The News Caravan

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  • Britishvolt: how Britain’s bright battery future fell flat

    Britishvolt: how Britain’s bright battery future fell flat

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    When Britishvolt, a startup hoping to transform UK car production by making batteries for electric vehicles, rented a seven-bedroom £2.8m mansion with a swimming pool and Jacuzzi-style bath for workers, some employees were uncomfortable with the impression it gave of lavish spending.

    Founded in 2019, Britishvolt began with grand ambitions – hailed by the then prime minister, Boris Johnson – to become the first domestically owned battery factory in a car industry that employs tens of thousands of British workers, but where the big manufacturers are all overseas companies. The planned factory would have been able to supply 30 gigawatt hours (GWh) of batteries a year, enough for hundreds of thousands of cars.

    That ambition gave way last year to a desperate scramble for investment. Fundraising efforts ended on Tuesday, with the company entering administration with the loss of more than 200 jobs. The planned site for its plant, at Blyth in Northumberland, is now up for sale.

    A Britishvolt presentation given to investors in June laid out the scale of the opportunity it had seen. In 2028, it thought European battery demand would outstrip supply by 554GWh – enough for 15 Britishvolts, or millions of electric cars. With that giant opportunity came a giant valuation: it achieved the coveted “unicorn” status of being worth more than $1bn (£809bn). Backers included Ashtead, Glencore and the abrdn-owned Tritax from the FTSE 100.

    By the end, Britishvolt was worth a tiny fraction of that. DeaLab, an Indonesia-linked suitor, considered a bailout but the talks did not lead to agreement. Its offer would have valued the whole company at only £32m, according to a letter sent by the executive chair, Peter Rolton, to shareholders. That was equal to the £32m Britishvolt spent on the May 2022 purchase of a German battery cell maker.

    Many of those who supported Britishvolt have chosen to remain in the background, but filings searched by the data company AlphaSense/Sentieo show Ashtead invested $39m, while the British investment trust Law Debenture Corporation had £5m. Norway’s Carbon Transition invested $1.7m in August 2021, and the valuation more than doubled by 2022. As late as 27 June 2022, the Indonesian battery company VKTR joined the backers.

    The Britishvolt executive chair, Peter Rolton, at the site of the planned battery plant in Blyth. It is now up for sale.
    The Britishvolt executive chair, Peter Rolton, at the site of the planned battery plant in Blyth. It is now up for sale. Photograph: Nick Carey/Reuters

    Yet within a month of that investment, Britishvolt was in trouble. Documents revealed by the Guardian showed that by late July Britishvolt had put construction of its gigafactory on “life support” until it could find more funds. That was made more difficult by the financial market turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising interest rates.

    The mood got steadily worse as the year went on, according to former insiders. After a hiring spree during late 2021 and early 2022, spending was reined in, and a company aiming to employ 3,000 people within two years stopped hiring.

    By late October, the company was in serious trouble, amid evidence of chaotic management. When the Guardian approached Britishvolt before a report that it was considering administration, an external media lawyer hired by the company forcefully questioned the accuracy of the Guardian’s sources and referenced a risk of defamation. Within hours it became clear that Britishvolt was indeed considering administration – a fate it only escaped after a last-minute cash injection from the mining company Glencore.

    The cash allowed Britishvolt to continue for 10 weeks, but none of the three bids it received would guarantee the hundreds of millions of pounds it still needed.

    The financial difficulties irked insiders who claimed to have seen evidence of an extravagant approach early on. As well as the mansion, the company had hired a fitness instructor to take yoga lessons over video call, while executives travelled on a private jet owned by a shareholder. (The company said company money was never spent on the jet.) Many staff were provided with top-of-the-range curved 4K computer monitors at considerable expense, said a former employee, who declined to be named.

    “Money was being spent recklessly, really badly,” they said. “There was a lot of bad management at this organisation.”

    Britishvolt was spending heavily on consultants as it considered how to launch products for boats, planes and drones – all promising opportunities, but ones likely to rely on different types of battery. Among the key consultants was EY, which earned millions of pounds in fees while Britishvolt was still operating, two people said. The company has since been tasked with carrying out the administration, despite being owed money as an unsecured creditor.

    Newfield House near Blyth for Britishvolt
    A Jacuzzi-style bath in a bathroom at the £2.8m mansion near Blyth that was rented by Britishvolt. Photograph: Rightmove

    An EY spokesperson declined to detail how much money it is owed, saying: “EY was an unsecured creditor of the company at the time of the appointment of administrators, but will not vote on any creditor resolutions that may be required as part of the administration process. Creditors of Britishvolt and moneys owed will be disclosed in due course as part of the administrators’ report.”

