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DPDP rules,2025: Enforcing stringent requirements for data collection, processing and management
Bibhu Krishna, Chief Information Security Officer, Policybazaar.com...
Union Budget 2025-26: Reshaping Indian insurance landscape
Tapan Singhel, MD&CEO, Bajaj General Insurance& Chairman,...
Going Digital: COVID-enforced mindset changing insurance landscape in India, Indonesia, Malaysia,Swiss Re
The growing presence of e-commerce and digital wallet apps presents opportunities for innovative partnerships between insurers and digital platforms to bridge the USD 498 billion health protection in India, Indonesia and Malaysia, according to the latest Swiss Re study.
Covid-19 vaccines raise hope for cancer, throw open new field of medicine
Now, with one vaccine vaccine having gained U.S. clearance and the other close behind, the pandemic validation could wrench open a whole new field of medicine.
“We are now entering the age of mRNA therapeutics,” said Derrick Rossi, a former Harvard University stem-cell biologist who helped found Moderna in 2010. “The whole world has seen this. There is going to be increased investment and increased resources.”
How pandemic bonds became the world’s most controversial investment
Here’s how the pandemic bonds worked.
The World Bank would sell $320 million of debt to investors. In the event of a pandemic, that debt would be written off and the principal would accrue to the bank to be distributed to needy countries. Premiums were juicy – the safest slice of the offering paid 6.9% over the Libor benchmark rate, similar to returns typically found on junk-rated corporate bonds and far greater than the 2.2% available on 10-year U.S. government debt at the time. For the second tranche, which had looser triggers for a writeoff, premiums were a whopping 11.5%.
Asia Pacific Financial Services has ensured resilience amid the pandemic: Microsoft Study
“One thing is clear: the industry’s rapid response, reflected in the increase of maturity in adopting a culture of innovation, across people, process, technology and data practices, has paid dividends,” explained Connie Leung, Regional Business Lead, Financial Services, Microsoft Asia.
Now that vaccines are coming, what about poor countries?
By Andreas Kluth It’s now just a matter of weeks before shoulders are bared, syringes primed and vaccines injected. If last year was the one that gave Covid-19 its name and 2020 was defined by masks, gowns and swabs, 2021 will be the year of the...
Mental health in the workplace, saved by bots and apps?
Seven in 10 employees say this has been the most stressful year of their working lives, according to a report from Workplace Intelligence and Oracle.
For companies, that means the mental-health issues of employees have rocketed from a secondary concern in years past, to a primary one. But making help available, quickly and at scale, is no easy task.
And 68% say that they would prefer interacting with a robot on issues like stress and anxiety, as opposed to a human manager.
North American farmers profit as consumers pressure food business to go green
Investments in sustainability remain a tiny part of overall spending by the agriculture sector, which enjoyed healthy profits in 2020. They may help to head off more costly regulations down the road now that Democratic climate advocate Joe Biden was elected U.S. president.
Sustainable techniques farmers are adopting include refraining from tilling soil at times to preserve carbon. Some are adding an off-season cover crop of rye or grass to restore soil nutrients instead of applying heavy fertilizer loads over the winter that can contaminate local water supplies.
When and how will COVID-19 vaccines become available?
Essential workers, a group of 87 million people who do crucial jobs that cannot be done from home, are the likely next group. This includes firefighters, police, school employees, transport workers, food and agriculture workers and food service employees.
Around 100 million adults with high-risk medical conditions and 53 million adults over the age of 65, also considered at higher risk of severe disease, are the next priority.
A ‘mission of the century’ as airlines prep for gargantuan vaccine supply
This will be the largest and most complex logistical exercise ever,” said Alexandre de Juniac, chief executive officer of the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s chief lobby. “The world is counting on us.”
IATA estimates that the equivalent of 8,000 loads in a 110-ton capacity Boeing 747 freighter will be needed for the airlift, which will take two years to supply some 14 billion doses, or almost two for every man, woman and child on Earth. It’s a tall order, given about one-third of the global passenger fleet is still in storage, based on data from Cirium.
Will India’s banking system go from being state-dominated to tycoon-led?
The regulator mustn’t take the public’s trust for granted. The IL&FS debacle shows little institutional capacity to stop mischief outside the balance sheet of a traditional bank.
The report came just as the regulator solemnised the sale to Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings Ltd. of one such lender, the third failure of a major deposit-taking institution in 15 months. Before that shotgun marriage, the country had 22 universal banks (and 10 so-called small finance banks) in the private sector, with a 30% share of deposits, up from 13% two decades ago. Foreign banks’ low 5% share has remained unchanged. Dominant public-sector banks’ market share is down to 65%, from 82% in 2000.