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Women Startup Summit 3.0 aims to inspire women in entrepreneurship

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Winners of the Women Startup Summit 3.0 Innovation Challenge will receive a grant of Rs 5 lakh. Come December, and Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) will kick off its Women Startup Summit 3.0 in an effort aimed at inspiring women in entrepreneurship. This is expected to be done by facilitating women’s participation in three sections, namely Innovation Challenge, Investor Café and Hackathon. KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state. Women Startup Summit 3.0, the two-day event that will happen on December 15 and 16, will look to bring together women leaders and entrepreneurs from various fields on a common platform to share experiences, aspirations and success stories. Summit to have ‘Rise To Equal – Post-Pandemic Era’ theme With the focal theme that centres around ‘Rise To Equal – Post-Pandemic Era’, the summit will feature influential women from the start-up ecosystem. The event will get on to the floor with...

Schools open with 50% capacity but Malls in Delhi can open at 100% capacity

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Delhi Disaster Management Authority directions defies sane logic It looks as if the national capital’s Government is looking for new ways to keep the schools closed whereas most states have opened the schools at full capacity and regular classes have also started. However, in the national capital, schools have opened only after 18 months and that too with 50% occupancy. However, all other places were there could be a collection of people like Cinema Halls, Cricket Stadium have been opened. Worse the schools in the capital had to be closed again because of severe pollution. In the early nineties, the biggest challenge for the government was to just get the kids to school. However, in the last 20 years, the results of the efforts are slowly getting visible. Today, it is a norm that every child goes to school. However, the momentum has been rudely halted by the Corona  pandemic . In the start, lockdown was the only option to control the spread of the pandemic. Only the bare essential se...

Disney to push up spending on content; $33 Bn set aside for 2022 fiscal

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Content plan with a direct-to-consumer strategy will be seen as a high priority by Disney. Great content is a priority area for The Walt Disney Co as it wrapped up overall spending for the 2022 fiscal. Disney has made known its plans to push up spending on content for the year, and has earmarked close to $33 billion for the fiscal that got started on October 1. The company’s annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission talks of an approximate increase of $8 billion to the company’s fiscal 2021 spending. The 2021 spend stood at $25 billion. The proposed spend of $33 billion would include content sports rights and other content for ESPN, ESPN Plus and other platforms. Disney content spend would focus on streaming As expected, Disney’s content spend would ride on its bid to capture a major streaming share, with platforms of the likes of Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus on the radar. This would also mean that the spending would see a shift from the earlier focus on Disn...

SDG Report: Only 7 of 56 surveyed cities scored above 50 in Jobs & Economic Growth

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As per the SDG report by NITI Aayog, Bengaluru is the only and the best Indian big city for economic growth and jobs. Bengaluru is cited as the only Indian city to provide decent jobs and ensure economic growth, according to the first Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Urban Index by Niti Aayog, the country’s economic think-tank on Tuesday. Overall, Shimla has ensured sustainable development, as it has topped the index based on 15 parameters while Dhanbad ranked lowest. The hilly capital of Himachal Pradesh has scored 75.5, followed by Coimbatore (73.29), Thiruvananthapuram (72.36), Chandigarh (72.36) and Kochi (72.29). The coal capital of India, Dhanbad, scored the worst (52.43), Meerut (54.64), Itanagar (55.29), Guwahati (55.79) and Patna (57.29) make up the bottom five. The report compiled is based on 77 indicators across 15 SDGs. These indicators cover the sectors of poverty reduction, nutrition, health, education, women empowerment, water and sanitation, clean energy, economic ...

Streaming platforms can help Indian cinema tap into global markets like never before: Abhishek Chandra

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Kerala-born Abhishek Chandra, who is currently an internationally acclaimed film maker, has been making waves with his award winning short film 'Lady Bug'. Film maker Abhishek Chandra’s short film Lady Bug is hogging the limelight at the moment. The film has already won 16 awards globally, including Best Drama Film Short (Europe Film Festival – Jan 2021); Best Drama (Venice Film Awards – Sept 2020); Best Short Film (Silver – Virgin Spring Cinefest – Oct 2020); Best Director (Virgin Spring Cinefest – Oct 2020); Best Indie Short Film (Five Continents International Film Festival); and many more. Lady Bug, which Chandra co-produced with the film’s writer and lead actor Isabela Valotti, comes across as a poignant story about dealing with the loss of a loved one. An English-Portuguese drama, the film produced in Los Angeles under Meraki Studios, the US, stars Isabela Valotti, Mia Drake, and Andre Mattos in lead roles. Kerala-born Abhishek Chandra, who began his film career in Mumba...

NFHS-5 Report: Population growth stabilizing but other worrying factors co-exist

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Prejudice against girls persists, and the patriarchal attitude that pervades the Indian community has not been totally banished. The NFHS-5 report has been released. A lot has been said about the improvement of sex ratio and for the first time women outnumber men by 1000/1020. However on scrutiny, the fact that the number of girls to boys at birth is still in favour of boys and has remained unchanged. It is once again a reminder that prejudice against the girl child still continues and the patriarchal mentality of Indian population is still not completely eradicated. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have disappointing figures The population growth is slowly stabilizing and has reached a figure of 2. However, 2.1 is the figure which is necessary for maintaining the present level of population while Indian population growth is lower than this figure. Moreover, two states with the highest population,  Bihar  and Uttar Pradesh, are at the bottom of this table. Bihar has a reproductive rate of 3 w...

Why is Noida International Airport billed as India's first 'net-zero emission airport'?

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Noida International Airport is one among Uttar Pradesh's eight international airports, built on 5,000 acres of land for an estimated amount of 29,560 crore rupees. On Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Noida International Airport near Jewar in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Budh district. In the event, Modi has said that it will become “the logistic gateway of northern India.” Once completed, it will become the country's largest airport. Speaking before Modi,  Uttar Pradesh  Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stirred up yet another controversy after accusing "followers of Jinnah" (he was referring to Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav) of fermenting trouble in the state's sugarcane belt. https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1463852379657363466?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet Here are a few key highlights of India’s soon-to-be-completed largest Noida International Airport: - The Noida International Ai...