Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<keyword id="20018917" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Capital-expenditure" source="keywords">Capital expenditure</keyword> on the <keyword id="19914937" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Railways" source="keywords">Railways</keyword> has increased by 77 per cent over the past five years with significant investments in the construction of <keyword id="22505706" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-lines" source="keywords">new lines</keyword>, <keyword id="20375816" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gauge-conversion" source="keywords">gauge conversion</keyword> and doubling, the <keyword id="20613906" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Economic-Survey" source="keywords">Economic Survey</keyword> 2023-24 said on Monday. According to the survey tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister <keyword id="19916618" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nirmala-sitharaman" source="keywords">Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword>, in the financial year 2019-2020, the capital expenditure was 1.48 lakh crore which was increased to ₹2.62 lakh crore in 2023-24. "<keyword id="19909154" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Railways" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Indian Railways" meta.hostid="346" meta.entityid="Indian Railways">Indian Railways</keyword>, with over 68,584 route km (as of March 31, 2024) and 12.54 lakh employees (as of April 1, 2024), is the fourth largest network in the world under single management," the survey said. Highlighting the initiatives taken by the Railway Ministry for the enhancement of operations and services, the survey mentioned Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project and Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) with the progress made in these respective <keyword id="19900581" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="projects" source="keywords">projects</keyword>. According to the survey, Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, launched in August 2023 for development of stations on a continuous basis, involves preparation of master plans and its phased implementation to improve amenities, building improvements, multimodal integration, and sustainability. It said that 1,324 stations have been identified for upgradation so far. Talking about another initiative, Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project, the survey said that under this 508-km project, executed with cooperation from the government of Japan, land acquisition and civil conduct award have been completed. "Overall physical progress of 41.7 per cent has been achieved and financial expenditure of ₹59,291 crore was incurred until 31st March, 2024," the survey said. "Two DFCs are under implementation namely the eastern DFC with route length of 1,337 kilometre and the western DFC with route length of 1,506 kilometre," it added. It further stated that by the end of FY24, 96.1 per cent of the total DFC route length has been completed. Highlighting other major achievements, the survey said that the Railways achieved its highest-ever production for both locomotives and wagons in FY24. "Fifty one pairs of <keyword id="19922877" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vande-bharat" source="keywords">Vande Bharat</keyword> have been introduced until March 2024. The fast pace of infrastructure augmentation has been the result of a substantial increase in financial allocation along with close project monitoring and regular follow-up with stakeholders for expeditious land acquisition and clearances," the survey said. It added, "High-speed, long-distance Vande sleeper trainset coaches having features like quick acceleration, diffused lighting, automatic doors and global positioning system-based passenger information system are under development." According to the survey, the Railways is also planning to introduce Vande metro trainset coaches with features such as sealed wider gangways, centrally controlled automatic sliding doors, CCTVs for safety and surveillance, route map indicator, passenger information and infotainment system, fire detection system and aerosol-based fire suppression system. "The first lot is expected to be turned out in FY25," it said. "Railways has taken several initiatives for providing a clean environment in and around railway stations and trains, such as replacement of conventional toilets with bio-toilets on coaches leading to clean tracks, segregation of bio-degradable/non bio-degradable waste, solid waste management and discouraging use of single use plastic," the survey added.

Capital expenditure on Railways increased by 77% over 5 years: Economic Survey

Finance Minister <keyword id="19916618" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nirmala-Sitharaman" source="keywords">Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> on Tuesday announced <keyword id="20404375" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="income-tax-relief" source="keywords">income tax relief</keyword> for the <keyword id="20071167" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="middle-class" source="keywords">middle class</keyword>, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for <keyword id="22517841" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="job-creation-schemes" source="keywords">job creation schemes</keyword> over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled <keyword id="20509939" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Modi-3-0" source="keywords">Modi 3.0</keyword> government's first budget after the general elections. With rural distress and unemployment being blamed for BJP losing its majority, Sitharaman in her seventh straight budget provided Rs 2.66 lakh crore for <keyword id="20027688" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rural-development" source="keywords">rural development</keyword> and maintained spending on long-term infrastructure projects at Rs 11.11 lakh crore to boost <keyword id="19900794" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="economic-growth" source="keywords">economic growth</keyword>. She abolished 'angel tax' for all classes of investors in startups, cut customs duty on mobile phones and gold and simplified capital gains tax. She, however, raised the securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options of securities, which led to tanking of stock markets. "India's economic growth continues to be the shining exception (in a world that is gripped by policy uncertainties) and will remain so in the years ahead," she said. "In this budget, we particularly focus on <keyword id="19898684" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="employment" source="keywords">employment</keyword>, <keyword id="20374219" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="skilling" source="keywords">skilling</keyword>, MSMEs, and the middle class." Besides Rs 2 lakh crore provided over a five year period for schemes and initiatives to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth, "I have made a provision of Rs 1.48 lakh crore for education, employment and skilling," she said. For Bihar, where assembly elections are due next year, the finance minister announced spending of Rs 60,000 crore on infrastructure projects like expressways, power plant, heritage corridors and new airports. The support to Bihar, whose ruling party and BJP's partner JD-U has been demanding an economic package and special category status for the state, is in the form of capital projects but not subsidy or cash dole. Similarly, for Andhra Pradesh, whose ruling TDP recently joined BJP-led NDA, she allocated Rs 15,000 crore in financial aid through multilateral agencies. A similar request for support to Bihar will be expedited, she said. For the middle class, she raised standard deduction -- a flat deduction from total salary earned by an employee in a year before calculating applicable income tax rate -- by 50 per cent to Rs 75,000 and tweaked tax slabs for taxpayers opting for the new income tax regime. This will lead to taxpayers under the new tax regime -- which offers lower rates of taxes but permits limited deductions and exemptions -- saving up to Rs 17,500 in tax annually, she said. To spur employment, the Budget provided for incentives for companies, including paying for one-month salary for first-time employees, incentive at specified sale to both employee and empower with respect to their retirement fund contribution in the first four years of employment and reimbursing employers up to Rs 3,000 per month for 2 years towards EPFO contribution of each additional employee. Also, a programme to improve skills as well internship for students and subsidised loans for higher education will be provided, she said. India's official unemployment rate in urban areas is pegged at 6.7 per cent but private agencies put it at much higher levels. Buoyed by robust tax collections and a higher-than-expected dividend receipt from the Reserve Bank, Sitharaman said the government's fiscal deficit -- the difference between the total revenue earned and total expenditure -- will be trimmed to 4.9 per cent of the GDP in 2024-25, below the 5.1 per cent figure estimated in the interim budget she presented in February. She reduced gross market borrowing marginally to Rs 14.01 lakh crore. The Budget for 2024-25 fiscal (April 2024 to March 2025) allocated Rs 1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sectors, aid for building 3 crore affordable housing units in urban and rural areas, provided credit support to small and medium businesses, raised small loans to Rs 20 lakh for small business, proposed setting up 12 industrial parks, and provided for setting up a Rs 1,000 crore venture capital fund for space sector.

