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08/08/2016

India’s Controversial Cow Protection Group Conducts Cattle Census – India Real Time – WSJ

A group concerned about the safety of India’s cows has embarked on a controversial and ambitious mission this month: counting all the cattle in the state of West Bengal.

“Our aim is to save the cow mother,” said Subrata Gupta, president of the Bengal branch of Cow Development Cell, which used to be associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The group will use the data to protect the state’s cows, many of which are being illegally exported to Bangladesh and Pakistan for slaughter, said Mr. Gupta.

The status of cows — an animal deeply revered in Hinduism – is a divisive issue in the country. Critics say conservative Hindu groups, emboldened by the BJP’s power in New Delhi, are eating away at the country’s secular roots by trying to ban beef consumption.

Over the weekend Mr. Modi spoke out against self-styled vigilantes who say they are trying to protect cows. He urged state governments to punish them when they use cow protection as a rationalization for hate crimes.

Cow slaughter is already illegal in many Indian states–including Uttar Pradesh where a Muslim man was killed by a mob last year following rumors he had slaughtered a cow for food.

The eastern state of West Bengal, however, allows the killing of cows during the Islamic religious festival of Eid.

Around 6,000 volunteers from Mr. Gupta’s group are going door-to-door across state to record how many cows each household owns. The group wants to finish the survey before Sept. 12, when Muslims will celebrate Eid.

“Thousands of cows are being smuggled across India’s border into Bangladesh, where they will be slaughtered,” said Mr. Gupta of the Cow Development Cell which has groups apprehending cattle trucks, even though it has no legal authority to do so.

He said activists from the group freed about 40,000 animals last month.

The BJP recently broke ties with Mr. Gupta’s Cow Development Cell.

“It was an all-India decision that a separate cell for cow development is not needed,” said Dilip Ghosh, president of the BJP in West Bengal.

That hasn’t stopped Mr. Gupta and his army of self-styled cow protectors who say they will release the results of the cow census on Sept. 15.

Source: India’s Controversial Cow Protection Group Conducts Cattle Census – India Real Time – WSJ

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06/08/2016

Science and History Align to Hint at China’s Founding Legend – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Like Noah and his animal-laden ark, China has its own creation legends. Thousands of years ago, one story goes, a man named Yu tamed the country’s terrible flooding with the assistance of a dragon and was ultimately named emperor.

Now the authors of a new paper published in the U.S. journal Science say they’ve found evidence of an ancient, cataclysmic flood that helps to underpin at least part of that legend. In a bigger leap, they also say their research helps offer evidence for the existence of what some describe as China’s first dynasty, the Xia, long seen in some quarters as a myth.

The team found that a massive flood took place around 1920 B.C., a time that coincides with when many scholars believe the Xia dynasty first emerged. The flood finding is notable, they say, because annals that mention the Xia dynasty say that Yu went on to found the dynasty and become its emperor after successfully dispelling flooding along the Yellow River.

“Many foreigners haven’t heard of the Xia dynasty or don’t believe it existed,” says Wu Qinglong, who led the team’s work during a recent post-doctorate stint at Peking University. “But in China, it’s different, this is a story passed down by tradition.

”According to their findings, an earthquake triggered a landslide that in turn swallowed up a large gorge located in Qinghai province traversed by the Yellow River. That landslide created a “huge cork” and a natural dam 200 meters tall that caused water to build up for six to nine months before breaking free, causing some 16 cubic kilometers of water to surge forth, says David Cohen, assistant professor in anthropology at National Taiwan University and a co-author on the paper.

The precise date determined by researchers was derived from the analysis of findings at a village downstream from the dam destroyed by the earthquake. A test of bones of children killed in the quake found they died around 1920 B.C. The presence of sediment from the flood found in fissures caused by the quake helped establish the flood’s timing, Mr. Cohen said.

Still, scholars caution against too hastily connecting the dots between the existence of a flood, however sizable, and that of the Xia. James T. Williams, an assistant professor at Renmin University who studies the economy of Bronze Age societies in China, notes that written records invoking the Xia dynasty weren’t produced until hundreds of years later. While the flood evidence may be persuasive, he notes, “a one-to-one correlation” with the existence of the Xia is a harder case to make.Mr. Cohen acknowledges such skepticism. “A number of assumptions have to be made,” he says. “First, you have to accept that there was a Xia dynasty, and you have to accept that its founding was somehow related to a massive flood of the Yellow River.”

But for China, he says, “It’s a story of the foundation of civilization and how it came into being.

