Why strong monsoon rains are not necessarily good news for Indian farmers

International News

India, one of the world's biggest agricultural producers, experienced its heaviest monsoon rains in 25 years this year.
While rain would normally cheer the agricultural heartland, the monsoon was erratic and has left many crops damaged.
WHY IS THE MONSOON IMPORTANT?
India is the world's biggest producer of sugar, cotton and pulses and the second-biggest producer of wheat and rice. The success of these crops is largely determined by the June-September monsoon, which delivers about 70 per cent of the country's annual rainfall.
The monsoon is also critical for the wider economy. Farming makes up about 15 per cent of the $2.5 trillion economy and employs more than half of the country's 130 crore people.
While crops in the ground have been damaged by the monsoon, the rains have replenished reservoirs and ground water reserves, which augurs well for India's rural economy in 2020.
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THIS MONSOON?
A prolonged dry spell resulted in significantly below-average rainfall at the start of the season, prompting farmers to delay the sowing of summer crops and leaving others wilting.

 By the end of July, rainfall was so heavy that rivers flooded and crops were damaged.The combination of a prolonged dry spell followed by heavy rainfall increased pest infestation and disease, forcing farmers to spend more on pesticides....READ MORE

If China, US continue their tit-for-tat policy, everybody will lose

International News

Things are getting worse. That’s a conclusion one might have reasonably reached after reading this week’s US-China headlines.
First, there was Hong Kong, a matter Beijing has warned Washington to stay clear of. Protesters last weekend battled police, vandalized shops and paralyzed swaths of the Asia financial center. Then President Donald Trump tied outcomes in Hong Kong to trade.
Next, as China’s top trade negotiator prepared to travel to Washington for a new round of talks, the US blacklisted eight prominent Chinese tech firms. In explaining the action, the US cited the companies’ involvement in China’s westernmost Xinjiang province, where up to a million predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities have been allegedly detained.
A day later, the US imposed travel bans on Chinese officials linked to Xinjiang. And it emerged that the Trump administration was moving ahead with discussing possible limits on portfolio flows into China.
These are not events that instill confidence in the state of what is increasingly the world’s most-important bilateral relationship. But there’s also another way to see it.
The Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper known for its more hawkish tone, brushed off the blacklisting as a gambit for leverage ahead of this week’s trade negotiations. These American attempts to add "bargaining chips" won't sway China's approach to the talks, it added.

 Could the week's events have been more about positioning than a reflection of growing conflict? The latest round of talks may give us a better idea. Or they won’t. But if what the past week has illustrated is a deterioration in U.S.-China ties, that’ll be bad for everyone....READ MORE

This mid-sized newspaper tried to report its way out of decline and failed

International News
Peter Barbey’s great-grandfather John started the Reading Glove and Mitten Manufacturing Co. 120 years ago. Known today as the VF Corp., it owns outdoorsy brands like Timberland and North Face. In its last fiscal year, VF reported nearly $14 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in net income. Its market cap hovers around $35 billion. The Barbeys, who still own around 20 per cent of the company, are very rich.
Barbey, 62, went to the University of Arizona. He met his wife, Pam, there. They planted roots in Phoenix, where he invested in commercial real estate while also running the city’s most beloved independent bookstore, Houle Books. But in 2011, Peter and Pam moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to take charge of another property that had been in the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families for over a century: the Reading Eagle. With a Sunday circulation over 70,000, a team of sports writers as good as any in Pennsylvania, and a news staff that took seriously its watchdog role, the Eagle was one of the best medium-sized newspapers in the state, if not the country.
When I asked Barbey recently how he felt about leaving behind his life in Arizona to become president of the Eagle, he shrugged. “I’d been on the board since 2000,” he said. “I knew the company well. And I felt it was my duty to my family’s legacy, and to this community, to take this on.”
Eight years later, the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families no longer own the Reading Eagle. In May, the paper was sold to MediaNews Group Inc., the newspaper company owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC, which has a well-deserved reputation for asset stripping and layoffs. Barbey cared deeply about the Eagle; he sold it with great reluctance, helpless to reverse the paper’s economic decline.

 You sometimes hear journalists saying that if only their paper’s owner had beefed up the staff, had given reporters more time to do better stories, had made the paper indispensable to its community...Read More

Malaysian PM Mahathir accepts failure of the boom he launched 30 years ago

International News
Peter Barbey’s great-grandfather John started the Reading Glove and Mitten Manufacturing Co. 120 years ago. Known today as the VF Corp., it owns outdoorsy brands like Timberland and North Face. In its last fiscal year, VF reported nearly $14 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in net income. Its market cap hovers around $35 billion. The Barbeys, who still own around 20 per cent of the company, are very rich.
Barbey, 62, went to the University of Arizona. He met his wife, Pam, there. They planted roots in Phoenix, where he invested in commercial real estate while also running the city’s most beloved independent bookstore, Houle Books. But in 2011, Peter and Pam moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to take charge of another property that had been in the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families for over a century: the Reading Eagle. With a Sunday circulation over 70,000, a team of sports writers as good as any in Pennsylvania, and a news staff that took seriously its watchdog role, the Eagle was one of the best medium-sized newspapers in the state, if not the country.
When I asked Barbey recently how he felt about leaving behind his life in Arizona to become president of the Eagle, he shrugged. “I’d been on the board since 2000,” he said. “I knew the company well. And I felt it was my duty to my family’s legacy, and to this community, to take this on.”
Eight years later, the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families no longer own the Reading Eagle. In May, the paper was sold to MediaNews Group Inc., the newspaper company owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC, which has a well-deserved reputation for asset stripping and layoffs. Barbey cared deeply about the Eagle; he sold it with great reluctance, helpless to reverse the paper’s economic decline.

