Finance Minister announces Rs 3 lakh crore collateral free automatic loan for businesses

Jan 22: Microsoft Corp’s chief executive officer said he worries that mistrust between the US and China will increase technology costs and hurt economic growth at a critical time.

Using the $470 billion semiconductor industry as an example of a sector that is already globally interconnected, Satya Nadella said the two countries will have to find ways to work together, rather than creating different supply chains for each country.

“All you are doing is increasing transaction costs for everybody if you completely separate,” Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead conference in Davos. That’s a concern as the executive said the world is on the cusp of a revolution around technology and artificial intelligence.

“If we take steps back in trust or increase transaction costs around technology, all we are doing is sacrificing global economic growth,” he said.

The agreement signed last week between the US and China was “not sufficient,” said Nadella, but represented “progress” on the issue of intellectual property protections for US technology companies working with China.

Nadella said he worries about the development of two separate internets, noting that to some degree they already exist “and they will get amplified in the future” with massive technology companies already in place in China.

The viewpoint clashes with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has been sceptical about the idea that ongoing US-China trade tensions could ever lead to a bifurcated system of two internets.

China and the US are the two leading AI superpowers, however the cooling political relations between them have slowed the international collaboration.

Nadella also warned that countries that fail to attract immigrants will lose out as the global tech industry continues to grow. The CEO has previously voiced concern about India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, calling it “sad.”

“However, Nadella said he remained hopeful.

“The fact that there is a 70-year history of nation-building, I think it’s a very strong foundation. I grew up in that country. I’m proud of that heritage. I’m influenced by that experience.”

Hyderabad, Jul 13: Family members of Telugu poet and writer Varavara Rao, who is currently lodged in Navi Mumbai's Taloja jail in the Bhima Koregaon case, on Sunday appealed to the government for his immediate release in view of his deteriorating health.

Rao's wife P. Hemalatha and their three daughters urged the government to save his life by shifting him to a hospital or allow them to provide him with immediate medical care.

We want to remind the government that it has no right to deny the right to life of any person, much less an undertrial prisoner," they said.

His family members said they were very much worried about his deteriorating health. They said his health condition had been scary for over six weeks, ever since he was shifted in an unconscious state to JJ Hospital on May 28.

"Even as he was discharged from the hospital and sent back to jail three days later, there has been no improvement in his health and he is still in need of emergency healthcare," Hemalatha said.

"The immediate cause of concern now is that we are very much perturbed at the routine phone call we received from him on Saturday evening. Though the earlier two calls on June 24 and July 2 were also worrying with his weak and muffled voice, incoherent speech and abruptly jumping into Hindi. But the latest call, on July 11 is much more worrisome as he did not answer straight questions on his health and went into a kind of delirious and hallucinated talk about the funeral of his father and mother, the events that happened seven decades and four decades ago respectively," Rao's wife said.

She said her husband's co-accused companion took the phone from him and informed her that he is not able to walk, go to the toilet and brush his teeth on his own.

"We were also told that he is always hallucinating that we, family members, were waiting at the jail gate to receive him as he was getting released. His co-prisoner also said he needs immediate medical care for not only physical but also neurological issues. The confusion, loss of memory and incoherence are the results of electrolyte imbalance and fall of Sodium and Potassium levels leading to brain damage. This electrolyte imbalance may be fatal also."

Stating that Taloja Jail Hospital is not well equipped to handle this kind of serious ailment, they demanded that he be shifted to a fully equipped super specialty hospital to save his life and prevent possible brain damage and risk to life due to electrolyte imbalance.

"At the present juncture we are leaving aside all the pertinent facts like, that the case against him is fabricated; he had to spend 22 months in jail as an undertrial with the process turned into punishment; his bail petitions got rejected at least five times now and even the bail petitions with his age, ill-health and COVID vulnerability as grounds were ignored. His life is the top most concern for us right now. Our present demand is to save his life," the family said.

New Delhi, Jan 2: Thirteen firefighters were among the 14 people injured when a battery factory collapsed in northwest Delhi's Peera Garhi following an explosion due to a fire that broke out early on Thursday morning, officials said.

A fire brigade personnel still remained trapped under the debris of the building in Udyog Nagar area, an official said.

A large portion of the two-storey building collapsed following an explosion when firefighters were dousing the blaze, the official said, adding that fire department had received a call at 4.23am.

Plumes of smoke billowed out from the building as the fire brigade personnel battled to contain the blaze. An eyewitness said several explosions were heard as the blaze gutted down the building.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and civil authorities rushed to the spot to control the situation, an official said, adding that 35 fire tenders were at the spot.

The injured, including a security guard of the factory, were rushed to nearby hospitals, a police officer said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he was monitoring the situation.

"V sad to hear this. Am closely monitoring the situation. Fire personnel trying their best. Praying for the safety of those trapped," Kejriwal tweeted.