Modi 3.0 1st Budget: Tax relief for middle class, Rs 2 lakh cr job scheme

Chickens, integral to the world's economy today, stand as one of the most consequential animals globally. Their significance spans various industries, from agriculture to gastronomy, solidifying their role in the economic landscape. The journey of chickens, from their origins to their widespread distribution across the ancient world, remains a subject of intrigue and uncertainty. Recent archaeological advancements have challenged previous understandings, revealing that many bone findings once presumed to be early chickens actually belonged to wild birds. However, a recent study conducted by an international team of archaeologists, historians and biomolecular scientists has provided groundbreaking insights into the earliest evidence of <keyword id="21178748" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="chicken-domestication" source="Orion">chicken domestication</keyword> for <keyword id="1486334" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="egg-production" source="Orion">egg production</keyword>. This discovery sheds light on a crucial aspect of ancient human-animal relationships, potentially revealing the primary factors driving the spread of domestic chickens across Eurasia and northeast Africa. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="From Silk Road to supermarkets: Investigating the origins of chicken domestication" comment="subhead" text="From Silk Road to supermarkets: Investigating the origins of chicken domestication">From <keyword id="621419" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Silk-Road" source="Orion">Silk Road</keyword> to supermarkets: Investigating the origins of <keyword id="62613" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="chicken" source="Orion">chicken</keyword> domestication</cmsannotation> The research team embarked on a comprehensive investigation, collecting tens of thousands of eggshell fragments from 12 archaeological sites situated along the Silk Road's central corridor in Asia. Employing advanced biomolecular analysis techniques such as <keyword id="189306" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ZooMS" source="Orion">ZooMS</keyword>, the researchers were able to identify the origins of these eggshells. Unlike traditional genetic analysis, ZooMS relies on protein signals rather than DNA, offering a faster and more cost-effective method for species identification. Analysing eggshell fragments spanning approximately 1,500 years, the researchers discovered widespread evidence of chicken husbandry in Central Asia between 400 BCE and 1000 CE. This suggests a significant role for this region in the early domestication and dispersal of chickens along the ancient Silk Road. The identification of these eggshell fragments as originating from domesticated chickens, coupled with their prevalence across various sediment layers at each excavation site, led the researchers to a significant conclusion. It became apparent that domestic chickens were laying eggs out of season, exhibiting a higher frequency compared to their wild ancestor called the red jungle fowl, which nests only once per year and typically lays six eggs per clutch. “This is the earliest evidence for the loss of seasonal egg laying yet identified in the archaeological record. This is an important clue for better understanding the mutualistic relationships between humans and animals that resulted in domestication,” said Dr. <keyword id="21178752" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Robert-Spengler" source="Orion">Robert Spengler</keyword>, leader of the Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution research group and principal investigator on the study. All in all, this enhanced reproductive capacity is why domestic chickens became highly desirable to ancient societies, ultimately shaping their evolution into the globally significant species we recognise today. These findings were published in the journal Nature Communications and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46093-2">here</a>.

