Lights hope shutting down

Representative Image Santoor, the sandalwood soap of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCL), has become a Rs 2,300 crore plus brand in FY22, its CEO Vineet Agrawal said. The company, which operates in FMCG and lighting products segment, has reported a revenue of Rs 8,634 crore for the financial year ended on March 31, 2022. Though the company is concerned about the inflationary pressure but expects business to improve in FY23 as palm oil prices are softening and the price of crude oil going down. Moreover, demand would be helped by a good monsoon and generation of more employment, he said. While talking about domestic business, Agrawal said: "In India, Santoor continues to do well. It was over Rs 2,300 crore last year and we continue to be the number two brand in terms of soap," Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting CEO Vineet Agrawal told PTI. While talking about domestic business, Agrawal said: "In India, Santoor continues to do well. It is now the leading brand in five … [Read more...] about Santoor becomes Rs 2,300 crore brand, Wipro Consumer FY23 turnover at Rs 8,634 crore

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 20, 2022 - June 26, 2022. - A + A THE momentum to adopt environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and sustainability practices in the capital market has picked up significantly in the past few years. By the third quarter of 2021, assets in global sustainable funds hit a record high, according to investment research firm Morningstar. At the same time, more than 70 countries — including the biggest polluters — have set a net-zero target and over 1,200 companies have put in place science-based targets to reach net-zero emissions, according to the United Nations. In Malaysia, at least 44 out of the 54 Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) funds approved by Securities Commission Malaysia were launched in the last two years. As at December 2021, 94% of the top 50 listed companies in Malaysia had ESG strategies and 68% had emissions reduction policies, according to PwC’s research. … [Read more...] about HONOURING MALAYSIA’S BEST PERFORMERS IN ESG EXCELLENCE: The Edge to roll out Malaysia’s first ESG awards

- A + A (June 27): Russia defaulted on its external sovereign bonds for the first time in a century, the culmination of ever-tougher Western sanctions that shut down payment routes to overseas creditors. For months, Russia had found paths around the penalties imposed after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. But at the end of the day on Sunday, the grace period on about US$100 million of trapped interest payments due May 27 expired, a deadline considered an “Event of Default” if missed. The route to this point has been far from normal, as Russia has the resources to pay its bills — and tried to do so — but was blocked by the sanctions. Those restrictions also mean there’s huge uncertainty about what comes next, and about how investors can go about getting their money. “With Russia benefiting from the high price of its energy exports, it clearly has both the means and the desire to pay its foreign debt,” said Giles Coghlan, chief analyst at HYCM Group. It’s a … [Read more...] about Russia slips into historic default as sanctions muddy next steps

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Liz Longley never intended to crowdfund her sixth studio album , but when the Nashville-based singer-songwriter learned it would cost more than she could afford to buy back the masters from her record label she looked to Kickstarter and her fans for help. On Sept. 24, 2019, Longley launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of $45,000 to pay her label Concord back and raise enough money to release Funeral For My Past independently. Much to her surprise she raised $150,000, ranking her as the fourth most funded solo female musician on the crowdfunding platform behind Chely Wright, Nita Strauss and Kate Nash. Nearly a year later, that project is now available. MORE FROM FORBES Songwriting University Offers Virtual Co-Writes With Hit Songwriters By Annie Reuter “Before we launched, I reached out to some of my hardcore fans that have been supportive over the years and asked them if they'd be willing … [Read more...] about Liz Longley Releases Kickstarter Funded Studio Album ‘Funeral For My Past’

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin A newly published study found that the range of colors in the plumages of hummingbirds exceeds the total color diversity of all other bird species combined © Copyright by GrrlScientist | @GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes I’ve written about bird colors before (more here , here , here , here and here .) And, as you’ve probably noticed, there are a lot of extremely colorful birds in the world, especially in the tropics (for example, more here ), but which group of birds are the most colorful of them all? And how do they create their rainbow of plumage colors? These were the questions investigated by a team of scientists at Yale University (some members of this team have since migrated to new locations), under the guidance of evolutionary ornithologist Richard Prum, who is the W. R. Coe Professor of Ornithology and the Curator of Ornithology at the Yale Peabody Museum . The findings indicated that … [Read more...] about Hummingbirds Are The Most Spectacularly Colorful Birds Of All

