Global stocks are falling and bond yields are sinking after the implosion of a critical oil alliance caused crude prices to crash to historic lows.
S&P 500 (SPX) futures plunged as much as 5% Sunday evening, triggering a limit that prevents futures from trading below that mark. Dow (INDU) futures fell more than 1,200 points, or about 4.9%. Nasdaq Composite (COMP) futures were down 4.8%.
The sell-off carried over into Asia Pacific, where Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 6.3% on Monday, putting the index on pace for its biggest plunge since October 2008. Japan's Nikkei 225 (N225) sank 5.6%, heading for its lowest close in more than a year.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng (HSI) lost 3.5% by noon, setting the index up for its biggest decline in more than a year. South Korea's Kospi (KOSPI) also fell 4%. China's Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) was the best performer among major indexes in Asia — and even then was still down 2.5%.
WNU Editor: It is a perfect storm. OPEC breaking apart. Italy locking down the north of the country. The coronavirus outbreak continues to spread globally. Investors search for stability, and there is certainly none in the world today.
Financial markets slump heavily and a swathe of northern Italy is sealed off as authorities struggle to contain the spread and impact of the deadly coronavirus https://t.co/YzcHj2VxYFpic.twitter.com/wgSl9CGrud
Nine years after a devastating tsunami sparked disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, the clean-up continues.@AFP was granted rare access to reactor control rooms and other parts of the plant for an update in the months before the Tokyo Olympicshttps://t.co/7RzQdyzhIJpic.twitter.com/dSFwBhXods
More than 30 African and Partner nations from around the world joined together in Senegal 🇸🇳 as part of @USAfricaCommand exercise #FlintLock20 to help strengthen defense capabilities and counter violent extremists. pic.twitter.com/UVRRA7hFJM
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) March 8, 2020
Migrants walk along fields near the border line to reach Greece near Karpuzlu village, near the Turkish border city of Edirne, March 2, 2020. Thousands of migrants have made for Greece since Ankara said on Feb. 28 that it would let migrants cross its borders into Europe, reneging on a commitment to hold them on its territory under a 2016 deal with the European Union. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
WNU Editor: The above picture is from this photo-gallery .... Photos of the week (Reuters).
Refugees who cross to Europe will soon top to a million, European governments will fall, their economies will be destabilized and their stock exchanges will tumble and they can't do anything about it, says #Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. pic.twitter.com/xeUBX8uiwZ
The current influx of thousands of migrants attempting to cross into Greece from Turkey will soon see a significant spike, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Saturday.
More migrants will be able to move towards the border thanks to favourable weather conditions and increased Turkish security measures at the border to stem pushbacks, Yeniçağ newspaper quoted Soylu as saying at a press conference in the eastern province of Elazığ on Saturday.
"This is just the beginning. You should watch what will happen next. What has happened so far is nothing," Soylu said.
Thousands gathered at Turkey's border with Greece, after Turkish authorities said last week they would no longer stop migrants trying to get to Europe.
A tug boat pulls along side the guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) on Jan. 27, 2020. (U.S. Navy Photo by Hendrick L. Dickson/Released)
Armed with advanced lasers, cruise missiles and ship-defense interceptor weapons, the Navy's emerging DDG 51 Flight III destroyers are designed to conduct and win major ocean wars against advanced, high-powered enemies.
As part of an accelerated effort to prepare these new ships, the Navy has now begun construction of its first new Flight III DDG 51 surface warfare destroyer at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Maine. Similar to its under-construction predecessor, the USS Jack Lucas (DDG 125), the BIW-constructed future USS Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG 126) will be armed with improved weapons, advanced sensors and new radar significantly more sensitive than most current systems, changing attack and defensive options for the surface fleet.
Lebanon is to default on a foreign debt payment for the first time in its history as the country struggles with a major financial crisis.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab said Lebanon would not be making a bond payment of $1.2bn (£900m) due on Monday.
"The debt has become bigger than Lebanon can bear, and bigger than the ability of the Lebanese to meet interest payments," Mr Diab said.
Lebanon has been struggling since the value of its currency plummeted.
The Lebanese pound has been losing value against the dollar for months, in part because the country's banks have been reluctant to convert local pounds to dollars - leading to an increase in demand for the latter.
The CIA never welcomed its overlords in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But now, the agency confronts its worst nightmare.
President Donald Trump's nomination of Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to serve as the nation's intel chief has led to some apprehension within the intelligence community, which has only grudgingly come to accept the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a force for good.
The office, established in 2004 to better coordinate the flow of information between agencies after the intelligence failures that led up to 9/11, has been most effective as a day-to-day manager focusing on bureaucratic and budgeting issues, intel veterans said — giving the agencies political top cover and more freedom to focus on their core missions.
WNU Editor: Intelligence officials running to the Politico to whine that the White House is putting them under the microscope have no one else but themselves to blame. The article's praise of former DNI Director James Clapper is particularly glaring in view of how Clapper used his office to undermine President Trump before he was inaugurated by coordinating with former FBI Director Comey and former CIA Director Brennan on getting the Steele dossier story into the media.
North Korea fired at least three unidentified projectiles Monday, according to US and South Korean officials.
"Our military detected 3 unidentified projectiles fired this morning from the Sondok area in Hamgyong Province, North Korea, toward northeast, toward the East Sea," the South Korea Defense Ministry said in a text to reporters.
"Currently, our military is monitoring related movement in case of additional launch and is maintaining preparedness." The East Sea is also known as the Sea of Japan.
A US official told CNN that North Korea fired four unidentified projectiles.
The awesome moment a U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine smashes through thick ice in the Arctic Ocean has been captured on video Footage shows the moment the Los Angeles class submarine USS Toledo surfaced in the Arctic Ocean earlier this week The Naval submarine is taking part in a biennial three-week Ice Exercise to test military readiness in the Arctic region
This is the awe-inspiring moment that a U.S. submarine broke through several feet of ice to surface in the Arctic Ocean during a training drill.
The USS Toledo is taking part in the biennial Ice Exercise - a three-week drill to assess operation readiness in the Arctic region.
The ice where the fast-attack nuclear submarine broke through the surface was around 16 inches thick.
Oil prices plunged 30% in early trading after OPEC's failure to strike a deal with its allies regarding production cuts caused Saudi Arabia to slash its prices as it reportedly gets set to ramp up production, leading to fears of an all-out price war.
International benchmark Brent crude futures plummeted 30% to $31.02 per barrel, its lowest level since Feb. 2016. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 27% to $30 per barrel, also its lowest level since Feb. 2016.
"This has turned into a scorched Earth approach by Saudi Arabia, in particular, to deal with the problem of chronic overproduction," Again Capital's John Kilduff said. "The Saudis are the lowest cost producer by far. There is a reckoning ahead for all other producers, especially those companies operating in the U.S shale patch."
* There have been at least 20 US strikes against militants in Somalia this year * Despite air strikes, al-Shabab appears to be a growing threat
The Pentagon has been issuing near daily announcements of new strikes against the Islamic militants of al-Shabab in Somalia, seemingly without affecting the al-Qaeda affiliate's ability to destabilise the country, in what is looking like a new "endless war" for the United States.
The Trump administration's plans to reduce its military presence in Africa while re-centering its efforts toward two key strategic competitors – China and Russia – are coming at the expense of French-led operations against jihadists in the Sahel region.
So far, however, the war of attrition against al-Shabab has continued unabated.
WNU Editor: For as long as I can remember the U.S. has had a certain presence in Somalia. But the military aspect of this presence has certainly intensified this year, and according to the Pentagon, the mission now is to degrade Al-Shabaab as an effective fighting force by the end of the year. I agree with this analysis that the U.S. will not succeed .... US unlikely to meet schedule for 'degrading' Al Shabaab (Daily Nation).
* Italy has the highest number of cases outside China, the epicentre of the killer bug, overtaking South Korea * Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree that will continue until April 3 limiting movement in the North * Affects about 16 million people in regions including : Lombardy, Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia * There are no roadblocks in place and trains, buses and airports are still running meaning people can get about * Anyone who flouts the quarantine rules could face three months in prison or a fine of up to £178 * Bars and restaurants will remain open but must ensure that everyone is seated at least three feet apart * Foreign Office said British tourists 'are free to return home or complete their holiday' under Italian guidelines
The coronavirus death toll in Italy has risen by 133 to 366 as the country imposed a lockdown affecting 16 million people in a desperate bid to combat the spread of the killer bug.
The number of confirmed cases in the country increased by 1,492 to 7,375, with the new figures representing by far the largest daily rise in fatalities since the outbreak came to light last month.
Italy, which is the hardest hit European nation, has the highest number of cases outside China, the epicentre of the deadly disease, overtaking South Korea.
The head of the Civil Protection Agency said today that, of those originally infected, 622 had fully recovered, compared to 589 the day before. Some 650 people were in intensive care against a previous 567.
* Almost half a million (480,000) Americans are expected to die from coronavirus * 4.8 million will be hospitalized and 96 million infected * Figures come from leaked slides from a presentation by Dr. James Lawler, a University of Nebraska Medical Center professor and hosted by AHA * They show the spread of the deadly disease could be far worse than officials claim, with the crisis 10 times greater than a severe flu season * The shock figures fly in the face of claims made by President Trump who has maintained on many occasions that the risk to Americans is 'low' * Lawler estimated people with heart conditions have a one in 10 chance of dying from the disease, compared to less than one in a 100 among healthy individuals * Trump signed a spending bill to allocate $8.3 billion to tackle the crisis Friday * US has more than 430 cases and 19 confirmed deaths, after Florida confirmed its first two deaths Friday
US hospitals are preparing for 96 million coronavirus infections and nearly half a million deaths from the outbreak, leaked documents have revealed.
The spread of the deadly disease could be far worse than officials claim, with 480,000 Americans expected to die from the virus and 4.8 million hospitalized, according to a presentation hosted by The American Hospital Association (AHA) in February.
This puts the crisis on a level more than 10 times greater than that seen in a severe flu season.
The shock figures fly in the face of claims made by President Trump who has maintained on many occasions that the risk to Americans is 'low'.
* Nation's leading geneticist Jin Li calls on the world to 'take strong actions on public health, using experiences learned from China and Singapore' * Chilling forecast based on simple linear model, though research has yet to be peer-reviewed
The number of coronavirus cases outside China will increase tenfold every 19 days if no drastic measures are taken to contain its spread, according to a study by a team of Chinese scientists.
The research, headed by leading geneticist Jin Li at Fudan University in Shanghai, also traced the spread of the virus outside China back to just 34 "unobserved carriers".
Jin, who is known as China's "DNA hunter", said some of those carriers might be asymptomatic and have been present before or about the same time as the coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
WNU Editor: Summer is only a few months away where illnesses like the flu and other respiratory diseases taper off. The hope is that this epidemic will come to an end in May/June. This is probably the reason why the UN is also refusing to call this a pandemic .... As virus outbreaks multiply, UN declines to declare pandemic (AP), and why the White House is confident that this outbreak will be controlled. I can only hope that they are right. But here is a little bit of history. The Spanish flu of 1918 stated in the spring of 1918. It tapered off during the summer. But in the winter of 1918 to 1919 it came back in a second wave that infected a third of the world's population and killed 50 million people.
