Category: Finance/Economy

Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Moves Forward in US Senate

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Nation USA 0

The US Senate has voted to move forward on a bipartisan infrastructure bill after weeks of negotiations last week, clearing a key procedural hurdle on a bill that includes $550 billion in new spending for infrastructure projects around the country, media reports here said.

In the 67 to 32 vote, 17 Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined Democrats to advance the bill. The proposal includes some of President Biden’s top domestic priorities and provides billions of dollars in funding for bridges, roads, broadband internet, clean water, public transit and more over the next five years. It encapsulates so-called “hard” infrastructure and is separate from Democratic efforts to pass a $3.5 trillion package for so-called “soft” infrastructure, which includes policies like Medicare expansion and universal child care.

“This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things,” President Biden said in a statement before the vote. “As we did with the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway, we will once again transform America and propel us into the future.”

The long-awaited text of a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package has come to be realized after several months of negotiations and a month after President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators first announced such a deal.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act focuses on investments in roads, railways, bridges and broadband internet, but it does not include investments that Biden has referred to as “human infrastructure,” including money allocated for child care and tax credits for families. Democrats are looking to address those priorities separately. The package calls for $550 billion in new spending over five years.

The bipartisan bill would be funded by unspent emergency relief funds, corporate user fees and strengthened tax enforcement for crypto currencies, among “other bipartisan measures,” the White House said. The bill would also use roughly $53 billion from states that returned unused enhanced federal unemployment money.

Former President Trump has termed the “so-called bipartisan bill” terrible, and vowed to primary GOP Senators who vote for it.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said the final product, just over 2,700 pages long, will be “great for the American people.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will consider amendments this week and a final vote could be held “in a matter of days.”

“It’s been decades since Congress passed such a significant standalone investment,” the New York Democrat said, “and I salute the hard work done that was here by everybody.”

Here’s a look at what’s included in the agreement:

Transportation

Roads, bridges, major projects: $110 billion

Passenger and freight rail: $66 billion

Public transit: $39 billion

Airports: $25 billion

Port infrastructure: $17 billion

Transportation safety programs: $11 billion

Electric vehicles: $7.5 billion

Zero and low-emission buses and ferries: $7.5 billion

Reconnect communities: $1 billion

Other infrastructure

Broadband: $65 billion

Power infrastructure: $73 billion

Clean drinking water: $55 billion

Resilience and Western water storage: $50 billion

Environmental remediation: $21 billion

How would they pay for it?

According to a recent fact sheet from the White House released a few days before the final legislation was unveiled, the package will be financed through a combination of funds, including repurposing unspent emergency relief funds from the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening tax enforcement for cryptocurrencies.

Goals of the plan

Back in June, the White House shared a fact sheet with the aims of the package: Improve healthy, sustainable transportation options for millions of Americans by modernizing and expanding transit and rail networks across the country while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Repair and rebuild roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity and safety for all users, including cyclists and pedestrians.

Build a national network of electric vehicle chargers along highways and in rural and disadvantaged communities.

Electrify thousands of school and transit buses across the country to reduce harmful emissions and drive domestic manufacturing of zero emission vehicles and components.

Eliminate the nation’s lead service lines and pipes, delivering clean drinking water to up to 10 million American families and more than 400,000 schools and child care facilities that currently don’t have it, including in tribal nations and disadvantaged communities.

Connect every American to reliable high-speed internet.

Upgrade the power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy, including through a new grid authority.

Create a first-of-its-kind Infrastructure Financing Authority that will leverage billions of dollars into clean transportation and clean energy.

Make the largest investment in addressing legacy pollution in American history.

Prepare more infrastructure for impacts of climate change, cyberattacks and extreme weather events.

India Launches E-RUPI Digital Payment Platform

Staff ReporterCommunity, Finance/Economy 0

(E-RUPI Digital Payment Solution is a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment. It is a QR code or SMS string-based e-Voucher, which is delivered to the mobile of the beneficiaries)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched digital payment solution e-RUPI, a person and purpose specific cashless digital payment solution, via videoconference on Monday, August 2, 2021. Speaking on the occasion, he said the eRUPI voucher was a symbol of how India was progressing by connecting people’s lives with technology. He expressed happiness that this futuristic reform initiative had come at a time when the country was celebrating the Amrit Mahotsav on the 75th anniversary of Independence.

e-RUPI is a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment. It gets delivered to the mobile phones of beneficiaries through a QR code or SMS string. The users of this new one-time payment mechanism will be able to redeem the voucher without a card, digital payments app or internet banking access, at the service provider.

The platform has been developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on its unified payments interface (UPI) platform, in collaboration with the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and the National Health Authority.

The PMO in a recent statement said that e-RUPI can be used for delivering services under schemes meant for providing drugs and nutritional support under Mother and Child welfare schemes, TB eradication programs, drugs and diagnostics under schemes like Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, fertilizer subsidies etc. It added that even the private sector can leverage these digital vouchers as part of their employee welfare and corporate social responsibility programs.

Speaking at the launch of the new platform, Modi said that the e-RUPI voucher is going to play a major role in strengthening the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme by the government. He further said e-RUPI will help in assuring targeted, transparent and leakage-free delivery for all.

Modi said that e-RUPI is a person as well as a purpose-specific payment platform. The prime minister further noted that technology is being seen as a tool to help the poor. He added that technology is bringing transparency in DBT. Speaking on the adoption of technology, Modi said that India is showing the world it is not behind in adopting new technology. Be it in terms of innovations or usage of technology in the delivery of services, India is capable of being a global leader.

He said that the work done in the field of digital infrastructure and digital transactions across the country during the past 6-7 years is being applauded by the world today. He added that the government is using direct benefit transfer to provide benefits of 300 schemes ranging from LPG to ration to pension directly to beneficiaries.

In addition to the government, he stated, if any organization wanted to help someone in their treatment, education or for any other work, then they would be able to give an eRUPI voucher instead of cash. This would ensure that the money given by him was used for the work for which the amount had been given.

The Prime Minister observed, “eRUPI will ensure that the money is being used for the purpose for which any help or any benefit is being provided’’. There was a time when technology was considered a domain of the rich people and there was no scope for technology in a poor country like India. “Today we are seeing technology as a tool to help the poor, a tool for their progress,’’ he pointed out.

Modi asserted how technology was bringing in transparency and integrity in transactions and creating new opportunities and making them available to the poor. For reaching today’s unique product, the foundation was prepared over the years by creating the JAM system, which connected mobile and Aadhaar. “Benefits of JAM took some time to be visible to people and we saw how we could help the needy during the lockdown period while other countries were struggling to help their people,’’ he stressed.

The development of digital transactions had empowered the poor and deprived, small businesses, farmers and tribal population. This could be felt in the record 300 crore UPI transactions in July, amounting to ₹6 lakh crore, he highlighted.

India was proving to the world that “we are second to none in adopting technology and adapting to it” through innovations and use of technology in service delivery. The country had the ability to give global leadership alongside major countries of the world, he added.

As Amazon Stocks Stumble, Jeff Bezos Loses Title As Richest Person On The Planet

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy 0

Jeff Bezos, the multibillionaire has lost the title as the richest person on earth as his net worth actually tumbled — by $13.9 billion in one day, August 2nd.   Bezos’ net worth fell because Amazon’s AMZN, +0.12% stock price took a hit last week, sliding 7% after the company reported less-than-anticipated second-quarter growth.

The drop in Bezos’ net worth allowed for French tycoon Bernard Arnault to claim the No. 1 spot of the ultra-wealthy. Arnault heads the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH LVMH, +1.49%,  whose subsidiaries include Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Moët & Chandon and Tiffany & Co.

It might seem that a global pandemic and economic recession would set the luxury goods market back a bit, but Arnault remarkably grew his wealth by nearly $100 billion during the first year of the pandemic.

Arnault’s net worth sat at $195.8 billion as of Monday, while Bezos’ hovered at $192.6 billion.  Bezos made history in 2020 as the first person ever to be worth $200 billion, as Amazon enjoyed big gains from pandemic lockdowns.

The two billionaires had jockeyed for the top spot throughout May and June of this year, but the recent toss up put an end to Bezos’ 50-day streak at the top of the heap, according to Forbes.

In total, there are 2,755 billionaires worldwide, 86% of which are richer than they were a year ago for a combined $5 trillion increase in wealth in 2020.  Meanwhile, the median net worth for American families is $121,700.

US Economy Grows At 6.5% In 2nd Quarter

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy 0

The US economy grew at a lower-than-anticipated annual rate of 6.5 per cent in the second quarter, marking the return to an above pre-pandemic level of overall economic activity, the Commerce Department reported. However, the 6.5 per cent gain was considerably less than the 8.4 per cent Dow Jones estimate, Xinhua news agency reported.

In terms of real gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — the economy has now recovered in that has grown bigger than its pre-pandemic size. Earlier this month, the National Bureau of Economic Research designated the pandemic recession as the shortest on record, lasting just two months: March and April 2020.

In the first quarter, real GDP increased by 6.3 per cent, 0.1 percentage point less than previously reported, according to the latest data issued by the Department on Thursday. The increase in real GDP in the second quarter reflected increases in personal consumption expenditures (PCE), non-residential fixed investment, exports, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by decreases in private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, and federal government spending, the Commerce Department report showed.

Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased. The GDP data was released a day after the Federal Reserve signaled that it was inching closer to tapering its asset purchases amid concerns over surging inflation and the rapid spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant.

In the latest update to its World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday projected the US economy would grow by 7.0 per cent this year, up 0.6 percentage point from its April projection.

The upward revision reflects the anticipated legislation of additional fiscal support in the second half of 2021 and improved health metrics. In 2022, the US economy is expected to grow by 4.9 per cent, according to the IMF.

 

The Brutal Truth About Bitcoin

Eswar Prasad At Brookings InstituteBusiness, Finance/Economy 0

Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, has been on a wild ride since its creation in 2009. Earlier this year, the price of one Bitcoin surged to over $60,000, an eightfold increase in 12 months. Then it fell to half that value in just a few weeks. Values of other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin have risen and fallen even more sharply, often based just on Elon Musk’s tweets. Even after the recent fall in their prices, the total market value of all cryptocurrencies now exceeds $1.5 trillion, a staggering amount for virtual objects that are nothing more than computer code. Are cryptocurrencies the wave of the future and should you be using and investing in them? And do the massive swings in their prices—nearly $1 trillion was wiped off their total value in May—portend trouble for the financial system?

Bitcoin was created (by a person or group that remains unidentified to this day) as a way to conduct transactions without the intervention of a trusted third party, such as a central bank or financial institution. Its emergence amid the global financial crisis, which shook trust in banks and even governments, was perfectly timed. Bitcoin enabled transactions using only digital identities, granting users some degree of anonymity. This made Bitcoin the preferred currency for illicit activities, including recent ransomware attacks. It powered the shadowy darknet of illegal online commerce much like PayPal helped the rise of eBay by making payments easier.

While Bitcoin’s roller-coaster prices garner attention, of far more consequence is the revolution in money and finance it has set off that will ultimately affect every one of us, for better and worse. As it grew in popularity, Bitcoin became cumbersome, slow, and expensive to use. It takes about 10 minutes to validate most transactions using the cryptocurrency and the transaction fee has been at a median of about $20 this year. Bitcoin’s unstable value has also made it an unviable medium of exchange. It is as though your $10 bill could buy you a beer on one day and a bottle of fine wine on another.

Moreover, it has become clear that Bitcoin does not offer true anonymity. The government’s success in tracking and retrieving part of the Bitcoin ransom paid to the hacking collective DarkSide in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack has heightened doubts about the security and nontraceability of Bitcoin transactions. While Bitcoin has failed in its stated objectives, it has become a speculative investment. This is puzzling. It has no intrinsic value and is not backed by anything.

Bitcoin devotees will tell you that, like gold, its value comes from its scarcity—Bitcoin’s computer algorithm mandates a fixed cap of 21 million digital coins (nearly 19 million have been created so far). But scarcity by itself can hardly be a source of value. Bitcoin investors seem to be relying on the greater fool theory—all you need to profit from an investment is to find someone willing to buy the asset at an even higher price.

Despite their high valuations on paper, a collapse of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is unlikely to rattle the financial system. Banks have mostly stayed on the sidelines. As with any speculative bubble, naive investors who come to the party late are at greatest risk of losses. The government should certainly caution retail investors that, much like in the GameStop saga, they act at their own peril. Securities that enable speculation on Bitcoin prices are already regulated, but there is not much more the government can or ought to do.

Bitcoin is not innocuous. Transactions are processed by “miners” using massive amounts of computing power in return for rewards in the form of Bitcoin. By some estimates, the Bitcoin network consumes as much energy as entire countries like Argentina and Norway, not to mention the mountains of electronic waste from specialized machines used for such mining operations that burn out rapidly.

Whatever Bitcoin’s eventual fate, its blockchain technology is truly ingenious and groundbreaking. Bitcoin has shown how programs running on networks of computers can be harnessed to securely conduct payments, within and between countries, without relying on avaricious financial institutions that charge high fees. For migrant workers sending remittances back to their home countries, for instance, such fees are a major burden. Technologies that make payments cheaper, quicker and easier to track would benefit consumers and businesses, facilitating both domestic and international commerce.

The technology is not without risks. Facebook plans to issue its own cryptocurrency called Diem intended to make digital payments easier. Unlike Bitcoin, Diem would be fully backed by reserves of U.S. dollars or other major currencies, ensuring stable value. But, as with its other ostensibly high-minded initiatives, Facebook can hardly be trusted to put the public’s welfare above its own. The prospect of multinational corporations one day issuing their own unbacked cryptocurrencies worldwide is deeply disquieting. Such currencies won’t threaten the U.S. dollar, but could wipe out the currencies of smaller and less developed countries.

Variants of Bitcoin’s technology are also making many financial products and services available to the masses at low cost, directly connecting savers and borrowers. These developments and the possibilities created by the new technologies have spurred central banks to consider issuing digital versions of their own currencies. China, Japan, and Sweden are already conducting trials of their digital currencies.

Ironically, rather than truly democratizing finance, some of these innovations may exacerbate inequality. Unequal financial literacy and digital access might result in sophisticated investors garnering the benefits while the less well off, dazzled by new technologies, take on risks they do not fully comprehend. Computer algorithms could worsen entrenched racial and other biases in credit scoring and financial decisions, rather than reducing them. The ubiquity of digital payments could also destroy any remaining vestiges of privacy in our day-to-day lives. While Bitcoin’s roller-coaster prices garner attention, of far more consequence is the revolution in money and finance it has set off that will ultimately affect every one of us, for better and worse.

Pandemic Leaves Indians Mired In Massive Medical Debts

Krutika Pathi And Yirmiyan Arthur At APFinance/Economy, Health 0

NEW DELHI (AP) — As coronavirus cases ravaged India this spring, Anil Sharma visited his 24-year-old son Saurav at a private hospital in northwest New Delhi every day for more than two months. In May, as India’s new COVID-19 cases broke global records to reach 400,000 a day, Saurav was put on a ventilator.

The sight of the tube running into Saurav’s throat is seared in Sharma’s mind. “I had to stay strong when I was with him, but immediately after, I would break down as soon as I left the room,” he said. Saurav is home now, still weak and recovering. But the family’s joy is tempered by a mountain of debt that piled up while he was sick. Life has been tentatively returning to normal in India as new coronavirus cases have fallen. But millions are embroiled in a nightmare of huge piles of medical bills. Most Indians don’t have health insurance and costs for COVID-19 treatment have them drowning in debt. Sharma exhausted his savings on paying for an ambulance, tests, medicines and an ICU bed. Then he took out bank loans.

