Japan not in the mood to join RCEP if India doesn't come on board

Abe has sought to beef up ties with India across a range of fields to balance China's regional dominance.

Japan is not considering signing a Chinese-backed regional trade pact without India, the top Japanese negotiator said Friday, ahead of a series of diplomatic exchanges in the coming weeks that include a visit to Delhi by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

India announced this month it was withdrawing from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, citing the deal’s potential impact on the livelihoods of its most vulnerable citizens. China said that the 15 remaining countries decided to move forward first and India was welcome to join RCEP whenever it’s ready.

“We aren’t thinking about that at all yet,” Deputy Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Hideki Makihara, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “All we are thinking of is negotiations including India.”

Abe has sought to beef up ties with India across a range of fields to balance China’s regional dominance. Japanese and Indian foreign and defense ministers hold their first joint meeting in a so-called ‘two plus two’ format this weekend. Both countries are also part of four-way security talks with Australia and the US called the Quad, a move that Beijing has complained could stoke a new Cold War.

Japan Seeks to Keep India in China-Backed Regional Trade Pact

“It is meaningful from the economic, political and potentially the national security point of view,” Makihara said of the inclusion of the world’s largest democracy in the pact. “Japan will continue to try to persuade India to join.”

Trade Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama will accompany Abe on next month’s trip to India, Makihara said.

The other countries taking part in the RCEP talks are Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

China has sought to accelerate the RCEP deal as it faces slowing growth from a trade war with the U.S. An agreement would further integrate Asia’s economies with China just as President Donald Trump’s administration urges nations in the region to shun Chinese infrastructure loans and 5G telecommunications technology.

Business Standard

Crisis-hit Yes Bank poised to reveal crucial fund-raising details

Yes Bank Ltd. is expected to name the investors and the amount of money they will contribute after its board signs off on the plan at a meeting on Friday.

An Indian lender that’s creaking under the weight of bad loans and exposure to the nation’s shadow-banking crisis is poised to release details of a crucial fund-raising plan.
Yes Bank Ltd. is expected to name the investors and the amount of money they will contribute after its board signs off on the plan at a meeting on Friday. Then it will be up to the Reserve Bank of India to consider approving the arrangement.

India’s fourth-largest private-sector lender aims to raise about $1.2 billion in capital and says it has received offers from bidders including an unnamed North American family office. Chief Executive Officer Ravneet Gill, who is about nine months in the role, has said raising the money will keep the bank running for the next two years.

RBI approval is required for stake purchases in Indian banks of more than 5 per cent. Any non-financial entity can buy up to 10 per cent of a lender, and for a financial entity the cap is 15 per cen. In general the central bank is reluctant to allow larger stakes, though there’s a provision to allow a single investor to pick up 40 per cent or more under special circumstances.

A notable such exception came three years ago when Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. was allowed to buy a 51 per cent stake in CSB Bank Ltd., then known as Catholic Syrian Bank Ltd. That marked the first time the central bank let a foreign firm take a majority interest in a local lender.

Yes Bank shares have more than doubled since Oct. 1, the best performance on the benchmark Sensex, giving it a market value of about $2.5 billion. The rally has pared its decline this year to about 61 per cent.

With exposure to several troubled shadow banks, real estate firms and stressed companies, Yes Bank’s bad loans have risen sharply, forcing it to step up provisioning and eroding its capital. The lender’s core equity capital is 8.70 per cent, barely above the regulatory minimum of about 8 per cent.

Gill is trying to clean up the bank after the RBI forced his predecessor, co-founder Rana Kapoor, to step down following a dispute over the disclosure of bad loans. With 314 billion rupees ($4.4 billion) of exposure to junk-rated companies, the bank might need more capital to set aside for defaults in the future.

Market News

It will need more than a rate cut to salvage India's sputtering economy

It wasn't too long ago that economic aspirations for India echoed China's. Now this young country of 1.4 billion people is looking more like Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines.

BS : Shaktikanta Das has one of the easiest jobs in central banking. He just has to keep doing what he's been doing since becoming governor of the Reserve Bank of India last December: cut interest rates. Fortunately, political will is on his side.