At 10:16 a.m. on a wet and dreary Friday morning, Russia's energy minister walked into OPEC's headquarters in central Vienna knowing his boss was ready to turn the global oil market upside down.Alexander Novak told his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman that Russia was unwilling to cut oil production further. The Kremlin had decided that propping up prices as the coronavirus ravaged energy demand would be a gift to the U.S. shale industry. The frackers had added millions of barrels of oil to the global market while Russian companies kept wells idle. Now it was time to squeeze the Americans.After five hours of polite but fruitless negotiation, in which Russia clearly laid out its strategy, the talks broke down. Oil prices fell more than 10%. It wasn't just traders who were caught out: Ministers were so shocked, they didn't know what to say, according to a person in the room. The gathering suddenly had the atmosphere of a wake, said another.
WNU Editor: Millions of U.S. jobs are tied in with the energy industry. This chaos in the energy industry is going to cost a lot of jobs, and all of this will be happening right before the U.S. Presidential election. The question that remains unanswered is .... what will resonate more with the American public? Cheap gas prices, or an increase in unemployment. Historically speaking, cheap gas prices have always favoured the President in power. But these job loses are going to be happening in states like Pennsylvania that are critical to President Trump's re-election campaign. Either way we are going to be finding out in the coming months.
With the commodity world still smarting from the Nov 2014 Saudi decision to (temporarily) break apart OPEC, and flood the market with oil in (failed) hopes of crushing US shale producers (who survived thanks to generous banks extending loan terms and even more generous buyers of junk bonds), which nonetheless resulted in a painful manufacturing recession as the price of Brent cratered as low as the mid-$20's in late 2015/early 2016, on Saturday, Saudi Arabia launched its second scorched earth, or rather scorched oil campaign in 6 years. And this time there will be blood.
WNU Editor: With oil demand collapsing because of the coronavirus. The U.S. becoming the world's number one energy producer because of shale production. Coupled with other countries becoming oil producers like Guyana. What this means to you and I is the following .... OPEC deal collapse sparks price war: '$20 oil in 2020 is coming' (CNBC).
* Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al Saud and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef arrested * Over plot to oust king and son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reports suggest * Mohammed bin Nayef had been crown prince before his title was taken away * King Salman put his son - Prince Mohammed bin Salman - first in line for throne
The brother and nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Salman have been arrested over a plot to oust the king and his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a brother of King Salman, and the monarch's nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef were accused of treason.
They were taken from their homes early on Friday by black-clad royal guards, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Saudi royal court has accused the two men, once potential contenders for the throne, of 'plotting a coup to unseat the king and crown prince' and could face lifetime imprisonment or execution, the newspaper said.
PRISON RIOTS in Italy have left at least three people dead, as the country teeters on the brink of a public order breakdown in the wake of the devastating coronavirus epidemic.
A FIRE tore through a warehouse that housed thousands of voting machines and hundreds of computers - potentially stalling Venezuela's election later this year.
DONALD TRUMP'S administration is preparing emergency measures to allow staff to work from home and avoid a catastrophic Government shutdown, as fears mount of a serious coronavirus epidemic in the country.
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER is a tragic legend of Formula One who sadly crashed during a ski trip to Switzerland in 2013 and received a traumatic brain injury. Are there any recent updates on Michael Schumacher's health?
CORONAVIRUS cases are growing rapidly across Italy, with lockdown measures in place as the total number of cases reached 7,375 on Sunday. But why is coronavirus so bad in Italy?
When you refinance your mortgage, everything hinges on the appraisal. Here's what appraisers look at, how to make your home look as valuable as possible, and ways to fight back if the valuation comes in too low.
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Latest District Court Jobs 2020 – Apply for 154 LIVE Vacancy
District Court Recruitment
District Court Recruitment 2020-21 – Apply for 154 Stenographer, Village Accountant & Other Vacancies: District Courts of India has 154 Stenographer, Village Accountant & Other Vacancies at Various District Courts. Accordingly, and eligible job seekers can apply for District Court Vacancy 2020 through interested in Online mode or Offline mode. However, the application procedure has already started. Moreover, all aspirants must submit the application forms on or before the last date i.e. 30th April 2020. Furthermore, visit @ ecourts.gov.in to know more details about District Court Recruitment 2020-21. Stay connected with us to get more updates about the new vacancy in District Court Jobs 2020-2021.
District Court Mysore Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 17 Process Server Posts: District Court of Mysore announces 17 job vacancies to fill up Process Server Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 01st April 2020. You can apply online through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 30th April 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
District Court Mysore Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 16 Stenographers Posts Online: District Court of Mysore announces 16 job vacancies to fill up Stenographers Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 20th March 2020. You can apply online through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 19th April 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
District Court Mysore Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 80 Stenographers, Process Server, Typist & Peon: District Court of Mysore announces 80 job vacancies to fill up Stenographers, Process Server, Typist & Peon Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 18th February 2020. You can download the application form through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 20th March 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
Mysore District Court Recruitment 2020
Name of the Organization: District Court, Mysore
Name of the Posts: Stenographers, Process Server, Typist & Peon
District Court Uttara Kannada Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 17 Stenographers: District Court of Uttara Kannada announces 17 job vacancies to fill up Stenographer Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 17th February 2020. You can apply online through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 18th March 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
Uttara Kannada District Court Recruitment 2020
Name of the Organization: District Court, Uttara Kannada
District Court Raichur Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 24 Stenographer, Typist & Other Posts: District Court of Raichur announces 24 job vacancies to fill up Stenographer, Typist & Other Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs. You can apply online through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 12th March 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
District Court Ludhiana Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 26 Peon Posts: District Court of Ludhiana announces 26 job vacancies to fill up Peon Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 24th February 2020. You can download the application form through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 06th March 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
Ludhiana District Court Recruitment 2020
Name of the Organization: District Court, Ludhiana
District Court Vijayapura Recruitment 2020 Notification – Apply for 10 Typist, Process Server: District Court of Vijayapura announces 10 job vacancies to fill up Typist, Process Server Posts. Interested Candidates can apply for District Court Jobs from 1st February 2020. You can download the application form through the below link. The last date to submit your District Court Recruitment Application forms is 02nd March 2020. Know eligibility details regarding District Court Vacancies in the below sections of this page.
Vijayapura District Court Recruitment 2020
Name of the Organization: District Court, Vijayapura
MUMBAI: State Bank of India (SBI), which needs to come up with equity investment of over Rs 20,000 crore to save Yes Bank from collapse, is in talks with more than half-adozen potential investors, said people with knowledge of the matter. They include Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, TPG, KKR and Goldman Sachs.The state-owned bank is also said to be in talks with Tilden Park, JC Flowers and Cerberus Capital, some of which the previous management had been negotiating with.It could not be ascertained how much each investor is willing to chip in. Some state-owned institutions may also participate, said the people cited above. Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) is also said to be interested in investing in the bank; the mortgage lender didn't respond to queries. Last August, its asset management arm bought Yes Bank shares at around Rs 83.55 apiece in a qualified institutional placement (QIP). SBI didn't respond to queries."SBI as the anchor investor and RBI setting the base price at Rs 10 is making Yes Bank an attractive investment proposition," said an official involved in the process. 74543945 Revival Plan: Fresh Equity, 3-4 Marquee Investors Along with SBI"A plan is being firmed up and would be presented to the RBI soon. There are large domestic investors which could be interested besides the foreign ones. If things go to plan, this could be a good investment from SBI's point of view," said the official.There were day-long meetings at SBI headquarters in Mumbai on Saturday, said people directly involved.The plan is to infuse fresh equity into the bank and have three-four marquee investors along with SBI and a few domestic institutions and individuals. SBI is keen to have external investors put in as much as Rs 15,500 crore but the timeline of one week is believed to have deterred some.TPG, Carlyle, Brookfield, Cerberus, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and KKR declined to comment. Tilden Park and JC Flowers didn't respond to queries.SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar had said Saturday that there was interest from several investors and, at a base price of Rs 2,450 crore, an investment in the bank made sense for the bank."Many potential investors have approached us after seeing the scheme… There are some very good names," said Kumar. "What we have to keep in mind for the co-investors is a couple of things — any investor looking to invest beyond 5% will have to meet RBI's 'fit and proper' criteria. If they are foreign investors, they will have to meet the FPI (foreign portfolio investor) guidelines."The RBI, which superseded the Yes Bank board and imposed a 30-day moratorium on Thursday, announced a draft reconstruction plan that entails an equity investment of up to 49% by SBI on Friday.As per RBI's draft scheme, the state-owned lender is required to hold a minimum 26% in Yes Bank for at least three years. SBI's investment and legal team is currently conducting due diligence on the draft reconstruction scheme and will revert to the RBI today (March 9) with its comments.Analysts estimate that the maximum of Rs 10,000 crore that SBI plans to invest in Yes Bank is less than half of what it needs to stay afloat. The bank will need at least Rs 22,000 crore, half of which will have to come from non-SBI investors, they say."The plan now starts afresh, which means that the investors that were already talking to Yes Bank earlier do not get a head start. They may well join the fray because they have more information on the bank but it is all up to SBI on how they run the process now," said a banker in touch with investors wanting to put money into the bank.All discussions are preliminary in nature, said a private equity executive. Any equity investor will have to grapple with a fundamental question about survival as the retail deposit franchise will be under siege."Once the moratorium opens up, I do expect many to pull out their money because of the sheer inconvenience and frustration," he said. "The government will need to be ready with the necessary liquidity cushion. We all know how much losses exist on the books… In any case, tier 1 capital has been written off."Additional Tier 1 (AT-1) bonds worth about Rs 8,415 crore owned by mutual funds, pension funds and other investors will be reduced to zero under the reconstruction plan.Macquarie analyst Suresh Ganapathy put the amount of capital required by the bank at $3 billion (Rs 22,000 crore) over the next 12 to 18 months, in a report on Friday."As per our analysis, under scenario 1, SBI will infuse Rs 2,450 crore. However, considering the quantum of stressed assets on the Yes Bank books, such a small amount would not be enough to make provisions and so the question arises whether SBI will bring in more capital in the future, if required," Ganapathy said. SBI chairman Kumar has said that the maximum the bank will invest is Rs 10,000 crore. Ganapathy pegged this amount higher, at Rs 11,800 crore."The question arises whether SBI will put in such a large sum and how easy it would be to bring in 'new investors' considering the lack of investor interest in the past," Ganapathy said.The magnitude of the provisions required by the bank has prevented investors from infusing funds in the past. Analysts calculate that about half the capital infused could be used for writing off bad loans.The much-delayed earnings announcement for the December quarter is due on March 14. It's expected that the bank's capital adequacy ratio (CAR) will be negative."The bank had no money to make interest payments, that's how bad the situation was. The CAR is likely to be negative and that is one reason why the moratorium was imposed because otherwise there would have been a run on the bank," said a senior public sector bank executive.Bankers said the special restructuring plan, which allows SBI to sidestep the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) pricing formula, could help attract more investors since Rs 10 per share is even below the Friday close of Rs 16.60 per share.
