Global infrastructure group

Not just Bengaluru, many towns and cities across India — Jodhpur, Patna, Guwahati, Silchar, Surat, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Gurugram (above), to name a few — were flooded after spells of intense rain that overwhelmed their poor and choked urban infrastructure. (Image: @ashwinning/Twitter) While there are a host of manmade and natural factors behind the increasing incidence of floods in Indian cities, it is the former that is more to blame, experts have warned, emphasising that the environment must be respected and things set right before it is too late. Unplanned construction in low-lying areas and wetlands, rampant concretisation, choked and overwhelmed storm-water drains, as well as disappearing water bodies and natural water channels are responsible for urban floods, which throw life out of gear in cities every monsoon. A spurt in spells of very heavy rainfall in short durations triggered by erratic weather patterns is a double whammy for already-choked urban infrastructure, … [Read more...] about Intense rain, choked infrastructure: Why urban India sinks every monsoon

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin (Author’s Note: This is the second in a multipart series based on our Futuriom 50 research series on promising cloud technology startups. The first part is here .) You might have read the news about a potential business slowdown and layoffs. This has given technology managers reason to deeply evaluate their future cloud strategy and will likely increasingly point them to hybrid and multicloud infrastructure. Why hybrid and multicloud? In our discussions with cloud technologists, they say they want a cloud infrastructure that can more efficiently manage and integrate the myriad applications, data, and infrastructure in the cloud, including their own infrastructure. They also want to take back some control, rather than handing all the keys to the public cloud giants. Hybrid and multicloud technologies are also the perfect trends for the current environment, because they are about building better operational … [Read more...] about Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Trends And Startups To Watch

Representative image The Indian fintech ecosystem is perhaps the most unique in the world, with hyperscale payment infrastructure, thriving lending innovations, digitally savvy banks, and market-driven open-banking frameworks. This has helped the country achieve a scale of unheard levels — 71 billion digital payment transactions, Rs 11.8 trillion lent to retail and SME customers, and 55 million active neobank (online bank) accounts. The Indian fintech ecosystem has broken the barriers of language, location, and illiteracy. Fintech firms have helped onboard new-to-credit as well as sub-prime customers. Jan Dhan and neobanking are helping ensure that every citizen has access to banking. A case in point is the high penetration of UPI. Earlier, Indian fintech would imitate developments abroad, but now the reverse has begun. With a focus on speed, cost, and scalability, homegrown innovations like UPI, the India stack, and lending frameworks have become global benchmarks. Indian … [Read more...] about The Indian fintech ecosystem is setting global benchmarks

After the demise of the FTX empire, the latest casualty is crypto lender Genesis Global Capital. (Representative image) The once-burgeoning realm of crypto and decentralised finance keeps imploding, presenting policy makers with a quandary: Should they just let it burn, or step in to address its now-obvious flaws? I’m with the second group. To maintain their credibility, and to derive the greatest benefit from blockchain technology, regulators should intervene and crack down on scams, protect investors and ensure market integrity. The dominoes keep falling after the demise of the FTX empire. The latest casualty, crypto lender Genesis Global Capital, probably won’t be the last. Each failure further undermines trust, reduces activity and revenue, and puts pressure on the rest of the industry. With no lender of last resort to provide emergency support — as the Federal Reserve does for traditional banks — there’s little to stop the rot. Some think that’s just fine. They argue … [Read more...] about Crypto is worth fixing. Regulators should get moving

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. India has seen its foreign exchange reserve grow by $8 billion over the past few days, despite the Adani group calling off its follow-up issue. This proves that the country’s image remains intact on the global front, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. The Union minister was addressing the media in a post-Budget meet in Mumbai on February 4. “FPOs (follow-on public offering) come and go. Foreign investors come and go. These fluctuations happen in every market. Our foreign exchange reserve has gone up by $8 billion in the last two days. This proves that our economy’s image and fundamentals have not been affected,” she said. The Reserve Bank of India’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $576.76 billion in the week ended January 27, latest data released by the central bank showed. Data for the past week has not been updated yet. After publication of the Hindenburg report on January 24, Adani group has lost around $117 billion in … [Read more...] about Forex kitty swells by $8 billion in 2 days: FM shrugs off Adani shock to financial system

