Japanese scientist wins Nobel Prize for Medicine

Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine for ground-breaking experiments with yeast which exposed a key mechanism in the body's defences where cells degrade and recycle their components.

Understanding the science behind the process, called "autophagy" or "self-eating", has led to a better understanding of diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and type-2 diabetes, the prize committee said in its statement on Monday.

"Ohsumi's discoveries led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its content," it said. The physiology or medicine prize, the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year, is worth 8 million Swedish crowns ($933,000).

Ohsumi, born in 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan, has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology since 2009. He told Kyodo News agency he was "extremely honoured" to get the prize. In a separate interview with broadcaster NHK, he said he had "always wanted to do something that other people wouldn't do".

"I thought the breakdown (of cells) would be interesting, and that was my start," he said.

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Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

NOBEL PRIZE 2016 MEDICINE

Yoshinori Ohsumi Born: 1945, Fukuoka, Japan

Affiliation at the time of the award: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

Prize motivation: "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy"

Prize share: 1/1

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Delhi tops most polluted megacity list, says WHO

Delhi's air is the worst among world megacities, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed recently, even as IndiaSpend's #breathe network of air-quality sensors reported fine-particulate-matter (PM2.5) levels were almost four times above daily safe levels, on average, for the seven-day period from September 22 to 28, 2016.

For long-term exposure, these 24-hour levels are nearly 11 times above the WHO health standards. Over the monsoons, Delhi's air was relatively cleaner because the rain and wind diminished the impact of pollutants. But with the season changing, three of our five sensors in the National Capital Region (NCR) registered "poor" to "very poor" air-quality levels from September 22 to 28, meaning prolonged exposure affects healthy people and "seriously impacts" those with existing disease. In December 2015, week-long analysis of data from #breathe devices showed Delhi's air pollution was one-and-a-half times worse than in Beijing, IndiaSpend reported.

In 2012, with one million deaths, China reported the highest toll from PM2.5 and PM10 pollution. At the time, India followed, reporting 621,138 deaths, nearly 10 per cent of the global toll (6.5 million deaths) associated with outdoor and indoor air pollution.

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RBI to announce monetary policy review today

The Reserve Bank of India will announce its monetary policy review on Tuesday.

It will be announced in the afternoon at 2:30 pm against the existing practice of 11 am.

This will be Urjit Patel's maiden policy announcement as the RBI Governor.

Unlike his predecessor Raghuram Rajan who had the final say on interest rate cut decisions, Patel will have to go by the advice of a newly set up six-member monetary policy committee (MPC).

This is for the first time that decision-making on interest rates will shift to the six-member panel which has equal representation from RBI and the government.

Since January 2016, the RBI has cut the repo rate - the rate at which RBI lends to banks - five times. India's retail inflation has touched a five-month low of 5.05 per cent in August, triggering hopes of a rate cut.

The RBI and the government have set a retail inflation target of four per cent for the next five years with an upper tolerance level of six per cent and lower limit of two per cent.

Most analysts expect a status quo on rates. Mounting bad loans will remain another focus area of Patel's debut policy review.

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Death of a family man

B K Bansal is dead. With him, his 25-year-old son also gave himself to the rope. The twin-suicides that rocked the capital last week came on the back of the similar suicides of the corporate affairs ministry official's wife and daughter. Bansal was accused of taking bribes from executives of Elder Pharmaceuticals to prevent a possible reference to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) of allegations of irregularities in the company. Bansal was reportedly caught red-handed by the sleuths of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The action was demonstrative of the Narendra Modi government's efforts to root out corruption at all levels. There can be no two opinions about the need to eradicate this social evil.

However, the methods followed have come under criticism following the detailed suicide notes mailed to media organisations by the Bansals. Some commentators have said that CBI is an 'uncaged vulture' and not a caged parrot, as described by the Supreme Court once. Political rivals such as Arvind Kejriwal have opportunistically latched on to a reference to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah in the note.

A more useful line of probe would be to find out which are the serious fraud cases that Bansal referred to the SFIO and those he did not during his tenure in this position. Preferably, this should be a time-bound judicial probe as the CBI cannot be the judge of its own case and the credibility of a local police would always be under cloud.

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India knockout Pakistan as No 1 Test team after beating New Zealand

India pulled off a brilliant all-round performance to trounce New Zealand by 178 runs in the second Test to clinch the series with an unassailable 2-0 lead, which also propelled them to the top of the ICC rankings dethroning arch-rivals Pakistan, here on Monday at Eden Gardens.

Virat Kohli's men wrapped up the series-deciding victory on the Fourth day of the match after setting the Black Caps a mammoth target of 376 runs to chase.

The visitors showed some spark to start with but their chase floundered in the post-tea session and the side was bowled out for 197 in 81.1 overs in what was India's 250th home Test.

The home team had earlier finished its second innings at 263 in 76.5 overs.

Following Rohit Sharma's 82-run knock on Sunday (yesterday), Wriddhiman Saha also picked up his second successive half-century of the match by scoring a 120-ball 58, laced with half a dozen fours.

Faced with an improbable chase, New Zealand were off to a confident start before things went downhill in the final session of the day.

Opener Tom Latham top-scored for them with a 148-ball 74, which included eight hits to the fence 

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Brief Scorecard

IND -  316, 263

NZ - 204, 197-all out (81.1 Ovs)

India won by 178 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Wriddhiman Saha

View Full Scorecard

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German economy minister slams 'irresponsible' Deutsche Bank

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has lashed out at Deutsche Bank's handling of its troubles, saying "irresponsible" managers had put thousands of jobs at risk.