Research unveils the key moment that transformed chickens into the economically relevant animals that they are today

Businesses hate bike lanes. Sure, they reduce pollution, slow the pace of climate change, cut traffic fatalities, and make cities healthier and more pleasant. But they also take away parking spaces, which makes it tougher for shoppers to load up their cars with piles of stuff. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-calls-new-bike-lanes-safety-height-of-stupidity-2023-3">Freaked-out business owners</a> have been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cycling-boom-us-streets-infrastructure-bike-lanes-history-united-states-2020-12">fighting bike lanes</a> coast to coast, in cities from San Diego to Cambridge, Massachusetts. They worry — not unreasonably — that anything that makes it harder for customers to get to their stops will eat into their already precarious margins. “As someone whose family had a small business when I was growing up, I know how invested you get in it,” says Joseph Poirier, a senior researcher at the urban-planning consultancy Nelson Nygaard. “It’s your whole life. Anything you think could threaten that, even if the government and their consultants tell you it’s not going to be a problem, is very scary. It makes sense.”It’s also wrong. Four decades’ worth of research proves it. I know this because I’ve read every study and report I could find that looked specifically at the economics of bike lanes since 1984 — 32 research articles, to be exact. The results show that making <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/road-rage-traffic-deaths-car-crashes-pedestrians-los-angeles-vermont-2024-2">streets friendlier for bikes</a> — and sidewalks friendlier for pedestrians — is actually good for business. The rise of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/e-bike-bicycle-lanes-infrastructure-save-money-fight-climate-change-2023-3">“complete streets” and “road diets,”</a> as urban planners call them, has been a huge boon to businesses in cities. I won’t walk you through every study, because most of them actually use survey data. Do you think bike lanes discourage shopping? How much do you spend when you ride your bike here? Surveys aren’t the most reliable way to look at this question. People lie, they misremember, they get stuff wrong. And anecdotal experience tends to loom too large. One angry customer who complains about <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X9701700102">not being able to find parking</a> trumps the 10 who rode their bikes to your shop and didn’t say boo.More confoundingly, survey after survey has shown that business owners overestimate <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-parking-spots-in-us-affect-environment-and-affordable-housing-2023-4">how many of their customers drive</a> to their stores, versus walking or biking. In a study of the effects of street improvements on a <a target="_blank" href="https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/yorkblvd_mccormick.pdf">shopping corridor in Los Angeles</a> published in 2012, more than half of the store owners on the bike-laned part of the boulevard thought most of their customers drove. The actual number was 15%.So what we need is financial data. Revenue numbers. Sales taxes. Credit-card receipts. Employment figures. That’s the good stuff. And for methodological rigor, we want to case-match our study areas to similar neighborhoods that didn’t get bike lanes — and to numbers for the city overall, to establish a baseline.That cuts the number of useful studies to just about half a dozen. Here, in brief, is what they tell us.In 2013, a researcher at the University of Washington named Kyle Rowe looked at <a target="_blank" href="https://bikewalkkc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Bikenomics_v4.pdf">two shopping districts in Seattle</a> that got put on road diets. Rowe compared sales taxes in these “Neighborhood Business Districts” with those in similar districts in the city that didn’t get bike lanes. In one NBD, which replaced car lanes and three parking spots with two bike lanes, sales closely tracked those in the bike-less areas, both in peaks and troughs. Conclusion: Bike lanes did nothing to reduce business. And in the other NBD, which replaced 12 parking spaces with a bike lane, sales quadrupled.Was the spike in business because more cyclists came to shop? Rowe, a careful researcher, declines to make that leap. “It would be logical to assume that more bicyclists were coming to the NBD because of the new facility,” he writes, “but no conclusion can be made to connect mode choice to economic performance.” Still, there’s no mistaking the data: Adding bike lanes certainly didn’t hurt sales — and may have boosted them dramatically.A year later, the New York City Department of Transportation conducted the same kind of study on a larger scale, examining sales-tax data in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/dot-economic-benefits-of-sustainable-streets.pdf">seven retail-heavy neighborhoods</a>. A few were plaza-type hubs; the others were more linear retail corridors. All had been through the kind of extensive changes to pedestrian access, mass transit, traffic calming, landscaping, and bike paths that New York was pushing at the time. The results were striking. Compared with the overall business climate in each borough, sales in the bike-friendly areas soared by 84 percentage points in Brooklyn, 9 percentage points in Manhattan, and 32 percentage points in the Bronx. “Better streets,” the report concludes, “provide benefits to businesses in all types of neighborhoods,” from “lower-income neighborhoods with ‘mom &amp; pop’ retail” to “glitzier areas with sky-high rents.”The next couple of studies got even more specific. In 2018, Joseph Poirier, the urban planner I quoted earlier, looked at sales data from <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198118792321">three retail neighborhoods in San Francisco</a> with newly installed bike lanes. Drawing on everything from industry coding conventions to map data, he was able to draw detailed distinctions among hundreds of businesses: what they sold (retail versus restaurants), where they were located (right next to a bike lane versus a few blocks away), and who their customers were (coffee shops serving locals, say, versus a furniture store serving the entire city).The results were mixed. In two of the three districts, shops and restaurants serving locals did way better than places serving a wider area. In the other district, sales tanked relative to the number of people a shop employed, suggesting that bike lanes gave an advantage to smaller businesses. “The takeaway is that it’s probably a minimal effect on businesses when you put in a bike lane,” Poirer says. “That actually makes a lot of sense. If you think of a busy downtown district, there’s not that many parking spaces relative to the number of people who come to the business.” In this case, bike lanes didn’t seem to help businesses much. But overall, it didn’t hurt them.In 2019 Poirer was on a team that did another study of San Francisco. They looked at <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198119850465">businesses directly adjacent</a> to two kinds of bike infrastructure — Class II, which creates dedicated bike lanes denoted by a paint stripe, and Class III, where signs instruct cars and bikes to share the street. (Either way, blocks with the new lanes lost an average of three