Topmostconcern

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a total of nine projects costing $2.42 billion as part of the Operational Plan (OP) 2016-2025 of the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) program. These projects will receive ADB financing of $1.43 billion. These nine projects represent a significant increase compared to the previous 15 years, when the annual average value of projects approved was only about $500 million. The nine projects comprise of two rail projects in Bangladesh worth $890 million, two economic corridor initiatives (a project and program loan) and a bridge project in India worth an aggregate of $1.2 billion, trade facilitation and airport projects in Bhutan worth $27 million and key SASEC road and energy projects in Nepal worth $302 million. All these projects are aligned with the SASEC OP’s thrusts of developing road and rail links aligned closely with trade routes toward the east, streamlining trade procedures, and improving energy infrastructure.

State-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC) have announced plans for a network of 156 mini-satellites to facilitate global broadband coverage. This is the first low orbiting, networked satellite project, which will orbit 1,000 km above the ground, developed by China amid its wider push for commercial space development, according to CASIC. "The network is a general satellite platform," said Bei Chao, a CASIC engineer, who added that add-ons and upgrades were being explored next. Small satellites are easy to mass produce and upgrade at low cost. Low orbit helps avoid signal delay; and satellite communication services with frequencies from 26.5 to 40 hertz will improve Internet access. The project plans to send the first satellite before 2018, and launch four more by 2020 to form a constellation. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), all 156 satellites will be in operation. CASIC launched an experimental satellite "TK-1" in

India has offered a new line of credit for $5 billion, its biggest yet in the neighbourhood, to Bangladesh. The announcement is expected during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Delhi next week, her economic adviser, Mashiur Rahman, said here on Thursday. Mr. Rahman said the credit would be open-ended and would follow the $1 billion offered in 2010, when Ms. Hasina previously visited Delhi, and the $2 billion in 2015 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka. “The $5 billion is an open LoC; we can use it to enhance the level of trade, movement, connectivity. The projects are yet to be fully identified, and there is no time line. We can spend it all at once, or as we need it. But where the Indian side has an interest is in connectivity: railway projects, road transportation, road maintenance,” Mr. Rahman said. A senior Indian official said lines of credit were part of India’s “well-thought-out” strategy to “give Bangladesh smaller sums it can absorb” and building cap

The boycott of video-hosting platform YouTube by advertisers could cost its parent company Google $750 million in revenue, a media report said. Over the past few weeks, major consumer brands, including Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and McDonald’s have pulled out their ads from the platform as they are protesting the placement of their ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups. Although Google promised that it was taking steps to deal with the problem, the controversy still continues, and has led at least one firm to downgrade the search giant’s share price, Fortune reported on Monday. According to analysts at brokerage firm Nomura Instinet, even if Google addresses the issue quickly, the boycott could cost its video service dearly. The firm said that YouTube could see its annual revenues — which are estimated to be $10.2 billion for this year — a cut by as much as 7.5 per cent due to the controversy. This is combined

The tax cut will increase Aramco’s after-tax income by 300 percent, allowing for higher cash returns to shareholders and giving the company, known officially as Saudi Arabian oil co., a potential market value of $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, Bernstein analysts said in a report. Rystad Energy increased its valuation of Aramco by 250 percent to $1.4 trillion, assuming a long-term oil price of $75 a barrel. The Saudi government announced Monday that it’s reducing Aramco’s tax rate to 50 percent from 85 percent, as it prepares to offer investors as much as 5 percent of the world’s biggest oil exporter in what could be a record IPO. Estimates of Aramco’s potential valuation vary widely. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said it’s worth about $2 trillion. Prior to the tax change, consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd, valued the company at around $400 billion, according to clients who attended a private briefing earlier this year. “Before the reduction in tax, it was hard to argue that