As the costs mounted, he borrowed from friends and relatives. Then, he turned to strangers, pleading online for help on Ketto, an Indian crowdfunding website. Overall, Sharma says he has paid over $50,000 in medical bills. The crowdfunding provided $28,000, but another $26,000 is borrowed money he needs to repay, a kind of debt he has never faced before. “He was struggling for his life and we were struggling to provide him an opportunity to survive,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I was a proud father — and now I have become a beggar.”

The pandemic has devastated India’s economy, bringing financial calamity to millions at the mercy of its chronically underfunded and fragmented healthcare system. Experts say such costs are bound to hinder an economic recovery. “What we have is a patchwork quilt of incomplete public insurance and a poor public health system. The pandemic has shown just how creaky and unsustainable these two things are,” said VivekDehejia, an economist who has studied public policy in India. Even before the pandemic, healthcare access in India was a problem. Indians pay about 63% of their medical expenses out-of-pocket. That’s typical of many poor countries with inadequate government services. Data on global personal medical costs from the pandemic are hard to come by, but in India and many other countries treatment for COVID is a huge added burden at a time when hundreds of millions of jobs have vanished.

In India, many jobs returned as cities opened up after a severe lockdown in March 2020, but economists worry about the loss of some 12 million salaried positions. Sharma’s job as a marketing professional was one of them. When he asked his son’s friends to set up the campaign on Ketto to raise funds, Sharma hadn’t seen a paycheck in 18 months. Between April and June this year, 40% of the 4,500 COVID-19 campaigns on the site were for hospitalization costs, the company said. The pandemic has driven 32 million Indians out of the middle class, defined as those earning $10 to $20 a day, according to a Pew Research Center study published in March. It estimated the crisis has increased the number of India’s poor — those with incomes of $2 or less a day — by 75 million.

“If you’re looking at what pushes people into debt or poverty, the top two sources often are out-of-pocket health expenditure and catastrophic costs of treatment,” said K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. In the northeastern city of Imphal, 2,400 kilometers (1,490 miles) away, Diana Khumanthem lost both her mother and sister to the virus in May. Treatment costs wiped out the family’s savings, and when the private hospital where her sister died wouldn’t release her body for last rites until a bill of about $5,000 was paid, she pawned the family’s gold jewelry to moneylenders.

When that wasn’t enough, asked her friends, relatives and her sister’s colleagues for help. She still owes some $1,000. A health insurance scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 was intended to cover around 500 million of India’s 1.3 billion people and was a major step toward easing medical costs. But it doesn’t cover the primary care and outpatient costs that comprise most out-of-pocket expenses. So it hasn’t “effectively improved access to care and financial risk protection,” said a working paper by researchers at Duke University.

The program also has been hobbled by disparities in how various states implemented it, said ShawinVitsupakorn, one of the paper’s authors. Another paper, by the Duke Global Health Institute and the Public Health Foundation of India, found costs of ICU hospitalization for COVID-19 are equivalent to nearly 16 months of work for a typical Indian day laborer or seven to 10 months for salaried or self-employed workers.

Meager funding of healthcare, at just 1.6% of India’s GDP, is less, proportionately, than what Laos or Ethiopia spends. At the outbreak’s peak in May, hospitals everywhere were overrun, but public facilities lacked the resources to handle the floods of patients coming in. “The result is a suffering public health system, where the provision of care is often poor, prompting many to flock to private hospitals,” said Dehejia.

A public hospital treated Khumanthem’s mother, but her sister Ranjita was admitted to a private one that cost $1,300 per day. Ranjita was the family’s only earner after Khumanthem left her nursing job last year to return home during the first wave of the virus. She’s now hunting for work while looking after her father and her sister’s 3-year-old son. At her home in Imphal, Khumanthem grieved for her mother by remembering her favorite food — chagempomba, a type of gruel made with vegetables, rice and soybeans. Every few minutes, she looked toward the front gate.

“This is usually the time Ranjita would return home from work,” she said. “I still keep thinking she could walk through the gate any moment now.” Back in New Delhi, Sharma sighed in relief as an ambulance brought his son home from the hospital last week. Saurav needs physiotherapy to build up his weakened muscles, a daily nurse and a long list of medications. It may be weeks before he will be able to stand on his own, and months before the ambitious lawyer who graduated among the top of his class will be able to go to court again.  The costs will continue. “Our first priority was to save him,” Sharma said. “Now we will need to figure out the rest.”

NRI Appointed As Vice-Chairman Of Abu Dhabi Chamber Of Commerce

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy, Profile 0

The crown prince of Abu Dhabi & deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan appointed Indian-origin businessman Yusuffali MA as the vice-chairman of Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ADCCI). The 65-year-old businessman is the only Indian among the 29-member board. Yusuffali is the chairman and managing director of Lulu Group International,  a chain of hypermarkets and retail companies which is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It was founded in 2000 by Yusuffali in Thrissur district of India’s Kerala.

This is indeed a very proud and emotional moment for me. I am very happy to receive Abu Dhabi’s highest civilian award from the blessed hands of HH Sheikh @MohamedBinZayed, Crown Prince & Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/G2CmupCDfn Sheikh Mohamed issued a resolution to form a new board of directors for ADCCI, chaired by Abdullah Mohamed Al Mazrouei and prominent Indian businessman Yusuffali MA as the vice-chairman.

ADCCI is the apex government body of all businesses established in Abu Dhabi and functions as a bridge between the government and the business sector. The mission of this governing body is to contribute towards developing and organize the commercial and trade activities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, increase the competitiveness capabilities of the companies of the private sector, and expand their opportunities through providing high world-class services which would contribute to realizing sustainable development in the Emirate.

“It is truly a very humbling and proud moment in my life. My sincere gratitude to the visionary leadership of this great country and I will strive to do my best towards justifying the great responsibility entrusted upon me. Apart from working for the growth of Abu Dhabi economy and the larger business community, I will sincerely work towards further boosting the Indo-UAE trade relations”, news reports quoted him as saying. Yusuffali arrived in Abu Dhabi 47 years ago and in April 2021, Sheikh Mohamed honored Yusuffali with ‘Abu Dhabi Awards 2021’, the highest civilian honor for his almost five-decade-long contributions in the fields of economic development and philanthropy.

In Retaliation For Critical Coverage, Modi Government Raids Top Indian Media

Gerry Shih,NihaMasih, The Washington PostFinance/Economy, Media 0

Indian tax authorities on Thursday, July 21, 2021,  raided one of the country’s most prominent newspapers in what journalists and the political opposition denounced as retaliation for the outlet’s hard-nosed coverage of the government’s pandemic response. The DainikBhaskar Group, whose Hindi-language broadsheet boasts a combined circulation of more than 4 million, was raided simultaneously in at least four locations, including at its headquarters in Madhya Pradesh state.

Surabhi Ahluwalia, a spokeswoman for the tax authority, said searches were on at multiple locations across the country linked to the group but declined to share details about the case. She said the department usually undertakes searches in matters of tax evasion. But the justification of tax evasion was panned by government critics, who pointed out that the Bhaksar has been persistently needling India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with its coverage, including as recently as this week.

The Press Club of India said in a statement that it “deplores such acts of intimidation by the government through enforcement agencies to deter the independent media.” Under the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who rose to power in 2014, several critical media outlets have found themselves in tax investigators’ cross-hairs, raising fears about the health of the independent press in the world’s largest democracy. Reporters without Borders, the advocacy group, recently placed India at 142nd place in its press freedom rankings, roughly on par with Myanmar and Mexico.

Om Gaur, the Bhaskar’s national editor, said his staff’s mobile devices were seized during the raids as a “tactic to harass journalists.” “The raid is outcome of our aggressive reporting, especially during the second wave of pandemic in April,” Gaur said by telephone. “Unlike some other media we reported how people were dying for lack of oxygen and hospital beds.” The tax investigation “is not going to change anything for us,” he added. “We will keep doing good journalism.”

As covid-19 roiled India this spring, the Bhaskar splashed photos of funeral pyres on its front pages, reported on corpses floating in the Ganges river and repeatedly challenged the government’s narrative about the disaster and its official death statistics. Gaur, the editor, contributed an op-ed in the New York Times that made waves in his home country. The paper has sometimes taken a less-than-orthodox approach to holding government accountable: as citizens in the state of Gujarat struggled to procure covid-19 medication in April, the paper published the phone number of the BJP’s state president in a massive front-page headline.

This week, after The Washington Post and its media partners disclosed the Indian government’s use of the NSO Group’s Pegasus phone hacking program against opposition figures, activists and journalists, the DainikBhaksar was one of the few Hindi-language papers that featured the story prominently. It also followed up with an article recapping what it said was Modi’s record of snooping on political rivals going back 15 years, when he served as chief minister in Gujarat. The article was quickly retracted.

On Thursday, opposition figures rebuked the government. “Income Tax raid on DainikBhaskar newspaper & Bharat Samachar news channel is a brazen attempt to suppress the voice of media,” Ashok Gehlot, the chief minister of Rajasthan state and a member of the Congress Party, said in a tweet. “Modi government cannot tolerate even an iota of its criticism.” India’s free-wheeling press was stunned in 2017 when the government launched an investigation into New Delhi Television, which was known for its independent streak. The top investigative agency raided NDTV’s offices and the homes of its founders, the Roy family, over suspected financial malfeasance. The channel called it a “blatant political attack on the freedom of the press.” The company has also faced a litany of probes from various agencies over alleged tax violations and money laundering.

In 2019, NDTV protested again when the Roys were barred from boarding an international flight out of Mumbai. The most recent raids on a media outlet came in February, when authorities investigated NewsClick, a left-leaning digital outlet, over its foreign remittances from a businessman with alleged links to China’s Communist party. The outlet denied the accusations.

Job Advertisement

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Media 0

 

Consulate General of India, Atlanta (USA)                

Required:
(1) Clerk
(1) Marketing Assistant
(1) Messenger                 

Consulate General of India (CGI), Atlanta requires the services of qualified young persons to fill up the following posts at the Consulate.

For Clerk: 

Required Skills:

  • Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university;
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills in English ;
  • Proficiency with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, etc;
  • Dependable, organized, problem-solver;
  • Great Typing skills;
  • Keenness to learn and willingness to work hard.

Experience: 1-2 years of similar experience in an administrative role

For Marketing Assistant:

Required Skills:

  • A University Degree or equivalent qualification, preferably in Business & Marketing. Masters preferred;
  • Knowledge of International Trade Issues, including Intellectual Property Rights;
  • Adequate experience in the interdisciplinary analysis of trade and commerce vis-à-vis international political developments;
  • Proficiency in English language, communication skills, teamwork, Computer Operation – including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
  • Knowledge of US Government functioning, rules & regulations, and Policies;
  • Organizational skills to plan promotional events;
  • Keenness to learn and willingness to work hard.

Experience: 1-2 years of similar experience in Marketing Assistant Role

For Messenger:

Required Skills:

  • A High School degree is a must and, a bachelor’s degree is preferred;
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills ;
  • Knowledge of Computer Skills, if any, preferred. (applicant may have to perform the clerical job as and when required);
  • Dependable, organized, problem-solver;
  • Keenness to learn and willingness to work hard.

Experience: 1-2 years of similar experience.

Head of Chancery

Consulate General of India, Atlanta

5549 Glenridge Drive

Atlanta GA 30342

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

Please Note: Position(s) are only for applicants who are either US citizens or permanent residents. Deadline of Submission: 10/07/2021

Monthly Child Tax Credit Payments Begin

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy 0

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department announced today that millions of American families have started receiving monthly Child Tax Credit payments as direct deposits begin posting in bank accounts and checks arrive in mailboxes. This first batch of advance monthly payments worth roughly $15 billion reached about 35 million families today across the country. About 86% were sent by direct deposit.

The payments will continue each month. The IRS urged people who normally aren’t required to file a tax return to explore the tools available on IRS.gov. These tools can help determine eligibility for the advance Child Tax Credit or help people file a simplified tax return to sign up for these payments as well as Economic Impact Payments, and other credits you may be eligible to receive.

Under the American Rescue Plan, each payment is up to $300 per month for each child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each child ages 6 through 17. Normally, anyone who receives a payment this month will also receive a payment each month for the rest of 2021 unless they unenroll. Besides the July 15 payment, payment dates are: Aug. 13, Sept. 15, Oct. 15, Nov. 15 and Dec. 15.

Here are further details on these payments:

  • Families will see the direct deposit payments in their accounts starting today, July 15. For those receiving payment by paper check, they should remember to take into consideration the time it takes to receive it by mail.
  • Payments went to eligible families who filed 2019 or 2020 income tax returns.
  • Tax returns processed by June 28 are reflected in these payments. This includes people who don’t typically file a return, but during 2020 successfully registered for Economic Impact Payments using the IRS Non-Filers tool or in 2021 successfully used the Non-filer Sign-up Tool for Advance CTC, also on IRS.gov.
  • Payments are automatic. Aside from filing a tax return, including a simplified return from the Non-Filer Sign-Up tool, families don’t have to do anything if they are eligible to receive monthly payments.

Additional information is available on a special Advance Child Tax Credit 2021 page, designed to provide the most up-to-date information about the credit and the advance payments.

Financial Literacy Movement Launched By Sal Khan & Others

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A group of business, sports, entertainment and nonprofit leaders, including Khan Academy’s Indian American founder and chief executive officer Sal Khan, has banded together to launch the “Financial Literacy for All” initiative. The initiative, which launched June 21, will support embedding financial literacy into American culture. This 10-year commitment will reach millions of youth and working adults enabling them to achieve greater financial success for themselves and their families, according to a news release.

In addition to Khan, the group includes Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart; Bob Chapek, CEO of The Walt Disney Company; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO of Bank of America; Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Walgreens; Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines; Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL; Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA; Tony Ressler, executive chair of Ares Management and principal owner of the Atlanta Hawks; and John Hope Bryant, chair and CEO of Operation HOPE. McMillon and Bryant will serve as co-chairs of “Financial Literacy for All,” with expectation that the initiative will expand as additional organizations sign on.

“I believe we are in a moment in history, where the public and private sector can join together to help every American reach their potential and fully participate in the greatest economy on earth,” said Bryant. “With this initiative, we are not just seeking to change America’s relationship with their finances, but to change their mindset on what they can accomplish.” “Financial well-being begins with good pay and benefits, but it also includes real opportunity for career growth and access to tools and resources that help manage daily financial needs, build greater financial resiliency and plan for retirement.” added McMillon. “We are inspired by Operation Hope’s vision and look forward to collaborating with other major employers to discover new and better ways to support and engage our associates along their individual financial well-being journey.”

Underscoring the need for financial literacy, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s current Investor Education Foundation survey found that only one-third of U.S. residents surveyed could answer basic questions about interest rates, financial risk and mortgage rates—down by nearly one-quarter from 2009, according to the release. In addition, the cost of financial illiteracy to U.S. citizens is estimated to be $415 billion for 2020, according to a recent study by National Financial Educators Council.

