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cocoa prices soaring 140 per cent since the start of the year have caused speculations that chocolate might vanish due to climate change or other crises. But we have been here before. Back in November 2014, I wrote in ET about chocolate companies predicting potential shortfalls of a million tonnes of cocoa by 2020. And four years before, in 2010, Anthony Ward, a UK-based commodity trader briefly cornered the market by acquiring 240,000 tonnes of cocoa, driving up prices to a 33-year high. It got him dubbed ‘Chocfinger’, after the James Bond villain Goldfinger who tried to corner gold. Chocolate’s real problem is that it is particularly vulnerable to market manipulation. Cacao beans only grow in a narrow band along the equator. The main producers, like Ivory Coast and Ghana, have had to deal with climate change and diseases, but the biggest issue is that the production is done by thousands of small farmers who lack leverage over the market. Price rises barely benefit them. This is why the production of cocoa has struggled to take off in India. In 1957, The Times of India reported that cacao imports cost the country ₹seven lakh per annum: “Consequently a few enterprising planters are experimenting on introducing the plant to India.”

Bloomberg) --The European Central Bank held the line on interest rates but officials leaned even more toward a mid-year cut should inflation continue to cool. Lower borrowing costs would help nudge a European economy that’s struggled to register any growth for longer than a year. On the other side of the Atlantic, US economic activity is on much more solid footing and inflation is running too fast for Federal Reserve policymakers. Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy, geopolitics and markets:

MUDRA) scheme will be hiked by 100 per cent if the Bharatiya Janata Party is voted back to power, the party said while announcing its manifesto on Sunday. «The BJP has decided to raise loan limit under Mudra scheme to Rs 20 lakh from Rs 10 lakh,» Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced. The scheme was launched eight years ago in April 2015 by PM Modi in order to facilitate collateral-free credit of up to Rs 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm small and micro-entrepreneurs.

Nifty 50 ended with weekly gains of 0.4% amid significant volatility and a sell-off in bluechip stocks on Friday after concerns of greater scrutiny on investments done from Mauritius soured D-Street sentiments. When markets resume trading on Monday, a host of important domestic and global events lined up during the holiday-truncated week are likely to impact them. Commenting on last week's action, Santosh Meena, Head of Research, at Swastika Investmart, said that Nifty surrendered most of its gains on Friday dragged by US inflation concerns, geopolitical tensions, and selling by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

manufacturing slump. The nascent industrial recovery is led by the world’s two biggest economies. Chinese manufacturing has made a strong start to the year, boosting the economic outlook, and US factory activity unexpectedly expanded last month for the first time since September 2022, buoyed by rising new orders and a jump in production.

Iran said it launched dozens of attack drones at Israel on Saturday, in an assault that could trigger a major escalation between the regional archenemies. Iran had vowed to retaliate against Israel for an airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus, adding to concerns about the potential for further escalation of conflict in the Middle East. Iran has so far played no direct role in the conflict that has spread through the region since the onset of the Gaza war six months ago, while backing groups that have taken part by attacking Israel, U.S. interests, and Red Sea shipping.

Garena Free Fire Max redeem codes are 12-digit alphanumeric codes made up of capital letters and numbers. Redeeming these codes allows gamers to unlock a variety of in-game goodies such as skins, weapons and character upgrades.

clash between two armed groups in Manipur's Imphal East district on Saturday, as per police. The exchange of gunfire occurred near the border of Kangpokpi district, PTI reported citing a police official. “Additional state and central forces have been rushed in to contain the situation," he said.

IPL 2024 Points Table: Rajasthan Royals handed the Punjab Kings their 4th defeat on the season to retain their position on top of the IPL teams ranking. Meanwhile, despite losing the contest, Punjab Kings have continue to be placed 8th on the IPL points table. Sanju Samson's side have been in excellent form this season with key players stepping up for the team at crucial times.

Varanasi is endearingly monikered as Kashi or Banaras. The city, for ages, has long been the ultimate pilgrimage for the devotees of Hinduism worldwide.

