Construction sites and buildings are pictured amid heavy smog, on the third day after China’s capital Beijing issued its second ever ”red alert” for air pollution, in Beijing, China, in this December 21, 2015 photo. Reuters/Jason Lee BEIJING Air pollution in China could be big business. Two of the world’s largest technology firms, IBM and Microsoft, are vying to tap the nascent, fast-growing market for forecasting air […]
Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia’s subsidy scheme is poised for a change as the country announced that they would be reviewing government support for energy, water and electricity prices in the next five years. A 2016 budget document by the Ministry of Finance said that reviewing government support is aimed at achieving efficiency in energy use, conserving natural resources, stopping waste and irrational use, and minimising negative effects […]
Gulfnews.com A convoy of ambulances carrying more than 125 fighters from the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Zabadani arrive at the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, December 28, 2015. Beirut: A rare UN-backed deal between Syria’s warring sides saw hundreds of fighters and civilians evacuate three towns on Monday, as bomb blasts in the regime-held city of Homs killed at least 14 people. President Bashar […]
A new type of computer chip developed by researchers at MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, could lead to faster data transmissions and potentially more energy efficient data centers. The technology is based on using light rather than streams of electrons to transmit data. The researchers said the chip (Image: Glenn J. Asakawa) can transmit 50 to 100 times the amount […]
|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, the last six years were a unique period in global central banking, an epic monetary experiment that averted a Great Depression after Lehman’s failure and interbank/credit contagion plunged the world into recession in 2008-9. Yet the Fed (and later Bank of Japan, ECB and even PBOC) quantitative easing also led to asset bubbles, credit market excesses, currency wars and the mispricing of […]
Foreign Hackers Accessed U.S. Power Grid ‘Dozens of Times’ Recently, a private security researcher hot on the trail of hackers who stole information from a California university’s housing files discovered something far more nefarious: the attackers had found a way into networks running America’s power grid. That security researcher was Brian Wallace. Those attackers appear to be based in Iran. According to his research, these bad actors […]
TOKYO Japan’s Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said on Monday it will cut nearly 7,000 consumer electronics jobs after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, in an overhaul that will streamline the sprawling conglomerate into a company focused on chips and nuclear energy. Toshiba also said it would sell its television manufacturing plant in Indonesia, and that eventual job cuts spanning the entire PC-to-nuclear company could be over 10,000 including […]
There is an old cliché that goes, “they don’t make them like they used to.” With the pronounced computerization of contemporary cars in mind, that adage certainly stands tall. More than 50 percent of vehicles sold this year connect to the Internet in one or more ways, and it is predicted by 2025, every car will be connected in multiple ways. That brings up the issue of car hacking. […]
MAMATA WOOING CONGRESS AGAIN
By Ashis Biswas
For the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal, the theme song could well be akla chalo re: Ironically, as the weakest opposition party in West Bengal, the BJP alone is not contemplating any alliance, with only a few months left before the 2016 Assembly polls.
Among other parties, the usually derided, much weakened Congress has emerged as the prime choice as an alliance partner both for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the CPI(M). Interestingly, the Left camp remains divided over the question of political alignments. For instance, the CPI a firm ally of the Congress during the seventies, has put its foot down to any linkage with it, as have smaller parties like the SUCI or the CPI(M-L). The CPI’s logic: it points to its own remarkable decline over the years, which it sees as a consequence of its earlier reliance on
The sign outside the Target store is seen in Arvada, Colorado in this January 10, 2014 file photo. Reuters/Rick Wilking/Files Target Corp (TGT.N) is in the early stages of developing its own mobile wallet, three people familiar with the matter said, joining Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) in posing a threat to recent entrants like Apple Pay. The fourth-largest U.S. retailer has not committed to launch the product, […]
In 1977, Rick Hoyt told his father Dick he would like to participate in a 5 mile run. It was a benefit for a Lacrosse player who had become paralyzed. Rick was diagnosed at birth as a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, and was unable to walk or speak naturally. Running a race seemed impossible but there are always ways to surpass those boundaries. Dick ran the race […]
CHINESE SLOWDOWN HAS TO BE MONITORED
By Anjan Roy
At long last the US Federal Reserve – America’s central bank—has raised the interest rates, albeit hardly. This is the first hike in interest rates by the US central bank in over a decade.
The US Fed rate hike has been by a very small margin – from zero to just about 0.25% to 0.5%. It was so gradual and soft that the rate hike did not cause the disruptions in the global financial markets that everyone expected from such a decision.
The first question here is how will it affect India? It should not, and this has been borne out by what happened in the day after the Fed rate hike. The stock market remained more or less flat. The exchange rate also remained stable. The fund managers did not immediately think of taking money out of India and that left the financial markets unruffled.
But then w
RURAL DEVELOPMENT MAY CLINCH 2016 POLL FOR MAMATA
By Ashis Biswas
As the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and opposition parties gear up for the next round of West Bengal Assembly elections, their campaign themes have been established.
The TMC is contesting on a ‘development’ slogan, while the twin pillars of the opposition’s campaign will be ‘lawlessness and economic stagnation’, broadly speaking.