Given the importance and societal impact of financial literacy and with a goal to expand people’s access to opportunities, these organizations are acting now—leveraging their collective innovative and creative expertise as well as their daily interaction with millions of employees, clients, customers and suppliers to spur a national movement of financial capability, it said. This alignment of vision and mission is supported by making financial literacy easier to understand and generating public awareness of its importance by directly connecting with working adults; and providing targeted outreach to middle and high school students as well as those attending community college and four-year universities with innovative outreach and existing “Best Practices.”

Specific steps include promotion of a recently launched educational video series from Walmart that will reach more than a million of its associates; all 80,000 Delta people in the U.S. will have access to in-person and/or virtual Operation HOPE coaches and curriculum starting July 12; and Bank of America will expand access to its award-winning Better Money Habits platform, the release noted.

June 21st Is Child Tax Credit Awareness Day

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The White House has designated June 21 as Child Tax Credit Awareness Day to ensure eligible families know about the American Rescue Plan’s expansion of the child tax credit and know how to access the benefit. The American Rescue Plan signed in March as part of the stimulus relief bill includes a historic temporary expansion of the child tax credit for 2021 that will offer $3,000 for each child age six to 17 and $3,600 per child under six to eligible families. The benefit will be disbursed in two installments. The first half, $1,500 or $1,800 per child, will be paid in monthly payments of $250 or $300 starting July 15 and continuing through December. You’ll claim the other half on next year’s tax return.

You normally must have earned income to claim the child tax credit. For this year, you’re entitled to the credit even if you were not employed and had no earned income. And whereas the usual $2,000 credit is only refundable up to $1,2000, the entire expanded credit is refundable. What “fully refundable” means is that if your total federal income tax liability is less than the credit amount, you receive the difference back as a refund. For example, if your total tax liability is $0 and your credit is $3,600, you’ll receive $3,600 back. If your tax liability is $2,000 and your credit is $3,000, you’ll receive $1,000 back. The income threshold to receive the full credit is $75,000 for a single filer.

The IRS estimates that almost 90% of children are eligible to begin receiving monthly payments without any further action required, the National Association of Counties reported. This means if you filed your 2020 or 2019 taxes, you will not need to do anything further to begin receiving your payments starting July 15. Otherwise, you must file for the credit in order to receive it.

The IRS has set up two portals where you can input your information in order to ensure you’re covered. If you have not filed or are a non-filer in general, you can use the IRS Non-Filer Portal Tool located on the IRS website. If you’ve filed a tax return but have had a change in income or marital status or you’ve had a baby, you’ll use the Child Tax Credit Update Portal, which the IRS will make available before the monthly payments begin.

About 27 million children qualify for this direct income support, including many whose families have no earned income and thus would not be eligible for the child tax credit under the normal rules. Estimates suggest that the expansion could lift nearly 5 million children out of poverty in 2021, according to the National Association of Counties. This would represent an almost 50% reduction in the child poverty rate.

Dr. Kiran Patel Invests In Mumbai-Based EV Charging Startup

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An eminent Indian-American cardiologist and philanthropist, has raised more than $15mn in Series A funding for a Mumbai-based electric vehicle charging solutions company, Magenta EV Solutions. Besides being a cardiologist, Dr. Kiran Patel is a billionaire and a serial entrepreneur.

“My wife and I have always believed in building a legacy by partnering with companies who are passionate in making this planet better for the next generation. I met the Magenta team over lunch when I was in India and within minutes into the discussion, I felt I found a team who are as passionate as I am, to bring about a difference,” Dr. Patel said.

Founded by Maxson Lewis and Darryl Dias, Magenta was Incorporated in 2017, and in the last three years, it has established itself as a key player in the EV charging market under the ChargeGrid brand. The company aims to have a share of 30% in the Indian EV charging market, which it estimates to be 3000 GW.hr by 2030.Seed funded by HPCL and incubated by Shell, ChargeGrid is also backed by the Microsoft Startup Program to further boost its advanced technology platform. At present, Magenta has operations in more than 10 cities.

“With Dr. Kiran Patel coming aboard, Magenta would be exposed to global markets, backed by financial and strategical management bandwidth. Dr. Patel has been investing and supporting start-ups and early-stage businesses in India and across the globe and mentor them through their scale-up journey,” said the company in a statement. It further added that Pantomath Capital Advisors Private Limited is the sole investment banker to Magenta for the transaction.In 2018, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd invested in Magenta Power, as it plans to get into the electric vehicle charging business in the future.

“Magenta provides end-to-end hardware, software, installation, operations and maintenance of electric vehicle charging solutions. Magenta will expand its product line with new streetlamp integrated EV charger, one of many new innovative products currently under development,” said the company in the above-mentioned statement.Lack of charging stations has been one of the biggest impediments for adoption of electric mobility in the country and startups like Magenta are playing a crucial role in developing low-cost chargers which can be deployed in different parts of the country.

The Indian government in collaboration with manufacturers of electric vehicles and charging devices has been developing a low-cost charging device for electric two and three-wheelers which is expected to help push the adoption of such vehicles in the coming years.The Narendra Modi government has been urging vehicle manufacturers to develop and manufacture electric vehicles to reduce vehicular emissions and curb oil imports. The union government has also been incentivizing the purchase of such zero-emission vehicles and setting up of changing devices through the second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing Electric and Hybrid vehicle (FAME) scheme.

Dr. Patel has generously contributed his fortune for several noble causes in India, his country of origin, the United States, his adopted country, and Zambia, the country of his birth. Dr. Patel is also the Chairman and President of Optimum Healthcare, Inc.All philanthropic campaigns, contributions and projects have resulted from his passion for health, education and charity. That’s why he has also commissioned Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Global University, a 120-acre institute under construction in India.Sharing his own experiences of investing in the state of Gujarat and in the United States, Dr. Patel, said, with the state requiring more trained personnel to support the growing needs, he is willing to establish a Medical College in Rajasthan.

Dr. Patel, a very soft spoken physician of Indian origin, said the projects combine his passions for health education and charity. In his first venture in running a university, he hopes to fulfill a need for competent doctors in the area while also educating generations of physicians who can serve in underprivileged areas across the globe.Dr. Patel had purchased the former Clearwater Christian College property with a goal of developing an osteopathic medical school in his home-state, Florida. The Indian American physician closed on the $12 million purchase of the 25-acre campus overlooking Old Tampa Bay at the west end of the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

India Denies State-Owned Banks Will Withdraw Funds From Foreign Currency Accounts

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The Indian government has denied reports that it has asked state-owned banks to withdraw funds from foreign currency accounts abroad in anticipation of their potential seizure with regard to the Cairn legal dispute, terming such information as “false and baseless”.

“Condemning all such source-based reports as false, the Government of India said that these are totally incorrect reports which were not based on true facts. Certain vested parties appear to have orchestrated such misleading reporting, which often relies upon unnamed sources and presents a lopsided picture of factual and legal developments in the case,” said an official statement.

It said that the India is “vigorously” defending its case in this legal dispute, and has filed an application on March 22 to set aside the “highly flawed” December 2020 international arbitral award in The Hague Court of Appeal.“The government has raised several arguments that warrant setting aside the award. This proceeding is pending,” the government said, adding that it is committed to pursuing all legal avenues to defend its case in this dispute worldwide.

It was also stated that the CEO and the representatives of Cairns have approached the government for discussions to resolve the matter. “Constructive discussions have been held and the Government remains open for an amicable solution to the dispute within the country’s legal framework,” the Finance Ministry statement said. (IANS)

A Crypto Crash Wiped Out $1 Trillion This Week

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Wild, stomach-churning moments are part of the experience when you buy a ticket to the crypto circus. But the past week’s volatility was enough to make some of the crypto faithful wonder whether they’ve been bamboozled.

On Wednesday, a broad crypto crash wiped out about $1 trillion in market value — a staggering drop from $2.5 trillion just a week ago. Bitcoin, which accounts for more than 40% of the global crypto market, nosedived 30% to $30,000 on Wednesday, its lowest point since January.By Friday, bitcoin had rebounded slightly, to around $37,000 — bruised by continued regulatory concerns, and far off its all time high above $64,000 that it hit a month ago.

Volatility is baked into the nascent cryptocurrency market, but the digital assets’ explosive growth in the past year has attracted hordes of amateur and professional investors looking for a quick profit. Many of them ride an upswing and get out, or panic sell when things turn sour, exacerbating gains or losses.

What happened?

The crypto market had been especially shaky for about a week before the crash on Wednesday.

On May 12, bitcoin fell 12% after Elon Musk walked back Tesla’s commitment to accept bitcoin as payment, citing concerns over the crytocurrency’s massive carbon footprint. Musk added to investor anxiety last weekend with a pair of seemingly contradictory tweets about bitcoin that left investors scratching their heads.

Then the big crash came Wednesday, after Chinese officials signaled a crackdown on crypto use in the country. The central bank issued a warning to Chinese financial institutions and businesses not to accept digital currencies as payment or offer services using them.The threat of increased regulation triggered a panic, and bitcoin plunged before rebounding slightly and leveling off. Other cryptocurrencies also tanked: Ethereum fell more than 40%, while dogecoin and binance lost around 30%.

By Thursday, bitcoin had recouped some losses and was back above $41,000. But a Friday statement from Chinese officials reiterating the need to crack down on cryptos beat bitcoin back down. It was trading around $37,000 on Friday afternoon. Other cryptos were also in the red.

Regulatory concerns

China has long had limits around crypto trading within its borders. Officials declared in 2013 that bitcoin was not a real currency and banned financial and payment institutions from using it. Individuals can hold or trade cryptocurrencies, but major exchanges in mainland China have been shut down.

On the surface, this week’s statements simply underscored China’s suspicion of cryptocurrencies generally. But they sent a clear signal that Beijing is not loosening its grip on the market anytime soon. Authorities are also launching a state-backed digital yuan that would keep money flows under strict oversight.

And it’s not just China. On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned about potential risks cryptocurrencies pose to the financial system. Powell also said the central bank would publish a paper this summer that will explore the implications of the US government developing a digital currency of its own.

A potential central bank digital currency “could serve as a complement to, and not a replacement of, cash and current private-sector digital forms of the dollar, such as deposits at commercial banks,” Powell said. The Treasury Department is also turning its attention to the crypto space. On Thursday officials said any transfer of digital currency valued at $10,000 or more must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

“Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion,” the Treasury said in a statement. “Despite constituting a relatively small portion of business income today, cryptocurrency transactions are likely to rise in importance in the next decade, especially in the presence of a broad-based financial account reporting regime.”

Bitcoin had been up nearly 6% Thursday but pared its gains after the statements from US officials, according to Bloomberg.

The future of cryptos

The week’s wild swings were a test for cryptocurrency fans. True believers tend to take the long view: At the start of 2020, bitcoin was trading around $7,000 a coin, which means it’s still up more than 400% in that time, even after crashing this week.

“We all tend to focus on day-by-day, week-by-week,” said William Quigley, managing director at crypto-focused investment fund on Wednesday. “But that’s not how most people buy cryptocurrencies, or even stocks.

Is it a bubble? Probably, according to ethereum co-creator VitalikButerin. In an interview with CNN Business this week, Buterin said he wasn’t surprised by the crash, because he’s seen it all before.

“We’ve had at least three of these big crypto bubbles so far,” he said. “And often enough, the reason the bubbles end up stopping is because some event happens that just makes it clear that the technology isn’t there yet.” (Courtesy: CNN Business)

Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers $5M In Ransom

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Colonial, a major US fuel pipeline has reportedly paid cyber-criminal gang DarkSide nearly $5m (£3.6m) in ransom, following a cyber-attack.Colonial Pipeline suffered a ransomware cyber-attack over the weekend and took its service down for five days, causing supplies to tighten across the US.CNN, the New York Times, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal all reported a ransom was paid, citing sources. Colonial said last week that it would not comment on the issue. Japanese consumer tech giant Toshiba also reported its European division in France had been hit by the same cyber-criminal gang.

Following the cyber-attack, Colonial announced it would resume operations on Wednesday evening, but warned that it could take several days for the delivery supply chain to return to normal.The 5,500-mile (8,900km) pipeline usually carries 2.5 million barrels a day on the East Coast. The closure saw supplies of diesel, petrol and jet fuel tighten across the US, with prices rising, an emergency waiver passed on Monday and a number of states declaring an emergency.

The average price per gallon hit $3.008 (£2.14) – the highest level seen since October 2014, according to the Automobile Association of America.US President Joe Biden reassured motorists that fuel supplies should start returning to normal this weekend, even as more filling stations ran out of gasoline across the Southeast. According to reports, Colonial had said initially it would not be paying the ransom demanded by the hackers.

Toshiba Tec France Imaging System, which is part of Toshiba, said it was hit by a similar cyber-attack by DarkSide on May 4th. However, the firm emphasized that no leaks of data had been detected and that only a minimal amount of work data was lost during the event.

It said it had put protective measures in place immediately after the attack.In light of a sharp increase in ransomware cyber-attacks during the pandemic, on Thursday President Biden signed an executive order to improve US cyber-defences. Earlier in the week, he said that although there was no evidence that the Kremlin was involved, there was evidence to suggest that the DarkSide gang of hackers was based in Russia.

The news that Colonial Pipeline paid these criminals is a major blow to President Biden. Only this week he signed a long-awaited executive order to beef up federal cyber-security and, in turn, make the US more secure from future attacks. These efforts have, in the view of some in the cyber-security world, been completely undermined.How can the Biden administration encourage corporations to spend millions securing their computer networks from attack when they’ve just witnessed Colonial, under the glare of the public eye, cave in to criminal demands and pay their way out of trouble?

The news will swell the ranks of those in the security world who want ransomware payments banned. But with companies, jobs and sometimes lives put at risk when ransomware hits, it is a tough call for policymakers.The potential silver-lining in this case comes from reports that even after Colonial paid the hackers, the criminals were so slow to help the company that pipeline staff got to work on recovery themselves.

The DarkSide hacker crew can no longer claim that they can restore victims services quickly and this may make others question whether or not to give in to their demands.’Our goal is to make money’

Cyber-security firms told the BBC that DarkSide operates by infiltrating an organisation’s computer network and stealing sensitive data.Typically, a day later the hackers will make themselves known, announcing that they have encrypted all the data in the network and are prepared to leak it onto the internet and delete it, if they are not paid a ransom by a certain deadline.

DarkSide operates by making the software used to execute this attack and then training affiliates to use it, who then give the gang a cut of the ransoms they take.Following concerns the Colonial cyber-attack was caused by nation-state hackers with a political motive, DarkSide posted on its website: “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society.”

The group also indicated it had not been aware that Colonial was being targeted by one of its affiliates and intended to “introduce moderation and check each company” its partners want to encrypt, “to avoid social consequences in the future”.On Friday, Reuters reported that DarkSide’s website on the dark web was no longer accessible.Colonial Pipeline’s website also continues to be offline.

Elon Musk Says, Tesla Will Not Accept Bitcoin For Transactions

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Tesla has suspended customers’ use of bitcoin to purchase its vehicles, Tesla’s billionaire CEO said last week, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining.Elon Musk said the company had suspended use of bitcoin for purchase of its electric vehicles, citing fears about the world’s biggest cryptocurrency’s “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels”.

The company started accepting bitcoin in March. Musk tweeted that they plan to start using it again “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy”. Following the tweet, bitcoin fell nearly 17% – its lowest point since the beginning of March. “We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of bitcoin’s energy/transaction,” Musk said.

How does bitcoin use fossil fuels? Bitcoin mining – the process by which the currency is created using high powered computers that compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles – is powered by electricity generated by fossil fuels, especially coal. At current rates, it is using approximately the equivalent amount of energy each year as the Netherlands did in 2019.

