The News Journal

  Usha Martin is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wire rope. Established in the year 1960, today Usha Martin is a multi-unit and multi-product organization. The wire rope manufacturing facilities located in Ranchi, Hoshiarpur, Dubai, Bangkok and UK produce one of the widest ranges of wire ropes in the world. The infrastructural facilities are equipped with the latest state-of-the-art high-capacity machines to manufacture world-class products. Our Global R&D centre located in Italy is actively engaged in designing wire ropes and uses proprietary design software to develop products that are the best in class. Rajeev Jhawar  has been the Managing  Director of Usha Martin Limited since  May 19, 2008.  Usha Martin also has a comprehensive R&D facility in their manufacturing unit at Ranchi in India. Long-standing application in diverse sectors like Oil & Offshore, Mining, Crane, Elevator, Infrastructure etc. is the testimony of their expertise in manufacturing high-q

 EU leaders failed on Friday to agree a short-term solution to the energy market crunch made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but did offer a compromise for Spain, where increasing fuel prices prompted 12 days of blockades by lorry drivers. A debate on whether to cap energy prices, pitting some southern countries against Germany and the Netherlands, pushed the second day of an EU summit into the evening. Lorry drivers take to the streets of Madrid in Spain to protest against the high price of fuel. In the end, they settled on a trade-off and left a number of matters unresolved. he war in Ukraine has pushed energy prices to record highs and prompted the EU to seek to cut Russian gas use by two-thirds this year by finding alternative supplies and increasing use of renewable energy. While the Mediterranean rim states pressed for a cap on wholesale gas prices to protect poorer households, opponents said this would mean public cash subsidising fossil fuels. The leaders charged the

 Millions of tonnes of Ukraine wheat desperately needed in the Middle East are going to waste in warehouses caught up in the fighting around Kyiv, The National can report. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made it a key national priority that a seeding programme will start in the coming days to ensure grain is growing despite the Russian invasion. An agricultural worker drives a tractor on a wheat field near the village of Husachivkam, near Kyiv, in April 2020.  Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said the consequence of President Vladimir Putin’s “aggression” would extend far beyond Ukraine, which was the “granary of the world” providing half of the World Food Programme’s wheat. “As humanitarian needs are already at an all-time high, the Kremlin-made war threatens food security across the world,” she tweeted on Tuesday. Global stocks are 31 per cent below the five-year average due to a poor harvest and the pandemic. Prices that were already very high have now inc

 Thousands of people were ordered to leave their homes near a Philippines volcano on Saturday after an eruption sent ash and steam hundreds of metres into the sky. Taal volcano, which sits in a lake south of Manila, exploded with a "short-lived" burst at 7.22am, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. It said further eruptions were possible, which could trigger dangerous, fast-moving volcanic flows of gas, ash and debris, as well as a tsunami. The Taal Volcano near the Philippines capital Manila spews white steam and ash on Saturday. The agency "strongly" recommended residents living in vulnerable communities around the lake be evacuated, as it raised the alert level from two to three. The initial eruption was followed by "nearly continuous phreatomagmatic activity" that sent plumes stretching 1,500 metres into the air. A phreatomagmatic eruption happens when molten rock comes into contact with underground or surface water, said Prince

 The Dubai property market recorded its strongest start to a year, with 12,119 sales transactions to date, a report compiled by real estate data platform Property Monitor has shown. This was a 17.7 per cent increase in transactions compared to 2017, which was the previous best start to a year, the company said. The Dubai property market also registered a record 6,346 transactions last month, which was 43.5 per cent higher than any other February on record, the company said. February sales also grew 9.9 per cent on a monthly basis. “Dubai remains very affordable by international standards with many European markets raising barriers to external investment, coupled with rising interest rates and inflation headwinds dampening the post-Covid recovery,” said Zhann Jochinke, chief operating officer of Property Monitor. “This combination of factors could be added momentum for Dubai as a safe-haven market in the near term.” The UAE’s property market has recovered strongly from the coronavirus-i

 A fire erupted at an oil depot in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday, ahead of the F1 Grand Prix race scheduled to take place there - with Yemen's Houthis rebels acknowledging that they had launched a series of attacks on the kingdom. Saudi Arabia and the state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco did not immediately acknowledge the blaze, though it appeared to be on the same fuel depot that the Houthis attacked in recent days. The fire seems to be centred on the same North Jeddah Bulk Plant, the Associated Press news agency reported. The North Jeddah Bulk Plant stores diesel, gasoline and jet fuel for use in Jeddah, the kingdom's second-largest city. It accounts for over a quarter of all of Saudi Arabia's supplies and is crucial to running a regional desalination plant. The purported attack comes as Saudi Arabia continues to lead a coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels who seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, sparking a civil war that forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour H

