National
India’s new COVID cases dips to 6,594
India, on Tuesday, reported 6,594 fresh COVID-19 cases. This was a marginal decline against the 8,084 infections registered the previous day. With six new fatalities, the overall death toll increased to 5,24,777.
The active caseload rose to 50,548, accounting for 0.12 per cent of the country’s total positive cases. The daily positivity rate has slightly declined to 2.05 per cent and the weekly positivity rate stood at 2.32 per cent.
Over 3.52 crore adolescents have been administered with a first dose of COVID-19 jab since the beginning of vaccination drive for this age bracket.
The End of Advertisements for Online Betting
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued an advisory to print, electronic and digital media, asking them to refrain from advertising online betting platforms.
A hurdle for Online Betting services: This comes in light of increasing number of advertisements for online betting platforms in all media. This is because gambling and betting are illegal in the country, especially for the youth.
The advisory has been issued in larger public interest, and advises social media, including the online advertisement intermediaries and publishers, to not display such advertisements in India.
Finance
Sensex slips 351 points, Nifty below 16,000
The Indian stock market opened in red on Tuesday with less than one per cent slump in Sensex and Nifty.
The 30 stock S&P BSE Sensex fell 350.76 points closing at 52,495.94 points. The broader Nifty 50 fell 100.10 points to 15,674.30 points.
Top Gainers: Swanenergy, Auropharma, MRPL, Westlife, and Kalpatpowr were among the top money makers.
Spicejet, Raymond, Asian Paints Respondind and Nilkamal lagged behind during the opening hours.
Banking & Finance: Bajaj Finance fell by 1.02% to Rs 5,285.80, and RBL Bank opened in the green, up 2.05% to Rs 89.70. Among healthcare stocks, Auropharma rose by 2.56% to Rs 529.35, and Lal Path Lab slipped by 1.44 per cent to Rs 2033.45.
IT stocks: TCS fell by 0.43% to Rs 3,206.40, Quickheal slipped by 0.47% to Rs 158.70 and Mindtree opened in green, up by 1.49% to Rs 2,925.45.
On Monday, the market tumbled 1456 points leading to an erosion of nearly Rs 6 lakh in the value of listed companies.
Rupee sinks below 78 against US dollar for the first time
The Indian Rupee slumped below 78 against the US dollar. The root cause of this is foreign fund outflow amid the selloffs in the stock markets. This is the first time the rupee has breached the mark.
An All Time Low: At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee started at 78.14 per dollar against its previous close at 77.84. The rupee hit a low of 78.23 against the US dollar.
What happened? Incessant dollar outflows from the Indian equities and bond markets led to a sharp drop in the value of the Indian currency. Foreign institutional investors (FII) have pulled out around $24 billion from the Indian markets this year alone.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week raised the inflation forecast for the current financial year to 6.7% from its earlier projection of 5.7%.
Business
TATA Steel showcases green investments
Tata Steel unveiled a 7 million pound investment plan for its Hartlepool Tube Mill in northeast England. The Indian steel major says it will cut carbon emissions, improve capacity and reduce costs to strengthen its UK business.
Recyclable Steel: The investment will go into a new slitter allowing the Hartlepool site to process coils of steel delivered from Tata’s Port Talbot steelmaking site. All of the steel products made at the site are 100% recyclable and the investment is forecast to pay for itself in less than three years.
This project will allow Tata Steel to bring vital processes on-site, which in turn will free up thousands of tons of capacity at the Port Talbot site.
International
International Arms Watchdog: India & Pakistan seem to be increasing nuclear weapon inventories
India and Pakistan appear to be increasing the size of their nuclear weapon inventories, a leading arms watchdog claims.
Armed to the Teeth: At the start of 2022, nine countries- the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea possessed approximately 12,705 nuclear weapons. About 3,732 of these warheads were estimated to be deployed with operational forces, and around 2,000 of these were kept in a state of high operational alert.
In its annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research (SIPRI) said that all nine nuclear-armed countries are increasing or upgrading their arsenals.
Nuclear Stockpile: Global reductions of operational warheads appear to have stalled, and their numbers may be rising again. Both Russia and the USA have extensive and expensive programmes underway to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, missile, and aircraft delivery systems, and nuclear weapon production facilities.
The nuclear arsenals of the other nuclear-armed states are considerably smaller, but all are either developing or deploying new weapon systems. China is in the middle of a significant modernization and expansion of its nuclear arsenal, which includes the construction of over 300 new missile silos. India and Pakistan also seem to be increasing the size of their nuclear weapon inventories.
Technology
HP unveils new AI-powered laptops in India
HP launched new laptops, equipped with AI-powered intelligent features such for Indian consumers. These laptops are a step towards the future of mobile computing.
The HP Spectre portfolio is powered by Intel Evo platforms featuring 12th Gen Intel Core Processors for improved multitasking and performance.
The Spectre range of laptops has a variety of AI features including AutoFrame, Noise reduction and backlight adjustment. This is HP’s attempt to create intelligent systems that can keep up with today’s power users’ requirements.
The HP Spectre 13.5 x360 ef-0053tu with Intel Evo Core i7 will be available at Rs 1,29,999 and the HP Spectre 16 x360 f-1003tu with Intel Evo Core i7 will be available at 1,39,999.
Sports
IPL Media Rights: Disney-Star bags TV deal for Rs 23,575 cr, Viacom18 gets digital
Two different broadcasters won the TV (package A) and digital rights (package B) for the Indian subcontinent. The total value per match for every IPL game is INR 107.5 crore.
The yet-to-be-identified company that bagged TV rights for INR 57.5 crore per game challenged the company bidding INR 48 crore per game for digital rights. The bids for digital have ended at INR 50 crore per game and have been bagged by Jio (Viacom18).
Disney-Star has bagged the Indian subcontinent TV rights. The combined value for Package A (TV Rights) and Package B (Digital) is INR 44,075 crore.
The final count for TV is Rs 23,575 crore while the digital rights has ended at Rs 20,500 crore.
Big Leagues, Big Money
Comparing it to other international league-based tournaments, Australia’s BBL, the Big Bash League, which has an IPL-like fervour down under, is aired on two TV channels- Fox Cricket and Seven Network.
The Seven Network and Foxtel made a blockbuster $1.182 billion deal that allows them to stream the game across various platforms.
Seven paid $450 million for a six-year deal to broadcast all home Test matches and 43 Big Bash League games.
