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Eco/Invest/Demography

NGT junks Punjab govt plea to recover penalty from defaulting farmers for burning crop residue

The plea sought to recover the amount of environmental compensation (pending dues and future liabilities) from the payment of sale proceeds of food grains of the defaulting farmers who have burnt paddy residue.

The NGT had in 2015 directed state governments to take coercive and punitive action against persistent defaulters of its crop residue burning order and asked them to withdraw the assistance provided to those farmers.

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Mark Zuckerberg defends WhatsApp privacy policy amid India backlash

The WhatsApp policy has now been put on hold till May 15. It aims to share commercial user data with parent Facebook. The Indian government has also written a letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart to withdraw the policy.
“All of these messages are end-to-end encrypted, which means we can’t see or hear what you say and we never will, unless the person that you message chooses to share it and business messages will only be hosted on our infrastructure if the business chooses to do so,” Zuckerberg said.

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Life and health insurance most likely products to see long-term benefits from COVID-19:GlobalData survey

Ben Carey-Evans, Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Business interruption insurance is another product that could positively be impacted by COVID-19. Businesses around the world would have been scarred by forced closures throughout 2020 and into 2021 were they not able to operate. It is likely that the positive impact to this business line will be felt over time, as business owners would be very interested in policies that include pandemic cover. This product would likely have scored even higher had there not been disputes around whether insurers should pay out on COVID-19-related claims.”

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OUTLOOK 2021: Regulatory challenges abound for U.S. insurers as Biden takes over, pandemic rages

While a major overhaul of insurance regulation has been ruled out, and Biden’s primary insurance-related focus is expected to be on healthcare, experts say life and property-and-casualty insurers will also need to prepare for an increase in regulatory attention from the new administration as it rushes to temper the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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