7th february 2021
Shorts:
News at a glance
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Missing refugees:
the ethiopia-tigray conflict gets worse
-Grace Treesa
The UN has reported about 20,000 refugees missing after two of the shelters in Tigray were destroyed because of the ongoing war. In January, satellite data showed the destruction of the two camps holding thousands of people from neighbouring Eritrea.
About 3,000 of these people can be accounted for, who made it to a camp in Mai-Ani, one the UN has access to.
The High Commissioner of Refugees, UN, Filipino Grandi said that many of the refugees were caught in crossfire, abducted and sometimes forced to return to Eritrea by the military forces. However this is not the only concern the conflict has.
In addition, there are shortages of food, medicine and water for over five million people. Mr.Grandi also said he wouldn’t take a political position, but advised the Ethiopian government to put more effort into protecting the civilians in the Tigray region.
A lot of aid workers and officials in Tigray have warned of an oncoming humanitarian disaster, highlighted by widespread starvation. The government has sealed off most of Tigray from the outside media, so reports are far and few to find, if not verifiable.
Mr.Grandi emphasises that the situation is very grave and most likely will get worse without action.
Sources: Bloomberg, unrefugees.org
THe test to end all tests
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-Devansh Mishra
On Friday, England started its 2-month long tour of India, commencing with a 4-match test series in Chennai. In the coming weeks, they will be playing 3 ODIS and ending with 5 T20Is too.
In the first Test in Chennai, India were put onto the field by England as they chose to bat first. Then came the resistance in the England batting order that many experts have wished to see over the past few years. Batting for more than 2 days at the moment, England have been able to pile up an excess of 550 runs on the board in the first innings, courtesy to the patient English skipper, Joe Root. Skipper Root scored a remarkable and hard-fought double ton of 218, and interestingly, he is the only one to do so in his 100th test match, which is quite the feat for a batsman. The rest of the batting order revolved around the skipper, as major contributions came from Sibley and Stokes, both scoring more than 80 runs each.
The Indian bowlers got little to no respite on both days of the test till now, and could only pick up 8 wickets. Ishant, Bumrah, Ashwin and Nadeem got 2 wickets each, as Sundar remained wicketless. Even though they bowled tight lines and lengths, no apparent reward bore fruit from their tireless efforts. The pitch seemed to seldom assist the bowlers, and the hot weather didn’t do them any favours.
England have been all-out for 578 runs and India have started to chase down this mammoth total. India are reeling at 36/1 at the time of writing, after losing Rohit Sharma to a peach from Jofra Archer. India’s comeback in this test seems unlikely, as the only certain result at the moment seems like a draw.
The final of the World Test Championship also depends on the outcome of this series, as India, England and Australia can qualify to play New Zealand in the final depending on the result. So, there’s a lot of pressure on both teams to come out all gun-blazing in the next few matches.
jeff bezos steps down:
Largest retailer in the world changes its ceo
-Devansh Mishra
Since its inauguration in a garage, Amazon has developed to become so much more than your local bookstore. Developing everything from streaming to delivery services, the multinational corporation has really become one of the giants across industries in the world. And there’s only one man without whom this wouldn’t be possible - Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos.
After his 57th birthday last month, Jeff Bezos has finally decided to step down from the role of the CEO of Amazon to take up the role of the executive chair. According to him, it provides him with extra flexibility to innovate new products while also taking away the heavy burden of management from his shoulders.
Amazon’s goal was to become the world’s first ‘everything store’ for customers, as expressed by its founder, and due to his ceaseless efforts, it has largely accomplished doing so. Being the richest man on the planet for a very long time (lately overtaken by Elon Musk), Bezos conveyed that the company did not need him in the role of the CEO anymore and it was time to pass on the reins to someone else.
That someone else is named Andy Jassy, who has a rich 24-year old relationship with the firm, has been instrumental in implementing the cloud computing services of Amazon. Since last summer, Bezos has been working closely with Jassy to make the transition smoother, and the much-anticipated stepping down of Bezos has finally come, and arguably at the perfect time for the company. No one has any doubt that Andy Jassy will continue the legacy of the firm, and take it to newer heights.
Sources: The Washington Post
Farmer's protests:
A symbol of india's 'unity'
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-snigdha dhameja
The government of India has left no stone unturned in leaving farmers voiceless and unheard. The introduction of three farm bills that were meant to make farmer’s lives easier, have been fought against in these protests, which have been going on for about three months now. Officers from Delhi and Uttarakhand have been deployed, and the farmers have been cut off from roads and highways. The more extreme measures, such as the building of a wall that has been likened to international borders, and the cutting of electricity and internet in the area has shown that the government refuses to listen, and is ready to take more extreme measures if the need arises.