By Dan Murtaugh and Alfred CangOil markets crashed more than 30 per cent after the disintegration of the Opec+ alliance triggered an all-out price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia that is likely to have sweeping political and economic consequences.Brent futures suffered the second-largest decline on record in the opening seconds of trading in Asia, behind only the plunge during the Gulf War in 1991. As the global oil benchmark plummeted to as low as $31.02 a barrel, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warned prices could drop to near $20 a barrel. 74543999 The cataclysmic collapse will resonate through the energy industry, from giants like Exxon Mobil Corp. to smaller shale drillers in West Texas. It will hit the budgets of oil-dependent nations from Iraq to Nigeria and could also reshape global politics, eroding the influence of countries like Saudi Arabia. The fight against climate change may suffer a setback as fossil fuels become more competitive versus renewable energy."It's unbelievable, the market was overwhelmed by a wave of selling at the open," said Andy Lipow, president of Houston-based energy consultancy Lipow Oil Associates LLC. "Opec+ has clearly surprised the market by engaging in a price war to gain market share."Hammered by withering demand due to the coronavirus, the oil market is sinking deeper into chaos on the prospect of a supply free-for-all. Saudi Arabia slashed its official prices by the most in at least 20 years over the weekend and signaled to buyers it would ramp up output -- an unambiguous declaration of intent to flood the market with crude. Russia said its companies were free to pump as much as they could.Aramco's unprecedented pricing move came just hours after the talks between Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies ended in dramatic failure. The breakup of the alliance effectively ends the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Russia that has underpinned oil prices since 2016.The state-owned Saudi producer has privately told some market participants it plans to raise output well above 10 million barrels a day next month and could even reach a record 12 million barrels a day, according to people familiar with the conversations, who asked not to be named to protect commercial relations.Oil prices have suffered massive drops each time that Saudi Arabia has launched a price war to drive competitors out of the market. West Texas Intermediate fell 66 per cent from late 1985 to March 1986 when the country pumped at will amid a resurgence of US oil output. Brent crude briefly dipped below $10 a barrel when the kingdom had a showdown with Venezuela in the late 1990s.With oil demand already plummeting due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, traders forecast that prices will go even lower. "The oil market is now faced with two highly uncertain bearish shocks with the clear outcome of a sharp price sell-off," said Jeffrey Currie, head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs in New York.Brent for May settlement tumbled as much as $14.25 a barrel to $31.02 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe Exchange, the biggest intra-day loss since the US-led bombing of Iraq in January 1991. It pared some of those losses to trade 21 per cent lower at $35.71 a barrel as of 9:15 a.m. in Singapore.West Texas Intermediate crude slumped 21 per cent to $32.48 a barrel after sliding as much as 27 per cent to $30 a barrel just after the open. Trading was frozen for the first few minutes because of the scale of the loss.While the price crash was dramatic, for oil specialists the movements in time-spreads, options and volatility are just as remarkable. Brent's three-month price structure widened sharply as oil for prompt delivery collapsed against later shipments. It moved deeper into contango, a sign of bearishness and oversupply, making it profitable for physical traders to buy crude and put it in storage, either in onshore tank farms or at sea on tankers. 74544007 Brent's premium to WTI fell to its lowest level in more than two years, as the coming gusher of crude from Opec countries threatens to impact global supply and demand balances more directly than those within the US The price differential was $2.77 a barrel, narrowing from an average of more than $4 last week.The freefall in oil also ricocheted across financial markets. US equity futures nosedived, along with oil currencies including the Norwegian krone and Mexican peso, while havens such as the Japanese yen and gold jumped. Shares of oil producers got hammered, with Australia's Santos Ltd. and Oil Search Ltd. losing more than 20 per cent in early Sydney trading.The prospect of another price war is spooking traders who will remember the crash that began in 2014, when an explosion in US shale production prompted Opec to open the spigots in an attempt to suppress prices and curtail shale output.That strategy ended in failure, with shale producers proving too resilient and Brent crude tumbling below $30 a barrel in 2016 amid a global glut. It was that crash that prompted Opec to club together with Russia and others to curtail output and help shore up their oil-dependent economies.
Mumbai: At least 40,000 Yes Bank debit and forex card holders travelling overseas are hit due to the ongoing crisis at the bank. The situation is especially grim for customers carrying Yes Bank forex prepaid cards instead of currency notes, with their access to payments for hotel room accommodation, transport and even food - virtually cut off."Forex prepaid cards are just like drafts which are also pre-paid instruments. This is an unprecedented crisis with thousands of Indians overseas without any access to their own money," said a forex-card operator who did not wish to be named. "Imagine being in a situation where you are traveling outside the country and banking on your credit/debit cards, and they no longer work." The central bank on Thursday imposed a moratorium on Yes Bank that capped deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per person, or $675. It relaxed the limit for emergencies like medical needs, payment for higher education, or marriage expenses. That is set at Rs 5 lakh.Several Yes Bank customers having prepaid forex cards tweeted to the bank seeking help as the cards were deactivated, leaving them stranded overseas without access to any money. Harsh Wadhwa, a student having aBookMyForex multi-currency card, complained that he had no access to funds. "I have to pay my rent but I can't withdraw a single cent even when I have already preloaded money in my card," Wadhwa wrote on twitter.Another twitter user Soumitra Chakravarti said he was currently in Canada and his only source of money was his forex Card. "The key word is prepaid, how can you stop my card services? I am stranded because of this and in an SOS situation," he too wrote on Twitter, tagging S Jaishankar, India's external affairs minister.The private lender, facing regulatory curbs, on Saturday announced that its systems were operational and that its users could make withdrawals using its debit cards and ATMs. "You can now make withdrawals using your Yes Bank debit card both at Yes Bank and other bank ATMs. Thanks for your patience," the bank tweeted Saturday evening.The bank also issued a set of FAQs and clarified that all online remittances including payments through RTGS/NEFT are suspended as of now. It also clarified that since all clearing activities were suspended, EMIs will be honored up to the prescribed limit subject to reinstatement of clearing activities. Also, all cheques already issued will not be honored until clearing resumes or Mint Road gives further directives.
On this forum of Global Business Summit, The Economic Times has given me an opportunity to speak in the presence of experts from all over the world. Since this morning, several topics have been discussed here and prominent personalities of the business world have shared their ideas. A common thread in this flow of ideas is 'Collaborate to Create'. This vision is the need of the hour and also the basis of future sustainable growth.The idea of Collaborate to Create is relevant even though it is old… Today, the world is facing a huge challenge in the form of coronavirus. Financial institutions also consider it a big challenge. We all have to face this challenge together… You are also going to brainstorm here on the philosophy of fractured world. Real fractures, over-imagined fractures and factors responsible for it will also be discussed.There was a time when things used to run according to the predictions of a particular class… But with the development of technology and democratisation of discourse, now the opinions of people from every section of the society matter… When you gave us the opportunity to serve for the first time in 2014… a large part of the country's population was longing for basic amenities like toilets, electricity connections, gas connections and houses. There were two options before us – to walk the same path as before or to create our own path and move forward with a new approach… we created a new path, moved ahead with a new approach and gave the foremost priority to the aspirations of the people.The class I was talking to you about has a very important identity – 'Talking the Right Things'. That is, they say the right thing always. There is no harm in saying the right thing. But this class hates those who follow the mantra of 'Doing The Right Things'… You may notice that those who call themselves the messiah of gender justice oppose our decision to enact a law against triple talaq. Those who keep talking about refugee rights to the world, are protesting against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) being enacted for refugees. Those who keep on talking about the Constitution day and night, are opposing the abrogation of temporary provisions such as Article 370 that will ensure the implementation of the Constitution completely in Jammu and Kashmir. Those who talk of justice question the intention of the Supreme Court of the country if one decision of the Supreme Court goes against them.Friends, some of you must have heard the chaupai of Ramcharitmanas that it is very easy to teach others, but it is very difficult to follow those teachings yourselves… Such people believe that inaction is the most convenient action. But for us, nation-building, development of the country, good governance are not a matter of convenience but conviction.CONVICTION TO DO THE RIGHT THING, CONVICTION TO BREAK THE STATUS QUOOne by one, we are taking every sector out of the convenience of inaction. Through DBT (direct benefit transfer), we have saved thousands of crores of rupees from getting into the wrong hands. By enacting the RERA Act, we have taken a huge step to free the real estate sector from the bondage of black money, and made the middle class get its dream homes.This campaign of liberation also took place in the corporate world. We changed the status quo by creating IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) and, besides ensuring the return of thousands of crores of rupees, we also showed a path to the companies in trouble. Otherwise, it was just one-way here. One could enter a business but could not leave. We have created ways to help failed businesses come out of it.We also took the banking system out of the old mindset by implementing the Mudra Yojana and have given more than Rs 11 lakh crore without bank guarantee to people, youth, women and firsttime entrepreneurs for promoting selfemployment.Similarly, we have changed the status quo and ensured better synergy and cooperation in our forces by creating CDS, i.e. Chief of Defence Staff. We also made a big change in the system by giving 10% reservation to the poor from the general category and have removed one of the major worries of the poor.Friends, since 2014, the country has moved ahead with the mantra of 'Cooperation in Spirit, Collaboration in Action and Combination of Ideas'. Today, India is creating a model of sustainable growth that will be beneficial for the whole world. The world's largest financial inclusion programme, the world's largest sanitation programme, the world's largest health assurance scheme and many other such schemes are providing experience in helping in the development of the world. 