parking spaces.) Once again, the results were mixed. On Class II lanes, bars and barber shops and banks enjoyed increases in sales, while furniture stores and gas stations were more likely to experience decreases. Older businesses tended to decline more than new ones. Overall, in the year after the bike infrastructure went in, businesses on Class II streets lost a median of $27,921 compared with $19,390 for those on Class III lanes. But similar shops that weren’t on a bike lane lost $25,296. When it came to bike lanes, there were lots and lots of winners. But there were some losers, too.The most definitive study, to my eye, came in 2020. Jenny Liu and Wei Shi, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon produced a 260-page report looking at <a target="_blank" href="https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/33394">neighborhoods that got bike lanes and other street improvements</a> in Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Memphis. The team cross-referenced financial information like sales taxes with geographic data, so they could tell exactly where businesses were in relation to the street improvements. They ran three kinds of econometric analyses on each site. And they looked not only at revenue but also at the number of employees — per business and in total — in each study area. “I was really trying to be rigorous methodologically, to provide the kind of evidence that people can use to talk to their communities,” says Liu, the director of the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State.<div type="image" title="An older man in a baseball cap and parka rides a blue bicycle on a city shopping street, past parked cars and a yoga studio" height="2771" width="4000" msid="108304344" hostid="261" sizebytes="696084"></div>Like Poirier, Liu and Shi found that in many cases, only certain kinds of businesses benefited from the bike lanes and street improvements. Food and beverage did better; retail did worse. And just slapping a bike lane on a hectic thoroughfare didn’t do anyone any good. “On really large streets with high traffic volumes or speeds, even if you add a bike lane or pedestrian improvements, it still isn’t really inviting,” Liu says. “Just having street calming doesn’t always have positive results.”But overall, Liu’s team found, retail areas benefited from better streets. Sometimes nothing changed, but more often the areas near bike lanes wound up with more employees and more revenue. That was true in Portland, at two sites in San Francisco, one site in Minneapolis (at the other, retail did better than food), and one site in Memphis (at the other, food did a bit better than retail). Across the country, again and again, the numbers told the same story: Either “business activity remained pretty much constant,” Liu says, or “certain types of businesses became much more prosperous.” Back in the 1960s, when the advent of suburban flight and climate-controlled malls began to draw business away from America’s once thriving downtowns, cities tried to stanch the flow by banning cars on shopping streets. It was called, not exactly trippingly, “<a target="_blank" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944368408977171">pedestrianization</a>,” and it was a disaster. Pedestrian-only plazas couldn’t compete with the Golden Age of the Automobile, and many downtowns turned into boarded-up wastelands. That extinction event is still encoded in the genetic memories of today’s retailers and restaurateurs.But things have changed. Nowadays, online retail is crushing brick-and-mortar worse than any half-assed pedestrian plaza ever could. What’s more, demand for new homes means lots of cities are putting them downtown, trading daytime workers for all-the-time residents close enough to ride a bike. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bicycle-lanes-cycling-pandemic-coronavirus-2020-10">COVID showed us</a> it’s worth giving up parking spaces for outdoor restaurants. America’s cities are undergoing nothing short of a total rethink of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-pandemic-might-have-redesigned-cities-forever/">what and whom downtowns are for</a>.<div type="image" title="A bike lane painted bright green separates a busy sidewalk with a pizza place and other shops from a bikeshare facility full of blue Citibikes and automotive traffic." height="3024" width="4032" msid="108304345" hostid="261" sizebytes="1827558"></div><a target="_blank" href="https://infrastructure.peopleforbikes.org/map/">Nationwide numbers</a> of bike lanes are tough to come by. By one count, there are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-route-system/">nearly 20,000 miles</a> of bike-ready paths in the United States, but that includes rural routes and trails. Still, city after city is working to create European-style streets. <a target="_blank" href="https://bikeportland.org/2023/01/13/which-part-of-portland-is-winning-the-bikeway-network-race-369311">Portland</a> has over 430 miles of bike lanes, about the same as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdot/provdrs/bike/news/2023/march/cdot-releases-updated-cycling-strategy-to-expand-bike-network-an.html#:~:text=Chicago%27s%20network%20of%20bicycle%20infrastructure,and%20other%20on%2Dstreet%20bikeways.">Chicago</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity.shtml">New York City</a> has more than 1,500; <a target="_blank" href="https://la.streetsblog.org/2023/10/17/too-many-disappointments-in-l-a-city-bikeway-mileage-during-fiscal-year-2022-23">Los Angeles has added</a> almost 1,000 miles since 2010. And every new mile of bike lane per square mile of city <a target="_blank" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/1828-14">increases the number of cyclists</a> by 1%. The training wheels are about to come off the “complete street” movement.Now, advocates and policymakers should be honest about all this. Even if bike lanes boost revenues and employment overall, some individual businesses are going to win and some are going to lose. An older business selling heavier goods, or drawing from a wider watershed for its customer base, might well be in trouble. “Newer businesses who are thrilled with density and development around them are pivoting to a customer who’s younger, who’s arriving on a scooter or a bike,” says Larisa Ortiz, a managing director at the urban-planning consultancy Streetsense. “But this process of evolution toward bike lanes and mobility does not come without loss.”One way I’d propose to help businesses adjust to the total remaking of the urban landscape is the most American solution of all: Just hand them some money. All you’d have to do is build funds into the budgets for street-improvement projects to compensate adjacent businesses for any sales they wind up losing. If your business takes a hit from all the bikes, you get a pay-out.The most effective way to deal with opposition from local businesses is to just get the bike lanes built. Before-and-after surveys tend to show that in the long run, everyone winds up satisfied. “It’s a political question, and oftentimes it’s a very divided community when it comes to these types of projects,” Poirier says. “But once a street is changed, generally speaking, after six months or a year, nobody remembers what it used to look like. It’s the new normal.” All the data in the world may prove that bike lanes are good for business. But nothing beats experiencing them.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