Specifications of HP Laptop 14s Reasons to buyReasons to avoid The HP Laptop 15 is a next-generation computing powerhouse? This laptop is equipped with a 12th Gen Intel Core i3-1215U processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. What are the key specifications of this laptop? It has a 15.6-inch Full HD display with anti-glare coating that is meant for crisp visuals. What else does it get? This laptop comes with Windows 11 and MS Office pre-installed and is also equipped with dual speakers.

As the Greater Toronto Area confronts an auto theft crisis, some residents are considering bold – or arguably radical – action.

cyber security be any different? AI is fast becoming a digital watchdog. However, it comes in as collaboration — not competition — to human intelligence as companies seek to secure the virtual world. So, unlike several other branches of technology, cyber security professionals aren’t facing job culls. Rather, the demand for them is set to boom as India grapples with a rise in cyber attacks, with a 30% supply gap telling on the industry.

«Demand has improved across categories including the entry products and rural markets like UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar after a long time,» said Haier India president Satish NS. «These markets were earlier struggling to meet sales targets but now easily achieving them.» As per preliminary estimates by smartphone industry market tracker Counterpoint Research, the smartphone market grew by about 8% in the last quarter — one of the highest quarterly growths in recent times. In January-March 2023, the market had declined by 19% year-on-year. To be sure, the smartphone market growth rate in preceding October-December period was higher at 25% year-on-year but that was due to festive season shifting by a month and therefore a weak base period. But overall smartphone shipments in India had remained flat in calendar 2023.

Data usage per subscriber per month which stood at 21GB in December 2023, is likely to go up to 25-27GB in April-June, also factoring in previous months growth, an analyst estimated. But when it comes to revenue conversion, India’s number two telco Bharti Airtel is likely to pip rivals Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea to record 2-3% growth, he added. “If you observe last year’s IPL season, Airtel was the only player to show a meaningful uptick in average revenue per user (ARPU), despite Jio recording larger data consumption,” said Rohan Dhamija, head, India and the Middle East, Analysys Mason.

Justride Enterprises declared their Q4 FY24 results on 11 Apr, 2024. The topline increased by 7821.03% & the profit decreased by 98.46% YoY.

a suspected Israeli strike this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed 12 people, including a senior Guard general. Iran has promised to retaliate, and U.S. President Joe Biden cut short a weekend trip to his beach house in Delaware to return to the White House and monitor the situation.

Captain America is back as Anthony Mackie is now donning new colors and suits in an attempt to save the world from apocalyptic dangers. At the recent San Diego Comic-Con in 2022, this latest film in the Captain America franchise was announced and it will finally see the light of the day on February 14, 2025.

DevX is looking to double its portfolio to over 2 million sq ft over the next two years with focus on tier-2 and -3 cities, as adaption of distributed workforce option by larger enterprises leads to a rise in demand, said a top company executive. The company currently has operational centres in key cities like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Noida, Raipur, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. Last week, it set up a new co-working centre spread over 25,000 sq ft with 300 seats in Udaipur. DevX is also working on plans for its foray into the international market, starting with Dubai and Singapore.

Joe Biden cut short a weekend trip to Delaware on Saturday for urgent consultations in Washington on the Middle East, the White House said, as tensions soar amid growing fears of an attack on Israel. Iran has vowed retaliation after a presumed Israeli strike on April 1 leveled an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus, killing seven members of the elite Revolutionary Guards including two generals.

Ernest Hemingway once said that he liked to look at Cezanne's paintings when he was ravenously hungry. In his 1964 memoir of his Paris apprentice days, The Moveable Feast, Hemingway writes: 'I learned to understand Cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry.' Hunger sharpens one's critical faculties. It also sharpens one's ability to feel and seek out injustice. And then, I looked at myself in the mirror. No way could someone ever mistake me for a writer. There was nothing frugal about my frame. I looked like a well-fed bulldog just awakened from his siesta.