At current rates, such bitcoin “mining” devours about the same amount of energy annually as the Netherlands did in 2019, the latest available data from the University of Cambridge and the International Energy Agency shows.

Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at currency trading firm OANDA, said that Musk was getting ahead of investors focused on sustainability.

“The environmental impact from mining bitcoins was one of the biggest risks for the entire crypto market,” Moya said. “Over the past couple of months, everyone disregarded news that bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina and Norway.”

Chris Weston, head of research at broker Pepperstone in Melbourne, said Musk’s reaction was a blow to bitcoin but an acknowledgement of the currency’s carbon footprint. “Tesla has got an image of being environmentally friendly and bitcoin clearly is the opposite of that,” Weston said.

Bitcoin And Crypto Markets Crash

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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is experiencing a massive sell-off, shedding almost 15% in the last 24 hours — the biggest intraday drop since February.  The drop appears to coincide with reports that the US Treasury is planning to tackle financial institutions for money laundering carried out through digital assets.

Data website CoinMarketCap cited a blackout in China’s Xinjiang region for the fall, which allegedly powers much of Bitcoin mining — the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation.

On Sunday, the flagship crypto shed nearly $8,000 and was trading 12% lower at $54,900 around 12PM in London, down from a day high of $61,293.  It hit a day-low of $53,302 in the early hours of Sunday. Currently it has regained some lost ground, down 9% to $55,409 around 6PM.

Bitcoin’s flash crash saw a new record in liquidations, resulting in more than one million positions being wiped off the books. This meant that $10bn in positions were liquidated, according to Bybt.

Other cryptocurrencies have also plummeted.  Ethereum (ETH-USD) the second biggest cryptocurrency in circulation, fell 17% before paring losses. It is currently down 13% to $2,132. Litecoin (LTC-USD) also declined, down 24% to $252.

It comes days after bitcoin approached $65,000 ahead of the debut listing of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase on Wednesday. Coinbase is the first crypto firm to list on the Nasdaq (^IXIC).

In late February, bitcoin saw a retreat to as low as $43,000 amid uncertainty in the traditional markets over stimulus expectations and their positive effects on US bond yields.

Bitcoin prices have been up and down over the last few months as governments and regulators hone in on the sector amid rising demand.

On Friday, bitcoin plunged 4% after the Central Bank of Turkey banned the use of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets for payments.

Turkey’s central bank said the ban was motivated by a lack of “central authority regulation” and “supervision mechanisms” for cryptocurrencies and other similar digital assets.

The Bitcoin Lion Wakes Up!

Dr.Mathew JoysFinance/Economy 0

Bitcoin has officially reached an all-time high of $59K. Its market capitalization is now over a trillion dollars. The fact is that those of us who know nothing about cryptocurrencies are getting excited when we learn that thousands have been harvested in recent days.

If you want to move into an investment, it is cheaper and easier than trading stocks and options.

FSix years ago, when I first analyzed the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and recommended it to some, many people said it was a scam, and I thought it was crazy. It then had a market capitalization of just over $ 6 billion. This year, Bitcoin became the first crypto to earn a trillion dollars.

Over the past few years, the lucky few have had the opportunity to book high gains of up to 16,377% – a rare history of those who were able to turn $ 1,000 into $ 164,770.

As mentioned above, at about $ 59,000 each, Bitcoin is still a clever strategy to double your money to 10x or 20x. Over time, as more and more people try their luck, the event may turn out to be a catastrophe.

Gold has always been. The era of what was once considered a safe haven seems to be coming to an end.

Hedging is a good idea, but no one wants to do it with gold that has fallen into a bear market pattern. When the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020, gold prices fell again after a slight rise. Then the yellow metal is not doing its job now.

Last year, the United States spent $ 5.3 trillion on coronavirus relief, more than $ 27% of our annual GDP, but that did not significantly affect the price of gold.

The situation in the U.S. stock market has changed significantly this week. However, few investors may have noticed these signs. After a month of market fluctuations, the S&P and Dow jumped simultaneously, hitting all-time highs. For the first time in history, the Dow jumped to 33,000

Most people are thankful for Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion U.S. rescue plan, which will soon create a massive surge in the economy and pocket many Americans in the crowd.

Now, if you are a gold digger, many other things are hard to accept. It’s even more challenging for you to buy that Bitcoin has taken over the job of gold.

This is because gold has a history of thousands of years, while bitcoin has existed for a decade.

People have used horses for thousands of years. Within a decade, cars had eliminated horses, as the saying goes!

Then crypto has become your question mark!

If you have not yet taken your first step in this burgeoning market, there is no better time to do it. One reason for this is that as of January 2021, there are more than 4,000 cryptocurrencies in existence. Many are worthless. In the name of this, brokers and advisers are flooding the internet. Without a phone number or an office to ask questions about, or a certificate to show off, this cryptocurrency system, which continues to buy and sell only on digital platforms worldwide, has become a headache for economists and a secret money-making platform for intelligent greed.

For example, Bitcoin was the story of the highest investment in 2013 and 2014.

They have been at the forefront of developing currency exchanges and investment funds, driving Bitcoin into the headlines. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at $ 90. Over the next five months, Bitcoin rose 1,192 percent to $ 1,163. People across the country made millions of dollars. Some were even millions of banks. As a matter of fact!

Bitcoin’s popularity has grown due to its resistance to inflation, which is expected to become a more widely used payment method. But skeptics argue that its wild price rise could keep many companies away.

The market was buoyed when the electric car maker’s investment raised Bitcoin to a record high of $ 58,332.36. Still, the currency fell slightly after billionaire CEO Elon Musk expressed some skepticism on Twitter.

Many tons of cryptocurrencies are benefiting from this massive cash flow. Although many share the same DNA as Bitcoin, their total is very small.

As the world looks back on our time’s most revolutionary technological advances, two of the most important of these cryptocurrencies should be seen as examples.

  1. ETHEREUM (ETH)

As of March 2020, the ETH is trading at $ 130.

Today, a single shot costs more than $ 1,825. That’s about ten times more in a year. If you invested in ETH five years ago, a 1,000 investment would be worth more than $ 800,000. This is a very rare and unusual 80,000% gain.

  1. LITECOIN (LTC)

LTC was the first crypto to launch with Bitcoin in 2011. Today, a litecoin costs $ 201.11. Five years ago? It was trading below $ 5 that day. If you had bought $ 1,000 worth of Litecoin in 2016, you would have $ 34,200 in your pocket today.

There is no such thing as intellect when you think of yourself, and you have to test whether it exists today.

As Bitcoin soared from close to $ 5,000 last March and soared to $ 60,000 on March 13th, you may feel that something is missing now.

But it would be best if you were 100% focused on allowing your stock portfolio winners to rise higher and continue to know how to protect those gains when the market finally turns around.

The price of the world’s largest digital currency rose 8 percent to $ 59,274.13 a day earlier. That brings the total value to $ 1.15 trillion. (Coindesk Data Show).

Prices began to rise following further indications that institutional investors and large corporations were coming to cryptocurrency.

For example, Bitcoin-based investment firm NYVDG announced on Monday that it had raised $ 200 million from a group of investors, including Wall Street Titans Morgan Stanley, New York Life, billionaire financier George Soros, and Soros Fund Management.

Insurers on the company’s platform now have exposure to bitcoin worth over a billion dollars, which can be “an example of accelerating institutional bitcoin adoption”. The company’s announcement comes a month after Tesla revealed it had bought $ 1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, following in the footsteps of smaller companies such as Microstrategy and Jack Dorsey’s Square.

It remains at full strength this year as well.

The latest US stimulus package worth $ 1.9 trillion has now brought more money to market. The arrival of this new paper money reduces the value of the already popular dollar. This happens naturally. If the dollar had depreciated 13% of purchasing power against foreign currencies last year – it would have continued and would have had accurate results. This means that your purchasing power is declining rapidly. This means that following the same policy is a big mistake. Winners are said to be added quickly.

These are just some of the goal-setting shareware that you can use. No strategy is perfect. Any investment always carries the risk of loss. Some fail along the way.

But the coming months and years are likely to be more exciting and rewarding than anything we’ve seen before. There can be no doubt that peer-to-peer transactions and digital currencies are echoing a revolution that removes intermediaries and transfers power into the people’s hands. Any Crypto investment is a risky affair, play responsibly, lucky ones mint the fortune!

(My safer recommendation, there is a Bitcoin tracking stock whose symbol is GBTC, which trades around $52; which moves in parallel to Bitcoin).

Let me conclude,  nothing is guaranteed, but the potentials are enormous.

Gautam Adani World’s Biggest Wealth Gainer, Adds $16.2 Billion In 2021

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy, Youth 0

Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani has achieved a remarkable milestone amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as he added the highest wealth to his fortune in the world, as per the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed that so far in 2021, Adani has added $16.2 billion, taking his total net worth to $50 billion. With this surge in his wealth, Adani is now the 26th richest person in the world.

Even though he’s not in the club of the 25 richest people on the planet, Gautam Adani has managed to ‘outgrow’ fellow billionaires, including the two richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, by seeing his net worth ballooning the most in 2021. While Adani has added $16.2 billion to his wealth since the start of this year, Amazon’s Bezos has seen his wealth shrink by $7.59 billion to $183 billion while Tesla’s Musk added $10.3 billion to reach $180 billion, as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The development comes at a time when the Adani Group is rapidly expanding its footprint in diversified sectors, including airports business and data centres. Recently, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited announced that Windy Lakeside Investment Ltd, a unit of Warburg Pincus, will invest Rs 800 crore for a 0.49 per cent stake in the company.

Shares of several Adani companies have surged over the past one year amid the pandemic, adding to its Chairman’s wealth. Adani Enterprises’ shares have increased over four-fold in the past one year and the stock price of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone has more than double during the period.

Google Co-founder Larry Page is ranked second in terms of highest gain in wealth with a growth of $14.3 billion. Amazon Inc Founder Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet with a net worth of $183 billion, followed by Elon Musk with a net worth of $180 billion.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani is the 10th richest person in the world with a net worth of $84.8 billion. So far in 2021, he has added $8.05 billion of wealth. (IANS)

Adani’s fattening wallet has been on account of a surge in investor interest in his companies across sectors such as ports, power plants, renewable power, airports, data centres and coal mines. Except for one company, all his other companies have seen their share prices appreciate by over 50% this year — the odd one out being Adani Green Energy, whose 12% rise in 2021 gets dwarfed by the 500% rise in its value in 2020.

Known to be media shy, the self made first generation billionaire is also not a stranger to controversies. His Carmichael coal mine project in Australia has been the object of disaffection of environmentalists for fear of damage to the ecology and the company was renamed last year as Bravus Mining and Resources in order to distance itself from the Adani brand name.

Senate Passes $1.9 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy 0

The US Senate approved President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan Saturday, March 7th securing additional aid for American families, workers and businesses — and a legislative victory for the Biden administration.

After more than 24 hours of debate, the evenly divided Senate voted 50-49 to approve the measure. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska was absent because he was in Alaska for a family funeral.

The final vote was 50-49, with all Democrats voting in favor of the bill and all Republicans voting against it. The passage of the bill was met with cheers and applause from Democrats, celebrating the passage of one of Mr. Biden’s key priorities. Vice President Kamala Harris did not need to visit the Capitol to break any ties, as GOP Senator Dan Sullivan left due to a family emergency on Friday.

The package would deliver a new round of financial assistance to Americans grappling with the impact of the pandemic, including $1,400 direct payments, an extension of supplemental unemployment benefits and an increase to the child tax credit.

Individuals earning up to $75,000 and couples earning up to $150,000 would receive the full direct payments of $1,400 per person. But those payments would phase out for individuals and couples who make more than $80,000 and $160,000, respectively.

The income cutoff was lowered after moderate Democrats demanded that the latest round of checks target lower-income families.

Federal unemployment benefits would be extended through Sept. 6 at the current rate of $300 per week, and the first $10,200 of those benefits would be tax-free for households that earn $150,000 or less. That provision followed a lengthy debate Friday among Democratic senators.

Democrats were under pressure to get the bill to Biden’s desk before current federal unemployment benefits expire on March 14.  The budget reconciliation process allowed them to act without Republican backing, requiring only a simple majority to pass the bill.

Democrats took a victory lap after the passage of the bill, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer telling reporters after the vote that “it’s a great day for this country.” Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders called the bill “the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country.”

President Biden dubbed the plan “historic” during an address on Saturday.

“For over a year the American people were told they were on their own,” he said, and later added, “This nation has suffered too much for much too long, and everything in this package is designed to relieve the suffering and to meet the most urgent needs of the nation.”

The president noted that 85% of American households will now soon receive direct payments of $1,400 per person, and a “typical middle class family of four” will get $5,600. “That means the mortgage can get paid. That means maintaining the health insurance you have. It’s going to make a big difference in so many lives in this country,” he said.

“The bottom line is this: This plan puts us on the path to beating this virus,” Mr. Biden said Saturday. “This plan gives those families that are struggling the most the help and the breathing room they need to get through this moment. This plan gives small businesses in this country a fighting chance to survive. And one more thing,” he added, “this plan is historic.”

Naureen Hassan Named 1st VP, COO Of NY Fed

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Profile 0

Indian-American Naureen Hassan, a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry, has been named as the First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the Bank said that the appointment effective March 15, was approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. “As First Vice President, Hassan will be the New York Fed’s second ranking officer as well as an alternate voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee,” the statement said.

“Naureen’s leadership background, deep commitment to fostering diverse teams, and extensive technology and financial experience will be critical to her role as a bank leader,” John C. Williams, President and CEO of the New York Fed, was quoted as saying in the statement.

“I am confident that Naureen will be an inspiring and innovative leader, and look forward to working with her to move our organisation forward in line with our values,” he added.

Meanwhile, Denise Scott, Executive Vice President of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and chair of the New York Fed’s Board of Directors, said that “Naureen’s leadership experience and operational expertise are fully aligned with what the search committee and I envisioned for this role”.

According to the statement, Hassan has previously served in various capacities in the financial services industry, focusing primarily on digital and business process transformation. For the past four years, she was Chief Digital Officer of wealth management at Morgan Stanley. Hassan’s parents are immigrants from Kerala, India. Her father, Javad K. Hassan was a former senior executive at IBM and former president of Global Inter Connect Systems at AMP Inc (now TE Connectivity).  (IANS)

17% Of Food Production Wasted, UN Report Estimates

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Finance/Economy 0

A new report from the United Nations estimates that 17% of food produced globally is wasted each year. Instead of finishing your leftovers, you let them go bad and buy takeout.

It’s a familiar routine for many — and indicative of habits that contribute to a global food waste problem that a new United Nations report says needs to be better measured so that it can be effectively addressed.

The U.N. report estimates 17% of the food produced globally each year is wasted. That amounts to 931 million metric tons (1.03 billion tons) of food.

The waste is far more than previous reports had indicated, though direct comparisons are difficult because of differing methodologies and the lack of strong data from many countries.

“Improved measurement can lead to improved management,” said Brian Roe, a food waste researcher at Ohio State University who was not involved in the report.

Most of the waste — or 61% — happens in households, while food service accounts for 26% and retailers account for 13%, the U.N. found. The U.N. is pushing to reduce food waste globally, and researchers are also working on an assessment of waste that includes the food lost before reaching consumers.