I read all the studies on the economic impact of bike lanes. Here's what I learned.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Monday, Russia pulled out of an agreement that allowed Ukraine to export grain.</li><li>It then started bombing Ukrainian ports and threatened to attack ships.</li></ul>Vladimir Putin's latest attack on the world economy has reignited fears that Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine will trigger a global food crisis.On Monday, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-ukraine-war-black-sea-grain-deal-food-export/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative</a>, a United Nations-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export grains and oilseeds through a safe shipping corridor.Moscow then <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-ships-black-sea-ukraine-create-temporary-grains-export-route-2023-07-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">started bombing Ukrainian ports</a> – and on Thursday threatened to attack any ships headed for those harbors on the grounds they could be carrying weapons.That sent benchmark wheat prices surging by as much as 8.5% on Wednesday, the second biggest single-day jump in over a decade (prices had jumped 8.6% in one day soon after the Ukraine war broke out in February 2022). Corn and soya bean costs have climbed this week as well.Ukraine produces so much grain that it's often referred to as the "<a href="https://ig.ft.com/ukraine-war-food-insecurity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">breadbasket of Europe</a>" and is the world's seventh-largest wheat producer, according to the <a href="https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UN</a>. The Black Sea agreement had helped keep benchmark prices of the foodstuff under control by boosting supply.When international grain prices rise, it becomes more expensive for poorer countries to import those commodities – so Russia's withdrawal from the UN's initiative has fueled policymakers' fears that there could be a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/global-food-crisis-higher-prices-shortages-civil-unrest-2022-8">worldwide food crisis</a>.<h2>'Huge food crisis'</h2>UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Kremlin's decision to pull out of the grain deal would end "<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1138752" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a lifeline for global food security</a>" and extinguish "a beacon of hope", while the European Union's head of foreign policy Josep Borrell told journalists there could be a "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-borrell-russia-is-causing-global-food-crisis-with-grain-deal-withdrawal-2023-07-20/#:~:text=PARIS%2C%20July%2020%20(Reuters),exports%20through%20the%20Black%20Sea." target="_blank" rel="noopener">big and huge food crisis in the world</a>"."This adds a significant layer of pressure on the price of wheat, with concerns from suppliers and consumers alike now swelling," Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Sophie Lund-Yates said Friday. "The possibility of a full-blown food crisis for poor nations can't be ruled out, and further volatility on the commodity markets is likely going to take a long while to abate."Earlier this month, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned of <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/jpmorgan-jamie-dimon-consumer-spending-economy-recession-inflation-war-food-2023-7">bigger threats to the world than an economic slowdown</a>, underscoring the risks of food shortages and a spreading out of the conflict in Ukraine.Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has tried to squeeze commodity supplies in a bid to disrupt the global economy and hinder Kyiv's Western allies.Last year, Moscow repeatedly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-says-nord-stream-1-pipeline-shut-three-days-end-aug-2022-08-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shut Nord Stream 1</a> to choke off Europe's supply of natural gas, before the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-images-show-methane-plumes-from-leaking-nord-stream-pipelines-2022-9">key pipeline started leaking</a> in late September. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-formally-blames-sabotage-for-nord-stream-pipeline-damage-11664449396" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NATO believes it was sabotaged</a>.The West has also made Russia's economy a battleground in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, with the G7 group of countries and the EU <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/eu-sanctions-russian-oil-price-cap-crude-price-outlook-exports-2022-12?utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets">capping the price of Russian oil</a> in a bid to cut the Kremlin's revenues so it has less money to fund its war effort.