That’s an enviable state of affairs for a central banker these days. Just look at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has become a constant target of President Donald Trump’s Twitter tirades. It’s also face-saving for Das that politics and economics are pointing in the same direction. He took up this post under a cloud of question marks about the RBI’s independence. Das’s immediate predecessor, Urjit Patel, quit abruptly almost a year ago, just as the government was ratcheting up pressure for the institution to hand over some of its reserves to free up fiscal spending.

The troubling state of Asia's third-largest economy makes Das's task uncomplicated. The country's pace of economic growth is slowing dramatically; government numbers due late Friday may well show the expansion slipped below 5 per cent last quarter, the weakest pace since gross domestic product figures were reconfigured in 2012. Last year, the nation was churning out GDP numbers with an 8 in front of them. Many big economies have been slowing, but it’s hard to think of another where growth has come down to earth so quickly.

For Das to even contemplate taking his foot off the monetary pedal now would be a mistake. He should look past the recent uptick in inflation last month, largely attributed to vegetables such as onions, a staple of Indian cooking. Those price gains helped push the measure beyond the RBI's 4 per cent medium-term target. More important is the slide in core inflation, which strips out volatile commodity prices. This points to a demand problem in the economy, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Andy Mukherjee wrote here.

Das says policymakers will keep cutting rates until growth revives. The five reductions he’s overseen haven’t given the economy back its groove; so the mission is clear going into next week’s meeting, when the central bank is expected to cut again. His global peers may have done well to adopt the same approach. It's clear from the Fed’s retreat that the hikes in 2018 went too far in the face of anemic inflation. The European Central Bank had barely curtailed quantitative easing before it had to start all over again.

Lest Das be tempted to sail through, there's the iceberg of India’s banking industry to consider, which is saddled with one of the world's most dangerous loads of bad debt. The trouble is, about 60 per cent of the financial system is controlled by state-run banks that report to the government, so Das’s ability to influence them is constrained. At some point he may well have to challenge entrenched political interests.

India's banks wrote off Rs 2 trillion worth of bad loans in 2018-19

Even as banks have written off more loans than before, recovery of bad loans has also improved substantially in the past couple of years.

India’s 42 scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) collectively wrote off Rs 2.12 trillion worth of loans in 2018-19, according to figures given by the finance ministry in Parliament. Not only was this 42 per cent higher than the Rs 1.5 trillion written off the previous year, but also about 20 per cent of all their non-performing assets (NPAs).

Banks generally take NPAs off their books to make their balance sheets look cleaner — with reduced liabilities and potential losses. According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, "non-performing loans, including, those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, are removed from the balance sheet of the bank concerned by way of write-off."

Since 2014-15, when the Narendra Modi-led government first came to power, India’s banks have written off Rs 5.7 trillion worth of bad loans.

So far as the country’s 21 public-sector banks (PSBs) are concerned, the amount of bad loans taken off their balance sheets has increased progressively over the years. In 2018-19, these banks wrote off Rs 1.9 trillion worth of bad loans — about 90 per cent of the total for all SCBs, and four times their own write-offs in 2014-15. Only a third of SCBs reported lower write-offs in 2018-19 than the previous year; and only three of those that did were PSBs, show government statistics.

State Bank of India (SBI) reported the biggest jump in write-offs, to Rs 56,500 crore. The significant increase in SBI’s write-offs in the past couple of financial years has been on account of a merger of five other banks — State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Hyderabad and State Bank of Mysore — with it.

For India’s SCBs, an increase in write-offs has occurred concurrently with a rise in NPAs. Bad loans on the books of all banks have tripled in four years — from Rs 3.2 trillion in 2014-15 to Rs 9.4 trillion in 2018-19.

The massive rise in write-offs by India’s PSBs and some crisis-hit private lenders assumes more significance in view of a higher rate of bad-loan recoveries under the country’s new insolvency resolution process, which came into force through a legislation in 2016. According to an RBI report, in 2018-19, banks were able to recover Rs 74,500 crore from companies under the resolution process — at a recovery rate of 43 per cent. This was significantly higher than recovery rates for other forums like Lok Adalats, debt resolution tribunals (DRTs) and procedures initiated under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Securities Interest Act (Sarfaesi).