The authors note the report seeks to offer a clearer snapshot of the scale of a problem that has been difficult to assess, in hopes of spurring governments to invest in better tracking.

“Many countries haven’t yet quantified their food waste, so they don’t understand the scale of the problem,” said Clementine O’Connor, of the U.N. Environment Program and co-author of the report.

Food waste has become a growing concern because of the environmental toll of production, including the land required to raise crops and animals and the greenhouse gas emissions produced along the way. Experts say improved waste tracking is key to finding ways to ease the problem, such as programs to divert inedible scraps to use as animal feed or fertilizer.

The report found food waste in homes isn’t limited to higher income countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

Roe of Ohio State noted that food sometimes is wasted in poor countries without reliable home refrigeration. In richer countries, people might eat out more, meaning food waste is simply shifted from the home to restaurants.

Roe said cultural norms and policies also could contribute to waste at home — such as massive packaging, “buy one, get one free” deals, or lack of composting programs.

That’s why broader system changes are key to helping reduce waste in households, said Chris Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University.

For example, Barrett said, people might throw away food because of a date on the product — even though such dates don’t always say when a food is unsafe to eat. “Food waste is a consequence of sensible decisions by people acting on the best information available,” he said.

To clarify the meaning of labeling dates, U.S. regulators have urged food makers to be more consistent in using them. They note that labels like “Sell By”, “Best By” and “”Enjoy By” could cause people to throw out food prematurely, even though some labels are intended only to indicate when quality might decline.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a family of four wastes about $1,500 in food each year. But accurately measuring food waste is difficult for a variety of reasons including data availability, said USDA food researcher Jean Buzby, adding that improved measurements are part of a government plan to reduce waste.

Richard Swannell, a co-author of the U.N. report, said food was generally more valued even in richer countries just a few generations ago, since people often couldn’t afford to waste it. Now, he said, awareness about the scale of food waste globally could help shift attitudes back to that era. “Food is too important to waste,” he said.

Warren Buffett Admits To A Rare ‘Mistake’

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy 0

In his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), investing guru Warren Buffett disclosed that the company took an $11 billion writedown last year on its 2016 purchase of Precision Castparts, describing it as “a mistake.”

The 90-year-old billionaire, Berkshire’s chairman since 1970, said in the company’s annual letter to shareholders that the “ugly” write-down had a simple explanation. “I paid too much for the company,” he said. “My miscalculation was laid bare by adverse developments throughout the aerospace industry.”

Despite that loss and fallout from the pandemic in general, the company’s operating businesses enjoyed a solid end to 2020. The sprawling conglomerate, which owns Geico, Dairy Queen, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company, Duracell batteries and many other consumer, financial, industrial and energy companies, said Saturday it posted a net profit of $35.8 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase of 23%.  Berkshire’s operating profit rose nearly 14% in the quarter, to $5 billion.

In the letter, Buffett also disclosed that Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 1, normally held in Buffett’s home town of Omaha, Nebraska, will instead be livestreamed from Los Angeles so that vice chairman Charlie Munger, who lives in Southern California, can attend.

The 97-year old Munger did not attend last year’s virtual shareholder meeting in Omaha due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, Buffett was joined on stage by another Berkshire vice chairman, Greg Abel.

“I missed him last year and, more important, you clearly missed him,” Buffett said of Munger, who is also chairman of California newspaper publisher Daily Journal (DJCO), which held its own shareholder meeting on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Buffett said Abel and Berkshire’s third vice chairman, Ajit Jain, will also be on stage in LA to answer questions during the virtual May 1 meeting, which is scheduled to last from 1:30 p.m. ET until 5:30 p.m. Buffett said he hoped Berkshire can once again hold an in-person meeting in Nebraska in 2022. As he often does in Berkshire’s annual letter to shareholders, Buffett — who has a net worth of some $90 billion — dispensed some words of wisdom about the current state of the market.

Staying away from bonds and buying back more Berkshire stock

He is not currently a fan of bonds because despite a recent uptick, yields remain historically low. “Bonds are not the place to be these days,” he wrote, adding that the yield on the 10-year Treasury, now hovering around 1.46%, was 15.8% in 1981.

“In certain large and important countries, such as Germany and Japan, investors earn a negative return on trillions of dollars of sovereign debt. Fixed-income investors worldwide — whether pension funds, insurance companies or retirees — face a bleak future,” Buffett noted.

He also defended Berkshire’s propensity for using cash to buy back its own stock. The company spent $24.7 billion last year to repurchase shares. Some investors have argued that Berkshire could find a better use for its cash, which totaled more than $138 billion in cash at the end of 2020. Berkshire could it use to make more acquisitions.

“In no way do we think that Berkshire shares should be repurchased at simply any price,” Buffett wrote. “American CEOs have an embarrassing record of devoting more company funds to repurchases when prices have risen than when they have tanked. Our approach is exactly the reverse.”

Still, some wonder if Buffett has lost his Midas touch. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock is up just 11% over the past year, compared to a nearly 23% gain for the S&P 500. The company has lagged the broader market during the past five years, too, despite being a major investor in Apple (AAPL).

Buffett, however, defended the company’s investment strategy, describing it as like a classic diner. “At Berkshire, we have been serving hamburgers and Coke for 56 years. We cherish the clientele this fare has attracted,” Buffett wrote.

Although he has dipped his toe into higher techs like Apple and Amazon (AMZN) recently, the majority of Berkshire’s investments are in slower growth “value” stocks such as Chevron (CVX), Verizon (VZ), American Express (AXP) and, yes, Coca-Cola (KO). (Buffett is an avid drinker of Cherry Coke.)

In other words, don’t expect Buffett to start investing in meme stocks like GameStop (GME) or momentum darlings such as Tesla (TSLA).

“The tens of millions of other investors and speculators in the United States and elsewhere have a wide variety of equity choices to fit their tastes. They will find CEOs and market gurus with enticing ideas,” he said. “Many of those investors, I should add, will do quite well.”

But Buffett stressed a more patient approach to investing. “All that’s required is the passage of time, an inner calm, ample diversification and a minimization of transactions and fees,” he said.

US Debt Soars To $29 Trillion, Owes India $216 Billion

Staff ReporterEconomy, Finance/Economy, Nation USA 0

The US, the world’s largest economy, owes India USD 216 billion in loan as the country’s debt grows to a record USD 29 trillion, an American lawmaker has said, cautioning the leadership against galloping foreign debt, the largest of which comes from China and Japan.

In 2020, the US national debt was USD 23.4 trillion, that was USD 72,309 in debt per person. “We are going to grow our debt to USD 29 trillion. That is even more debt owed per citizen. There is a lot of misinformation about where the debt is going. The top two countries we owe the debt to are China and Japan, not actually our friends,” Congressman Alex Mooney said.

“We are at global competition with China all the time. They are holding a lot of the debt. We owe China over USD 1 trillion and we owe Japan over USD 1 trillion,” the Republican Senator from West Virginia said on the floor of the US House of Representatives as he and others opposed the latest stimulus package of USD 2 trillion.

In January, US President Joe Biden announced a USD 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package to tackle the economic fallout from the pandemic, including direct financial aid to average Americans, support to businesses and to provide a boost to the national vaccination programme.

“The people who are loaning us the money we have to pay back are not necessarily people who have our best interest at heart. Brazil, we owe USD 258 billion. India, we owe USD 216 billion. And the list goes on the debt that is owed to foreign countries,” Congressman Mooney said.

America’s national debt was USD5.6 trillion in 2000. During the Obama administration, it actually doubled.

“Since the eight years Obama was President, we doubled our national debt. And we are adding another—projected here—a completely out of control debt-to-GDP ratio,” he said urging his Congressional colleagues to consider this national debt issue before approving the stimulus package.

“So I urge my colleagues to consider the future. Don’t buy into the—the government has no money it doesn’t take from you that you are going to have to pay back. We need to be judicious with these dollars, and most of this is not going to coronavirus relief anyway,” he said.

Congressmen Mooney said that things have gone completely out of control. The Congressional Budget Office estimates an additional USD 104 trillion will be added by 2050. The Congressional Budget Office forecasted debt would rise 200 per cent.

“Today, as I stand here right now, we have USD 27.9 trillion in national debt…That is actually a little more than USD 84,000 of debt to every American citizen right here today,” Mooney said.

Reliance Acquires Majority Stake In US-Based Skytran Inc

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy 0

Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), announced on Sunday that it has acquired majority stake in its investee company skyTran Inc for a consideration of $26.76 million.

With this transaction, RSBVL has increased its shareholding to 54.46 per cent on a fully diluted basis, RIL said in a statement.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of RIL, said: “Our acquiring majority equity stake in skyTran reflects our commitment to invest in building futuristic technologies that would transform the world. We are excited by skyTran’s potential to achieve an order of magnitude impact on highspeed intra and inter-city connectivity and its ability to provide a high speed, highly efficient and economical ‘Transportation-As-Service’ platform for India and the rest of the World.”

“We firmly believe that non-polluting high speed personal rapid transportation system will help facilitate environmental sustainability through efficient use of alternative energy and make an impactful reduction in air and noise pollution,” he added.

SkyTran is a technology company incorporated under the laws of Delaware in the US in 2011. It has developed breakthrough passive magnetic levitation and propulsion technology for implementing personal transportation systems aimed at solving the problem of traffic congestion globally. The technology has been developed by skyTran to create smart mobility solutions, said a company statement. (IANS)

Money vs. Happiness

Raghav Gaiha, Vani S. Kulkarni and Veena S. KulkarniFinance/Economy, Lifestyle 0

The question whether the rich are more satisfied with their lives is often taken for granted, even though surveys, like the Gallup World Poll, show that the relationship between subjective well-being and income is often weak, except in low-income countries in Africa and South Asia. Researcher Daniel Kahneman and his collaborators, for example, report that the correlation between household income and reported life satisfaction or happiness with life typically ranges from 0.15 to 0.30. There are a few plausible reasons. First, growth in income mostly has a transitory effect on individuals’ reported life satisfaction, as they adapt to material goods. Second, relative income, rather than the level of income, affects well-being — earning more or less than others looms larger than how much one earns. Third, though average life satisfaction in countries tends to rise with GDP per capita at low levels of income, there is little increase in life satisfaction once GDP per capita exceeds $10,000 (in purchasing power parity). This article studies the relationships between subjective well-being, which is narrowly defined to focus on economic well-being in India, and variants of income, based on the only panel survey in India Human Development Survey (IHDS).

Why do we need a new measure of well-being when there is already a widely used, objective welfare measure based on per capita income? There are several reasons. The first stems from the distinction between decision utility and experienced utility. In the standard approach to measure well-being, ordinal preferences are inferred from the observations of decisions made supposedly by rational (utility maximising) agents. The object derived is decision utility. In contrast, recent advances in psychology, sociology, behavioural economics and happiness economics suggest that decision utility is unlikely to illuminate the utility associated with different experiences — hence the emphasis on measures that focus more directly on experienced utility, notably using subjective well-being (SWB) responses.

We draw upon the two rounds of the IHDS for 2005 and 2012. An important feature of IHDS is that it collected data on SWB. The question asked was: compared to seven years ago, would you say your household is economically doing the same, better or worse today? So, the focus of this SWB is narrow. But as it is based on self-reports, it connotes a broader view that is influenced by several factors other than income, assets, and employment, like age, health, caste, etc.

There is a positive relationship between SWB and per capita expenditure (a proxy for per capita income, which is frequently underestimated and underreported): the higher the expenditure in 2005, the greater was the SWB in 2012. The priority of expenditure, in time, rules out reverse causation from high SWB to high expenditure, i.e., higher well-being could also be associated with better performance resulting in higher expenditure. High expenditure is associated with a decent standard of living, good schooling of children, and financial security. As India’s comparable GDP per capita in 2003 (PPP) was $2,270, well below the threshold of $10,000, it is consistent with extant evidence.

Aspirations and achievements

In order to capture the gap between aspirations and achievements, we have analysed the relationship between SWB and ratio of per capita expenditure of a household to the highest per capita expenditure in the primary sampling unit. Although this is a crude approximation to relative deprivation, we get a negative relationship between SWB and this ratio. In other words, the larger the gap, the greater is the sense of resentment and frustration, and the lower is the SWB.

The larger the proportionate increase in per capita expenditure between 2005 and 2012, the greater is the SWB. To illustrate this, we construct three terciles of expenditure in 2005: the first representing extremely poor, the second the middle class, and the third the rich. If the proportionate increase in per capita expenditure is highest among the extremely poor and lowest among the rich, the higher will be the SWB of the extremely poor. This is indeed the case.

This provides important policy insights. One is that in a lower-middle-income country like India, growth of expenditure or income is significant. However, the widening of the gap between aspirations and achievements or between the highest expenditure/income of a reference group and actual expenditure/income of a household reflects resentment, frustration and loss of subjective well-being. So, taxing the rich and enabling the extremely poor to benefit more from economic opportunities can enhance well-being. In conclusion, objective welfare and subjective well-being measures together are far more useful than either on its own.

(Veena S. Kulkarni teaches Sociology at Arkansas State University and is a co-author for this article. Raghav Gaiha is Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania; Vani S. Kulkarni teaches Sociology at University of Pennsylvania. The Oped was published in the Hindu and at IPS)

Bitcoin Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap, Soars To Another Record High

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy 0

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency jumped to an all-time high above $54,000, setting it on course for a weekly jump of more than 11%. It has surged roughly 64% so far this month and was last up 5.5% at $54,405.

 

All digital coins combined have a market cap of around $1.7 trillion.(REUTERS)

Bitcoin touched a market capitalization of $1 trillion as it hit yet another record high on Friday, countering analyst warnings that it is an “economic side show” and a poor hedge against a fall in stock prices.

 

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency jumped to an all-time high above $54,000, setting it on course for a weekly jump of more than 11%. It has surged roughly 64% so far this month and was last up 5.5% at $54,405.

 

Bitcoin’s gains have been fueled by signs it is gaining acceptance among mainstream investors and companies, from Tesla and Mastercard to BNY Mellon.

All digital coins combined have a market cap of around $1.7 trillion.

“If you really believe there’s a store of value in bitcoin, then there’s still a lot of upside,” said John Wu, president of AVA Labs, an open-source platform for creating financial applications using blockchain technology.

 

“If you look at gold, it has a market cap $9 or $10 trillion. Even if bitcoin gets to half of gold’s market cap, that still growth of 4X, or $200,000. So I don’t know when it stops rising,” he added.

 

Still, many analysts and investors remain skeptical of the patchily regulated and highly volatile digital asset, which is little used for commerce.

 

Analysts at JP Morgan said bitcoin’s current prices were well above estimates of fair value. Mainstream adoption increases bitcoin’s correlation with cyclical assets, which rise and fall with economic changes, in turn reducing benefits of diversifying into crypto, the investment bank said in a memo.

 

“Crypto assets continue to rank as the poorest hedge for major drawdowns in equities, with questionable diversification benefits at prices so far above production costs, while correlations with cyclical assets are rising as crypto ownership is mainstreamed,” JP Morgan said.

 

Bitcoin is an “economic side show,” it added, calling innovation in financial technology and the growth of digital platforms into credit and payments “the real financial transformational story of the Covid-19 era.”

 

Other investors this week said bitcoin’s volatility presents a hurdle for it to become a widespread means of payment.

