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- Bit by Bit 11th Dec. || India's Rising Trade Deficit || The Surge in Shadow-banning & More
Bit by Bit 11th Dec. || India's Rising Trade Deficit || The Surge in Shadow-banning & More
Good Morning Readers!
Anyways, here are:
"5 amazing stories in 5 minutes to make you future ready"
Happy reading!
MARKET UPDATE
NIFTY 50 : ₹18,496.60 (-0.61%)
BSE SENSEX : ₹62,181.67 (-0.62%)
NIFTY BANK : ₹43,633.45 (+0.08%)
USD/INR : ₹82.42 (+0.17%)
BRENTOIL : $76.82 (+0.88%)
MCXGOLD : ₹54,295 (+0.45%)
FII Net Cashflow : - ₹158 crores
DII Net Cashflow : + ₹502 crores
(Market data as of 11:00 PM on 9/12/2022)
ECONOMY
Key facts
The trade deficit widened to the sharpest since June 2020 due to the steep year-on-year contraction in exports.
India’s imports grew the slowest in 19 months in October.
Export-Import (Exim) Bank of India forecasts India’s total merchandise exports to remain above US $100 billion during the quarter ending December.
The Story
Negative growth is likely to be witnessed during the first two months of the quarter due to recent domestic policy changes and envisaged improvement in the external environment, there could be a recovery in India’s exports in the coming months, said the Exim bank.
The bank warned that India’s exports could be shadowed by a deepening global energy crisis, tighter global monetary and financial conditions, continued slowdown in select major trade partners and continued uncertainty around the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The central government on Friday said that it has taken several steps to reduce import reliance so as to curb the trade deficit.
India's foreign exchange reserves rose for the fourth straight week, to $561.162 billion in the week through December 2, according to Reserve Bank of India.
FMCG
Inflation for FMCG segment cooling down, volume from rural markets going to improve, says ITC
The Story :
Inflationary pressure on the FMCG segment is “cooling off a little” and volume growth from the rural markets is going to be better, ITC Chairman & Managing Director Sanjiv Puri said on Thursday. Presently there is a “phenomenal” amount of inflation, hence FMCG volume growth in rural areas is “muted” and the bulk of the growth is inflation lead, he said in a panel discussion at an event organised by industry body CII. When asked about the consumption trends, Puri said, “In the FMCG segments, we are seeing both the trends of permutation and at the same time there is a lot of value-seeking behaviour and stress at the lower price points.” However, he also said that presently India is “much better” than the rest of the world, witnessing high inflation.
“As far as consumption is concerned, the main stress point is inflation induced because prices of lots of products have gone up at a percentage probably in the prior period that would have taken five years to go up,” Puri added. However, Puri also added that rural demand is going to get better because realisations have been better and costs are up and as a net, it is “better off”.
AUTOMOTIVE
The Story :
Today, Kia India, which offers cars including the Carnival, Seltos, Sonet, and Carens, announced the launch of its certified pre-owned automobile division, Kia CPO. Customers will be able to purchase, sell, or trade in pre-owned vehicles at the exclusive Kia CPO locations. The Kia CPO vehicles will be covered by a warranty for up to two years and 40,000 miles. They will also receive up to four free recurring maintenance visits.
For pre-owned vehicles at Kia CPO, Kia has unveiled a digital assessment mobile application with real-time data integration and scientific pricing advice. All Kia vehicles that are certified and offered for sale through Kia CPO will be under five years old and have less than one million kilometers on the odometer. Before being made accessible to clients, they would go through a thorough 175-point quality inspection. The automaker guaranteed that these vehicles would be structurally sound, have verifiable ownership and service records, and only be restored using authentic Kia components.
TECH
The Story:
People with professional accounts may now detect whether they have been shadow-banned thanks to a new tool that Instagram just unveiled. Soon after, Elon Musk said that Twitter was developing a similar upgrade.
It's likely that you've been shadow-banned if you're a creator and you've experienced a sudden, significant decline in interaction with your content. When that occurs, your account and its postings are hidden behind a "shadow" that only you can see. Unlike an outright ban, when the account is rendered unreachable, this is different. To lessen the likelihood that users would try to circumvent the shadowban by, instance, establishing a new account, social media networks normally don't let users know they have been shadow-banned.Shadow-bans on Instagram: Although Instagram does not use the word "shadow-banning," it is notorious for deprioritizing accounts when users are determined to be breaking the rules. However, Instagram is putting things in perspective with this update. Your account's status will change if the content on Explore, Reels, and Feed recommendations can no longer be suggested. You may verify this by touching on the top right and bottom right of your profile image in the bottom action bar. Go to Settings > Account > Account status after that. You can ask Instagram's review staff to reevaluate your post if you believe it was unfairly deleted.
Anything Interesting
Fusion could become a major player in the energy game.
It is a global challenge to develop a sustainable, safe and affordable way of generating energy while reducing carbon emissions to counter global warming. Fusion power is a great way of generating clean power but it has had its challenges in the past few years. It has mainly received public funding till now but private equity investment in fusion power has more than doubled in the last year reaching USD4.2B in 2022.
Fusion is the process of merging two heavy hydrogen atoms under extreme temperature and pressure to release a massive amount of energy. It is essentially the opposite of a fission process in which heavy atoms are split into smaller atoms with release of energy. Sustaining nuclear fusion at scale has huge potential to provide clean energy for hundreds of years.
The sun uses nuclear fusion process to sustain its core and produce heat. The temperature required for this is about 15 million degree Celsius. Since we don’t have the size of the sun(duh) and the pressure