    Britishvolt also paid £3.2m to Rolton Group, an engineering consultancy of which Peter Rolton is a director, during the year to September 2021. When asked in September about the spending and how Britishvolt had managed the potential conflict of interest, the company said: “The board of directors supports the company’s latest business plan which has been refocused and sharpened given the negative global economic situation and continues to have full confidence in the senior management team and in the company’s robust governance processes.”

    Rolton denied, through the same lawyer as Britishvolt, that there had been bad management. He said “high-spec monitors were purchased if required for specific tasks/roles”, and that fees for all consultants “were entirely proportionate to the scale and complexity of the project and in line with accepted industry benchmark standards”.

    Rolton Group said the £3.2m was “for design services provided on a highly complex and innovative project”.

    EY declined to comment on the company’s management style on behalf of Britishvolt.

    The collapse will also affect companies that were hoping for a big new customer. South Korea’s Hana Technology and Creative & Innovative Systems reported contracts with Britishvolt worth £74m apiece, while Germany’s Manz will miss out on a “major order”.

    Aston Martin Lagonda cars parked outside the factory at St Athan
    The collapse raises questions for Aston Martin Lagonda, which signed a memorandum of understanding to work with Britishvolt. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters

    The collapse also raises questions for Aston Martin Lagonda, the British sportscar maker which, along with its Chinese-owned rival Lotus, signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to work with Britishvolt. In a prospectus last year Aston Martin suggested that Britishvolt’s “failure could affect the group’s ability to maintain its electrification timeline”.

    This week, Aston Martin said the collapse “will have no impact [on] electrification timings, with the launch of the first battery electric Aston Martin targeted for 2025”.

    The administration has left the UK with only one large-scale gigafactory planned: the Chinese-owned Envision’s plant in Sunderland. It also leaves big questions over the future of the UK automotive industry.

    Andy Palmer, the former Aston Martin boss who is now chair of InoBat, a Slovakian battery company, said Britishvolt’s collapse was an “unmitigated disaster” and “certainly not good for the UK”.

    Palmer has been outspoken about the need for better government support, and InoBat had been deciding between sites in Teesside and Spain for its own plants.

    There is still hope for the Blyth site. InoBat could be a contender to switch its interest there, while EY confirmed it was “liaising with a number of interested parties” for a sale of the Britishvolt assets – the site and its intellectual property. Tata, the Indian owner of Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s largest carmaker, is thought to be among interested companies, the Financial Times reported.

    Glen Sanderson, the Conservative leader of Northumberland county council, said he was “quite positive” a buyer could be found.

    “I think there’s still hope for the site,” said David Bailey, the professor of industrial strategy at the University of Birmingham. He said there was “a deal to be done” between the government and Tata – which declined to comment – possibly in exchange for government support for upgrading Tata’s steel plant in south Wales. Yet the collapse should be a wakeup call for the UK government to match the support on offer in Europe, he said.

    “We’re lagging very far behind the EU,” he said. “It requires a much more active industrial policy. At the moment we don’t have one.”

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    #Britishvolt #Britains #bright #battery #future #fell #flat
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • America in Decline? World Thinks Again.

    America in Decline? World Thinks Again.

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    “The U.S. has taken the lead convincingly and quite deftly on Ukraine,” François Heisbourg, the veteran and often critical French observer of American foreign policy in action, told me. Referring to the same advisers who were dismissed as callow incompetents in Afghanistan, he said, “Most of them are adults. They are potty trained. This [kind of U.S. response] hasn’t happened in over 20 years,” since the Clinton administration’s intervention in the Balkans. “We’re back to a world that people my age recognize,” added Heisbourg, who’s in his early 70s.

    Another source of American power? Chinese weakness. As Putin’s military got shredded on the battlefield, Xi Jinping mismanaged the Covid response and cemented one-man rule at his party congress in ways that spooked neighbors and investors. Add an aging population and slowing growth, and — at least by the new Davos Consensus — we’ve passed “Peak China” and are headed the other way. This doesn’t mean China won’t be a danger; its frailties could make Xi less predictable and more dangerous. But the idea once dominant here that China would soon succeed the U.S. as the world’s leading power sounds ridiculous to Davos ears — as much as the claims about Japanese supremacy in 1980s did a few years after they were made.

    Bearishness on China and on Europe’s prospects adds to America’s appeal, in particular, for business elites. Here’s a typical sentiment: “The U.S., in almost any sector, is the most attractive market, not just in terms of size but innovation,” Vas Narasimhan, who runs the Swiss drug maker Novartis, the world’s fourth-biggest pharmaceutical company with a large presence in Massachusetts, told me. As the world worries about possible recession, another part of the new consensus is that the U.S. would weather it best.