21st century India is learning a lot and is equally ready to take the benefits of the development to the people of the country.The results are clearly visible in different sectors and in different fields. The speed of highway construction in the country was about 12 km per day, six years ago. Today it is around 30 km. Six years ago, the situation was such that only 600 km of railway line was being electrified in a year. Last year, we electrified 5,300 km of railway lines. Six years ago, our airports were handling about 17 crore passengers. Now they are handling over 34 crore passengers.Six years ago, cargo handling at our major ports was around 550 million tonnes. It has now reached close to 700 million tonnes. And I would like to draw your attention towards one more important thing. Six years ago, the turnaround time at major ports was around 100 hours. Now it has come down to 60 hours. Relentless work is underway to reduce it further.Did such a major change take place just like this? No. We tried to eliminate silos in government departments, made systematic efforts and emphasised upon collaboration… You are also looking at the work being done at the airports and railway stations today… No one could have imagined that passengers would be compensated for train delays… But a new culture has been brought in this country wherein passengers are being given refunds when the train is late… There are several airlines that do not give refunds even when they are late, but today passengers are being given refunds when the train is late. We have provided this facility to people travelling by Tejas train. We know how risky this step is. Immediately RTIs will be placed tonight and journalists will also come out to know how much has been refunded, but we are satisfied and confident of our steps. We are taking the country in a direction where the government will be held responsible for train delays… In the last few years, India has become an even stronger part of the global economy system. But due to international conditions, the global economy is weak and in a difficult condition. Nevertheless, we have been taking as many proactive steps and initiatives as possible to ensure its minimal impact on the Indian economy, and this has also benefited us.Our policies are clear, our fundamentals are strong. Recently, India became the fifth largest economy in the world. When we came to power in 2014, we were on the 11th position. Now we have reached fifth place.Our government is working on four different levels to achieve the target of $5 trillion economy. First, collaborate with private sector. Second, fair competition. Third, wealth creation. And fourth, deletion of archaic laws.We have prepared a road map for investing more than Rs 100 lakh crore in the field of infrastructure. We have chosen the path to strengthen PPP with PPP. We want to give powerful progressive push to the country through public-private partnership! It has been seen that those sectors in which private sector is allowed to compete freely, grow rapidly. Therefore, our government is opening more and more sectors of the economy to the private sector.The government is standing firmly with the one who is moving ahead with honesty, fair competition and creating wealth. For that, the law is constantly being simplified and old laws are being abolished. To increase fair competition, we are dealing strictly with both corruption and cronyism. Be it banking, FDI policies or allotment of natural resources, cronyism is being removed everywhere. We have paid attention to simplification, rationalisation and transparency. Now, in this year's budget, we have come up with a new scheme called 'Vivad Se Vishwas' to resolve tax disputes. We are also moving fast towards labour reforms. Just the day before yesterday, the government decriminalised many provisions, making major changes in the Companies Act.Today, India is among the major countries where corporate tax is the lowest. India is also the country with a record 77 rank improvement in just five years in ease of doing business. Amid these efforts of the government, the confidence of foreign investors is also growing in the Indian economy. Just a short while ago, you heard the CEO of Blackstone here. He was saying that India gives the highest return in the world and they are planning to double their investment.Foreign direct investment of around $48 billion poured into the country in 2019. There was a growth of more than 16%. Similarly, India got $19 billion in private equity and venture capital investment last year. Growth in this aspect was more than 53%. Foreign portfolio investors are also increasing investment now. Last year, these investments amounted to about $19 billion. It is clear that investors looking for new options are also moving towards India.By liberating the country from the status quo, we are moving towards creation by collaboration not only at the national level but also internationally. You must remember when the proposal of International Yoga Day came from the United Nations, almost all the nations of the world supported India. And perhaps for the first time in the history of the UN, a resolution got the support of so many countries of the world. And the impact of yoga is such that, probably for the first time a meditation was done at your summit.Today, India has a high participation rate in peacekeeping forces… Moreover, today India plays a major role in setting up international level institutions. Whether it is International Solar Alliance or Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, such future-oriented institutions were started at India's initiative and today the whole world has started connecting with it. Friends, just like we have those forces that oppose changes and support the status quo in our country, there are similar forces at the global level that are getting together strongly… In this era of technology, the world is interconnected, interrelated and also interdependent. These are the changes of this century. There are changes at the global level. But still, the world is not able to come on a single platform or frame a global agenda, a global goal – of how to overcome world poverty, how to end terrorism, how to handle climate change issues….In the midst of changing global conditions, India has also made major changes. There was a period when India was neutral, we were neutral, but there was an equal distance from every country. How has the change occurred? Even today India is neutral, not on the basis of distance but on the basis of friendship. We are not only friends with Saudi Arabia but also with Iran. We are not only friends with America but also with Russia. Yet, we are neutral. There was a time when people were neutral by creating equal distance, but we are now neutral by creating equal friendship. In that period, they tried to escape by keeping distance. Today we are being friends and trying to walk together. This is the very essence of India's foreign policy, and the economic policy of India today.Friends, I am ending my speech with the words of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji used to say that "I want the rise of India so that the whole world can benefit from it". This one line also has the Indian idea of globalisation and the mantra of collaboration for the future.I once again wish you all the very best for your discussion on such an important subject. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to be present amidst you. Thanking you all from the bottom of my heart, I conclude my speech. Thank you!
Mumbai: At least 40,000 Yes Bank debit and forex card holders travelling overseas are hit due to the ongoing crisis at the bank. The situation is especially grim for customers carrying Yes Bank forex prepaid cards instead of currency notes, with their access to payments for hotel room accommodation, transport and even food - virtually cut off."Forex prepaid cards are just like drafts which are also pre-paid instruments. This is an unprecedented crisis with thousands of Indians overseas without any access to their own money," said a forex-card operator who did not wish to be named. "Imagine being in a situation where you are traveling outside the country and banking on your credit/debit cards, and they no longer work." The central bank on Thursday imposed a moratorium on Yes Bank that capped deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per person, or $675. It relaxed the limit for emergencies like medical needs, payment for higher education, or marriage expenses. That is set at Rs 5 lakh.Several Yes Bank customers having prepaid forex cards tweeted to the bank seeking help as the cards were deactivated, leaving them stranded overseas without access to any money. Harsh Wadhwa, a student having aBookMyForex multi-currency card, complained that he had no access to funds. "I have to pay my rent but I can't withdraw a single cent even when I have already preloaded money in my card," Wadhwa wrote on twitter.Another twitter user Soumitra Chakravarti said he was currently in Canada and his only source of money was his forex Card. "The key word is prepaid, how can you stop my card services? I am stranded because of this and in an SOS situation," he too wrote on Twitter, tagging S Jaishankar, India's external affairs minister.The private lender, facing regulatory curbs, on Saturday announced that its systems were operational and that its users could make withdrawals using its debit cards and ATMs. "You can now make withdrawals using your Yes Bank debit card both at Yes Bank and other bank ATMs. Thanks for your patience," the bank tweeted Saturday evening.The bank also issued a set of FAQs and clarified that all online remittances including payments through RTGS/NEFT are suspended as of now. It also clarified that since all clearing activities were suspended, EMIs will be honored up to the prescribed limit subject to reinstatement of clearing activities. Also, all cheques already issued will not be honored until clearing resumes or Mint Road gives further directives.
MUMBAI: State Bank of India (SBI), which needs to come up with equity investment of over Rs 20,000 crore to save Yes Bank from collapse, is in talks with more than half-adozen potential investors, said people with knowledge of the matter. They include Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, TPG, KKR and Goldman Sachs.The state-owned bank is also said to be in talks with Tilden Park, JC Flowers and Cerberus Capital, some of which the previous management had been negotiating with.It could not be ascertained how much each investor is willing to chip in. Some state-owned institutions may also participate, said the people cited above. Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) is also said to be interested in investing in the bank; the mortgage lender didn't respond to queries. Last August, its asset management arm bought Yes Bank shares at around Rs 83.55 apiece in a qualified institutional placement (QIP). SBI didn't respond to queries."SBI as the anchor investor and RBI setting the base price at Rs 10 is making Yes Bank an attractive investment proposition," said an official involved in the process. 74543945 Revival Plan: Fresh Equity, 3-4 Marquee Investors Along with SBI"A plan is being firmed up and would be presented to the RBI soon. There are large domestic investors which could be interested besides the foreign ones. If things go to plan, this could be a good investment from SBI's point of view," said the official.There were day-long meetings at SBI headquarters in Mumbai on Saturday, said people directly involved.The plan is to infuse fresh equity into the bank and have three-four marquee investors along with SBI and a few domestic institutions and individuals. SBI is keen to have external investors put in as much as Rs 15,500 crore but the timeline of one week is believed to have deterred some.TPG, Carlyle, Brookfield, Cerberus, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and KKR declined to comment. Tilden Park and JC Flowers didn't respond to queries.SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar had said Saturday that there was interest from several investors and, at a base price of Rs 2,450 crore, an investment in the bank made sense for the bank."Many potential investors have approached us after seeing the scheme… There are some very good names," said Kumar. "What we have to keep in mind for the co-investors is a couple of things — any investor looking to invest beyond 5% will have to meet RBI's 'fit and proper' criteria. If they are foreign investors, they will have to meet the FPI (foreign portfolio investor) guidelines."The RBI, which superseded the Yes Bank board and imposed a 30-day moratorium on Thursday, announced a draft reconstruction plan that entails an equity investment of up to 49% by SBI on Friday.As per RBI's draft scheme, the state-owned lender is required to hold a minimum 26% in Yes Bank for at least three years. SBI's investment and legal team is currently conducting due diligence on the draft reconstruction scheme and will revert to the RBI today (March 9) with its comments.Analysts estimate that the maximum of Rs 10,000 crore that SBI plans to invest in Yes Bank is less than half of what it needs to stay afloat. The bank will need at least Rs 22,000 crore, half of which will have to come from non-SBI investors, they say."The plan now starts afresh, which means that the investors that were already talking to Yes Bank earlier do not get a head start. They may well join the fray because they have more information on the bank but it is all up to SBI on how they run the process now," said a banker in touch with investors wanting to put money into the bank.All discussions are preliminary in nature, said a private equity executive. Any equity investor will have to grapple with a fundamental question about survival as the retail deposit franchise will be under siege."Once the moratorium opens up, I do expect many to pull out their money because of the sheer inconvenience and frustration," he said. "The government will need to be ready with the necessary liquidity cushion. We all know how much losses exist on the books… In any case, tier 1 capital has been written off."Additional Tier 1 (AT-1) bonds worth about Rs 8,415 crore owned by mutual funds, pension funds and other investors will be reduced to zero under the reconstruction plan.Macquarie analyst Suresh Ganapathy put the amount of capital required by the bank at $3 billion (Rs 22,000 crore) over the next 12 to 18 months, in a report on Friday."As per our analysis, under scenario 1, SBI will infuse Rs 2,450 crore. However, considering the quantum of stressed assets on the Yes Bank books, such a small amount would not be enough to make provisions and so the question arises whether SBI will bring in more capital in the future, if required," Ganapathy said. SBI chairman Kumar has said that the maximum the bank will invest is Rs 10,000 crore. Ganapathy pegged this amount higher, at Rs 11,800 crore."The question arises whether SBI will put in such a large sum and how easy it would be to bring in 'new investors' considering the lack of investor interest in the past," Ganapathy said.The magnitude of the provisions required by the bank has prevented investors from infusing funds in the past. Analysts calculate that about half the capital infused could be used for writing off bad loans.The much-delayed earnings announcement for the December quarter is due on March 14. It's expected that the bank's capital adequacy ratio (CAR) will be negative."The bank had no money to make interest payments, that's how bad the situation was. The CAR is likely to be negative and that is one reason why the moratorium was imposed because otherwise there would have been a run on the bank," said a senior public sector bank executive.Bankers said the special restructuring plan, which allows SBI to sidestep the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) pricing formula, could help attract more investors since Rs 10 per share is even below the Friday close of Rs 16.60 per share.
