Asia

Food prices are continuously increasing in Pakistan. The country where ever individual spends half of there salary on food is a big thing. The continuous inflation in food prices is straining the budgets of the middle-class household. In a country like Pakistan, where most families spend over half their income on food, the increasing cost of transport, petrol, electricity and indirect taxes have raised valid concerns about the potential escalation in hunger, poverty and malnutrition. This is particularly true for people who are already within or just outside the poverty bracket. The number of moderately to severely food-insecure households, for example, rose to 16.4 per 100 households, as surveyed by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, in 2019-20 from 15.9 a year before. Since the su...

One idea Nayar picked up from her time working with entrepreneurs was the importance of a motivating business mission. With Nykaa, she saw the opportunity to help India’s women look after themselves, moving away from the country’s traditional deference to men. “I was inspired by those die-hard founders,” Nayar said in a recent interview over Zoom from her home in Alibaug. “Our message to women has been that the spotlight of her life should be on herself. You are important in your story and should feel no guilt at being center stage.” The message resonated. Founded in 2012, the Mumbai-headquartered startup now offers more than 2,500 brands of everything from mascara and makeup remover to velvety kohl Indian eyeliner and the body tattoo art called mehendi. Through its websites, apps a...

Dubai: The edtech portan upGrad is doing knowledgehunt in gulf which will give it access to pool of 250,000 students. KnowledgeHut - now rebranded as ‘KnowledgeHut, an upGrad company’ - expects to cross $40 million in revenue next year, 65 per cent of which will be from countries across MENA and Souteast Asia. “With our focus on short-term professional upskilling, KnowledgeHut is driving outcome-based immersive learning for global technologists and the wider professional community,” said Subramanyam Reddy, CEO. “Given our position in global markets, this synergy with upGrad will further strengthen and support that vision. The acquisition paves the way for upGrad to empower B2B customer segments across geographies including the US and the Asia Pacific. upGrad is venturing into the sh...

The Railway link between India and Bagladesh was defunct in the 1965 war.  The Network has started again this month. The Haldibari-Chilahati rail link between India and then East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) was operational till 1965. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina virtually inaugurated the rail link. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, regular train services could not be started on the section. "The first goods train carrying stone chips to Bangladesh through the revived Haldibari --Chilahati rail link leaves from Damdim station of Alipurduar Division in NFR (Northeast Frontier Railway) on 31.07.2021," the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) in a statement said. The Haldibari-Chilahati rail link was part of the broad g...

FY21 turned to be good for Pakistan in terms of country’s exports and remittances but, it remained gloomy for FDI. The Net FDI of country was down by 29 percent year-on-year with inflows down by 9 percent and outflows higher by 61 percent. Similar to the ongoing trend, power sector continued to dominate the net FDI inflows accounting for nearly 50 percent of the net FDI during FY21. Half of the investment (50 percent) arrived from China, which continues to be the single largest source of FDI for Pakistan. Part of the decline in FDI is due to the overall global slowdown in in foreign investments since the outbreak of Covid-19 where almost every country - developed or developing (excluding China and India) – witnessed a sharp decline in these foreign inflows. However, apart from the g...

Karachi, Pakistan: In January, a shipment from Pakistan was detected with coronavirus after which China banned the seafood import from Pakistan. The Pakistan fish export has been hit very badly by this move of China. Out of top 15 exporters, some nine firms are now temporarily banned by the Chinese authorities, Dawn reported. Qadri Noori Enterprise chief executive officer Manzar Alam told Dawn that around 50 companies have been exporting fish to China. Giving details of the ban, he said in case the coronavirus is detected in one shipment, the exporter faces a one-week ban and in case of four cases, then the exporter cannot send the shipment for eight weeks, he said. He said Pakistan's seafood exports have since been in crisis as 60 per cent out of the country's total fish expo...

The peace talks going on in Dhaka between Afghan government and Taliban are no way going to end soon. The Taliban has demanded to surrender of Afghan government to Islamist group. Delegations from the two sides ended 48 hours of negotiation in Qatar with a joint statement at the weekend saying they will meet again next week to continue until a settlement is reached. The Taliban’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Haibatullah Akhundzada maintained ahead of the meeting that “the Islamic emirate strenuously favours a political settlement”. But, at the same time, the Islamists has continued their offensive to capture territory, and carry out bomb attacks. There is a broad consensus among the Afghan government and its international supporters that the Taliban should become part of the countr...

New Delhi, India: The tourism will increase as the easing restriction said business tycoon Mohamed Ali Janah. He also thanked India for helping his country in the hour of need when and sending covid relief.   “We have had almost 600,000 tourists coming to Maldives under very difficult circumstances. Most of the tourists come to Maldives from Russia followed by India,”. “Because of the high numbers of COVID-19 patients in this part of the world, the government temporarily closed the borders, but then now they again open so I’m sure that India would overtake Russia. I would say that Russia and India saved Maldives, during these very difficult circumstances,” he said. Talking about India as an investment destination, Janah elaborated that business communities from both countr...

CHITRAL: The locals of the of Yurjogh village in Lot Koh valley have complained that the government is suooprting the local leader of the ruling party PTI in grabbing public land. They said that the government had also approved a huge amount of Rs40 million for irrigation project on the said piece of land. Addressing a press conference, the villagers including Wazir Khan, Mufti Israruddin, Haji Mohammad Nawaz, Sher Wali Khan and others said that the piece of land was a pasture near their village that was a public property as given in the gazette notification of 1975. They said that the irrigation project would render their village Yurjogh vulnerable to landslide. They added that the geological survey carried out by Focus Humanitarian Assistance, Pakistan in 2002 unambiguously ...

Washington, US: The former American military commander in Afghanistan in Afghanistan said that US might regret the withdrawal of its troops in such way as the condition is worsening with every passing hour.   Speaking on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," General David Petraeus on Sunday said, "The situation on the ground has become increasingly dire with each passing week. The on-ground situation in Afghanistan has become dreadful in the last few weeks with large number of Afghan National Security Forces dying in battle with the Taliban. These forces are not sure if someone is coming to their rescue, which has caused uncertainty in the battlefield, CNN reported citing former Gen Petraeus. "I fear we will look back and regret the decision to withdraw," Petraeus said. "Beyond that, ...