    This upbeat view on the U.S. isn’t intended to warm patriotic or partisan fires. For one thing, the Davos Consensus is often wrong; not so long ago, this crowd was long on crypto and short on the U.S.

    It’s also worth listening to the anxieties. They’re as revealing as the bullishness — about America and the state of the world.

    In the wake of the Trump era, everyone feels free to doubt the stability of the American system, even if the midterms sent a reassuring message of back-to-normalcy. Most global companies and players know the policy paralysis and political polarization firsthand. And yet: As often as an executive will bemoan that members of Congress care more about Fox/MSNBC bookings than grappling with complex legislation, in this same breath, they’ll mention a constitutional order going back 250 years and traditions of rule of law hard to find in many other places. Until proven otherwise, probably by its own hand, democracy in America is one of the safer bets in the world, they say.

    The new anxiety: America’s back on the world stage, but what kind of America?

    On multilateralism, through NATO or the U.N., and on security in Europe, the Biden administration harkens back to another century — not to the Obama era, which began the distancing from traditional allies (who recoiled over the “pivot to Asia” and the “red line” in Syria that wasn’t) that Trump continued. But its approach to trade, to an industrial policy that prioritizes “reshoring” and “buy American,” to many Davos eyes, resembles Trump more than any other recent president.

    This continuity is what makes Europeans sound conflicted on the U.S. The Inflation Reduction Act, which will push billions in subsidies to American industry, and a CHIPS Act that seeks to repatriate the production of semiconductors, prompted dismay in Europe. As does the Biden Administration’s indifference to the World Trade Organization. Joe Manchin, the principal author of the IRA legislation, felt the backlash firsthand in Davos, as my colleagues Alex Ward and Suzanne Lynch reported Thursday.

    “The hope about the Biden administration was that it would be less inwardly looking than outward looking,” Cecilia Malmstrom, a Swedish politician who ran EU trade policy in the last decade, told a small lunch gathering in Davos. A European leader, who was speaking on background in another private meeting, put it more bluntly: “The U.S. undermines globalization, the other pillar of U.S. leadership. This could be the biggest strategic mistake in global relations for a long time.” To them, this approach is a rebuke of America’s commitment to a global order built on open trade and democratic values – what was known at one point as the Washington Consensus, which, as opposed to any fleeting one reached in Davos, held for decades.

    If America will be both strong again and more willing to go alone, “this is a big thing!” said France’s Heisbourg. “This is very unlike the America of the past. It looks like this will be a century of disorder, and that’s pretty scary.”

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    #America #Decline #World #Thinks
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Trump withdraws Florida lawsuit against New York attorney general

    Trump withdraws Florida lawsuit against New York attorney general

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    trump columnist lawsuit 39927

    The lawsuit was filed just weeks after James sued Trump, three of his adult children and his business empire for fraudulent financial practices. She is seeking up to $250 million as well as an order blocking Trump from real estate transactions in New York for five years.

    Trump has blasted the suit, including after James won a judicial order in November that installed an independent monitor over his business dealings as the New York case proceeds. That case is ongoing.

    There was no immediate comment from Trump’s attorneys on why they dropped his Florida lawsuit, but the federal judge overseeing the case recently ripped his claims as “both vexatious and frivolous.”

    The withdrawal Friday also came the morning after the same Florida judge ordered nearly $1 million in sanctions against Trump and his attorney Alina Habba in a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and federal officials.

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    #Trump #withdraws #Florida #lawsuit #York #attorney #general
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Nadia Shameem, from Baramulla cracks JKAS Exams 2021 with flying colours

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    Shabroz Malik

    Baramulla: Ms Nadia Shameem, resident of Audoora Baramulla has qualified JKAS Exams 2021 with 80th rank.

    She has been a student of SKUAST-K and later on she completed her graduation through IGNOU mode..
    She is currently doing Job in Civil Secretariat J&K.

    She is indeed an inspiration for all of the aspirants who want to do something big in their lives. Many many congratulations to her, her family and whole Narwav block especially to residents of Audoora

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    #Nadia #Shameem #Baramulla #cracks #JKAS #Exams #flying #colours

    ( With inputs from : roshankashmir.net )

  • What to do with a Met police that harbours rapists and murderers? Scrap it and start again | Jonathan Freedland

    What to do with a Met police that harbours rapists and murderers? Scrap it and start again | Jonathan Freedland

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    The whole barrel is rotten. Perhaps it began with a few bad apples long ago, and of course some good ones will remain even now, but the rot in the Metropolitan force has spread.