 

On Thursday, Tesla boss Elon Musk – whose tweets have fueled bitcoin’s rally – said owning the digital coin was only a little better than holding cash. He also defended Tesla’s recent purchase of $1.5 billion of bitcoin, which ignited mainstream interest in the digital currency.

 

Bitcoin proponents argue the cryptocurrency is “digital gold” that can hedge against the risk of inflation sparked by massive central bank and government stimulus packages designed to counter Covid-19.

 

Yet bitcoin would need to rise to $146,000 in the long-term for its market cap to equal the total private-sector investment in gold via exchange-traded funds or bars and coins, according to JP Morgan.

Coconut Oil Is The Best Hair Oil

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Health 0

Coconut oil is natures hair care miracle, offering 10-fold benefits when it comes to hair health. While its numerous hair advantages are well known, here are the top 5 benefits that make coconut oil indispensable.

  1. Coconut Oil Is The Ultimate Hair Protector

No one does the job of shielding hair better than coconut oil. Living in a warm and sunny environment has its own set of problems for hair. Every exposure to sun causes hair to lose moisture and shine, increasing dryness. But not when there’s coconut oil to protect it. A Research Gate study reveals that coconut oil seeps 10 layers deep into the hair shaft and forms a layer of protection that continually hydrates your hair. It also has SPF and anti-oxidant abilities to safeguard from sun damage. Additionally, chemical damage from shampoos and other styling products, including heat damage, can be averted by applying coconut oil prior to exposure.

  1. Coconut Oil Restores Hair Health From Within

As you tire out from superficial hair care products that do more damage than good in the long run, remember that coconut oil seeps into the deepest part of the hair shaft and rejuvenates the hair follicles to restore hair health from the inside out. The fatty acids and vitamins of this oil go deep into the hair to moisturize and hydrate the hair follicles to combat dryness.

  1. Coconut Oil Is A Scalp Saviour

Humidity and extreme climatic changes are not friends to our scalp. With abundant anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties, coconut oil has the ability to prevent and treat multiple scalp issues including dandruff, dryness, and other infections. It also efficiently removes sebum build-up, a critical factor causing greasiness in the scalp and hair.

  1. Coconut Oil Effectively Removes Frizz

While we wish everyday were a good hair day, the reality is often quite different. Frizz, which is a result of moisture being sucked out of hair, generally happens when the harsh chemicals in some shampoos deplete the hair of its natural moisture. During the drying process, moisture is sucked out, especially in humid climes leading to frizzy hair. Applying a few drops of coconut oil to freshly washed, damp hair, ensures that the moisture stays locked in and your hair stays frizz free.

  1. Coconut Oil is Natural and Environmental Friendly

Coconuts trees, common as they are in the tropics, literally grow abundantly all around us. Hence, coconut oil is natural, local, available in plenty and perfectly suited to our hair’s multi-faceted needs, Let us ditch the multitude of exorbitantly priced, non-biodegradable and unnecessary hair products, and replace it with the all-natural goodness of coconut oil and do our part in protecting the environment. Our hair, our bank account and our planet will thank us for it. (Picture: Dr. Axe)

Biden Orders Allowing H4 Work Permits

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Immigration, Technology 0

“Withdrawn”. A single word on a thick bureaucratic file on the seventh day of the Biden administration delivered a huge win for spouses of workers on H1B visas in the US who spent the last four years worried sick that their work authorizations would be killed off.

The latest development brings to an end years of effort by the Donald Trump administration to rescind an Obama era regulation that allowed a certain subset of spouses of H1B visa holders to work in the US. Up until the summer of 2015, H4 visa holders could not legally hold paid employment in the United States. Almost as soon as Obama changed the game, the lawsuits followed and then the Trump presidency took the attack on the H4 work permit to a whole new level.A

On text messages, chat groups and online threads, the outpouring of relief played out online on Tuesday evening. “Great news! Hopefully H4EAD delays will be ending soon which is leading to a long wait for dependent spouses,” tweeted Rashi Bhatnagar.

Sharmistha Mohapatra posted, “Big win for H4 EAD holders today. Former Pres Trump’s EO to rescind H4 EAD is now withdrawn by POTUS. Let’s hope excruciating long wait times often resulting in job loss is taken away too!”

From the time the skewering of the H4 work permit (called the EAD) began in Fall 2017, the proposed rule has been published seven times for ongoing review, keeping the H4 community on cliff-edge. The Trump government justified the move saying it is “economically significant” and aligns with the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, which was mostly code for keeping foreign workers out of the US and flinging red meat to the Trump base. Now, the backlink to that Trump executive order ends up as a 404 (page not found) error and re-routes to the Biden White House.

“Removing H-4 Dependent Spouses from the Class of Aliens Eligible for Employment Authorization” was a Trumpian agenda pursued by White House immigration hawks with intense zeal and inter-agency collaboration. It was being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), where it was parked for months. The pressure on the H4 community never really let up since Trump took office.

The decision to rescind the proposed rule on revoking the H4 work permit came on the same day Biden signed an executive order calling for the practice of racial equity in the United States. Data from the US government show that Indian and Chinese workers account for the lion’s share of H1B visas. H4 visas typically follow the same trajectory. Indians filed 74 per cent of all H1B petitions in fiscal year 2019. Chinese filed 11.8 percent. (IANS)

UN Expects India’s Economy To Recover By 7.3% This Calendar Year

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Nation, Nation India 0

The United Nations sees the Indian economy recovering by 7.3 per cent this calendar year after a coronavirus-driven fall of 9.6 per cent last year. The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects 2021 report released on Monday said that “despite drastic fiscal and monetary stimulus” India’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell because of lockdowns and other containment efforts that “slashed domestic consumption without halting the spread of the disease.”

India’s GDP growth was forecast to dip in 2022 calendar year to 5.9 per cent, according to the report.

China, where the Covid-19 pandemic started and spread bring the rest of the world to its knees, was the only major economy to have grown last year, registering a 2.4 per cent increase last and is forecast to grow by 7.2 per cent this year and by 5.8 per cent next year, according to the report.

The global economy shrank by 4.3 per cent last year and is forecast to grow by 4.7 per cent this year and 5.9 per cent the next.

UN’s Chief Economist Elliot Harris said, “The depth and severity of the unprecedented crisis foreshadows a slow and painful recovery.”

He warned against the temptation to impose excessive fiscal austerity while the world recovers from the pandemic.

“As we step into a long recovery phase with the roll out of the vaccines against Covid-19, we need to start boosting longer-term investments that chart the path toward a more resilient recovery,” he said.

He said that the world now needed “a redefined debt sustainability framework, universal social protection schemes, and an accelerated transition to the green economy.”

The World Bank earlier this month forecast India’s economy to fall by 9.6 per cent during the current financial year but recover by 5.4 per cent next financial year if there is wide vaccination against the disease and it is contained.

Compared to this, according to the UN estimates made on a fiscal basis for India, its economy was estimated to fall by only 5.7 per cent in 2020-21 and increase by 7 per cent in 2021-22 and 5.6 per cent in 2022-23. The International Monetary Fund is set to release on Tuesday its report on the economic scenario with growth forecasts. (IANS)

(Pictuire: Jhalak.com)

America’s Billionaires Have Grown $1.1 Trillion Richer During The Pandemic

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy 0

Billionaires are minting money during the pandemic, even as millions of Americans join the ranks of the poor. US billionaires have collectively become $1.1 trillion — nearly 40% — richer since mid-March, according to a report published Tuesday by progressive groups Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness.

In other words, not only have the uber-wealthy recovered their losses from the spring, many are faring much better than before. That’s in large part because of the sizzling stock market. Elon Musk alone is about $155 billion richer, boosted by Tesla’s skyrocketing market valuation. 

Forty-six people joined the ranks of billionaires since March 18, 2020, the week after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, according to the report. 

Clearly, the pandemic is worsening America’s already troubling inequality crisis. The staggering gains at the top contrast sharply with the financial struggles of those at the bottom, many of whom are on the front lines of the pandemic and have lost their jobs or had wages cut.

America’s 660 billionaires now hold $4.1 trillion in wealth — two thirds more than the amount held by the bottom 50% of the US population, the report found. 

Poverty rate climbs sharply

More than 8 million Americans fell into poverty during the final six months of 2020, according to real-time estimates published by economists at the University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame and the Lab for Economic Opportunities. 

The US poverty rate declined during the first few months of the pandemic, in large part because of the federal government’s stimulus checks. However, the poverty rate climbed 2.4 percentage points during the second half of the year — nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty since the 1960s, the economists found. 

Some groups have suffered more than others. The poverty rate for Black Americans is 5.4 percentage points higher today than in June 2020, translating to 2.4 million people who have fallen into poverty, the economists found. 

For those with a high school education or less, the poverty rate has surged to 22.5%, compared to 17% in June. 

Florida, Mississippi, Arizona and North Carolina were among the states that suffered the largest increases in poverty rates. The state-level findings “suggest that poverty rose more in states with less effective unemployment insurance systems,” the economists said in the report. 

How Biden wants to fight inequality

The wealth and poverty statistics provide further proof of America’s K-shaped economic recovery. 

The stock market is at record highs, the housing market is booming and Big Tech is thriving. However, other industries including airlines, restaurants, hotels and movie theaters are still in disarray. 

Janet Yellen, President Joe Biden’s newly confirmed Treasury secretary, has acknowledged this problem and suggested it’s nothing new.

“Well before Covid-19 infected a single American, we were living in a K-shaped economy, one where wealth built on wealth while working families fell further and further behind,” Yellen told lawmakers during her confirmation hearing last week. 

Biden and Yellen are calling for bold action from Congress to ease inequality. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan includes $1,400 stimulus checks, $350 billion in state and local aid and enhanced unemployment benefits. The White House is also expected to push for a multi-trillion infrastructure package that would be aimed at further boosting the economy — and could be financed in part by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

Surging housing, stock markets

The pandemic has been a boon to the housing market, with existing home sales hitting a 14-year high in 2020. Home prices, a major source of wealth, hit a record high. 

The stock market has played a significant role in the divide between rich and poor.

Even though the US economy has not fully recovered from the pandemic, the S&P 500 is up by 72% from its low point in March. That V-shaped recovery reflects optimism about vaccines, trillions in relief provided by Washington and unprecedented steps from the Federal Reserve that have essentially forced investors to bet on stocks. 

Not surprisingly, surging stock prices are especially helpful to the wealthy because they have more skin in the game. As of early 2020, the wealthiest 10% of US households owned 87% of all stocks and mutual funds, according to the Federal Reserve. By contrast, millions of less affluent Americans can’t feel the stock market boom.

Tesla’s (TSLA) skyrocketing share price has lifted Musk’s wealth by more than 600%, according to the wealth report. Other big gainers include Amazon (AMZN) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, whose wealth has climbed by more than $68 billion during the pandemic. Facebook (FB) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is about $37 billion more wealthy than in mid-March.

Inequality isn’t just an American problem.

It will take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recoup their losses from the pandemic, according to Oxfam International’s annual inequality report released Sunday. By contrast, it took just nine months for the world’s top 1,000 billionaires to recover. 

(Picture; Fox Carolina)

Indian Americans Have Highest Average Household Income In USA

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The household income of Indian American family on an average is USD 120,000 (over ₹87 lakhs) per annum, surpassing all ethnic groups and white Americans as well, according to a report released by the Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

But almost 7 percent of Indian Americans live at or below the federal poverty line, defined in 2018 — the year for which the report drew its data — as $12,490 for a single person, and $25, 750 for a family of four. Low-income Indian American immigrants had feared the Trump-era’s version of the public charge rule, which would deny permanent residency to those who have availed of federal public benefits, such as food stamps, housing assistance and a myriad of other benefits.

Indian Americans and Filipino Americans have the lowest poverty rates among all ethnic groups, and White Americans. Fifty-seven percent of Indian Americans own their homes, while 26 percent are renters. Data shows that some groups, like Indian households, are earning remarkably high incomes (USD 119,858), others, like Burmese households, are earning incomes (USD 45,348) comparable to those earned by Black (USD 41,511) and Latinx (USD 51,404) households.

Nepalese and Bangladeshi American households have an annual income of about $46,000, while Pakistani Americans come closer to the AAPI average, with household incomes of $79,000 per year. Eighteen percent of Bangladeshi American households fall below the federal poverty line, while 16 percent of Pakistani Americans are low-income.

But prosperity does not cut equally among all AAPI ethnicities, including other South Asian American subgroups. While the mean household income for all AAPI ethnicities is $82,000 annually, Burmese Americans earn just half of that at $42,000 per year.

Burmese Americans have the highest level of poverty in the nation, surpassing Black and LatinX households, according to CAPACD — an Oakland, California-based organization that works with low-income AAPI families.

As a whole, 11 percent of Asian American households are at or below the federal poverty level. By comparison, almost 24 percent of Black and Native American households, and 18 percent of LatinX households are low-income.

Poverty levels for White Americans is below 10 percent; they also represent the highest percentage of homeowners — almost 80 percent — according to the CAPACD report.

Because of modern immigration policy, immigrants are more likely to be wealthy and educated when they immigrate to the U.S., stated the report. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 has favored higher education or professional class skills or those who have family in the U.S. As of 2012, 61 percent of Asian immigrants have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to the overall U.S. population, in which only one-third have graduated from college or university.

Asian Americans have also gobbled up the majority of employment-based visas, which contributes to a higher earning capacity.

But the authors of the report — Cy Watsky, Josh Isimatsu, Arika Harrison, and Emanuel Nieves — stated that the myth of the model minority masks the severe economic, education, and employment disparities within the AAPI community. People from Asia are clubbed into one ethnic category, which disallows an examination of diverse backgrounds, said the researchers.

“Ultimately, while the Asian American category allows for political solidarity and power for many, when we examine the economic indicators for the AAPI community, it becomes clear that the aggregated data does not come close to telling the full story of these diverse communities,” wrote the researchers.

The U.S. Census does not provide disaggregated wealth data, which is important in understanding the long-term financial security for AAPI households, stated CAPACD in a press release.

“The aggregation limits the conversation around Asian American wealth and financial security. In fact, many AAPI communities are not as economically prosperous as the stereotype of the community would otherwise suggest. These individuals have unrecognized economic needs, which can be best addressed through policies informed specifically by the diverse experiences of AAPI communities,” stated the organization, advocating for disaggregated data for the AAPI community.

(Picture: The Mill Chronicle)

Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Covid Relief Proposal Has Ambitious Plans for Rekindling US Economy

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President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion relief package Thursday that included more stimulus payments and other direct aid, but don’t expect to see those funds in your bank account anytime soon. There’s a lot that has to happen before Biden’s plan — which is chock-full of measures long favored by Democrats — becomes law. And even though Democrats will soon control the White House and both chambers of Congress, that doesn’t mean lawmakers will follow Biden’s suggestions to the letter.

As per Kevin Kosar, resident scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute and co-editor of the book “Congress Overwhelmed,” the earliest the stimulus money could reach one’s home maybe mid- to late February.

Biden’s massive plan includes several immediate relief items that are popular with a wide swath of Americans, including sending another $1,400 in direct stimulus payments, extending unemployment benefits and eviction protections, and offering more help for small businesses. It also would boost funding for vaccinations by $20 billion and for coronavirus testing by $50 billion.

But it also calls for making some larger structural changes, such as mandating a $15 hourly minimum wage, expanding Obamacare premium subsidies and broadening tax credits for low-income Americans for a year.

It’s the first of two measures Biden has planned to right the nation’s economy and fight the coronavirus. He intends to announce a recovery strategy at his first appearance before a joint session of Congress next month.