By Jyoti VaswaniIn today's world, the role of a women has undergone a sea change compared with yesteryears and is making its greatest impact in society. Earlier a women's contribution to society was limited and controlled by men. However today, women are standing tall and playing a major role in various arenas like politics, defence, sports, IT, finance, business and law. Given this changed world, financial equality and independence is imperative for women and more so for the ones who are seeking to have a life of prosperity, build wealth and meet their short-term and retirement goals.Thus, being cognizant of the importance of investing and possessing the right investing skills is key, be it for a homemaker, or a professional or an entrepreneur.However in reality, the narrative here is very different when it comes to women investing, as the stereotype belief still runs that men do the investing and women usually do the saving bit. Besides women are perceived not just unwilling to invest, but are also less aggressive than their male counterparts.When it comes to investment or personal finance planning spectrum, most women still rely on their husbands/father to go about their investments or financial plans.Several studies have shown that women's portfolio outperform their male counterparts because of the inherent qualities that women possess by nature, that differentiates them from male investors in their approach of investing. Women are usually more risk conscious, willing to acknowledge and research what they don't know and 'slow and steady wins the race' broadly sums up their investment approach.They would generally prefer to participate in safer and less volatile investments with consistent track records.Besides women have more long-term investment perspective than men and hence trade less frequently. Today, it's important that we change this old school of thought and try and understand the importance of investing more profoundly from a woman's standpoint.Why should a woman look at investing?First and foremost, it's important for women to be able to achieve a sense of financial equality and independence. Women need to acknowledge that managing one's own and the family's finances is not rocket science. It can be mastered with a little bit of patience, effort and an open mind. Women should not shy away from holding and operating bank accounts, trading accounts, demat accounts and holding assets in their own name. If a woman is earning less or thinks 'she doesn't possess the aptitude for investing, she can start with a small systematic investment plan. In fact investing is one of the best ways for women to ensure that they have the potential to accumulate the same amount of wealth as men.Investing is unarguably one of the best tools for a woman to accomplish her financial goals which may vary from sending your kids to school/college, a holiday, save up an emergency fund, saving for a large expenditure such as buying a house or for a wedding, saving for retirement or just grow your overall wealth .As we know, to draw an everyday parallel, most of the women would go to great lengths to plan a balanced diet for their family and ensure the physical wellbeing of their families. Having a well-balanced savings and investment portfolio, is also equally crucial in ensuring one's own and the family's financial wellbeing.Savings and investment are indeed two parts of the same coin. As a thumb rule, a typical household should try and save about 25-30 per cent of income. But it does not end there, savings stashed away under mattresses will earn nothing, and their value will erode over, as inflation reduces purchasing power.Similarly, savings invested in physical assets like gold will appreciate over time, but will provide no returns in the interim. Consequently, it is important to ensure that one's savings are invested in a well balanced portfolio.This brings us to what can be succinctly put as the three Ps of Investing.Investing for Protection: Life insurance policies are important to protect a family's income in the event of death of the women irrespective of whether she is a home maker or a professional. It is also important for women to invest in protection products to meet unforeseen contingencies. This would primarily entail purchase of health insurance to cover potential illness and hospitalization costs. It may also be prudent to have coverage against terminal illness, in case one's ability to work is permanently impairedInvesting for a Purpose: The second tenet of investing stands for investing with a purpose or goals based investing. The goals may range from one's retirement to children's education or planning for large ticket purchases. A woman needs to understand the power of compounding, the earlier she invests, the more wealth she can accumulate to achieve her goals.Investing in the right product: Finally, it is important to choose the right product depending on one's risk appetite, goals and time horizon. A long term goal is best met with investment in equities while a short term goal may be met through investment in debt funds. One can also allocate a small portion of their portfolio to physical assets such as gold which may be held through gold bonds which also pay nominal interest. More importantly, it's important for a woman to remain committed to her investment strategy and not panic to drops in investment values which are usually in a constant state of flux.(Jyoti Vaswani is Chief Investment Officer of Future Generali India Life Insurance. Views are her own)
By Koel GhoshAs a mother to a precocious teenage daughter, one of the issues that I care deeply about is promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace and supporting initiatives that help increase female representation in the executive ranks and boards of companies and institutions.The financial services industry today is testament to the change, which is now reflecting the growth of representation of women in executive committees and boards.S&P Global published a research recently that illustrated how US GDP growth could accelerate with increased female labour force participation and add a whopping $5.87 trillion to global market capitalisation in 10 years. A one per cent growth in GDP makes S&P 500 return 3.4% on an average annually. An additional 0.2 point of GDP growth (thanks to female participation) would boost the S&P500 another 0.7% — and could increase US market capitalisation by $2.87 trillion in a decade.Similarly, US growth influences larger gains in other countries such as Germany, China and Korea and the world.Many women are all too familiar with the 'glass ceiling' that keeps them looking up to similarly (or less-) qualified men in positions above them. Add to this wage gap that, while narrowing, stubbornly persists. Compared with men, women's earnings are just 83% of the equivalent male full-time workers. Therefore, women must work that extra 44 days each year to earn as much as their male counterpart does. More than 25% of mothers quit entirely for children or family care. Significant time taken off for child or family care is 39 per cent by mothers and 24 per cent by fathers.While this may reflect their ability to be flexible and spend more time with families, it comes at the cost of unbridgeable wage disparity and limited opportunities for advancement. This raises the question of whether policies designed to help women work can have unintended consequences.Nonetheless, there must be change, and all indications certainly suggest that society recognises this time in history as ripe for a serious overhaul in relation to gender accessibility to the workforce. Throughout my career in the financial services industry, I have been fortunate to have mentors, managers and colleagues who have helped me find opportunities to advance my career, and take on leadership responsibilities. At a personal level and beyond the important economic benefits of diversity and inclusion, I am inspired by female colleagues and financial industry peers who have shared their remarkable stories of overcoming career obstacles, and balancing demanding careers with personal lives.In the corporate and financial world in India and globally, an increasing number of women are assuming senior decision-making roles at companies and other institutions paving the way for future female leaders.We still have a long way to go, but India is seeing a rise in female workforce participation and inclusion, and catching up with more developed countries. In India, the success of highly respected leaders such as Crisil CEO Ashu Suyash, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, JP Morgan India CEO Kalpana Morparia, to name only a few, show us the rich possibilities for women in financial services, government and other institutions.Change is inevitable and women are demonstrating to be the agents of positive change. Encouragement, inspiration and mentoring will go a long way to grow and build a new generation of leaders and contributors who will open up new possibilities.Indeed, an occasion such as International Women's Day serves as a reminder of how far we have come, the progress we have made, and the doors that we still need to open. I look forward to the day when women in leadership roles become the norm for my daughter's generation. (Koel Ghosh is Head of South Asia at S&P Dow Jones Indices. Views are her own)
NEW DELHI: Makers Lab, the research and development arm center of Tech Mahindra, a provider of digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering services and solutions on Sunday announced the launch of a women-led Ideathon to drive technology innovation. Launched on International Women's Day, the Ideathon is aimed at solving real world challenges through technology, especially in the defense space, according to a release. The Ideathon will run for four weeks and will end on 7th April.The wider Tech Mahindra family including woman associates, women spouses of other associates and children are invited to participate in this Ideation.The Ideathon, supported by Josh, the cultural group of Tech Mahindra will comprise two rounds. The top 20 ideas will be rewarded and will get a chance to interact with instructors as well as Army officers of College of Military Engineering (CME), Pune.The College of Military Engineering is a premier technical and tactical training institute of the Indian Army (Corps of Engineers) with a focus on promoting innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for the Indian Army.Nikhil Malhotra, global head of Makers Lab, Tech Mahindra, said, "The mission of Tech Mahindra's R&D arm, Makers Lab, is to promote technology innovation and provide a common platform where academia and industry can come together to create disruptive solutions to solve real world problems. This women-led Ideathon is a first among a series of Ideathons and hackathons which are planned across the year in Tech Mahindra, to encourage women professionals especially to innovate and leverage technology towards betterment of society and world at large."Kanchan Bhonde, product strategy head, Makers Lab and Head - Winnovate (Women who Innovate) program, Tech Mahindra, said, "There are some very challenging problem statements we have developed for the Ideathon, which will generate curiosity amongst the teams. We are excited to hear from women and children who will get a chance to showcase their creativity and technical expertise."Winnovate is a Tech Mahindra program with a vision to enable women to break the glass ceiling and bring excellence in technology as well as management. The program is aimed at inspiring more women with real life examples, monthly webinars and mentorship programs.As part of the TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra's Makers Lab is focused on developing future-ready solution by leveraging next gen technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality, 5G – Network of the future. There is a range of business problems that Makers Lab aims to solve in the future to enhance citizen services and customer experiences.
