Category:

Eco/Invest/Demography

Dam collapse in China could point to a ‘black swan’ disaster

But climate change is bringing a new normal of extremes and flood-risk policies decided a decade or two ago are no longer sufficient, said Benjamin Horton, director at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.

“What really needs to happen is to work with the ecosystems,not against them by building dams,by extending flood wetlands and flood plains and allowing the water to naturally mix with the environment,”he said.

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Facebook’s WhatsApp to partner with more Indian banks in financial inclusion push

WhatsApp will also expand pilot projects with banking and other partners to cover financial services such as pensions and insurance.

“Our collective aim over the next two to three years should be to help low-wage workers and the unorganised, informal economy easily accesses three products – insurance, micro-credit and pensions,” Abhijit Bose, WhatsApp’s India head told a fin-tech summit

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EU makes world’s biggest ‘green recovery’ pledge – but will it hit the mark?

The money represents a 30% share of a mammoth package, comprising a 1.074 trillion euro EU budget for 2021-27 and a 750 billion euro coronavirus recovery fund. Leaders also agreed that even those parts of the overall package not specifically earmarked for climate spending must “do no harm” to the EU’s goal to become climate neutral by 2050.

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India’s water crisis is forcing farmers to finally rethink what they grow

Water shortages are already acute: nearly half the country’s population faces high-to-extreme water stress and about 200,000 die each year due to inadequate access to safe water. Stoked by climate change, the water crisis has forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to try and turn around decades of established farming practices and convince the country’s most powerful voting bloc to change the crops they plant. Water-guzzlers like rice and wheat are out, corn and pulses are in.

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Govt to soon come out with a list of strategic sectors: DEA Secretary

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in May announced that there will be a maximum of four public sector companies in strategic sectors, and state-owned firms in other segments will eventually be privatised.

“One important thing that I would like to mention is that the government should soon come out (with guidelines on) privatisation of the public sector companies,” Economic Affairs Secretary Tarun Bajaj said.

“This is a major announcement. I would say after 1956 when we decided to have public sector enterprises as our showpieces, this is the first time that any government has said that we will not have companies in the non-strategic sector in the public sector and in the strategic sectors also we will have less number of companies,” he said.

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Global coronavirus cases exceed 15 million 

The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world’s infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.

After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

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PM Modi seeks US investments in Indian healthcare,agri,insurance & clean energy sectors

“India invites you to invest in finance and insurance. India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49%. Now 100% FDI is permitted for investment in insurance intermediaries,” he said.

He said that reforms in many sectors like agriculture, medicine, energy, space, aviation and others have made them attractive destination for investment.  FDI limit in sectors like Defence was increased.

 Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and Internet of things

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