 Sri Lanka faces “solvency” issues because of risks stemming from unsustainable debt levels that jeopardise the nation’s economy, the International Monetary Fund has said. “Based on staff analysis, the fiscal consolidation necessary to bring debt down to safe levels would require excessive adjustment over the coming years, pointing to a clear solvency problem,” the IMF said in its Article IV consultation report, released in Washington on Friday. The full report provides further analysis of the South Asian island nation’s debt and finances. A summary of the document released earlier this month said Sri Lanka faced unsustainable debt levels and needed a “credible and coherent” strategy to restore stability. The country’s “debt overhang”, along with persistent fiscal and balance-of-payments shortfalls, “will constrain growth and jeopardise macroeconomic stability in both the near and medium term”, the report said. “Rollover risk is very high,” the IMF said. “[Foreign] debt service needs o

 The U.S. is calling for new sanctions against North Korea after the country tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile since 2017 on Thursday. The U.N. needs to “update and strengthen” sanctions against North Korea, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a meeting Friday, The Associated Press reported. “It is clear that remaining silent, in the hope that the DPRK would similarly show restraint, is a failed strategy,” she said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, the country's official name.  Thomas-Greenfield did not say what the sanctions should be, while Russia and China pushed back on the idea, according to the AP. The calls for sanctions by the U.S. came after North Korea was condemned for its missile test Thursday, one of multiple since the start of 2022. The missile was in the air for 70 minutes before crashing into the waters west of Japan after traveling 671 miles. “It’s an unforgivable recklessness. We resolutely condemn the act

 India's civil aviation minister urged Indian airlines on Friday to add more long-haul aircraft to their fleets and to increase flights abroad, as air travel rebounds from a two-year slump due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Domestic passenger numbers are expected to exceed pre-pandemic levels within one year, Jyotiraditya Scindia said during an air show in the Indian city of Hyderabad. But foreign airlines dominate international routes to and from India, which industry experts say is partly because Indian airlines do not have enough wide-body, long-haul planes. “Along with our thrust on narrow-body aircraft, we must also increase our fleet of wide-body aircraft. It is not enough to connect all points in India — we need to connect the world to India,” the minister said. India's aviation market is dominated by narrow-body planes operated by low-cost airlines such as IndiGo. In 2019, Indian airlines operated more than 550 narrow-body planes and less than 60 widebodies. Only two Indian

 For close to four decades, one Japanese company has been trusted to move silicon wafers around the factories of the world’s biggest chip manufacturers. Now it is going back to the drawing board and redesigning its ubiquitous overhead conveyors to handle an exponential surge in data use and global chip demand. Daifuku has, over its 85 years in business, gone from ferrying documents between offices and hospital wards to handling the world’s most delicate microelectronics, making the conveyor belts and boxes that zip across the ceilings of modern semiconductor plants. Those containers and rails, which shuttle chips to different parts of the fabrication process at speeds of more than five 5 metres per second, will within years need to bear 100 kilograms — or five times their current load — chief executive Hiroshi Geshiro said. “Many in the industry are optimistic that growth is here to stay, as the amount of data that society must deal with has increased exponentially,” he told Bloomberg

 After more than a decade, Americans are once again spending more on Swiss watches than anyone. One big reason is that they are thinking differently about them. Call it less bling, more investing. During the pandemic in the US, there has been a boom in the value of collectibles of all sorts — from baseball cards to vintage video games. The reasons are many, but one central catalyst is that people had more time and fewer ways to spend their money. That led to almost anything with scarcity being seen as an investment and finding a robust secondary market. The rising tide lifted Switzerland's high-end watch industry, with prices surging. Watches by Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet are displayed in Geneva. “It has become an investment piece,” said 68-year-old Albert Ganjei, who, as founder of Boston-based European Watch Company, has been selling timepieces for nearly three decades. “It has totally changed.” While some watches are so coveted that they sell for millions at auction — a Pa

  Shyam Maheshwari serves as Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Partner of SSG Capital Management (Singapore) Pte. Limited, and is primarily responsible for SSG’s investment activities in India. He has 17 years of experience in the deal sourcing, analysis and investing industry. Previously, Mr Maheshwari served as a Senior Member of the Lehman Brothers Asia Special Situations Group primarily responsible for making principal investments in India, where he oversaw the efforts to build the India business and initiated pan-Asian ventures in mining and power assets with a focus on Indonesia. He initially joined Lehman Brothers in 1999 as a Credit Analyst in the Asia Credit Research team and later moved to Credit Trading in early 2005. He served as Fixed Income Analyst of Barclays Capital, Research Division. He worked at Barclays PLC, Research Division. He was a Credit Analyst of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. from 1999 until 2005. He has been a Non-Executive Director of Future Supply Cha