పరశురామ్ దర్శకత్వంలో ఓ సినిమా చేయడానికి అంగీకరించాడు నాగచైతన్య. 14 రీల్స్ ప్లస్ బ్యానర్ పై ఆ మూవీ అధికారిక ప్రకటన కూడా వచ్చేసింది. కట్ చేస్తే, ఇప్పుడు అదే పరశురామ్, మహేష్ తో సంప్రదింపులు జరుపుతున్నాడు. మహేష్-మైత్రీ-పరశురామ్ కాంబోలో సినిమా దాదాపు ఫిక్స్ అయ్యేలా ఉంది. మరి ఇప్పుడు నాగచైతన్య పరిస్థితేంటి? మహేష్ తో పోలిస్తే ప్లానింగ్ విషయంలో నాగచైతన్య చాలా పెర్ ఫెక్ట్ గా ఉన్నాడు. లవ్ స్టోరీ సినిమా షూటింగ్ ను దాదాపు […]
శాసనమండలి రద్దు ప్రక్రియ నడుస్తోంది. ఎమ్మెల్సీ సీటు ఆశ ఇకలేదు. అయితే మున్సిపల్ ఛైర్మన్ లేదా కార్పొరేషన్ మేయర్ లేదా జడ్పీ ఛైర్మన్… ఈ మూడు కూడా కేబినెట్ ర్యాంక్ పోస్టులే. దీంతో ఇప్పుడు వీటికి ఏపీలో భారీగా పోటీ ఏర్పడింది. జడ్పీ ఛైర్మన్ సీటు కోసం పోటీ పడుతున్న వారి సంఖ్య రోజు రోజుకూ పెరుగుతోంది. కడప జడ్పీ ఛైర్మన్ సీటు జనరల్కు రిజర్వ్ అయింది. దీంతో ఇక్కడ పోటీ ఏర్పడింది. ఈసీటు కోసం చాలా […]
వకీల్ సాబ్ సినిమాకు సంబంధించి ఓ పాట రిలీజ్ చేశారు. మహిళా దినోత్సవం సందర్భంగా మగువా మగువా అనే లిరిక్స్ తో సాగే ఈ పాటను అఫీషియల్ గా సోషల్ మీడియాలో లాంచ్ చేశారు. మహిళలకు దీన్ని అంకితం చేశారు. అంతా బాగానే ఉంది కానీ సినిమాకు ఇది ఏ రేంజ్ లో ఉపయోగపడుతుందనేది ప్రశ్న. ఎప్పట్లానే తమన్ మంచి ట్యూన్ అందించాడు. ట్యూన్ మంచిదే కానీ క్యాచీగా కాదు. పవన్ ఫ్యాన్స్ హమ్ చేసుకునే పాట […]
ప్రపంచ వ్యాప్తంగా మహిళా దినోత్సవం భారత నవతరం మహిళలు రంగం ఏదైనా తమదైన శైలిలో దూసుకుపోతున్నారు. పురుషులతో పోటీపడుతూ ఆకాశమే హద్దుగా సాగిపోతున్నారు. తాము ఎంచుకొన్న రంగంలో సాధికారిత సాధిస్తూ ఆత్మవిశ్వాసంతో ముందడుగు వేస్తున్నారు. ప్రపంచ మహిళా దినోత్సవం సందర్భంగా.. క్రీడారంగంలో ఉన్నత శిఖరాలు అధిరోహించిన భారత మహిళామణులను ఓసారి గుర్తు చేసుకొందాం.. భారత మహిళలు వినూత్న ఆలోచనలు, సరికొత్త లక్ష్యాలతో కొత్త దశాబ్దంలోని తొలిసంవత్సరంలోకి అడుగుపెట్టారు. మిగిలిన రంగాలతో పాటే క్రీడారంగంలో తమదైన శైలిలో దూసుకుపోతున్నారు.పురుషులకు […]
విజయ్ దేవరకొండ, పూరి జగన్నాధ్ కాంబినేషన్ లో ఓ సినిమా తెరకెక్కుతున్న సంగతి తెలిసిందే. ఈ మూవీకి సంబంధించి ముంబయిలో భారీ షెడ్యూల్ పూర్తిచేశారు. దాదాపు 40 రోజుల పాటు జరిగిన ముంబయి షెడ్యూల్ కంప్లీట్ అయినట్టు మేకర్స్ ప్రకటించారు. ముంబయి షెడ్యూల్ లో భాగంగా హీరో విజయ్ దేవరకొండ, హీరోయిన్ అనన్య పాండే మధ్య కొన్ని రొమాంటిక్ సన్నివేశాలతో పాటు యాక్షన్ ఎపిసోడ్స్ తీశారు. దీంతో పాటు ఈ 40 రోజుల షెడ్యూల్ లో రమ్యకృష్ణ, […]
మెంటల్ మదిలో, బ్రోచేవారెవరురా సినిమాలతో బ్యాక్ టు బ్యాక్ హిట్స్ కొట్టాడు వివేక్ ఆత్రేయ. కేవలం హిట్స్ కొట్టడమే కాదు, సెన్సిబుల్ డైరక్టర్ అనిపించుకున్నాడు కూడా. ఇప్పుడీ దర్శకుడు తన మూడో సినిమాకు ఏకంగా బంపరాఫర్ అందుకున్నాడు. నేచురల్ స్టార్ నానిని డైరక్ట్ చేసే అవకాశం కొట్టేశాడు. బ్రోచేవారెవరురా హిట్టయిన వెంటనే వివేక్ ను లాక్ చేసింది మైత్రీ మూవీ మేకర్స్ సంస్థ. ఇప్పుడు అదే బ్యానర్ పై నాని హీరోగా సినిమా చేయబోతున్నాడు ఈ డైరక్టర్. […]
ప్రస్తుతం ఫిలినగర్ లో చక్కర్లు కొడుతున్న ఈ మేటర్ నిజమైతే.. త్వరలోనే రజనీకాంత్ సినిమాలో గోపీచంద్ ఓ కీలక పాత్ర పోషించే అవకాశం ఉంది. శివ దర్శకత్వంలో రజనీకాంతో ఓ సినిమా చేస్తున్నాడు. ప్రస్తుతం ఈ మూవీ షూటింగ్ రామోజీ ఫిలింసిటీలో జరుగుతోంది. ఇందులో ఓ కీలక పాత్ర ఉంది. దాని కోసం గోపీచంద్ పేరును పరిశీలిస్తున్నారు. ఈ సినిమాలో ఓ చిన్న పాత్రను క్యారెక్టర్ ఆర్టిస్ట్ కంటే హీరో పోషిస్తే బాగుంటుందని శివ అభిప్రాయపడ్డాడు. ఇదే […]
తెలంగాణలో.. 2018లో సంచలనం సృష్టించిన ప్రణయ్ హత్య కేసు ప్రధాన నిందితుడు మారుతీరావు.. అనుమానాస్పద స్థితిలో చనిపోయాడు. ఖైరతాబాద్ లోని వాసవి భవన్ లో ఆయన ఉరి వేసుకుని మరణించినట్లుగా ఉన్న సన్నివేశం.. అనుమానాస్పదంగా కనిపిస్తోంది. మారుతీ రావు నిజంగానే ఆత్మహత్య చేసుకున్నాడా లేదంటే హత్య కాబడ్డాడా అన్నది తేలాల్సి ఉంది. హైదరాబాద్ పోలీసులు ఈ విషయంపై దర్యాప్తు చేస్తున్నారు. ప్రణయ్ భార్య అమృతకు మారుతీ రావు తండ్రి. అమృత – ప్రణయ్ ప్రేమించి వివాహం చేసుకోవడాన్ని […]
Renewable energy: Easier bank guarantee norms likely for green projects Welcoming the move, the national solar energy federation of India (NSEFI) — an industry lobby — has asked the MNRE to extend this benefit to existing contracts as well.
AGR case may get fresh legal twist as telcos come out with differences in calculation As reported earlier, Bharti Airtel and Tata Telseservices have also assessed their dues at much lower amount than that of DoT's and paid according to it.
'Plurals' pops up in Bihar As the Bihar Assembly election is months away, it was a call from a party which declared its president Pushpam Priya Choudhary the chief ministerial candidate
Women's Day event in Odisha honors former female maoists Fifteen former female Maoists, who had surrendered in the past, were invited with their family
MP woman lecturer shaves off head demanding job permanency Neema Singh (42) is among the several teaching staff who have been protesting over the past several weeks demanding that the state government make them permanent employees
I want to talk about malignant incompetence on the part of our elected officials, and this isn’t even about the pandemic. Rather, it’s about the spectacularly misguided, counterproductive, expensive, and overbearing approach to end-to-end encryption by the USA along with Australia, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand — the so-called “Five Eyes.”
Consider the TSA Lock program. (Bear with me; this is important.) It’s an initiative to ensure all luggage locks can be opened by universal keys, held by the TSA and other aviation security agencies, so that any luggage can be searched at any time. The cited purpose is to prevent terrorism, which of course we all want. Unfortunately, the TSA master keys have been publicly leaked, such that anyone could make copies. Furthermore, TSA agents are numerous, fallible, and prone to misusing their authority.
Still, preventing terrorism is a good thing which we all want, right? Some people may feel that TSA Locks are an unacceptable intrusion into personal liberties, but a majority seem basically OK with them. They’re a trade-off between public security and personal privacy which we have collectively more-or-less agreed on.
Suppose, however, that the situation was tweaked slightly. Suppose that anyone who really wanted to could, at the cost of some slight inconvenience, instead use invulnerable luggage, proof against keys, scans, and external access of any kind, all for free … and airlines were required to convey that luggage anyhow. Call it the “TSA Locks Except For People Willing To Take An Extra Half Hour To Pack” program.
Suddenly that whole program sounds completely insane, doesn’t it? Suddenly this isn’t a trade-off at all. Clearly people with anything to hide, such as terrorists, drug smugglers, etc., would immediately switch to using the invulnerable luggage, and the rest of the TSA Lock mandate would become a gratuitous invasion of personal privacy.
Suddenly the program’s chief impact would be the imposition of significant and unnecessary risks, such as leaked master keys, rogue TSA agents, and misuse by tyrannical governments, on the entire flying public who don’t go to the inconvenience of using invulnerable luggage. Suddenly the program brings no benefit whatsoever. Suddenly it is a poster child for malevolent government overreach, negligence, and authoritarianism.
Well, “TSA Locks Except For People Willing To Take An Extra Half Hour To Pack” is, I am appalled to report, a perfect and exact metaphor for what the Five Eyes want to do with end-to-end encryption. They want a ‘golden key‘ back door — aka a TSA Lock — for all messages sent over messaging systems like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, etc., despite the inescapable fact that unbreakable encryption — aka invulnerable luggage — has long been widely available, open-source, and free to all.
Even if you wanted to put that genie back in the bottle (and you really shouldn’t, as it has granted us many wishes which protect us all) it is far too late now. Even if you wanted to prevent messages with strong encryption from being transferred (which you really really shouldn’t) you couldn’t; there are too many ways to disguise them as other messages, e.g. encode them in images. Invulnerable luggage is a fact of life, and has been for decades.
And yet governments keep trying to legislate it out of existence, with legislation that will only harm people who use the metaphorical TSA locks, courtesy of leaked keys, rogue government workers, and authoritarian governments everywhere. The latest attempt is the EARN IT act, introduced Thursday by a bipartisan coalition. Here is a summary of its most grievous flaws, by Riana Pfefferkorn, he Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, who previously described the bill as “how to ban end-to-end encryption without actually banning it.”
The cited intent of the bill is to fight “child sexual abuse material,” or CSAM. Which of course is a most laudable goal, which we all desire. Just like the goal of preventing terrorist attacks on airplanes. But as with the TSA Locks metaphor, this will simply drive awful people to use their own encryption — their own invulnerable luggage — while giving authoritarian governments, people with leaked keys, and rogue agents access to potentially trillions of previously secure private messages worldwide. It is a catastrophically dumb idea crafted by people who don’t understand what they’re doing. Let’s hope, just as with the pandemic, there’s still time enough to convince them of the reality.
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch's China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, a post from Sequoia Capital sounding the alarm of the coronavirus’s impact on businesses is reaching far corners of tech communities around the world, including China.
Many echo Sequoia’s observation that the companies that are the “most adaptable” are the likeliest to survive. Others cling to the hope of “[turning] a challenging situation into an opportunity to set yourself up for enduring success.”
Two weeks ago I wrote about how the private sector and the government in China are working together to contain the epidemic, bringing a temporary boost to the technology industry. This week I asked a number of investors and founders which of these changes will stand to last, and why.
B2B on the rise
The business-to-business (B2B) space was rarely a hot topic in China until online consumer businesses became relatively saturated in recent times. And now, the COVID-19 epidemic has unexpectedly breathed life into the once-boring field, which stretches from virtual meetings, online education, digital healthcare, cybersecurity, telecommunications, logistics to smart cities, analysis from investment firm Yunqi Partners shows.
For one, there is an obvious opportunity for remote collaboration tools as people work from home. Downloads of indigenous work apps like Dingtalk, WeChat Work, TikTok’s sister Lark as well as America’s Zoom jumped exponentially amid the health crisis. While some argue that the boom is overblown and will dissipate as soon as businesses are back to normal, others suggest that the shift in behavior will endure.
Like other work collaboration services, Zoom soared in China amid the coronavirus outbreak, jumping from No. 180 in late January to No. 28 as of late February in overall app installs. Data: App Annie
“People are reluctant to change once they form a new habit,” suggests Joe Chan, partner at Hong Kong-based Mindworks Ventures. The virus outbreak, he believes, has educated the Chinese masses to work remotely.