    You read of David Carrick, the officer who kept his uniform, his badge and, for many years, his gun even as he pursued a parallel career as a prolific sex offender, and of course you are sickened by the evil he has done: dozens of rapes and sexual offences against 12 women, over two decades, including imprisoning one of his victims, naked and terrified, in a tiny cupboard under the stairs. But an equal horror comes when you learn that the police had been warned eight times about Carrick’s behaviour – eight – but did nothing. In fairness, that’s not quite right; they did do something. They promoted him in 2009 to an elite armed unit.

    The horror is familiar. We felt it when another serving Met officer, Wayne Couzens, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021. We felt it when, that same year, Met officers were jailed for circulating photographs of the bodies of two murdered sisters – “dead birds”, they called them – for the titillation of their colleagues. And we felt it a year ago when we learned of the group at Charing Cross police station in London who traded WhatsApp messages casually joking about rape and speaking of women in terms so filled with hate the word “misogyny” scarcely does it justice.

    The pattern is so clear that the individual perpetrators are best understood as symptoms of a larger sickness. The Metropolitan police is a diseased institution. The new commissioner, Mark Rowley, is said to be a decent, well-intentioned man, but few would rate his chances of healing the Met. Anyone who tries runs into a stubborn, suspicious workforce ready to feed hostile stories to a receptive press – which is how you end up with a commissioner like the last one, Cressida Dick, who seemed to regard her prime mission as keeping police officers happy, with serving the public a distant second.

    So what can be done? A generation ago, after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, it became impossible to deny that the police lacked the confidence of black Londoners. The result was the Macpherson inquiry. We are at a similar moment now: London’s women can no longer trust the police. How could they, when, should they have the courage to report a rape, they might be questioned by an officer who’s committed that very offence, or harbours the attitudes displayed in those Charing Cross messages? As a first step there needs to be a Macpherson-style investigation of misogyny in the Met.

    The conclusion would surely be drastic. Recall that, in the same era as the Lawrence murder, it became similarly unarguable that half the population of Northern Ireland had no faith in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The result was the dissolution of that force and its replacement with a new service. Keir Starmer, who played an advisory role in the establishment of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was right to cite that precedent this week, because the Met has similarly lost the confidence of half the population it’s meant to serve: namely, women. The remedy should be the same for London as it was for Northern Ireland: scrap the Met and start again.

    It’s an extreme solution, but the problem is extreme. The Metropolitan police fails the two tests that count. It cannot demonstrate efficiency – see last September’s damning report by the police inspectorate, finding that the Met is failing when it comes to investigating crime and protecting the vulnerable – and it has lost legitimacy. As in Northern Ireland, a new service needs to be born, under wholly new leadership, with a head experienced in criminal justice but untainted by Met culture. Joan Smith, the definitive authority on police misogyny and onetime adviser to the London mayor on violence against women, has an intriguing suggestion: she nominates the lawyer, former minister and former police and crime commissioner Vera Baird.

    Still, this is hardly a problem confined to London. A second inspectorate report in November looked at eight separate forces and concluded that “a culture of misogyny, sexism, predatory behaviour towards female police officers and staff and members of the public was prevalent in all the forces we inspected”. Literally every female police officer and staff member the inspectors spoke to told of harassment and, in some cases, assaults.

    It won’t wash to say that the police reflect society and so will always include a proportionate number of abusers. These numbers are disproportionate. That suggests that the police are attracting more than their share of violent, abusive men. There’s no mystery about that. A job that gives you power over women and the vulnerable, including access to their personal information, is bound to lure men bent on doing harm. The answer is to tighten vetting, so that recruiters are looking out for those who want a police badge for all the wrong reasons.

    But the grimmer truth is that this malady goes far beyond the police. There were 70,000 rapes recorded last year in England and Wales alone – 1,350 a week – and those are just the ones that were reported, estimated as a mere quarter or fifth of all the rapes that happen. Of those recorded, just 1.3% resulted in a suspect being charged. Obviously only a fraction of those ended in a conviction. When fewer than one in a hundred rapists ever face any consequences, it’s time for a society to be honest with itself – and admit that it has, in effect, decriminalised rape. Worse, says Smith, it is creating serial rapists: a man does it once, gets away with it, and realises he can do it again. And again.

    There are remedies, starting with a system that investigates the suspect instead of the victim rather than the other way around, as things work, perversely, at the moment. But the first step will be a recognition that a society where a woman is killed by a man every three days – more if you count the women whose suffering of domestic abuse leads to suicide – is confronting an emergency as lethal as any terror threat. Yes, we should tear down and replace the Met and shake up every other decayed force in the land. But this rot goes deeper than the police. It lies within.

    • Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

    • Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.



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    #Met #police #harbours #rapists #murderers #Scrap #start #Jonathan #Freedland
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • ‘They’re 25, they don’t do emails’: is instant chat replacing the inbox?