Vladimir Putin's latest economic assault on the West is fueling fears of a global food crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drought-crisis-prompts-army-engineers-to-dredge-the-mississippi-river-2022-10">Mississippi River</a> is at a historic low, exposing new land that used to be covered by water.</li><li>Satellite images show how thin the river has become in some areas, and how parched the land is.</li></ul>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-dry-mississippi-river-waters-ground-barges-reveal-old-shipwreck-2022-10">Mississippi River</a> has fallen to historic lows, and the effects are visible from space.A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heat-waves-are-dominating-summer-and-its-not-abnormal-anymore-2022-7">summer of heat waves</a> baked the central US, followed by a flash drought this fall in the Ohio and Missouri river valleys, which drain into the Mississippi. With no rainfall to make up the deficit, the great river dropped to record lows in some places.Satellite images, and other pictures from before and after this drop in water levels, show how dramatic the difference is. In the below pictures, it's clear that more dry earth is exposed in October 2022, on the right, than at the same time last year. Highlighting the drought, some areas of land that were green in 2021 are brown in 2022.<div type="image" title="side by side satellite images show mississippi river in october 2021 and october 2022 with much more dry earth" height="1523" width="2400" msid="95105372" hostid="261" sizebytes="528438"></div>Barges got stuck in the shallow waters in early October, prompting the Coast Guard to impose new weight limits and the US Army Corps of Engineers to go on a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drought-crisis-prompts-army-engineers-to-dredge-the-mississippi-river-2022-10">dredging spree</a>. Commercial traffic on the river — paddleboats full of tourists and barges carrying most of the Midwest's corn, soybeans, fertilizer, coal, and oil — slowed to a crawl.The water levels dropped so low that they exposed enough land to walk to Tower Rock, a popular island that's normally accessible only by boat.<div type="image" title="big rock formation island topped with trees sits in mississippi river" height="500" width="666" msid="95105374" hostid="261" sizebytes="55338"></div>People have been walking out to the island, which is in Perry County, Missouri.<div type="image" title="man sits on rock watches people walk across exposed river bottom to big rock island in the mississippi river" height="1600" width="2133" msid="95105376" hostid="261" sizebytes="558654"></div>Meteorologists at AccuWeather expect the river will stay this low until January at the earliest. The forecast calls for small amounts of rain, which will likely be enough to prevent the waters from dropping lower, but not enough to replenish the river."What they may do, these rain events, is just kind of hold back from things getting any worse than they are right now," Paul Pastelok, a meteorologist at AccuWeather, told Insider."As far as improvement goes, we're going to need the Ohio River and the mid- and lower-Mississippi River region to be hit with maybe twice as much, if not three times as much, as their normal precipitation they get from now to January. So it's going to be hard to completely cure the problem," he said.Through December, AccuWeather estimates the economic losses at $20 billion. That's because <a href="https://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm#:~:text=The%20agricultural%20products%20and%20the,livestock%20and%20hogs%20produced%20nationally.">92% of US agricultural exports</a> are produced in the Mississippi River basin, to be exported through the Gulf of Mexico.

Before-and-after photos show how the Mississippi River has dropped dramatically, choking a crucial shipping corridor

<ul><li><keyword id="1334" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="China">China</keyword> and <keyword id="3001" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pakistan">Pakistan</keyword> are taking their “all-weather” partnership forward with a <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> exploration agreement. </li><li>The CNSA and its Pakistani counterpart - the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission - will work together on manned missions, astronaut training and satellite development and monitoring. </li><li>Interestingly, the space agreement comes in the wake of <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> successfully testing an anti-satellite missile at the end of March. </li></ul>China and Pakistan are taking their “all-weather” partnership forward with <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/china-pakistan-sign-agreement-on-space-exploration/articleshow/69101917.cms">a space exploration</a> agreement. The agreement, which was signed on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road summit a few days ago, will be spearheaded by China’s national space agency - the Chinese National Space Administration. The CNSA and its Pakistani counterpart - the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission - will work together on manned missions, astronaut training and satellite development and monitoring. They will establish a working committee of top officials to execute the agreement. The two countries collaborated on the launch of two Pakistani <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/china-launches-two-satellites-for-pakistan/articleshow/64914577.cms">remote sensing satellites i</a>n July last year. The satellites are meant to monitor progress on the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Concurrently, the two countries also signed <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1479031">a second-stage free trade agreement </a>under the CPEC. Interestingly, the space agreement comes in the wake of India successfully <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-asat-mission-shakti-creates-space-debris/articleshow/68594904.cms">testing an anti-satellite missile</a> at the end of March. India’s ability to shoot down satellites gave it entry to an exclusive club of space powers that comprises the US, Russia and you guessed it, China. Given that it is yet to develop a viable scientific space programme, Pakistan stands to benefit immensely from China’s expertise in space exploration technology. Just last week, Chinese companies started <a href="https://in.reuters.com/article/space-exploration-china-startups/feature-chinas-rocket-start-ups-go-small-in-age-of-shoebox-satellites-idINL3N2282A9">sending “nano-satellites”</a> or tiny satellites into space. China is expected to become the world leader in developing small, inexpensive satellites in the next few years. Earlier this year, a Chinese probe made a historic landing on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/03/china-probe-change-4-land-far-side-moon-basin-crater">the far side of the moon</a>. Meanwhile, the country is said to be planning exploration missions to Mars and Jupiter as well as the launch of <a href="http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_to_launch_space_station_Tiangong_in_2022_welcomes_foreign_astronauts_999.html">its own space station by 2022</a>. The Chinese city of <keyword id="76791" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Chengdu">Chengdu</keyword> also plans to launch <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/17/chinese-city-plans-to-launch-artificial-moon-to-replace-streetlights">an artificial moon </a>into space by 2020 too boost night-time illumination. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/pakistan-has-declined-an-imf-bailout-after-securing-help-from-china-and-arab-countries/articleshow/67526393.cms">Pakistan has declined an IMF bailout after securing help from China and Arab countries</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-asat-mission-shakti-creates-space-debris/articleshow/68594904.cms">India's test of its anti-satellite weapon may have weakened its fight against dangerous space debris</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/us-china-exchange-barbs-over-proposal-to-name-masood-azhar-as-a-global-terrorist/articleshow/68615128.cms">The US and China are at a crossroads in the war against terror — all over one man in Pakistan</a>

