August 2019

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12 August 2019 BUSINESS www.theasianindependent.co.uk Coffee Day postpones April- June earnings announcement Bengaluru : Coffee Day Enterprises, which lost its founding chairperson V.G. Siddhartha earlier in the week, has postponed the announcement of its quarterly earnings for the first quarter of 2019 which was scheduled to be announced on August 8. In a statement on Friday, the company said that although adequate steps had been taken to complete the quarterly review in time, owing to "recent developments", the review and subsequent preparation of the financial results for the quarter ended June is not expected to be completed by the stipulated time. "Due to certain unavoidable circumstances, the board of directors shall not consider the financial results on a standalone and consolidated basis along with the limited review report (collectively quarterly financial results) of the company and its subsidiaries for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, in the meeting of the board of directors of the company to be held on August 8, 2019," the statement said. The revised date of the meeting to consider the first quarter financial results will be communicated expeditiously, it said. In shocking turn of events, Siddhartha's body was found in Karnataka's Netravathi river on Wednesday, nearly 36 hours after he had gone missing. Two days prior to his disappearance, the coffee baron had left behind a note to his employees which revealed that he was in deep debt. The mountain of debt was impairing his business as working capital requirements could not be met. It led him to sell his stake in IT firm Mindtree that gave him some room to manoeuvre. "I have failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts. I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. Century-old Panama Canal lock drained for maintenance Panama City : The more than century-old Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal’s Pacific side was drained on Thursday for maintenance, a routine operation that will last at least a week but scarcely affect ship traffic. The work involving more than 600 technicians will focus on the lock gates, an executive in the Panama Canal Authority’s Locks Division, Wilfredo Alberto, said, adding that it took 14 hours to empty the chamber, two hours fewer than usual, the Efe news agency reported. “We do this type of work when client traffic is low. We never do it in high season, so that it has the least possible impact on ship traffic. And we advise our clients well in advance,” he added. Roughly six per cent of world trade crosses through the canal via more than 140 sea routes linking 1,700 ports in 160 different countries. The waterway, which measures 82 kilometers (51 miles) in length and is considered one of the greatest feats of modern engineering, links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and uses a system of locks at different levels that require 2,02,000 cubic meters (7.1 million cubic feet) of water every time a ship passes through. The two biggest clients of the Panama Canal used to be the US and China, although because of the long-running trade war pitting those two nations Beijing was recently leapfrogged by Japan. A recent expansion project that added a new set of locks (the devices used to raise and lower ships) and opened in June 2016 has enabled the waterway to handle so-called Neopanamax vessels. Those ships include vessels that carry up to 13,000 20- foot-long containers and are triple the size of the previous generation of Panamax vessels. The canal also now can provide service to liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other giant bulk vessels. The interoceanic waterway was built by the US between 1903 and 1914 and was handed over to Panama on December 31, 1999. Earlier this year, the canal saw its 6,000th Neopanamax transit. More than 50 per cent of the Neopanamax vessels that have transited to date have been from the container segment. FM to meet bank heads over key sector credit growth New Delhi : Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be meeting the PSU bank heads and major private sector banks on August 5 to review credit growth in various sectors like MSMEs, retail, auto, NBFCs and HFCs which will provide key indications for the steps needed to accelerate GDP growth. The Finance Minister will also meet stakeholders next week to finalise decisions and timelines for action on the U.K. Sinha Panel report on MSME sector, an official statement said on Friday. Many of the actions proposed by the committee involve interministerial coordination. The Finance Minister will be holding a meeting within the next week with revenue and expenditure departments, MSME ministry, and also ministries IT, rural development, health and family welfare, corporate affairs and Commerce as well as telecom to finalise decisions and timelines for action, the statement said. The expert committee of U.K. Sinha which submitted the Hyderabad : The cargo arm of SpiceJet has commenced its freighter service connecting Hyderabad with Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. The first freighter landed at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) late on Thursday night. With this, Hyderabad Airport now has six scheduled freighters operating, said the airport operator GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL). The 737-700F type freighter aircraft used by SpiceJet will operate six days every week, arriving from Chennai at 9.45 p.m. and departing for Delhi at 10.45 p.m. This service will connect the Chennai- Hyderabad-Delhi-Mumbai-Bangalore sectors. The new SpiceJet freighter service will also offer an opportunity to the shippers from the region to access the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other markets via Delhi. The offering also includes postal circulation among the key metros, saving critical time MSMEs recommendations for the sector's development in June, suggested Rs 5,000 crore stressed asset fund for MSMEs on the lines of the Textile Upgradation Fund Scheme in a relief to small businesses hurt by demonetization, the Goods and Services Tax and an ongoing liquidity crunch. The committee said such a fund could work in tandem with RBI-mandated restructuring schemes or bank-led NPA revival solutions for MSMEs. The committee also suggested forming a government-sponsored Fund of SpiceJet freighter service links Hyderabad with domestic hubs and ensuring quick delivery of goods. "With the addition of this new freighter, customers will have more options to ship their goods within the country and beyond. The availability of