The Asian Independent 16 - 30 Nov. 2019

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12 16-11-2019 to 30-11-2019 BUSINESS www.theasianindependent.co.uk Vodafone Idea rings in loss of Rs 50,921 crore New Delhi : Hit hard by the unpaid statutory dues, telecom o p e r a t o r Vodafone Idea on Thursday posted a colossal Rs 50,921-crore loss for the second quarter ended September 30, and said it is in the process of filing a review petition on the adjusted gross revenue matter. This is the highest ever quarterly loss posted by any Indian company in recent memory. Its total loss stood at Rs 50,921 crore in September quarter, against Rs 4,874 crore loss in the year-ago period. Its revenue rose 42% to Rs 11,146.4 crore during the second quarter this year. Airtel posts mega loss of Rs 23,045 cr in July-Sept qtr New Delhi-Telecom operator Bharti Airtel, which has been hit hard by the Supreme Court ruling on statutory dues, today posted highest-ever loss of Rs 23,045 crore during the second quarter e n d e d September 30. The company had recorded a net income of Rs 119 crore in the same quarter a year ago, although it said that amounts are not comparable due to adoption of new accounting system. The consolidated revenue of Bharti Airtel was up by 4.7% at Rs 21,199 crore in the just concluded quarter. The company said that the Supreme Court ruling has “significant financial implication on the company”. “The company is hopeful of relief and in the absence of the same, has provided for an additional amount aggregating Rs 28,450 crore as a charge for the quarter with respect to the licence fee as estimated based on the court judgment and spectrum usage charges (SUC) as estimated based on the definition of AGR,” it said. Gujarat firm to promote wine, food processing TOURISM IN HP To invest Rs 45 cr in setting up project at Banalgi in Solan Chandigarh : Come 2021, Himachal Pradesh could emerge as one of the preferred destinations for wine and food processing tourism. The project, once operational, will be the first-ofits-kind project in North India. A tourist visiting the state would have an opportunity to witness the wine-making process on the lines of Sula Vineyard and Soma Wines or food processing process, as initiated by companies such as Mala’s and Mapro in Maharashtra. Besides staying in the midst of nature, tourists visiting these manufacturing units will be taken to processing units where they will get first-hand experience as to how fresh fruits are brought into the factory, pass through grading and sorting process and finally processed into wines, juices and jellies. Considering thematic tourism as a major attraction these days, a Gujaratbased company has entered into an MoU with the Himachal Pradesh government for promoting thematic tourism at Banalgi in Solan district. “We have conceptualised the project on the lines of wine tourism and food processing tourism in other states. For example, in SC paves way for Arcelor Mittal to take over Essar Steel for Rs 42,000 crore Maharashtra and Gujarat, a lot of theme tourism projects are running successfully,“ said Ravi R Desai, managing director, Himalaya Cotton Yarn Ltd. The company has already invested Rs 15 crore in setting up a controlled-atmosphere cold storage. It will pump in another Rs 30 crore. The facility will have winery, food processing industry and eco-tourism project where tourists can stay and have first-hand account of the entire manufacturing process. The company is keen to establish winery and plans to process it from locally available fruits such as apple, peach, plum, cherry and apricot. It will also process fruits and vegetables to manufacture jams, jellies, syrups and other products. The company has sought approval for 5,000 sq mt of land from its existing 20,000 sq mt of leased land for the project. Desai said companies such as Mala’s, Mapro, Sula Vineyard and Soma Vines were already successfully running the theme tourism projects within the premises of their factories where people could enjoy day trip as well as night stay. “People also get to know about local fruits and vegetables processing. This includes factory visit and briefing on production methods, including manufacturing a particular product,” he said. According to experts, the place where Mala’s and Mapro units are located used to be rural areas and one could not think of promoting tourism there. However, these two units have transformed the entire area and tourists visit these manufacturing units to have first-hand knowledge of processing. Both these factories are located between Mahabaleshwar- Panchgani in Maharashtra. New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for ArcelorMittal takeover of debt-ridden Essar Steel for Rs 42,000 crore and set aside the July 4 NCLAT order giving equal status to financial creditors and operational creditors. A bench headed by Justice R F Nariman clarified that financial creditors enjoy primacy over operational creditors and the adjudicating authority cannot interfere with the decision approved by the committee of creditors. The top court said that the adjudicating authority can send back the resolution plan to the committee of creditors (COC) for implementation in accordance with the guidelines but cannot change the commercial decision taken by the COC. The bench also relaxed the timeline of 330 days to find a resolution plan as prescribed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. The bench said it would be open for the adjudicating authority to maintain the timeline in exceptional cases. The bench said that the COC resolution plan must balance the interest of all stakeholders. The apex court had on July 22 ordered status quo in the Essar insolvency case. The verdict came on a plea of the committee of creditors challenging NCLAT’s order of July 4 in which it had approved steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal-led ArcelorMittal’s Rs 42,000-crore bid for the acquisition of Essar Steel after it rejected a plea by the lead shareholder of the debtladen firm challenging the eligibility of the bidder. