Category Archives: Business & Economy

WORLD RECORDS : INDIA, POPULATION: India’s Urban Population at 2nd Highest, to Stand at 675 million in 2035, Behind China’s 1 billion: United Nations (U.N.)-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022

By 2035, the percentage of population in India at mid-year residing in urban area will be 43.2%, the U.N. said in a report.

India’s urban population is estimated to stand at 675 million in 2035, the second-highest behind China’s one billion, the U.N. has said in a report, noting that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the global urban population is back on track to grow by another 2.2 billion by 2050.

The United Nations-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022, released on Wednesday, said that rapid urbanisation was only temporarily delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global urban population is back on track to grow by another 2.2 billion people by 2050, it said.

India’s urban population is projected to be 67,54,56,000 in 2035, growing from 48,30,99,000 in 2020 to 54,27,43,000 in 2025 and 60,73,42,000 in 2030, the report said.

By 2035, the percentage of population in India at mid-year residing in urban area will be 43.2%, it said.

China’s urban population in 2035 is projected at 1.05 billion while the urban population in Asia will be 2.99 billion in 2035 and that in South Asia 98,75,92,000 it said.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL RECORDS: INDIA RECORDS: HOTELS & RESTAURANTS: MasterChef Australia’s Season 10 Winner, Sashi Cheliah, Gears up to Launch his First Restaurant in India – ‘Pandan Club’ in Chennai

Sashi was the winner of MasterChef Australia Season 10. This will be his first restaurant in India, in T Nagar, serving Peranakan cuisine and lemongrass cocktails.

Police officer turned MasterChef contestant turned chef turned restaurateur Sashi Cheliah seems apologetic about his requirements for his first restaurant in India. “The thing is, we need professional chefs for this project,” he says, over filter coffee at the Leela Palace lobby, glittering with chandeliers and fragrant with vases of marigolds.

In Chennai with World On A Plate, Sashi is relaxing after cooking seven-course degustation menus, two nights in a row, for completely sold-out dinners at The Leela Palace.

Then, true to form, the Singapore-born, Adelaide-based chef headed straight from the five-star kitchen to Chennai’s popular Erode Amman Mess for his own dinner. “It was fantastic,” he says, “When it comes to flavour there are so many great places to eat in this city.”

With roots in Tamil Nadu, including grandparents who came from Madurai, he has chosen to launch his restaurant, Pandan Club, in Chennai.

A post on his Instagram profile, which has 1,29,000 followers, announcing openings for kitchen personnel resulted in a storm of resumes: many from fans and amateur cooks.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

INDIA RECORDS: AVIATION: First Aircraft of India’s Newest Airline ‘Akasa Air’ a Boeing 737 MAX Lands at Delhi Airport after Long Ride from Seattle. 71 More to Follow in Time.

Flying all the way from Seattle in the United States, India’s newest airline Akasa Air’s first Boeing 737 MAX aircraft touched down at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Tuesday.(June 21).

“The arrival of our first aircraft is a very happy moment for all of us & marks an important milestone, bringing us closer to our vision of building India’s greenest, most dependable, and most affordable airline,” said Vinay Dube, founder, managing director & chief executive officer, Akasa Air.

It was only last week the airline took delivery of its first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in Seattle.

In November 2021, Akasa had inked a $9 billion deal with the US-based aircraft major to purchase 72 MAX planes, which includes an initial delivery of 18 aircraft by March 2023 and the remaining 54 aeroplanes in the next four years.

These planes will be powered by the fuel-efficient CFM LEAP B engine.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL RECORDS: INDIA RECORDS, MEDICAL & HEALTH SCIENCES – VACCINES: The World Health Organisation (WHO) Approves Hyderabad-based Biological E Ltd, to Manufacture Vaccines for Johnson & Johnson

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has approved India based manufacturing site in Hyderabad, Biological E Limited, to make Covid vaccines for Jansen/Johnson & Johnson.

“This is a great progress for Quad Vaccine and the US India Health partnership,” said a US Embassy spokesperson.

This manufacturing would be done through US technical support and DFC financing. DFC is a US International Development Finance Corporation that invests in the development and advancing US Foreign Policy.

“Quad partners have collectively committed $524 million to the next phase of CEPI’s (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness) which is an innovative global partnership working to accelerate the development of vaccines against epidemic and pandemic threats) work, accounting for about 50 per cent of total public investors,” according to the joint statement released by Quad members after the Summit last month.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

GLOBAL RECORDS: INDIA, PRECIOUS METALS: India Ranks the Fourth-Largest in Global Gold Recycling according to World Gold Council (WGC).

India has emerged as the fourth largest recycler in the world and the country has recycled 75 tonnes in 2021, according to a World Gold Council (WGC) report.

According to the WGC report titled ‘Gold refining and recycling’, China topped the global gold recycling chart as it recycled 168 tonnes of the yellow metal, followed by Italy in the second position with 80 tonnes and the US at the third rank with 78 tonnes in 2021.

India was ranked fourth in the list as the country recycled 75 tonnes in 2021.

According to the WGC report titled ‘Gold refining and recycling’ from 300 tonnes in 2013, India’s gold refining capacity increased by 1,500 tonnes (500%) in 2021.

The report further noted that the gold refining landscape in the country has changed over the last decade, with the number of formal operations increasing from less than five in 2013 to 33 in 2021.

