Friday, 17th July ’20

The Morning Tea

Good morning, cherish the last day of your 5-day work week with TMT. With one of the biggest security breaches in twitter, it’s out in the open that nobody’s immune to cyber attacks. It is expected that Jio Mart’s consolidation will lead to a series of buyouts. Bill Gates said that India is capable of producing COVID-19 vaccine for the world.

With that and more, continue reading further. We wish you an amazing weekend ahead and happy reading!

MARKETS

  • Market: IT stocks help to put on a good show for the market as Nifty is back above 10,700. A new wave of COVID-19 puts up a new threat for the markets. Mukesh Ambani expressed his interest to make RIL a net carbon-zero company by 2035.
  • Trade: India posted its first trade surplus in 18 years of $790 million as the imports of crude oil, gold, and other industrial products contracted by 47.59% to $21.11 billion from a year ago.
  • Economy: According to research published in Mint, the revival of the economy is again hitting roadblocks due to the localized lockdowns. Key economic indicators such as labor rates, electricity consumption, and e-way bills are still down as of July ‘20.

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

  •  A number of high profile Twitter accounts of Obama, ELon Musk, and Joe Biden were simultaneously hacked. A message was posted out from these accounts to transfer bitcoins to a particular wallet to get double the amount back. Twitter called it a coordinated social engineering attack.
  • Vedantu, an Indian ed-tech startup has raised $100 million in Series D funding led by Coatue Management. This raises its valuation to $600 million making it the second most valued education company in India after Byju’s. Vedantu said that it has registered a 220% growth in users to 2 million unique students who attended its live classes in the past 3 months.
  • A team of researchers has created a 2-way wireless data connection for use underwater. It has been a challenge to create high-speed wireless connections in a medium like water. This could be very important for keeping underwater data centers connected with surface network infrastructure. 

WHAT ELSE IS COOKING

  • Alibaba-owned UC Web suspends India operations, lays off employees: Alibaba Group’s subsidiary UC Web has suspended operations in India and has laid off 90% of its 350-strong workforce. The company said that it complied with the government’s recent directive concerning 59 apps ban and stopped the service. Previous year, it had announced its plans to launch online-movie ticketing and a fully-owned e-commerce business in India.

  • International flights to US, France set to resume this month on an interim basis: The Civil Aviation minister quoted that the international flights may resume under bilateral air bubbles with other countries with certain conditions as the situation is still volatile. The interim services will carry a possible number of passengers, like Air France will be operating 28 flights between Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Paris from 18 July to August 1, while US will be operating 18 flights from 17-31 July.

  • India-Israel sign additional Cyber Security agreements: India and Israel have signed an agreement to further expand collaboration in dealing with cyber threats amid rapid digitisation due to the coronavirus pandemic that exposed the vulnerabilities of the virtual world. The MoU was signed between the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a unit of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and INCD.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

The Ministry of Civil Aviation jacks up funds for UDAN scheme.

What are the key highlights?

Indian airlines have been facing stunted demands due to COVID-crisis. MCA decided to raise funds through securitization of ticket levy and reduction in number of subsidized seats on routes with higher demand.

Why is the funding required?

  • Presently, airlines are offered viability gap funding (VGF) for 50% of the seats on a flight & fares for those seats are capped by the government
  • The scheme is funded through Rs. 50 levy on flight tickets on major routes contributing to 80% of VGF & balance 20% is government-funded
  • With restricted resumption of domestic flights, both less number of flights and low flight load is resulting in lower contribution to VGF

 What is UDAN?

  • Launched in 2016, the scheme aims to provide connectivity to unserved and under-served airports through revival of existing air-strips or airports.
  • It is a key component of National Civil Aviation Policy 2016 which will create economically viable and profitable flights on regional routes.
  • VGF is a one-time grant provided to infrastructural projects that are economically justified but fall short of financial viability

MORNING TEA BREAK

  • Check out: Doodles can be a window into your inner thoughts. A lot of psychologists tried to discover the meaning behind doodles. Doodling and other artistic activities can be good for our memories, enhancing job performance and improving our mental health. Take a dive in to see what your doodles say about you.

THE MILLIONAIRE MINDSET

  • Knowledge Check: Impact investing refers to investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return. Gender lens investing are investments which promote gender equity and address gender based issues can be made by investing in enterprises which promote gender equality through hiring women in positions of authority as well as supporting services which empower and develop capacity of women.
  • Practice: Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 hour workweek and The 4 hour body, recommends doing 5 to 10 reps of any exercise first thing in the morning. He prefers push-ups, but you could try sit-ups, squats or lunges, even Yoga. You could extend it to a 20 minute HIIT session. They are intended to prime you for the rest of the day and really wake you up. The other thing he talks about is the afternoon funk characterised by drowsiness. He recommends talking basil leaves to counter that. 

Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal

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