“Meeting in person and through Zoom both have their own merits, depending on the social norm. Some people are used to thinking that relationships need to be established through face-to-face encounters, but those who don’t hold that view will have fewer meetings. [The epidemic] presents a chance for a paradigm shift.”
But changes are slow
Growth in enterprise businesses might be less visible than what China witnessed over the SARS epidemic that fueled internet consumer verticals such as ecommerce. That’s because software-as-a-services (SaaS), cloud computing, health tech, logistics and other enterprise-facing services are intangible for most consumers.
“Compared to changes in consumer behavior, the adoption of new technologies by enterprises happen at a slower pace, so the impact of coronavirus on new-generation innovations [B2B] won’t come as rapidly and thoroughly as what happened during SARS,” contended Jake Xie, vice president of investment at China Growth Capital.
Xie further suggested that the opportunities presented by the outbreak are reserved for companies that have been steadily investing in the field, in part because enterprise services have a longer life cycle and require more capital-intensive infrastructure. “Opportunists don’t stand a chance,” he concluded.
As for changing consumer behavior, such as the uptick in grocery delivery usage by seniors trapped indoors, the impact might be short-lived. “The only benefit that the epidemic brings to these apps is getting more people to try their services. But how many of them will stay? The argument that people will keep using these apps over concerns of getting sick in offline markets is unsubstantiated. The strength of a business lies in its ability to solve user problems in the long term, for example, providing affordability and convenience,” suggested Derek Shen, chairman of Danke Apartment, the Chinese co-living startup slated to list on NYSE.
Summoned by Beijing
The adjacent sector of enterprise services — at-scale technologies tailored to energizing government functions — has also seen traction over the course of the epidemic. Private firms in China have teamed up with regional authorities to better track people’s movements, ramp up facial recognition capacities aimed at a mask-wearing public, develop contact-free consumer experience, among other measures.
Tech firms touting services to the government are no stranger to criticisms concerning the lack of transparency in how user data is used. But the appeal to private firms is huge, not only because state contracts tend to provide a steady stream of long-term revenue, but also that certain public-facing projects can be billed as a fulfillment of corporate social responsibilities. Following the virus outbreak, Chinese tech companies of all sizes hastened to offer contributions, with efforts ranging from making monetary donations to building tools that keep the public informed.
On the flip side, the government also needs private help in emergency management. As prominent Chinese historian Luo Xin poignantly pointed out in podcast SurplusValue’s recent episode [1:00:00], some of the most efficient and effective responses to the public health crisis came not from the government but the private sector, whether it is online retailer JD.com or logistics firm SF Express delivering relief supplies to the epicenter of the outbreak.
That said, Luo argued there are signs that some local authorities’ tendency to centralize control is getting in the way of private efforts. For example, some government offices have stumbled in their attempts to develop crisis management systems from scratch, overlooking a pool of readily available and proven infrastructure powered by the country’s tech giants.
The study, based on a nose-swab should be able to return results in up to two days and will be shared with health officials who can then notify people who test positive. Individuals who have been infected will then be encouraged to answer an online questionnaire to give health officials information about their movements so that those officials can identify and notify other people who may need to be tested or quarantined, according to the Seattle Times report.
“Although there’s a lot to be worked out, this has enormous potential to turn the tide of the epidemic,” Scott Dowell, who leads the coronavirus response effort from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told the Seattle Times.
There’s no clear timeline for the project’s launch as the Foundation looks to finalize the supporting software and draft a final questionnaire for people who request the tests. The Foundation estimates that it could run up to 400 tests per-day, according to Dowell.
The Gates Foundation isn’t the only entity moving quickly to develop at home test kits. In a Twitter thread on Saturday, serial healthcare entrepreneur Jonathan Rothenberg outlined a similar approach, and is apparently now in discussions with a manufacturer on how to bring it to market.
Seattle and the surrounding area has been the epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. The state has confirmed 71 cases and 15 deaths from the disease as of Saturday. At least one health expert estimates that Seattle could have as many as 600 cases, based on computational modeling.
"One of the most important things from our perspective, having watched and worked on this in other parts of the world, is the identification of people who are positive for the virus, so they can be safely isolated and cared for, and the identification of their contacts, who can then be quarantined," Dowell told the Seattle Times.
The project to do develop at-home testing evolved from a two-year-old research project from the University of Washington that was intended to track the spread of diseases like influenza, according to the Times reporting.
All told, the Gates Foundation has poured about $20 million into the effort. The foundation has also committed $5 million to the local response efforts to combat the disease in the area — including the expansion of testing and analysis.
Even by the standards of romantic competition reality shows, “Love is Blind” has a doozy of a concept: A group of men and women “date” by talking in pods where they can only hear each other’s voices. In just a little over a week, they’re expected to start proposing marriage to someone who they’ve never seen.
On this week’s episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by TechCrunch marketing director (and reality TV expert) Alexandra Ames to review the just-wrapped first season of the Netflix show. As we explain, the series actually moves beyond its initial high concept pretty quickly — after the first few episodes, the newly-engaged couples leave the pods and to see if their relationships can survive in the real world.
So the show prompted plenty of discussion about relationships and reality TV in general. At the same time, we’re happy to gossip about the most and least interesting couples, and about who left who at the altar.
And we also some thoughts about the choice of Nick and Vanessa Lachey as the hosts. (Hey, at least most of their material appears to have been left on the cutting room floor.)
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro 0:59 “Love Is Blind” spoiler-free review 28:12 “Love Is Blind” spoiler discussion
Well, here we are. After many weeks (and a somewhat inconsistent publishing schedule), we have arrived at the final story of Ted Chiang's Exhalation collection, number nine of nine. It has been a fun journey reading each of these speculative science fiction stories, and I do think they have much to tell TechCrunch readers. Even if you missed some of the discussions, these stories are timeless: What's Expected of Us was first published in 2005. So jump in now, or jump in later — they will be waiting for you when you are ready.
Today, we have a fantastic work on the meaning of the choices in our lives and what happens when we have more information about ourselves in alternative timelines. It's a story that combines quantum entanglement with freedom of the will, connecting technology to the very core of what makes us human. We will talk about Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, and then some concluding thoughts on the whole *Exhalation *collection for those who have walked with us every step of the way.
Some further quick notes:
Want to join the conversation? Feel free to email me your thoughts at bookclub@techcrunch.com (we got a real email address!) or join some of the discussions on Reddit or Twitter (hashtag TCBookClub)
Follow these informal book club articles here: https://techcrunch.com/book-review/. That page also has a built-in RSS feed for posts exclusively in the Book Review category, which is very low volume.
Feel free to add your comments in our TechCrunch comments section below this post.
Reading Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom
This short story is a beautiful fusion of speculative science fiction and philosophy, punctuated with several plot turnabouts and rivulets of thrill.
The story centers around an invention called the prism, which is a quantum communications device. When triggered, a prism will cause a binary divergence in future timelines. In one timeline, the prism lights up its LED red, while in the other timeline it lights up blue. What's critical is that the prisms in the now diverging timelines are connected together, and the device has a "pad" that allows for limited communications between the two timelines before the pad expires its capacity.
With the right prism, people can talk to themselves in other timelines to explore what might have happened if different decisions were made. For instance, someone could accept a marriage proposal if the prism's LED turned red or reject it if the prism turned blue. Through the device, users can observe how their lives might have been lived — entailing all kinds of psychological consequences in the process.
It's not surprising then that the plot partly revolves around a support group for people obsessed with prisms. One person, Jorge, struggles with the fact that he committed a violent act in this timeline, but then determines that he didn't in any of the other timelines he was able to connect to. What does this say about his character? Does the fact he almost always doesn't commit the violence show that he has a strong and stable character, who occasionally makes mistakes? Or does the evidence prove that there is a monster waiting beneath the surface, always just waiting for the right moment to strike?
Throughout the story, there is a latent question about how we use role models in our decisions. In our world, we can model ourselves off of celebrities or famous people, mentors and coaches, or even historical figures we've read about in biographies. Yet the prisms shrink this intrinsic distance — we can model ourselves after literally ourselves.
That opens up avenues for envy and jealousy. When our role models find success, we have the emotional distance to observe and reflect, and perhaps change our own actions in response. But when those models are ourselves, suddenly we can't help but think that there must be something wrong with us if our counterparts in other timelines are doing well and we are not.
So we dwell on our choices, particularly on the major prophetic decisions that we feel our whole lives revolve around. Much like the prisms and the quantum split that happens inside the device, we ourselves have moments of binary decision-making. If we are angry, do we slash the tires of the car of the person who put us in that position? Do we pull the trigger on a gun?
In one case, Dana, a therapist and a facilitator of the prism support group, harmed her best friend Vinessa in high school during a field trip. When a teacher enters their hotel room on an inspection and sees rows of pills, Dana blames Vinessa, sending her life in a different direction:
It was as if, before that night, Vinessa had been balanced on a knife's edge; she could have become either what society considered a good girl or a bad girl. Dana's lie had pushed her off the edge, onto the side of being bad, and with that label the course of Vinessa's life had taken a different direction.
Yet, Chiang is deeply skeptical of these binaries. We start to see glimmers of this as he explains the quantum dynamics behind the prisms, arguing that even a single atomic difference in different timelines can lead to massive changes in weather patterns and ultimately the macro events that build each of those worlds. This butterfly effect means that our decisions have far more chaotic consequences than we can anticipate. As the author explains, "Many worried that their choices were rendered meaningless because every action they took was counterbalanced by a branch in which they had made the opposite choice."
Yet, much like the last story we read, this story doesn't jump to nihilism. Quite the opposite, it argues that our decisions are really reflections of our character, and therefore our character constrains the probabilities of our actions in future timelines. Nat, our main narrator, asks during a support group session:
"But when I have a choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing, am I always choosing to do both in different branches? Why should I bother being nice to other people, if every time I'm also being a dick to them?"
The facilitator Dana responds with:
"But if you act compassionately in this branch, that's still meaningful, because it has an effect on the branches that will split off in the future. The more often you make compassionate choices, the less likely it is that you'll make selfish choices in the future, even in the branches where you're having a bad day."
While all future possibilities are always present, our innate character determines the gravity wells that most timelines fall into. Vinessa is angry at Dana for her lie, but as we later learn, she would have been angry in pretty much every scenario that Dana might have selected. No matter how she handled the situation, Vinessa would have gone through her downward spiral, leading to the story's core message: "If the same thing happens in branches where you acted differently, they you aren't the cause."
We can't control the past, and we certainly can't control alternative timelines. But we can control our actions today, and those actions are going to accumulate to affect every single diverging timeline in the future. Yes, sometimes our other selves might have gotten luckier, or may have faced an unexpected tragedy. Yes, if we knew this we might experience envy, jealousy or horror. But ultimately, all the possibilities in the world are ultimately circumscribed by ourselves. We can only ever really do what we choose to do.