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 20, 2022 - June 26, 2022. - A + A DESPITE the reopening of borders since April 1, when Malaysia allowed quarantine-free travel for fully-vaccinated travellers into the country, it will be some time before the hotel industry regains a strong footing following the debilitating lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. In fact, it may well take another year at least before operators can operate at their full capacities at pre-pandemic levels, Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners (MAHO) president Tan Sri Teo Chiang Hong tells The Edge. “Average occupancy rates are an estimated 30% to 50% of pre-pandemic levels,” says Teo, who is owner and director of One World Hotel in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. He notes that resort destinations are seeing full occupancies while city hotels still face low occupancy. As at November 2020, a total of 204 tourism and hotel operators had shut down following the impact of the … [Read more...] about The State of the Nation: Hospitality industry struggling to cope despite borders reopening, brighter prospects

If you ever hope to approach the level of coolness exuded by Reggie Watts, LittleBits’s latest creation, the Synth Kit , might be your best bet. Success is not guaranteed: Watts’s mastery, which you can view in all its glory above or over on his YouTube page, takes time, creativity, ingenuity, and talent. But, with the Synth Kit, amateurs can at least start to make some noise. advertisement advertisement The Synth Kit, like the other littleBits kits, “breaks down technology into its very basic parts to bring the power of electronics to everyone,” LittleBits CEO Ayah Bdeir explained to Fast Company. But instead of using bits to build motors, lights, and motorized lights, the 12 magnetic pieces in this box click together to build an analog synthesizer, much like the ones sold by KORG , a partner for this project and an icon in the synthesizer world. Like the other kits sold by LittleBits–all of which are intended to make engineering and … [Read more...] about Craft Works: Engineer Your Way To Rock Stardom With The LittleBits Synth Kit

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Youth mental illness has reached crisis levels in America. The percentage of adolescents who have experienced at least one major depressive episode increased by 60 percent from 2007 to 2019. Rates of anxiety, self-harm, and attempted suicide were skyrocketing even before the Covid-19 pandemic, and since then matters have only gotten worse . Filmmaker Ken Burns has executive produced a powerful new two-part documentary film on this subject. Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness will air on June 27 and 28 at 9:00 pm ET on PBS and will be available for streaming on the PBS App. The film was directed and edited by Burns’ long-time colleagues Erik Ewers and Christopher Ewers. It shares the voices of 21 diverse youth across America who are living with mental health challenges, addressing issues of stigma, discrimination, awareness, and silence. Hiding in Plain Sight is part of a larger public media mental … [Read more...] about Ken Burns And Ewers Brothers Spotlight Youth Mental Illness In New Documentary

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Minutes into the new season of MTV’s Following: Bretman Rock the reality show’s star joins his sister at his first-ever therapy session, where he quickly moves from skepticism to sharing. It’s the beginning of a significant mental health story arc that’s woven throughout season 2, which returns June 27 on MTV YouTube. And as with just about everything the 23-year-old celebrity and gender-bending beauty trailblazer puts into the world, it’s refreshingly unvarnished. “Not to throw my mother under the bus, but I feel like the older generation didn’t really believe in mental health and so whenever I would tell my mother when I was a kid about something that was bothering me, she thought I was being dramatic when really I might have been going through an anxiety attack,” he says. “So my entire life I believed I was making it up, and that’s why I was scared to see a therapist because I was never allowed to talk about my … [Read more...] about Hollywood & Mind: Bretman Rock On Therapy, Boundaries And His Show’s New Mental Health Storyline

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin It’s well established that urban environments are going to be home to the majority of the world’s population in the coming decades. While extreme weather is causing floods, droughts and wildfires, it’s also going to have significant effects on urban living. The increasing temperatures the media is discussing, from heat waves across India, the US, Spain and Germany, Doha at 49°C or Jacobabad at 51°C, mean that we must find new ways to protect city dwellers from the worst impacts of a changing environment. According to Lauren Sorkin, executive director of the Resilient Cities Network, cities have the potential to address climate change but they need a rethink in terms of how they keep people safe and build in equity and resilience. Sorkin argues we also need to agree on a common set of risks – and be honest about the level of risk we face. It’s important to remember that cities themselves are major infrastructure investors and … [Read more...] about As Climate Change Threatens Mounting Urban Costs, Is Biomimicry The Way Forward?