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China, in major policy shift, announces families can have three children

“To further optimise the birth policy, (China) will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy,” Xinhua said in a report on the meeting.
In 2016, China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy – initially imposed to halt a population explosion – with a two-child limit, which failed to result in a sustained surge in births as the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities deterred many couples from starting families. read more

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Covid-19 second wave hits PSBs collection in May: Indian Bank Association

Replying to a question on the impact of the second wave on collection in Equated Monthly Installment (EMI) of Home Loan, Personal loan and payment of credit card bills when compared with the first wave, R Rai said, “We have seen some substantial improvement in the month of April 21 against April 2020, but we are witnessing the impact on the collection of banks in the current month of May.”

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X-Press Pearl loss will add to insurers’ container ship headaches

Insurers will face hull and machinery, cargo and liability claims, although there is still much uncertainty about the size of the loss. The vessel itself was only three months old; it is unclear how much the hull was insured for and which company insured it.

Rob Hawes, head of marine at loss adjuster Crawford & Co. estimated that the cargo loss could be between $30 million and $50 million, based on the X-Press Pearl’s 2,700 container capacity and an assumption that a container houses an average of $15,000 to $20,000 of goods.

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B1617 variant spreading worldwide at ‘frightening speed’: Experts

“What is frightening is the speed at which this variant is able to spread and circulate widely within the community, often surpassing the capability of contact-tracing units to track and isolate exposed contacts to break the transmission chains, a Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, was quoted as saying.

“It has the potential to unleash a bigger pandemic storm than the world has previously seen,” Ying added.

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India poised to grow at world’s fastest rate despite virus

The biggest hit from the second wave of Covid infections has been to demand, with a loss of mobility, discretionary spending and employment, the Reserve Bank of India said earlier this month.
Even as virus cases have started receding and some parts of the country may reopen by June, consumers are unlikely to spend freely, given the economic uncertainties and with unemployment at its highest level in a year.

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