China is taking its ‘all-weather ally’ Pakistan to space

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Drought has driven the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/before-and-after-photos-mississippi-river-dramatic-drop-2022-10">Mississippi River</a> to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-dry-mississippi-river-waters-ground-barges-reveal-old-shipwreck-2022-10">historic low levels</a>, choking US agricultural exports.</li><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drought-crisis-prompts-army-engineers-to-dredge-the-mississippi-river-2022-10">crisis</a> has increased shipping prices, and that cost may fall on consumers.</li></ul>A crisis of low water levels on the Mississippi River could soon reach consumers' wallets, and it's not forecast to end until January.A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heat-waves-are-dominating-summer-and-its-not-abnormal-anymore-2022-7">summer of heat waves</a> baked the central US, evaporating water off the Mississippi. In fall, a flash drought struck the Ohio and Missouri river valleys, preventing them from replenishing the larger river. At that point, they'd only contributed small amounts of water from snowmelt to its flow, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok. By early October, the Mississippi River was breaking low-water records.<div type="image" title="man sits on rock watches people walk across exposed river bottom to big rock island in the mississippi river" height="1600" width="2133" msid="95164959" hostid="261" sizebytes="558654"></div>The receding waters have global implications. The Mississippi River basin <a href="https://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm#:~:text=The%20agricultural%20products%20and%20the,livestock%20and%20hogs%20produced%20nationally.">produces</a> about 92% of US agricultural exports, including 60% of US grain exports, which travel down the river to the Gulf to ship across the world. Much of that shipping stalled in mid-October, then resumed at a crawl. AccuWeather doesn't expect enough rainfall to replenish the river until January at the earliest. Experts say we haven't seen the full impact yet. <h2>Consumers could pay the price for shipping slowdowns</h2><div type="image" title="side by side satellite images show mississippi river in october 2021 and october 2022 with much more dry earth" height="1523" width="2400" msid="95164960" hostid="261" sizebytes="528438"></div>While the US inland waterways system saves the country between $7 billion and $9 billion annually compared to costs of other systems, like truck or freight, economic losses incurred from the Mississippi River drought are significant. Through December, AccuWeather estimates $20 billion in losses caused by increased transportation costs, shipping delays, and job losses.But Deb Calhoun, senior vice president at the Waterways Council — a group that advocates for modern waterway infrastructure — told Insider she expects losses to be far greater than $20 billion once all the data is aggregated, and consumers will feel the impact."Those shipping rates are going to go up, and ultimately, those get passed to the consumer," Calhoun said.<div type="image" title="aerial image shows dry brown earth leading down to background river with a long patch of mud where water has recently dried" height="1532" width="2042" msid="95164962" hostid="261" sizebytes="275816"></div>She added that still, transporting via the river is the "most cost competitive way" to move goods."We probably haven't quite seen the impact of it yet to the consumer market," she said, adding, "What everyone's concerned about now is getting the goods as quickly as possible to those destinations and those buyers around the world who are waiting for their product. So, commerce is moving right now, but it's moving inefficiently and it's moving really slowly."<div type="image" title="paddlewheel boat full of windows passes between two bridges with low water on mississippi river" height="1533" width="2044" msid="95164964" hostid="261" sizebytes="721172"></div>The US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) has been dredging the river 24/7 to keep it deep enough for barges, USACE representatives told Insider. They expect to keep up that pace until the rivers rise again in January."We haven't had any channel closures — knock on wood — to date. But it gets to be a challenge as the river levels continue to go down," Lou Dell'Orco, chief of operations at the USACE St. Louis division told Insider.<h2>An uncertain future for America's shipping artery</h2><div type="image" title="people walk on a brown riverbank with a barge in the distance in the water" height="1998" width="2664" msid="95164965" hostid="261" sizebytes="668112"></div>Supply chain issues are not unique to the drought — the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused countries in Europe to place embargoes on key goods like grain and energy supplies, meaning international buyers are turning to the US to get those goods, which are primarily transported via the Mississippi River. Coal is in high demand right now, Calhoun said, and the low water levels present a challenge to ship it out of the country."This is a temporary blip and we'll get back on track when Mother Nature cooperates," Calhoun said. "We've seen high water and low water in the same shipping seasons sometimes, and the industry will manage those different weather disruptions as they come."<div type="image" title="aerial view of barge traveling down thin mississippi river with vast dry banks" height="1532" width="2043" msid="95164968" hostid="261" sizebytes="482614"></div>Jon Deason, lead professor of the Environmental and Energy Management Program at George Washington University, isn't feeling as optimistic. He said higher food prices at the grocery store are just the first way consumers will start feeling the impact of low water levels.Pastelok said it's unclear how climate change will affect the Mississippi River in the long term, but it's possible that the river's drought cycle accelerates. Instead of every 10 to 15 years, for example, drought could strike the river every five to 10 years."We can fix it. But so far, we haven't," Deason told Insider, adding, "And the reason we haven't is that the pain hasn't gotten sufficiently severe for people to focus on it and for elected officials to do something about it."<h2>The climate crisis can push drought cycles into new extremes</h2><div type="image" title="aerial photo show long wooden shipwreck on dry banks of low green river" height="1499" width="1999" msid="95164970" hostid="261" sizebytes="769078"></div>Drought is part of the natural cycle of the Mississippi River basin. Waters were similarly low in 1988 and 2012."You can't really put it all on climate change," Pastelok told Insider.Still, he said, climate change could be amplifying the heat waves, drought, and diminishing snowpack that brought the river so low. Scientists have to conduct rigorous analysis to attribute any single event to climate change, but on the whole they're confident that rising global temperatures make extreme heat and drought more severe and more frequent.<div type="image" title="barge passes under bridge on mississippi river low waters" height="1533" width="2300" msid="95164972" hostid="261" sizebytes="470340"></div>In that way, the Mississippi shipping slowdown shows how climate change can operate in the background to push stressful conditions over the edge into crisis."This is a global problem we're going to be having for a long time," Deason said. "For vulnerable places where the economy is heavily dependent on rainfall, like the Mississippi Watershed, it's a real issue."

