12 MEDIA WATCH
AsianVoiceNews
AsianVoiceNewsweekly
www.asian-voice.com
18 - 24 May 2019
SCRUTATOR’S The end of the election campaign will be an immense relief to the public at large. Never since India’s independence in August 1947 has any general election discourse sunk to the depths now witnessed. Calumny and personal insult are standard and cynicism is rampant. It will take time and much labour (if forthcoming) for the wounds to heal and the country to be made whole. jowl with proven orthodoxies in all scientific disciplines. She says India is now reconnecting with its lost mathematical and science heritage. Sani was named Young Science Writer of the Year in 2008 and won a European television news award. Cyclone Fani
Top Student Dewang Aggarwal
The one consolation are the strides being made in education by the younger generation, both boys and girls. School examination results, conducted by various education boards across the country, show outstanding performances among youthful aspirants aware of the challenges that lie ahead, yet ready to embrace future. Consider the following chart. ISC: Topper (All India No 1st position), Dewang Kumar Aggarwal – La Martinere for Boys, Kolkata – 100 per cent result; Candidates Appeared, 24,791; (11, 554 boys, 11,237 girls). Pass percentage: 96,88; For girls, 98.05, for boys 95.91. ICSE: Topper (All India 2nd position) A. Chatterjee, Garden High School, Kolkata – 99.40 per cent; Raj Ghosh, Purwanchal Vidyamandir, West Bengal – 99.40 per cent; Avi Saraf, The Frank Anthony Public School, Kolkata – 99.40 per cent. Candidates Appeared 35,769 920,337 boys, 15,632 girls) P:ass percentage 97,82 (Girls 98.38, boys 97.39) While Dewang Kumar Aggarwal of La Martinere for Boys Kolkata, achieved the near impossible ( 400 hundred in four subjects) bin the science stream, Vibha Swaminathan from Bangaluru’s Mallya Aditi International School achieved the feat in the humanities (Statesman, Times of India May 8). In higher education, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) remain excellence in science and engineerin her stimulating book. Geek Nation ‘How Indian Science is taking over the world, is the title British-born author of Sikh parentage, Angela Saini, (with a science degree from Cambridge University), who travelled across Indiam, visiting IITs, space centres, laboratories, meeting and talking with the great and good, but also with students and ordinary citizens, some with many theories existing cheek by
Cyclone Fani which hit Odisha at the weekend took devastating toll of property in the coastal city of Puri and the State capital, Bhubaneshwar and other places. The public shelters to which thousands of people sought refuge
have been attracting market watchers. A new study now says tech start-ups in businesses are growing significantly, that funders are excited by what they see. Between 2014 and 2018, Business to business (B2B) ventures grew more than three times from 900 to 3,200, according to data management company NetApp and consulting firm Zinov. Funding to B2B Startups surged by 346 per cent to $3.7 billion. Corporate houses Corporate accelerators are also playing a massive role in mentoring B2B start-ups, providing them technology support and market access. There are over 50 corporate accelerators and incubators in India. Over 800 of the 3,200 startups can be categorized advanced tech startups leveraging Artificial Intelligence, data analytics, IoT, 3D printing and blockchain. Bangaluru has the most B2B startups at about 800, followed by 550 in Delhi and 400 in Mumbai (Times of India May 8).
Western Front. The Army already has around 1070 T 90 tanks in its 67 armoured regiments, together 124 Indian Arjun tanks and the older T 72 Soviet tanks. The Russian/Soviet tanks are manufactured under licence at the Avadi Heavy Vehivcles Factory. War Doctrine The Indian Army’s new ‘Land Warfare Doctrine tells of the ‘response along the western front will be sharp and swift with the aim to destroy the adversary’s centre of gravity and secure spatial gains.’ The move comes at a time the when the 1.3 million-strong Army is reformatting its entire war-fighting machinery and the ‘Cold Start’ strategy envisioning fast mobilisation to strike hard across the border with multiple offensive thrusts. India has already procured the latest laser-guided Invar missiles from Russia under the ‘Privileged Strategic Partnership (Times of India May 7).
