Summers in India may turn eight-month long by 2070. If greenhouse emissions are not cut, shows a study by Environmental Research Letters, the densely populated Gangetic Plain could experience heat waves 100-250 times more frequently. Wet bulb temperature, a metric of heat and humidity, has rarely gone beyond 32°C in the region. But it may well breach 35°C, theoretically the maximum heat that humans can endure, giving rise to new diseases. Other regions at risk include West Asia, the Amazon, and parts of eastern China.
Companies are likely to give out an average salary hike of 10% this year, according to Mercer’s India Total Remuneration Survey. This is broadly in line with the raise that Indian employees got in the previous two years. Besides, as many as 55% firms plan to hire and bump up headcount in 2018, up from 48% last year. “Newer roles are emerging in supply chain planning, analytics, demand planning, computer imagery, store design, merchandising, etc,” said Shanthi Naresh, India business leader at Mercer. In another survey, 70% of India's top 100 companies said they will be hiring more women in 2018-19.
SEBI has barred Price Waterhouse firms from auditing listed companies for two years. That's because it found the global audit firm guilty in the almost decade-old Rs 7,136-crore fraud at Satyam Computer. Price Waterhouse and two of its erstwhile senior partners have also been directed to forfeit over ₹13 crore, along with interest, in wrongful gains. PwC had previously tried to resolve the matter through consent pleas, but they were rejected by SEBI. The scam surfaced in 2009, after Satyam chairman Ramalinga Raju admitted that the company had been inflating its revenue and profits for years.
Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved has found an admirer in Louis Vuitton. L Catterton, a private equity fund co-owned by the French luxury goods maker, is willing to bet half of its remaining Asia corpus — $500 million — on the homegrown fast-moving consumer goods major, reports the Economic Times. Ravi Thakran, managing partner at L Catterton Asia, said the PE fund could help Patanjali with brand-building and access to overseas markets. But Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna maintains that he is seeking cheap loans worth Rs 5,000 crore and not looking to dilute stake, though he is willing to talk.
Home sales plunged to a seven-year low in 2017. Regulatory changes and muted demand dragged uptake to 2.28 lakh, down 38% from 2011, even though the effect of demonetisation seems to be tapering, Mint reports citing a Knight Frank study. Prices fell by an average of 5% across eight major cities, with Pune and Mumbai seeing steepest declines of 7% and 5%, respectively. But the market seems to be turning the corner — lower prices and the rollout of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or RERA, boosted sales by 28% in the December quarter.
Idea of the Day: Making New Years resolutions happen isn’t easy. How does habits expert Gretchen Rubin do it? Resolution charts — an idea adapted from Benjamin Franklin to score each day based on how you achieved your goals.
“We’re much more likely to make progress on goals that are broken into concrete actions, with some kind of accountability.”