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As news goes from bad to worse, Modi govt scrambles to revive the economy

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this week she's not closing the door on additional steps to support the economy.

Business Standard : The bad news is getting worse for India’s economy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is exhausting all options to stem the fallout. Data on Friday will likely show the economy had its weakest performance last quarter in more than six years, with the growth rate dropping below the symbolically important 5% mark. It’s a culmination of several months of downbeat figures, from plunging car sales to shrinking factory output and an export slump.

Having left much of the stimulus burden to the central bank early this year, Modi is now taking bolder steps to reverse the decline. In recent months, the government has slashed corporate taxes, set up a special real-estate fund, merged banks and announced the biggest privatization drive in more than a decade. While authorities are committed to doing more, the policy room may be narrowing. “Domestic demand is displaying chronic weakness, with an apparent credit crunch afflicting wide swaths of the economy,” said Taimur Baig, chief economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore. “Production and sales are under pressure, and public spending is running out of room due to poor tax collection.”

Why in India, 6% Economic Growth Is Cause for Alarm: QuickTake

Friday’s eagerly awaited data will probably show gross domestic product grew 4.5% in the July-September period from a year ago, according to the median estimate of 41 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be the slowest pace since the March quarter of 2013. India was the world’s fastest-growing economy until last year, posting quarterly growth rates of as high of 9.4% in 2016. A crisis among shadow banks -- a key source of funding for small businesses and consumers -- weak rural spending and a global slowdown have since conspired to bring down growth steadily.

“The nature of the slowdown is broad-based, with consumption as well as investment oriented sectors feeling the pain,” said Indranil Pan, chief economist at IDFC First Bank Ltd. in Mumbai. “Continuing poor domestic sentiment along with the lack of any demand uptake globally would ensure that any recovery process would only be gradual.”

Aggressive Easing

The Reserve Bank of India has already cut interest rates by 135 basis points this year to the lowest since 2009, with more easing to come. The central bank is expected to look through the recent breach of its 4% medium-term inflation target and deliver another rate cut on Dec. 5. India’s Central Banker Das Faces a Tough Balancing Act (1) “The onus is on the government to do the heavy lifting,” said Devendra Pant, chief economist of India Ratings and Research, a local unit of Fitch Ratings Ltd..

PE funds bet big on crisis-hit NBFCs even as other investors balk

The funds have invested about $2 billion this year in the country's non-bank financing sector, which is worth some $40 billion.

Business Standard : Private equity funds are picking through the rubble of India’s crisis-stricken shadow banking sector, even as other investors balk.

The funds have invested about $2 billion this year in the country’s non-bank financing sector, which is worth some $40 billion. While that’s not enough to staunch the 16-month long cash crunch following the collapse of IL&FS Group, it is 50 per cent higher than the average over the last four years and comes after a strong 2018, according to data from research firm Venture Intelligence.

Investing in India’s shadow banks involves some serious risks. Slowing economic growth could drag more financiers into default. Altico Capital India Ltd., whose shareholders include Fiera Capital and Varde Partners, missed debt payments in September. The head of KKR & Co.’s lending business in India resigned last month amid rising defaults in the sector.

There’s also concern liquidations could spread after major shadow lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp. was seized by authorities last week. Apollo Capital and Cerberus are eyeing a stake in Dewan Housing, the Economic Times reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the development.

But signs suggest private equity interest remains strong. PE adviser Vidura Capital is working on fundraising for six non-bank lenders, while Spark Capital Advisors India Pvt. is helping five, representatives for the firms said.

Other types of investors have gotten cold feet.

Mutual funds, which have been an important source of funds, cut their exposure to shadow bank bonds to the lowest in five years in October, Securities and Exchange Board of India data show.

The share of money from insurers as part of NBFCs’ total funding has also declined to the lowest in at least two years, according to Reserve Bank of India data.

Shadow banking is not a sector where anything you pick is good, said Skanda Jayaraman, managing director for investment banking at Spark Capital Advisors India, which last month advised Aptus Value Housing Finance India Ltd. on an equity raise. Still, “it’s a great time for private equity players to look at NBFCs as the valuations can be attractive.”