China’s military carried out drills along the border with Burma on Tuesday, in a show of force to highlight its resolve to protect its people, state news agency Xinhua said, following clashes between the Burma Army and ethnic rebels. Fighting this month in Burma pushed thousands of people into China to seek refuge, prompting Beijing to call for a ceasefire between ethnic militias and the security forces. Xinhua said the joint land and air exercises were part of planned annual drills, but did not say exactly where they took place. It quoted a Chinese army colonel as saying the exercises showed “the People’s Liberation Army’s resolute resolve” to protect the security of the border and the lives of residents there. In accordance with existing agreements, China informed Burma’s military ahead of the drills, it added. China has repeatedly expressed concern about fighting along the border that has occasionally spilled into its territory, for instance in 2015, when five people died in Ch

Chinese scientists are building the world's largest multifunctional research platform for nano-science and nano-technology that could help develop more powerful computers and more intelligent robots. The Vacuum Interconnected Nano-X Research Facility in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, integrates the state-of-art capabilities of material growth, device fabrication and testing in one ultra-high vacuum environment, said Ding Sunan, deputy director of the project. "We are exploring a new technology route of nano-scale devices production on the platform, which simulates the ultra-high vacuum environment of space," said Ding, a researcher at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Nano-X has received initial funding of 320 million yuan (about $46.5 million), and will eventually have a budget of 1.5 billion yuan. Construction on the first stage began in 2014 and is expected to be completed in 2018. It comprises 100-meter-long ultr

China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities. The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennas on Fiery Cross and Subi. “So look for deployments in the near future,” he said. China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain “freedom of navigation.” A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Gary Ross, declined to comm

  A Canadian gold coin named ‘Big Maple Leaf’ which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin’s Bode Museum. The coin is made out of pure gold, weighs about 100 kilogrammes and has a face value of around $1 million. “The coin was stolen last night, it’s gone,” museum spokesman Markus Farr said. Given the high purity of the gold used in the coin, its material value is estimated to be $4 million.The museum said on its website that the coin was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 and that it was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for its “unmatched” degree of purity. The coin, with a diameter of 53 centimetres and 3 centimetres thick, was loaned to the Bode Museum in December 2010. Police said it was probably stolen by a group of thieves who entered the museum undetected through a window, possibly with the help of a ladder. “Based on the information we have so far we believe that the thief, maybe thieves, broke open a

NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said. Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO’s recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea. A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones. It was not immediately clear if NATO allies would fund a new military communications satellite to be launched into space or if an increase in broadband capacity could be gained from existing U.S. and other allied satellites. Non-NATO member Japan launched its first military communi

Gulpet police have arrested three persons while selling ganja at Betamagala road on the outskirts of town and recovered 27 kg of ganja and a motorbike. The police gave the names of arrested as Venkatesh, a resident of Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu, Manjunath of Boodikote village in Bangarpet taluk, and B. Suresh of K.R. Puram in Bengaluru. The raid was conducted on Sunday based on a tip-off.

Two male British nationals have been accused in the smuggling of more than 300 million yen in stimulant drugs into Japan from Turkey earlier this month, police said on Friday, reports Chiba Nippo On March 3, an X-ray inspection of suitcases belonging to the British nationals, both 22, revealed about five kilograms of kakuseizai, or stimulant drugs, concealed inside upon their arrival at Narita International Airport on a flight from the U.K. via Turkey. The suitcases were outfitted with a double-panel structure so that the drugs, which have an estimated street value of 340 million yen, could be concealed along the inner sides. The suspects told police that they were instructed by a male acquaintance in Britain to deliver the suitcases to a hotel in Tokyo in exchange for 1,500 British pounds and travel expenses. They both claimed to not know drugs were inside the luggage. The suspects were prosecuted at the Chiba District Court on Friday for violating customs and stimulants control l

Following heavy losses in its US nuclear division, Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa announced in a press conference on March 14 that the company is hoping to sell off its majority stake in nuclear power subsidiary Westinghouse by the end of march 2018.He also said for the first time that a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Westinghouse was “possible”. The proposed divestment is the latest of numerous measures designed to ameliorate the Japanese company’s deepening financial woes. Toshiba’s nuclear reactor subsidiary, which carried a $5.4bn price tag when it was acquired in 2006, is currently building four reactors in the US. However, the announcement of budgetary and deadline overruns at its sites in Georgia and South Carolina ultimately meant a much larger $6bn write-down in February. In order to make up for the Westinghouse losses, Toshiba is planning to sell its much more lucrative chip business in a bid to hand the company a sturdier lifeline. But, since the US and Japanese Government