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had, however, given operational creditors equal status as lenders in the distribution of the ArcelorMittal’s bid amount among the creditors of Essar Steel. Essar Steel was auctioned under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) to recover Rs 54,547 crore of unpaid dues of financial lenders and operational creditors. Moody's cuts India's GDP growth forecast to 5.6 pc for 2019 New Delhi- Moody's Investors Service on Thursday cut India's economic growth forecast for current year to 5.6 per cent from 5.8 per cent estimated earlier, saying GDP slowdown is lasting longer than previously expected. "We have revised down our growth forecast for India. We now forecast slower real GDP growth of 5.6 per cent in 2019, from 7.4 per cent in 2018," it said. It expected economic activity to pick up in 2020 and 2021 to 6.6 per cent and 6.7 per cent, respectively, but the pace to remain lower than in the recent past. "India's economic growth has decelerated since mid-2018, with real GDP growth slipping from nearly 8 per cent to 5 per cent in the second quarter of 2019 and joblessness rising. "Investment activity was muted well before that, but the economy was buoyed by strong consumption demand. What is troubling about the current slowdown is that consumption demand has cooled notably," it said.
www.theasianindependent.co.uk HEALTH 16-11-2019 to 30-11-2019 13 Some skin cancers may start in hair follicles New York : Some of the most deadly skin cancers may start in stem cells that lend colour to hair, and originate in hair follicles rather than in skin layers, says a new study. Hair follicles are complex organs that reside within skin layers. It is there that immature pigment-making cells develop cancer-causing genetic changes—and in a second step— are exposed to normal hair growth signals. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that unlike their normal counterparts, newly cancerous pigment stem cells then migrate up and out of the follicles to establish melanomas in nearby surface skin before spreading deeper. The study was conducted in genetically engineered mice, with the results confirmed in human tissue samples. “By confirming that oncogenic pigment cells in hair follicles are a bona fide source of melanoma, we have a better understanding of this cancer’s biology and new ideas about how to counter it,” said study author Mayumi Ito Suzuki, Associate Professor at New York University. The study addresses the stem cells that mature into melanocytes, cells that make the protein pigment melanin, which protects skin by absorbing some of the sun’s ultraviolet, DNAdamaging rays. By absorbing some wavelengths of visible light, but reflecting others, pigments “create” hair colour. In a series of elegant steps, the research team established a new mouse model for the study of melanoma, one engineered such that the team could edit genes in follicular melanocyte stem cells only (the c-Kit-CreER mouse). This capability enabled researchers to introduce genetic changes that made only melanoctye stem cells - and their descendants destined to form melanomas - glow no matter where they travelled. Able to accurately track a key stem cell type for the first time, the authors confirmed that melanoma cells can arise from melanocyte stem cells, which abnormally migrate up and out of hair follicles to enter the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin. The team then tracked the same cells as they multiplied there, and then moved deeper into the skin layer called the dermis. Once there, the cells shed the markers and pigment that went with their follicular origins, presumably in response to local signals. They also acquired signatures similar to nerve cells (neurons) and skin cells (mesenchymal), molecular characteristics “almost exactly like” those noted in examinations of human melanoma tissue. Knowing where to look for the original, cancer-causing event, the researchers temporarily eliminated signals one by one in the follicular environment to see if cancer still formed in their absences. “Our mouse model is the first to demonstrate that follicular oncogenic melanocyte stem cells can establish melanomas, which promises to make it useful in identifying new diagnostics and treatments for melanoma,” said first study author Qi Sun. AGRI FIRES aggravated in last decade causing more pollution New Delhi : Researchers have found a growing link between agricultural fire and air pollution with the impact of the former aggravating in the last decade. Researchers at an international conference on forestry at TERI School of Advanced Studies found that surprisingly, agricultural fires have been the same on the Pakistan side of Punjab (Western Punjab), while the fires have increased in Punjab (India) since 2008. There has been around 2 per cent increase in aerosol concentration in the last three decades. The black carbon concentration and absorbing aerosols over the Indo Gangetic plain has been increasing due to biomass