The plan, which would require congressional approval, is packed with proposals on health care, education, labor and cybersecurity. He has outlined a five-step approach to getting the vaccination to the American people, and to ensure that it is distributed equitably. “Equity is central to our COVID response,” he said.

Here’s a look at what’s in Biden’s plan: 

CONTAINING THE VIRUS

— A $20 billion national program would establish community vaccination centers across the U.S. and send mobile units to remote communities. Medicaid patients would have their costs covered by the federal government, and the administration says it will take steps to ensure all people in the U.S. can receive the vaccine for free, regardless of their immigration status.

— An additional $50 billion would expand testing efforts and help schools and governments implement routine testing. Other efforts would focus on developing better treatments for COVID-19 and improving efforts to identify and track new strains of the virus.

THE VACCINATION PLAN

— Working with states to open up vaccinations beyond health care workers, including to people 65 and older, as well as essential front-line workers.

— Establishing more vaccination sites, including working with FEMA to set up 100 federally supported centers by the end of his first month in office . He suggested using community centers, school gymnasiums and sports stadiums. He also called for expanding the pool of those who can deliver the vaccine.

— Using pharmacies around the country to administer the vaccine. The Trump administration already has entered into agreements with some large chains to do that. 

— Using the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law to “maximize the manufacture of vaccine and vaccine supplies for the country.”

— A public education campaign to address “vaccine hesitancy” and the refusal of some to take the vaccine. He called the education plan “a critical piece to account for a tragic reality of the disproportionate impact this virus has had on Black, Latino and Native American communities” 

INDIVIDUALS AND WORKERS

— Stimulus checks of $1,400 per person in addition to the $600 checks Congress approved in December. By bringing payments to $2,000 — an amount Democrats previously called for — the administration says it will help families meet basic needs and support local businesses.

— A temporary boost in unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures would be extended through September.

— The federal minimum wage would be raised to $15 per hour from the current rate of $7.25 per hour.

— An emergency measure requiring employers to provide paid sick leave would be reinstated. The administration is urging Congress to keep the requirement through Sept. 30 and expand it to federal employees.

— The child care tax credit would be expanded for a year, to cover half the cost of child care up to $4,000 for one child and $8,000 for two or more for families making less than $125,000 a year. Families making between $125,000 and $400,000 would get a partial credit.

— $15 billion in federal grants to help states subsidize child care for low-income families, along with a $25 billion fund to help child care centers in danger of closing.

SCHOOLS

— $130 billion for K-12 schools to help them reopen safely. The money is meant to help reach Biden’s goal of having a majority of the nation’s K-8 schools open within his first 100 days in the White House. Schools could use the funding to cover a variety of costs, including the purchase of masks and other protective equipment, upgrades to ventilation systems and staffing for school nurses. Schools would be expected to use the funding to help students who fell behind on academics during the pandemic, and on efforts to meet students’ mental health needs. A portion of the funding would go to education equity grants to help with challenges caused by the pandemic.

A president can propose ideas, but Congress passes the laws

 

Biden’s relief proposal now shifts to Congress, where it may change substantially as Democratic leaders transform it into a bill. They must decide whether they want to use a special legislative process called reconciliation, which would require only a simple majority of votes to pass the Senate — eliminating the need for Republican support — but would limit the provisions that could be included. Also, reconciliation also be used only sparingly each year. 

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Another factor that could determine the path and speed at which lawmakers act is the health of the economy, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. If the nation’s jobs report in early February shows a continued deterioration of the labor market, for instance, Congress may be spurred to move faster and approve more assistance.

Whatever leaders decide, the effort is expected to have an easier time passing in the House — which approved a $3 trillion relief package last May that contained measures similar to those in Biden’s plan — even though Democrats now hold a slimmer majority there.

“A new president and a new tone from the White House can put some pretty significant pressure when pressure is needed,” Hudak said. “For this to happen in some expedited time, it’s really going to require significant influence from the president, especially on key senators.”

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Is New Vice-Chair Of US-India Business Council

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US-India Business Council (USIBC) has selected Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw as one of its vice-chairs effective immediately. US Chamber of Commerce’s USIBC on January 14 announced three vice-chairs to its 2021 Global Board of Directors. The two other business executives joining Shaw as vice-chairs are Amway CEO Milind Pant and Edward Knight who is the vice-chair at Nasdaq. 

 “Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw will be one of the three vice-chairs for the US-India Business Council’s board of directors,” said USIBC Chairman Vijay Advani in a statement from Washington DC. “The perspectives of the new vice-chairs will be invaluable as the Council charts a path forward in the post-pandemic era and work to deepen the US-India partnership,” said Advani.

As vice-chairs, Mazumdar-Shaw, Pant and Knight will work with Council President Nisha Biswal and its policy directors to elevate priorities in key sectors and lead meetings between industry and government.

The trio will also work to amplify the voice of industry on international trade and investment issues and emphasise the key role that businesses can play in strengthening democratic institutions and combatting the global pandemic.

“I am honoured to serve the Council, which is committed to enhancing the US-India bilateral trade. In my new role, I look forward to forging collaborative initiatives in pharma and healthcare in research, innovation and skill development between our two nations,” Mazumdar-Shaw said.

The pandemic has provided an opportunity for robust engagement between the two countries that can lead to knowledge sharing in digital healthcare, medical technologies and Intellectual Property-led drug and vaccine innovation to deliver healthcare solutions, she added.

The Council represents top global firms operating across the US, India and the Indo-Pacific. Recognising that US-India trade is driven by new business hubs, the Council is also focused on strengthening connections between cities and states in both countries.

IAPC Seminar ByAlberta And British Columbia Chapters On Global Economy In The Post-Covid Era

Dr.Mathew JoysFinance/Economy, Health, Media 0

“Covid pandemic globally impacted meticulously by various factors like globalization severely disrupted, the digital revolution accelerated, and inequality in all the sectors drastically increased,” said Dr. EtayankaraMuralidharan, Ph.D. (School of Business, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada.), commencing the Zoom conference on Saturday, January 9th, 2021.

 

As a part of IAPC’s Web series Town Hall meetings, Alberta and British Columbia Chapters together was hosting the seminar on the subject “Global Economy in Post Covid Era.” The meeting was presided by Dr. Joseph Chalil( Chairman, IAPC), and Dr. P.V Baiju ( IAPC Director board member) was the moderator for the seminar.

 

Dr. Muralidharan presented the vivid aspects of the Covid consequences and how the world is adopting and reshaping globalization with social media resources like Zoom or webinar. He narrated the income inequality and income mobility and the means to change the objective or methods of operation in the governmental, organizational, and individual levels. He presented in turn how organizations contribute to social inequalities and how the firms need to develop CSR practices, reshape work designs, and to align compensation

 

The other panelist and economic expert, Dr. S. Mohammed IrshadPh D. (Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India presented how the Covid pandemic pushed the economy down. Major countries are on the brink of economic recession, and the global economy is going to trail Pre pandemic trajectory for many years to come. He explained how economic resilience or accountable capitalism or how government stimulus can help overcome it.

 

The subject matter experts, after their presentations, tactfully answered the various questions raised by the audience. It was condensed that already pre Covid recession was creeping in, and the unexpected pandemic boosted the factors of recession. It is still uncertain how long the peril will continue.

 

BinoyKaruvayil, VP of the IAPC Alberta chapter, welcomed the guests and all the participants from the various chapters in Canada and the USA. Miss NeethuSivaram of the British Columbia Chapter well managed the event as the MC. Anjaleena Jose, the budding singer with her melodious voice, inspired the participants with her patriotic song ‘ VandeMataram.’

 

Dr. Joseph Chalil thanked the guests and the Chapter members of the hosting Chapters. Chairman also released the colorful “IAPC Alberta Chronicle Vol 2” and congratulated Chief editor Rajesh Peter and the editorial team. Founder Chairman GinsmonZacharia, General Secretary Biju Chacko, Treasurer Reji Philip, BoD member Thampanoor Mohan, Vice President C G Daniel, Treasurer Innocent Ulahannan were also active participants of the Zoom Meeting.  With the vote of thanks by Anitha Naveen, Secretary BC chapter, the productive and informative session was concluded.

World Bank To Fund $500 Million ‘Green’ Highways Project In India

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India and the World Bank on Tuesday signed a $500 million project to build safe and green national highway corridors in the states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
The project will also enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in mainstreaming safety and green technologies.
The Green National Highways Corridors Project will support the ministry construct 783 km of highways in various geographies by integrating safe and green technology designs such as local and marginal materials, industrial by-products, and other bio-engineering solutions. The project will help reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in the construction and maintenance of highways.
“Connectivity for economic growth and connectivity for sustainable development are two important aspects of a country’s development trajectory. This operation brings these two priorities together in support of India’s growth strategy,” said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India.
“This project will provide efficient transportation for road users in the four states, connect people with markets and services, promote efficient use of construction materials and water to reduce the depletion of scarce natural resources, and help lower GHG emissions,” he added.
The National Highways of India carry about 40 per cent of road traffic. However, several sections of these highways have inadequate capacity, weak drainage structures and black spots prone to accidents. The project will strengthen and widen existing structures; construct new pavements, drainage facilities and bypasses; improve junctions; and introduce road safety features.
As it is imperative that the infrastructure investments are climate resilient, disaster risk assessment of about 5,000 km of the National Highway network will also be undertaken under the project along with support to the ministry for mainstreaming climate resilience aspects in project design and implementation.
The $500 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a maturity of 18.5 years, including a grace period of five years. (IANS)

Lawmakers Urge President-Elect Joe Biden to Preserve Work Authorization for H-4 Visa Holders

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Over 60 members of the US Congress, including all four members of the ‘Samosa Caucus,’ wrote a letter to President-elect Joe Biden Dec. 16, urging him to preserve work authorization for H-4 visa holders. H-4 EAD is granted to the spouses of H-1B visa holders who are on track to get their green cards.
“We respectfully request that the Department of Homeland Security publish a Federal Register notice on day one of your administration that would extend the validity period of all expired H-4 EADs. We are confident that your incoming Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security will rectify the systemic processing issues that have been created by the Trump Administration,” wrote the members of Congress.
The revocation of H-4 work authorization is the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of more than 100,000 women from India since the advent of the Trump administration. H-4 visa holders are the dependent spouses of H-1B workers and largely have skills comparable to those of their spouse. However, they had not been allowed to work until 2015, when former President Barack Obama, via executive order, allowed them work authorization, known as H-4 EAD.
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump immediately stated his intention to rescind H-4 EAD. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking — which has passed almost all procedural hurdles — currently rests in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for final approval.
Save Jobs USA filed a lawsuit in 2016 against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that foreign workers were competing with and replacing American workers.
H-4 visa holders with work authorization are not limited to the types of jobs they can pursue.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last November that H-4 EAD was in fact negatively impacting American workers: H-1B workers were remaining in the U.S. longer than they might have, since their spouses now had work authorization. Thus, they now faced increased competition for employment from H-4 and H-1B visa holders.
The Circuit Court has thrown the case back to a lower court.
In their letter to Biden, the 60 members of Congress — including Reps. Ami Bera and Ro Khanna, D-California; Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington; and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, framed the issue as one of gender equality.
“This rule presented an important step towards rectifying gender disparities in our immigration system as around 95 percent of H-4 visa holders who have secured work authorization are women,” wrote the members of Congress.
“Before the rule was granted, many women on H-4 visas described depression and isolation in moving to a new country and not being allowed to work outside of the home. Unfortunately, these women are losing and will continue to lose their jobs until this is put right, disrupting the lives of their families and the functioning of employers in our districts,” wrote the lawmakers.
The organization Save H4 EADs conducted a survey of 2,400 of its members in 2018. The survey found that 59 percent have postgraduate or professional degrees and above and 96 percent have a bachelor’s degree and above.
About 43 percent purchased a home after receiving work authorization, and 35 percent of them bought a home over $500,000. Forty-nine percent of workers with H-4 EAD have annual individual income of over $75,000. Sixty percent pay taxes of more $5,000. Five percent have started their own businesses, creating employment for American workers.
Meanwhile, in a major win for H-1B workers, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Dec. 16 ruled that computer programming can be considered a specialty occupation, stating that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ denial of a visa for a computer programmer was “arbitrary and capricious.”
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta cheered the ruling. In a blog post, Mehta said: “While the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Innova Solutions is doubtless a victory for U.S. technology companies who employ foreign workers as computer programmers, the decision has broader implications, as well. For one, the decision is a refreshing rebuttal to USCIS’s longstanding practice of challenging computer programming on specialty occupation grounds.”
The Indian American attorney noted that this was the first time a circuit court has ruled in favor of the H-1B petitioner, adding that petitioners have won similar decisions in lower courts.
On March 31, 3017, two months after President Donald Trump took office with his “Buy American, Hire American” ethos, USCIS released a memo stating that computer programming would no longer be considered a specialty occupation. The agency noted that some programmers hold only an associate’s degree or less.
“As such, it is improper to conclude based on this information that USCIS would “generally consider the position of programmer to qualify as a specialty occupation,” noted the USCIS memo.
Current law requires H-1B workers to possess a bachelor’s degree or higher, with academic credentials specifically related to their prospective job duties.
In 2017, USCIS had denied an H-1B visa to Dilip Dodda who was scheduled to work for Santa Clara, California-based Innova Solutions as a programmer analyst. Dodda was denied his visa: USCIS noted that computer programming was not a specialty occupation.
Dodda had more than 10 years of experience in computer programming. Innova had planned to assign him to work for one of its clients, Change Healthcare Operations. Dodda would provide consulting services on Change Healthcare’s patient billing and payment system, which required knowledge of several programming languages.
However, USCIS noted in its response to the lawsuit that Innova had stated in its Labor Certification Application that the position in question was a “Wage Level 1 entry position.”
Innova provided to USCIS a list of about 14 functions that Dodda would perform, including writing script, testing beta sites, performing initial debugging, and rewriting code to fix buggy sites. USCIS nonetheless denied Innova’s petition for Dodda.
In its lawsuit, Innova contended that USCIS failed to properly consider the evidence and did not articulate any reasonable basis for its decision. It stated that the agency’s decision therefore must be set aside as arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.
In 2019, United States Magistrate Judge Virginia Demarchi denied Innova’s lawsuit against USCIS, ruling that Innova had not sufficiently established that Dodda was to be engaged in a specialty occupation.
Demarchi said in her ruling that USCIS had noted that even interns could be classified as computer programmers. She ruled in favor of USCIS, stating that Innova failed to submit sufficient evidence “showing the unique or complex nature of the position, or how this position differs from other similar positions within the same industry.”
Innova appealed the lower court’s decision. Judge John Owens, writing for the three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit, noted that USCIS relied solely on the Labor Department’s Occupational Outlook Handbook, which states that most computer programmers normally have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher, and that a bachelor’s degree is the typical level of education most programmers need to enter the field. “USCIS’s decision in light of that evidence was arbitrary and capricious,” ruled Owens. “It offered an explanation for its decision that ran counter to the evidence before it.” Mehta said in a blog post

Trump Backs Down, Signs Covid Stimulus Package

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Responding to multiple calls and prompting s from leaders from both the political Parties, President Donald Trump, finally signed into law a major coronavirus stimulus/survival package along with an annual spending bill on December 27th night, avoiding a government shutdown before a Monday night deadline.
Trump has railed against the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and a $1.4 trillion government funding bill since Congress approved it, demanding $2,000 checks and cutting out foreign aid. But on Sunday evening after days of being lobbied by allies, Trump decided to sign the bill and not leave office amid a maelstrom of expired benefits and a government shutdown.
The Bill was voted upon nearly a week ago, and millions were awaiting Trump’s signature, as millions of Americans have temporarily lost their unemployment benefits after President Donald Trump failed to sign the Covid relief bill into law.
US President-elect Joe Biden had warned of “devastating consequences” if Mr Trump continued to delay signing but the Saturday deadline has now passed. Republicans both privately and publicly tried to sway Trump to change his mind after days of attacks on the bill.