NBFCs focused on financing micro-, small- and medium-sized firms have seen significant interest from private equity funds, according to Arpan Sheth, a partner at Bain & Co.

There is economic slowdown, but no signs of recession: FM Sitharaman

The finance minister touched upon the difficulties in meeting the fiscal deficit, and indirectly signalled a fiscal slippage for the year.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday defended her handling of the economy, saying steps taken by the government since the Union Budget presentation had started bearing fruit and some sectors such as automobiles are showing signs of recovery. The minister added that while economic growth had slowed in the past few quarters, the country was not undergoing a recession.

“Every step being taken is in the interest of the country. Looking at the economy in discerning view, you see that growth may have come down, but it is not a recession yet and it won’t be a recession ever,” she said while replying to a discussion on the economic slowdown in the Rajya Sabha.

Sitharaman’s reply was marked by unruly scenes and some disruptions, especially by Anand Sharma of the Congress. A number of Opposition members staged a walkout.

The finance minister touched upon the difficulties in meeting the fiscal deficit, and indirectly signalled a fiscal slippage for the year.

“A lot of concern has been raised over the fiscal deficit. In the July Budget, I pegged it at 3.3 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product). Although the FRBM Act has been there since 2004, on average, the fiscal deficit during the UPA-2 was 5.5 per cent of GDP. In our first term, the average was 3.6 per cent,” she said.

“They (the Opposition) should know that there are difficulties in maintaining fiscal discipline and sometimes it is not possible… I appreciate the anxiety (about the fiscal deficit), but the people who ran it well above 5 per cent should know what is fiscal management,” she added.

While the Centre has not revised its fiscal deficit target for the year, officials expect a slippage, given that tax revenue shortfall is expected to be larger than Rs 2 trillion in the current financial year.

Sitharaman blamed the lagged effect of the twin balance sheet crisis in banks due to non-performing assets (NPAs) on the one hand and heavily indebted corporates on the other, resulting from the UPA regime lending, for the fall in GDP growth in the past two financial years.

“As a result of the twin balance sheet (crisis), private investment suffered and that led to the slowdown. Therefore, in 2017-18, GDP growth was 7.2 per cent, and in 2018-19, it was 6.8 per cent,” Sitharaman said, admitting that the decline was very pronounced in the first quarter of 2019-20. Real GDP growth for the April-June quarter was 5 per cent, the lowest since 2013.BS

Rupee is the worst performer in emerging Asia as RBI tries to lift economy

The RBI bought has about $18 billion of foreign exchange since the end of September.

Market News : The Reserve Bank of India’s efforts to support the flagging economy are turning out to be a bane for the rupee.

The currency is the worst performer in emerging Asia this quarter, and analysts say that’s because the central bank is mopping up dollars gushing into local stocks and bonds.

The RBI bought has about $18 billion of foreign exchange since the end of September, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics. While the purchases have propelled reserves to a record, the rupee has fallen about 0.7% since Sept. 30.

Weakness in the rupee despite robust inflows is seen as a sign the central bank wants to curb a sharp appreciation in the currency that can hurt exports. With slew of data pointing to weak economic activity, boosting shipments is high on agenda for the government.

“Part of the rupee’s under performance is deliberate,” said Mitul Kotecha, a senior EM strategist at TD Securities in Singapore. “Higher reserves prove that the central bank is probably making determined efforts to keep the rupee’s competitiveness.”

The RBI has said it does not target any particular level of exchange rate and steps in only to curb undue swings in the currency. Though, as the rupee was heading for its worst quarterly decline in a year in the three months ended September, Governor Shaktikanta Das said September 19 that the currency is fairly valued, indicating tolerance for a weaker rupee.

India’s exports have shrunk for three months in a row, contributing to further deepening of a growth slowdown. A report on Nov. 29 is likely to show gross domestic product grew 4.6%, which would be the weakest pace of expansion since the first three months of 2013.

Expectations that the government will continue to take steps to revive growth has prompted foreign funds to pump $4.6 billion into local shares and more than $600 million into debt this quarter. The purchases have pushed up the nation’s main stock index to a record.