Some concluding thoughts on Exhalation
We've come to the end of Exhalation, and in light of the book's symbol, we can take a breath now to take a look at all that Chiang has put together with these various stories.
To me, the most prominent message that resonates throughout the book is that contingency has no control over our own actions. In many of the stories in this set, Chiang places a new technological object, whether it's a time-travel gate, digients and virtual worlds, or the prisms in this last story, and shows how humans react to their fresh capabilities.
One would think that these technologies would immediately change who we are or how we react. After all, if we can time travel, communicate through timelines, or completely change our perspective in virtual worlds, shouldn't that radically change our identities? Wouldn't we be entirely different people?
And yet, Chiang makes his point stridently clear: no. The characters inside each of us are hardly fixed of course, but they absolutely affect how we use — for good and evil — these new technologies. Humans are going to do what they are going to do, and they are going to do it with whatever tools they have available to them. That's not to say that technologies shouldn't be held accountable for the actions they afford their users. But ultimately, it's a reminder that we each have control over our own actions, and we have the right to judge others for the actions they take when confronted with new options.
We are ultimately all connected, and that means that our actions don't just affect ourselves, but all people everywhere through the air, through quantum mechanics, and through the physical laws of our world. Trust yourself, but also understand how we can control our actions for a better world. If that isn't a message for startups and technology in 2020, I don't know what is.
If you were a software company employee or venture capitalist in Silicon Valley before 1993, chances are you were talking about "Information Systems Software" and not "Enterprise Software." How and why did the industry change its name?
The obvious, but perplexing answer is simple — “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
As befuddling and mind-numbingly satisfying as it is to your local office Trekkie, the industry rebranded itself thanks to a marketing campaign from the original venture-backed system software company,Boole & Babbage (now BMC software).
Star Trek fans have been talking about this crazy marketing agreement for years, and you can read the full details about how it was executed in TrekCore. But even Trekkies don't appreciate its long-term impacts on our industry. In this license agreement with Paramount, Boole & Babbage had unlimited rights to create and distribute as much Star Trek content as they could. They physically mailed VHS cassettes to customers, ran magazine ads and even dressed their employees as members of Starfleet at trade shows. Boole & Babbage used this push to market itself as the "Enterprise Automation Company."
Commander Riker says in the infomercial, "just as the bridge centralizes the functions necessary to control the USS Enterprise, Boole's products centralize data processing information to allow centralized control of today's complex information systems." This seemed to scratch an itch that other systems companies didn't realize needed scratching.
Not to be outdone, IBM in 1994 rebranded their OS/2 operating system "OS/2 Warp," referring to Star Trek's "warp drive." They also tried to replicate Babbage's licensing agreement with Paramount by hiring the Enterprise's Captain Picard (played by actor Patrick Stewart) to emcee the product launch. Unfortunately, Paramount wouldn't play ball, and IBM hired Captain Janeway (played by actress Kate Mulgrew) from Star Trek: Voyager instead. The licensing issues didn't stop IBM from also hiring Star Trek's Mr. Spock (played by actor Leonard Nimoy) to tape a five-minute intro to the event:
Outside of OS/2, IBM's 1994 announcement list included 13 other "enterprise" initiatives. Soon, leading software companies began to rebrand themselves and release products using the term "enterprise software" as a valuable identifier. MRP software makers like SAP and Baan began embracing the new "Enterprise" moniker after 1993 and in 1995, Lotus rebranded itself as an "Enterprise Software Company."
"Enterprise" was officially the coolest new vernacular and after industry behemoth IBM bought Lotus in 1996, they incorporated "Enterprise" across all of their products. And while Gartner's 1990 paper "ERP: A Vision of the Next-Generation MRP II" by Wylie is the technical birth of ERP software, no one cared until Commander Riker told Harold to "monitor your entire Enterprise from a single point of control." The ngram numbers don't lie:
Almost 30 years later, we live in a world in which business is run on enterprise software and the use of the term is ubiquitous. Whenever I see a software business plan come across my desk or read an article on enterprise software, I can't help but give Commander Riker a little due credit.
We are reading the penultimate short story in Ted Chiang's collection Exhalation. Omphalos questions what it means to believe: in our world, in alternative worlds, and in ourselves. Given that beliefs are crucial to everything we do in innovation and science, I thought the theme deeply dovetailed with a lot of what TechCrunch readers care about. I'm excited to talk about it more.
Tomorrow, I will post analysis on the final short story, Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom as well as some concluding thoughts now that we have cycled through all the short stories in this collection. What a journey!
Some further quick notes:
Want to join the conversation? Feel free to email me your thoughts at bookclub@techcrunch.com (we got a real email address!) or join some of the discussions on Reddit or Twitter (hashtag TCBookClub)
Follow these informal book club articles here: https://techcrunch.com/book-review/. That page also has a built-in RSS feed for posts exclusively in the Book Review category, which is very low volume.
Feel free to add your comments in our TechCrunch comments section below this post.
Reading Omphalos
Most of the stories in Exhalation have been pieces of deep imagination, filled with worlds that, while tethered to our experience on Earth, remain quite distant to it. Omphalos feels quite different: it very much is our world, but refracted just slightly at every point.
Chiang signals this to the reader right from the beginning, noting that the narrator is traveling to "Chicagou," a city that is obviously recognizable to us, but just slightly off from our expectations. And indeed, as the story progresses, we learn that everything in the sciences are just a bit different from what we presume. Scientific discoveries that have happened in our world have yet to happen in this story (the discovery of DNA, for instance), while exciting fields in our world today like astronomy are essentially complete, with no further innovation to come.
The story's central tension is between faith and science, but the tweaks that Chiang edits into this speculative world force us to observe our own world with new insight. The development of science as a human practice was highly contentious in our history, with Galileo and the fight over heliocentrism being one of many battlefields fought over the centuries.
In this story though, science isn't at war with religion, but in fact provides a path to deepening devotion to belief, undergirding the pursuit of purpose in a world of mystery. Our narrator, an archaeologist, describes why she does her work, and why the single miraculous creation of the human race is so important to belief.
I asked them to imagine what it would be like if we lived in a world where, no matter how deeply we dug, we kept finding traces of an earlier era of the world … then I asked, wouldn't they feel lost, like a castaway adrift on an ocean of time? … this is why I am a scientist: because I wish to discover your purpose for us, Lord.
Indeed, the Earth itself is the very creation of God, and therefore is studied with an intensity that we would find unusual, while astronomy and the exploration of the celestial world is relegated to the side.
I admit, Lord, that I've never had much regard for astronomy; it has always struck me as the dullest of the sciences. The life sciences are seemingly limitless; every year we discover new species of plants and animals and gain a deeper appreciation of your ingenuity in creating the Earth. By contrast, the night sky is just so finite. All five thousand eight hundred and seventy-two stars were cataloged in 1745, and not another has been found since then.
Chiang has pulled a bit of a legerdemain — we are more interested in the possibilities beneath our feet, rather than what floats above us in the skies.
That setup delivers the story's main thrust: an astronomer has discovered that another planet elsewhere in the galaxy is actually the stationary point of the entire universe, which means that Earth's orbit around the sun demonstrates not intelligent design or a message of purpose, but rather pure nihilism. It likely serves no purpose at all.
Chiang refracts our massive historical conflict over heliocentrism, and in so doing forces us to confront the true challenges of modern life. The astronomer's discovery forces our seemingly devout narrator to question her own faith — not in religion, but actually in science. For if conducing scientific experiments was about finding purpose in life, why should we continue doing them when we know they don't have a purpose at all?
The title of the story, Omphalos, comes from Greek mythology and symbolizes the navel of the world, or the place where the world is centered on. The astronomer's discovery dissolves what we thought was the Omphalos — Earth — and prods us to search for a new point to center us and our lives.
Our narrator's loss of faith causes her to stop praying and live in a cabin for a few months, but she ultimately comes to the conclusion that the openness of choice around these events is actually empowering for humans, forcing us to confront our own actions and realize we have agency over them.
If we had no evidence for the miracle of creation, we might think physical law was sufficient to explain every phenomenon in the cosmos, leading us to conclude that our own minds were nothing more than natural processes. But we know that there is more to what we observe than physical law can encompass; miracles happen, and human choices are surely among them.
Chiang isn't critiquing religion or believers, but rather those rationalists who believe deeply in the thesis that we are bags of atoms pre-destined to make the choices we already have made at conception. It's a relatively oblique critique, one only really brought into relief in the story's closing paragraphs.
Earlier in the story, our narrator asks God, "Let me always be inquisitive, but never be suspicious." That's ultimately a comment about cynicism and nihilism, that the purpose to everything is nothing and useless. Even in a secular world, there is meaning in every action and reaction, and physics doesn't determine how we approach our lives. With refractive lenses, we can see that we are each our own Omphalos, architecting the meaning of what we observe.
Reading Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom
As you read the final short story in Exhalation, here are some questions to think about:
Would you use a prism? Who would you talk to on the other side? What would you want to know?
What does the short story say about envy and empathy? Are we destined to constantly compare ourselves to others?
Is having more information about our alternatives better or worse for us? Is there a path of contentment through more information?
Do we need role models to redeem ourselves?
What does the story say about choice and predestination?
ZenGo is expanding beyond the basic features of a cryptocurrency wallet — letting you hold, send and receive crypto assets. You can now set aside some of your crypto assets to earn interests. In other words, ZenGo now also acts like a savings account.
The company has partnered with two DeFi projects for the new feature. DeFi means "decentralized finance", and it has been a hot trend in the cryptocurrency space. DeFi projects are the blockchain equivalent of traditional financial products. For instance, you can lend and borrow money, invest in derivative assets and more.
If you want to learn more about DeFi, here's an article I wrote on the subject:
But let's come back to ZenGo. When you have crypto assets in your ZenGo wallet, you can now open the savings tab, pick an asset, such as Dai, and select what percentage of your holdings you want to set aside.
After that, all you have to do is wait. You get an overview of your savings "accounts" at any time. This way, you can see your total earned interests. Interests are automatically reinvested over time. You can move your money from those DeFi projects back to your wallet whenever you want.
Behind the scene, ZenGo uses the Compound protocol, a lending DeFi project. It works a bit like LendingClub, but on the blockchain. Some users send money to Compound to contribute to liquidity pools. Other users borrow money from that pool.
Interest rates go up and down depending on supply and demand. That's why you currently earn more interests when you inject DAI or USD Coin in Compound. But that could change over time.
ZenGo also uses Figment in order to stake Tezos. This time, it isn't a lending marketplace. When you lock some money in a staking project, it means that you support the operations of a particular blockchain. Few blockchains support staking as they need to be based on proof-of-stake.
For the end user, it looks like a savings account whether you're relying on Compound or Figment. There are other wallet apps that let you access DeFi projects, such as Coinbase Wallet and Argent. But ZenGo thinks they're still too complicated for regular users.
More GST funds for states: New imposts, cess hikes preferred ways As a comprehensive GST rates overhaul may be postponed for a later date — finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently said she preferred the system to stabilise before another major rates rejig.
(@JMRothberg) 