”Flooding remains a massive problem in China, with torrential rains leading to widespread urban flooding that has killed hundreds this year.

For its lead author, producing the report wasn’t easy. After completing his post-doctorate and leaving Peking University in 2012, Mr. Wu spent several years unemployed as he sought to complete his research. At times, he relied on loans from friends, he said. In Beijing, he lived in various subdivided apartments, including a three-room place shared among 10 for which he paid 600 yuan ($90) a month.

Still, he says he is gratified by his team’s findings. “We’ve found existence of a big flood. We think it’s very possible it’s the one from our legends and it helps support the history of the Xia dynasty,” he says. “The evidence supports the veracity of it all.”

Source: Science and History Align to Hint at China’s Founding Legend – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, History, myth | 1 Comment »

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05/08/2016

Bridge Collapse Is Latest Tragedy on India’s Roads – India Real Time – WSJ

The collapse of a bridge in the western Indian state of Maharashtra this week that left 14 people dead and 18 others missing wasn’t the first road tragedy to hit the area.In 2013, a bus veered off a 80 year-old bridge on the Jagbudi river, which flows parallel to the Savitri about 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the south, killing 37 of the 52 people on board.

That accident happened when a bus flew off the bridge and flipped in midair before landing on its roof 30 feet below.

The Wall Street Journal took a deep look into the tragedy.

Such incidents are alarmingly frequent on India’s roads.

India has been spending more money to improve its bridges, ports and airports, but the Savitri accident is yet another example of how the country’s depleted infrastructure is under increasing strain due to the rising demands of a fast-developing economy.

Its ageing road network, the world’s second-largest after the U.S. but largely made of dirt tracks, is particularly challenging. India’s roads are the most dangerous in the world: In 2015, the country accounted for almost one in 10 road casualties world-wide, according to the World Health Organization.

While India reported 137,000 deaths due to road crashes in 2013, the WHO estimated the figure was much higher. Those deaths cause an approximate 3% loss in economic output, it said.

Two buses and a number of cars plunged into the Savitri river in the early hours of Wednesday when the bridge in Mahad, built before India gained independence from Britain in 1947, crumbled into the waters below amid heavy monsoon rains.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a judicial probe into the accident and said government technicians will carry out a safety audit of old bridges in the state.

The bodies of 14 people were recovered from the waters of the Savitri by Friday morning, and 18 more are missing, National Disaster Response Force Commandant Anupam Srivastava said.

Source: Bridge Collapse Is Latest Tragedy on India’s Roads – India Real Time – WSJ

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05/08/2016

Yellow River yields clues to Chinese legend of ancient ‘Great Flood’ | Reuters

A view of the Yellow river near the Lajia site, hit by a flood 4,000 years ago, in Qinghai province, China in this undated handout photo. Wu Qinglong/Science/Handout via REUTERS

The crushed skeletons of children point to an earthquake and catastrophic flood on China’s Yellow River 4,000 years ago that could be the source of a legendary “Great Flood” at the dawn of Chinese civilization, scientists say.

A Chinese-led team found remnants of a vast landslide, caused by an earthquake, big enough to block the Yellow River in what is now Qinghai province near Tibet.

Ancient sediments indicated that the pent-up river formed a vast lake over several months that eventually breached the dam, unleashing a cataclysm powerful enough to flood land 2,000 km (1,200 miles) downstream, the scientists wrote in the journal Science.

The authors put the Yellow River flood at around 1920 BC by carbon-dating the skeletons of children in a group of 14 victims found crushed downstream, apparently when their home collapsed in the earthquake. Deep cracks in the ground opened by the quake were filled by mud typical of a flood and indicated that it struck less than a year after the quake.

The flood on Asia’s third-longest river would have been among the worst anywhere in the world in the last 10,000 years and matches tales of a “Great Flood” that marks the start of Chinese civilization with the Xia dynasty.

“No scientific evidence has been discovered before” for the legendary flood, lead author Wu Qinglong of Nanjing Normal University told a telephone news conference.

In traditional histories, a hero called Yu eventually tamed the waters by dredging, “earning him the divine mandate to establish the Xia dynasty, the first in Chinese history,” the scientists wrote.

Their finds around the Jishi Gorge from about 1900 B.C. would place the start of the Xia dynasty several centuries later than traditionally thought, around the time of a shift to the Bronze Age from the Stone Age along the Yellow River.

Some historians doubt the Xia dynasty existed, reckoning it part of myth-making centuries later to prop up imperial rule. Written records date only from 450 BC.

