Li also had a difficult meeting with some of the Western leaders on the sidelines, especially Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has signalled Italy's resolve to quit China's famed Belt and Road Initiative for its failure to bring the expected results to Rome.
India's role as a leader of the global south may require it to give up its ambition to serve as a bridge between the warring halves of the international community, points out Mihir S Sharma.
'Events like the one we saw on Sunday are complex geological processes which can be impacted by weather and climatic conditions.' 'It is difficult to attribute something like this to just one factor or to a particular time period, especially when we have still not understood the exact cause.'
A poignant political play, needed for today's times, is being staged in Mumbai.
'AI can be very useful for making analysis and especially making city-based local forecasts.'
'When we talk of disaster, it is a combination of hazard and vulnerability.' 'If we reduce vulnerability, it will remain a hazard.'
The omission of historical responsibilities, implying the build-up in the atmosphere of 165 years of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialised countries, is a body blow to the notion of climate justice, sums up Darryl D'Monte, reporting exclusively for Rediff.com from COP21.
Asia's richest man Gautam Adani, besides looking at opportunities to expand his vast empire, is hooked on ChatGPT - the programme that trawls vast amount of information to generate natural-sounding text on virtually anything - from crafting jokes to writing ad copy, debugging computer code, to even generating poems and essays. Adani, whose conglomerate has in recent years diversified from mines, ports and power plants into airports, data centres and defence, penned musing from his visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum meeting. "From a meetings perspective, this was perhaps my busiest WEF as I met over a dozen heads of states and several business leaders," he wrote on LinkedIn, talking of new geopolitical couplings, climate change and tight-lipped evangelists and AI.
Typhoons, cyclones and storms have proved to be more devastating than earthquakes as far as the loss of human life was concerned.
Santosh Patkar of Devgadh Taluka Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra is a worried man these days. Devgadh, which is known as the home to world famous Alphonso variety of mangoes, has seen an unusual drop in yields which is affecting farmers' income. Being one of the primary agricultural produce from the area, Santosh is not untouched by this somewhat rare phenomenon. He said in his own mango garden, yields have come down by a third from most trees.
The Union government could target a fiscal deficit of 5.8-6 per cent of nominal GDP for 2023-24, and it should continue its capital expenditure push and look to simplify the personal income tax regime, economists recommended Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team during their pre-Budget interaction on Monday. Starting last week, Sitharaman had eight pre-Budget consultations this time. More than 110 invitees representing seven stakeholder groups participated in these meetings, the finance ministry said in a statement. The stakeholder groups included representatives and experts from agriculture and agro-processing industry; industry, infrastructure & climate change; financial sector and capital markets; services and trade; social sector; trade unions and labour organisations; and economists.
The oil industry experienced three upheavals between 1973 and 1991, which seem to be etched in the memory of the industry's decision makers. Naturally, at the sign of a new crisis, the decision makers like to dip into those tumultuous decades to find ways to deal with the new shock, in addition, of course, to expert reports and forecasts. So, the industry bigwigs turned the pages of history to get a peek into the future of oil price movements after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Israel attacked Gaza in 2023, Iran-linked Houthi rebels pounded tankers crossing the Red Sea in support of Palestine the same year, and Iran rained missiles on Israel in 2024.
Beyond a point, competition is boring. The fun is in the doing, irrespective of outcome. By the time I was in college, I knew I valued awareness more than success, notes Shyam G Menon.
Focuses on meeting non-traction demand through renewables.
Prime Minister Sharif will be visiting Beijing with a high-powered delegation from November 1, 2022, where minutes of the joint coordination committee meeting will be signed.
The migration of domestically developed intellectual property to foreign corporations within India reflects an anomaly in the demand pattern of the country's job market, points out Kanika Datta.
India has an unprecedented opportunity to develop solar industry because like China, it offers scale which is critical to reducing costs and to stimulate innovation, says Shyam Saran.