While the informal sector accounts for as much as an additional 300-500 tonnes, it is worth noting that the scale of unorganised refining has fallen, largely due to the government’s tightening of pollution regulations.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

INDIA RECORDS: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: For the First Time both IIT Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur jointly build a ‘Quantum Diamond Microscope to Image Magnetic Fields’ that Change within Milliseconds.

Researchers tap fluorescence changes in special, diamond sensors to image time-varying fields.

Researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Mumbai and Kharagpur have built a microscope that can image magnetic fields within microscopic two-dimensional samples that change over milliseconds.

This has a huge potential for scientific applications, such as in measuring the biological activity of neurons and the dynamics of vortices in superconductors.

The work, led by IIT Bombay professor Kasturi Saha, from the Department of Electrical Engineering, has been published in  Scientific Reports. 

This is the first time that such a tool has been built to image magnetic fields that change within milliseconds. 

The team had started a collaboration with IIT Kharagpur in 2017 with the ambitious target of building a novel system to image the brain. They collaborated with Sharba Bandopadhyay, who brought in an expertise in neurobiology and bioengineering to complement the knowledge of quantum optics, quantum computing and quantum sensing that was Prof. Saha’s forte.

“We have, along with PhD student Madhur Parashar, developed an algorithm to image neurons in 3D using NV quantum sensors,” says Prof. Saha.

This work was published in  Communications Physics in 2020. We have jointly filed a patent for the present work, she adds.

  • Researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Mumbai and Kharagpur have built a microscope that can image magnetic fields within microscopic two-dimensional samples that change over milliseconds.
  • Prof. Saha explains that the ideal frame rate to capture a changing magnetic field is one that captures data at twice the frequency of the changing field.
  • The key aspect of this sensor is a “nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect centre” in a diamond crystal. Such NV centres act as pseudo atoms with electronic states that are sensitive to the fields and gradients around them (magnetic fields, temperature, electric field and strain).

source/content: thehindu.com(headline edited)

WORLD RECORDS: INDIA RECORDS: SPORT – CHESS: First Time in Nearly 100 years India is Hosting the prestigious Chess Olympiad. PM Modi flags off the First-ever Torch Relay Instituted by FIDE, the International Chess Body for the Chess Olympiad.

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event.

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event.

The international chess body, FIDE, for the very first time has instituted the torch relay, which is part of the Olympic tradition, but was never done in the Chess Olympiad.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich handed over the torch to the prime minister who gave it to the legendary Viswanathan Anand.

The torch will be taken to 75 cities in a span of 40 days before arriving in Mahabalipuram near Chennai. At every location, chess grandmasters of the state will receive the torch.

Leh, Srinagar, Jaipur, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Patna, Kolkata, Gangtok, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thrissur, Port Blair and Kanyakumari are among the 75 cities.

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event. With 188 countries registered for the upcoming Olympiad, the country is set to witness a huge congregation of nations for a sporting event for the first time on Indian soil.

source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)

INDIA RECORDS: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay Team has Developed the First Neurosynaptic Spiking Core based on 45-Nanometer Silicon-on-Insulator Technology

A network of spiking neurons demonstrated.

Using the phenomenon of quantum tunnelling, IIT Bombay researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, a spiking neuron network that is highly compact and shows potential for brain-scale implementation.

The research, published in the journal  IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, demonstrates the use of a 36-member network of spiking neurons in a speech recognition module.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL RECORDS: ECONOMICS : International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) MD names Dr. Krishna Srinivasan as Director to Head the Asia-Pacific Department (APD)

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced today her intention to appoint Krishna Srinivasan as Director of the Asia and Pacific Department (APD).

Mr. Srinivasan’s appointment as APD Director becomes effective on June 22, 2022. He will succeed Changyong Rhee, whose retirement from the Fund was announced on March 23, 2022.

Mr. Srinivasan, an Indian national, has more than 27 years of Fund experience, starting in the Economist Program in 1994.

He is currently a Deputy Director in APD, where he oversees the department’s surveillance work on a number of large and systemically important countries such as China and Korea, and smaller states in the Pacific such as Fiji and Vanuatu. He also oversees APD’s work on key ASEAN countries, namely Malaysia and Singapore, as well-advanced economies, including Australia and New Zealand. During the Global Financial Crisis, while in the Research Department (RES), Mr. Srinivasan led the Fund’s work on the G20 including the preparation of analytical notes for the meetings of the G20 Ministers and Leaders.

source/content: imf.org (headline edited)

WOLRD RECORDS : SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: IIT Madras, Dept of Chemistry Professor Thalappil Pradeep Chosen as Laureate of the 10th edition ‘Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) for his Breakthrough Discovery

Thalappil Pradeep, institute professor, Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), has been selected as the laureate of the 10th edition of the ‘Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water’ (PSIPW).

He was selected for the award under ‘Creativity Prize’ category given for ‘breakthrough discovery’ in any water-related field.

Pradeep developed environmentally-friendly ‘water positive’ nano scale materials for the affordable, sustainable, and rapid removal of arsenic from drinking water.

He was recognized earlier with the Padma Shri, and Nikkei Asia Prize, among many others and his technologies are delivering clean water to over 1.2 crore people.

source/content: telegraphindia.com (headline edited)