    ‘They’re 25, they don’t do emails’: is instant chat replacing the inbox?

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    Could office emails go the way of the fax machine and the rolodex? They have not joined those workplace dinosaurs yet, but there were signs of evolutionary change at the annual gathering of business leaders in Davos this week, where tech bosses said emails were becoming outdated.

    The chief executive of the IT firm Wipro, which employs 260,000 people worldwide, said about 10% of his staff “don’t even check one email per month” and that he used Instagram and LinkedIn to talk to staff.

    “They’re 25, they don’t care. They don’t go on their emails, they go on Snapchat, they go on all these things,” said Thierry Delaporte. Anjali Sud, the chief executive of video platform Vimeo, said at the summit emails were “outdated”.

    Delaporte’s comments, reported by the Daily Telegraph, referred to Gen Z professionals – typically people born after 1997 – but according to one UK business owner, it cuts across all generations.

    “If I want something done quickly, I rarely rely on email myself,” says Farhad Divecha, owner and managing director of London-based digital marketing agency Accuracast. “I tend to send a [Microsoft] Teams message, or even WhatsApp if it’s really urgent. I might send an email with details, but over the past three to five years I’ve learned that email’s just not good enough if you want something done quickly.”

    He adds that some clients with Gen Z employees preferred to bypass email, using alternatives such as the messaging service Slack. “It’s not uncommon to have clients with more Gen Z employees tell us: ‘let’s take the discussion on Slack because we tend not to use email much’,” he says.

    Email has many rivals that offer messaging services. Instagram is used by more than 2 billion people a month, LinkedIn has 875 million members, Snapchat has more than 360 million daily users and 2 billion people are on WhatsApp. Microsoft’s Teams platform is also popular, with more than 270 million users.

    But email is not going away and its use continues to grow. The total number of business and consumer emails sent and received each day will exceed 333bn in 2022, says the tech research firm Radicati, which represents a 4% increase on the previous year – and will grow to more than 390bn by 2026. More than half the world’s population, 4.2 billion, uses email, according to Radicati.

    “We don’t feel email is dying,” says the research firm’s CEO, Sara Radicati. One major source of growth in email use comes from the consumer sphere, such as emails related to online purchases. Also, an email account is needed for all sorts of online activity, such as setting up social media accounts and buying goods.

    Radicati acknowledges, nonetheless, that in the world of work, social media and instant messaging are playing a role alongside email. “Email tends to be used for official communications, while more interpersonal, casual communication is finding its way through social media and instant messaging”, she says.

    Professionals who spoke to the Guardian described a mixed approach to email use. Jordan, 28, a project manager in the construction industry from Bristol, says there was a split between formal and informal communications at work: “I use emails purely to talk about formal things that need to be written down. That’s in terms of agreements or anything like that. But for anything that is remotely informal, I move straight over on to Teams.”

    Tracy, 29, a scientific researcher from London, says she often checks her personal email “for keeping track of things like theatre tickets or other purchases”. At work, she has a separate email address “which I draft out and use very formally” but also uses instant messaging on Teams for quick checkups with colleagues. She adds that she “never” uses text or social media to contact colleagues in the workplace.

    Gen Z workers who contacted the Guardian also said they used work emails regularly. “I generally check personal emails once a day and work emails regularly between 9 and 6,” says Matthew, 23, a human rights paralegal based in London. Meanwhile, Owen, 25, a programmer from Aberdeen, says: “Like any professional environment, my workplace uses email. Were I asked to check something like Instagram at work, I would expect some kind of wrongdoing was taking place.”

    For one expert, the Davos comments reflect a constant of professional life: relentless technological and cultural change. Emails were frowned upon by the “telephone and letter” generation, says Thomas Robinson, senior lecturer at Bayes Business School in London. But a shift happened anyway.

    “We can partner up with younger generations and add our experience to that, partner up with that community, or we can make enemies of the future. But thinking you can hold back techno-cultural change is for the birds,” he says.

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    #Theyre #dont #emails #instant #chat #replacing #inbox
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • Story of Two Doda Sisters and Their brother Who Cracked JKAS Together

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    by Khalid Bashir Gura

    SRINAGAR: As the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC) declared the final results of the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS), the hearts of three siblings were in their mouths.

    3 Doda siblings
    Ifra Anjum , Huma Anjum and their brother Suhail Wani created history by cracking JKAS 2022 together. They are wards of an erstwhile Baglihar project mechanic from Doda

    Soon unprecedented happened. The silence was broken by tears of joy as all three qualified for the most coveted examination to make them part of the Jammu and Kashmir administrative set-up. It has happened for the first time in the history of now JKAS competitive examination that three siblings have qualified for this examination in the same year.