As medical pot becomes increasingly mainstream and Canada moves toward legalizing the substance, health experts are emphasizing the need for doctors and patients to consider the sometimes serious side effects linked to the various ways of consuming the drug. Paul Farnan, an addictions specialist at the University of British Columbia, likened a recommendation to smoke medicinal marijuana to a doctor handing out a prescription to light up an opium pipe. “We know there’s something in opium that helps pain, and we’re able to pharmaceutically develop morphine and other analgesics, but we wouldn’t say to people, ‘You have pain? Why don’t you smoke opium?’ ‘’ he said. “We’re kind of saying to people, ‘We think there’s some stuff that cannabinoids will be helpful for. Why don’t you just smoke cannabis?’ First of all, cannabis is actually a really dangerous thing for your lungs.’’ Mikhail Kogan, medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at George Washington University in Washi

Police in a southern Chinese city rampant with production of drugs have caught 172 fugitives involved in drugs crimes. Since May, police from Lufeng city, Guangdong province, have been looking for 328 suspects who fled the city, 172 of whom have now been caught, according to Lin Chunjia, deputy Communist Party of China chief of the city police, at a press conference on Thursday. "We put information about the fugitives on TV and the Internet, and handed out 50,000 fliers," Lin said. The police have offered cash rewards of 30,000 yuan ($4,330) for information leading to the capture of each fugitive, with a total of more than 5 million yuan already rewarded, Lin said. Among the 172, 40 were caught in this way, while another 49 turned themselves in. During the campaign, the local police cracked over 200 drugs cases, raided 40 production sites, arrested 416 suspects, and seized more than 6.8 tonnes of methamphetamine, 4.26 tonnes of which was in liquid form. Emerging as a maj

China captured 2,566 fugitives who had fled to more than 90 countries and regions and recovered 8.6 billion yuan ($125 million) during the "Sky Net" manhunt from 2014 to 2016. Of them, 1,283 turned themselves in or were persuaded to return to China, according to a statement issued Saturday by the office in charge of fugitives under the central anti-graft coordination group. A total of 410 had been members of the Communist Party of China or official staff, according to the statement. So far, 39 of China's 100 most-wanted have returned or been returned. The campaign has effectively stopped corrupt officials from fleeing overseas, the statement said. The number of those who fled abroad dropped significantly over the period, from 101 in 2014 to 19 last year. According to another statement by the Ministry of Public Security on Saturday, the "Fox hunt" campaign, an important part of "Sky Net," netted 951 fugitives suspected of economic offenses from 72 c

Pro-democracy activists and hundreds of supporters marched in Hong Kong Saturday ahead of a vote for the city's next leader which they reject as a sham. Hong Kong's next chief executive will be chosen by a pro-China committee on Sunday morning with former deputy leader Carrie Lam widely seen as Beijing's favorite for the job. It is the first leadership vote in the semi-autonomous city since mass rallies in 2014 calling for fully free elections failed to win reform and comes as concern grows that Beijing is increasingly interfering in Hong Kong. Some of the marchers on Saturday held yellow umbrellas, symbol of the democracy movement, and chanted "Oppose Chinese authorities' appointment — we should choose our own government!" The city's best-known pro-democracy campaigner, Joshua Wong, said he expected more protesters to gather Sunday as committee members cast their votes at the harborfront convention center. "It will be a nightmare for us if Carri