The evidence of a massive flood in line with the legend “provides us with a tantalizing hint that the Xia dynasty might really have existed,” said David Cohen of National Taiwan University, one of the authors.

Deluges feature in many traditions, from Hindu texts to the Biblical story of Noah. In pre-history, floods were probably frequent as ice sheets melted after the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, raising world sea levels.

Source: Yellow River yields clues to Chinese legend of ancient ‘Great Flood’ | Reuters

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04/08/2016

Poland in talks with Chinese buyers over LOT airline stake | Reuters

Poland is in talks with potential investors from China over selling a stake in the state airline LOT [LOT.UL], Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday.

Poland’s euroskeptic, conservative government has been looking to tighten its relations with China since coming to power last year. The two countries pledged deeper co-operation during the visit of China’s leader Xi Jinping to Warsaw in June.”LOT is our national carrier, which we are trying to save no matter the cost. It is deeply in debt,” Morawiecki told state news agency PAP on Wednesday, adding that without a national carrier Poland would become a more peripheral country.

LOT, one of the world’s oldest airlines, has for years struggled to compete against low-cost competitors like Ryanair (RYA.I) and bigger rivals. The state-owned airline was saved from bankruptcy in 2012 thanks to public aid of more than 500 million zlotys ($130 million).

“The previous government has already granted public support for LOT, we cannot grant another and we are looking for an investor,” Morawiecki said.

“According to EU law a carrier from outside the EU cannot take over more than 49 percent of a carrier from the EU, hence we are in talks with potential investors, among others, from China,” he said.Morawiecki also said that usually it is a very long road to finalize such a transaction.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Polish local newspaper reported that Chinese carrier Air China (601111.SS) is interested in buying a 49-percent stake in LOT with a delegation from the Chinese firm expected to arrive in Warsaw over the coming days.

However, a LOT spokesman said he had no knowledge of any plans for a capital tie-up between LOT and Air China.

“I have no knowledge regarding any planned capital co-operation between LOT and Air China,” Adrian Kubicki, LOT spokesman said. “We have commercial co-operation with Air China, which we want to develop, regarding the Warsaw-Beijing route.”

Air China was not immediately available for comment.

Source: Poland in talks with Chinese buyers over LOT airline stake | Reuters

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04/08/2016

Rude Chinese banned from going on holiday | The Times & The Sunday Times

“Uncivilised” Chinese tourists who commit such crimes against etiquette as asking foreigners for selfies, throwing nut shells around or defacing historical sites may find themselves stuck at home because their names are on a travellers’ blacklist.

Authorities in China have been cracking down hard on individuals who sully the country’s name abroad by acting rudely or violently, and the national tourism administration introduced a blacklist for the worst offenders last year.

A draft regulation released this week will, if passed, allow government agencies and tour companies to share blacklists and bar trouble-makers from future trips.

As well as travel companies, government organisations such as customs control, quarantine and border protection bodies would potentially be able to access the blacklist and take measures against those on it.

So far the blacklist contains only 19 names. The administration said that behaviour that could lead to a tourist being blacklisted included “damaging public facilities or historical relics, ignoring social customs at tourism destinations and becoming involved with gambling or prostitution”.

The regulation draft, which is in its public comment phase, stated: “Punishments can be imposed by travel agencies or other related agencies or organisations based on the record.

”Some analysts questioned how effective implementation of the rule could be. Liu Simin, of the China Society for Futures Studies research group, said: “If tourism authorities want to restrict blacklisted tourists from travelling overseas, they can do this only through travel agencies. If travellers plan their own trips and skip the agencies, they’re out of reach.

”The introduction of the blacklist came after President Xi told Chinese tourists in 2014 to clean up their act when abroad to help to dispel negative stereotypes about them.

Talking in a light-hearted fashion, he said: “Do not litter water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood.

”The year before the president’s comments, Chinese tourists spent more than £14.5 billion on holidays abroad — more than any other country.

Badly behaved Chinese tourists have continued to make headlines since the introduction of the blacklist.

Last week a Chinese woman was arrested for common assault after throwing orange juice at a flight attendant on a flight from Dubai to Hong Kong. She is understood to have been angry because meals for her children had not been prepared by airline staff in advance.

Source: Rude Chinese banned from going on holiday | World | The Times & The Sunday Times

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04/08/2016

5 Sectors That Will Benefit From India’s Proposed Tax Overhaul – WSJ

5 Sectors That Will Benefit From India’s Proposed Tax OverhaulIndia’s upper house of Parliament on Wednesday approved an overhaul of the country’s tax system that, if passed in the lower house, will lead to the implementation of a nationwide goods-and-services tax, or GST.