Summer heat and 'flash drought' dried up the Mississippi River, choking a crucial shipping corridor. It could devastate America's agricultural exports.

<ul><li><keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> has registered an objection against the yet to be launched bus service between <keyword id="3001" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pakistan">Pakistan</keyword> and <keyword id="1334" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>. </li><li>India’s concern over the route is because it passes through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir raising questions of security in lieu of its strained relations with both nations. </li><li>The Ministry of External Affairs has raised questions over the legality of ‘Boundary Agreement’ of 1963, which India never acknowledged. </li><li>Both China and Pakistan are hoping to boost their ‘friendship’ with the bus service. </li></ul>Raising security concerns over the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/china-and-pakistan-deepen-their-friendship-with-a-new-bus-service-connecting-both-countries/articleshow/66431797.cms">deepening ‘friendship’</a> China and Pakistan has forced<a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/pakistan-china-bus-service-india-lodges-protest-lahore-kashgar-bus-service-pok-pakistan-occupied-kashmir-raveesh-kumar-china-pakistan-economic/307625"> India to protest against the proposed bus service</a>. The point of contention being that the route of the bus passes through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir connecting Lahore in Pakistan to Kashgar in China. The transportation service -- which is all set to start from 3rd November under the flagship ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ (CPEC) is suppose to strengthen Sino-Pakistan relation in turn spreading fears of national security in India. The Ministry of External Affairs has raised questions on the validity and legality of ‘China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement’. They’re stating that no notification was sent their way to inform them about any such bus service by either of the two neighbouring countries. As per the ministry, any bus service connecting Pakistan and China through <keyword id="357630" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Azad-Kashmir">Azad Kashmir</keyword> (Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir)<a href="http://www.newsonair.com/Main-News-Details.aspx?id=354767"> ‘will violate India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’</a>. Apparently, Pakistan and China do not share an international boundary. On paper, the Boundary Agreement is a document from 1963 which established a ‘so-called’ boundary relations between China and Pakistan. But since India also claims territorial rights on parts of the region, it refuses to acknowledge any such agreement between the two. India earlier refused to be a part of ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) project owing to the strained relation it has with China and Pakistan. Apart from all the tensions India has with the route of bus-service, Pakistan’s engagement with China on the CPEC project has faced more controversy in light <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/pakistans-bailout-from-the-imf-hinges-on-an-examination-of-its-chinese-debt/articleshow/66213581.cms">Imran Khan taking the helm</a> in Pakistan. As of now, the project has only<a href="https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/10/25/under-the-guise-of-friendship-china-is-looting-pakistan/"> widened trade deficit and debts in the country</a> since China did not avail any industrial technology to support Pakistan with the project.

You Searched For "economic corridors" and got 9 results

Capital expenditure on Railways increased by 77% over 5 years: Economic Survey

PTI

Modi 3.0 1st Budget: Tax relief for middle class, Rs 2 lakh cr job scheme

PTI

Research unveils the key moment that transformed chickens into the economically relevant animals that they are today

Kunal Kambli

I read all the studies on the economic impact of bike lanes. Here's what I learned.

Adam Rogers

Vladimir Putin's latest economic assault on the West is fueling fears of a global food crisis

George Glover

Before-and-after photos show how the Mississippi River has dropped dramatically, choking a crucial shipping corridor

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

China is taking its ‘all-weather ally’ Pakistan to space

Dilsher Dhillon

Summer heat and 'flash drought' dried up the Mississippi River, choking a crucial shipping corridor. It could devastate America's agricultural exports.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Ayelet …

India’s foreign ministry thinks that the Pakistan-China bus route ‘will violate India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’

BI India Bureau

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides