brother Rajesh Adani (director at various entities), son Karan Adani (director and CEO of APSEZ), nephew Sagar Adani (director of AGEL), and another nephew Pranav Adani (director at AEL & Adani Total Gas).
“While the entrepreneurial vision of Gautam Adani is impressive, it also comes with high key-man risk, as the senior management capability in the group companies in his absence may prove to be inadequate,” CreditSights said.
Adani, it said, may look to hand over the reins of his business empire to the next generation at some point in the next 10 years, as gauged by the senior management/director roles handed to his son or nephews in Adani entities.
“However, he has not publicly disclosed any succession plans for the future,” it said.
Prisoner dead after brawl with inmates in Tihar jail 8
A 20-year-old prisoner of Tihar jail died after a brawl with the inmates, informed the officials on Wednesday.
The brief scuffle took place between two inmates in a barrack in Central Jail number 5 on August 22.
The deceased has been identified as Samir Khan who was lodged in a case of robbery.
“The two exchanged a few punches with each other, after which one of them viz. inmate Samir Khan suddenly collapsed, apparently due to injury suffered in the head, though there were no visible injuries. The whole incident is captured on CCTV,” said prision official.
The other co-inmates called out for help after Samir collapsed and he was taken to the jail dispensary from where he was referred to DDU Hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
he 20-year-old was a resident of the Bhalaswa Dairy area.
The officials also informed that the inquest proceedings were being conducted by Metropolitan Magistrate.
Earlier on July 29, a Delhi Court recently directed the Director General (DG) of Prison Tihar to install CCTV cameras in the rooms of Jail Superintendents and Deputy Jail superintendents. The court has also directed the DG to file the compliance report.
While directing DG prison the court observed “Installation of CCTV Cameras in offices of Superintendent /Deputy Superintendent in Jails would rather dispel any false allegations against jail officials. It will further reflect transparency in the functioning of these offices.”
This direction has been passed in view of allegations of the beating of an inmate in the room of the deputy jail superintendent on March 27, 2022.
Additional Sessions Judge Sonu Agnihotri of Saket Court said, “I direct DG, Prisons, Tihar Jail to get installed CCTV cameras inside offices of Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent and to preserve CCTV recording as done for other parts of the jail as per rules/procedures.
The Mumbai Police registered an FIR on Wednesday against a hospital management firm and four persons for allegedly submitting fake documents to obtain contracts for COVID-19 care centres, an official said.
The FIR was registered at the Azad Maidan police station based on a complaint by former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, the official said.
The case was registered against M/s Lifeline Hospital Management Service Firm, Dr Hemant Ramsharan Gupta, Sujit Mukund Patkar, Sanjay Madanlal Shah and Raju Nandkumar Salunkhe.
In his complaint, Somaiya alleged that these persons cheated the Mumbai civic body and people to obtain contracts of COVID-19 centres with the help of fake documents.
As per the FIR, in June 2020, the hospital management firm partners submitted an alleged fake partnership deed to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and obtained contracts for jumbo COVID-19 centres at NSEL, Worli, Mulund, Dahisar (in Mumbai) and Pune without having any experience in the medical field.
The firm had submitted bills of these centres to the BMC and collected Rs 38 crore, it said.
For their personal gains, these persons cheated the government machinery and common citizens. Many people lost their lives due to the alleged negligence of these persons, the FIR said.
After verification it was found that staffers and doctors at these COVID-19 centres did not have medical certificates and allegedly failed to provide proper treatment due to which people suffered, the FIR said.
The case was registered under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 304-A (causing death by negligence), 465, 467, 468, 471 (all for forgery) and 34 (common intention), the official said, adding that a probe into the case is on.
Three persons including a three-year-old boy were injured in the explosion of an LPG cylinder in Dombivli city of Thane district on Tuesday evening, an official said.
The incident took place in a ground-floor flat at Parsan building in Gaikwad Wadi around 8 pm.
A 63-year-old woman who lived in the flat was injured. A woman and her three-year-old son were also injured as the door grill of the flat fell on them, the official said.
The boy suffered serious injuries. All three are undergoing treatment.
The Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) has seized banned gutka and tobacco products worth Rs 8.93 lakh from a shop in Navi Mumbai, police said on Wednesday.
Based on a tip-off, the Navi Mumbai police’s ANC on Monday raided the shop located in the Taloja area and seized the banned items, the police said in an official release.
The police also seized Rs 1.26 lakh in cash, it said. Two persons – Mohmmad Hamza Mohammad Saheen Khan (26) and Arfan Siraz Ahmed Shaikh (22) – were arrested from the shop.
A case was registered against them under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the release said.
The police were trying to find out from where the accused got these goods and to whom they planned to sell them. The sale and consumption of gutka, scented and flavoured tobacco has been banned in Maharashtra since 2012.
In 2018, the state government made the sale of gutka a non-bailable offence and enhanced the punishment for it from six months to three years.
NDTV shares hit 5 per cent upper circuit after Adani Group buys stake 13
The share price of New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) surged 5 per cent to hit the upper circuit limit on Wednesday a day after Adani Group announced that it would acquire a majority stake in the news channel company.
On the BSE the share price of NDTV opened at Rs 380 and hit the upper circuit limit of Rs 384.50 soon after the opening of the trade on Wednesday against its previous day’s close at Rs 366.20.
This is the highest level of NDTV shares in the past year. The 52-week low of NDTV share is Rs 71.15.
NDTV shares have surged after Adani Group announced that it has acquired a 29.18 per cent stake in the news channel company by converting debt into equity.
Adani Group has also announced that it would acquire another 26 per cent stake in NDTV through an open offer.
AMG Media Networks Limited (AMNL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), has acquired a 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV.
Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of AMG Media Networks Limited (AMNL), has exercised the rights to acquire 99.5 per cent of the equity shares of RRPR Holding Private Limited, a promoter group company of NDTV.
AMNL’s wholly owned subsidiary VCPL holds warrants of RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPR) entitling it to convert them into a 99.99 per cent stake in RRPR. VCPL has exercised warrants to acquire a 99.5 per cent stake in RRPR. Such acquisition will result in VCPL acquiring control of RRPR, Adani Group said in a statement on Tuesday.
RRPR is a promoter group company of NDTV and holds a 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV.
VCPL, along with AMNL & AEL (persons acting in concert), will launch an open offer to acquire up to 26 per cent stake in NDTV, in compliance with the requirements of the SEBI’s (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011, Adani Group said.
NDTV recorded a Revenue of Rs 421 crore with an EBITDA of Rs 123 crore and a net profit of Rs 85 crore in the financial year 2021-22 with negligible debt.
“This acquisition is a significant milestone in the journey of AMNL’s goal to pave the path of new age media across platforms,” Sanjay Pugalia, CEO, of AMG Media Networks Limited, said in a statement.
“AMNL seeks to empower Indian citizens, consumers and those interested in India, with information and knowledge. With its leading position in news and its strong and diverse reach across genres and geographies, NDTV is the most suitable broadcast and digital platform to deliver on our vision. We look forward to strengthening NDTV’s leadership in news delivery,” Pugalia said.