Here are five sectors that stand to gain.

1 Automobiles

The GST will make cars more affordable in India as it will reduce the taxes levied on the vehicles.India currently has four factory-gate tax rates of 12%, 24%, 27% and 30%, depending on the vehicle’s specifications. On top of that, there are value-added taxes, which range from 12.5% to 14.5%.

The GST will subsume all theses levies into one and passenger vehicles will likely fall into one of  two tax bands: 18% to 20% for regular cars, and up to 40% for luxury autos.

2 Logistics

Haulage and logistics companies will be able to reduce transit hours because the simplified system will mean that their drivers won’t have to wait for so long at borders to pay levies.

Currently, some companies use smaller transporters that charge lower fees because they are able to avoid paying taxes due to the inefficient system. But a more transparent tax system will mean the smaller companies are more likely to pay, leveling the field for larger players.

India’s leading 10 listed logistics companies command less than 5% of the overall market, according to a KPMG report. Stocks of some companies such as AllCargo Logistics Ltd. and Transport Corp of India Ltd. have gained more than 15% in the past month in anticipation of the passage of the GST legislation.

3 Media and entertainment

Cinema multiplex operators now pay entertainment taxes as well as several other levies to federal and state governments. The entertainment tax can be as high as 27% and operators must pay that as well as a service tax of about 15% on advertising revenue.

GST is expected to cut that tax bill, lowering operational costs and boosting margins.

Motilal Oswal Securities says that a GST rate of 18% may improve operating profit of PVR, the largest listed multiplex operator, by as much as 26%.

4 Retail

Consumers’ disposable income is expected to rise in the medium term if the GST rate turns out to be lower than current levies, boosting demand.

A more efficient tax system will also mean that market-stall owners and roadside vendors are more likely to pay tax, analysts say. That will create a more level playing field for larger shops and retailers who already pay.

The retail sector will likely also benefit from lower logistics costs as well as a fall in rental costs. Retailers currently shell out about 10%-15% of their operating expenditure on rent and infrastructure services, on which service tax is levied. But that levy would be reduced post-GST, benefiting retail companies like Future Enterprises Ltd. and Shoppers Stop Ltd.

5 Cement

Overall tax for the cement sector will likely to come down if the GST rate is set at 18%, Kotak Securities says.

After the implementation of the uniform tax, cement companies would likely pay about 920 rupees ($13.78) in tax per ton, down from about 1,320 rupees currently, the broker says. It also expects cement firms to benefit from a more efficient logistics system. This will cut costs for consumers and also help the government achieve its aim to provide housing for all by 2022.

Source: 5 Sectors That Will Benefit From India’s Proposed Tax Overhaul – WSJ

Posted in Economics, India alert, Tax | 1 Comment »

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03/08/2016

Road test for homegrown transit elevated bus| Innovation

The transit elevated bus TEB-1 is on road test in Qinhuangdao, North China’s Hebei Province, Aug 2, 2016. China’s home-made transit elevated bus, TEB-1, conducted a road test running Tuesday.

The 22-meter-long, 7.8-meter-wide and 4.8-meter-high TEB-1 can carry up to 300 passengers. The passenger compartment of this futuristic public bus rises far above other vehicles on the road, allowing cars to pass underneath. [

Source: Road test for homegrown transit elevated bus[1]| Innovation

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03/08/2016

India’s biggest tax reform GST looms, many companies unprepared | Reuters

Throughout years of political gridlock, the risk that India might pass its biggest tax reform since independence appeared reassuringly remote for many businesses.

Until now.Suddenly, the prospect that a new Goods and Services Tax (GST) could enter force next year has bosses panicking at the likely impact and seeking advice on how to cope.

The expected passage by parliament on Wednesday of a key constitutional amendment would resolve crucial issues needed to transform India’s $2 trillion economy and 1.3 billion consumers into a single market for the first time.

The amendment is likely to clear the Rajya Sabha after the opposition Congress party, which originally proposed the GST while in power, wrung concessions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s government.

Yet the vote will only fire the starting gun in a legislative marathon in which the national parliament and India’s 29 federal states have to pass further laws determining the – still unknown – rate and scope of the tax.

At the same time, a huge IT system needs to be set up, tax collectors trained and companies brought up to speed on a levy that experts say will force them to overhaul business processes from front to back.

One boss who isn’t ready is G.R. Ralhan, head of Roamer Woollen Mills in the northern city of Ludhiana.