high-quality, daily cargo services is essential for the development of trade especially in high-value and timesensitive products. This will also give a boost to the cargo and logistics sector in the region," said S.G.K. Kishore, CEO, GHIAL. "The launch of our 737-700F freighter opens up another option to our customers in and around Hyderabad. We have received a positive response from the market and are confident that this move will add value to our customers' supply chains," said Manjiv Singh, Chief Project Officer, SpiceJet. Apart from SpiceJet, the other scheduled freighter services that are operating from Hyderabad Airport include Lufthansa, Turkish, Qatar, Cathay Pacific and Blue Dart. Hyderabad Airport Cargo serves many multinational companies across pharma, perishable, engineering, automobile, aerospace and leather industries. Apart from all major cargo hubs in India, international destinations like Frankfurt, Istanbul, Dubai, Doha and Hong Kong are also well connected with the RGIA. Rs 10,000 crore to support venture capital and private equity firms investing in MSMEs. Small businesses have been facing a spate of disruptions since the government decided to demonetize high-value currency notes in November 2016. This was followed by implementation of the GST in 2017, and then the liquidity crunch triggered by a series of debt defaults by group companies of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd in 2018. India's 63.38 million MSMEs contribute significantly to the country's economic growth. The sector accounts for about 45% of manufacturing output, more than 40% of exports, over 28% of Gross Domestic Product and employs about 111 million people. Automobile sector witnessed the worst July sales in two decades. Industry sank deeper in July with sales at some of the top passenger vehicle makers plunging to their worst in about two decades. The FMCG sector also slowed down due to lower consumption in rural market. Rising economic slowdown leading to investments and stress in the nonbank lending space dimmed demand from both urban and rural consumers. Irregular monsoon rain this year further hit rural sentiments in an economy starved of fresh private investments. The Financial Stability Report (FSR) of RBI in June stated credit growth of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) picked up, with public sector banks (PSBs) registering near double digit growth. Capital adequacy of the SCBs improved after the recapitalisation of PSBs. Cabinet approves new subsidy rates for fertilizers New Delhi, The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved subsidy rates for P&K (phosphatic and potassic) fertilizers for the year 2019-20, an official release said. The subsidy rates for nitrogen will be Rs 18.90 per kg, Rs 15.21 per kg for phosphorus, Rs 11.12 per kg for potash and Rs 3.56 per kg for sulphur. The expected expenditure for release of subsidy on P&K fertilizers during 2019-20 will be Rs 22,875.50 crore. This will enable the manufacturers and importers to formalize supply contracts for fertilizers and fertilizer inputs and make fertilizers available to the farmers, the release said. Dollar little changed ahead of Fed decision New York, The US dollar was little moved in late trading on Tuesday as market participants are awaiting the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates amid a slew of economic data. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.01 per cent to 98.0562 at 3:00 p.m. (local time). The US central bank kicked off its two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and will announce its decision on whether to adjust interest rates Wednesday afternoon, the Xinhua news agency reported. Investors are speculating that the Fed would cut interest rates this week for the first time in more than a decade by 25 basis points. On the data front, US personal income increased 0.4 per cent in June while inflation remained below the target set by the Federal Reserve, the US Department of Commerce said on Tuesday.
www.theasianindependent.co.uk HEALTH August 2019 13 Mediterranean diet during pregnancy may lower gestational diabetes risk : Study LONDON : Women who follow a Mediterranean-style diet during pregnancy, including a daily portion of walnuts and almonds, and extra virgin olive oil, may have a lower risk of gestational diabetes, a study claims. Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that is first seen in a pregnant woman who did not have diabetes before she was pregnant. The results, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, found women who followed a Mediterranean-style diet during pregnancy had a 35 per cent lower risk of gestational diabetes and on average gained 2.75 pounds less, compared to women who received standard prenatal care. A Mediterranean-style diet rich in good, unsaturated fats, found in foods like walnuts and extra virgin olive oil, has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death in adults, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Warwick in the UK. Walnuts, in particular, are a traditional food in the Mediterranean diet because of their omega-3 ALA content and bioactive compounds, they said. While there has been extensive research on the Mediterranean diet to date, the diet's potential to improve maternal and offspring outcomes has not been widely evaluated, making this study particularly valuable. The study included 1,252 multi-ethnic inner-city pregnant women with metabolic risk factors, including obesity and chronic hypertension. In addition to receiving folic acid and vitamin D supplementation, the women were randomly assigned to either a Mediterranean-style diet or a control group that received dietary advice per UK national recommendations for prenatal care and weight management during pregnancy. Those who followed the Mediterranean diet consumed a daily portion of nuts, including 15 gram of walnuts, 7.5 gram of almonds, 7.5 gram of hazelnuts) and used extra virgin olive oil as their main source of cooking fat. In addition, the diet emphasised fruit, vegetables, non-refined grains 5 hours daily on phone increases risk of obesity New Delhi : Researchers have found that students who use their smartphones five or more hours a day are prone to higher risk of obesity and likely to have other lifestyle habits that increases the risk of heart disease. According to a study, researchers analysed 1,060 students (700 girls and 360 boys) of Colombia with an average age of 19 years and 20 years, respectively. "It is important for the general population to know and be aware that, despite being undoubtedly attractive for its multiple purposes, portability, comfort, access to countless