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Over the last year a number of you have pointed out the odd typo or two in my Sunday note. For example, one eagle eyed reader in Brazil registered that I had written ‘South China Sean’ rather than ‘South China Sea’, which is a Freudian slip of sorts. The real reason the quality of the note may have slipped is that this time last year my ‘editor’ Nicholas Benachi, passed away. In addition to being a good friend, he made sure that the logic and quality of the note were up to scratch. One of his favourite greetings and ‘sign-offs’ was ‘Strength and Honour’, which may have been inspired by his love of bushido and his family’s ties to Greece, not to mention a sweeping appreciation of history. It is a phrase that comes to mind more and more often in a world where the moral pendulum is swinging wildly, and I often find myself using it as a maxim to scrutinise people, places and projects. Here are a few examples. Strength … [Read more...] about What Makes Economies Strong?

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Software fragments. Not because it degrades over time and somehow crumbles away in terms of its effectiveness, or loses its ability to execute its required level of functionality and provide robust performance in a secure manner. Okay, well that too then, software does have an isotope-like radioactive half-life in that sense as well. It does break down over time unless it is augmented, enhanced and maintained - so in that sense it fragmets and crumbles. But software also fragments at the project level... and this is how we most commonly use the term, especially perhaps in open source circles. This is probably down to the fact that the open model of community-centric software application development is inherently founded in freedom and the ability to ‘skew & fork’ projects in new directions, all in the interest of innovation and user choice. If any group or body is in a position of validated oversight in order to be … [Read more...] about Why Open Source Software ‘Fragments’ – And How To Fix It

Indian vulture population in the country has declined, from 40 million to 19,000. (Photo by Shantanu Kuveskar via Wikimedia Commons) There was a time when the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) was in the running to become our National Bird. Its range extended all across western India - the Thar Desert and Deccan Plateau being its strongholds. Wildlife experts and enthusiasts recount spotting groups of up to 20 GIBs at a time in the dry grasslands. Rampant poaching, disturbance at breeding sites and loss of habitat have, however, reduced its numbers to 150 in the country (as of 2018). The critically endangered species could go extinct within 20 years, according to estimates by ornithologists. Unfortunately, it isn’t the only bird going the way of the Dodo. The fifth edition of the flagship science publication State of the World’s Birds, released last week, has declared that nearly half of the planet’s bird species are in decline. Painting a grim picture, it states that at least 187 … [Read more...] about Why the next decade is crucial for bird conservation in India

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin T-Mobile announced this week its intention to achieve net-zero emissions across the company's entire carbon footprint by 2040. As part of its sustainability efforts, T-Mobile—the first U.S. wireless company to set the lofty net-zero goal—also signed The Climate Pledge , a declaration from a community of companies and organizations working towards a more sustainable future by cutting global carbon emissions. Signatories of the Climate Pledge commit to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, which is ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement . “As we know, sustainability is important to our customers and stakeholders,” Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO, said in a statement. “We are proud that we are doing our part to create a sustainable future for all—including becoming the first in U.S. wireless to set this bold target. And we hope companies like ours—and the partners and suppliers we work alongside—will join us in setting … [Read more...] about T-Mobile Sets Industry-Leading 2040 Net-Zero Commitment

The AI will sift through terabytes of satellite data to determine how climate change and natural disasters affect agricultural output and wildlife habitats. (Photo via Pixabay/Pexels) NASA and IBM have teamed up to push a novel use of AI technology on Earth observation data from Nasa satellites. The two groups have announced their intention to create many programmes to mine Earth observation data for information regarding climate change. For example, one project will employ NASA's Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 dataset, a record of land cover and land use changes acquired by Earth-orbiting satellites, to train an IBM geospatial intelligence foundation model. The AI will sift through terabytes of satellite data to determine how climate change and natural disasters affect agricultural output and wildlife habitats. In the meantime, another initiative will likely involve constructing a sizeable language model from Earth science literature. IBM has built a natural language … [Read more...] about Here’s why IBM and NASA have teamed up to study the effects of climate change using AI