  If there is one thing that Hong Kong can share on global economic development, it would be Benjamin Franklin’s insight that “no nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous”. Free trade, after all, is the framework upon which our prosperity rests.        Hong Kong, with an area of only 1,100 sq km, has little natural resources. But that turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for we have little choice but to invest in our people, technology and, no less importantly, trade and commerce, which in turn depends on regional and international connections and connectivity.        We started out as an entrepôt in trade between the Mainland of China and other parts of the world, then an international trade centre offering all kinds of commercial, financial and professional services. Today, Hong Kong is the world’s seventh-largest exporter of merchandise trade and the 14th-largest exporter of commercial services. Last year, the total value of trade in goods ca

Taiwan announced a NT$882.4 billion (US$29 billion) stimulus package on Thursday to boost its export-driven economy in the face of uncertainty from its two largest trading partners, the United States and the mainland. Taiwan's trade-reliant economy is showing signs of recovery, but it is highly vulnerable to protectionist policies from US President, Donald Trump, and increasing competition from mainland manufacturers, as well as political tensions with Beijing. In a bid to make the economy more balanced, Taiwan's government is looking for domestic growth drivers that dovetail with President Tsai Ing-wen's push to roll out green energy, improved utilities, better transport and telecommunications networks, and innovative technology. The stimulus plan, which had been well flagged, is expected to focus on infrastructure, but spending will be spread over eight years. Premier Lin Chuan told reporters the plan could add nearly NT$1 trillion to the island's gross domestic p

Inter-ministerial body FIPB has approved nine investment proposals, including those of Netmagic Solutions and Vodafone, totaling a foreign investment of Rs 659 crore. "Based on the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) at its meeting held on February 21, the government has approved nine proposals involving FDI of Rs 659 crore and recommended three proposals for the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)," an official statement said. The FIPB, headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, cleared proposals of Netmagic Solutions entailing an investment of Rs 534 crore and Vodafone India Rs 55 crore. It recommended proposals of Rs 750 crore of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Rs 900 crore of Star Technologies and Rs 789 crore of Flag Telecom Singapore Pte to the CCEA, it said. The panel has deferred six proposals, including those of Gland Pharma, Crown Cement Manufacturing India Private and Powervision Export and Import India Private. It als

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has awarded the Abel Prize for 2017 to mathematician Yves Meyer of the Ecole normale superieure Paris-Saclay, France, for his “pivotal role in the development of mathematical theory of wavelets.” The theory of wavelets that he started and made fundamental contributions to finds wide-ranging applications from image processing to fluid dynamics. Mathematician Shobha Madan, visiting professor at IISER Mohali, recalls how in the 1980s Meyer and his students were working on the “Calderon programme.” “Meyers recognised the connection with wavelets and then there was a boom in work in this area. I heard him lecture on this in 1984, in Ecole Polytechnique, and he was so enthusiastic, like a child, giving examples of how it came to him,” she says. In an e-mail, Terence Tao, University of California, Los Angeles, described Meyer’s work thus: “One can use wavelets to efficiently break up many types of digital data (e.g. sound files, image files, or v

More people are living in urban areas than rural, making cities the world’s modern battlegrounds. The urban population is seen rising to 70% by 2050 from 55% in 2016, and its share of gross domestic product will almost double to $115 trillion by 2030. Getting city development right will be a big factor in eliminating poverty, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and this will need serious money. “More than 80% of the world’s cities show signs of fragility yet the success or failure in meeting the world’s most pressing challenges will be decided in them,” BAML analysts, led by Sarbjit Nahal, London-based head of thematic investing, wrote in a report this month. Infrastructure will need $71 trillion to $78 trillion in investment over the next decade, and the “smart city” market will grow to about $1.6 trillion by 2020 from $1 trillion now, they estimate. Urbanization helped lift 500 million Chinese out of poverty and the World Bank estimates that a 230% increase in a country’s