 Nearly half of the European companies in Hong Kong plan to fully or partially relocate operations and staff out of the city, a survey suggests, in the latest sign that the world’s toughest Covid-19 travel and quarantine restrictions are eroding the appeal of Asia’s main finance hub. About 25 per cent of responding companies said they planned to fully relocate out of Hong Kong in the next year, a survey by the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong revealed, while another 24 per cent said they are planning to partially move out of the city. A pedestrian crosses an empty street in Hong Kong's central business district.  And about 34 per cent of firms said they were uncertain about their plans, while only 17 per cent said they had no desire to relocate over the next 12 months. The negative results, which come amid a surprisingly chaotic coronavirus outbreak, are the latest measure of declining business confidence in a once freewheeling city that has been increasingly isolated from

 Iran is considering joining Russia's financial messaging system to bypass the Swift interbank system, after a number of Russian banks were cut off from the international payment messaging platform as part of western sanctions imposed on Moscow due to its military offensive in Ukraine. Russia's Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS) was created in response to the risks of a possible disconnection of Russian banks from Swift, and talks are now underway to integrate Iran into the system, Moscow state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on Thursday. In early March, the EU confirmed that it was excluding seven Russian banks from the Swift system. Iran was blocked from Swift in 2012 as part of measures aimed at containing its nuclear programme. "We are making efforts in this direction (connecting Iranian banks to the SPFS) [for] the future," Kazem Jalali, ambassador of Iran to Russia, was quoted by the agency as saying. On February 26, the US, along with the European Co

 England is famous for precipitation but the showcase of a Saudi-based artist's conceptualisation of Anticipation of Rain offers a new dimension on the familiar. The environmental reflection by Naima Karim is a virtual reality exploration of environment’s relationship with rain as experienced in Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. It even incorporates the smell of rain from Switzerland. “I love monsoon rain,” she told a gathering a London's County Hall. “This is so exciting, romantic and at the same time it is very scary because it destroys a lot. Creative Solutions Demo Day at London's County Hall by The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture “Ithra”. “I wanted to connect my childhood memory of monsoon rain with my audience.” The presentation is one of five projects that came out of a year-long programme themed “Digital Immersive Content Creation”, whittled down from 30 ideas by 59 creatives in Saudi Arabia by the Ithra project. “The UK is a global hub of innova

 New Delhi has rebuked China over its comments on the disputed region of Kashmir, saying Beijing has no right to comment on the “internal matters” of India. The Indian Foreign Ministry said it “rejected” the remarks on Kashmir by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the opening of a meeting of Organisation of Islamic Co-operation foreign ministers in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. Mr Wang, who was a special guest at the two-day meeting that began on Tuesday, said Beijing “shares the same aspirations” as other Islamic nations over the Kashmir issue, prompting a sharp reaction from New Delhi. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation meeting. “We reject the uncalled reference to India by the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Matters related to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are entirely the internal affairs of India,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement released late on Wednesday.

 The death toll from Wednesday's attack in central Somalia in which a parliamentary election candidate was killed has risen to 15, state-run television said. Amina Mohamed, a vocal critic of the government, was killed by a suicide bomber in the city of Beledweyne, around 300km north of Mogadishu, witnesses and relatives said. Somalia has been rocked by another deadly suicide bombing “Police in Beledweyne town launched operations to secure the town after terrorist suicide bombings had killed 15 people last night,” state-run Somali National Television said on its Twitter account. Al Shabab, Somalia’s extremist rebel group, claimed responsibility for the attack. Two other extremist attacks occurred in Beledweyne on Wednesday, killing former politician Hassan Dhuhul, an elder and civilians sitting outside a busy restaurant, police said. No more details were immediately available on those attacks. Somalia is conducting parliamentary elections in an indirect process that involves clan el

 The UAE announced 390 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, taking its tally of infections to 889,105. No deaths were reported for the 17th day running, as the toll remained at 2,302. Guru Nanak Darbar hosted an event at the Sikh temple in Dubai to vaccinate 4,500 adults of various nationalities and religions in February. Only one coronavirus-related fatality has been recorded in March. Another 800 people overcame the virus, raising the recovery total to 861,848. The latest cases were identified as a result of 315,335 PCR tests. More than 146 million tests have been conducted to date under a robust mass screening strategy.