Devastation in Odisha Cyclone Fani
The Adani Group has pledged Odisha Rs 25 crore in relief aid. It promised further aid for rehabilitation projects. Many of those affected by the cyclone were sheltered in the Adani DAV. School. The Group is coordinating its relief efforts with those of the State administration. (Business Line May 8).
Mastercard’s further $1 billion in India Payments company Mastercard will be investing an additional $1 billion in India, nearly a third of which is to be used to build a payments processing system that transcends its commitment to the Reserve Bank of India on storing data in the country. This is in addition to $1 billion the US company has already pumped into India over the past five years, a large part of which is for providing technology and back office support to global operations (Times of India May 7).
The Indian tech industry will add another three million jobs in the next five years, said the Indian Staffing Federation. With these additions, the size of the country’s tech force will be 7 million by 2023. These new jobs are likely to come up in digital technology areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, data science, analytics, big data, blockchain and augmented reality. Jobs will also be created by technologies presently unknown, but likely to evolve over this period. Industry is on the cusp of change. A robot today, with
Pakistani Christian housewife Asia Bibi, who had to endure ten years of solitary confinement in the hell-hole of a Pakistan prison for blasphemy left for a life of freedom in Canada, where she and her family were granted asylum. Her Pakistani legal team fought resolutely for her release, which came eventually with the judgment of the country’s Supreme Court. Christians and Hindu minorities in Pakistan are an endangered species (Hindu May 9). Pakistani Christian women for Chinese clients The ‘all-weather ties’ that bind Pakistan and China has a dimension beyond military and financial help. Trafficking is the name of the game. Pakistani private enterprise out to make a fast buck snared nubile Christian women for the pleasure of their Chinese clients. The Pakistan Investigation Agency has arrested 17 men, 13 of whom were Chinese. Chinese officials are in Pakistan as part of the ongoing inquiry (Times of India, Hindu May 8).
Fabulous IPL
More Russian tanks on Pakistan front The Indian Army is to induct 460 upgraded Russian T 90 battle tanks to the Pakistan front. Named Bhishma, these tanks are to be inducted with a timeline of 2022-2026. It is designed to the ‘shock and awe’ capability on the
Victorious Bombay Indians with Trophy
Surge in B2B tech start-ups Technology startups involving retail customers such as Flipkart, Ola, Oyo and Swiggy
Rituparna Chakraborty, President of the Indian Staffing Federation, says, ‘I would like to emphasise that India does not have a job problem, but it has an employed poverty problem. ‘When we think about addressing this problem, the only sustainable way to achieve this is through formalisation, urbanisation and financialization of human capital,’ she said. The Staffing Federation would be closely interacting with Indian businesses to achieve these milestones going forward (Hindu May 10). Asia Bibi bound for Canada
Three million new jobs by 2023
Adani Group pledges Rs 25 crore
Embracing the future
Balakot strike: Italian report An Italian woman reporter, Francisca Marino writes that the Indian air strike on the Pakistan Balakot base killed around 130-170 Jaish-e-Muhammed jihadis training there. Marino says that despite official Pakistani denials, details of the actual ground reality were revealed to her by her Pakistani sources. The Pakistan Army has thus far refused access to the area by the international media (Times of India May 8).
were specially designed for this purpose by architects at the Kharagpur-IIT (Telegraph May 6). The Centre stepped in with massive financial aid, while the armed forces helped relief operations on a war footing. The cyclone passed through West Bengal before veering east into Bangladesh, where it caused extensive damage to property and claimed around 15-20 lives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik and assured him of whatever further aid was necessary. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee churlishly refused to take the Prime Minister’s call (Press, TV channels, May 6-8).
infinite memory analytical capacity, is connected to cloud computing, whose impact on productivity will be huge. Some 63 per cent of CEOs believe that Artificial Intelligence will have a bigger impact than the Internet, while 39 per cent have already started Artificial Intelligencerelated initiatives in their organisations.
In a final scripted by cricket’s gods, Bombay Indians beat Chennai Super Kings by a solitary run from the last ball of the match. Phew! By common consent it was the most gripping IPL ever, clearly the world’s glitziest. T90 tank