Netflix’s push into gaming has so far been restricted to smartphones, but not anymore. The

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The Indian government has announced that it would impose a heavy 28 per cent tax on the funds collected by online gaming firms from its customers, dealing a blow to the country’s fast-growing industry valued close to $2bn. India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, consisting of federal and state ministers, said on Tuesday that it has agreed to levy a 28 per cent indirect tax on online gaming, casinos, and horse racing, adding there should be no distinction between “game of skill” and “game of chance.” Industry experts have voiced concerns that the increased tax burden on the companies may lead to extra charges levied from customers. Companies have so far only paid a small tax on the fee charged from customers for playing games involving real money, but Tuesday’s new rule would impose a 28 per cent tax on the amount these firms collect from players in every game, dealing a hefty blow to their operations. “The implementation of a 28 per cent tax rate will bring significant challenges to the gaming industry. This higher tax burden will impact companies’ cash flows,” Aaditya Shah, an executive at the gaming app IndiaPlays, told Reuters. The new move also comes amid a number of reports across the country of gaming addiction and financial losses among fantasy cricket players and online card games. Commenting on the GST Council’s decision, Roland Landers, chief of the trade body All India Gaming Federation which represents firms like Mobile Premier League, Gameskraft, and Paytm First Games, said it is “unconstitutional, irrational, and egregious”. “This decision will wipe out the entire Indian gaming industry and lead to lakhs of job losses and the only people benefitting from this will be anti-national illegal offshore platforms,” Mr Landers said in a statement, TechCrunch reported. Ashneer Grover, co-founder of the Indian fintech company BharatPe and a former Shark Tank India judge, tweeted that the move may pose risks “not only for online games – but across sectors. Across startups.” “You got billions in from foreign investors as FDI (foreign direct investment). Celebrated FDI inflow! Now the same investors will apply regulatory risk discount to India and funds will dry up,” he said. “RIP – Real money gaming industry in India....It was good fun being part of the fantasy gaming industry - which stands murdered now,” Mr Grover tweeted. Read More A look at sports gambling rules among Big 4 pro leagues Seventh Indian cheetah died of ‘traumatic shock’ after fight with female, post mortem shows Record monsoon rains have killed more than 100 people in northern India this week £10 phone with e-wallet and streaming can bridge India ‘digital divide’, experts say Elon Musk reveals plan to use AI to reveal mysteries of the universe xAI: Everything we know about Elon Musk’s new AI company

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It’s well known that all humans alive today can be traced back to a common ancestor but a study may have found where that ancestor originates. Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute mapped the entirety of genetic relationships among humans to create the largest human family tree ever. By combining modern and ancient human genomes data from eight different databases, the researchers were able to create a massive family tree. This allowed them to see how a person’s genetic sequence relates to another using the points of the genome. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Essentially, we are reconstructing the genomes of our ancestors and using them to form a vast network of relationships,” Lead author Dr Anthony Wilder Wohns said. “We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived.” Where they lived? Sudan, Africa. Dr Wohns told Reuters, "The very earliest ancestors we identify trace back in time to a geographic location that is in modern Sudan. “These ancestors lived up to and over 1 million years ago—which is much older than current estimates for the age of Homo sapiens—250,000 to 300,000 years ago. So bits of our genome have been inherited from individuals who we wouldn’t recognize as modern humans," Dr Wohns said. Researchers used 3,609 individual genome sequences from 215 populations and samples that ranged from 1,000s to over 100,000 years. By using a new method to compile the data, algorithms were able to predict where common ancestors were in evolutionary trees to explain some patterns of genetic variation. The results were a network of almost 27 million ancestors. “The power of our approach is that it makes very few assumptions about the underlying data and can also include both modern and ancient DNA samples,” Dr Wohns says. Not only does the data help us understand human geology better but the new method could help in other research, like medicine. “The underlying method could have widespread applications in medical research, for instance identifying genetic predictors of disease risk," Dr Wohns added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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