    Interestingly the two sisters and their brother are from a far-off Doda village. They are settled in Jammu. The siblings include Ifra Anjum Wani, Huma Anjum Wani and their younger brother Suhail Ahmad Wani. They had painstakingly prepared together without any formal coaching.

    “It was the first attempt for Ifra and Suhail, but elder sister Huma qualified it in her second attempt. The siblings had their formal high schooling in Doda in a private school. Later they shifted to Jammu for higher studies” said their jovial father.

    According to him, one of his daughters Ifra did her master’s in physics, however, the other two siblings; Huma and Suhail have been pursuing their master’s degree in political science.

    The preparation for the examination started together as all of them aimed at the same goal and achieved it together.

    According to their father, the siblings started preparation in 2021 and have been studying meticulously and complementing each other since then without formal coaching.

    “We were inspired by our father. His words and support and belief in us helped us achieve our goal,” Irfa said. “It is a good way to do social service, however, if one want power and money we could have chosen other fields.” She said they have had to face lot of financial difficulties but they were never let down by parents.

    Ifra said she and Suhail passed it in the first attempt, the credit goes to their elder sister because they located the mistakes that prevented her quality the examination in the first attempt. Interestingly, they did not stop after their sister failed to crack it n 2021, they quickly grouped and started studying together.

    At a time when technology is taking over every aspect of human lives especially education, the siblings claims are unbelievable even for laggards.

    “We do not have a phone and social media presence. We used our mother’s phone to connect virtually and download any essential reading material,” said Ifra.

    “It is a journey which started much early in their life. They were clear about a goal,” father Wani said who was working as mechanic in Baglihar project and now a private contractor.

    “Lockdown broke my back but I did not let it deter my children’s education. I still don’t own a bicycle. My children have always made me proud by being obedient and never yielded to ostentatious norms of society,” Wani said as he also credits their mother also for silent contribution.

    Suhail who is younger to sisters has secured 111th rank and obtained 1055 points followed by Huma Anjum Wani having 117th rank with 1050.5 points and Ifra Anjum Wani having 143rd rank with 1034.5 points.

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    #Story #Doda #Sisters #brother #Cracked #JKAS

    ( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

  • Govt Issues Guidelines For Social Media Influencers; Fine Up To Rs 50L, 6-Yr Ban On Repeat Offence

    Govt Issues Guidelines For Social Media Influencers; Fine Up To Rs 50L, 6-Yr Ban On Repeat Offence

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    SRINAGAR: Social media influencers and celebrities will face a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh on repeat offence and even lead to a ban of up to six years, on violation of guidelines for them, which were released by the consumer affairs ministry on Friday.

    Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh told mediapersons, while releasing the guidelines, that the whole issue is centred around consumers’ right.

    “It is the responsibility of the endorser, celebrities and influencers or other advertisers to truthfully disclose whatever information the consumer must know before making any decision for purchase,” the guidelines said.

    Singh further said social media influencers should disclose the nature of their endorsements.

    “Individuals or groups who have access to an audience and the power to affect their purchasing decisions about a product, brand or service because of the influencer’s authority, knowledge, position or relationship with their audience,” the guidelines said.

    Influencers are defined as creators who advertise products with a strong influence on the decisions or opinions of their audience. Virtual influencers, which are defined as fictional computer-generated people with realistic features of humans, are also required to disclose their endorsements, the guidelines said further.

    The department noted that, “When there is a material connection between an advertiser and celebrity/influencer that may affect the weight or credibility of the representation made by the celebrity/influencer.”

    These material connections include monetary or other forms of compensation, free products, contests and sweepstakes entries, trips or hotel stays, media barters, coverage and awards, or any personal, family or employment relationship, the rules note.

    The influencers should be able to substantiate the claims made by them. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 provides the framework for the protection of consumers against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements.

    The product and service must have been actually used or experienced by the endorser, the ministry said, adding that consumers can seek legal actions against those defaulting. (IANS)

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    #Govt #Issues #Guidelines #Social #Media #Influencers #Fine #50L #6Yr #Ban #Repeat #Offence

    ( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

  • China’s future to AI and jobs: five big questions from Davos

    China’s future to AI and jobs: five big questions from Davos

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    A number of big themes emerged from the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort Davos. Here are five of most pressing questions that came to dominate this year’s gathering of the global elite.

    Will China be forced to make friends with the west?

    Donald Trump’s trade war with China – continued by his successor Joe Biden – has left relations between east and west at rock bottom. But with Covid and trade tensions halving Chinese growth last year to just 3% and western businesses such as Apple moving business out of the world’s second-biggest economy, Beijing has hinted it may adopt a less-hostile approach.