“Companies, particularly smaller ones, are apprehensive,” Ralhan told Reuters, calling for more time to adjust and saying a high rate of GST could put his firm out of business.

Countries that have introduced GST in the past have often faced a relative economic slowdown before the benefits of a unified tax regime feed through.

India is already the world’s fastest growing large economy, expanding by 7.9 percent year-on-year in the March quarter. Economists at HSBC forecast a boost of 0.8 percentage points from the GST within three to five years.

80-20 RULE

Tax experts say that only 20 percent of – mostly big – firms are getting ready for the GST. The rest are taking things as they come in a country where coping with a changing tax regime has been a way of life for decades.

Yet even those actively preparing must contend with a series of unknowns as the national and state parliaments tackle the task of transforming a “model” GST law into the real thing.

The first hurdle will be for a majority of state parliaments to pass the GST amendment, which would establish a GST Council to finalise key terms of the new tax.

That could take until November and mean that the legislation to put the GST into force would only come before the national parliament’s winter session.

Hitting the government’s target launch date of next April 1, the start of the fiscal year, looks ambitious. Slippage to July or October 2017 is increasingly likely, say experts.

Source: India’s biggest tax reform GST looms, many companies unprepared | Reuters

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03/08/2016

Startups hope to capitalize on the massive IoT market – Times of India

Fresh from the sale of their first venture focused on the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) market, Shishir Gupta, Nithin David and Varun Gupta embarked on what they thought was their next breakthrough idea.

In mid-2013, the trio decided to devise solar air conditioners based on their previous experience in the market but, after some pilots, they discovered the idea was commercially unviable.

From the ashes of their second enterprise, they did manage one small gain — a connected controller that reduced energy use by 30% during the night. Using this, they pushed their entrepreneurial energy in a new direction — towards the rapidly emerging opportunity in the internet of things (IoT) , or devices and objects that send and receive data over the internet. Rather than build large systems for this, their new venture Oakter is thinking much smaller. It is building out a series of IoT-based devices to “smarten” homes across India.

In around two years of operation, Oakter’s controllers have smartened some 10,000 gadgets, claims Shishir Gupta, without disclosing the number of homes his controllers have been installed in currently. The startup’s full launch hasn’t even happened, he says, since it is still reaching out informally to consumers. Around Diwali this year, Oakter is expected to make a big-bang offline launch and expects to reach 10,000 homes in a year and revenues of Rs 100 crore by 2018-19.

“Within 10 years, IoT will transform the way we manage our lives,” says Shishir. There are plenty of data points to back his enthusiasm. In 2008 itself, there were more objects connected to the internet than people, and technology researcher Gartner forecasts that by 2020 there will be nearly 21 billion connected devices. If the ATM was perhaps the first popular connected device in the early 1970s, hundreds of companies have since shown an interest in getting wired up.

IoT’s the Thing

In the US, the largest technology market, there has been a mixed response to various kinds of IoT. According to CB Insights, a tracker of this kind of deal data, deal volume is on track to surpass 2015’s total by 30%. Fundingwise, 2016 should be a robust year for IoT in the West, and the second year in a row of $1.2 billion-plus in funding. Several startups in the field raised significant amount of funding, including IoT software and services company Greenwave Systems ($45 million Series C), commercial drone developer Airware ($30 million Series C), and connected HVAC and lighting company Enlighted ($25 million Series D financing).However, deal flow looked less upbeat on a quarterly basis, with both value and volume declining in the second quarter of 2016. After an increase in the first quarter with 54 transactions, deal-making fell 26% quarter-over-quarter. And funding fell from $328 million to $325 million — a 9% quarter-on-quarter decline. At a global level, there is massive potential.

According to a statement from Gartner’s research chief Peter Sondergaard, the incremental revenue generated by IoT suppliers is estimated to reach $309 billion per year by 2020. This growth opens up new business opportunities, as half will be attributed to new startups and 80% will be in services, not products. Manufacturing, healthcare and insurance are expected to lead the IoT race.

Some of this entrepreneurial interest is being generated in India, too. For example, in May this year, Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (EVC), an early stage investor, launched a $50 million unit to focus on IT.

Qualcomm Ventures, the VC arm of the global chipmaker, recently unveiled its $150 million India fund and made its first investment of $10 million in healthcare IoT venture Attune Technologies. In early July, a centre of excellence for IoT was launched jointly by software industry lobby Nasscom, the department of electronics and information technology and the Education and Research Network. This centre can house up to 40 startups and the model is expected to be replicated nationwide.

Source: Startups hope to capitalize on the massive IoT market – Times of India

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