On Tuesday night, in an unusual broadcast to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped 1,000 and 500 rupee notes in a bid to flush out tax evaders. The banknotes that were declared illegal tender represent more than 86% of cash in circulation in India. Economic analyst Vivek Kaul explains the fight against tax evasion. The notes which have been withdrawn can be deposited in banks as well as […]
“This is just the beginning… we are building the most customer-centric company based on a large selection, low prices and fast delivery,” says Amit Agarwal, head of Amazon India. He sounds rehearsed. His wife, too, thinks so. Agarwal talks like Jeff Bezos. He has spent 18 years in Amazon, and was one of the eight technical advisors, popularly called “shadows”, to CEO and founder Bezos. But what sounded dissimilar was […]
Thousands of natural snowballs have been formed on an 18-km stretch of a beach in the Gulf of Ob in northwest Siberia, puzzling the local people. A part of the coast was covered in the icy spheres. The sculptural shapes range from the size of a tennis ball to almost 1 metre across. They result from a rare environmental process where small pieces of ice form, are rolled by wind […]
Three Omani fishermen hit the jackpot after scooping 80kg of floating “whale vomit” that is expected to net them $2.5 million. Khalid Al Sinani, who is in his late 30s, found the rare “whale vomit” floating on the shores of Qurayat province last week. ‘Whale vomit’ or Ambergris is a very costly wax that originates as a secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale. It can be found floating […]
As Iraqi troops battled to gain ground a few streets away, soldiers in the Mosul district of Intisar wrapped a wounded and bloodied colleague in a blanket, lifted him off his Humvee, and sped him away from the frontlines for treatment. Heavy shooting and mortar fire shook the neighbourhood, which the soldiers were trying to recapture from Islamic State militants who have held Mosul for more than two years. Fighting […]
‘It begins with her.’ it most certainly does. The trailer of the long overdue Wonder Woman film from the house of DC was unveiled late last night and it’s everything fans have hoped for. Israeli actress Gal Gadot stars as the otherworldly Wonder Woman, reprising the role from the Batman v Superman movie – in which, may we say, she was easily the best part. In her own movie, Gal […]
A bill to proclaim October as Hindu Heritage Month annually in Canada’s Ontario province has been introduced in the provincial assembly here. Ontario is home to more than 700,000 Indo-Canadians. Introducing the bill in the Ontario assembly here, Joe Dickson, who is a Member of the Provincial Parliament (MPP), said that by proclaiming the month of October as Hindu Heritage Month, Ontario will recognize the “important contributions that Hindu Canadians […]
A 40-year-old woman from northern India committed suicide in January after a video of her being raped was circulated on WhatsApp. The BBC’s Divya Arya travelled to the village in Uttar Pradesh to hear the full story. Geeta was a brave woman. She was a health worker in a rural area of northern India, a job that meant she often walked alone between the surrounding villages, sometimes after dark, visiting […]
It’s one thing to start a business. It’s quite another to make it successful. Success is a rough road, full of many twists and bends and no small number of obstacles along the way. There are a number of obstacles that all businesses face, regardless of their size or past success record. Knowing what they are and being prepared for them will make you and your business less prone to […]
After seeing a rather improbable looking graphic running around on social media, promising self-sufficiency on 1 acre, I felt compelled to write a rebuttal, entitled The Myth of One Acre Self-Sufficiency. In the process of that, it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to produce a more realistic plan, based on our experiences with smaller livestock, and limited growing conditions, and based on recommendations I made in my rebuttal. […]