    Vice-premier Liu He appeared on the main stage at Davos to assure foreign investors that after three years of Covid disruption, it was open for business. “We have to abandon the cold war mentality,” he said. “We must open up wider and make it work better.”

    Whether the west is ready to believe that remains to be seen. Executives at several tech companies said they were approached by American intelligence officials at the summit who were keen to understand their operations in China. “They want to know which side you are on,” said a tech boss.

    The FBI director Christopher Wray gave a speech arguing that China’s artificial intelligence (AI) programme would be weaponised by the country, telling attenders: “The Chinese government has a bigger hacking programme than any other nation in the world.”

    Several economists also forecast that China’s rapid reopening could reignite rapid inflation by fuelling demand for commodities just as central bankers hoped they had got a grip on surging prices.

    Davos promenade road
    A slogan for the World Economic Forum on Davos’s promenade, the sentiment undermined by fears about AI’s impact on jobs. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

    Is artificial intelligence coming for your job?

    Rapid advances being made in AI have prompted a wave of warnings, not only about what it means for the world of work, but also the risks that it might produce misinformation on a grand scale.

    Mihir Shukla, chief executive of Automation Anywhere, said that as a result of AI it was now possible for a machine to process a mortgage application in three minutes that previously would have taken 30 days.

    Erik Brynjolfsson, digital economy professor at Stanford University said in the past machines had not been a substitute for workers but complemented the activities of humans, enabling them to do things better and leading to higher pay.

    Yet IBM’s chairman and chief executive Arvind Krishna predicted a wave of job cuts from AI. “You should worry more about the clerical, white-collar jobs than the physical [jobs]. A large number of them will get replaced. So the question is: ‘What jobs do you create to replace those?’”

    Brynjolfsson identified another threat. The world risked being flooded with bot-generated emails, posts and tweets peddling disinformation on a massive scale and warned there was a need for a control mechanism to separate the true from the false.

    Swedish Climate activist Greta Thunberg
    The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (left) takes her environmental campaign to Davos where there were fears US and EU green economy plans could spark a trade dispute. Photograph: Laurent Gilliéron/EPA

    Will Biden’s $369bn green subsidy scheme help or hinder?

    The US and EU nations arrived at Davos with a $369bn row simmering in the background: Joe Biden’s vast green subsidy scheme, known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It provides extensive state aid for companies investing in green technologies crucial to the transition away from fossil fuels, including electric cars, batteries, and renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines.

    Jozef Síkela, the Czech Republic’s minister of industry and trade, equated it with “doping in sport” and said it was luring companies away from Europe to the US. But Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said the IRA is the “most important climate action after the Paris 2015 agreement”.

    Some have speculated it could lead to a trade war between the US and EU, akin to the decades-long Boeing v Airbus dispute over subsidies. The EU is responding with its own Net Zero Industry Act which will simplify and fast-track clean tech production sites.

    Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said she hoped the subsidy race “is not going to be a race to the bottom”. While leader of the UK’s Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer, embraced the idea of a more activist state, the UK business secretary, Grant Shapps, was distinctly cooler on the idea, describing it as “dangerous”.

    Kristalina Georgieva, International Monetary Fund
    Kristalina Georgieva, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director. Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA

    Is a new debt crisis looming?

    About a quarter of the countries in the world are in debt distress or on the brink of it. In Davos every one of the multilateral organisations that keep tabs on the financial fragility of poor countries – the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – expressed concern.

    Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme said there was an urgent need for a comprehensive solution but was unsure whether there was the bandwidth or leadership required.

    “Nothing is happening commensurate with the problem,” Steiner said. “There is a growing recognition that there has been a year of inactivity by the institutions created to deal with this – the G20 and the Bretton Woods institutions [the IMF and the World Bank].”

    Countries are having trouble paying their debts amid slower global growth and rising interest rates. Many also borrowed in US dollars, which have appreciated on currency markets. Steiner said there needed to be an urgent injection of financial support through a fresh issuance of IMF special drawing rights – a form of money creation that boosts a country’s reserves – with debt restructuring. That will require more flexibility by two important creditors: China and the private sector.

    Poster for Neom
    Saudi Arabia promotes it Neom $500bn megacity plan in Davos, part of a strong Middle East presence. Photograph: Getty Images

    Can the Gulf states modernise and wean off hydrocarbons?

    The corporate logos that plaster shopfronts on the Davos promenade are a good barometer of changing economic fortunes. With Russia blacklisted after its invasion of Ukraine and China keeping a low profile, the Gulf states – flush with petrodollars – took over the Swiss ski resort en-masse.

    The long road that winds towards the conference centre was dominated by Middle Eastern brands: from the United Arab Emirates’ logistics company DP World, to Neom, the $500bn megacity that is the cornerstone of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to modernise Saudi Arabia.