The central bank will continue to soak up the inflows to address the rupee’s overvaluation, according to Kotak Securities Ltd.

Maha Vikas Aghadi govt in Maharashtra could focus on farm debt waivers

The state govt can go for a waiver of Rs 50,000 crore spread over a couple of years, said Macquarie.

Business Standard : The change of guard in Maharashtra could lead to large farm debt waivers and projects getting stalled, warned Macquarie.

Farm distress and debt waivers were part of the election campaign by the Opposition parties in Maharashtra against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

Now, an alliance of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, is set to form the government and expected to address the farm distress. And, they will have adequate fiscal space to do so, Macquarie estimated.

“Farm loan waiver can potentially be the first order of the business of the new government,” the brokerage said.

Maharashtra’s GDP of Rs 26.603 trillion had a fiscal deficit of 2.1 per cent in fiscal year 2018-19 (FY19) and targets were set to keep it at the same level for FY20.

“The Maharashtra government can do a waiver of Rs 500 billion (Rs 50,000 crore) spread over a couple of years without breaching limit of 3 per cent set under FRBM Act,” the brokerage said, adding that most of the public sector banks would have exposure to Maharashtra’s agriculture sector. Even as there were no large micro finance institutions, smaller cooperative banks dominate the agriculture loan market.

Maha Vikas Aghadi govt in Maharashtra could focus on farm debt waivers

Projects at high risk of getting stalled includes the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail along with the Mumbai Nagpur Expressway. L&T was the front runner in getting the high speed rail contract, but that may get negated now. The Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway is split into 16 packages, all of which have already been awarded.

However, the metro and airport projects would likely continue as they are in advanced stages of completion, but the pace of execution could get affected, Macquarie warned. Funding for these projects are primarily coming from multilateral agencies. The real estate sector would likely get a boost.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been against any farm debt waiver. Recently, a committee headed by Deputy Governor M K Jain had said the focus should be to enhance productivity of the agriculture sector, and not debt waivers.

Their report pointed out that since 2014-15, debt waivers saw an unprecedented rise in the country, led by the state governments. According to the report, 10 states announced loan waivers aggregating Rs 2.4 trillion (1.4 per cent of 2016-17 GDP at current prices) since 2014-15.

GDP growth seen slipping under 5% in Sep quarter; may be in 4.2-4.7% range

A look at six indicators shows all of them have collapsed from positive growth in April to contraction in Sept.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday the country was not in recession yet, and won’t ever be.A set of data arriving in a day may qualify the statement to some extent. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) will release the data on gross domestic product (GDP) for the July to September quarter of the fiscal year 2019-20 (Q2FY20) on Friday.

Raising slowdown concerns, economists whom Business Standard earlier spoke to have concurred on one thing: The growth in GDP in Q2 would be between 4.2 and 4.7 per cent, slower than the 5 per cent achieved in Q1.

The actual data could be more serious as the lowest-ever quarterly growth clocked since 2012-13 (when the new GDP series began) was 4.3 per cent, in the March quarter of FY13, when India was battling high inflation and political turmoil, in addition to pressures from the global economy.

Representative data for the July-September quarter proves their point to a great extent. A look at six indicators — imports, exports, rail freight earnings, electricity and diesel consumption, and overall industrial production — shows that all of them have collapsed from positive growth in April to contraction in September.

These indicators are a collage of manufacturing and services sector indicators in the country, encompassing a substantial part of the economy.

While the growth in Q1 was 5 per cent with positive leading indicators, Q2 has been characterised by all indicators in red. Port traffic too has stagnated, growing 0.4 per cent in the April–October period, entirely brought down by a severe contraction in coal imports.

Growth in consumption of fast-moving consumer goods, such as shampoo sachets and coconut oil, has weakened to 2 per cent in Q2FY20, with the stress concentrated in north Indian states.

Shubhada Rao, chief economist at YES Bank, told Business Standard that except services propelled by the government’s budgetary funding, all the sectors of the economy are a drag on growth in the September quarter.

But she also said that the Indian economy is going through a transition phase, and some near-term impact was expected.