burning and other activities which peak during post-monsoon seasons (October-December). This was recorded using satellite data products of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR). Forests in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have been under constant stress from forest fires and this problem is now being tackled by providing early warning to forest departments from real time monitoring using high resolution remote sensing data. According to the National Forest Inventory programme, 9.89 per cent of forest areas are heavily affected and 54.40 per cent areas are mildly affected due to forest fires. FISH OIL SUPPLEMENTS HAVE NO EFFECT ON ANXIETY : STUDY London : Increased consumption of omega-3 fats is widely promoted globally because of a common belief that it will protect against conditions such as anxiety and depression, but researchers have now found that fish oil supplements have little or no effect on such conditions. Omega-3 is a type of fat. Small amounts are essential for good health and can be found in the food that we eat including nuts and seeds and fatty fish, such as salmon. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that omega-3 supplements offer no benefit. “This large systematic review included information from many thousands of people over long periods,” said study lead author Lee Hooper, from University of East Anglia in UK. “Despite all this information, we don’t see protective effects, the most trustworthy studies consistently showed little or no effect of longchain omega-3 fats on depression or anxiety, and they should not be encouraged as a treatment,” Hooper added. For the findings, the research team looked at 31 trials of adults with and without depression or anxiety. More than 41,470 participants were randomised to consume more long-chain omega-3 fats (fish oils), or maintain their usual intake, for at least six months Deep sleep may calm, reset anxious brain: Study LOS ANGELES : A sleepless night can trigger anxiety by up to 30 per cent while a full night’s nap can stabilise emotions, according to a study which recommends deep sleep as a non-pharmaceutical remedy for anxiety disorders. People suffering from the mental health disorder are bombarded by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are so strong that they interfere with their daily activities, the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, noted. The researchers, including those from the University of California (UC) Berkeley in the US, found that deep sleep—also known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) slow-wave sleep— can calm and reset the anxious brain. In this sleep state, oscillations in the electrical activity in the brain’s neurons become highly synchronized, and the heart rate and blood pressure drops, the researchers said. The findings of the study revealed a new function of deep sleep in which anxiety is decreased overnight by reorganizing nerve connections in the brain. According to the researchers, the study provides one of the strongest links to date between the brain circuits involved in sleep and anxiety. “Our study strongly suggests that insufficient sleep amplifies levels of anxiety and, conversely, that deep sleep helps reduce such stress,” said study lead author Eti Ben Simon from UC Berkeley. As part of the study, the researchers scanned the brains of 18 young adults using functional MRI, polysomnography and other measures as they viewed emotionally stirring video clips after a full night of sleep, and again after a sleepless night. They measured the anxiety levels of the participants following each session via a questionnaire known as the state-trait anxiety inventory. When the participants did not get any sleep, their scans showed a shutdown of a brain region called the medial prefrontal cortex, which normally helps keep our anxiety in check, while the brain’s deeper emotional centers were overactive, the researchers said. “Without sleep, it’s almost as if the brain is too heavy on the emotional accelerator pedal, without enough brake,” Walker said. The results revealed that the participants who had a full night of sleep had significantly reduced anxiety levels, especially for those who experienced more slow-wave NREM sleep. “Deep sleep had restored the brain’s prefrontal mechanism that regulates our emotions, lowering emotional and physiological reactivity and preventing the escalation of anxiety,” Simon said. The researchers replicated the results in a study of another 30 participants, showing that those who got more nighttime deep sleep experienced the lowest levels of anxiety the next day. Simon and his team also conducted an online study tracking how the sleep and anxiety levels changed for four consecutive days in 280 people of different ages. The results revealed that the amount and quality of sleep from one night to the next predicted the anxiety levels they would feel the next day. The researchers said that even subtle nightly changes in sleep affected the participants’ anxiety levels. “People with anxiety disorders routinely report having disturbed sleep, but rarely is sleep improvement considered as a clinical recommendation for lowering anxiety,” Simon said. The study, the researchers said, not only establishes a causal connection between sleep and anxiety, but also identifies the kind of deep sleep needed to calm an overanxious brain.
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The Asian Independent 16 - 30 Nov. 2019

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