Monday, June 09
CHANDRAPUR/SOLAPUR: April marks the start of the cruelest months for residents of Solapur, a hot and dry district in western India. As temperatures soar, water availability dwindles. In peak summer, the wait for taps to flow can stretch to a week or more. Just a decade ago, water flowed every other day, according to the local government and residents of Solapur, some 400 km inland from Mumbai. Then in 2017, a 1,320-megawatt coal-fired power plant run by state-controlled NTPC began operations. It provided the district with energy - and competed with residents and businesses for water from a reservoir that serves the area. Solapur illustrates the Catch-22 facing India, which has 17% of the planet's population but access to only 4% of its water resources. The world's most populous country pla
The price war engulfing China’s electric vehicle industry has already sent share prices tumbling and prompted an unusual level of intervention from Beijing. The shakeout may just be getting started.For all the Chinese government’s efforts to prevent price cuts by market leader BYD Co. from turning into a vicious spiral, analysts say a combination of weaker demand and extreme overcapacity will slice into profits at the strongest brands and force feebler competitors to fold. Even after the number of EV makers started shrinking for the first time last year, the industry is still using less than half its production capacity.Chinese authorities are trying to minimize the fallout, chiding the sector for “rat race competition” and summoning heads of major brands to Beijing last week. Yet
London: Reigning champions Australia face South Africa in the World Test Championship final at Lord's starting Wednesday amid a chorus of criticism over the competition's format.Wisden, cricket's 'bible', was scathing in its assessment, with editor Lawrence Booth writing in this year's edition that the WTC is a "shambles masquerading as a showpiece".Meanwhile, former England captain Michael Atherton said "everyone knows the WTC in its present guise is flawed".One fundamental problem is that political tensions mean India and Pakistan, two of cricket's leading nations, have not played a Test against each other since 2007.The nine-nation WTC is further skewed because the teams are not being required to face each other or to play the same number of matches, unlike most sports leagues. Countri
