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By John Colley, Warwick Business School Dated: January 21, 2019 When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 it sent significant numbers of businesses to the wall. Investment banks had been encouraging enormous investment in dot-com ventures by launching Initial Public Offers (IPOs), allowing investors and entrepreneurs to cash in on vast fortunes by selling off shares in their companies. Most of the dot-coms which listed on stock exchanges had done little more than consume vast amounts of investor cash and showed little prospect of achieving a profit. Traditional metrics of performance were overlooked and big spending was seen as a sign of rapid progress. The cash burn was to build branding and create network effects — where something gains more value the more people use it. These are the main driver of platform businesses. With Amazon, for example, the more suppliers the greater benefit to potential customers and vice versa. Together, this would build the foundation for fu...

The Dawn January 28, 2019 A three-member delegation of Pakistani water experts reached India through Wagha border crossing on Sunday to inspect hydro-power projects being undertaken by India at Chenab Basin. Led by Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner Syed Mehr Ali Shah, the delegation will visit Pakal Dul, Lower Kalnai, Ratle and other projects on the Chenab during its six-day stay in India. It will return on Feb 1. The visit is being undertaken as an obligation under the Indus Waters Treaty signed between Pakistan and India back in 1960. The agreement mandates the water commissioners of Pakistan and India to inspect sites and works on both sides of the Indus basin in a block of five years. At least 118 visits on both the sides have been undertaken since signing of the treaty. The first visit of the current five-year block, which ends in March 2020, was kept pending by India. Earlier, it was scheduled in October 2018 but New Delhi delayed it on the excuse of local b...

Anwar Iqbal, The Dawn Dated: January 28, 2019 Afghan Taliban on Sunday acknowledged that progress had been made in talks held last week in Qatar but denied reaching any agreement with their American interlocutors on a ceasefire and talks with the Afghan government. In a brief statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the meeting between their political office in Doha and special US representative Zalmay Khalilzad held for six consecutive days had finally come to an end. “In accordance with the agenda, this round of negotiations revolving around the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and other vital issues saw progress,” he said. “But since issues are of critical nature and need comprehensive discussions, therefore it was decided that talks about unresolved matters will resume in similar future meetings in order to find an appropriate and effective solution and also to share details of the meetings and receive guidance from their respective leadership...

By Emran Feroz, The Hindu Dated: January 26, 2019 The far-right Freedom Party, which is part of the Austrian government, triggered a new controversy when party leader and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl recently attacked the European Convention on Human Rights. Freedom Party is known for its controversial views on migration, Islam and policing, among other issues. Mr. Kickl, who used to write the speeches of right-wing politician Jörg Haider, also created the “At home instead of Islam” slogan (‘Daham statt Islam’) of the Freedom Party and used to be one of the main organisers of the right-wing ‘Defenders of Europe’ conference that took place in 2016 and in 2018 in Austria. Recently, Mr. Kickl called for harsher measures against refugees in an interview with ORF, Austria’s public television broadcaster. “The law has to follow politics, politics doesn’t have to follow the law,” he said. In this context, the Interior Minister, who wants to deport refugees rather quic...

The Express Tribune Dated: January 28, 2019 India continues to spurn peace overtures by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. Last week, Islamabad shared a draft agreement with New Delhi on the Kartarpur Corridor. It also requested India to send its delegation to Islamabad for talks to finalise the agreement that would allow Sikhs from India to visit the Shrine of Baba Guru Nanak without visa. But the Modi government, instead of responding to the initiative, made a counter-proposal asking Pakistan to send its delegation to New Delhi for talks. The Foreign Office here termed India’s response childish. However, the Foreign Office spokesperson made it clear that despite India’s obduracy, Pakistan’s response would be ‘mature and well considered’. India’s approach clearly suggests that the Modi administration is not serious about having any engagement with Pakistan at least before the parliamentary elections across the border. Pakistan has gone out of the way on...

The Express Tribune January 25, 2019 Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to unify the underlying messaging infrastructure of the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger services and incorporate end-to-end encryption into these apps, the New York Times reported on Friday. The three services will, however, continue as stand-alone apps, the report said, citing four people involved in the effort. Facebook said it is working on adding end-to-end encryption, which protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in a conversation, to more of its messaging products, and considering ways to make it easier for users to connect across networks. “There is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” a spokesperson said. After the changes, a Facebook user, for instance, will be able to send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, according...

By Atul Aneja, The Hindu Dated: January 26, 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping has delivered a tough back-to-the-trenches call to his comrades in the Communist Party of China (CPC) to weed out the “grey rhinos” and “black swans” that dare to undermine the economy of China and confidence of its people in its political system. By referring to “grey rhinos”, the President was asking the CPC to eliminate highly probable events that can rock the markets, resulting in massive financial outflows, haemorrhaging business confidence in the economy. The 2008 financial crisis was a blaring “grey rhino” global event. Conversely, Mr. Xi’s spotlight on “black swans” was a call on cadres to nail hard-to-predict events that can range from terror strikes to Brexit, which can also attack markets, resulting in extreme financial consequences. On January 21, when Mr. Xi spoke at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, his remarks pointed to gathering storms around China, with the...

By Shubhajit Roy, Indian Express Dated: January 26, 2019 India and South Africa sealed a three-year strategic programme covering all aspects of bilateral ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi met visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Friday. The strategic programme will cover cooperation in a range of areas, including defence and security, trade and investment, the blue economy, tourism, IT and agriculture. Ramaphosa, who arrived Friday from Davos, will be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations Saturday. This is the second time a South African leader is Chief Guest at Republic Day — Nelson Mandela was the chief guest in 1995. In his statement to the media, Modi said, “During our interactions today with the President, we reviewed all the dimensions of our relations. Our trade and investment relations are becoming more and more intense. Our bilateral trade is more than $10 billion. South Africa participated as the Partner Country in the ‘Vibrant ...

By Khaled Ahmad, Indian Express Dated: January 26, 2019 America is thinking of quitting Afghanistan because its soldiers are too expensive to send abroad. It stands to save $43 billion annually if it leaves. Pakistan is scared of what will happen if America really quits and Afghanistan returns to its heroin-sustained warlordism. The Afghan Taliban are winning on a daily basis and control half of the country, eying the 250,000-strong Afghan army as future Taliban. India has presence in Afghanistan after the construction of the game-changing Chabahar Port in Iran and the highway that links it to Kabul. Three South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) members — Afghanistan, Pakistan, India — could have cooperated but are poised to fight instead. And it is difficult to say who will fight who. The Taliban have warriors in their hordes who have come from the Middle East and Central Asia; and there are ISIS-Daesh and Al Qaeda still operational in the c...

Rishika Pardikar,The Wire Dated: January 25, 2019 In November 2018, the NITI Aayog released a document titled ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’. It outlined a vision to build a ‘New India’ by 2022 through policy proposals for furthering cauincluses like housing for all, doubling farmers’ incomes, renewable energy, sustainable environment, etc. But look closer and you will notice that its various aims are not all consistent with each other.  For example, as part of policies to create a sustainable environment, the document says we need to increase forest cover to 33.3% of India’s geographical area as well as improve the quality of existing forests. The nation’s forest cover currently stands at about 21%. Getting to 33% has been the goal since 1952, when the first national forest policy was drafted. However, it has only become harder since that time to meet this goal and the document itself shows why. It also hopes that Parivesh – purported to be a single-window...