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry that the bank, which turned speculation into a business model, is now calling itself a victim of it," Gabriel told reporters yesterday, after CEO John Cryan this week blamed speculators for pushing the embattled lender's share price to a record low.

"The scenario is that thousands of people will lose their jobs. They now have to bear the responsibility for the madness carried out by irresponsible managers," said Gabriel, who is also Germany's vice-chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition government.

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Why people have been worrying about Deutsche Bank

How do you solve a problem like Deutsche Bank?

Its share price fell to an all-time low last week amid concerns that the bank may lack the capital to service litigation costs and meet stricter regulatory standards. The catalyst for the recent selloff appears to be Chancellor Angela Merkel's comments, reported by Focus magazine, in which she ruled out state assistance for the bank.

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Pope Francis in 2017: Portugal, India, Bangladesh, Colombia, Africa

Pope Francis will visit Portugal in 2017 and is "almost sure" he'll go to India and Bangladesh.

Still to be determined is where in Africa he'll visit and whether Colombia's peace accord is "certain, certain, certain" enough to enable a papal visit.

Francis outlined his 2017 travel plans while flying home from Azerbaijan on Sunday. Complicating his travel schedule is that 2017 is already full of appointments with visiting bishops whose 2016 visits were put off due to Francis' Holy Year of Mercy, which ends in November.

But Francis confirmed that as of now, he planned a May 13 trip to the famed Marian shrine at Fatima in Portugal.

India and Bangladesh were planned as well and an Africa trip was under study. The destination depends on weather conditions, time of year and regional political and conflict situations, he said.

Francis had said previously he would visit Colombia if the government and rebels reached a peace accord. Colombians voted on Sunday in a referendum to enshrine the accord ending Latin America's longest-running conflict.

Francis said he would go to Colombia "when everything is certain, certain, certain, when they can't go back, when the international community has agreed that no one can make a (legal) recourse, that it's finished. If it's like that, I could go. If it's unstable? It all depends on what the people say. The people are sovereign."

One place Francis likely won't be going is China.

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Undervalued stocks

The parade of some of the most interesting first-quarter corporate performances continues. Here is the evidence:

Vivimed Labs:

In the first quarter of the current financial year, the company reported its best Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) in four quarters of nearly Rs 67 crore, rising from Rs 51 crore in the immediately preceding quarter. Even as this should have been good enough, there is a remarkable bonus: Interest outflow has declined sharply from Rs 24.51 crore to Rs 15.21 crore within a space of a single quarter (the lowest in five quarters) - interest cover of four-plus.

Prime Securities:

The Mohinder 'comeback' Amarnath of the stock market. The company encountered dramatic roller-coasters in the last decade. This is what it has translated into: No debt or broking income; only capital market advisory services. Prime is now an advisory pure-play, possibly the only one of its kind in the markets.

Venky's: 

My first suspicion when I saw the company's performance was that there must have been a typo error. Consider the Ebitda sequence in the last five quarters: Rs 53 crore, Rs 28 crore, Rs 28 crore, Rs 55 crore and Rs 91 crore. In the last quarter, the company generated a profit larger than the combination of the two preceding quarters. What I love is the sequential interest outflow: Rs 20 crore, Rs 21.5 crore, Rs 22 crore, Rs 21 crore and Rs 21 crore (other income has been averaging Rs 8-10 crore per quarter incidentally).

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2 terrorists, 1 BSF man killed in attack on army, BSF camps in Baramulla

At least two terrorists and a Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed while one BSF jawan was injured when militants attacked two adjoining camps of the army and the paramilitary force at Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir.

The heavily-armed terrorists attacked the two camps belonging to Rashtriya Rifles and BSF late last night, leading to a fierce gun-battle with the security forces.

Following the firefight, two terrorists were killed by the forces while one BSF personnel, who was hit by bullets, succumbed to his injuries later, a Home Ministry spokesperson said in New Delhi.

The martyred jawan has been identified as Constable Nitin while the injured personnel is Constable Pulwinder. Both belong to the 40th battalion of the BSF, officials said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval discussed the incident and necessary instructions have been given to the forces.

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Race on as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal eye $1.5 bn in festive sales

The most-watched online sales on Sunday were about Apple and pizza, property and Harry Potter, attracting first-time buyers from Sangli and Hisar, while not letting the regulars from Delhi and Mumbai leave.

In response to Amazon’s first day score card — 1.5 million units sold in 12 hours — on Saturday, rival Flipkart on Sunday raised the bar, pegging the number of units sold at 2.25 million in exactly 12 hours.

WHAT HAPPENED ON DAY I

Flipkart

• Flipkart and Myntra together sold 2.25 million units in the first 12 hours of the Big Billion Days
• Sold more Apple watches in 10 minutes than the total sale of Apple watches online and offline in a month
• Myntra clocked 3 times more revenue in the  first hour, compared to the 2015 edition

Amazon

• In the first 12 hours, managed to sell over 1.5 million units
• More than 100,000 units sold in less than the first 30 minutes
• Microwaves saw a 30-time spike in demand
• Consumer durables categories saw a 10-time growth
• Diapers and baby products have witnessed an increase of 12 times

Snapdeal

• At midnight, 180 orders booked per second
• By 4 pm, more than 1.1 million people had made purchases
• Orders went to nearly 52,000 sellers
• People from 2,800 cities and towns placed their orders
• Fastest delivery: An order for iPhone 5s  placed at 7.20 am on Oct 2 was delivered in Gurgaon at 8.10 am

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