Indians, known for their fascination with gold, are holding off on investing, contributing to a dent in the world gold market. Gold demand in India fell 49 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2020. After the final quarter of the year, the World Gold Council (WGC) expects that India’s gold demand will be the lowest in 25 years. Globally, demand for gold in the third quarter is down 19 percent year-on-year, primarily due to the pandemic, the WGC reported on Oct. 29. In India, buying gold jewelry is an integral part of religious rituals as well as social…
Author: zenger.news
Guwahati, Assam — Despite an order from the Supreme Court, thousands of people whose names are listed in India’s National Register of Citizens have not received their biometric identification number 14 months later. Officials said details of people whose name appeared in the register in 2019 have not yet been shared with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues the biometric IDs linked to a unique 12-digit number called Aadhaar. This identification number allows access to several government schemes. People in the northeastern state of Assam who have not been issued their IDs have complained of facing difficulties in accessing…
Kolkata, India — India, the United States, Japan, and Australia started the first phase of Malabar naval exercises on Nov. 2 in the Bay of Bengal to counter China’s presence in the region and to support future military cooperation among the members of the Quadrilateral Coalition. The four-day exercise takes place at a time when India is locked in an army standoff with China along the Line of Actual Control. Thousands of troops are positioned near the western Himalayas. There are also heightened tensions between the U.S. and China over many issues, including defense and trade and China’s increasing military…
IZMIR, Turkey —Turkish rescue workers kept a man trapped under a collapsed building calm as they worked to clear the rubble surrounding him after an earthquake. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Samos Island, Greece, on Oct. 30, the result of movement along the Eurasia tectonic plate in the eastern Aegean Sea. The natural disaster leveled several structures in the western Turkish city of Izmir and led to the town of Seferihisar being flooded by a small tsunami. In its aftermath, Turkey’s Ministry of the Interior shared a video of a rescue worker comforting a citizen, identified only…
After a rare diagnosis, Aubrey Glencamp began the fight of his life — and won. October is dedicated to breast-cancer awareness. Pink symbolizes Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This potentially deadly form of cancer claims more than 42,000 lives a year. Usually detected in women, there are rare cases when the disease is discovered in men. Aubrey Glencamp is one of them. According to research, only 1 in every 833 men are diagnosed with breast cancer. After a double mastectomy and chemo in 2016, Glencamp, who was diagnosed at 33, is now cancer-free. He credits early detection as the key to…
In the remote Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh, a dilapidated ticket counter of the local transport department has been transformed with the help of donations, into a bright library. Another 100 volunteers spread across the country are now teaching students of 15 schools as local officials devise ways to bridge the education gap in the face of limited government resources. Todak Riba was disappointed at the status of the education in Changlang when he arrived in 2019. An Arunachal Pradesh Civil Services officer from 2016, Riba found Prajwal Montri, a doctor who was also recently posted in the area, considering the…
Driven by an aggressive online channel strategy and anti-China sentiments in the country, South Korean-made Samsung, for the first time in two years, surpassed China’s Xiaomi to become the leading smartphone market shareholder. While Xiaomi’s smartphone market share in the third quarter (July-September) dropped 4 percent year-over-year, Samsung registered year-over-year growth of 32 percent, according to an industry report by Counterpoint Research. Shipment market share for other leading Chinese brands Realme and Vivo also dropped in the third quarter. “Samsung Mobile is benefiting a lot from the U.S. stranglehold on Huawei and some of the anti-China sentiments in the world’s second-largest India…
Indian domestic football competitions have been dominated by a rivalry between two teams — East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. The rivalry, however, transcends the boundaries of the football pitch and is a symbol of culture and heritage. The two teams share a long history, and their matches are considered to be one of the biggest derbies in world football. The rivalry is about to get heightened as both teams will be entering this year’s Indian Super League — India’s new domestic football league. Earlier, the two teams were part of the I-League — India’s premier football league. The reigning champions of the Indian Super…
FRENCH KERGUELEN ISLANDS–French photographer Gregory Pol works to capture the vulnerability of wildlife in snapshots amid growing environmental concerns worldwide. Pol, a former navigator and diver in the French Navy, now travels the world at his own expense to snap photos of wild animals in their natural habitats while both still exist. Among many other locations, he has visited the Arctic and the Antarctic polar regions, including the Kerguelen Islands, a French territory in the southern Indian Ocean near Antarctica. “The aim of my photographic approach is to awaken consciences so that skeptical and influential people can finally understand that…
If you ever run into a headless Englishman during your travels around India’s graveyards, monuments and former residences of the British, or if you cross paths with a ghostly upper-class British woman in a flowing white gown, or if you’re caught off guard by a long-dead sentry asking for a cigarette—there isn’t really any reason to be scared or even surprised. Even though the British rule in India ended in 1947, the ghosts of the Raj are everywhere. At least metaphorically, and some say literally. India’s many languages and cultures are haunted by hearsay and legends of long dead “burra…