After the Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill 2017, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Aadhaar may become the only identity card in future, while making it mandatory for filing of income tax returns is necessary to curb tax evasion and frauds. Replying to a question from the opposition in the Lok Sabha as why there are so many ID cards despite Aadhaar's introduction, Jaitley said that Aadhaar may become the only card in future, replacing all types of other identity cards like vote ID card, PAN card, etc. He said the Aadhaar-based Unique Identity system had been conceptualised by the previous UPA government. "Almost every tax-paying family has Aadhaar. Now 98 per cent adults have Aadhaar and 108 crore Aadhaars have been issued," Jaitley said. On why Aadhaar being made mandatory for I-T returns, Jaitley said that many persons have been found with multiple PAN cards and that's why the government felt the need to introduce the system. The Finance Minister a

A total of ($12.4bn) Rs 82,496 crore was spent on buying military hardware and weapon systems from foreign vendors in the last three financial years. Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Defence, Subhash Bhamre, said the value of contracts signed with defence public sector undertakings between 2013-14 and 2015-16 was Rs 70,228 crore. He said government has taken a series of initiatives to achieve higher levels of indigenisation in the defence sector. Bhamre said Rs 35,082 crore was spent on capital acquisition from foreign vendors in 2013-14, Rs 24,992 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 22,422 crore in 2015-16. "A total of 342 licenses have been issued to 205 Indian companies for manufacture of defence items," he said. Though defence exports are covered under the Export and Import (EXIM) Policy issued by Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), he said Ministry of Defence has formulated a separate Defence Export Strategy to give a fillip to defence expor

Five people were killed and about 40 injured in London on Wednesday after a car ploughed into pedestrians and a suspected Islamist-inspired attacker stabbed a policeman close to Britain's parliament. The dead, in what police called a "marauding terrorist attack," included the assailant and the policeman he stabbed. The other three victims were among those hit by the car as it sped across Westminster Bridge before crashing into railings just outside parliament. Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the attack as "sick and depraved". "The location of this attack was no accident," she said in a statement outside her 10 Downing Street office late in the evening. "The terrorist chose to strike at the heart of our capital city, where people of all nationalities, religions and cultures come together to celebrate the values of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech." Any attempt to defeat those values through violence was "doomed to failur

Burma’s government praised China on Wednesday for suspending a Chinese bank account used by ethnic rebels fighting the Burma Army, in a move to prevent potential damage to diplomatic ties. Reuters has revealed that an ethnic rebel armed group fighting government forces near the Chinese border had been openly soliciting funds via China’s giant state-owned lender Agricultural Bank Of China (AgBank). Burma’s peace process – started under the previous semi-civilian administration – has lost momentum after Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi came to power in 2016, with some of the militias accusing her of a one-sided approach and refusing to join a major peace conference. Relations with China have been strained by the ethnic conflicts spilling over the border, and some observers say Beijing uses ethnically Chinese insurgent groups as a means of leverage over Burma. The decision to suspend AgBank was welcomed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government. “We appreciated this action. S

An assailant who stabbed a policeman inside the perimeter of U.K. Parliament was shot by police, David Lidington, the leader of the House of Commons, has told the Parliament. A Reuters photographer saw around six people injured on Westminster Bridge outside the British Parliament. Air ambulances were seen arriving outside the Parliament. “The alleged assailant was shot by armed police, an ambulance is currently attending the scene to remove the causalities,” Mr. Lidington said. “There are also reports of further violent incidents in the Palace of Westminster but it would be wrong of me to go into further details before confirmation from the police,” he added. Earlier, a session of United Kingdom’s House of Commons was suspended as witnesses reported hearing sounds like gunfire nearby. The Commons’ speaker suspended the session as police responded to an incident. Journalists at the Parliament building said they were told to stay in their offices. The Press Association news agency r

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India signed here today a $350 million loan for improving about 1,500 kilometers of major district roads in Madhya Pradesh in line with the State’s Road Development Plan. The signatories to the Loan Agreement for the Madhya Pradesh District Connectivity Sector project were Mr. Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India who signed on behalf of the Government of India, and Mr.  L. B. Sondjaja, Deputy Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission, who signed for ADB. The Project Agreement was signed by Shri Pramod Agrawal, Principal Secretary on behalf of Govt. of Madhya Pradesh and by Shri Piyush Kumar Chaturvedi, General Manager on behalf of Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation (MPRDC). After signing the loan agreement, Mr. Raj Kumar, JS(MI) said that this project would complement the efforts of Government of Madhya Pradesh to br