68% of the Indian labour force are employed in agriculture, which makes them the biggest voter block. Many of them voted for Modi, who promised to double farmer’s incomes by 2022. The Farm Bills being opposed by the protestors aim to eradicate the price floor for crops, meaning that farmers will not be guaranteed a minimum price. More autonomy will be provided to farmers, so that they can sell directly to corporations and chains without the interference of the government. This causes problems for farmers, as this leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by companies, who will try to buy their crops for lower prices.
The Farm Bills pose as a problem for a very simple reason: more than half the country will suffer and face a loss in income. It seems contradictory to introduce these laws when India’s economy is shrinking, and agriculture is a big contributor to the economy.
The Farmer’s protest is said to be the world’s largest protest in history, with tens of thousands of farmers marching to Delhi and demanding that the laws be repealed. The government’s course of action can only be termed as a violation of human rights, and goes directly against India’s own Constitution.
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Greta Thunberg tweeted about the protest and shared the link to a toolkit that aimed to help farmers in several different ways, such as protesting outside Indian embassies. Delhi Police registered an FIR against unknown persons who created the document, as it ‘promotes hatred’ and ‘criminal conspiracy’. Thunberg has deleted the document, but issued a response saying that she is still on the side of the farmers and is against the corporatisation of the agriculture sector. However, the shutdown of vocal support and issuing FIRs directly violates basic human rights. But it doesn’t just stop there.
As previously mentioned, electricity and internet has been cut where the protests are taking place, and heavy fortification has been placed, which is being compared to the Indo-Pakistan border.
The Modi-led BJP has expressed a farmer-first sentiment in the past, but current actions show that its sovereignty cannot be swayed to benefit the majority. If they do not side with the people who voted for them, who will they listen to?
Sources: BBC, Times of India
Stonks:
The gamestop debacle
-Devansh Mishra
Who would have thought Reddit could actually ignite change in the world? Who would have thought income redistribution would actually feature in a first-world economy? Who would have thought that Robinhood would actually favour the rich more than the poor? Well, now you might be confused. Surely, you must have heard the words ‘GameStop’ and ‘short squeeze’ and ‘WallStreetBets’ flooding news channels over the past week, but what do those words really mean? Here’s a breakdown.
Over the past few years, hedge funds all around the world have looked to make enormous amounts of money for their clients. Because of this, they have targeted a few stocks that they feel will drop consistently and bet against them. One such stock under the radar of a majority of hedge funds was Gamestop (NYSE:GME). They heavily ‘shorted’ this stock, and gained profits off of GME’s share price dropping. Essentially, the process of shorting involves borrowing a few shares at a high price, thinking that the price will fall, and then buying it back at a lower price and making a process (To understand more, visit shorturl.at/biEFW).
Absolute
Enraged by their ceaseless efforts of making money off a falling stock, people convened on a social media subreddit called ‘WallStreetBets’. They finally decided that they were going to ‘shoot the stock to the moon’, and make the hedge funds lose more money than they would have gained. From a meagre and stable $18 share price over the past few months, GameStop shot up to a record-high $467 per share within a span of a few days, effectively a 2500% increase. And that’s all because of some lousy gamers on Reddit who wanted to make the hedge funds pay for their previous malpractices.
The stock market had been startled awake. Hedge funds ended up losing millions of dollars as a result of this revolution. On the other hand, people who had invested in GameStop, a majority of whom were students, gained the same money that the large firms lost. Students said that they were now able to pay off their student loans and rents they had pending, and still have a large sum leftover. Effectively, the poor gained the same money that the rich lost, and the long-forsaken dream of income redistribution had finally begun to take shape.
Recently, CNBC caught up with GameStop founder Gary Kusin to talk about this major controversy at its peak. He stated that he was merely ‘a spectator’ in this revolution, and he had caught wind of the situation only through his son, who frequented the sub-Reddit WallStreetBets. He applauded the subreddit for their efforts, and was honoured that GameStop was ‘the catalyst of change’.
Over the past few days, since the stock peaked on the 27th of Jan, it has fallen back down to a price of under under $100, as the people who pushed it up weren’t able to maintain it there and instead sold off their stocks for a profit. The few Redditors who are still trying to keep it up do not have the support behind them to do so, and are thus making for a lackluster climactic showdown in the ongoing controversy.
Sources: ScreenRant, InStyle
Naturally, the clients of the hedge fund, who were mainly people in the upper class, didn’t like this change at all. No one likes losing the money that they had worked their asses off for. However, in this case, they hadn’t worked their asses off to earn this money. The hypocrisy in this situation is that those people who lost money had gained it in the exact same fashion, and now are angered by the fact that the poor are using similar tactics to reduce the wealth gap. Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even tweeted, “Gotta admit it’s really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a message board of posters also treating the market as a casino.” And that is what is really happening currently.
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RobinHood, which is a trading app for novices and beginners in trading, was naturally controlled by the rich people who made the app itself. It is rather matter-of-factly that they would support the hedge funds rather than the common public. Last week, they prohibited investors from buying into GameStop and only allowed them to sell stocks, thus favouring the large multinationals betting against the stock. The irony in this situation is astounding!