At first sight, the TMC’s claim of having improved the state’s economy may look suspect, if not downright dubious, to most observers. However, initial impressions may be deceptive. After 54 months of its tenure, the ruling TMC has consolidated its position in rural Bengal. Especially in the highly populated South Bengal districts, which account for most of the 294 seats in the Assembly, the TMC is confident of doing better than its op
IMMEDIATE DIALOGUE NEEDED TO RESTORE HARMONY
By Kalyani Shankar
Differences of opinion between the Centre and the states are quite common in a federal structure. This is more so if different political parties rule in the state and at the Centre. It is not uncommon that some Chief Ministers have even walked out of the National Development Council or Inter State Council protesting against the Centre’s treatment of their states. Chief Minister accusing the Centre of using the CBI as a weapon against him or her is also not new. In fact the CBI director Ranjit Sinha even described the agency as a ‘caged parrot.’ Whether this is true or not, the CBI is not an autonomous agency and the party in power has some control over it.
Therefore Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s tantrums about the over-enthusiastic CBI raid in his office on Tuesday is not surprising. Althoug
As South Africans endure their deepest economic crisis since 2009, it’s not just President Jacob Zuma they blame. There’s a family whose name is increasingly the target of protest: the Guptas. As tens of thousands marched in October in South Africa’s biggest wave of nationwide anti-government protests since the African National Congress came to power, one poster, broadcast on the nation’s television channels, captured the public anger: […]
FOREIGN INVESTORS MAY GET SOME RELIEF
By G. Srinivasan
For the country’s corporate sector apprehensive of long pendency in courts and protracted litigation on commercial disputes for resolution, help is on hand at long last. The NDA government has set off a flurry of activities on this front to give a whiff of long-felt comfort to assuage investors’ enduring worries on this count. In the ongoing winter session of Parliament, the Law Commission of India’s report with its draft bill on Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts and Commercial Courts Bill, 2015 was tabled. Subsequently, the House Panel on Personnel, Public Grievances , Law and Justice under the chairmanship of Mr. E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan also submitted its report, which also took due note of the Ordinance promulgated by the Government on October 23, 2015 making certain improve
CENTRE MUST GIVE VIGOROUS PUSH TO SCHEMES
By Deepak Razdan
The Climate Change conference in Paris recognized that the key to combating global warming lay in promoting clean energy. A CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) Report on the “Renewable Energy Sector in India” placed in Parliament in the current winter session revealed that despite India’s ambitious renewable energy plans, the country’s performance in the clean energy sector has been poor.
The renewable energy potential in India is 8,89,508 Mega Watt. Although the Government of India has been promoting the development of the sector for energy security as well as environmental protection, the exploitation of the two largest components i.e. solar energy and wind energy potential was only 0.35 and 21 per cent, and varied significantly across States.
The Planning Commis
WHERE’S YOUR COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM, MR MODI?
By Garga Chatterjee
Those of us who are not of Delhi and live far away from the inner chambers of power, some aspects of the new Union government’s initial pronouncements were indeed exciting. Firstly, in consonance with the tone set by its leader in the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, the Central government wanted to be an enabler and not a micro-manager in people’s lives and aspirations. Secondly, it talked about co-operative federalism, by which, real federalism would be ushered in, in a spirit of co-operation between the constituent states of the Indian Union. Right now, these feel like promises from a different planet.
It is true that the government of India increased the percentage of tax money that would be given by the Centre to the states. But that came with a serious catch. The Union governm
|By Matein Khalid| The plunge in crude oil after OPEC’s Vienna conclave, Dr. Draghi’s failure to resist Bundesbank pressure not to fire another ECB easy money bazooka, Wall Street’s junk bond debacle and an imminent rise in the Fed Funds rate for the first time since 2006 will all shape the next big trades in Planet Forex. The Euro has risen to 1.10 on Draghi’s failure to […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| A new study from IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has found that external risks, security concerns, and over-indebtedness are perceived as the most serious challenges facing the microfinance sector in the Arab World. The survey, conducted in conjunction with Sanabel, the Microfinance Network of Arab Countries, said tackling those problems will be key to spurring the development of the industry. […]
|By Umar Munshi| Islamic Crowdfunding has the potential to help us change our world for the better. When an online community unites and pools resources, this community has the financial and social clout and capability to create and re-create multiple aspects of the world and directly impact society. Crowdfunding itself started and blossomed in the West initially amongst groups of like-minded individuals wanting to create something. In […]
Leading memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. is going all in on Inotera Memories, snapping up the remaining shares of the company it doesn’t already own. The sale price: about $3.2 billion. Micron already owned 33 percent of Inotera, which it acquired from Qimonda in 2008. Inotera, which provides DRAM foundary services based on 30nm process technology, produces about 120,000 wafer starts every month for Micron. “The acquisition […]
What’s the most frustrating part of owning a smartphone? A lot of users will point first to the meager battery life and the need to recharge more than once a day in some cases. A phone now available for pre-order, however, claims that one charge of its battery can last more than two weeks. China-based smartphone maker Oukitel has just announced a new Android-based smartphone called the […]
|By K Raveendran| With the new Public-Private Partnership law having come into being last month, Dubai is set to witness a new phase in its development, as private investments begin to flow into further development of the emirate’s infrastructure. This would mean the private sector directly getting involved in projects like airport expansion, extension of the Dubai Metro and similar infrastructure projects and sharing the risks in […]