Isro launches 14 satellites, marking success after Chandrayaan-2 setback

Cartosat-3, India's third-generation earth observation satellite, will be used for large-scale urban planning and to monitor coastal land, rural resources and infrastructure development.

India launched 14 satellites Wednesday morning, boosting the morale of its space agency which lost contact with a spacecraft to trying to land on the moon in September.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C47 (PSLV-C47) placed in orbit India's earth observation satellite Cartosat-3 and 13 nano-satellites for the US when it blasted off from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro's) Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 9:28am.

Seventeen minutes after lift-off, Cartosat-3 separated from the launch vehicle and put into orbit. The 13 US satellites will be launched in the next eight minutes, completing the first business order of Isro's newly formed commercial arm NewSpace India Ltd.

Cartosat-3, India’s third-generation earth observation satellite, will be used for large-scale urban planning and to monitor coastal land, rural resources and infrastructure development. The satellite, which will last for five years and weighs 1,625kg, can pick a 25-cm object from its orbital perch about 509 km away, making it one of the sharpest earth-imagers.

Twelve US nano-satellites called FLOCK-4P will be used for earth observation and another called MESHBED is a communication test bed.

Isro lost contact with Chandrayaan-2 on September 7 when it was trying to land on the moon, scuttling the agency’s ambitious plans to become the first country to probe the unexplored lunar south pole.

The lander of the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission was attempting a “soft,” or controlled, landing near the south pole of the moon where scientists believe there could be water ice. Communication was lost just as it was about to touch down.

India operates one of the largest constellations of space-based imaging satellites. The last of the Cartosat-2 Series satellite weighed 710 kg and it was launched by PSLV-C40 last January 2018. With the American business order in place, the PSLV rocket has put 310 launched foreign satellites till date.

Business Standard

Privacy risk: Report says India among 75 nations with AI surveillance tools

Even as right to privacy has been declared a fundamental right, India does not have a personal data protection law yet.

BS : India is gradually opening up to the threat of mass surveillance and cyber snooping by the state as well as rogue actors, as modern technology makes its way into the country in a landscape of weak privacy laws.

A report by foreign policy think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has said India is among 75 countries in the world with access to modern AI surveillance technology— putting it in the same list as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. The study was published in September.

“Many governments in the Gulf, East Asia, and South/Central Asia are procuring advanced analytic systems, facial recognition cameras, and sophisticated monitoring capabilities,” said Steven Feldstein, a Carnegie Endowment fellow and the author of the report.

These systems are used to surveil citizens “to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground,” he said, without detailing their use in specific countries.

Governments in autocratic and semi-autocratic countries are more prone to abuse AI surveillance than governments in liberal democracies, the report noted. Some autocratic governments like those in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia are exploiting AI technology for mass surveillance, while others with dismal human rights records are using it to reinforce repression.

On the technology front, the capabilities are strong. Modern systems can create 360-degree profiles of citizens by stitching together data from street cameras, card transactions and social media profiles. These systems can snoop on private interactions on the smartphone and monitor real-time location of the target.

According to the report, the biggest supplier of AI surveillance solutions is China with Huawei being the biggest exporter.

India is still far from being a victim of mass state-sponsored snooping but concerns loom over some new-age technology systems being implemented.

To be sure, not all the technologies are used for illegitimate purposes —cameras on streets prevent traffic violations, while facial recognition entry-management systems are common-place at offices for their sheer ease. A lot of advanced tech is being deployed as part of the government’s Smart City project for sewer management to reducing traffic congestion.

Men dominate investment management despite women being equally good: Survey

Only 15 funds, or 3 per cent, had all-female teams, managing 1 per cent of total assets.

Portfolio management remains largely a band of brothers, new research by Goldman Sachs finds.

An analysis of 528 large-cap mutual funds showed 409, or 77 per cent, had all-male portfolio management teams, strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a note on Nov. 25. Those funds accounted for 64 per cent of domestic equity mutual fund assets.

Only 15 funds, or 3 per cent, had all-female teams, managing 1 per cent of total assets. Just 73 funds, or 14 per cent, with $196 billion in assets under management, have women in at least one-third of portfolio manager positions.

Despite their small numbers, women get similar returns as their male peers.

