World Focus by Abhishek Vasoo

While the sharp drop in bitcoin — 25 percent, or nearly $4,000, overnight (and 33 percent from the beginning of the week) — has some predicting the bubble is starting to burst, it may also provide evidence of the cryptocurrency’s longevity. The critical issue is transactions. And if you are looking for where the bottom could be to bitcoin’s plunge, that’s a pretty good place to start. Tom Lee, one of Wall Street’s biggest bitcoin bulls and head of research at Fundstrat, said on Bloomberg TV on Friday morning that anyone who says bitcoin is based on nothing hasn’t “done their homework.” The increase in bitcoin this year has followed an uptick in the value of transactions. At the start of the year, there were $275 million in daily transactions in bitcoin. Earlier this week, that had grown to more than $5 billion. That’s a 1,700 percent increase, which is more than the rise in bitcoin this year, even before its current tumble. Drop in the Price of Bit

ITC has shifted its primary focus from cigarettes to the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector with an investment of 10,000 crores in this quarter. This is part of a master plan to invest 25,000 crores across 65 projects with 20 integrated factories that produce consumer good across the country. According to Sanjiv Puri,  “The biggest headroom to grow is in the FMCG space where our internal capabilities can be leveraged.”  ITC has decided on this shift in light of a slowdown in the cigarette business and the beginning of comprehensive taxation on cigarettes. ITC’s tobacco sales are in decline With the stricter imposition of taxes, the consumption of illicit cigarettes has gone up, which means that the product now only accounts for about 23 per cent of sales. There has been a loss of nearly 9,000 crores due to this change. Although ITC lost some market share after the 5-7 per cent hike in prices, the sales are bound to recover. Yet it is necessary that ITC move out of t

Christmas has come early for A Raja and Kanimozhi as a special CBI judge acquitted all the 19 accused in the 2G scam case. The scam was uncovered almost a decade back, and the subsequent investigation and court proceedings mirrored the timeline of the hit Bollywood franchise  Golmaaal . The movie is a perfect metaphor for UPA-II. Coincidentally, one of the leads in  Golmaal   didn’t speak  either. According to the CAG, the license allocation cost the exchequer a loss of ₹ 1.76 lakh crore. A figure so huge that the font size had to be reduced in the newspapers the following day so they could print the number in its entirety. But a decade later, as everyone was streaming videos on their Jio 4G networks, the news of the 2G verdict came as a rude shock. 2G has been a classic case of collusion between politicians, industrialists, media personnel, and brokers. At the time, the common man felt like he was among the only 27 people who didn’t end up making any money from the scam. A

In October 2017 alone, India’s exports to China have increased by 53 percent, year on year, to USD 1.24 billion. Imports from China increased by 6.87 percent, to USD 5.09 billion. Our exports to China have been increasing steadily over the last few months. However, so has our trade deficit, reaching a whopping USD 51.1 billion (out of total trade worth USD 70 billion) in the financial year 2016-17. What is the background? The trade deficit has seen a constant increase from USD 29.3 billion in 2010-11 to USD 51.1 billion in 2016-17. India initiated anti-dumping measures against China in 2010. As of 2017, it has 93 investigations pending against the country. The bilateral ties have turned frosty, what with the Doklam standoff. Other points of contention are India’s recognition of Tibet, the asylum of the Dalai Lama, and opposition to the One Belt-One Road policy. China’s support to Pakistan has also always rubbed India the wrong way. How did the trade deficit arise? Ind

Capital crisis: The Israeli flag flies high in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall are in the background. getty images/ istock The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine Nathan Thrall Metropolitan Books ₹918 While announcing his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, U.S. President Donald Trump described the city as “as the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times.” This was hardly surprising. During the campaign, Mr. Trump had called the contested city Israel’s “eternal capital.” By making good on a campaign promise, the President has lived up to his pro-Israel image. But if one looks at the modern times, as Nathan Thrall writes in his book, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, Jerusalem was the “cultural, political and commercial capital for Palestinians, connected to Bethlehem in the south and Ra

Is Wassenaar Arrangement important to India? Is India a nuclear power? Before its nuclear weapons test in 1998, India was considered a nuclear capable country but was not recognised as one. This meant that there was no formal recognition that India was capable of producing both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The reason for this was mainly because India had not acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which aims to prevent spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology and promote nuclear disarmament, which India considered discriminatory since it could do so only as a non-nuclear power. That would mean that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the U.S., the U.K., China, France and Russia — coincidentally all nuclear powers, would in effect continue to deny India the recognition as a nuclear power as well, even though it was widely acknowledged as a nuclear capable country a