- Arvind's Newsletter
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- Arvind's Newsletter
1.iPhone maker Foxconn plans to expand footprint in India with $1.6 billion investment, reported Bloomberg
IPhone maker Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. plans to expand its footprint in India with another NT$50 billion ($1.6 billion) investment for construction projects.
The announcement, made in an exchange filing in Taiwan late Monday, didn’t give any further details, saying only that the investment was for “operational needs." A spokesperson for the company declined to say where the new facilities would be or what they would build.
About half of Foxconn’s revenue comes from business with Apple Inc. The company has been making iPhones and other products in India for several years, including the latest iPhone 15. In September, a Foxconn representative in India said on LinkedIn that the Taiwanese company plans to double the size of its business in the South Asian country.
2.Moonshot hits the bull’s eye: Supplying Electronics To India’s Moon Mission Made This Electrical Engineer A Billionaire, reports Forbes.
India’s space odyssey has made the 60-year-old electrical engineer a billionaire, courtesy of his 64% stake in Kaynes, whose stock rose 40% after the company’s role in Chandrayaan became widely known. Founded in 1988, Kaynes has been supplying electronic systems and design services to industries ranging from auto and aerospace to medical and defence. The expertise eventually landed the contract to supply electronics for the moon lander and rover. Kaynes' rise is part of ISRO’s broader strategy to foster a local supplier ecosystem for its missions, à la NASA.
3.A23a: World's biggest iceberg on the move after 30 years
The world's largest iceberg is drifting from the Antarctic Circle toward the Southern Ocean, scientists confirmed late last week. The floating mass sheared from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986 but became stuck on the floor of the Weddell Sea.
Labeled A23a, the iceberg is roughly 1,500 square miles in size (five times the land area of New York City) and about 1,300 feet thick (taller than the Empire State Building). Satellite imagery suggested the block had begun moving in 2020 before becoming fully adrift in recent months.
As A23a melts, its effect on sea level increase will be minimal—floating objects displace their own weight in water, with small differences due to salinity—though researchers say it may threaten wildlife if it runs aground at the nearby island of South Georgia.
Meanwhile, an artificial glacier is growing in the extreme desert region of Ladakh, India. It’s helping farmers deal with a drier climate from less snow melt.
4.UAE planned to use COP28 summit for oil deals, documents show, reported BBC.
The United Arab Emirates planned to use meetings about the COP28 climate summit it is hosting later this week to pitch oil and gas deals to foreign governments, according to leaked briefing documents obtained by the non-profit Centre for Climate Reporting alongside the BBC.
Sultan al-Jaber, president-designate of this year’s UN climate summit, has called for a “phaseout” of fossil fuels globally. But his position as head of COP28 while also leading the UAE state oil company Adnoc has attracted criticism from politicians in the US and Europe because of the perceived conflict of interest.
Documents posted online on Monday appear to show plans for Jaber to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 countries including China, Brazil, Germany and Egypt.
5.Gold Prices Jump To Six-Month High, reports BloomberQuint.
Gold prices on Monday surged to a six-month high, crossing the $2000 mark once again. The precious metal rallied behind the expectations of an end to Fed rate hikes and a weak dollar. Both spot gold and gold futures were above the $2000 mark.
Over the next six months, returns from gold and silver could beat those from equities, Goldilocks Premium Research’s Gautam Shah told BQ Prime earlier. Amid geopolitical tensions, there will finally be a breakout on the upside past $2,070, and the bigger target stays quite high at $2,300–$2,400, Shah said.
6.China is stripping hundreds of mosques of Islamic architectural features, and often destroying them entirely, two new reports found.
Beijing has been criticised for its crackdown on Islam in the mostly Muslim region of Xinjiang, but the latest allegations point to efforts that extend nationwide. In two provinces, authorities are decommissioning, closing, demolishing, or converting mosques for secular use, according to Human Rights Watch. More than 1,500 have been physically modified or destroyed since 2018, the Financial Times reported, citing its own visual analysis. “This is the start of the end of Islam in China,” a U.S.-based campaigner told the Financial Times.