'Temperature and wind can be predicted more easily than rainfall.' 'Rainfall, as common experience suggests, is very spotty.' 'The last bit of physics required that tells us whether it is going to rain or not is very hard.' Professor Roddam Narasimha, the eminent scientist, explains the monsoon, climate change and global warming, in a fascinating conversation with Shivanand Kanavi.
'In India, we are paying a price for not managing water as we are not willing to pay the cost for it.'
8 Asiatic lions in the zoo in have tested positive for COVID-19 after their saliva samples were thoroughly examined by CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, Rakesh Mishra, advisor of the premier research institute said.
'The first duty of the government is to learn lessons from a bad experience and course correct. It's a pity that the government is making policy without looking at evidence and differentiating between immediate and urgent.'
Since the US, the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, has shifted in a major way to shale gas, the focus of global environmentalists' ire has fallen on India, which is the third biggest emitter, reports Darryl D'Monte.
La Nina, construction worsen air quality; spike in respiratory ailments.
As the ice-covered parts of the Arctic Ocean melt due to climate change, China has flagged its interest to take part in building 'Polar Silk Road', raising prospects for the emergence of a new sea route.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Lakshadweep Research Collective said it along with 60 other signatories from the scientific community have written to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking his intervention to withdraw the "incautious draft" Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation of 2021.
ISRO chairman S Somanath said the success gave the space agency "greater confidence," as the GSLV will be next deployed in the NISAR mission, a collaborative effort with the US' NASA.
A study by an international team of researchers had warned two year ago that the South Lhonak lake in Sikkim may burst in the future and significantly impact the downstream region.
The official data maintained by the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research put the condition at severely polluted. The Particulate Matter 2.5 level was recorded at 146 while the PM 10 was at 233 in New Delhi.
An accurate early warning system that correlates rainfall and the potential for landslides. That is the imperative, say experts as rains create havoc in hills across India and the toll mounts in Kerala's Wayanad slopes where landslides buried entire homesteads and possibly hundreds of people.
King Charles III, Britain's new monarch who ascended to the throne on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, has a strong connection with India and its age-old traditions of Yoga and Ayurveda.
The initiative is being called lateral recruitment to senior positions in the government.
Fires are raging at a record rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, and scientists warn that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change. Although more than 72,000 fires have raged since the year began, over 9,500 new infernos have ignited since last Thursday, according to Brazil's space research centre INPE. There has been an 83 per cent surge in forest fires since the same period last year and the highest number since records began.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a significant portion of this ocean plastic debris is expected to make its way onto either beaches or the seabed within three to four years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday told scientists that the government would make it easier to do scientific research in the country and asked them to keep the five principles of economy, environment, energy, empathy, equity at the centre of enquiry and engineering.
He last visited India in November 2019 and also celebrated his 71st birthday with schoolchildren in Mumbai and earlier this week he told British Indian peer Lord Karan Bilimoria at a pre-Coronation reception that he looks forward to making a State Visit to India soon.
A few days back, Atul Ganatra, president of the Cotton Association of India, presented a grim scenario of the crop's prospects in the 2024-25 season that starts in October. Addressing the association's annual general meeting, Ganatra said the area under the crop could go down by at least 10 per cent in the coming season due to falling yields and realisation, leading to farmers losing interest. The fear of a decline in acreage comes against the backdrop of India's cotton production probably falling to its lowest in a decade, according to estimates.
Climate change, air quality, nutrition, even connectivity are joining the political agenda, and it will force a shift in policies.
If international crude oil prices zoom past the current level of about $90 per barrel and move towards $100 and beyond, middle-class consumers are not going to keep quiet about their discomfort, points out Arun Balakrishnan, former chairman and managing director, Hindustan Petroleum.
The government has identified nine key focus areas in the AI national programme, including agriculture, education, Indian languages, smart cities, cybersecurity, transportation, and finance.
Scientists are working on conducting various tests for the ambitious Gaganyaan mission and the agency is coordinating with the Navy and others in this connection, he said.