    The Gulf states need to prove to the world that they can modernise as companies and businesses switch away from oil and gas. The Saudis used the World Economic Forum to promote the kingdom’s modernisation plan, called Vision 2030, and the increasing role of women in the economy, while hoping the west would ignore atrocities such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist whose death in October 2018 has been linked to Crown Prince Mohammed.

    Several senior Saudi ministers were joined on a panel by Jane Fraser, boss of US banking giant Citi, and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to discuss more women joining the workforce and economic change.

    “When one turns up in Saudi looking at what are the opportunities from a business perspective … it’s quite breathtaking,” said Fraser. “As a banker, one gets frightfully excited.”

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    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • Area wise List Of State Land In Kashmir Division- Check Here – Kashmir News

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    Despite brewing resentment the Jammu and Kashmir administration has asked the concerned revenue officers to ensure 100 per cent  removal of encroachments from state land, including Roshni and Kahcharai by January end.

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    The order by Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Commissioner Secretary Revenue to all deputy commissioners of the Union Territory was passed even as several review petitions challenging Roshni Act judgment lie pending before the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

    Bidhuri has also listed a set of instructions for effective monitoring of the anti-encroachment drive. The encroachment list involves highly influential persons of J&K including politicians from all major political parties and businessmen who have taken prized locations for peanuts.

    Today, Office of Tehsil kokernag issued public notice for removal of encroachment on state /kahcharai land in Tehsil kokernag, Says Remove self illegal possession on state land within ten daysWhatsApp Image 2023 01 20 at 20.21.30

    Download District/Tehsil/Area/Block Wise  PDF below

    4021 kanal state/kahcharai Land retrieved from encroachers across Kupwara district/ DC says drive will continue to retrieve encroachments

    KUPWARA, JANUARY 20 : Over 4021 kanals of State/kahcharie land was retrieved in Kupwara district during the present drive initiated against the land encroachers by the government .

    On the directions of Deputy Commissioner Kupwara, Dr.Doifode Sagar Dattatray, a major anti encroachment drive was held across Kupwara district, from 11th of this month till date. The teams of Revenue Department headed by concerned Tehsildars conducted operation on state/ Kahcharie land which was illegally occupied by encroachers in different parts / tehsils of the district.

    Accordingly, over 4021kanals of kahcharai/ state land have been retrieved from the encroachers in all Tehsils of the District during the present drive, till date.

    As per the reports of Tehsildar Drugmulla, 301 kanals of kahcharai land have been retrieved in Drugmulla tehsil of Kupwara district which include 276 kanals single patch of land and 25 kanals which was used as commercial purposes.

    Likewise, as per Tehsildar Kupwara, 280 kanals of land have been retrieved during the drive till date in Kupwara tehsil which include 205 kanal kahcharai Land and 75 kanal state land.

    In Keran tehsil, 712 kanals of land have been retrieved as per Tehsildar Keran, which include 617 kanals state land and 95 kanals kahcharie land.
    In Vilgam tehsil of Kupwara district 1863 kanals including 758 state land and 1105 kanals kahcharari land have been retrieved from 11th of this month till date, as reported by Tehsildar Vilgam.

    Likewise, in Kralpora Tehsil, as per concerned Tehsildar 247 kanals of land have been retrieved in the tehsil which include 142 kanals state land and 105 kanals Kacharie land.

    In Sogam and Lalpora tehsils, as reported by respective Tehsildars, 114 kanal and 14 marlas retrieved from Dardapora Lolab, 20 kanals from Chandigam and 20 kanals from Sogam tehsil.

    Similarly, 70 kanals of kahcharari/ state land have been retrieved from Trehgam tehsil, 50 kanals in Karnah Tehsil, 46 kanal 15 marlas in Handwara tehsil, 26 kanal 5 marlas in Zachaldara tehsil, 5 kanals in Taratpora tehsil , 80 kanals in Langate, 70 kanals in Qalamabad tehsil and 116 kanals in Qaziabad-kralgund tehsil during the ongoing drive against land encroachers.

    While talking about the anti-encroachment drive, the Deputy Commissioner Kupwara said that anti-encroachment drives will continue in all the parts of the district to retrieve entire State and Kahcharai land encroached by the land grabbers. He sought cooperation of the general public in its action against encroachments and also warned of action under CrPC in matters of encroachment on State/kahcharie lands.

    Pertinently, District Administration has given strict directions to the Tehsildars and enforcement teams to speed up the drive against the land encroachments in their respective jurisdictions with added zeal and dedication so that all State/Kahcharai land is retrieved in the district, which can be subsequently used for public purpose.

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    #Area #wise #List #State #Land #Kashmir #Division #Check #Kashmir #News

    ( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )