Latest news with #Lakshmanan
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Time of India
Soori's brother faces serious allegations from local business owner in Madurai
A serious complaint has been filed against popular actor Soori 's brother, Lakshmanan, by Muthuchamy , a local printing press owner in Madurai . Muthuchamy, who runs a printing shop near Soori's family-run restaurant in the Narimedu area, approached the Madurai District Collector with a detailed petition. He accused Lakshmanan of repeated misconduct, including encroachment, causing public nuisance, and even issuing threats to his life. Public obstruction and escalating tensions According to Muthuchamy, Lakshmanan has been running the restaurant directly below his printing shop and has illegally occupied a shared pathway, blocking access with delivery vehicles. As per One India, this obstruction has reportedly created significant difficulties not only for his business but also for the general public. The area houses more than 10 schools, and blocked roads have hindered school transport and even emergency services like ambulances. These issues have led to multiple verbal altercations between the two over time. Allegations of theft and property dispute In his complaint, Muthuchamy also alleged that Lakshmanan forcefully broke into his shop without permission, damaged the lock, and stole both cash and important documents. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like These Are The Most Beautiful Women In The World Undo He further claimed that Lakshmanan locked access to the upstairs portion of the building and even attempted to convince the property owner to evict the current tenant by offering extra money. These actions, according to Muthuchamy, amount to a pattern of harassment and coercion. Plea for justice and actor Soori's involvement questioned Addressing the media, Muthuchamy expressed his concern over whether Soori is aware of these incidents or if his brother is misusing the actor's name to act with impunity. He emphasized that he has no objection to the restaurant's operations but wants strict legal action against Lakshmanan's alleged misdeeds. 'I fear for my safety,' he said, 'and have submitted this complaint seeking justice and protection from further threats. ' Check out our list of the latest Hindi , English , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , and Kannada movies . Don't miss our picks for the best Hindi movies , best Tamil movies, and best Telugu films .
News18
28-04-2025
- Business
- News18
Why Is UPI Facing Frequent Disruptions? How Does The Interface Work? Explained
Last Updated: A probe done by NPCI, which manages UPI, shows the outages took place due to technical oversight – absence of transaction status check limiter in the system's architecture The outages in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the months of March and April causing serious disruptions in apps like GPay and PhonePe call for attention to the growing concern over the reliability of the platform. Three major outages were reported in just three weeks on March 26, April 1 and April 12 have exposed certain vulnerabilities in the system that processes around Rs 25 lakh crore in monthly digital transactions. An investigation done by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the UPI, reveals that the outages stemmed from technical oversight — the absence of transaction status check limiter in the system's architecture. The issue was identified to be caused by the flooding of 'Check transaction API. Further, it was observed that a few PSP Banks were also sending requests for 'Check transactions' ever for older transactions multiple times," stated NPCI. Let us understand how does UPI work, how NPCI manages transactions and what do the banks have to say about the platform. How Does UPI Work? A UPI is a smartphone application that allows users to transfer money between bank accounts. It is a single-window mobile payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It eliminates the need to enter bank details or other sensitive information each time a customer initiates a transaction. The payment is made in real-time, and is designed to enable peer-to-peer inter-bank transfers through a single two-click factor authentication process. The interface is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The pilot system was launched in India on April 11, 2016. Banks across the country started to upload their interface in August 2016. UPI uses existing systems, such as Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), to ensure seamless settlement across accounts. It facilitates push (pay) and pull (receive) transactions and even works for over-the-counter or barcode payments, as well as for multiple recurring payments such as utility bills, school fees, and other subscriptions. Once a single identifier is established, the system allows mobile payments to be delivered without the use of credit or debit cards, net banking, or any need to enter account details. Why NPCI Had Several Outages? Srikanth Lakshmanan, a member of the Cashless Consumer project, quoted by The Hindu, said it is because of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, which mandates that organisations involved in clearing transactions in bulk to be majority-owned by public sector banks. 'You don't do a PIN authentication, but other communication still goes through NPCI," Lakshmanan said. 'The NPCI has to say this transaction originated from your device and so on. This is why even though UPI Lite doesn't involve the PIN entry and decryption, it is still routed through NPCI since it's fundamentally an interoperable system. While UPI Lite is light, it still requires NPCI to be in the middle." How Technical Oversight Caused UPI Outage The NPCI limits banks to check a transaction's status only three times, with each request requiring a 90-second interval. However, this restriction was implemented by banks themselves rather than through NPCI's infrastructure. As per a repot by Moneycontrol, banks continued making non-stop transaction success checks that overwhelmed the system beyond its capacity. The NPCI has advised financial institutions and their partners to strictly adhere to the specified frequency of transactions checks instead of continuously querying the system. How Banks Have Had Rocky Relations With UPI Reports suggest that even though the system has revolutionised payments in India, there were over 58 crore transactions worth over Rs 73,000 crore on April 25, and banks were largely unable to collect any significant fees on transactions, even though there are costs attached to each of these. The RBI estimated that banks incur a cost of Rs 0.80 per transaction, due to SMS notification costs (which telecom operators collect for commercial messages), and the costs incurred in maintaining and updating records of each payment. However, they are not able to charge a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) for these services, leaving them with few incentives to keep to rigorous uptime standards, as per The Hindu. The report suggested that system-wide downtimes are far fewer and shorter on commercial card networks like MasterCard and Visa as they have robust monitoring. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has launched its annual UPI incentive programme for banks, which also has conditions that penalise banks whose performance suffers over the course of year. How RBI Controls NPCI The RBI on April 9 permitted NPCI to upwardly revise transaction limits in UPI for person-to-merchant payments (P2M) based on evolving user needs. 'To enable the ecosystem to respond efficiently to new use cases, it is proposed that NPCI, in consultation with banks and other stakeholders of the UPI ecosystem, may announce and revise such limits based on evolving user needs," RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said. Banks shall continue to have the discretion to decide their own internal limits within the limits announced by NPCI, the governor added. P2P transactions on UPI, however, will continue to be capped at Rs 1 lakh, as hitherto. Loans against the collateral of gold jewellery and ornaments are extended by regulated entities (REs) for both consumption and income-generation purposes. Prudential and conduct related regulations for these types of loans have been issued from time to time and they vary for different categories of REs. 'With a view to harmonising such regulations across REs while keeping in view their risk-taking capabilities, and also to address a few concerns that have been observed, it has been decided to issue comprehensive regulations, on prudential norms and conduct related aspects, for such loans," the governor said. The Reserve Bank has also proposed to make the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) framework 'theme neutral' and 'on tap' to foster continuous innovation and keep pace with the rapidly evolving fintech/regulatory landscape. (with inputs from PTI) Get Latest Updates on Movies, Breaking News On India, World, Live Cricket Scores, And Stock Market Updates. Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : digital payments india News18 Explains Unified Payments Interface (UPI) Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: April 28, 2025, 10:02 IST News explainers Why Is UPI Facing Frequent Disruptions? How Does The Interface Work? Explained
The Hindu
26-04-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Why is UPI seeing frequent downtimes?
The story so far: In March and April, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system went down three times, causing significant disruptions in payments on apps like GPay and PhonePe, which rely on the system. One of the downtimes was caused by individual banks flooding the National Payments Corporation of India's (NPCI) systems with transaction status checks. How does UPI work? UPI payments work based on an architecture that was inherited from the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS). For UPI payments to work, a bank is required to join the UPI system and allow users to access their own accounts through a linked phone number, on a Payment Service Provider (PSP)'s app, like PhonePe or GPay. Practically every commercial bank, public or private, is on the UPI system. UPI is designed as an interoperable system, allowing any bank's account holders to sign up for the service on any app, and even multiple apps at the same time. This resembles a peer-to-peer system, where individual banks are all talking to each other, but in reality, practically every transaction is routed through the systems of the NPCI. 'The NPCI is essential in this process,' said Srikanth Lakshmanan, a member of the Cashless Consumer project, as it encrypts the PIN information — which only the bank knows — and sends the payment information forward to a payer's bank, which then executes the transaction. 'So if there's a downtime in the NPCI, there's no way your bank would get your PIN. This is where it is a single point of failure.' Why did the NPCI have several outages? The NPCI as an organisation is structured as a collective of banks, with public sector banks holding the bulk of its shareholding. This, Mr. Lakshmanan said, is because of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, which mandates that organisations involved in clearing transactions in bulk have to be majority-owned by public sector banks. Led as it is by banks, the implementation too is largely left to them, though the NPCI has played a big role in designing and presiding over the UPI system. In the last few weeks, individual banks reportedly flooded the UPI system with 'check transaction' requests, which payer banks use to verify that a payment has been completed. That hit the single point of failure at NPCI, and took the system offline briefly. To reduce the impact of downtime like this, the NPCI has created something called UPI Lite, which allows users to set aside up to ₹2,000 for payments without having to punch in a PIN. But even such payments go through the NPCI's systems. 'You don't do a PIN authentication, but other communication still goes through NPCI,' Mr. Lakshmanan said. 'The NPCI has to say this transaction originated from your device and so on. This is why even though UPI Lite doesn't involve the PIN entry and decryption, it is still routed through NPCI since it's fundamentally an interoperable system. While UPI Lite is light, it still requires NPCI to be in the middle.' Why are banks peeved? Banks have historically had a rocky relationship with UPI. While the system has revolutionised payments in India — just on Friday, there were over 58 crore transactions worth over ₹73,000 crore — they are largely unable to collect any significant fees on transactions, even though there are costs attached to each of these. The RBI estimated that banks incur a cost of ₹0.80 per transaction, due to SMS notification costs (which telecom operators collect for commercial messages), and the costs incurred in maintaining and updating records of each payment. However, they are not able to charge a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) for these services, leaving them with few incentives to keep to rigorous uptime standards. Individual banks go down far more frequently than the NPCI as a whole, and these outages result in increased payment decline events. System-wide downtimes are far fewer and shorter on commercial card networks like MasterCard and Visa, Mr. Lakshmanan said, as there is robust monitoring and service level agreements to enforce performance standards. However, he said, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has tried a 'carrot and stick' approach, with its annual UPI incentive programme for banks, which comes attached with conditions that penalise banks whose performance suffers over the course of a year. The subsidy scheme compensates banks for their current inability to charge an MDR. 'If you're at the bottom [in terms of uptime], you get nothing,' Mr. Lakshmanan said.