Since the start of 2017, 39 per cent of female-managed funds have outperformed benchmarks annually compared with 41 per cent for all other funds, while return volatility and Sharpe ratios have “also been almost identical across all-male, all-female, and mixed-gender teams,” Kostin and his co-authors wrote.

One difference between the two genders is the sectors they favour. Women put more money into information technology, utilities and consumer staples; men like financial services companies.

At the stock-level, women have higher relative exposure to Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Nike Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Merck & Co., but lower exposure to Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Comcast Corp., UnitedHealth Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Booking Holdings Inc.

Article Source BS

Isro PSLV-C47 launch: All you need to know about Cartosat-3 and its uses

Cartosat-3 aims to address the increased demands for large scale urban planning, rural resource and infrastructure development, coastal land use and land cover.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C47 is set to launch Cartosat-3 and 13 commercial nanosatellites into Sun Synchronous orbit from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. This is the first commercial order to put into orbit 13 American nanosatellites for NewSpace India, which was formed only in March 2019.

What is Cartosat-3

Cartosat-3 is a third-generation agile advanced earth observation satellite with high-resolution imaging capability. Developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro), it will replace the IRS series. Cartosat-3 has a panchromatic resolution of 0.25 metres making it the imaging satellite with highest resolution and Mx of 1 metre with a high-quality resolution, which is a major improvement from the previous payloads in the Cartosat series.

What is PSLV

PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) is an indigenously-developed expendable launch system of the ISRO. It comes in the category of medium-lift launchers with a reach up to various orbits, including the Geo Synchronous Transfer Orbit, Lower Earth Orbit, and Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit. All the operations of PSLV are controlled from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota.

5 things you must know about PSLV-C47 and Cartosat-3 launch

1.PSLV-C47 is the 21st flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration (with 6 solid strap-on motors).

2. This will be the 74th launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.

3. Cartosat-3 was originally planned to be launched on-board PSLV in 2014.

4. Previously, the Cartosat-2 second generation series offered the best resolution of 65 cm from Isro.

5. The last of Cartosat-2 Series satellite weighing 710kg was launched by PSLV-C40 last January 2018.

Cartosat-3 application

Cartosat-3 could be potentially used for weather mapping and cartography. It aims to address the increased demands for large scale urban planning, rural resource and infrastructure development, coastal land use and land cover.

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Facebook-owned Oculus acquires maker of 'Beat Saber', plans expansion

In the virtual game, players use light sabers to slash oncoming, large cubes to the beat of music, sometimes twisting or ducking to avoid oncoming walls.

Business Standard : Facebook-owned Oculus on Tuesday said it is buying the studio behind hit virtual reality game "Beat Saber" as it looks to expand VR technology to wider audiences.

Oculus, which makes Rift and Quest VR headgear, did not disclose financial terms of the deal to acquire Prague-based Beat Games.

"Beat Games is joining us in our quest to bring VR to more people around the world," Oculus director of augmented and virtual reality content Mike Verdu said in a blog post.

"Beat Games' accomplishments are already impressive, but Facebook and the Beat Games team know that there is so much more that can be done across VR, games, and music."

Verdu assured players that the studio would continue to ship content and updates for "Beat Saber" on platforms where it is already available.

In the virtual game, players use light sabers to slash oncoming, large cubes to the beat of music, sometimes twisting or ducking to avoid oncoming walls.

"VR reimagines old genres and invents new ones," Verdu said.

Oculus is exploring ways, including acquisitions, to accelerate the adoption of virtual reality technology, which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has heralded as the next major computing platform.

"With the resources and know-how that we can offer, Beat Games will be able to accelerate, adding more music and more exciting features to 'Beat Saber' as well as bringing the game to more people," Verdu said.

Facebook is planning a virtual social community where users of its Oculus headgear can "explore new places" via its Horizon virtual world, which is set for a beta launch in 2020.

Oculus users will be able to choose an avatar and interact with others in the virtual community, Facebook said earlier this year.

Horizon will replace earlier versions of the social VR community Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms.

Oculus remains a small part of Facebook, whose core social network and other platforms reach more than two billion people worldwide.