 You sometimes hear journalists saying that if only their paper’s owner had beefed up the staff, had given reporters more time to do better stories, had made the paper indispensable to its community...Read More

Are Indians going to the movies to escape slowdown? PVR's CEO thinks so

International News

Cinemas are seeing brisk business even as India’s economy slows to a six-year low and unemployment swells, according to PVR Ltd., the nation’s largest operator of multi-screen theatres.
Ever since the box-office hit Kabir Singh released in June, even films with small budgets or less-recognizable actors are drawing the crowds, Kamal Gianchandani, chief executive officer at PVR Pictures, said in an interview this month. Results for July-September will “definitely surprise a lot of people,” he said, declining to elaborate.
“I think the slowdown is helping the cinema business,” Gianchandani said. “There is negativity around and people want to escape it.”
If Gianchandani’s prediction is correct, PVR would be defying a slump that has dented demand for almost everything from 7-cent cookies to cars. He joins the likes of Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan, who has in the past compared movies to lipstick, saying that both are immune to economic turmoil.
Seventeen of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg have buy ratings on PVR stock, with eight holds and one sell. Similar numbers can be seen for smaller Indian rival Inox Leisure Ltd. PVR will probably outperform Inox on spending per head, analysts led by Karan Taurani at Elara Securities Pvt. said October 4.
Sensing competition from the likes of Netflix Inc. and Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Jio service -- which allow people to watch movies from the comfort of their home -- PVR has partnered with Canadian motion technology player D-Box Technologies Inc. to design seats that sway and jerk in sync with the action on screen, offering a more immersive experience.

 “Our strategy is to ensure we stay relevant in this age where every other day a new streaming service is being launched,” Gianchandani said. “Fortunately, customers are receptive.”....Read More

Soon flying taxis to arrive in Singapore to test cleaner, quieter sky ride

International News
A British company says it’s building the world’s first “vertiport” for electric aircraft in Singapore, an early step towards a global network for flying taxis.
Essex-based Skyports Ltd. plans to show off the vertical take-off and landing station at Marina Bay during the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress from October 21-25. Germany’s Volocopter GmbH will bring along its electric aircraft for a demonstration flight.
Urban air transport isn’t new—helicopters have been doing it for decades. What’s changing is that better batteries and innovative designs are making it cheaper, cleaner and quieter. Companies are just trying to demonstrate the technology’s capabilities for now, but a report from Citigroup said sales of air taxis could reach $5 billion by the end of the next decade.
“Helicopters have been around a long time but they’re not well used, particularly in cities, because they’re noisy, dangerous and polluting,” Skyports Managing Director Duncan Walker said by phone. “We’re really trying to make it a form of transportation for anybody, not just the extremely wealthy.”
Citi expects designers to keep tweaking the technology and working with regulators so they can start to offer regular air taxi services from 2025. It could be even sooner, with Uber Technologies Inc. targeting launches in Los Angeles, Dallas and Melbourne as early as 2023. As many as 20,000 electric passenger aircraft could be sold annually by 2030, Citi said in its report last month.

 They’ll start with a range of about 50 miles for journeys of 10-20 minutes—enough to make it worth paying extra to avoid road congestion, according to the investment bank. It puts the likely cost of a ride at about $3.75 per mile—cheaper than a limousine but double the cost of ground-based ride-hailing....Read More

Monetary policy: Here's how low interest rates can go after 5 cuts in a row

International News
How much lower can India’s central bank drive interest rates after delivering five back-to-back cuts? By as much as 65 basis points, say some economists.
The Monetary Policy Committee can possibly cut rates by another 40-65 basis points, which will take the benchmark repurchase rate below the 4.75 per cent level seen during the global financial crisis, according to economists, including Anand Rathi Financial Services Ltd.s’ Sujan Hajra. So entrenched is India’s growth slowdown that it may require the rate to be cut to as low as 4.5 per cent for any meaningful impact.
“We now expect that rather than 5 per cent, the repo rate in this cycle would bottom out at 4.5 per cent,” said Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi and an ex-central banker himself.
The Reserve Bank of India Friday slashed the full-year growth forecast to 6.1 per cent — which would be a seven-year low — from 6.9 per cent previously. Governor Shaktikanta Das, echoing Mario Draghi, vowed to keep the policy stance dovish for “as long as it is necessary to revive growth.”Das was less forthcoming on how low rates can drop, after having cut rates by a cumulative 135 basis points so far this year.
“On a potential policy rate lower bound we have not said anything,” he told reporters on Friday. “This is a kind of forward guidance that as long as growth momentum remains as it is and till growth is revived, the RBI will remain in an accommodative mode.”
Monetary policy: Here's how low interest rates can go after 5 cuts in a row

 Rahul Bajoria, senior India economist with Barclays Bank Plc, said Das’s guidance was “unambiguously dovish.” He expects the RBI to reduce the repo rate by another 25 basis points in December and by a further 15 basis points in February....Read More