A 15-year-old Chicago girl was apparently sexually assaulted by five or six men or boys on Facebook Live, and none of the roughly 40 people who watched the live video reported the attack to police, authorities said. The video marks the second time in recent months that the Chicago Police Department has investigated an apparent attack that was streamed live on Facebook. In January, four people were arrested after a cellphone footage showed them allegedly taunting and beating a mentally disabled man. Police only learned of the latest alleged attack when the girl’s mother approached the head of the police department, Superintendent Eddie Johnson, Monday afternoon as he was leaving a department station in the Lawndale neighborhood on the city’s West Side, department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Tuesday. She told him her daughter had been missing since Sunday and showed him screen grab photos of the alleged assault. He said Johnson immediately ordered detectives to investigate and th

In keeping with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s manifesto, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday directed police officials to prepare an action plan for closure of slaughter houses across the state. He also ordered a blanket ban on smuggling of cows and said zero tolerance would be exercised in this regard. Official sources did not specify the type of slaughter houses which will be shut. However, the BJP manifesto had said that all illegal slaughter houses would be closed and there would be a blanket ban on all mechanised slaughter houses. The BJP document had observed that due to cow smuggling, dairy-based industries have failed to flourish. It noted that during the past state governments there has been a fall in cattle count, reflecting that bovine smuggling was rampant. BJP chief Amit Shah in his election meetings had emphasised that the moment his party comes to power in the state, it would ban all slaughter houses. In his orders issued on Wednesday,

The US and UK have announced new carry-on restrictions banning laptops on certain passenger flights. The so-called Islamic State group (IS) has been working on ways to smuggle explosives on to planes by hiding them in electronics, US sources tell ABC. The tip-off was judged by the US to be "substantiated" and "credible". Inbound flights on nine airlines operating out of 10 airports in eight countries are subject to the US Department of Homeland Security ban. Phones and medical devices are not affected. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is hosting a two-day meeting of ministers and senior officials from 68 nations to discuss the threat from IS. The Washington talks will be the first full meeting of the coalition since December 2014. The BBC's Barbara Plett-Usher looks ahead to the Washington meeting: This will be a chance for the Trump administration to put its stamp on the global battle against the Islamic State group, and for the reticent

Nuclear power generation capacity in the country is expected to reach nearly 15,000 MW by 2024 as the government has expedited the process of setting up new plants, Lok Sabha was informed today. In 2014, India’s nuclear power generation capacity was 4,780 MW. Minister of State for PMO Jitendra Singh said a number of steps have been taken by Indian government to fast-track all ongoing nuclear projects and setting up of new plants in different parts of the country. “When we came to power in 2014, we had set a target of generating nuclear power by three time in 10 years and we hope to reach that target,” he said during Question Hour. The Minister, however, said for generating targeted nuclear power, there has to be enough uranium available – both from domestic as well as foreign sources. Singh said the government was actively pursuing the process of acquiring uranium from different sources, including exploration in new places like Bihar and Meghalaya. He said for the first time, the

Entrepreneurs have high hopes for cannabis in Switzerland, where business has suddenly taken off in recent months, six years after the country legalised low-potency “marijuana-light”. Switzerland changed its laws in 2011 to let adults buy and use cannabis with up to 1 percent THC, the chemical compound that produces a high. But its money-making potential seems only to have been discovered late last year, officials said. “It started gradually last year, and then suddenly things went crazy in December 2016 and in 2017,” said a spokesman for Switzerland’s Customs Agency in Berne, which taxes the trade. The number of retailers registered to sell low-THC cannabis has risen to 140 from just a handful last year, the agency says. It expects revenue of around $25 million on legal sales of $100 million from cannabis in 2017, although the spokesman said the figure could be far higher if the boom continues. KannaSwiss, a wholesaler that supplies shops with organically-grown low-THC c