services, information and entertainment sources, mobile technology should also be used to improve habits and healthy behaviours," said study lead Author Mirary Mantilla-Morron from the Simon Bolivar University in Colombia. The study found that the risk of obesity increases by 43 per cent if a smartphone was used for five or more hours a day, as participating students were twice as likely to drink more sugary drinks, fast food, sweets, snacks and have decreased physical activities. According to researchers, 26 per cent of the students who were overweight and 4.6 per cent who were obese spent more than five hours using their device. Spending too much time using the smartphone facilitates sedentary behaviours, reduces the time of physical activity, which increases the risk of premature death, diabetes, heart disease and different types of cancer, the study said. According to Rajesh Kapoor, surgical Gastroenterology, Jaypee Hospital, Noida, using smartphones today is not a mere choice, rather it has become a necessity. But using it for too long may risk your healthy life. "The best way out is to encourage yourself to reduce the duration of time being used on phones and other related gadgets at the same time, to indulge in physical activities like yoga or any other sports or exercise pattern, and by not becoming a couch potato," Kapoor told IANS. "It is not a question of five or more hours on the phone. It is a question of how much activity level we are able to build into our life," Achal Bhagat, Senior Consultant, Psychiatry at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in Delhi told IANS. "And if we are not able to build it to an adequate level, then it increases the chances of obesity and related health risk factors. Phone is one of the ways of exhibiting that we are not doing enough physical activities in our life," he added. Two junior doctors suspended over TikTok video Hyderabad : In the latest TikTok controversy, two junior doctors, including a woman, at the government-run Gandhi Hospital here were suspended on Friday after their video shot in the hospital went viral. The junior doctors in the physiotherapy department made the video and uploaded it on video-sharing platform. Their action came under flak from netizens for behaving irresponsibly in the hospital where many poor patients turn up for treatment. Taking serious note of this incident, hospital authorities suspended the two junior doctors and also served notice to the in charge of the physiotherapy department. They also ordered a probe into the incident. Hospital officials clarified that both medicos were not from the Gandhi Medical College but from some other college and were doing an internship at the hospital. This is the second such incident in a government-run institution this month. Seven contract employees of Khammam Municipal Corporation faced a wage cut after their TikTok videos shot in the office went viral earlier this month. In another incident on July 19, Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mehmood Ali's grandson Furqan Ahmed appeared in a TikTok video with his friend. Seen sitting on an official car registered in the name of Director General of Police and a part of the Home Minister's convoy, Ahmed's friend enacted a scene from Telugu film "Don", threatening to slit the throat of a police officer. The Home Minister had apologized for his grandson's action. and legumes; moderate to high consumption of fish; small to moderate intake of poultry and dairy products; low intake of red meat and processed meat; and avoidance of sugary drinks, fast food, and food rich in animal-based fat. Participants received dietary advice at 18, 20, and 28 weeks' gestation to help improve compliance and make sure the diet was made culturally sensitive. The researchers measured dietary compliance using self-reported feedback from the participants, so it's important to note that there could have been human error in the reporting. They also assessed the effect of a Mediterranean diet on other pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure, preeclampsia, stillbirth, small for gestational age fetus, or admission to a neonatal care unit, but did not find any significant associations. One in four mothers enter pregnancy with preexisting obesity, chronic hypertension or raised lipid levels, which can lead to pregnancy complications, long-term risk of diabetes and cardiovascular complications for mothers and their children. RESEARCHERS develop tool to help check chikungunya New York : Researchers have developed a tool that attracts and captures female mosquitoes looking for a site to lay eggs, which in the future may help curb the chikungunya virus. The study, published in the journal PLOS, shows that Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap (AGP trap) successfully protected people from getting infected with the chikungunya virus in Puerto Rico. "AGO traps are a novel chemical-free, effective approach to control Aedes aegypti (Yellow fever mosquito) populations and provide protection from infection with the pathogens that these mosquitoes transmit," said researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "Further evaluations should determine if AGO traps are sustainable and effective in large scale community trials," they said. The lack of effective tools to control Aedes aegypti mosquito populations has resulted in the continued expansion of the dengue virus, zika virus and chikungunya virus. For the study, the researchers randomly selected 290 households in Puerto Rican communities that had AGO trap interventions and 349 households in communities without AGO traps. From intervention communities, 175 household members were analysed and 152 from nonintervention communities. Blood samples were collected from each participant to detect chikungunya virus infection and surveys recorded demographic information as well as data on mosquito repellent and bed net use and frequency of mosquito bites. A total of 114 participants (34.9 per cent) were seropositive for the chikungunya virus. Among people who spent most of their daytime hours inside the community they lived in, 10.3 per cent were seropositive for chikungunya virus in communities with AGO traps whereas 48.7 per cent were positive for chikungunya virus in communities without traps. Among all participants, including those who did not spend as much daylight time within the community, 26.1 per cent were seropositive for the chikungunya virus in the intervention communities and 43.8 per cent were positive in communities without traps.
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August 2019

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