After careful negotiations among congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump threatened to blow up the deal — which his own administration negotiated and indicated he would support. More than $2 trillion was at stake, including badly needed pandemic aid for programs like unemployment and food assistance.
The package worth $900bn was approved by Congress after months of difficult negotiations and compromises. Trump said, he wanted to give people bigger one-off payments.
The bill includes the payment of $600 to Americans earning less than $75,000 a year. Mr Trump said, he wants Americans to receive $2,000 but Republicans in Congress refused to agree to the change.
The coronavirus economic relief is part of a $2.3tn spending package that includes $1.4tn for normal federal government spending. A partial government shutdown would have begun on Tuesday, had Trump still not signed the bill. About 14 million Americans would have been affected by a lapse in unemployment benefit payments and new stimulus cheques.
What did Biden say?
In a strongly worded statement published on the transition website on Saturday, Mr Biden described Mr Trump’s refusal to sign the bill as an “abdication of responsibility”.
“It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority,” Mr Biden said.
He praised the example of members of Congress in compromising and reaching a bipartisan agreement, adding: “President Trump should join them, and make sure millions of Americans can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads in this holiday season.”
What’s Trump position?
On Twitter earlier, the president had reiterated his objection to the bill, saying: “I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill.”
The coronavirus aid relief bill – with the larger budget bill rolled in – overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives and Senate on Monday but, a day later, Mr Trump issued an implied veto threat, describing the package as a “disgrace” full of “wasteful” items.
He baulked at the annual aid money for other countries in the federal budget, arguing that those funds should instead go to struggling Americans.
Mr Trump’s decision to bat the measure back to Capitol Hill stunned lawmakers since he has largely stayed out of negotiations for a coronavirus aid bill that had stalled since last July.
His top economic adviser, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, had proposed the $600 payments early this month, and many have questioned why the president waited until now to object.
“I will sign the omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed. I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill,” Trump said on Sunday night.
The president also said the Senate would soon begin work on ending legal protections for tech companies, examining voter fraud and boosting the check size for direct payments. The current Congress ends in six days.
“I applaud President Trump’s decision to get hundreds of billions of dollars of crucial COVID-19 relief out the door and into the hands of American families as quickly as possible,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement that did not mention the commitments Trump said the Senate has made.
“To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said previously in a statement.
On Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had pressed for higher stimulus checks, urged Trump to sign the bill, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that “the suffering of this country will be immense” if the president fails to sign the bill before the shutdown deadline.
But even if the House passes $2,000 stimulus checks, the GOP-controlled Senate is not expected to take up the legislation. The chamber will hold a pro forma session Monday morning and is scheduled to return Tuesday to begin the process of overriding Trump’s veto of the annual defense bill.

With Congress Approving Stimulus Bill, When Will You Get A Second Stimulus Check?

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A second round of stimulus payments is included in a coronavirus relief package struck by congressional leaders late Sunday after months of negotiations between Congressional leaders from both the major political parties.

US Congressional Lawmakers voted Monday on the deal, which would provide for $600 checks, but experts say it will take at least two weeks for the Treasury to get cash into individuals’ bank accounts after legislation is signed.

“The timing could be more challenging this time, but the IRS could likely begin to get the money out in January,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

In March, Congress provided individuals with $1,200 direct payments and couples with $2,400 plus $500 per child under the $2 trillion CARES Act. Those payments started phasing out for singles who earn more than $75,000 a year and those earning more than $99,000 did not receive anything. The income thresholds were doubled for couples.
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As with the first round, the new payments will only be sent to people below a certain income level, though it wasn’t immediately clear Sunday where that would be set.
It took two weeks after that bill was passed for the IRS to start distributing the money — but some eligible recipients still haven’t received it, months later.
Who gets the money fastest

The payments do not go all out at once. Those whose bank information is on file with the IRS will likely get the money first because it will be directly deposited into their account. Others will receive paper checks or prepaid debit cards in the mail.

About 90 million people — more than half of those eligible — received their payments within the first three weeks of April after the March deal was signed. Most people had their money within two months.

Still, about 12 million eligible Americans were at risk of not getting the money at all because the IRS had no way to reach them. While most people received the money automatically, very low-income people who don’t normally file tax returns had to register online before November 21 to provide their address or bank account number.

IRS under pressure

If Congress keeps the eligibility requirements the same as they were for the first round of checks, the process may be nearly as easy as hitting a button. But it could complicate things if the parameters are changed — especially if Congress adds restrictions aside from income.
Additional checks may delay the start of the 2020 tax filing season. A second stimulus check means the agency will have to make changes to the tax return forms, some of which have already been sent to the printers.

December is not an ideal time to add to the IRS’s workload. It’s typically the month when work is done to prepare for the upcoming filing season and more staff may be on leave than usual due to the holidays.

“I believe the IRS will deliver the stimulus checks in a timely manner. It just might be at the expense of the filing season start date,” said Chad Hooper, the executive director of the Professional Managers Association, which advocates for more than 30,000 non-union IRS workers.

This story has been updated with details of the stimulus deal reached Sunday.

Protesting Indian Farmers Call For 2nd Strike In A Week By SHONAL GANGULY (AP News)

Staff ReporterBusiness, Community, Finance/Economy 0

Tens of thousands of protesting Indian farmers called for a national farmers’ strike on Monday, the second in a week, to press for the quashing of three new laws on agricultural reform that they say will drive down crop prices and devastate their earnings.

The farmers are camping along at least five major highways on the outskirts of New Delhi and have said they won’t leave until the government rolls back what they call the “black laws.” They have blockaded highways leading to the capital for three weeks, and several rounds of talks with the government have failed to produce any breakthroughs.

Scores of farmer leaders also conducted a token hunger strike on Monday at the protest sites. Heavy contingents of police in riot gear patrolled the areas where the farmers have been camping.

Protest leaders have rejected the government’s offer to amend some contentious provisions of the new farm laws, which deregulate crop pricing, and have stuck to their demand for total repeal.

At Singhu, a protest site on the outskirts of New Delhi, hundreds of farmers blocked all entry and exit routes and chanted anti-government slogans. Some of them carried banners reading “No farmers, no food.”

About two dozen leaders held a daylong hunger strike at the site, while a huge communal kitchen served food for the other protesters.

“It’s the government’s responsibility to provide social benefits (to people.) And if they don’t give those, then people will have to come together” to protest, said Harvinder Kaur, a government employee who came from her home in Punjab state to help at the kitchen.

Another protester, Rajdeep Singh, a 20-year-old student who helps his farming family back home in Punjab, said the protest would continue until their demands are met.

“Now it’s their (government’s) ego and the question of our pride,” he said.

Farmer leaders have threatened to intensify their actions and have threatened to block trains in the coming days if the government doesn’t abolish the laws.

The farmers filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Friday seeking the quashing of the laws, which were passed in September. The petition was filed by the Bharatiya Kisan Union, or Indian Farmers’ Union, and its leader, Bhanu Pratap Singh, who argued that the laws were arbitrary because the government enacted them without proper consultations with stakeholders.

The farmers fear the government will stop buying grain at minimum guaranteed prices and corporations will then push prices down. The government says it is willing to pledge that guaranteed prices will continue.

With nearly 60% of the Indian population depending on agriculture for their livelihoods, the growing farmer rebellion has rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and its allies.

Modi’s government insists the reforms will benefit farmers. It says they will allow farmers to market their produce and boost production through private investment.

Farmers have been protesting the laws for nearly two months in Punjab and Haryana states. The situation escalated three weeks ago when tens of thousands marched to New Delhi, where they clashed with police.

GOPIO-CT Organizes Experts Panel On 2021 Tax Planning and Tax Saving Tips

Staff ReporterCommunity, Finance/Economy 0

With the year 2020 with all the uncertainties due to the Covid pandemic coming to a close, most of us, especially the Indian Americans are getting ready to file the annual Tax Returns. With ever changing Tax Laws, and in the context of the Covid pandemic and the ushering in of a new administration led by President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris preparing to lead the nation, there are several unanswered questions on how best to use the prevailing tax laws to benefit individuals, families and businesses.

 

GOPIO-CT, the most active Chapter in the world, under the leaderships of Dr. Thomas Abraham, Chairman of GOPIO International and Ashok Nichani, the local Chapter president and the Exceptive Committee organized a Virtual Zoom Session on Friday, Dec. 4, 2020, with the objective of educating Indian Americans on 2021 Major US Tax Reform, Tax Planning and Tax Saving Tips, International Taxes, Estate & Gift tax and Retirement Plans. Attended by hundreds of members and leaders of GOPIO, the educative session was led by several experts on Tax law in the US, with particular focus on international Taxes.

 

Cecil Nazareth, ACA, CPA, MBA addressed the audience on Tax Planning 2020-’21 and International Taxes with particular focus on: IRS enforcement; Biden proposed tax plan; Year-end Tax planning; and, Other proposals/planning tools. He recommended tax filers to avoid “red flags” that could potentially lead to one greater scrutiny. Under Biden administration, Nazreth stated, “Chances of tax cut is greater for lower and middle class Americans, with tax rate possibly to go up for those earning over $400,000.” He was of the opinion that “No tax hike in Covid times” and “New credit for people providing long term care to relatives with incentive to offer more retirement savings.” He suggested small businesses to “Apply for PPP loan forgiveness NOW” while cautioning that “Expenses are not deductible if loan is forgiven.”

 

Cecil Nazareth CA, CPA is a partner with Nazareth CAs & CPAs, Cecil worked at Ernst & Young and the AICPA in key strategic positions. Cecil is an Indian Chartered Accountant and a U.S. CPA. Cecil is a leading authority on Indo–US tax issues. Cecil has an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University and Information Technology from Columbia University. His is also an author of “International tax and compliance handbook” with special emphasis on India-U.S. taxes.

 

In his address, Michael Markhoff. Esq., spoke about Estate, Gift taxes and Trust Options for Children, while educating the audience on “changes you should consider to your estate plan in 2021 due to the election; Planning to minimize state estate taxes; and Trust options for children.”

Markhoff said, the new Administration under Biden is likely to lower the exemption, resulting less returns for people with higher income. He suggested to “make gifts before the end of the year” and highlighted the options for making gifts from one person to another within family to avoid higher taxes. Suggesting that Life Insurance is a good planning and will help pay for estate plans, he recommended “charity plans will leave with lower state taxes.”

 

Attorney Michael Markhoff, a partner at Danziger & Markhoff LLP, is a graduate of Columbia College and Brooklyn Law School and is listed in Best Lawyers in America – Trusts and Estates and Category and Super Lawyers – Trusts and Estates Category. Michael was named Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year for White Plains, New York for 2016 and 2018 by Best Lawyers in America.

 

Andy Roth, Esq., addressed the audience on “Looking into Key CARES Act and SECURE Act – Retirement Plan, including on taxes for those with Coronavirus infections. Under CARES ACT, he said, “You, or your spouse or dependent, are diagnosed with coronavirus by a CDC-approved test (including a test authorized under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act;) and, or our experience adverse financial consequences as a result of your, or your spouse or a member of your household that is, someone who shares your principal residence. “Qualified individuals can elect in their tax return to treat allowable in-service distributions in 2020 as CRDs even if their employer’s plan does not adopt CRDs,” he told the audience.

 

Attorney Andrew E. Roth is a partner of Danziger & Markhoff LLP with over 35 years of experience as an ERISA attorney.  He is a frequent lecturer in the areas of pension, profit-sharing and employee benefits law.  Mr. Roth attended University College of Arts and Science of NYU and graduated magna cum laude from Brooklyn Law School. Mr. Roth also received an LLM in Taxation from NYU School of Law.

 

Shiva Bhashyam CFP®, AEP®, APMA® emphasized the importance of Financial Planning in Retirement and offered Market update and outlook, Retirement planning checklist, and Behavioral investing – how and why to manage emotions during volatile markets.

 

Shiva Bhashyam received his undergraduate degree in economics from Tufts University and a Masters Degree in Management and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Shiva is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) practitioner, Accredited Estate Planner (AEP®), and Accredited Portfolio Manager Advisor (APMA®). Shiva has been a financial advisor with an Ameriprise Financial Private Wealth Advisory Practice, Bhashyam Wealth Management Associates. Shiva has been named a Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor for 2019 & 2020.

 

Kim Ramchandani spoke about Long-Term Care Planning Options, and on ways to help you to have a conversation with your loved ones about making a plan now about your wishes. “It is important because your life and your health don’t just affect you; they affect all the people who love and care for you,” she said.

Kim Ramchandani, CHFC® is Senior Vice President, Financial Consultant, Webster Investments. Kim provides holistic wealth management services that address he full spectrum of her clients’ financial concerns, including investments, life insurance, family finances, retirement and estate planning. She has 13 years’ experience in investment services and is a Chartered Financial Consultant. ®

David Folley, who works closely with Webster Investments, in his presentation spoke about Tax Incentives to us in 2020. Pointing to the fact that a third of our society is in retirement, he said, they can be used to reimburse age related caps in the tax laws. While educating the participants on the long-term care, he said, Long Term Care, he said, it is the option to live in the community rather than be institutionalized when one is old or disabled. He warned that when one is older, Medicare and Medicaid will run their course soon, and one’s savings will end and one’s family will not be there to care for you. He suggested using Long Term Care Plans as   a way to prepare to cover the cost of treatment when you need it the most.

In his brief introductory remarks, GOPIO International Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham reminded participants of the many efforts by GOPIO, which has led a delegation to the IRS representing Indian Americans and their many concerns, especially on the FBAR issue in the year 2011.

GOPIO-CT President Ashok Nichani welcomed the panelists and the participants. In his remarks, he highlighted the many initiatives, especially educating Indian Americans on Taxes and Tax Laws in the US. GOPIO-CT Vice president Prasad Chintalapudi moderated the Q/A after each speaker. GOPIO-Central Jersey Vie President Vijay Garg served hosted the Zoom event for GOPIO-CT. Other GOPIO leaders present at the Webinar included GOPIO-CT Secretary Rajneesh Misra. GOPIO International officers including Vice President Ram Gadhavi, Treasurer Kewal Kanda, Associate Secretary Jaswant Mody and Media Council Chair Nami Kaur, GOPIO-Manhattan President Shivender Sofat and GOPIO-Central jersey President Kunal Mehta.

Over the last 14 years, GOPIO-CT, a chapter of GOPIO International has become an active and dynamic organization hosting interactive sessions with policy makers and academicians, community events, youth mentoring and networking workshops, and working with other area organizations to help create a better future. GOPIO-CT – Global Organization of People of Indian Origin – serves as a non-partisan, secular, civic and community service organization – promoting awareness of Indian culture, customs and contributions of PIOs through community programs, forums, events and youth activities. It seeks to strengthen partnerships and create an ongoing dialogue with local communities.

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